MAKING THE NINE

BOOKS BY ALBERTUS T. DUDLEY

Phillips Exeter Series

Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth.

FOLLOWING THE BALL.

MAKING THE NINE.

IN THE LINE.

WITH MASK AND MITT.

THE GREAT YEAR.

THE YALE CUP.

A FULL-BACK AFLOAT.

THE PECKS IN CAMP.

THE HALF-MILER.

Stories of the Triangular League

Illustrated by Charles Copeland. 12mo. Cloth.

THE SCHOOL FOUR.

AT THE HOME PLATE.

THE UNOFFICIAL PREFECT.

THE KING’S POWDER.

LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO., BOSTON.

Phil did not walk in from the field.–Page 321.

PHILLIPS EXETER SERIES

MAKING THE NINE

BY

ALBERTUS T. DUDLEY

AUTHOR OF “FOLLOWING THE BALL”

ILLUSTRATED BY CHARLES COPELAND

BOSTON:

LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.

Copyright, 1904, by Lee and Shepard.

Published August, 1904.

All Rights Reserved.

Making the Nine.

PRINTED IN U.S.A.

To

GEORGE ALBERT WENTWORTH

KNOWN TO THE WORLD AS THE AUTHOR OF

A SCORE OF STANDARD TEXT-BOOKS

TO THE ALUMNI OF

THE PHILLIPS EXETER ACADEMY

AS

The Great Master of Boys

PREFACE

The cordial welcome given to Following The Ball by boy readers and parents—severe critics both, though from very different standpoints—has led to the writing of this second story, in which baseball has a sufficiently important part to suggest the title.

The author’s purpose in each case has been to produce a readable story true to the life of a distinctly American school, true to athletics in their better spirit and character, and teaching—not preaching—a manly and reasonable ideal. If he has not succeeded in this, the failure can certainly not be charged to lack of experience with athletics or school life or the ways of boys.

Hearty acknowledgments for expert advice on the technicalities of baseball training and play are due to Dr. Edward H. Nichols of Boston, who, as player, head coach, and graduate adviser, has probably contributed more to Harvard victories on the diamond than any other one man. The play marking the climax of the game described in Chapter XXVI is a historic one, borrowed from a Yale-Harvard contest. Its hero was Mr. George W. Foster, of a champion Harvard nine.

ALBERTUS T. DUDLEY.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

MAKING THE NINE

CHAPTER I
AN UNWELCOME PROPOSITION

“How they do yell! Where’s your patriotism, Phil, to be hanging round in this gloomy crowd when all your friends are howling their heads off outside? Don’t you know Yale won the game? Why aren’t you out there with the rest?”

Philip Poole looked up with a smile, but did not reply.

“He’s comforting the afflicted,” said Dick Melvin, who shared with Poole the ownership of the room. “You don’t want to gloat over us poor Harvardites, do you, Phil? Thank you much for your sympathy.”

“That isn’t the reason,” said the lad, after a pause, with the sober look in his big, wide-open eyes that made him seem serious even when his feelings inclined in the opposite direction. “I just don’t see any cause for such a racket. A Yale football victory over Harvard is too ordinary an occurrence to get wild over.”

The chorus of hoots and groans that greeted this explanation brought a smile of satisfaction to the boy’s face. He was the youngest of the company, only in his second year at Seaton; the others were mostly seniors. As Melvin’s room-mate, however, and in a measure still under the senior’s care, Poole was thrown as much with the older students as with his own classmates; and the intimacy thus developed had served both to sharpen his wits and to give him practice in self-defence.

Melvin himself had not been at Seaton much longer than Phil. He had entered at the beginning of the Middle year, an unknown boy, green, sanguine, eager to win a scholarship and so relieve his father of some of the expense of his schooling. Soon, however, fascinated by football and the glamour of the school athletic world, he had failed to subordinate his sport to the real objects of school life. How he made the school eleven and went down with it to defeat; how he lost his scholarship; how the care of young Phil, suddenly offered him by the lad’s uncle, sobered and steadied him and enabled him to stay in school; how he and John Curtis fought the long uphill fight to develop a strong team, and finally defeated the rival school,—all this has already been told in another book, and can only be referred to very briefly here. The great game which marked the climax of the struggle was still a recent event.

“You didn’t take it so calmly when Seaton won the victory two weeks ago, and your beloved Dick spent the afternoon kicking the ball over the Hillbury goal-posts,” said Varrell, a tall, quiet boy, with keen, restless eyes that followed the conversation from face to face.

“That’s different,” replied Poole. “I’m first for Seaton and afterwards for Yale. The college can wait until I get there—and that will be a long time yet,” he added ruefully, “if what I was told in the algebra class to-day holds true.”

The others laughed patronizingly, as befitted those who had “points” to their credit on preliminary certificates, and knew Cæsar and algebra only as outgrown acquaintances—friends they had never been.

“He’s playing off,” said Todd, suspiciously. “I don’t doubt he drew an ‘A’ on his last examination.”

For one member of the group, the conversation was taking an unpleasant turn. John Curtis talked as unwillingly about examinations or entering college as the family of a convict on prison discipline. John had been captain of the football team, a player with a record, already courted by college committees on the lookout for good material for Varsity elevens. The glory of victory still rested full and bright upon him, but neither the adulation of comrades nor his own consciousness of achievement could make up to him for his failure to be recommended for preliminaries at the last college examinations, and his present gloomy outlook.

“Let’s see what they’re doing out in the yard,” he said abruptly, lifting his two hundred pounds from a creaking chair.

Bang, bang, bump, bang! went a heavy object down the stairs. Melvin jerked the door open in season to hear a scurry of feet at the end of the corridor, and the slam of two or three doors.

“This thing must stop, do you hear?” he shouted in the direction from which the sound had come.

The corridor was silent. No one answered; no one appeared. Yet behind the cracks of doors ajar were uttered low chucklings that the monitor rather suspected than heard. From a door at the end emerged an innocent head adorned with a green shade.

“Who are you bawling at, anyway? A fellow can’t study in this place, however much he tries. First a chump fires a bowling ball downstairs, and then the monitor curdles your blood with his Apache yells. I’d rather hear the ball, a good sight. It isn’t so hard on the nerves.”

“You tell those fellows to stop that thing right off, or I’ll report every one of them.”

“Tell them yourself!” retorted the green shade; “I’m not their grandmother.”

Inside Number 9 the company roared with laughter. “There’s no more fun for the poor fellows in this hall since Dick was put over it,” said Curtis.

“No, he takes his duties seriously,” commented Todd. “What did you do to them, Mr. Monitor,” he asked, as the official returned, “put ’em on probation?”

“Warned them,” replied Melvin, with good humor undisturbed.

“Who was that you were laboring with?”

“Tompkins.”

“What!” cried Curtis, “that wild-looking, shaggy-haired man from Butte, who looks as if he had just escaped from the menagerie?”

“That’s the one,” replied Dick; “though he isn’t as bad as all that. He’s a bit freakish, I’ll admit.”

“Not so much of a freak as he looks,” said Todd. “You ought to have seen him open the safe down at Morrison’s. They’d lost the combination, and the clerks had been guessing, and twisting, and pulling at the knob all the morning. Then this Tompkins happened in and took a try at it. He had the door open in two minutes. Just listened at the lock till he heard the right sound.”

“Couldn’t have been much of a lock,” said Curtis. “Come on; let’s see what’s doing outside.”

The big fellow went whistling downstairs, followed by Todd and Poole. Varrell and Dickinson the runner still remained, the latter too much incapacitated by the sprain he had received in the great game to make any unnecessary movements, the former apparently uninterested. The Harvard sympathizers had rallied, and, making up in numbers what they lacked in righteous cause, were shouting across the yard to the Yale band, drowning cheers of exultation with more vociferous cheers of loyalty.

“The fools!” exclaimed the misanthropic Dickinson.

“Who?” cried Varrell, suddenly roused from revery.

“Why, those fellows out there wasting their time and strength on something that does not concern them at all.”

“Oh!” said Varrell, and sank back again into his chair.

Dickinson and Melvin exchanged a glance of surprise. They knew that at one time Varrell had had serious trouble with his ears, and was still a little deaf; but he got on so well, both in the class room and among the boys, that it seemed hardly possible that he was unable to hear these boisterous shouts outside.

They sat a few minutes longer in silence, listening to the cheers hurled back and forth across the yard. Soon throats grew weary, and the mood changed. The enthusiasts, beginning to be conscious, as they stamped their feet and dug their hands into their pockets, that the November night was really cold, bethought themselves of warm rooms and work still to be done, and scattered to shelter. The scamper of feet was heard on the stairs; good nights were exchanged in the entries and shouted from the windows. Then the natural quiet again prevailed.

“Dick,” said Dickinson at last, “you know that Saville has left school.”

“Yes, I have heard so,” replied Melvin. “He was your track manager, wasn’t he? Who will take his place?”

“You,” answered Dickinson, calmly.

Melvin laughed. “I see myself in that job.”

“I mean what I say,” went on Dickinson. “When I took the captaincy of the track team, it was only on condition that I should have no trouble about business matters. So they appointed Saville. Now that he’s gone, I must have another man just as trustworthy.”

“That’s mere flattery,” replied Dick, still jesting. “I’m too old a fish to nibble at that kind of a bait.”

Dickinson grew indignant. “I’m not flattering. I know that if you undertake the thing, it will be well done.”

“But I don’t want it,” pleaded Melvin, serious at last. “There are twenty fellows who would be delighted to serve, who would do just as well as I. Besides, I play football, and who ever heard of a football player acting as manager?”

“I played too, didn’t I, but that doesn’t release me from the captaincy. I’m sure I’d like to get out of the thing as much as you.”

“A man who can do a quarter in fifty seconds can’t expect to get out of it.”

“Say forty!” exclaimed Dickinson, angrily. “You may as well.”

Dick laughed. There was nothing so certain to arouse Dickinson’s ire as the assumption that he was a marvelous runner whose records could be counted on to move in a sliding scale downward with no particular limit in sight. This sensitiveness, due partly to the boy’s extreme modesty, partly to his fear of disappointing such high expectations, his comrades had played on to their amusement more than once.

“I think I’ll get out altogether,” said the runner, gloomily.

“You can’t,” said Melvin; “the school wouldn’t let you.”

“Then I’ll tell you what I will do,” Dickinson declared, giving the arm of the chair a blow with his fist. “I’ll insist that you run the mile again as you did last year.”

“No, sir!” said Melvin, and set his lips.

“You’ll have to if I insist upon it. You don’t play baseball, and you have nothing at all to do in the spring. I can bring so much pressure to bear upon you that you simply can’t resist.”

To this Melvin made no immediate reply, but quietly pondered.

“What do you think, Wrenn?” said Dickinson, turning to Varrell, who had been a silent witness to the conversation. “Isn’t he just the man to hold the confidence of the school? And he couldn’t be expected to run if he were manager, could he?”

“Of course not,” replied Varrell, promptly.

“Then will you be my assistant and help me collect the money?” demanded Melvin, turning to the last speaker.

But Varrell was not easily caught. “You don’t need any assistant,” he replied, with a grin. “You’re equal to it all yourself. The Athletic Association wouldn’t elect me, anyway.”

“Don’t be too sure of that,” remarked Dickinson.

The trio parted with the question still unsettled. “That was great generalship,” said Dickinson to himself, exultantly, as he limped downstairs. “He’s scared as death of the mile run. I guess I’ll land him.”

CHAPTER II
ON THE ICE

As Dickinson foresaw, Melvin yielded to the pressure brought to bear upon him, and resigned himself to the thankless task of managing the track team. The election was held a week after Thanksgiving, arousing but a lukewarm interest. With fine ice on the river, and the Christmas holidays close at hand, few had more than a thought for the distant spring. Even the problems of the baseball season were as yet but lightly mentioned. There was a general optimism in the air that year at Seaton which carried everything before it, like the high tides of confidence which sometimes sweep over the stock-market. It made little difference who were captains or managers; this was Seaton’s year; the teams were bound to win. Only a few of the wiser heads—perhaps not all the captains and managers themselves—understood fully the danger of such a mood.

If the task of athletic manager proved to Melvin for the time being a sinecure, another office which was suddenly thrust upon him was quite the opposite. No one knew exactly how the hockey rivalry started, or who were the first to fan it into flame. It was just the kind of contest most likely to arise where boys gather from every part of the country, each loyal to his home and state, and each ready to boast superiority, and defend the boast with tongue and muscle. Dick had hardly been twice on the ice when the hockey players began to pair off into New England and Western teams. By some natural agreement the Hudson River was made the boundary line,—a rather unfair division, as it afterwards proved, for the New Englanders included considerably more than half the skaters. At first the rivalry was general and unorganized; then teams were more carefully picked; and finally, as the victory wavered from East to West in these miscellaneous engagements, and enthusiasm and pugnacious patriotism spread, the school was sifted for experts, champion teams were chosen, and a day set for a single decisive contest. It was then that Dick found to his surprise that he was appointed captain of the Western team.

Sands, the captain of the school nine, who lived in Chicago, brought him the news.

“How absurd!” cried Dick, aghast. “Why, I’m no hockey player. There must be a dozen fellows better than I.”

“They think you’ll be the best leader, anyway,” returned Sands; “and as there’s no one else eligible whom the fellows will follow, you’ll just have to take it. When a man handles a football as you did last fall, he’s supposed to be capable of anything. Don’t try for the nine, please. You can’t play ball on a reputation, and I should hate to have to fire you from the squad.”

Sands threw himself on the sofa, and waited for an answer.

“There’s no danger of that,” replied Melvin, unruffled. “I don’t play ball. As for the hockey business, I’m quite willing to act as leader, if it’s understood that I make no pretensions to being a crack.”

He pondered a moment and then went on: “What material is there? Curtis and Toddy don’t live in New England. That gives us four solid men for a nucleus.”

“You’re out there,” Sands answered gloomily. “Curtis lives in New York and Todd in Brooklyn, and both are east of the Hudson.”

Melvin looked serious. “Then they’ll be on the other side. I don’t like that. I’ve stood side by side with John Curtis in so many hard fights that it seems like treachery to play against him. I really don’t want to do it.”

Sands laughed. “That’s you all over. You tackle everything big and little in deadly earnest as if you were fighting the battle of Gettysburg all by yourself. This isn’t a Hillbury game; it’s a kind of lark.”

“Oh, yes, I know all about that kind of a lark. When you begin, it’s a joke; before you’re through, it’s a fight for blood.”

“What do you think of my case?” replied Sands. “I have one brother in Yale and another in Harvard, and both on the teams.”

“I’ve heard of them,” said Melvin. “How do they contrive to avoid scrapping?”

“They never discuss college matters at all. When I’m with one, he urges me to go to Yale; when the other gets hold of me, he talks Harvard; when we are all together, they cut the subject.”

Dick still meditated. Sands tried another tack.

“The New Englanders are talking big. Curtis says the Greasers will wish they’d stayed on the plains when his team’s through with them.”

“Did he really say that?” asked Dick, straightening up.

“He did, and Toddy told Marks the Yanks would clean us off the ice so quickly you’d think they’d used Sapolio.”

“He must consider us either sandless or mighty green,” said Dick.

“And he’s more than half right, too,” replied Sands, “as far as the greenness is concerned. It’s one thing to play with a mob in the old-fashioned go-as-you-please way, and quite another to run a regular team of seven, with complicated rules, and lifts and shoots and body checks and passes and on-side and off-side play, and all the tricks of the new game.”

“I don’t believe he’ll find us as simple as we look,” replied Melvin, as he opened a drawer and took out a sheet of paper. “I’ll take the captaincy, provisionally at any rate; and we’ll call out candidates this very afternoon. I’ll post the notice as soon as I can write it. See all the fellows you can; tell them the Yanks are crowing, and we’ll have a big push and lots of zeal. Do you know any hockey experts on our side of the river?”

“The only crack I’ve heard of is a fellow named Bosworth, but he’s on the other side.”

“I’m glad of it,” said Melvin; “I don’t like him.”

In answer to the captain’s call a score of enthusiasts gathered on the upper river. Varrell was among them, and Sands, and Burnett, and several heavy men who seemed promising for forwards, and a little, wiry, dark-haired fellow from Minneapolis named Durand, whom Dick immediately picked out as likely to prove a steady player on the second team. The first task was to find who were well used to the game, and who needed special instruction; the second, to set the experienced to coach the inexperienced; the third, to divide the men into squads, set several games going, and watch the work. Finally, the captain chose a trial seven, gave the scrub an extra man, and tried a ten-minute half.

Little Durand and Varrell, who had never impressed his classmates as an athlete, found themselves on the scrub. Varrell took coverpoint and Durand put himself among the forwards. The puck was faced and started on its erratic, whimsical journey, darting like a wild thing back and forth, up and down. Before the game seemed really well begun, the circular piece of rubber came within Varrell’s sweep, and clung to the heel of his stick. He whirled to the right to dodge Barnes, passed across to little Durand when Melvin blocked his way, took the puck again from Durand as the latter was stopped in his turn, and then, with a swing and a snap, shot it hard at the posts. The goal-tender brought his feet together as quickly as he could, but not quite quickly enough; the puck was already past him, flying knee-high over the ice like a swallow skimming the ground.

“Centre again!” cried Melvin, surprised and vexed at the ease with which the thing was done. “Brace up, Sands,” he called encouragingly to the goal-keeper. “Accidents will happen; they won’t do it again.”

The first forwards did better for a time, driving the puck down by sheer force through the intimidated second defence. Twice they shot for goal and missed, and then Varrell got a chance again and with a kind of scoop with stick directly in front, lifted the puck in a long beautiful arch twenty feet high to the farther end. Sands sent it back again with almost as good a lift. A lucky second stopped it, passed it to Varrell who nursed it along in a strange, wabbling course, and delivered it safely to Durand. The latter swept ahead in turn, and then while Melvin was wondering in what direction Durand was going to wheel, Varrell took the puck again and shot a beautiful goal right under the captain’s own nose.

Sands and Melvin and Varrell trudged back to recitation together. “Where did you learn to play?” asked Sands. “You handle a stick like a professional.”

“I spent last year at a Canadian boarding-school,” answered Varrell. “There was good ice for months, and hockey was about the only game we had.”

“You and Durand played the whole game for the second. What a squirmer the little rascal is! He doesn’t weigh more than a hundred and ten, and yet you can’t knock him over to save you.”

“He checks low,” said Dick, “and is firm on his feet. But he’s awfully light. I doubt if he has much staying power.”

“I think you’re wrong,” said Varrell. “I’ve seen that kind before; they never get tired.”

In the next day’s practice, Varrell and Durand being on the scrub, the score at the end of the first half was even. In the second half the two men played with the first team, and the scrub defence was kept so busy that the game seemed to centre around their goal-posts, and Melvin had finally to transfer Sands to the other side to give him a share in the practice. To furnish some test of endurance, the length of the half was doubled. When time was called, Durand was bobbing and twisting and checking and shooting as busily as ever, while one of the big forwards was obviously fagged, and Melvin himself felt that his ankles were rebelling at the unusual strain.

That settled the question of the team; Varrell and Durand had earned their places upon it. Two or three days later a meeting of the team was held to receive Melvin’s resignation.

“I’ve got the team together,” he said, “and with that my duty is done. The best captain for us now is the man who knows most hockey and can teach us the most; I’m not that man.”

The players at first expostulated; then finding that Melvin was in earnest, very sensibly did what they knew he wanted them to do,—elected Varrell captain.

“I think it’s a mistake,” said Sands to Barnes, as they came down the dormitory stairs. “Nobody knows Varrell. But there’s no use arguing with Melvin about a thing of this kind. He’s one of those obstinately honest fellows who stand up so straight that they fall backwards.”

