Maybe they would give him a sound thrashing.
"Don't you touch me--don't you dare!" he cried, when the barn was readied.

"Remember, my father can have you locked up, Dave Porter!" "Well, don't forget what Professor Potts can do to you, Nat," answered Dave.
"What are you going to do ?" asked Phil, in an aside to his chum.
Dave was trying to think.

He had been half of a mind to lock Nat in the harness closet until the party was over--thus preventing him from making more trouble.

Now, however, as he heard a locomotive whistle, a new thought struck him.
"Come on down to the railroad tracks, Nat," he said.
"What for ?" "Maybe you can take a journey for your health--if the freight train stops at the water tank." "I--er--I don't understand." "You will--if the train stops--and I think it will." The three boys pushed off across the fields to where the railroad tracks were located.

Here was the very spot where Dave had been picked up years before.