The
crowd was making merry in spite of the damper which Ned's capture had
cast on the dinner. At his entrance, however, there burst out a cheer and
cries of welcome.
"I've been keeping your chair warm for you!" shouted Bart.
"Come on in! Tell us all about it!" sung out Fenn.
"Did you fight 'em off?" inquired Lem.
"Oh, I managed to get away," replied Ned, and he told of being taken to
the vacant house, and of his escape. He said not a word of the two men.
With their toastmaster thus restored to them, the baseball boys and their
friends went merrily on with the dinner. There was much laughter and
every one seemed talking at once of the fight with the Upside Down boys.
"We've got to play a trick on them that will make this one fade out of
sight," commented Bart. "We'll fix 'em!"
"That's what we will!" exclaimed Fenn. "I wish they had tried to take the
dinner and had fallen into our traps."
"We didn't have much use for 'em, for a fact," put in Lem. "Never mind,
we had some fun out of it, anyhow."
Ned joined with the others in talking over the episode but he noticed
that Frank was unusually quiet.
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