“You dropped the Greaser captaincy like a hot shot,” quoth John Curtis on the way out from chapel, as he grabbed Melvin by the coat collar with the familiarity of an old crony, and grinned in his face. “Knew you were going to get licked, didn’t you? You’re a foxy one.”

Dick looked up and caught a fleeting troubled look on the face of Varrell, who stood eying them intently some distance away. “I wasn’t good enough,” he said aloud, as if Varrell could hear him. “On a team like ours, I’m content to fight in the ranks.”

As John did not understand this, he merely uttered an incredulous “Oho!” and, giving his classmate a slap on the shoulder to convey the impression that he was not to be fooled, went outside to consider the answer more fully and wonder if the Greasers were really trying to spring some new trick upon the Yanks. Melvin swung into the Greek room and opened his Homer with a chuckle of pride. “That would pass for a Delphic response. He doesn’t know what I meant. And he won’t know until the game,” he added, with the old determined look coming back into his face.

CHAPTER III
THE BATTLE

Varrell took to the management of the team with a quietness and assurance that put hope into the hearts of the small but determined band which represented the great West. The few days that were left for practice were used to the utmost. In the morning the captain found time to show individual players about shooting and lifting and stopping shots. In the afternoon he drilled the team in passing and dodging and checking. There was a little murmuring when a big forward was taken out of the game because he was uncertain on his skates; and more still when another was relegated to the list of substitutes for playing his own game instead of fitting into the scheme for team work. But Varrell’s answer was conclusive: “Our only chance to win is by team play. We have no stars, and on their team are two or three men who have played in the best city rinks. United we win; scattered we lose.” The murmurers said no more.

That last Saturday before the Christmas holidays was clear and cold. The course had been chosen on the river where high banks ran nearly parallel twenty yards apart. The snow, which had been cleared away the day before, was piled up behind the goal-posts, forming end barriers sixty yards from each other, and completing, with the river banks, a natural enclosure of about the regular rink size.

The Western contingent were established among the pines on the right.—Page 26.

On the banks gathered the patriotic factions,—the New Englanders in the open field on the left, swaggering merrily about their fires and hurling derisive cheers across the ice to the Western contingent, who were established among the pines on the right. This latter band of supporters, though weaker in numbers, had, from their position, a certain advantage which they made the most of. They swarmed into the trees with impromptu banners; when they were out-cheered, they devised an unintelligible chant which made up for lack of voices; and, finally, Tompkins of Montana developed a weird, penetrating yell, something between a whoop and a scream, which no one on the opposite bank could imitate or match, and which he uttered at impressive intervals from the upper branches of the tallest pine.

Yet, with all this show of patriotism, the noisy rivalry seemed quite free from bitterness. The gibes flew back and forth; there were cheers and counter cheers and chants, and Montana hoots from the pine tree, but the mood was of frolic, not of fight. For the spectators it was a lark, pure and simple; hardly any one really cared at the outset what the result was to be.

On the ice the spirit was different. Dick looked into John Curtis’s face and, behind the patronizing grin, read very clearly a poorly masked defiance. Todd, the Yank forward end, fingered his stick nervously over the ice as he waited for the call to places, and on his cheeks appeared the telltale white spots which Dick had seen before in the great football games when Toddy had set his teeth and fought for ground by the inch. Bosworth, the Yank coverpoint, leaned scowling on his stick, eying his opponents with sombre malevolence.

“They are fighters, not players,” said Dick to himself, disapprovingly. “They seem to think they’re out against Hillbury.”

And it did not occur to him that his own men looked equally fierce and determined. Sands stood ready at goal, but he had not a word for the boy who was beside him waiting to take his sweater when the game was called. Varrell was moving about with the quiet confidence of a master, which is more impressive to an opponent than noisy display. And as for Melvin himself, one did not need to be told that his whole heart was in the contest. The school knew well that what Melvin did, he did with all his might; a stranger would have read determination in the open face. Little Durand was about the only one of the fourteen who seemed to share the mood of the spectators. He flourished and circled about, chattering gayly up to the very moment of beginning.

The preliminaries were soon arranged. “Ready!” called the captains, and a moment later, at the first sound of the referee’s whistle, the two forwards were scraping and twisting to secure the puck on the “face-off.” Curtis got it, or thought he had; but before he could really call it his, a Greaser blocked his play, and Durand, dexterously picking out the puck, swept it across to Rawle, who dribbled it along, passed back to Durand, received it again, and lost it in the crush at the Yank goal. In another moment it came flying through the air on a lift, far down in the Greaser defence field.

Dick succeeded in stopping it and sending it on toward Varrell. The Greaser captain was off-side; but he allowed his opponent just to touch the puck, and then with a sudden swing to one side he was off down the ice, sweeping the puck with him. The first opponent he dodged. Big Curtis, who was next in order, made him pass; but the exchange gave him the puck again, and after several quick diagonal passes with Durand that brought them near the Yank goal, Varrell gave his stick a sudden hard flourish, and the puck shot like an arrow between the goal-posts, grazing the goal-tender’s knee as it passed.

It was all done so quickly, so unexpectedly, that for a moment the Western supporters under the pines and in the pines seemed unaware that their team had scored. Then as the sticks of the team brandished in air made the fact clear, a confused mixture of cheers, screeches, whoops, and catcalls gave proof that the West was both patriotic and appreciative. On the New England side indifference seemed to prevail.

“One!” said Sands with joy, as the puck came back to the centre.

“The first one, you mean,” returned Dick, in a low tone. “We’re not through yet.”

The next goal came hard. The Eastern team was heavier and generally stronger, but the members could not or would not play together; and if they got the puck down near the Greaser goal, they usually lost it before the goal was really threatened. Once a hard shot close at hand struck Sands in the pit of the stomach, and the spectators cheered and jeered as the gasping lad feebly lifted the puck away from its dangerous proximity to the goal. He had his breath again in a moment, however, apparently none the worse for his experience. Soon after, Curtis and Durand came together as both rushed for the puck at the same time, and the spectators under the trees cheered wildly as the little fellow crouched low for the collision, and the big football player sprawled over him upon the ice. But Varrell was the objective point of the strongest attack. Though he played coverpoint, he had an arrangement with Brown, one of the forwards, to exchange places on signal; and the result was that he appeared now in the defence, now in the attack, apparently scenting the course the puck was destined to take, and always equal to the need.

The Yanks grew rougher and more violent. Todd took to body checking where it was not necessary; Bosworth, when a Greaser got the puck away from him, followed on at his heels with ill-concealed malice, and banged away viciously at the unlucky man’s shins, even though it was apparent that the puck was wholly beyond the pursuer’s reach. Such tactics, unless checked, are usually the prelude to rougher play; and Dick, for this reason, was doubly grateful when, from the edge of the mêlée around the Yank goal-posts, Rawle swiped the puck through a second time. Play had hardly been resumed when the referee’s whistle announced the end of the first half.

As was to be expected, the jubilation under the pines was earnest and loud. In the opposite camp, where the neglected fires were dying away in smoke, quite different conditions prevailed. A few, with heroic repression of natural sympathy, still pretended to regard the whole matter as a joke, in which victory or defeat meant little or nothing. The great majority, however, unable to rise to this level, were distinctly conscious of having in some way been cheated. They had come out to be amused, and part of the amusement was to consist in seeing the impudent Greasers given a sound beating. And here were their men, including such big husky athletes as Curtis and Todd, and fellows who had been glorified as city rink experts, like Bosworth and Richmond, overthrown by a set of amateurs.

“Rotten!” said Marks, the connoisseur of sports, as he interviewed Curtis and Todd during the intermission. “Perfectly rotten! Did you get us up here to fool us?”

“I didn’t ask you to come,” returned Curtis, trying to keep his good nature. “If you can do much better, come out yourself.”

“Oh, I’m no athlete,” rejoined Marks, hastily, “but I can see what the fault is better than you do. That Varrell plays most of their game. You’ve got to use him up. Give them a rougher game. Push ’em hard. When two of you start for the puck, let the puck go where it pleases; just smash at the man. When the man’s out of the way, you can take your time about the puck. You’re heavy and have the advantage.”

“That seems rather mean,” said Curtis.

“Mean!” exclaimed Marks. “Did you ask a Hillbury man to excuse you when you tackled him on the football field? I guess not.”

Curtis glanced around the group and read the looks of approval. “Well, then,” he said finally, “make it rough, but let’s have fair play,”—his eye rested on Bosworth as he said this,—“and no low tricks. Everything must be straight and aboveboard.”

When the game began again, the new spirit was immediately apparent. The Yanks got the puck and tried to drive it down by weight, but the off-side rule checked them. Durand still stole the puck from behind their sticks and put his shoulder so low that he could not be overturned; while Varrell still hovered on the edge of the scrimmage and drew the puck as a magnet draws a scrap of iron. Despite the heavy body checking, the play lingered about the Yank goal, for the Yank forwards did not follow the puck back closely on the defence, and Melvin or Sands soon sent it into Yank territory again. Rawle tried for goal, and failed. Durand missed in his turn, and then Varrell got the puck thirty yards away, and while his opponents were watching for a pass, by a long beautiful shoot made the third score for his side.

And now the Yanks’ patience gave out. Rules or no rules, they were determined that their opponents should make no more goals.

Again Varrell took the puck, and with his familiar tricky movement of the wrist started down the ice.

“Look out for Bosworth,” yelled Durand, whom Todd was obstructing at the side-lines. But Varrell’s dull ears served him ill. Bosworth, who was close at the Greaser’s heels, thrust his stick suddenly between Varrell’s rapidly moving legs and threw him with a crash to the ice, right under the feet of Richmond, who was speeding up from another direction. Richmond went down, too, tripping hard against the prostrate form.

The Greasers hissed, the Yankees groaned. John Curtis, be it said to his credit, ordered Bosworth from the ice before the referee could interfere; but the advantage of the “accident,” as Bosworth called it, was on the side of the Yankees. Varrell was helped off the scene, barely able to lift his leg.

The teams went on with six men each. With Varrell the Greasers had lost the mainspring of their attack. Superior weight and superior physical strength began to tell. The puck kept returning to the Greaser defence. Then came a scrimmage before the goal, a quick shoot from the outskirts of the crowd, and the Yanks were exulting over their first score.

“Only four minutes more,” pleaded Dick, skating down the Greaser line. “Hold them that long for Varrell’s sake. We can do it, if we will.”

And the weary six rallied once more. Durand was knocked about like the puck itself, but he stuck gamily to his work, and zigzagged and circled and dodged as before. Sands saved one goal with his hands, another with his feet. Dick met body check with body check, and lifted high and sure. But never before had he listened so anxiously for the sound of the referee’s whistle. When it came, and he knew certainly that the game was won, he flung his stick into the air and led the gathering Greasers in a long, hearty cheer for Varrell, who, lying on the meadow bank bedded in Yank blankets, was watching the result with his heart in his mouth.

“Great work you did this afternoon,” said Tompkins two hours later, popping his head into Melvin’s room. “Any part of you that isn’t black and blue?”

“I didn’t suffer much,” replied Melvin. “It wasn’t as bad as it looked.”

“I hope not,” said Tompkins. “Do you know what battle in Roman history the fray reminded me of?”

Dick shook his head. “I don’t know any history. I passed it off last year.”

“The battle of the Ostrogoths and Visigoths,” replied Tompkins, wisely. “It’s a case of history repeating itself. The Visigoths won both times.” And then he added, “I don’t believe the Goths would have been guilty of some of the things I saw done on the ice this afternoon.”

CHAPTER IV
PHIL’S RESOLUTION

The Christmas holidays were over. Varrell limped no more, and Dickinson, who had long since discarded his cane, walked with quick, elastic step as of old, apparently completely recovered. A few new boys had entered school. One of these, who was somewhat rough in appearance and who struggled clumsily with the lessons of a lower class, was said to be a pitcher. He was older than most of the students, in years rather a man than a boy. This fact was not in itself remarkable, for there is no age limit at Seaton, and many an honest, earnest fellow who after his twentieth year has conceived a longing for an education has found opportunity and encouragement there. But Flanahan seemed not entirely of this class.

“What about him, Sands?” asked Dick. “He looks suspicious.”

“Suspicious! What do you mean by that?” demanded the captain. “He isn’t the youngest fellow in school, of course; but he isn’t the oldest, either. Why shouldn’t he have a chance for an education as well as any one else?”

“He should if he really wants it,” replied Melvin. “He looks as if he had knocked around on a good many diamonds before coming here.”

“Do you mean that he’s a professional?”

“Yes, something of that kind,—semi-professional would hit it better, I think.”

“If he’s a professional, I don’t know it,” said Sands. “I didn’t get him here. He says he’s an amateur, and he has certainly played on some good amateur nines. He can pitch, and we need a pitcher. That’s all I know about it.”

“And all you want to know,” said Melvin, with a smile.

“Yes, all I want to know,” repeated Sands.

Melvin passed to another topic: “Phil would like to try for the nine. Is there any chance for him?”

“None at all,” replied Sands, promptly.

“That’s a fine way to choose a team!” retorted Melvin. “You haven’t tried him and yet you say he has no show. We searched high and low for football material,—fairly scoured the school, and here you are deciding offhand against a fellow whose playing you’ve never seen. No wonder the nine gets beaten.”

Sands’s face reddened: “I didn’t say I wouldn’t try him. I’ll try anything that offers. I only said that he hadn’t any chance.”

“Have you seen him play?”

“Yes; he can throw pretty well and field fairly, but he isn’t old enough or big enough or strong enough or experienced enough for the school nine.”

“Well, he’ll grow, won’t he?” persisted Dick. “Just give him a chance to work up.”

“I’ll give him just the chance I give any one else and no more,” replied Sands, decisively. “Every man who makes the nine this year has got to earn his place, and the fact that Phil is your chum and a friend of mine will simply make me harder on him. When I say he hasn’t a chance, I mean that he cannot meet the standard. He may try as hard as he wants to.”

They separated at the gymnasium door, each going to his own part of the locker rooms to dress. A few minutes later, as Dick was running upstairs to his regular gymnasium work, he caught the sound of Sands’s voice exhorting the squad in the baseball cage. He paused a moment with a smile of approval on his lips, as he marked the steady, confident tones, and recalled the captain’s sturdy resolve to hold to the merit system in choosing the nine. Then Flanahan’s lanky figure loomed up by the doorway, and the smile on Melvin’s face died suddenly away. He turned abruptly and went on his way upstairs.

“Phil,” said Melvin that night, as the junior came in after supper, “should you really like to try for the nine?”

“Should I!” the boy’s eyes sparkled. “If I had the ghost of a chance of being kept on the squad till we got outdoors, I’d say ‘yes’ right off.”

“What can you play best?” asked Melvin.

“I’ve always played in the out-field,” Poole replied rather humbly. “I’m fairly safe on flies, and could always throw a little farther and a little straighter than the other fellows.”

“An out-fielder must be a good hitter or they won’t keep him. Can you bat?”

“They used to say I had a good eye,” returned Phil, who was not used to singing his own praises. “I’m not heavy enough for long hits.”

“If you’re sure on the elements, go in and try,” said Melvin, “but you must do your level best. The only way for you to accomplish anything is just to devote your whole thought and attention out of study hours to baseball and nothing but baseball. Do everything you’re told to do and more. Study yourself all the time. Get help outside that the others haven’t. Hang to the squad till they kick you off, and when that happens, organize a nine of your own and keep up your practice. If they call you a fool and a crank, just laugh and keep on playing. Are you willing to do all that?”

The color deepened on Phil’s cheeks as he listened. “I’ll do more than that,” he cried; “I’ll shack balls, I’ll tend the bats, I’ll carry water, I’ll do anything they put upon me. I’ll try this year and next and the year after, but if there’s any baseball in me, I’ll make the nine before I leave school.”

“Good!” exclaimed the senior, giving the boy’s hand a squeeze that made the bones crack. “I don’t know much about baseball, but that’s the spirit that wins. Only don’t talk about what you’re going to do. Think a lot, but keep your thoughts to yourself. When you play, play with all your might.”

They settled down to the work of the evening. Occasionally Dick glanced with interest across the table to see whether the hated Virgil lesson or the excitement of the new resolution was to possess Phil’s thoughts. For a time the lad, with face still flushed, gazed vacantly up toward the picture moulding. Then with a start and a slam he opened his Æneid at the fourth book, and ground away for two steady, patient hours at the lovelorn wails of the unhappy Dido, in whose fate he had about as much sympathetic interest as a horse on a coal wagon feels for the sufferings of the freezing poor.

“I’ll bet on him in the long run,” thought Dick, as he eyed the determined plodder.

The next day Philip Poole’s name appeared on the list of candidates for the nine.

CHAPTER V
A TOUGH PROBLEM

Melvin and Varrell returned from their Greek recitation together.

“I don’t like the way things are going this year,” Melvin was saying. “There’s too much confidence. If the track team wins, it will be just as expected, with no credit to any one; if we lose, woe to captain and manager.”

“You’re right,” said Varrell, “but forewarned is forearmed. Keep cool and reasonable and see to it that you don’t lose.”

“If it weren’t for Dickinson,” went on Melvin, “I shouldn’t have taken the thing at all. You see, I feel a kind of responsibility toward him because of the way in which I got him to run last year, so I didn’t like to refuse him.”

“You know I wasn’t here last year,” said Varrell.

“Why, of course! I keep forgetting that you came this fall. It happened this way. Martin discovered Dickinson,—you’ve heard of Martin, haven’t you, of last year’s senior class?”

Varrell nodded.

“Martin discovered that Dickinson could run, and Curtis and I got him out for the sports in the spring and stood sponsors for him until he had courage enough to stand alone.”

“Won everything last year, didn’t he?” asked Varrell.

“Quarter and two-twenty, hands down,” answered Melvin; “but there’s no surety that he’ll do it again. Besides, no one can say yet what the effect of that ankle will be. The doctor thinks it will be as strong as ever, but I know a sprained ankle is very easy to sprain again. Without Dickinson we shouldn’t have much to brag of.”

Both boys turned to their work. Melvin, in the quiet business-like way with which he had learned to attack his lessons, opened his trigonometry on the desk and in a moment was oblivious to all else but the problem which was first to be solved. Varrell’s stint was of a different kind,—forty lines of “Macbeth” to be committed to memory before twelve o’clock. As this involved much repetition and possible interference with the trigonometry problem, he retired to the bedroom, where he could mutter at his ease.

They possessed two very different personalities. Varrell was tall and slight, his limbs hardly filled out to their proper roundness, with a clear-cut, intelligent face and striking gray eyes that were remarkable, not so much for what they showed of the character behind them, as for the power of sight which they seemed to possess. Ever alert and observant, even when his face was otherwise at rest, the eyes seemed the aggressive part of the boy. Their direct glance was like a ray of concentrated intelligence.

“I like Varrell,” said Tompkins one day, in a burst of confidence, “except when he looks at me hard, and then his eyes cut right through me, and I feel as if he were counting the hairs on the back of my head.”

Melvin was more substantially built. As he sat at the table, the cloth of his coat sleeves drew tight over the splendid deltoid and biceps, and his square, blunt knees showed hardened muscles rounding out beyond the knee-cap. If his face lacked the alertness of look so noticeable in Varrell, it yet had a composure and an air of self-reliance and honesty that rendered it no less attractive.

The learner of Shakespeare was restless. The first five lines were mastered in a chair by the window, the next five on Melvin’s bed, the third on Poole’s bed, and the fourth on a second chair. In the circuit of the room he had learned twenty lines.

“Another lap and I shall have it,” he said to himself, gleefully, as he took his place again by the window.

The outside door opened and Poole came rushing into the study. “I want to tell you something, Dick, and I’ve just three minutes before Latin to tell it in—Whose hat is that?”

“Varrell’s,” said Dick, who had risen from the desk. “He’s in the bedroom plugging away at Shakespeare.”

“Hello, Varrell,” said Phil, looking in at the door. “Shakespeare plays havoc with the beds, doesn’t he?”

“Get out!” cried Varrell, waving him off; “you rattle me.”

Phil joined Dick on the other side of the room. Through the open door they could see the Shakespearean scholar doggedly muttering over his book.

“Shan’t we disturb him?” asked Phil, hesitating.

“Speak low and there’ll be no danger,” said Melvin. “His ears aren’t quick.”

The eleven o’clock bell soon broke in on the conversation, and sent the younger boy flying to his recitation. Dick sat down at the desk again and tried to take up his work where he had left it, but he was apparently in a very unstudious mood. His pencil no longer moved steadily over the paper; his gaze rested fitfully now here, now there, on the various objects before him; his flushed sober face showed that his thoughts were hot within him. Finally, he threw down his pencil in disgust, and sauntering over to the window, leaned his head against the sash and gazed moodily out.

“He’s a confounded rascal!” exclaimed Varrell, who had been eying his agitated comrade over the Shakespeare, “but it’s no fault of yours, and why do you bother yourself about him?”

“Who?” said Dick, staring at him in amazement.

“Why, Bosworth, of course,” went on Varrell, coolly; “if what Phil says of him is true, he’s even a bigger rascal than I always thought him.”

Dick was nonplussed. His conversation with Phil had certainly been carried on in a tone too low to be audible to Varrell in the bedroom.

“What do you mean?” he asked sharply.

“Why, that he has been getting some of those little fellows into his room to play poker and fleecing them, especially that boy with a short name with a ‘t’ or a ‘d’ in it.”

“Yes, Eddy,” replied Dick. “He’s in Phil’s class.” And then, looking curiously at his friend, he added, “Your hearing is growing surprisingly good, I must say.”

“I’m sorry if I overheard what you meant I should not know,” said Varrell, flushing. “If that is the case, I shall certainly try to forget it.”

“Oh, I don’t mind your knowing it,” said Dick, “I only wish you could tell what we ought to do about it.”

The clanging bell again interposed its peremptory summons.

“Twelve o’clock!” cried Varrell, as he made a dash for his hat, “and only thirty lines. I’ll bet I’ll be called on for the ten I didn’t learn.”

When Phil had time for longer explanations, he gave Dick more details of the happenings in Sibley 15, Bosworth’s room. Eddy, who had given the information, was in Phil’s class, and of about Phil’s age. Smarting under a sense of ill-treatment and desperately perplexed as to how he was to account for the lost money, which had been sent him for purchases for the winter, he had opened his heart to Phil, who in turn had made haste to unburden himself to his older and presumably wiser room-mate. Hardly had he done this, when Eddy repented of his confidences and tearfully besought his classmate never to speak of it to a living soul. But the murder was out, and the best Phil could do was to urge Melvin to guard the secret.

“So, having stolen the fellow’s money, Bosworth has made him promise not to mention the fact,” said Melvin.

“Eddy said it was a matter of honor. The money had been lost in fair play, and he had no right to speak of it when it might get them all into trouble.”

“So Bosworth says, I suppose,” said Melvin.

“Yes, that’s it; Bosworth says it’s just a personal matter between them, and to tell about it so that it might reach the Faculty would be simply tale-bearing.”

“What kind of a boy is Eddy?”

“Not very good and not especially bad, but just weak. He is terribly cut up about the thing, doesn’t study any, and cries a lot in his room. I can’t help pitying him, though I don’t sympathize with him much.”

Dick smiled: “I suppose you’d do differently in his place.”

Phil grew indignant. “I rather think I should. To begin with, I shouldn’t be in his place. I wouldn’t touch that Bosworth with a ten-foot pole. But supposing that I did get into the scrape, I’d take it as a warning to leave Bosworth and gambling alone, and write home an honest letter about the whole business.”

“And that’s the very thing Eddy ought to do,” said Melvin, giving Phil’s shoulder a slap. “Why didn’t you tell him so?”

“I did,” replied Phil, “but he is afraid to, and he wouldn’t listen at all to my idea of telling Mr. Graham about it without mentioning Bosworth’s name.”

Dick grinned. Mr. Graham, the principal of Seaton, ruled the school with a strong hand. His was not a mailed fist in a velvet glove, but a strong, dexterous hand gloved in velvet with a mail back. The whole school saw the steel exterior; few really appreciated the gentleness of the clasp.

“I suppose they’d be fired if it came out,” went on Phil.

“They wouldn’t have time to say good-by, or at least Bosworth wouldn’t. I’m not so certain about Eddy.”

A knock at the door was followed by the appearance of a head. Seeing that the visitor was Tompkins, Phil opened his Greek Grammar and plunged vigorously into study as if he had no other interest in the world. Tompkins looked from one sober face to the other, then gave a glance over Phil’s shoulder at the page of the open book.

“Metres of Aristophanes! Is that what they give here to beginners in Greek? If it is, I’m glad I began out West.”

Phil shut the book with a bang, and replied half petulantly, half amused that he should have betrayed himself so easily, “No, it isn’t; I was thinking.”

“Unpleasant thoughts,” said Tompkins, with another glance at Melvin’s face. “Well, I guess I won’t bother you any more to-day.”

There was no reply to this, and the visitor moved toward the door. As his hand touched the knob a new thought struck him and he turned suddenly on the boy.

“You haven’t been losing your money, too, have you, Phil?”

Was it the warm sympathy in the Westerner’s tone, or relief at finding that others knew the secret, or natural indignation at an unwarranted suspicion, that suddenly put to flight the boy’s reserve? Philip himself could not have told.

“What do you take me for?” he demanded. “Not on your life!”

“Glad to hear it. Your classmate, Eddy, got bled pretty deep,” went on Tompkins.

“We were just talking about him,” said Dick. “It’s a bad case.”

“An easy game for a card sharper,” said Tompkins, coolly, “and a big piece of folly by a little fool. Neither the sharper nor the fool ought to be here,—one’s too dangerous and the other’s too weak; but if I should go to Grim and tell him about the thing, and let him do with the fellow what he really ought to, I suppose I should never dare to look a boy in the face again.”

“You probably wouldn’t enjoy life much in school afterwards,” said Dick, thoughtfully.

“I thought as much,” Tompkins continued in the same tone. “If he stole or murdered, we could complain to the authorities and have him arrested; but as he’s only ruining the characters of a few little boys, it wouldn’t be nice to tell on him. Great thing, this school honor, when you understand it! Well, so long!”

CHAPTER VI
A WESTERN SOLUTION

“Do you think Bosworth’s still keeping it up?” asked Melvin, as he stood before the fireplace in Varrell’s room in Hale a day or two later.

“I am sure he is,” said Wrenn. “You can look right across from this room to his windows in Sibley. His shades were down close all last evening, and he doesn’t usually lower them, even when he’s dressing.”

“Tompkins’s conduct is beyond me,” said Melvin. “He seemed as indignant as any of us when the story came out, but I’ve seen him twice in the last two days hanging around with that gambler, as friendly as if he had known him for years.”

“I thought Tommy was a pretty decent fellow,” mused Varrell. “There’s no counting on these wild Westerners.”

“Well, what do you think?” questioned Dick, returning to the matter that had brought him over to Hale. “Are we bound to sit quietly and see Bosworth play his faro tricks on these little fellows? The next step will be to get them all in debt to him, and then he can keep bleeding them as they have money by promising them a chance to get even again.”

“And that’s not all,” said Varrell; “they’ll have to write lies to their families in order to get extra money to pay up with; and when they get used to lying about one thing, they’ll lie about another, and keep on lying till there’s no truth left in them. A little kid that’s tough is about the meanest and most pitiable individual you can find. He goes down hill like a ball rolling down an inclined plane,—friction disregarded.” The terms of physics occurred naturally to Varrell, who took especial delight in the study.

“Suppose we talk to the boys,” said Melvin, tentatively.

“It would probably do no good. The little fools don’t know enough to take advice.”

“Then we must deal directly with Bosworth,” said Melvin, decisively. “It’s an awfully unpleasant job to tackle,—makes you feel as if you were interfering in another fellow’s private affairs, and setting yourself up to be better than any one else; but the thing must be stopped.”

Varrell nodded in grave approval. “There’s nothing else to be done, and you’re the man for the job.”

“Why not you?” asked Dick, shortly.

“Because,” replied Varrell, with a smile of satisfaction, “you are Richard Melvin, the President of the senior class and the most famous full-back that ever shed glory—”

“Cut that out!” interrupted Melvin, authoritatively. “This is a serious matter, and we can’t afford to have any confounded nonsense mixed up with it.”

Varrell’s smile faded reluctantly away. “I am serious. You can do the thing without giving the fellow a chance to face you down or put you in a ridiculous light with the rest of the school, or advertise your cheek. You hold too strong a position to run any risk. I’m a newcomer and practically unknown.”

“Why shouldn’t both of us go?” said Melvin, after an interval of consideration, still shrinking from an odious task.

Again his friend had a decisive reply. “No, he will take it better and it will do more good if you go quietly by yourself, as if you alone knew it.”

Dick looked at his watch. “I think you are right, and if you are, the sooner the job is over, the better; so here goes!”

With these words he clapped his cap on his head and started for the door. Before Varrell could raise himself from his armchair and get across the room, he heard his visitor jumping quickly down the stairs.

“Oh, Dick!”

“Well, what?” came from the landing below.

“Remember that he’s slippery. Give it to him straight. Don’t let him lie out of it.”

“Never you fear!” called back Melvin, as he plunged on down the stairs.

Bosworth was sitting at his desk with a book open before him. His thoughts, however, were not on his lesson, as was clearly shown by the moody, fitful way in which his eyes wandered from mantel to window. His face wore a gloomy and bitter look, as if he were brooding on some particularly disagreeable event of recent occurrence that still rankled deep. His expression brightened as Melvin opened the door in response to the usual “come in”; for as Varrell had said, the senior was a well-known man, and Bosworth, who valued popularity far more than the ordinary virtues, had a moment of gratified vanity in the thought that Melvin was honoring him with a call. The pleasure was of short duration.

“No, I think I won’t sit down,” said the visitor. “My business is a rather unpleasant one which I can perhaps better attend to standing.”

Bosworth’s face hardened.

“I understand that you have been gambling with some of the little boys and getting their money away from them.”

“I’d like to know who says that!” exclaimed Bosworth, indignantly. “It’s a lie.”

“I’m sorry to hear you deny it,” returned Melvin, calmly. “The information was pretty direct.”

“It’s a lie, just the same,” answered Bosworth, fiercely, his pale face becoming in spots still paler. “It’s no affair of yours, anyway.”

“That’s what I expected you to say. In one sense it isn’t; in another it is not only my affair but that of every fellow here who feels any responsibility for the moral condition and honor of the school. It’s a contemptible trick to teach these little fellows to gamble. The result can’t be anything but bad for them, even if they don’t get into trouble from it here in school. And you know what would happen if the Faculty got on to it.”

“I suppose you’re on your way to let them know,” sneered Bosworth.

“No, I’m not!” retorted Melvin, taking a step forward with clenched fists, and then checking himself a moment to master the indignation that was boiling up in his throat. “But mind you, I don’t say what I won’t do if you keep this thing up. It’s not impossible that I may turn tale-bearer, but first I’ll try an easier method. Quit this thing, and quit it right off, or I’ll give you the worst thrashing you ever had,—and I’ll keep on thrashing you till you’re glad to sneak out of town.”

“Huh!” said Bosworth, contemptuously, but retreating to a safe position behind the table. “I’m not the only one that gambles,” he added significantly.

“I won’t discuss that,” retorted Melvin. “You’re the leader, and that’s enough.”

He turned toward the door. “I hope I’ve made myself clear. If you want to get hurt—badly hurt—just try another game with the little boys.”

With that, Melvin shut the door and shot downstairs as if to put the whole scene as quickly as possible behind him. He kept away from Varrell’s room in order to avoid the necessity of repeating the conversation, but with all his efforts it insisted on repeating itself over and over in his own mind, in exaggerated detail, until he was finally left with the uncomfortable impression that he had been ugly and had made savage threats and said ill-considered things, and that Bosworth had merely denied and sneered.

“It’s just as I thought last year,” he said to himself, dismally, “when Grim was so serious about the responsibility and the opportunity which the older fellows have. I felt then it was all nonsense; I know it’s so, now. The fellow who undertakes to make things better in school just renders himself unhappy and gets himself disliked.”

And then he felt again the impulse of the spirit that had carried him through so many months of discouragement to the final triumph of the great game. Unpleasant though it might be, his course was right; and having started on it, he would abide the consequences without wavering or shrinking. With this feeling uppermost, he marched off serenely to his recitation.

If he could have had a glimpse into Bosworth’s room and seen there the most frightened boy in school, he would not have wasted so much time in misgivings. His visit had had its effect.

The next morning Phil did not return promptly from his recitation. When he did come, there was a glint of pleased excitement in his very expressive eyes that aroused his room-mate’s curiosity.

“What is it, Phil,” asked Dick. “Encouragement from Sands?”

The boy’s countenance fell. “Not much! I’m not likely to get encouragement from him. My news is about something else. Eddy has got his money back.”

For an instant Dick enjoyed a sweet vision of a gambler, frightened into reform by bold threats, making righteous restitution to his victims. But the vision merely appeared and vanished, like the landscape under a lightning flash on a dark stormy night, leaving the boy more in the dark than ever.

“Got his money back! You don’t mean that Bosworth has given it back to him?”

“I’m not exactly certain about that,” said Phil. “All I know is that Tompkins came to him, asked him how much Bosworth had got from him, took out the money, said it came from Bosworth, and then made Eddy promise not to play again, and gave it to him.”

Dick whistled. “What in the world had Tommy to do with it?”

“Didn’t I tell you that I don’t know!” said Phil, impatiently. “The main thing is that Eddy’s got his money back and has promised to keep out of such things in the future.”

“It’s mysterious,” said Dick.

“Mysterious!” echoed the boy. “I don’t care about the mystery. It’s a low-down business, and Eddy is mighty lucky to get out of the hole. The worst thing about it is, that it will do him no good. I can’t really sympathize with the fellow. He hasn’t any moral backbone at all.”

“You ought to try to stiffen him up,” said the wise upper-class man.

“Stiffen him up! stiffen an eel!” returned the disgusted junior. “The only way you can do that is to kill it.”

If Phil was superior to curiosity, Melvin was not and Varrell was not. Together they lay in wait for the Westerner as he came whistling upstairs, and in a trice had him in the room, with the door held tight closed behind Melvin’s square shoulders, undergoing a cross-examination.

But Tompkins proved a most unwilling witness. He declared that he had no information to give. When they threatened to choke him, he gave them a bland smile; when told he would not be let out for dinner, he averred that he wasn’t hungry; when promised imprisonment for all day, he announced himself wholly content, as he had a lot of hard problems to do in which he should be delighted to have Melvin’s assistance. At last Varrell abandoned the examination and began to talk athletics. Presently he asked Melvin whether he had found Bosworth in when he visited him the day before.

“Why, yes,” replied Dick. “Didn’t I—”

A wink from Varrell stopped him.

“Tell us about it.”

As Dick, prompted by Varrell’s shrewd questions, launched out on a detailed account of yesterday’s interview, Tompkins passed quickly from assumed indifference to open interest, and from open interest to self-forgetfulness. With the end of the story he burst into a shout.

“Well, that’s what I call rubbing it in! and the poor chap hadn’t a cent to his name!”

Varrell rose with solemnity. “Look here, Tommy, that requires explanation. Whatever he is, the man isn’t a poor chap in any good sense. He doesn’t deserve any pity unless because of the way in which he gave back the money, and that you’re bound to tell us. You’ve said too much now to keep the rest.”

Tompkins was bursting with merriment. The secret he could keep, but not the joke.

“I’ll tell you two fellows, not because you’ve made me, or because it’s any of your business, but just because it’s so blamed funny that I can’t keep it in, and you’re the safest people to trust it to. I made up to Bosworth and got him to ask me to play with him. I reluctantly consented, and before we were through I’d cleaned him all out and had the money to give back to the kids. Then the very next day Dick pounced upon him and threatened his life, and he hadn’t a dollar of his ill-gotten gains about him. That’s where the joke comes in. It’s rich!” and he burst out again in a noisy laugh.

But neither Melvin nor Varrell seemed to appreciate the joke.

“And that’s the way you got the rascal to give back the money?” asked Melvin, aghast.

“Yes, why not?” said Tompkins. “Tar the devil with his own stick!”

Varrell looked at Melvin, and Melvin looked at Varrell, and neither knew what to reply.

“How could you do it?” said Melvin, at last. “Don’t you know that it’s totally against all rules? They’d fire you without a moment’s notice, if they knew you played.”

“They won’t know it,” said Tompkins, coolly. “Bosworth isn’t going to tell them, and I’m not and you’re not. Besides, I don’t play. This was only a special emergency.”

“But how could you do it?” repeated Varrell, who considered the practical side, as Melvin the moral. “Bosworth must be an old hand at the game.”

Tompkins was standing by the door which Melvin had long since abandoned. He turned on the threshold, and holding his head tightly framed between jamb and door, he answered with a patronizing air: “Oh, Bosworth plays a pretty good game for a tenderfoot. But poker? Why, they teach it in the public schools in Butte!”

A Corner in Sands’s Room.

CHAPTER VII
IN THE BASEBALL CAGE

The poker incident caused repeated discussions between the classmates. Melvin was sure Tommy’s method was wrong, though he could not suggest a satisfactory substitute except to thrash Bosworth until he made amends; while Varrell, though disapproving of poker in general, maintained that in this exceptional case the means were excusable. Neither succeeded in bringing the other over to his view.

It happened that Tompkins, who was not bothered by scruples as to his course, was the chief sufferer by it; for additional victims kept turning up with sad tales to have their losses made good by the generous restorer, until Tommy had parted not only with his questionable winnings, but with the surplus of his honestly acquired quarterly allowance as well. This latter fact he did not confide to his friends. It seemed to detract somewhat from the excellence of the joke.

Meantime the baseball practice in the cage was taking the usual course. Besides Flanahan, two or three other fellows were pitching, among them Tompkins. The latter had been pulled out of obscurity by some enthusiast who discovered that he had had experience in the box, and so reluctant Tommy was now forced to take his regular turn in the cage with the rest. Phil did his work with all the energy he possessed, not because he had any real hope, but because his heart and ambition were in the contest, and even the prospect that the battle would go against him did not take away his joy in the fighting.

Flanahan had good sharp curves and high speed. His best balls were a jump at the shoulder and a fine abrupt drop. Tompkins had fewer curves at his command, but he could vary his speed in a most deceptive way, and he showed an ability to put the ball where he wanted it and where the batsman did not like to have it come. Another advantage Tompkins possessed lay in his coolness; gibes from batters or spectators never hurried or confused him, while Flanahan’s quick temper went to pieces under slight provocation. Smith, the best class-team pitcher of the last season, was a third candidate, but ranked unquestionably after Tompkins.

Flanahan’s curves were the delight and admiration of the spectators, who would cluster around the catcher’s end of the cage when Flanahan was pitching, and express their appreciation by manifold ejaculations. Such wonderful rises and drops and shoots, the Hillburyites would certainly find impossible to hit. And so did the Seatonians, for that matter, though the result was really due as much to the wildness of the pitching, and the consequent fear of getting hit on the part of the batsmen, as to the skill of the pitcher. For the most part Flanahan preferred to let some one else pitch for the batting, while he practiced by himself.

The first time Phil came up to bat Flanahan, he had the misfortune to get hit. Phil was a right-hander who batted left, and Flanahan’s wide out off the plate caught the boy in the back as he turned to dodge, and inflicted a painful bruise. The result was to give him a scare that prevented his facing the pitcher for a fortnight, and confirmed Sands in the impression that he was too young and green to be of any use on the school nine. As the cage practice is necessarily limited to pitching, batting, sliding, and handling grounders, and Phil as a candidate for the out-field was not given much chance at grounders, he seemed to have excellent prospect of being dropped from the squad among the first. It was Wallace who saved him from this ignominy.

Wallace was the head coach for baseball at the great university near by,—a graduate a year or two out of college, with an enthusiasm as unprofessional as his knowledge of the game was complete and technical. He could pitch and field and hit; he was a master of the ritual of that mysterious coaching book in which are written all possible details of play under all possible circumstances, and on which the Varsity candidates are examined for their positions as a candidate for a degree is quizzed by the specialists who sit in commission over him. Indeed, Wallace was more of a master than the original authors, for the supplement was of his own making. Though not a Seatonian himself, his baseball sympathies were wide, and his college mates from Seaton had found no difficulty in enlisting his help for the school nine.

He began with grounders which he made the boys take with heels together and elbows between the knees, bending slightly forward as they settled. Some did this instinctively as the most natural way, others went down on one knee or tried to make the hands alone a substitute for a solid wall of arms and legs. With others, again, Wallace found fault for sinking for the ball and rising before they got it. “Settle, get the ball, then rise and throw” was, according to the college expert, the right order of movements for “gathering in” grounders.

After grounders came starting and sliding. At first he put them through a series of standing sprint starts, like the old-fashioned erect start for short races, with first steps short to develop immediate speed; then the double balancing start that the base-runner uses as he poises off first base ready to return instantly, or go down hard to second, as the need may be. In sliding he urged the slide head first as the college ideal, at the same time adding that professionals generally slide feet foremost for the sake of greater safety. “Good sliding is fearless sliding,” he said, “and the man who slides fearlessly is much less likely to be hurt than the coward.”

When they came to the batting practice, the first thing which the expert did was to moderate the speed of the pitcher, who was sending in hot balls to show his ability. “Only slow pitched balls in the cage,” was his warning; “the light is too poor for swift pitching. Moreover, in a confined place like this, a batsman is likely to become frightened at a swift ball as he wouldn’t be out-of-doors.”

Then he made the batters stand firmly, watch the ball closely, step straight out toward the pitcher, and strike quickly at what they were sure were good chances. “Don’t worry,” he kept saying. “Don’t watch the pitcher too much. The ball is the thing you are trying to hit. Don’t commit yourself too soon; wait till you know what is coming.”

Phil came up for his trial as nervous as a young boy can be under the eyes of an admired master whom he would give a month’s allowance to please. “Steady, my boy, steady,” said the kindly voice of the coach, who probably felt with Sands that he was wasting his time on an impossible candidate, but who, unlike Sands, was still generous and glad to help.—“Don’t be frightened. ‘Step straight, hit late, watch the ball and not the pitcher’ is the thumb rule for good batting.—Less body and more arms.”

Phil gathered himself together and cracked out a good wrist hit.

“That’s the way. I always like to see that!” exclaimed Wallace, approvingly. “The wrist hitters are the safest hitters.” With face aglow with satisfaction Phil stole back among the group of waiting players. “Step straight, hit late, and watch the ball,” he repeated to himself. “Why didn’t some one tell me that before? I’ve been going contrary to every part of that rule.”

It is to be feared that Phil’s lessons on those two days of Wallace’s stay were somewhat neglected. He certainly haunted the cage at all vacant hours when Wallace was engaged in instruction, and when the practice was over he ran back to his room and put down in a note-book snatches of baseball wisdom caught from the collegian’s lips. Many of the notes were doubtless futile, merely serving to give the boy the satisfaction of doing something to help himself on in his great ambition. Yet many were of great value, not only for immediate drill, but also for use later on in answering questions that unexpectedly arose, when the details of Wallace’s instruction were as thoroughly forgotten by the boys as the teachers’ comments on their first translations.

Wallace’s view of the pitchers mystified Phil a good deal. With Flanahan the coach made short work, giving him only a few words of general advice. Tompkins, on the other hand, absorbed much attention.

“That man has the making of a great pitcher in him,” the collegian remarked to Sands in Phil’s hearing. “A couple of years of good training would do wonders for him. He is cool, knows what he is doing, and has the full arm shoulder swing which not one amateur in twenty ever gets.”

“What about Flanahan?” asked Sands.

“He hasn’t it,” returned Wallace, emphatically. “His is a fairly swift arm throw with good curves and poor command. He’s used to playing, and probably knows a good deal about the game, without possessing any great intelligence. I should put him, at a guess, on the edge of the semi-professional class. He has reached his limit and is beyond instruction. Tompkins, on the other hand, is good, improvable material.”

“I guess Flanahan will do for us,” said Sands, with a smug smile of confidence.

“It seems to me that I’ve met him before,” mused Wallace, with his eyes fixed on Flanahan, who was still pitching; “but I can’t now recall where or under what circumstances. He certainly isn’t the kind of man I like to see on a school nine.”

“Oh, he’s all straight,” insisted Sands. “We often have old fellows here who are anxious for an education but have begun late.”

“I don’t doubt that,” replied Wallace, “but none the less, semi-professional ball players don’t belong on school teams.”

Perhaps it was this difference of opinion regarding Flanahan that made Sands so lukewarm in his praises of the coach. The boys generally spoke of him with veneration, but boy-like gave more attention to his appearance and his prowess than to his directions. No one profited more by these than the owner of the note-book, who learned to stand firmly and step out fearlessly; and as he really had a quick, accurate eye, he was soon hitting with the best. Sands was oblivious to all improvement, but the others noticed it, and Smith went so far as to warn him.

“You’re finding the ball right, Poole, but don’t get a swelled head over it. Outside, you may not be able to do a thing. There were Baker and Lydecker last year, who couldn’t hit a balloon in the cage, and yet used to swipe out two and three baggers ’most every game.”

Then Phil went home and consulted the note-book, rereading the quotation from Wallace which Dick had said was the best thing his room-mate had written down: “The good player,—and the rare player,—is the one who can analyze his own errors, and instead of giving up discouraged when he fails, can discover and remedy the fundamental fault.”

“I’m willing to be shown my faults,” said Phil to himself, earnestly; “and if I stick to it long enough and use my brains, I ought to get ahead.”

And Phil was right. Those who use brains do get ahead, in ball playing or anything else. But brains unfortunately cannot be furnished on demand, or ordered in advance, like a supply of coal for the winter.

CHAPTER VIII
A TRANSACTION IN BOOKS

“Hello, Dick, may I use your French dictionary?”

Without waiting for a reply, Tompkins pounced upon the book. It was the fourth time in the last ten days that he had demanded the use of this particular book, while on two other occasions during the same period he had found it convenient to prepare his English versions at Melvin’s desk. If this had been all, Melvin would not have thought of objecting. To some boys ownership in books is but a continued series of lendings and borrowings, mislayings, losings, and findings. In Tompkins, however, this borrowing habit was of sudden and violent development. Similar tales of him had come during the past fortnight from other rooms.

“Haven’t you any books at all?” demanded the senior.

“A few,” replied Tompkins, with his nose in the dictionary.

“Well, haven’t you a French dictionary?”

“If I had, do you suppose I’d want to use yours?”

“You certainly had one once. What’s become of it?”

“Gone,” replied Tompkins, resignedly, turning back to the B’s to find the meaning of a word which he had looked up only a moment before,—“like the meaning of that long adjective I just looked up.”

“Can’t you find it?”

“Maybe.”

“When did you use it last?”

“Don’t know.”

“Well, where did you see it last?”

“At the second-hand bookstore.”

Dick stared. “Did some one steal it, or did you lose it?”

“Neither,” replied the laconic Tompkins.

“Then you must have sold it.”

“Yes, I suppose I must have sold it,” sighed Tompkins. “Any more questions?” he asked after an interval, as Melvin gazed and wondered. “I really ought to do this reading, you know. I rather flunked on it yesterday, and I don’t like to repeat the performance to-day.”

There was a half hour of silence in the room. Then Melvin, squinting furtively out of the corner of his eyes, caught Tompkins gazing out of the window.

“You ought to have borrowed of me,” said Dick, quietly. “You could have saved the books, anyway.”

Tompkins shook his head. “I don’t like to borrow, though I may have to do it yet.”

“What’s become of your term allowance?”

“Gone to those confounded little lambs that Bosworth sheared,” said Tompkins, angrily, throwing off his pretense of indifference. “Eddy wasn’t the only fool, by any means. First one would come to me and then another, and every one of them would put up a mournful whine, and promise never, never to do such a thing again, and hold out his hand for his money. They seemed to think that Bosworth was having the games just to give them experience and teach them profitable lessons, and that I was his agent to pay them back when they promised not to do it again. I wasn’t very careful about the money, I suppose, and when I finally shut down on the thing, a good part of my own was gone. Then Dinsmore took the rest for a baseball subscription which I’d promised to pay early. He left me just seventy-five cents. Since then the books have been going, and it’s a month yet to pay-day. I have been a fool.”

With this last statement Melvin mentally concurred. He had maintained from the beginning that the only proper way of dealing with Bosworth was to maul him until he disgorged, and his first impulse was to tell Tompkins that it served him right for having recourse to questionable methods. But wholesome respect for the generosity of the boy and sympathy with him in his present predicament, effectually prevented any such retort, and turned the whole force of his disapproval against the original offender.

“For straight meanness, that Bosworth is the limit!” he exclaimed, with eyes aflame with indignation. “He ought to be fired this very minute!”

“He isn’t much of a fellow, I think myself,” answered Tompkins, more calmly, “but we can’t do anything about it. The firing isn’t in our hands, or he’d go, and a good many fellows would stay who now have to say good-by pretty abruptly. It isn’t Bosworth that I’m thinking of, but how I’m going to get through the next month.”

“Why don’t you write the whole story home to your father?” said Dick, to whom the straightforward way always appealed.

Tompkins smiled wisely. “And have him write back hot foot to Grim, and want to know what kind of a school it is in which such ‘scandalous performances’ go on under the teachers’ eyes. And Grim would hunt it to the ground like a setter after a rabbit! No, I thank you,—not that!”

A pause.—Then the inexorable recitation bell broke in upon them. “How mournful that bell sounds when you haven’t your lesson,” groaned Tommy, as he picked up his book and started for the French recitation. “It’s like the thing they ring at funerals. Another flunk for me to-day! I’ll be dropped by the end of the term, if I don’t get this business off my nerves.”

“Come in after supper, Tommy,” shouted Dick at the door, “and we’ll talk it over with Varrell. His head is longer than mine, and he may have something to suggest.”

That evening the three gathered before the depleted bookshelves in Tompkins’s room in solemn conclave. All agreed that to write to Mr. Tompkins would be equivalent to carrying the facts to the Principal.

“Can’t you write to your mother?” suggested Melvin.

“That would be more dangerous still,” answered Tompkins, dolefully. “She’d be sure I’d gone to the bad.”

“Haven’t you a brother or an uncle or a cousin that you could try?” asked Wrenn. “I’ve money enough myself. I could furnish you what you want as easily as can be, but I have to give an account of all I spend, and of course I can’t lie about it.”

“There’s Uncle George in Chicago,” said Tompkins, brightening. “I’d thought of him, but he’s a bit risky, too. He’d help me quick enough, but I don’t know what else he might do.”

“That’s the way out,” said Varrell, authoritatively. “You’ve got to take some risk. Just tell him the whole story frankly, and explain why you don’t want to write to your father, and I think he’ll be square with you; uncles usually are pretty generously disposed. In the meantime don’t sell any more books. I’ll lend you all you need.”

To this course the council agreed. Tompkins wrote the letter and waited six miserable days for a reply, which arrived by the last mail of a certain Saturday early in March. The date was important to Tompkins, for it was the day which brought relief from anxiety to a very worried and unhappy boy. There was a check in the letter, drawn for a larger amount than he had requested; there was also some strong, sensible advice; and finally there was a pledge to be signed and returned before the check was cashed, binding Master Tompkins not to play again during the course of his education. This the boy signed with eagerness, having already of his own accord made up his mind to this very course. With the pledge deposited in the post-office, and the check safe in his pocket-book ready to be cashed on Monday morning, with a feeling of relief warming his heart as the bright hearth-fire drives the chill from weary bones, Tommy went to bed that night as nearly serious and grateful as he had ever been in his life.

For another reason the date was important. On the night of this Saturday, or somewhere between the hours of six P.M. on Saturday and two P.M. on Sunday, the registrar’s safe in the basement of Sibley was broken into and plundered.

CHAPTER IX
BURGLARY

Mr. Graham was not in Seaton when the incident occurred. He had just risen from a rather serious attack of pneumonia and by the doctor’s order was spending several weeks in the South, in hope of more speedy convalescence. Meantime, as Professor Anthony was spending his sabbatical year abroad, Mr. Moore, the teacher of German, an elderly man of strongly pedagogic stamp, acted by virtue of seniority as chairman of the Faculty and took the Principal’s office hours.

The safe stood in the registrar’s little office in the basement of Sibley. It was an old affair which, before the vault had been put into the school office, had held the more important books and papers belonging to the school. Latterly it had served as a kind of overflow strong box for the less valuable papers, or smaller sums of money which came in after the big safe was closed or the day’s deposit had been made at the bank. Miss Devon also kept in it her official record books, and the smaller amounts of money for the payment of wages and other minor bills which were under her charge.

On Saturday at six Miss Devon had locked up ninety dollars in cash and a check on a Boston bank for fifty dollars. On Sunday afternoon she went to the safe for a personal paper which she had enclosed with the school property. The safe was locked as usual and apparently in the state in which she had left it the night before, but the money and the check were missing.

Startled at her carelessness, for she felt that she must have mislaid the money, Miss Devon searched the compartments and drawers. The money was not to be found. She locked the safe door and opened it again. The lock was uninjured, the safe showed no evidence of having been tampered with. Trembling with anxiety, the girl glanced about the room. There were two doors leading into the office, one from outside by which she had entered, the other a rarely used door with an ordinary lock, opening directly into the passage that led past the store-rooms and the lavatories to the main entry of the dormitory. Neither door showed anything unusual in its appearance. She looked at the windows and her heart set up a violent throbbing. The shades were not in their usual position, and the fastening on one sash was open. While sure as to the unwonted height of the shades, she could not recall that she had altered them before leaving Saturday night, or that she had given any especial attention to the window fastenings. It was her habit to make everything secure before she left the office, but the labor involved in this had long since become mechanical, and she had absolutely no recollection of anything in connection with closing up on the day before.

Now thoroughly frightened the girl sat down and confusedly wondered what was to be done. The money was gone, no one except herself knew the combination of the safe, no one else was responsible for the security of the office. If she could only recall definitely that she had locked the window! She must have done it, for it was her regular custom; and yet she had left rather early the night before to catch a car, and it was possible, just possible, that she had overlooked it. If this was the case, she had really been negligent.

Her glance fell on the safe and brought a comforting thought. She rose and wiped her eyes. “It’s dreadful, but I am not at fault,” she said to herself, resolutely, “and I won’t worry. A man who could open the safe so easily would get in anyway, whether the window were locked or not. I’ll just report the matter to Mr. Moore and let him take the responsibility.”

Miss Devon let herself out and went in search of Mr. Moore. Half an hour later both were in the office,—Miss Devon collected and careful of her words, Mr. Moore looking very solemn and important and asking many questions. Together they went through the safe again, examined the windows and the outside door and with the aid of the housekeeper’s key unlocked the door into the passage, and scrutinized it carefully. It had shrunk somewhat, leaving a crack at the edge, but the lock was unharmed and the jamb unscarred. All in all, besides weariness and many useless questions, the investigation yielded only two tangible results, neither of which seemed to impress Mr. Moore as of any special value: one, the discovery of a drop of candle-grease on the floor before the safe, which Miss Devon pointed out triumphantly as a proof that the robbery had been committed during the night by the light of a candle; and the other, the fact that some one had been present on Saturday morning while Miss Devon was kneeling before the safe struggling with the rebellious combination lock. As the door finally swung open, the girl had observed one of the boys standing behind her, apparently taking a deep interest in her work. It was a junior named Eddy.

At this statement Mr. Moore’s face took on a superior smile. “How fortunate that it was Eddy, and not some other boy!” he said. “I gave him permission to leave by the eleven o’clock train on Saturday to spend Sunday with his cousins in Boston. His alibi is easily proved. Had it not been for this circumstance, he might have been subjected to a very unjust suspicion. I should be very loath to believe that any student had a hand in this.”

“Mightn’t Eddy have seen the combination and told some one else of it?” suggested Miss Devon, modestly.

“I think not,” replied Mr. Moore, with an air of finality, but yet condescending to explain himself. “If he saw anything,—and he probably saw no more than that you were having difficulty in opening the door,—you may be assured that he forgot it immediately. The prospect of going to Boston would exclude almost anything else from his mind. He was in my recitation at ten o’clock, and a more absent-minded pupil I never had. I will question him, however, on his return, and make sure of the fact. I should rather be of the opinion that we have here the work of some clever professional who has found an unusually good opportunity to ply his trade with safety and profit.”

“We have never had burglars in town,” murmured Miss Devon, not wholly convinced. “I don’t see why this little safe should attract their notice. Shall you put the matter in the hands of the police?”

Mr. Moore hesitated. “That will require consideration,” he answered. “We may consult the police, but I doubt if we should be willing to incur the notoriety of a public investigation for so small a sum. The thief, I am afraid, is secure in his plunder. At present we had better say nothing about the matter.”

They separated at the door and went their respective ways, Mr. Moore calm in exterior but much worried within, Miss Devon in a condition of woe closely bordering on hysterics. Under the teacher’s smooth, long words she had divined an undefined suspicion that she might be making much of unimportant incidents to cover some carelessness of her own. The discovery came upon her with a shock. If Mr. Moore could harbor such a doubt, what might not other people think and say when the story came out,—the merciless, insatiate gossips of the small town? With all her heart she longed for Mr. Graham’s speedy return.

CHAPTER X
MR. MOORE’S THEORY

The story, or a distorted version of it, was soon out. The housekeeper hinted at strange doings at the office, and straightway rumor flew that the big vault had been rifled of a thousand dollars. Eddy came home and was examined by Mr. Moore; and his account of the interview, wormed out of him by zealous questioners, set a new tale afloat so much worse than the truth that the school authorities published the facts in sheer self-defence.

The students seized upon the incident with avidity. Petty thefts from gymnasium lockers had been known in previous years. Here for once was a real burglary in their midst, with a mystery to be solved. The boys attacked the problem tooth and nail, but their method was one of hypothesis and discussion rather than of investigation. Some pictured a masked burglar, operating in the dead of night. Others held dark suspicions of Miss Devon. Still others advocated the view that it was a sneak student who had in some way got into the room unobserved and juggled with the knob of the safe until it had opened. For several weeks after, doors whose bolts had not been shot since the year began, were very carefully locked when bedtime came.

Among the first arguments introduced into the discussion was the example of the safe at Morrison’s which Tompkins had opened so easily in the fall. This suggestion was followed up among Tommy’s friends by a jocose reminder that Tommy, who had been very short, was suddenly flush again. Outside the circle of friends, the statement was repeated without the character of jest. By the time it had made the circuit of the school, it had acquired the addition that Tompkins was suspected of the robbery, and that he was to be expelled as soon as Mr. Graham returned.

Sands brought the new version to Melvin with a worried expression on his face. Tompkins was his second pitcher; he couldn’t afford to lose him. Melvin carried the matter to Varrell; together they waited on Mr. Moore.

The acting Principal received them with his usual comprehensive smile,—a smile that was typical of his general disposition. He was a bland, benevolent, scholarly man, comfortably content in the consciousness of his superior attainments as compared with those of the pupils under him, “an easy marker and an easy mark,” and, of course, superficially popular.

“There’s a story going around the school about Tompkins that we want to protest against,” said Melvin. “It’s an absurd story, but it might do him some harm.”

“What is the story?”

“Why, that he is suspected of breaking into the safe. He opened a safe last fall at Morrison’s when no one else could, and he’s recently had a present of some money from his uncle. I think that’s all the foundation there was for the story. We just wanted to say that we saw the check ourselves, and knew how he came by it, and that he isn’t at all the fellow to do such a thing.”

“Dear me!” said Mr. Moore, in real surprise. “No, indeed! I never dreamed of such a thing. I assure you, we haven’t the least suspicion of Tompkins, or, indeed, of any other boy.”

“They say Eddy knew the combination,” said Varrell, who now spoke for the first time.

“That is an unwarranted assumption,” replied Mr. Moore, warmly, “and very unjust to the boy. I have convinced myself by questioning him that he did not notice the combination; and he went to Boston immediately afterward. He is a harmless little fellow, quite unequal to any double dealing.”

“He associates a good deal with Bosworth,” said Melvin, struck with this view of the harmlessness of Eddy’s occupations.

“Does he, indeed!” exclaimed Mr. Moore, in a pleased tone. “I am very glad to hear it. It always does a little boy good to come under the influence of an older boy of the right kind. Bosworth’s mother keeps a boarding-house for students in Cambridge, and the son is very anxious to be a credit to her and repay her for her sacrifices. I do not know a neater, more attractive boy in my classes, nor one who does his work better.”

Melvin gasped in astonishment. A book knocked off the table by Varrell’s hand fell heavily to the floor, but it produced no effect upon him. “He dresses pretty well for a poor boy,” blurted Dick, not knowing what to say, and yet feeling that he must make some protest.

This answer touched one of Mr. Moore’s pet theories, and stirred up an immediate reproof.

“You will pardon me, Melvin, if I term that a very unjust judgment. Neatness and care with regard to one’s attire are habits decidedly worth cultivating, whether one is rich or poor. It often happens that a poor boy has friends who give him clothes a great deal better than he could afford to buy. It is manifestly unfair and unkind to charge him with extravagance until you know fully the facts in his case.”

“That’s very true, sir,” remarked Varrell, promptly. The tone drew Melvin’s eyes to the speaker’s face. In reply he got a fierce look that shut him up like an oyster.

“Was that all?” inquired Mr. Moore, glancing at the clock.

“Yes, sir,” replied Varrell, as the boys rose. “We only wanted to tell you about Tompkins.”

“You may be reassured on that point. Neither he nor any other boy is suspected. The thief must have been a professional, but the whole affair is a mystery which we shall probably never solve. Thank you for coming to see me.”

Once outside, the conversation between the two boys waxed warm.

“Dick, you certainly are the limit!”

“What now?” asked Melvin.

“What did you want to lug Bosworth into the conversation for? Don’t you know he’s a particular favorite of Moore’s?”

“No.”

“Well, if you took German, you would. Bosworth’s mother was a German, and he knows German ’most as well as he does English,—makes rushes all the time.”

“I can’t be blamed for not knowing that.”

“Perhaps not, but you need not have connected him with the robbery.”

“I didn’t,” protested Dick; “I just connected him with Eddy.”

“Well, Eddy with the safe and Bosworth with Eddy, it’s all the same,” returned Varrell. “If Grim had been there, you wouldn’t have got out of it so easily. He’d have turned you inside out in no time.”

“But there wasn’t anything more inside me than out,” said Dick, perplexed.

“No, I’m afraid not,” rejoined Varrell with a sigh. “I say, Dick, who do you really think took that money?”

“I don’t know anything about it. Perhaps a professional, as Moore says.”

Varrell laughed aloud. “And he thinks some rich friend probably gave Bosworth his clothes. I know better. I saw the box in which his last suit came at the express office, and it was from one of the most expensive tailors in Boston. It arrived two days after the safe was broken into, and he paid the bill in cash. What does that suggest to you?”

“Why, that as a deserving poor student he is a fraud.”

“Anything else?”

“No.”

“Supposing I add that the clothes were ordered three weeks ago, before Tommy very unexpectedly cleaned him out.”

Dick still looked puzzled.

“And when Tommy was through with him, he had this suit coming, and probably other bills too, and no money to pay them with, unless he could get some suddenly.”

Melvin stopped and looked blankly at his companion. “Do you really mean that you think Bosworth broke into the safe?”

Varrell nodded.

“What an insane idea! How could he do it?”

“Every one seems insane to a lunatic,” answered Varrell, sharply. “If you aren’t crazy, you are at least too stupid to live with sane people. Can’t you see how he might have been able to do it? Just think.”

Dick pondered a moment and then lost his patience.

“No, I can’t, nor any one else,” he answered hotly. “Bosworth is a bad lot and a school fraud and capable of almost any ordinary meanness, but that doesn’t make him a burglar or a murderer. Perhaps if he’d tripped me up in the hockey game instead of you, I might have a different opinion.”

Varrell laughed with the satisfied air of one who knows that he has the better end of the argument. “You’re wrong there, Dicky old boy,” he said, clapping his irate friend cordially on the shoulder. “You could forgive him far more easily for tripping you than for tripping me. I know you better than you do yourself.”

“All the same, I don’t see any connection between Bosworth and the safe breaking.”

“Well, listen. Eddy stood behind Miss Devon in the office when she was working on the lock. He saw the combination and told Bosworth of it when he was in Bosworth’s room about half-past nine. I know he was there then, for I saw him there from my window. This suggested to Bosworth an easy way in which to make good his losses and pay for the clothes,—as he certainly did pay a few days after. That, I believe, was the course of events, but I can furnish no evidence, and I don’t see how any can be furnished, unless Eddy can be made to squeal.”

“What about the check?”

“He probably burned that.”

They stood at the point at which their ways parted. Melvin was thinking hard and kicking the gravel recklessly with his foot. A squall of dust and stones struck his companion in the knee.

“Come, let up on that!” said Varrell, brushing off his trousers with a show of indignation. “Can’t you think without using your feet? There are disadvantages in this football training of yours.”

“Excuse me,” laughed Melvin. “You remind me of Bosworth in your ‘care with regard to your attire,’ as Moore put it. That last kick quite cleared my mind. I don’t doubt that Bosworth is bad enough to take money from a safe, if he needed it and there were no chance of being found out. If in this case he was able to do it, and afterward had money to pay his bills with, the presumption in our minds is against him, and that’s all. We haven’t any proof and aren’t likely to get any. Tommy isn’t suspected and we aren’t suspected. So what business is it of ours, or what could we do if it were our business?”

“First answer me a couple of questions,” said Varrell. “Why did you go to Bosworth and threaten him as you did?”

“Because he was doing a lot of harm in school, and that was the only way to stop it.”

“And now you’ve stopped the poker-playing, do you think he’s a fit fellow to stay here?”

“No, he’s probably bad in other ways and will do more harm before he’s through, but I don’t know about that, and I did know about the gambling with the little boys.”

“And I do know about this,” added Varrell, decidedly. “In the first place, he’s got hold of Eddy again and made him lie to Moore about the safe combination. I saw him in Bosworth’s room that Saturday morning talking about it.”

“There you go off the track again!” laughed Dick. “You saw him in Bosworth’s room; you guessed he was talking about the safe. The only thing there of any consequence at all is what you really saw.”

A look of annoyance settled on Varrell’s face. “Look here, Dick,” he began, as if he had something important to say. Then suddenly changing his tone, he added significantly: “You’re right, the only thing of consequence is what I saw. Some people see more than others,” and sheered off abruptly toward his room.

“What a queer chap Wrenn is!” mused Dick, as he lazily climbed the dormitory stairs. “Sometimes he’s as keen as a razor; at others he gets an idea fixed in his head, and you can’t knock it out with a club. I hope he won’t get his mind set on this safe business.”

CHAPTER XI
FLANAHAN STRIKES OUT

Mr. Graham was at home again, to the relief of both school authorities and boys. He, of course, heard the tale of the robbery of the safe immediately after his arrival, and went over the matter exhaustively with Miss Devon, whose troubled mind was definitely comforted by the Principal’s emphatic assurance that she was wholly beyond suspicion. Later he was given Mr. Moore’s version.

“I am sure we are making too much of the matter,” said the teacher in conclusion. “We have been a little careless, and are paying a moderate fine for our offence.”

“The loss is to me the most unimportant consideration,” said Mr. Graham. “I would gladly sacrifice the money to learn how it disappeared. If a professional burglar took it, we are simply chance sufferers. If a boy took it, the act was probably due to some desperate distress and sudden temptation. That would mean, according to my experience, either gambling or a bad case of extravagance and debt. These are not pleasant conditions to surmise, but if they exist, I should like to know definitely about them.”

“Oh dear!” exclaimed Mr. Moore, to whom such a possibility had never occurred.

“Mind, I don’t say that a boy did it,” Mr. Graham hastened to add. “I am merely explaining why I want to know that he did not. Eddy seemed to be very nervous when I questioned him this morning.”

“He was probably frightened at being examined twice,” said Mr. Moore. “I saw nothing of it when I talked with him. Have you considered the possibility that Miss Devon—”

“What?” asked the Principal, as the other hesitated.

“May know more than she has told?”

“No, indeed!” replied the Principal. “Miss Devon is as honest as the day and as methodical as a machine. I have known her for years. It seems to me an act of injustice even to discuss the question.”

The Principal’s manner was not as sharp as his words, but Mr. Moore, whose life experiences had developed in him a goodly portion of caution, if not many other mental possessions of a practical character, felt no encouragement to continue the argument.

“And to me an act of treachery to suspect the boys,” he said good-humoredly, “and so we are thrown back again on the hypothesis of burglary; but I leave the problem with you. It is a relief to drop the burden of it from my shoulders.”

The Principal watched him as he trudged down the walk to the street, a stout, square figure marching sturdily and complacently, substantial behind, benevolent of aspect before. Mr. Graham was also cautious, and his thoughts, as he stood at the window, he would never have uttered; but they ran something like this: “Poor gullible old Moore! The years go by and leave with him more text-book knowledge and more satisfaction in his attainments, but not an additional jot of practical sense. Burglars indeed! Miss Devon may not be sure that she locked the window, but I am, and that to me, at least, is of more consequence. When a person of her systematic habits has done the same thing daily for the last five years, it is highly improbable that she forgot it on that particular day. Therefore the open fastening was a blind to make appearances indicate that the thief entered through the window. Therefore he did not enter by the window, but by one of the doors. So far I have fairly satisfactory reasoning behind me, but here I begin to jump at conclusions. The thief came in by the passage door, and was a student.

“Why a student? Because it was an enterprise which a desperate student might very possibly conceive, but the servants never. And if a student,—then there certainly exists somewhere in the school a plague-spot which must be discovered and cleansed. What a delightful prospect for a half-sick, nerve-worn man to come home to!”

Up the path from the street came a youthful figure of medium height, planting foot after foot with an air of business and determination.

“Sands!” said Mr. Graham to himself. “Another unpleasant task, but this at least will soon be over.”

“You sent for me, Mr. Graham.”

“Yes, to talk with you about Flanahan. Are you likely to want him on the nine?”

“Yes, sir,” answered the boy with a wondering face. “He’s our best pitcher.”

“Then I am glad that I can give you such early notice. He will probably not be allowed to play.”

“Why not, sir?”

“Because I am convinced from various facts which I have learned that he is not a proper person to play on our teams.”

“Do you think that we are hiring him, sir?” said Sands, a flush of indignation burning on his cheeks.

Mr. Graham looked at the student sharply. On the boy’s face was an expression of bitter disappointment and of indignation, but no sign of guilt. “No, I do not,” he replied heartily. “We haven’t fallen so low as that.”

“What is it, then, that you have against him?”

“Simply that he is not considered an amateur above suspicion of taint. I made some inquiries concerning him before my return, and the results were, in my opinion, conclusive.”

“Are you sure about it?”

“Sure as to my opinion, which I may also say is the opinion of Mr. Wallace, who helped me in the investigation. The wisest course for Flanahan would be to withdraw voluntarily from the baseball practice and devote himself to the work for which he says he came here.”

“Is this final?” came through Sands’s quivering lips. “Isn’t he to have a chance to hear the charges and defend himself?”

“Certainly, if he desires it,” replied Mr. Graham, promptly. “You may come, too, and a few others who are especially interested. I want to be fair to you all, but my first duty is to the school.”

The news was quickly abroad, discussed in every room and at every dormitory entrance. The boys naturally favored the unjustly oppressed, though some of the older fellows of influence, like John Curtis, Dickinson, and Melvin, who were not baseball players, sided with the Principal. Sands was disconsolate, Flanahan furious. The latter had talked with Mr. Graham, and returned greatly excited and able to give only a most incoherent account of the interview. On the main subject the pitcher’s explanations were not entirely satisfactory to his supporters. He asserted wildly, denied sweepingly, and fortified his statements by expletives which repelled the decent-minded.

Sands himself was somewhat ashamed of his protégé, as he led him into the Principal’s room for the hearing and sat down at his side, near the door. Mr. Graham had not yet come in. Melvin and Varrell sat near his desk at the upper end of the long room, opposite the door; at the side were Curtis and Arthur Wheelock, the manager, and several others.

The tension of the waiting seemed to be telling on Flanahan’s nerves. His naturally red face had taken on a deeper hue; his eyes shifted rapidly from point to point; his fists opened and closed and shook convulsively; his head nodded in sudden jerks in emphatic support of the whispered assertions which Sands seemed to be rather combating than listening to.

“Did you hear that?” said Varrell, with his eyes fixed on the pair.

“Of course I didn’t, nor you either,” said Melvin. “I can’t hear whispers at that distance. Sands looks like a man trying to hold a fighting bulldog. I don’t envy him his friend.”

“Sh!” said Varrell, still staring at the two. “The fellow’s wild. He’s just threatened to smash Mr. Graham’s face. Sands can’t control him. Quiet! I’ll repeat for you.”

Dick gaped in wonder. He could see Flanahan’s fierce manner, his clenched fists and lips excitedly moving, but not a single distinct sound reached him. Varrell, with eyes glued on the gesticulating man, began to repeat in phrases which matched the pitcher’s agitated nods:—

“I’m no professional. Whoever says so is a liar. If he tells me so again, I’ll smash his face. Yes, I will; and I don’t care who he is, whether he’s Principal of this old place or not. He’s no better than me. I’ll take it out of him if he gives me any lip,—just see if I don’t! I know what he’s been up to. He’s been sneaking around Brockville. What I got from Brockville was too small to count,—hardly more than expenses. Let me alone, I tell you. I can take care of myself. ‘Fired?’ What do I care about being fired! Just let him say a word and I’ll baste him one in the jaw that he’ll remember.”—“I’ve omitted the cuss words,” added Varrell, in another tone.

Mr. Graham entered and walked toward his desk.

“Did he really say that, Wrenn?” whispered Dick. “Are you fooling or not?”

Varrell gave him an indignant look. “Of course he said it, and he meant it, too. Do you think I’d fool about a thing like this?”

“How’d you know?”

“Don’t ask that now, you idiot! Just watch the Irishman and see that he doesn’t do anything reckless.”

At Mr. Graham’s suggestion the boys took seats near his desk. The Principal then read aloud two or three letters, reported certain facts which he had himself discovered, repeated the opinion of Mr. Wallace, and then asked Flanahan what he had to say.

“Most of those things are lies,” said the pitcher, fiercely. “I ain’t a professional; if they say so, they lie.”

“There’s a difference of opinion as to what constitutes a professional,” said Mr. Graham, kindly. “We will not argue about the name. The question for us is, whether you satisfy our standard. If you have ever received money for playing, whether the sum was large or small, we cannot allow you to play on our teams.”

“I tell you it’s just an attempt to blacken my reputation as an amateur,” screamed Flanahan. “I don’t care whether I play on this measly team or not, but whoever says I’m not an amateur is a liar.”

Mr. Graham rose. “You forget yourself, Flanahan,” he said sternly.

Flanahan choked an instant; then, beside himself with fury, burst forth in a flood of personal invective and threats, aimed directly at the Principal. So unexpected and so unparalleled was the outbreak that most of the audience sat silent and aghast, not knowing what to think or do. There were three, however, to whom a few expressions were warning enough. Melvin and Varrell sprang forward, clutched the irate ball-player by the arms and swung him about, while Sands leaped to their support from the other side. As Flanahan cursed and struggled, Curtis and Wheelock came to their senses and lent assistance. Together they hustled the furious rebel out at the door, like a half-back driven through a hole in the line on a tandem play. A few seconds later Mr. Graham was standing in the empty room conscious of a curious mixture of feelings,—mortification that such a scene should have been possible, but delight in the unhesitating loyalty of the boys.

Around the corner of Carter, Dick Melvin’s two hands held Varrell’s shoulders hard pressed against the brick wall. “No, you don’t! It’s of no use to squirm, because I’m not going to let you off. This thing has got to be explained, and with it some other mysteries. The more I think about it, the more there is to explain. You knew what Phil and I were muttering when you were out of hearing in the next room; you heard what this blood-thirsty villain was whispering to Sands twenty-five feet away; you saw little Eddy in Bosworth’s room, talking about the safe, and you knew what he said. Sometimes you don’t know what is going on right beside you; sometimes you hear what two fellows are saying to each other across the street. No juggling, now! Out with the secret, and be quick about it, or I’ll—”

“You’re a fool, Dick,” retorted the smiling Wrenn, “or you wouldn’t have to ask me. Let me go, and I’ll come in after supper and tell you. Let me go, do you hear?”

“Well then, till to-night! If you’re not on hand by seven, I’ll come after you and squeeze the life out of you,—like this,” he added, catching poor Wrenn under the arms, and giving him a hug that threatened to crush in all his ribs at once.

“No more of that!” gasped Varrell. “I’ll come.”

CHAPTER XII
VARRELL EXPLAINS HIMSELF

“Here I am,” said Varrell, opening the door of Melvin’s room just as the clock struck seven. “You don’t deserve to see me, but I’m here. Assault me like that again, and I’ll swear out a warrant for your arrest.”

“A lot you know about warrants,” sniffed Melvin; “though that may also be one of your specialties. Whatever a warrant may be, it won’t catch you as I’ll catch you in five minutes, if you don’t make a clean breast of the whole thing without any jollying.”

“Wind!” said Varrell, in good-humored contempt. “You remind me of Tommy, when he talks about Montana.”

“Come, Wrenn, this is a wrong way to begin,” warned Melvin. “Get down to business! You agreed to explain yourself. Now, out with it.”

“Where shall I begin? If you had any sense, no explanation would be required.”

“And if I haven’t, it’s my misfortune and not my fault, so don’t throw it at me. Begin at the beginning.”

Varrell stretched himself out in an easy-chair. “Well, you know that I am a little deaf.”

“I used to think so,” replied Melvin, “but these things that have occurred lately don’t seem to indicate it.”

“Three years ago I had the scarlet fever,” went on Varrell, paying no attention to the comment, “and it left my ears in bad condition. There is no use in going into the details of the case; it is enough to say that at one time the outlook was pretty bad and there was a general fear that I should become worse instead of better. My mother was greatly worried about me and consulted all sorts of people who are supposed to know about such cases. Some said that the deafness would increase, others that it might decrease if my general health improved. As the chances were apparently against me, they put me through a thorough course of lip-reading with the idea that if my deafness actually did increase, it would then be harder for me to learn. Luckily, my hearing gradually improved as I got better, and an operation put me ahead still farther, so that now I can hear, if not as well as you, at least decently well.”

“And you still kept up the lip-reading?”

“I had to. Much that I was not quite clear about, I could make out with the use of my eyes. I finally got a kind of mixed sense; my eye helped out my ear, and my whole impression was due to them both. So I’ve used it right along.”

“But is it a thing you can really count on?” asked Dick. “I’ve always supposed that lip-reading was a hit-or-miss guessing at what people were saying.”

“It is guessing as reading print is guessing, only in lip-reading there is greater chance for mistake, for two very different words are sometimes expressed with exactly the same appearance of the lips. Still, I’ve seen some very clever lip-readers. I knew a bank teller who had suddenly lost his hearing, who was able in three months to do all the work of his position in two or three languages. That’s where I’m handicapped. I’m used only to English. That’s why I can’t do anything in Pearson’s classes when he reads French aloud.”

“And Richardson’s mop of a mustache must be an obstacle.”

“You bet it is. I loathe mustaches.”

At this point Melvin’s questions seemed to have run out, for he lapsed into a meditative silence which lasted at least a minute. Then he suddenly jumped up, grabbed his quiet visitor by the shoulder, and glared threateningly into his eyes. “Come now, stop it and tell me the truth! You’re just trying to jolly me.”

“It’s the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” said Varrell, nodding his head in solemn accentuation of each phrase. “Go and sit down!”

Melvin dropped back into his chair.

“Do you remember,” continued Varrell, “when we went up to Boston together last week and I suddenly burst into a laugh? You asked me what was the matter, and I told you that a funny story had just come to me. The funny story was told by a drummer facing us three seats ahead. You certainly can’t have forgotten the time when we serenaded Masters, and he came out on his front porch and spoke, with the red fire playing on his face and the fellows yelling and blowing tin horns? Wasn’t I the only one who knew what he said?”

“That’s right,” said Melvin.

“And didn’t you see how I watched Flanahan this afternoon? I had to, I can tell you; those little short sentences are hard to get.”

“I suppose I’ll have to believe you,” said Melvin, reluctantly.

“You would have done it long ago, if you weren’t so blessed ignorant. Hello, Phil!”

Poole nodded cordially and sat down.

“Did you ever hear of lip-reading, Phil?”

“Why, yes. I know some one at home who is pretty good at it. Can you do it?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I’ve suspected you two or three times, but I thought I’d better not say anything till you spoke of it yourself.”

Varrell gave Melvin a reproachful glance.

“Dick here doesn’t believe in it. Did you ever see the shadow trick?”

“No,” replied Phil.

Varrell got up. “Give us a big sheet of paper,” he said. “That’s it. Come here.”

He pinned the white paper to the wall on a level with Phil’s head, placed Phil near it and adjusted the lamp on the shelf opposite so that a sharp profile of the boy’s face fell on the paper. Next he stationed Melvin two or three steps in front of the boy; and then, having bound a heavy handkerchief around his own ears, took a place just behind Phil.

“Now, Phil, without moving your head and in your ordinary tones, say something to Dick.”

Phil obeyed. Varrell watched the shadow of the moving lips on the screen.

“Repeat!” commanded Varrell.

Phil repeated.

“Flanahan has been fired,” said Varrell.

“Right!” cried the boy, delighted. “Try again!”

The experiment was repeated several times, and with one or two exceptions Varrell read correctly from the screen.[^[1]]

“Why, you’re a regular wizard!” cried Melvin, pulling the bandage from his friend’s head. “That’s the greatest stunt I ever saw.”

“It’s a pretty severe test. If I had known what you were talking about so that I could have had something to start with, I shouldn’t have failed the last time. That’s the funny thing about lip-reading; at one instant it’s a blank, and the next you get the key, and the whole thing flashes out clear.”

But even this amazing exhibition could not distract Dick’s mind from the robbery. “Now tell me, please,” he began, “what you really know by this method or any method about what Eddy said to Bosworth that Saturday morning in his room.”

Varrell looked significantly at Phil.

“Oh, you can trust him,” Dick made haste to say. “Phil is a lot safer than I am.”

“I hope you won’t think, Phil, that I’m in the habit of eavesdropping. A good many times I deliberately close my eyes to what people are saying, so as not to understand things they don’t mean me to know. But Bosworth is thoroughly bad and ought to be shown up, and since he has got hold of little Eddy again, I’ve kept my eyes peeled. Eddy was walking about in Bosworth’s room that Saturday morning before he went to Boston. I can see pretty clearly from my east window any one who comes near Bosworth’s window, and I was sure that I caught the words safe, door, and combination. The last I am positive about, for it’s a long word and easy to catch.”

“Do you suspect Bosworth of breaking into the safe?” asked Phil, quickly.

“Yes, I do,” answered Varrell; “but until it can be proved I don’t want the subject mentioned.”

“How could he get into the room?” persisted Phil, now deeply interested.

“By the passage door.”

“Do you think he got the housekeeper’s keys?”

“No, I don’t,” replied Varrell, “though it wouldn’t have been impossible for any one to get them. There was an easier way: the door opens out and fits very loosely. He probably pried it open.”

“With what?”

“With the flat ice-chipper that stands in the corner next to the stairs. It is strong, and has a wide blade that would not leave much of a mark. But mind, I guess all this; I haven’t any proof whatever.”

“Do you mean to try to get proof?”

“That’s exactly what I mean to do,” said Varrell, smiling. “I say, Dick, you’d better take lessons of Poole! He’s found out more in three minutes than you have in a week.”

Varrell’s hand was already on the door-knob, when he checked himself and turned: “By the way, Phil, if you want to stand well with Sands, be careful what you say about Flanahan. Sands is awfully cut up about the whole business, ashamed and mad and disgusted to think that he has been pushing such a mucker. Just say nothing to him about it, or you’ll get him down on you.”

“Thank you,” said Phil. “I’ll be careful.”

[1]. A duplicate of this interesting experiment will be found recorded in an article on lip-reading in the Century for January, 1897.

CHAPTER XIII
THE SPRING RUNNING

John Curtis clapped the book together with a sigh of relief. “That’s the end. Much obliged to you. Going home for vacation next week?”

“No,” said Dick. “Are you?”

“No, sir,” replied John; “no vacation for me. Now that I’ve got into the grinding habit, you can bet I’m not going to slacken up. Do you know what I’ve been doing all winter?”

“Studying, I hope,” answered Melvin. “You’ve not been here very often except on such errands as this.”

“That’s right; and I’m doing a lot better than I did. I’m getting on to a lot of things that used to seem all shut up to me. The Dutch phases me the most; I don’t know why it is, but some way it won’t go down. I swallow hard at it, too. I’ve dropped the Greek, and am taking Latin over again. My French and mathematics are pretty fair, and I’m a regular shark at chemistry.”

Dick hooted; then checked himself suddenly. “They are all sharks in chemistry, I should judge by the reports the fellows give me.”

Curtis smiled grimly. “I’m as good as any; you ask some of them and see. It’s the first thing that I’ve really done well since I entered this old mill. The Dutch is the worst. I don’t think old Moore is just square about it either. He lays himself out on those fellows who know it all, and just skims by us poor dopes who are wallowing.”

“He’s good-natured and easy, isn’t he?” asked Dick.

“That depends. He isn’t savage like Richardson, nor satirical like Wells; but he lets a lot of tomfoolery go on in his class and smiles blandly at it all, and then suddenly gets wild and drops on some one like a hodful of bricks from the top of a ladder. As it’s usually the wrong person, it makes trouble.”

“What fellows are in it?” asked Dick, interested.

“Oh, various ones. Tompkins and Bosworth are the worst. Bosworth isn’t often suspected, because he is a kind of a favorite of the old man, and always lies out if he’s caught. Tompkins is smarter, and he won’t lie,—I like that in him; but he has cheek like a mountain.”

“What does he do?”

“Oh, all sorts of things; I can’t remember them. The other day he came running in from the Gym without changing his clothes. He’d just slipped his coat over his sleeveless shirt, and buttoned it up high in the neck. He unbuttoned it again in the class without thinking, and Moore saw the low neck underneath. ‘I don’t want any half-dressed boys in my classroom,’ he said. ‘Tompkins, go and dress yourself properly!’ Tommy went out and stayed half an hour. When he came back, he had on patent leather shoes with gaiters, a Prince Albert coat, gloves, a standing collar, and a silk hat. Where he got the hat, I don’t know. He stopped a moment in the doorway and all the fellows looked around; then he took off his hat, and walked calmly up to his seat.”

“What did Moore do?” asked Melvin,—“fire him out?”

“No, he just said, ‘Thank you, Tompkins,’ and went on. It was a great get-up, but some way it didn’t seem to have the effect intended. By the way, they say he’ll have to do the pitching this year. Is he any good?”

“Phil thinks so; and Wallace, I believe, spoke well of him.”

“You’d better warn him, then, to be careful. He doesn’t do anything bad, and he seems a nice fellow at bottom, but these little tricks may get him into trouble. They’d fire the pitcher on the nine just as quick as anybody else. You remember they sent off one fellow last year for putting a bonnet on the head of that plaster Diana that stands in the hall.”

“That was for example,” returned Dick, vigorously. “Those casts were the gifts of a lot of the Alumni, and the fooling with them had to be stopped.”

“They stopped it for that fellow, anyway,” said Curtis, dryly. “Is this meeting on Saturday going to be any good?”

“I hope so,” said Dick. “There’ll be the usual indoor events and some short dashes on the wooden track outside. We’ve given good handicaps, and there ought to be some hard races.”

“Then it’ll have to be better than the Faculty Trophy performance last month. That was about as keen as a croquet match.”

“We’ll improve on that,” replied the manager, confidently. “The fellows have been doing better lately.”

There were practical reasons for the existence of the March handicap meeting. It gave an inviting opportunity for boys of every degree of ability to appear without disadvantage in a public contest, and so brought out new material. It was likewise both a formal closing of the winter’s athletic work, and the first account of stock for the greater contests of the spring. With Dickinson and Travers in the sprints, Todd in the hurdles, and Curtis for the hammer and shot, there was still in school a very substantial remnant of last year’s winning team with which to start the spring campaign against Hillbury. Yet gaps remained to be filled, new seconds and thirds had to be provided where firsts seemed fairly safe, and better men had to be found, if better men there were, for the most strongly defended events.

In the jumps and the pole vault was an especial dearth of good material. Melvin had been practicing the high jump in the course of his daily gymnasium exercise hours, though without any idea of excelling in it. With legs full of spring and some intelligence to direct his efforts, the height at which he failed had gradually lifted. A month before, at the Faculty Trophy meeting, he had astonished himself by doing five feet four to the school champion’s five feet five. The practice possessed now for him an additional interest. If he could keep on gaining inches in the same steady way, the spring contests would find him able to clear a very considerable height. Varrell, too, had caught the fever, and was toiling at the pole vault with all the zeal and intelligence which this peculiar boy possessed.

A considerable crowd gathered that Saturday afternoon about the eighth-mile wooden track which lies behind the gymnasium. For the forty-yard dash the contestants came in a flock, four men in a trial, heat after heat, in quick succession; then the winners in sets of semi-finals, and three men in the final heat. The baseball candidates were here almost to a man, for they had been practicing starts and dashes during the winter for base running, and now had their trying out. Dick watched with interest to see what Phil would do with his three feet handicap, and was delighted to see his room-mate get off so sharply and take his heat so easily. The first semi-final the boy ran against Sands, and beat him without difficulty; the second he took from Jordan by a narrower margin. Only in the final heat did he fail, when Jones, a middler, took first, and Travers second, with Phil a poor third.

“Good work, Poole!” said MacRae, a middler rooming in the same entry, who was just coming out for the thousand yards. “I only ask to do as well.”

But MacRae did better. He ran his race with twenty yards handicap, and finished first, close to the school record. The middlers grew enthusiastic.

“What a handicap!” said Dickinson reproachfully to Melvin, as he took his place on the scratch for the three hundred, and looked forward to the front man standing well around the curve. “I may as well not run.”

“It’s not too much for your best, old man,” replied the manager, confidently. “You never know what you can do till you try.”

Dickinson did not answer, for he was already on his mark with the tense, serious expression on his face which Dick liked to see. With the pistol report he was off, making a splendid start—which the manager, in a momentary flash of joy, contrasted with the hesitancy of the year before,—and whipping himself quickly into his stride. He passed Lord on the back stretch, Sandford on the straightaway at the end of the first lap, and then pushed for Von Gersdorf, who had made good use of his twenty yards start, and with his short stout legs flying under him, easily doubled the hard corners that delayed the pursuer. Von Gersdorf struck the final curve with Dickinson at his heels. On the curve short-legs gained. The two plunged into the final stretch with four yards of interval between them, short-legs panting ahead with quick staccato strokes, long-legs swinging again into the wide distance-devouring stride that looked as easy and natural as the piston motion of a fine engine, and yet was challenging muscle and nerve and heart to their utmost.

“Go it Gerty, go it!” shouted the middlers. “It’s yours!” Determined to hold his lead a second longer, Von Gersdorf dug his spikes into the soft board, made a final frantic spurt, and lifted his arms to meet the string with his breast—and found no string to meet. Dickinson had carried it away before him.

“What a race!” exclaimed Tompkins, as he sat with Varrell on the wall. “That’s what I call sport. I’d go miles to see that again!”

“What’s the time?” asked Curtis over the shoulders of the men who held the watches. “Beat it by two seconds? You don’t say so! and he pretended he couldn’t do anything on this track!”

Melvin helped the runner up the bank to the gymnasium, and bothered himself with neither the record nor the race. “How is the ankle?” was his first anxious question. “Did you feel it?”

“Not a bit!” stammered Dickinson, between gasps. “But the corners—are terrible. They stopped me—every time.”

The forty-five yard hurdles and the six hundred yard run came next. Todd won the hurdles from scratch: the six hundred went to Cary, a middler, who ran a steady race from a good start, Dickinson this time succumbing to the corners and the handicap, and finishing third.

The scene now changed to the gymnasium, where the last three events were to come off. “You fellows want to do something,” said Marks, coming over to the seat where Melvin, Varrell, and Curtis were sitting, ready for their events. “The middlers are beginning to crow already.”

“It doesn’t amount to anything,” answered Curtis, with a little sniff of contempt. “Anybody can beat a scratch man, if you give him enough handicap.”

“Of course,” rejoined Marks; “but they always were a fool class. Some of their men have done pretty well, too. It’s a bad thing for middlers to have a high opinion of themselves.”

“It didn’t hurt us last year,” said Melvin.

The pole vault was started, and Varrell nerved himself for his first public appearance. He looked at no one, for he could feel that curious questions were running among the spectators, and he feared to surprise discouraging comments on tell-tale lips. As he faced the bar in the familiar position, this fear vanished. He took his run, stuck his pole firmly into the soft plank, rose with a fine nervous spring, and swung himself lightly over. Even as he dropped, his courage came again. Conscious that his form was undeniably good, and aglow with the sense of reserve force, he now faced the on-lookers squarely, amused as he caught, on this lip and on that, comments not meant for his hearing:

“Not bad, after all.” “Pretty, wasn’t it?” “Corking good!” “Knows how, doesn’t he?” “Too slick to last.”

Others followed. The bar went up, nine feet, nine feet three. Varrell, who had three inches handicap, and Dearborn, scratch man, were now alone. Both men cleared nine feet six, which was four inches higher than Wrenn had ever reached. At nine seven he failed, and Dearborn just touched. The event was Varrell’s on his handicap.

“Fine, Wrenn,” said Melvin, giving his hand a good grip as he sat down. “Think of the little practice you’ve had compared with Dearborn. Your form was bully, too, and that’s important for improvement in pole vaulting. Oh, we two may become great prize winners yet. Here goes for my exhibition.”

He spoke with a smile on his lips, which made it clear that his last words were uttered in jest. Varrell looked after him rather enviously, as he took a few confident steps and went lightly over the bar at its first position. Melvin did not need to consider what the spectators might think of his audacity; nor to struggle to make a name for himself in school. A man with his athletic record and his rank and his general influence could afford to speak slightingly of a prize in a handicap meeting. To Varrell, who had hardly yet divested himself of the notion that he was still a stranger in the school, any prize that gave distinction would have been welcome. To win an important contest, to make a place for himself on some school team, to earn and wear a coveted “S,”—all this was a part of an unconfessed ambition. So he envied Dick, not for the honors which he had won, but for the ability which had enabled him to win them.

The jump took its wearisome course. At five feet the contestants began to drop out. Benson, the scratch man, and Melvin were alone able to clear five feet three. Both went over at five four; then Melvin failed and Benson, with a jump two inches higher, won first place.

“Another middler victory!” growled Marks, whose class patriotism was strident.

“I should have won,” said Dick, contentedly pulling on his sweater, “if I had taken the three inches they were going to give me. As Dickinson and I did the handicapping, we didn’t want to be charged with taking any unfair advantage, and so put ourselves down at scratch.”

“That’s well enough for Dickinson, but simply suicide for you. You’re just learning and Benson’s been at it ever since he’s been in school.”

“I should have liked to see him do six feet,” said Melvin, calmly. Marks muttered something unintelligible, and turned to Curtis. “Don’t you fail us anyway!”

Curtis nodded and grabbed the shot. His first put was close to the record, his second touched it, his third went ten inches beyond. That gave him a new record and the event, and put Marks again in good humor.

“John Curtis is the man for my money, as I’ve always said,” he announced significantly to Melvin. “He never goes back on you.”

“Didn’t Varrell and Dickinson do the same?” asked Melvin, amused for the instant at the peculiar point of view of this non-athletic sport, who was always prating athletic nonsense, and swaggering as an expert.

“Ye-es,” answered Marks, unwillingly; “but Dickinson balked in the six hundred. It’s all due to his folly about the track ends; they wouldn’t stop him if he wasn’t afraid.”

A look of indignation swept over Melvin’s face. His lips parted to let out a savage retort, but he suddenly checked himself, gave a sniff of amused contempt, and replied good humoredly, “Really, Marks, you ought to write a book on athletics to leave to the school when we graduate.”

And Marks went off, furious and voluble, to inform his listeners that Melvin’s athletic successes had entirely turned his head; the fellow was really nothing but a big chump after all.

CHAPTER XIV
UNDER TWO FLAGS

For an hour or two after the meeting was over the elated middlers made a good deal of noise with their yells and their cheering, to which no one objected except those who happened to want to study at this ill-chosen hour. Later a few leading spirits cast about for some more striking mode of proving their importance than the threadbare and laborious fashion of cheers. The class flag which the seniors, following a precedent, had displayed on the Academy tower very early on Washington’s birthday, had been seasonably and ignominiously removed by the conscientious boy who rang the Academy bell. The middlers concluded that the cleverest thing for them would be to hang their own class flag aloft on the day when the school was to break up for the spring recess,—the following Wednesday.

Boys are proverbially unskilled in keeping secrets. By Monday night the seniors knew of the middlers’ plan. By Tuesday night the middlers knew of the seniors’ plan, which was, of course, to anticipate their friends on Wednesday morning, and have the senior, not the middler banner, wave a farewell to the scattering school. The middlers then advanced the execution of their scheme several hours. Early Tuesday night instead of Wednesday morning, a daring middler, Tompkins by name, scaled the Academy roof, mounted the belfry, and fixed to the weather-vane the banner of his class. Then sliding down the lightning-rod again to the main roof of the building, he settled himself there for his hour’s vigil.

Report of this forward movement of the enemy was brought to Sands’s room early in the evening. He hastily summoned advisers; Melvin, Varrell, Curtis, Dickinson, Waters, Todd, and others whose names are not known to this story, gathered to his call.

Waters proposed to storm the watch immediately, change flags, and set a new guard. Melvin and Varrell objected vigorously to the plan as dangerous and foolhardy, and apparently were supported by the others. Dickinson then suggested that the wisest course would be to leave to the middlers their flag, their night-watch, and their victory.

“And have them gloat over us forever afterward?” said Sands. “Not on your life!”

“We should never hear the last of it,” said Todd, wondering how a fellow could be cold-blooded enough to suggest such a course,—but Dickinson always had been queer.

Marks and Reynolds now joined the company, and heard a report of proceedings.

“I agree with Dickinson,” said Melvin, renewing the discussion. “These class rows are dangerous things to start, for you can’t tell what the end will be. If we take down the middlers’ flag and put ours up, the middlers will set their hearts on getting back at us, and then the thing will seesaw back and forth until there’s serious trouble. We had a good example of that last year when Martin and his gang stopped the car.”

“If we let them get ahead of us in this, they’ll be encouraged to try something else,” remarked Curtis. “Hit ’em when you can, I say, only be sure you don’t miss. It’s worse to try and fail than not to try at all.”

“And on the other hand,” put in Varrell, quietly, “if you let them entirely alone and pay no attention at all to their doings, they will find no special credit in the thing. The easiest way to beat them is to let them alone.”

“What a sandless lot!” exclaimed Marks, in disgust. “Why don’t you come out square and say you’re afraid to do it?”

“Shut up, Marks,” ordered Sands, “or you’ll get into trouble.”

“A valiant man like Marks might do it alone,” said Melvin, stretching himself as he rose to his feet. “I shouldn’t think of interfering with his opportunity. Well, good night all; I’m going home to bed.”

Varrell and Dickinson joined him at the door. Curtis started to follow, but a significant wink from Sands detained him. “Good night,” he called after them, “I guess I won’t go just yet.”

Tompkins sat on the Academy roof, in coat and gloves, waiting and musing and shivering. The night was clear and moonless. The day had been warm; it was freezing again now. At eleven he heard below the welcome call of Benson, the relieving watch, and scuttled down to the ground as fast as his cold hands and stiff legs would allow. At twelve o’clock Bosworth took his turn. He got up with some difficulty, as he was little used to climbing, and pulled up after him by a string a voluminous ulster borrowed of a larger classmate, in which he rolled himself snugly, as he crouched at the base of the belfry where the lightning-rod reached up its side to the weather-vane above.

For a quarter of an hour complete silence reigned. Then the lone watcher became conscious of vague noises underneath, now at the side, now in front. With heart beating in quick heavy thumps, he freed himself from the ulster and crept around the belfry to the ridgepole that ran toward the front of the building, and along this to the peak of the gable. Projecting his head carefully over, he heard voices,—at first indistinct, then somewhat clearer.

He heard voices,—at first indistinct, then somewhat clearer.—Page 150.

Whatever the unknown persons were doing, they were very deliberate in their movements. Minutes had passed before he made out figures on the roof of the porch below. They waited here, and spent more time in muffled conversation, apparently discussing the method of scaling the wall above, which, as Bosworth said to himself reassuringly again and again as he clung shivering to the cold slates, was unscalable. At last the frost penetrated to his bones, making it obviously dangerous to lie longer in his cramped position. He was just about to grope his way back to his warm coat, when the figures on the porch began to be active again. He heard distinctly—it sounded like Curtis’s voice—“I say we can’t do it. We may as well go home as freeze here.”

A few minutes later the speakers seemed to be on the ground again. Presently their voices were lost in the sound of feet treading carefully the board walk that led to the street. Soon these sounds, too, had died away, and absolute stillness reigned again.

Numb with cold Bosworth crept back to his nook, and wrapped himself once more in the great coat, which he found in a heap by the foot of the lightning-rod. He was puzzled at this, for he had a distinct impression of crawling out of the coat, as a worm out of a cocoon, and leaving it spread on the roof behind him.

“It’s a vile job, anyway,” he groaned, “and I was a fool to let them drag me into it. I shall freeze to death here.”

But the hour was nearly over. He was just falling into a risky doze, when Dearborn’s call came up from below, and presently Dearborn himself startled him by appearing suddenly at the edge of the roof.

“All right up here?” asked the newcomer.

“I suppose so,” grumbled Bosworth, “if you can call it all right to have your legs and arms frozen off.”

“Seen anything or heard anything?”

Bosworth hesitated. The instructions of the leaders had been definite, “Signal at the first suspicious sound!” When the voices aroused him, his first impulse had been to give the preconcerted signal; but fear of being made the centre of a scuffle on the roof, or of being compelled to hold the fort at the foot of the lightning-rod until classmates gathered to the rescue, had kept his lips sealed.

“Well, what’s the matter with you?” snapped Dearborn. “Didn’t you hear what I said? You act as if you were asleep.”

“No, not a sound.”

“It seems to take a long time to get it out.”

Bosworth roused himself. “When you’ve been freezing as long as I have, you won’t be so anxious to talk yourself.”

“Give me the coat then,” replied Dearborn, grabbing it without more ado. “You can have it in the morning. Now clear out and go to bed. This is the hour when they come, if they come at all.”

So the watch changed hourly through the still, cold night. The last man aloft descended at six, just as the sun was peeping above the horizon. The cooks were already hard at work in the big kitchen of Carter Hall. Soon the boys who cared for the yard would be at their early tasks, and with the dormitories gradually waking it was no longer advisable to maintain the sentinel on the roof. Halfway between the Academy and Carter, the retiring guard met his two successors, who were to continue the watch between six and seven from the concealment of the gymnasium porch. Together the three looked proudly up at the bunch of white that hung limp between the east and north arms of the Academy weather-vane.

“There she is all right,” said Strout. “With the first puff of wind she’ll blow out and show herself.”

At seven the watch was over—the last watch. Not a senior had appeared. The middlers breakfasted early, then hung round the steps of Carter, waiting for the chapel bell.

“It’s coming!” cried Dearborn, holding up his finger in joyful anticipation. “And at the right time, too! See the tree-tops bend!”

Just as the dismal clang of the bell sounded out its first summons, when the boys, slowly sauntering forth from dormitory entries, were lazily reckoning up the minutes of liberty left to them before the final fatal stroke should cut off their entrance into chapel, the breeze struck the weather-vane, filled out the folds of the flag, and set it flapping vigorously.

“Three long ‘Seatons’ for the middle class!” shouted Strout, leaping out from the waiting group with cap in hand. “Make it good now, one, two, three—”

A groan from behind stopped him suddenly. The breeze had strengthened; the white flag was exposed in its full length and breadth; and it bore the numerals not of the middle, but of the senior class!

“Some mistake about that flag, isn’t there, Strout?” rang out Curtis’s voice from the steps. “You must have got a blind man to put that up.”

Strout returned neither look nor word, but he collared every sentinel before the first recitation and cross-examined him thoroughly. Every one, including Bosworth, swore that he had watched honestly and intently at the lightning-rod beside the belfry during his whole hour, and had heard nothing. Every one, except Bosworth, told the truth.

CHAPTER XV
ABOUT MANY THINGS

“Who did it, Dick?” asked Phil, later in the day, when the flag had been taken down, good-bys said, and the dormitories, emptied of those who were fortunate enough to be within easy distance of home, had ceased to resemble an anthill in its busy season.

“I don’t know,” replied Dick. “I can guess, and that’s all.”

“The fellows say Curtis and Sands were at the bottom of it. It seems rather silly business for such big fellows, doesn’t it?”

Dick laughed. Two seasons of rubbing against the varieties of Seaton life had not shaken Poole’s respect for proprieties or affected his natural dignity.

“What a venerable person you are! Sometimes you seem the oldest of us all. How old are you, anyway?”

“I’m fifteen and a half,” replied Poole. “I wish I seemed old to Sands,” he added mournfully. “Perhaps he’d give me a little better show if I did. He always acts as if I were a child.”

“Never mind how he acts,” said Melvin. “Make him take you whether he wants to or not. Study your game, and hang on till the last gun is fired.”

“I can’t very well hang on after he’s kicked me off,” said Phil, with a melancholy smile.

“Has he done that?”

“Not yet; it may be coming, though, when practice begins after vacation. The Coach will be here then.”

The senior leaned back in his desk chair with hands clasped behind his head, and gazed long and vacantly out of the window at the bare limbs and solid gray-brown trunks that lined the distant street. “You’ll make it sometime, I’m sure, Phil, for I think you have it in you; and if you want it hard enough, you’ll put it through. The only question in my mind is whether it will come this year or later. You have to get a start, and the start often depends on luck. I got on the football team the first year through a lucky chance.”

“You had something better than luck to help you,” rejoined Phil. “You had ability and brains.”

“Luck and energy were all I had to start with,” returned Dick, modestly. “The ability came gradually from experience, and I don’t think I used my brains until I took up kicking.”

Both were silent for a time, each intent on his own thoughts. Then the older boy began again.

“Look here, Phil, I’ll tell you something that I’m beginning to get hold of which isn’t to be got from any book, and yet is a fundamental principle of athletics. In every exercise that requires a skilled motion or great speed, you’ll find that there’s a peculiar kind of final snap or twist that gives the motion or the speed; and you’ve got to master this if you want the highest results. Without it a strong man is powerless, and with it a weak man often slips to the front. In punting it’s the final jerk of the knee which I had so much trouble in learning—don’t worry, I’m not going to begin on that again. In golf it’s a snap of the wrist; in shot-putting, of the arm and shoulder; in pole vaulting of the waist and arms,—and so on through the list. In gymnasium feats the same principle works. Just watch Guy Morgan when he does the ‘giant swing’ on the horizontal bar, and you’ll see that he gives a sudden jerk with his shoulders when he’s about three-quarters round, that carries him up to the top of the swing like a hawk rising at the end of a swoop. Now in baseball, I believe, that snap is hidden somewhere in every good throw and in every straight swing of the bat. Discover it and master it, and you won’t need to worry about making the school nine.”

“I suppose that explains how some of these fine hitters seem to strike easily and yet make the ball fly,” remarked Phil.

“Can’t you get a lot of batting practice this vacation, and so start in a little ahead when the others get back? I’ll pitch for you, if you want me to; it will be good exercise.”

Phil smiled: “I’m afraid you wouldn’t be of much use. I ought to have some one who really knows how to pitch.”

“That’s a fact,” rejoined Melvin, “and I can’t pitch at all. Couldn’t we scare up some one?”

“Did you ever hear of a man named Rowley, who used to play professional ball? He works in one of the factories now. I believe he was something of a pitcher before he broke down. Why shouldn’t I be able to get him to pitch for me?”

“Just the man!” cried Dick, briskly. “Let’s hunt him up right off.”

The boys finally succeeded in locating the residence of the Rowley family, and caught their man smoking his after-supper pipe before the door. He was a sallow person, with a goodly length of arms and legs strung to a lanky body by stout muscle-covered joints.

“Are you Mr. Jack Rowley, the ball-player?” asked Phil.

The man removed the pipe from his mouth and looked at the boys with interest. He admitted that he was Jack Rowley, but denied being a ball-player. He had been once, but wasn’t any longer.

“You could still pitch a little, couldn’t you?” asked Dick.

“A couple of innings, perhaps,” answered Rowley, “but I’m not up to a game. I’ve been out of it these three years. What d’ye want of me?”

“I want some practice in batting,” said Phil, “and I thought I might be able to get you to pitch for me half an hour a day for the next week.”

Rowley shook his head. “I’m in the mill all day from seven till six, except for the hour’s nooning, which I want to myself and to eat my dinner in peace and quiet.”

“How about after supper?” questioned Phil.

“It’s dark after supper,” grumbled Rowley, through the pipe-stem.

Phil looked at Dick in discouragement. Suddenly his face lighted up. “Why not before breakfast?” he said; “say from six to half-past? It’s only for a week, and I’ll pay you anything that’s reasonable.”

“Will you buy me a new arm to pitch with?” asked Rowley, with a rueful grin. “Mine is all wrenched to pieces with them cussed drops.”

“Isn’t there enough of it left to give this boy a week’s batting practice?” asked Melvin, anxious to secure the opportunity. “I’ll shack the balls.”

“There mightn’t be many to shack,” said Rowley, with a gleam of fun in his eyes.

He pondered some time, puffing vigorously, and shooting an occasional side glance at the waiting boy. “Well, I’ll try it once,” he said finally, “but mind ye, if me arm hurts, I’ll not do it, no,—not for ten dollars an hour. I was laid up a year with it once, and that’s enough for me.”

The boys had to turn out early next morning to keep their appointment at the practice ground, and they more than half expected to find that they alone kept it. But Rowley was there. He received them as before, with his pipe between his lips, but after a few throws into the net, he put the pipe away. As he warmed up, his thoughts returned to old channels, and with his shoots and drops he interlarded anecdotes of games and bits of shrewd counsel. He was unquestionably wild that first morning, and Phil’s practice was rather in waiting and dodging and facing courageously, than in picking out good balls.

“I’ll steady down in a day or two,” he said, as he pulled on his coat at the end of the half hour. So the boys knew that he had not thrown up the job.

The next day the pitching was better and the batting worse. It was not so easy to watch the ball when it took such sudden unexpected dives! Still Phil occasionally met them fairly, and each square hit gave him courage to wait for another. After a time Jack suggested trying bunts. “It’s a great thing for a left-hander to be able to bunt,” he said. “He has twice the chance to make first on one that a right-hander has.” And Phil tried this, too, with questionable success.

Day followed day and Rowley improved more than Phil, so that the progress of the latter did not show itself. “I’d like to have you for a month,” said the pitcher, as they settled their account at the end of the week. “I could teach you to bunt in a few lessons, and it’s a great thing to be a good bunter.”

Phil laughed. “You’ve said that fifty times. I want to be able to do something besides bunt. All the same, I’d like to have you pitch for me once or twice a week, Rowley. Can you do it?”

“Sure,” said Rowley, “but take my advice and learn to bunt.”

The boys came trooping back for the final stretch of the year. The baseball candidate went to work out-of-doors. As the field was still soft, the out-fielders had for the first time the chief attention of coach and captain; and Phil was sent chasing flies and long hits with the rest. He fared as well as the others perhaps, though his “eye” was not yet to be trusted, and he was nervous with an intense desire to do well. They all came up for batting practice later on, and Phil found the pitcher rather an easy mark after facing Rowley. He cracked out several easy chances in what seemed to him a thorough sort of way, but, to his disappointment, neither Sands nor Coach Lyford appeared to notice them.

That same day Melvin and Varrell walked down from their first out-door practice together.

“How about the safe robbery, Wrenn?” said Melvin, peering laughingly into his companion’s face. “It seems to me I haven’t heard much about that of late. Given it up as a bad job, haven’t you?”

“No, I haven’t,” replied Varrell, composedly. “I’m just waiting.”

“It’s easy enough to wait; I could do that myself. I thought you were going to do something.”

“I have done one thing,” rejoined the imperturbable Wrenn.

“What?”

“I’ve proved that the passage door can be opened by prying with the ice-chipper.”

“How?”

“By opening the door with it myself. You know that room wasn’t meant for a permanent office when it was first enclosed. The whole partition is more or less shaky.”

“I don’t see that that helps you much. You have no evidence against any particular person.”

“The evidence will come in time. That’s what I’m waiting for.”

“Where from, I’d like to know?”

“Perhaps from Eddy. He must know more than he’s told. He certainly lied to Grim and Moore.”

“I don’t believe Bosworth would trust anything to a little fool like him,” said Dick. “Eddy apparently told Bosworth the combination and then, when the news of the robbery came out, was too scared to acknowledge it. Having once lied, he would stick to it, because to such a little morally flabby idiot it would seem the easiest course.”

“And even if he confessed, it wouldn’t help matters,” went on Varrell, following out the argument, “for Bosworth would deny that he had paid any attention to what Eddy said, and there would be the end of it. No, we’ve got to get the information from Bosworth himself.”

“Are you going to tackle him with it outright?” demanded Dick, perplexed.

Varrell snorted in disgust.

“What a question! Of course I’m not. I’m going to wait, as I said before. This Bosworth lives in Cambridge. His mother keeps a boarding-house for students. He’s been thrown with these fellows, some of them probably fast men with plenty of money, who have patronized him and unintentionally filled his head with all sorts of wrong ideas. He’s learned to play poker and like fine clothes and spend money on himself and feel that to have money is to be happy and to be without it is to be wretched. Whatever he had left from the plunder of the safe he probably spent during the vacation. He told Marks of several things he’d done that must have taken money,—and he’ll soon be in need of more. This is an expensive term for those of us who have good allowances, with subscription duns and summer clothes to buy and all sorts of temptations to spend money. It will be harder for him, as he’ll come back without much cash, and will want to guzzle soda-water, and smoke, and perhaps try to worm himself into some society. I know such a fellow like a book. He’s got to have money, and he’ll get it dishonestly if he can’t honestly. His success with the safe will encourage him to something else.”

“To what?” asked Dick.

“How do I know? That’s what I’m waiting to see.”

CHAPTER XVI
PHIL MAKES HIS DÉBUT

“One strike!” called the umpire. Phil gripped the bat and waited. It was the first practice game, the scrub against the school. Phil had been put at left-field on the scrub; and he was now at bat nervously conscious that it was his first real trial, perhaps his only one, and that Sands was waiting for the pretext to fire him with the first batch of disappointed candidates. Tompkins was also on trial, and while he rubbed the damp ball into a state to grip decently for the next pitch, he considered whether he could afford to give the youngster an easy one to help him out, without interfering with his own reputation. Then he caught Sands’s signal as the crouching catcher wagged his hand between his knees, and answered it with an in-curve. No, there was no place in the Seaton game for favoritism. The boy must take his chance.

Phil’s bat came almost to the plate, but he stopped it short at the first veer of the ball. He had learned from Wallace to watch the ball, but it was Rowley who had taught him to detect the first sign of the veer.

“One ball!” shouted the umpire.

The next one was an out meant to swing over the plate. It swung too far, and Phil had to dodge to save himself, but he did it easily, stepping back just far enough to avoid the ball. There was no sign of fear in the movement.

“Hang a left-hander!” muttered Tompkins; and sent a straight ball over the corner of the plate a little below the shoulder.

With the instinct of a real ball-player Phil knew his ball and met it squarely, dropped the bat and scampered for first. He perceived as he ran that the second baseman jumped for it and missed it, and a moment later as he touched first he saw the centre-fielder stoop and then turn and run. He did not need the coacher’s advice to go down. By the time the centre-fielder got his hands on the ball, the runner was already beyond second; he slid to third with a fine dive, the prettiness of which was not spoiled by the fact that the slide was wholly unnecessary. At third he waited while the three men who followed him at bat went out in quick succession, two as victims of strikes, tempted to hit at balls they didn’t want, and one on a pop fly.

Sands threw down his mask and protector and joined the coach.

“That hit of Poole’s was the second made off Tompkins in five innings,” said the coach. “A pretty hit and a good slide. Too bad he’s so young, for he seems about the only man on your scrub team who stands up to the plate and keeps his head. He’s been up twice: the first time he got his base on balls; the second he made a hit.”

“He’s doing better than I expected,” said Sands. “Probably it’s his lucky day; but he’s too light and too green for us. He’ll make good material for about two years from now. We must have steady men for the Hillbury game or they’ll go to pieces. The strain’s terrific.”

“He’s had two fielding chances with one error,” said the coach, consulting his record. “Oh, yes, I remember; the error was on a long hit close by the foul line, but he got it back well to the in-field.”

In the sixth inning Robinson, second baseman on the first team, led off with a single over third. Maine, who was being tried at short, followed with a hot grounder to right-field, which the scrub-fielder let bounce past him, allowing the batsman to reach second and advancing Robinson to third; and Sands followed with a liner over the short-stop’s head that set the runners moving again. By some unaccountable instinct—he certainly had not seen enough of Sands’s playing to know the general direction of his hits—Phil had moved up toward the in-field. Suddenly he heard the crack of the bat, and saw the ball shooting straight toward him, apparently likely to strike a dozen yards ahead. Impulse drove him forward to meet it; intelligence, with tardier admonition, held him back. So he took a step forward, then several back, and just reached the ball as it skimmed above his head, and pulled it down.

It was a creditable catch, but more creditable still was the unhesitating, accurate throw to Rhines at third to cut off Robinson, who had started for home; for it was proof that the boy could think quickly and take advantage of the chances of the game.

Whatever the merit of quick thought, Rhines evidently lacked it; for he stupidly held the ball on third, without perceiving that the other base-runner was thirty feet from second, and might have been caught equally well. Smith, who was pitching, finally made it clear to him with expletives and yells, but the opportunity for the triple play had passed. Vincent went out on a pop fly to the pitcher, and the scrub came in triumphant.

The coach made another mental note in Phil’s favor. A catch may be by chance, a double play never. It was no great feat, but the boy could use his brains; that was worth remembering.

Phil’s side went out readily enough, one hitting to pitcher, one on a little fly to second, one on strikes. The first followed in similar fashion, and the scrub in their turn advanced no farther than second. It was still early in the season, and schoolboys are likely to be poor batters. The pitchers were the only men who had had any regular practice for their positions. Then with the return of the first to bat, came a set of in-field fumbles and wild throws, and general heedless passing of the ball around the diamond, that set the first to running recklessly, and drove the scrub to wilder errors. Such practice is as vicious for base-runners and coachers as for fielders.

“Stop, stop!” cried Lyford, running out into the diamond. The scrub short-stop had fumbled a grounder, and then after juggling the ball a second had thrown to first when it was quite impossible to catch the man; the first baseman had put it frantically across the diamond to Rhines six feet off the base, in a wild attempt to catch a runner at third; and Rhines had made haste to contribute his part to the general demoralization by throwing several feet over the second baseman’s head, in an equally hopeless effort to intercept the man speeding down to second.

“Give that ball to the pitcher,” shouted the coach, as the ball finally came back from the distant out-field, “and don’t do any more of this reckless tossing round the diamond. Until you can throw the ball straight, don’t throw it; and never throw unless you know what you’re trying to do.”

The scrub steadied down and put three men out,—two, including Taylor the left-fielder, being struck out by Smith, and the other sending an easy fly to the centre-field. Rhines then made a hit for the scrub, stole second, and was pushed on to third by an out. Newcomb sent an easy fly to Taylor, and Phil came up to bat with two men out and Rhines on third. This time Tompkins had no question as to the youngster. Phil struck once, had two balls and a strike called on him, and then, just holding the bat to meet the ball, and drawing it a little back rather than striking, dropped a pretty bunt near the side-lines, between third and home, and easily beat the ball to first. With Rhines on third, the boy stole second without fear; and then as Smith sent a bounder to right-field, he was off with the sharp start, rounded third at full speed, and came racing over the plate just before the ball reached the catcher’s hands. An easy strike out sent the scrub for the last time into the field.

Phil ran out to his place with a heart throbbing with joyful exhilaration. He had reached first every time he had come to bat,—once on balls, once on a genuine hit, once on a successful bunt. His fielding chances had been at least decently good. He had caught two flies, made one assist, and there was but one error against him. There was certainly nothing here to be ashamed of.

The first of the school batters went out on an easy in-field fly; the second reached first safely through an error by the fumbling short; the third got his base on balls; and the fourth hit to centre-field, filling the bases. Phil pulled his cap down tight over his head, blew on his fingers to keep them warm, and pondered what he should do with the ball if a fly came into his hands.

Tompkins came up to the plate. “Line it out, Tommy!” cried Sands. “A hit means two runs, a two bagger, three!”

One ball! One strike! Tompkins set his teeth and smashed at what he thought to be his chance. He hit hard, but he hit a trifle under, and the ball went up, up, up, going, it seemed to Phil, as if it never would stop. The short-stop staggered back with his eyes on the ball, but it was out of reach behind him.

“I’ll take it!” shouted Phil. He ran hard forward; then looked up and waited. How it wabbled! How it swung! How it changed its size in the air! He cleared his eyes with a wink; the next instant the ball was in his hands.

A moment only he staggered for better footing; then as he saw the runner cut loose from third and dash for the home, he set himself for a throw. The catcher stood on the plate and waited dutifully but hopelessly, ready to leap to either side for the wild throw from the field. To his surprise he did not need to stir from his tracks. The ball came directly toward him,—a long straight line throw,—made an easy bound, and landed in his hands just as the runner came within reach.

“Out!” cried the umpire. “By a mile,” added Tompkins under his breath. “Bully for the kid! That’s a throw a professional wouldn’t be ashamed of.”

During the last half of the ninth, Phil sat on the bench enjoying the compliments of his associates, and cared not a whit whether the scrub batters reached first or not. As a matter of fact, they went out as quickly and easily as three timid batters could go; and Phil, his ears tingling with a commendation from Sands, and a warning from the coach as to taking care of himself after the game, that was more delightfully significant than the captain’s good word, trotted gayly down to the gymnasium for his bath and rub-down and a change of clothes.

Half an hour later he rushed in on Melvin, who had just come in from a trip up the river in Varrell’s canoe.

“What luck, Phil?”

“Luck indeed! Nothing but luck! I helped in two double plays, caught two flies, made two hits and only one error. Lyford was cordial, and even Sands gave me a compliment.”

“That is a record. You remember what I said about my getting a start by luck; you’ve beaten me in luck, anyway.”

The boy’s face fell. “But you got on the team and I shan’t, that’s the difference. Sands thinks I’m too young, and it will make no difference whether I play well or not, he won’t take me on.”

“Has he told you so?”

“No, but I suspect it, and I’m pretty sure I’m right.”

“Nonsense,” said Melvin. “He’ll take you if you’re the best man, or I don’t know Sands. Only bear in mind that you’ve had a lucky day, and the first practice game isn’t enough to prove anything. You’ve won the first heat, but don’t get a swelled head over it, or you’ll win no more.”

At the same time Sands and Coach Lyford were lingering on the gymnasium steps, in the midst of a conversation on the very same subject.

“The little chap did well,” Sands was saying; “I don’t dispute that. He’s a clever little player. What we want is a big player, a hard, experienced, steady man who can swat the ball for two or three bases when he hits it, and can stand the strain of the season without going up in the air.”

“I’d rather have a man that can hit often than one who sometimes hits hard,” replied the coach; “and as for throwing, give me brains and skill rather than muscle behind a ball any time. There is good baseball in the boy, and you ought not to discourage him. I don’t ask you to put him on the team; keep him as substitute if you wish, but watch him and help him and see what you can make of him.”

So it happened that Phil was retained as substitute when the great majority of the candidates were dropped. Some said he ought to be on the team, some that it was gross favoritism not to fire him with the rest; but Phil himself was content to sit and watch, and do what he was told, and play when he had a chance with all the earnestness and strength and skill he had. And twice a week he turned out early for the six o’clock practice with Rowley.

CHAPTER XVII
A NOCTURNAL MYSTERY

For weeks Phil sat on the bench, a perpetual substitute, getting plenty of practice on practice days in all sorts of positions where he was useful, but always seeing others go into the game. The fielders that year were a remarkably healthy lot; they played game after game without accident or illness. Taylor, whose position at left-field Phil coveted, was playing his second year on the team, and felt his importance as a veteran who had already been tested under fire in a Hillbury game. He had the name of being a great hitter, and though his work during the season so far had not borne out this reputation, he occasionally made long drives that delighted the great mass of student supporters whose admiration is as intense as it is fitful. He was a safe catch on flies, and now and then did spectacular feats that had the same effect on the spectators as the occasional three-baggers. He had also acquired a striking way of opening his hands for the ball, which his admirers called an “awfully graceful catch”; and he took much apparent satisfaction in his general bearing and clothes. The other fielders, Vincent at right and Sudbury at centre, were steady, hard-working fellows, who did their duty at bat and in the field to the best of their ability, and did not know or care whether any one looked at them or not.

Curtis sat watching the play one Saturday afternoon, with Marks on the seat beside him emitting deep gulps of cigarette smoke and the usual unbroken stream of baseball chatter. It was a game with a team from one of the smaller colleges, which had defeated Hillbury eight to four and was now threatening to shut Seaton out altogether.

“What a fool that Taylor is!” said Curtis. “He’s just struck out again, and now pretends the umpire is unfair! That’s to save his face. I wonder why Sands doesn’t try some other man.”

“Some other man!” cried Marks, for a brief instant speechless with astonishment. “Why, he made a home run in the Colby game, and he’s about the prettiest fielder on the team.”

“Oh, yes; he’s pretty enough,” returned Curtis, “and knows it, too, but I’d have some other quality than prettiness on the field if the team were mine.”

“Well, he gets the balls,—that’s the main thing,” said Marks. “You’ll find few errors against his name.”

“Do you know why?” returned Curtis. “He never tries for a ball unless he’s sure he can get it. It’s easy enough to get a fielding record when you never take any hard chances.”

“But he does,” insisted Marks. “Don’t you remember the long running catch he made in the Musgrove School game?”

“Yes, I do,” replied Curtis; “and he held the ball, admiring himself, for four seconds afterward and let the man on third walk home.”

“You’re down on him,” said Marks, not knowing what else to reply.

Curtis sniffed. “Down on him! Well, perhaps I am. Perhaps it would be better if he were down on himself. When I see him try hard for balls that he can’t get, or make some good long throws right when they’re needed, or slide hard to bases, or make a good sacrifice hit, then I’ll change my opinion.”

“Tompkins has improved, hasn’t he?” said Marks, suddenly changing to a fresh subject. John Curtis was not an agreeable person to argue with, for he held his opinions tenaciously and had unpleasant things to say to those who held opposing views; and Marks, who argued on athletics in a very fluent and confident style when he had laymen like himself to deal with, felt a little shy before a real athlete, even though the sport under discussion was not that in which the athlete excelled.

“That’s right,” replied Curtis, “no great genius with curves, I judge, but he has good control and uses his head. The difficulty with him is that he’s a fool, too.”

Marks looked curiously into the football player’s face.

“Apparently every one’s a fool to-day,—every one, I suppose, but John Curtis.”

“We’ll except present company,—for the sake of politeness,” responded Curtis, with a malicious smile hovering about his lips. Marks always bored him. “Tompkins is a fool, but not of the silly, show-off kind like Taylor. He’s got the stuff in him to make a good pitcher and a chance to distinguish himself by winning the Hillbury game; but he doesn’t care a rap whether he pitches or not, and he doesn’t behave himself as he ought.”

“I don’t understand that. He seems very regular in his training and practice. He always works hard out here, I’m sure.”

“Oh, I don’t mean that,” Curtis made haste to reply. “Tommy is straight; he’ll do what he agrees to,—a good deal better than your friend Taylor. The trouble with Tommy is that he’s always trying fool tricks, like a small boy in a grammar school. Some day he’ll go too far, and then there’ll be an end of Tommy. Sands ought to sit on him.”

“Sands tries to, but it doesn’t do any good,” replied Marks. “He doesn’t care for Sands.”

“Isn’t there some one he does care for?” asked Curtis.

“The only fellow he seems to think anything of is Melvin, the truly good,” answered Marks, with a sneer. “No one else has any influence over him, and I doubt if Melvin can make any impression on him. Tommy is altogether too nutty.”

That night Curtis and Sands appeared at Melvin’s room with serious faces. Dick heard their tale in silence.

“I’ll tell you what I should do,” he said at length. “I’d give him a good warning and then I’d fill his place, pitcher or no pitcher. If he can’t keep out of scrapes, he’s bound to go sooner or later; and if he’s surely going, the longer you wait the worse it will be. No fellow who won’t take responsibility or won’t keep training belongs on a Seaton team, anyway.”

Sands shook his head dolefully. “That’s all very well in theory, but you can’t make pitchers to order, and Tommy is our only good one. He works hard, too, uses his head well and improves right along. If he could only be kept out of mischief, I couldn’t ask for a better man.”

“And we thought you might have some influence with him,” said Curtis, coming in his usual fashion directly to the point. “Won’t you tackle him, and see if you can’t get some sense into his head?”

“I’ll see what I can do,” replied Melvin, “but I don’t think it pays to plead with people. It gives them the swelled head.”

The two visitors departed and Melvin buried himself in his books. Soon, however, he was interrupted again, this time by a very faint and timid knock.

“Hello, Littlefield,” he called to the slender, pale-faced boy, a year or two younger than Phil, who slipped in and closed the door carefully behind him. “Anything wrong?”

“They were at it again last night,” said the boy, with a look in which shame and fear were curiously blended. “They couldn’t get in because I had fixed the window so it couldn’t be opened enough to let any one in; but they banged something against the outside that frightened me pretty badly for a few minutes.”

“Did you go to sleep again?”

“Yes, after a while. I heard the clock strike two and three.”

“That’s better than you did the first time you were disturbed.”

“Oh, yes; the time the fellow stuck his head in at midnight and gave that unearthly yell, I had a terrible shock. I don’t think I slept a wink that night.”

“I wish we knew when these visitors were likely to appear again,” said Dick, thoughtfully. “We might have some fun ourselves.”

“I think they are coming to-night,” said Littlefield.

“What makes you think so?”

“The stick I fixed to lock my window is gone; it held the sashes just the right distance apart. That’s not much of a reason, I know, but I have a feeling that they will come to-night.”

“What makes you think it is ‘they’?” asked the senior.

“I don’t. I say ‘they,’ but it may be only one.”

“I’m inclined to think it’s one. Whoever it is, he comes on that projecting ledge, and there’s barely room on it for one. Don’t you want to swap rooms with me to-night? You take my bed, and I’ll try yours.”

A look of delight flashed suddenly upon the boy’s face. “And let them find you instead of me! They won’t like that! What shall you do if they come?”

“I’ll wait and see,” said Melvin.

“Perhaps you won’t mind it,” said the boy, with the worried expression coming back into his eyes. “If I were stronger, I suppose I shouldn’t. But it isn’t pleasant to wake up suddenly and hear some one trying to open your window, or feel in the darkness that there may be a person in the room. It spoils your sleep, and makes you so nervous you can’t do any good work. And yet I know it’s a kind of a joke, and I ought not to let it worry me.”

“A mighty poor joke!” said Phil, who had come in during the conversation. “A good ducking in Salt River would be the proper price for such fun! Why don’t you set a steel trap and catch him like any other rat?”

“Let’s try my scheme first,” said Melvin. “When you’re ready, Littlefield, come in and take my bed. I shan’t turn in for an hour yet.”

The Academy through the trees.

CHAPTER XVIII
A SPILLED PITCHER

Littlefield crept into Melvin’s bed that night with a sense of security that he had not felt for weeks, and was soon in a deep, restful sleep. Melvin undressed in his own room, and then slipped across the hall in pajamas to the little Prep’s room, turned on the electric light, and surveyed the field. His first act was to clear away the lighter furniture, so as to leave an open space about the window at which the disturbance was wont to occur. Then he filled two pitchers with water and placed them in convenient positions, one close to the corner of the bed, the other against the wall opposite. When this was done, he adjusted the window-sashes after the usual arrangement, and at the top of the lower sash, in the corner nearest the bed, fastened a nail. To this he attached one end of a string, and taking the other end with him as he jumped into bed, he drew it tight and tied it to his finger.

“Now if I can only keep my hand quiet,” he thought as he lay down, “any movement of the window ought to rouse me; but I suppose I shall begin to roll as soon as I am asleep, and get the string loose, or wake myself a dozen times for nothing. I’ll give it a trial, anyway.”

Healthy and unworried, Dick fell asleep almost as soon as his head touched the pillow. In his sleep he turned slightly in bed and threw one arm above his head, so that the pressure of the cord on his finger made itself felt. The pressure occasioned a dream, and the dream at length brought him back to consciousness. He seemed to be struggling vainly to free himself from one of the gymnasium rings, to which he was hanging by a single finger. He squirmed and twisted and strove to cast it off, but despite his struggles the ring still clung to the finger, and the finger still clutched the ring. He awoke with a frightened start, relieved to discover that he was free from the ugly predicament, yet still under the spell of the vague terror of the vision. With quickened breath and straining ears, he listened to make sure there was no other reason for his waking. Except for the distant, labored puffing of a night freight, as it worked its way through the edge of the town, the silence was absolute.

Muttering reproaches to himself for the undefined dread that crept into his heart as he felt the depressing influence of the darkness and quiet, and the solitary waiting for an unknown assailant, he turned over and settled himself once more in a comfortable position for sleeping. The rumbling of the ponderous train died gradually away in the distance, leaving a stillness unnatural and oppressive.

“I don’t wonder that the little chap’s nerves are unstrung,” thought Dick. “I can feel my heart throb all over my body.”

The watcher’s nervous tension gradually slackened, and he was just falling into a doze, when the scrape of a rubber sole on a stone surface brought him instantly to attention, as the nodding fisherman starts with the first tug at his line. The sound came clear in the dead silence, repeated at close intervals as the mysterious visitor crept along the ledge, setting foot after foot slowly and carefully in place.

At the first distinct noise Melvin had lifted himself upright in bed and listened intently and fearfully, with his heart madly thumping. Then as the steps drew nearer, and he realized that the opportunity which he had longed for was really to be granted, that the perpetrator of the crazy night pranks would soon be delivered into his hand, the uncanny spell of the night was instantly broken. Throwing off the useless noose from his finger, he slipped out of bed, and took his stand close to the wall beside the window.

It was a moonless night of flying clouds, and Melvin, peeping round the window casing, could barely distinguish the vague outline of the man outside, who, clinging to the window stops, was now trying to raise the lower sash.

“I’ll bet I know you, you lunatic!” thought Melvin, drawing back as the sash slowly lifted. “We’ll see who has the fun out of this night’s adventure.”

The visitor now had the window high enough to admit his head and shoulders; Melvin could hear the shirt scrape against the bottom of the sash as the intruder worked himself cautiously in. From this sound, as well as the noise of breathing, the waiting senior knew that his quarry was within the room as far as the waist. Was this the time to strike? Would the fellow come in still farther, or merely yell and withdraw beyond reach? In a flash Dick considered the question and came to his decision.

The intruder paused, listening for a sound from the bed. Then Dick heard the drawing of a long deep breath, and knew what it meant. A groan, awesome and sepulchral, broke the nocturnal stillness, then suddenly choked and ended in a gasp. Two strong arms caught the prowler’s waist like the jaws of a steel trap, and jerked the floundering legs through the window into the room.

Both went down together to the floor, when with the recollection that the owner of the room could not really be a very powerful adversary, the intruder recovered his presence of mind and fighting spirit. Sure of his prey, Dick let himself be rolled toward the side of the room where one of the pitchers stood; then with a quick wrestler’s turn he twisted himself on top, found the pitcher and emptied it on his enemy’s head.

While the prostrate boy gulped and sputtered and coughed, Melvin freed himself and groped his way to the electric light.

“I thought so,” he said coolly, as the light flashed upon Tompkins’s dripping head and the pool on the floor. “Come, my wild Western Injun, Brave-Man-not-afraid-of-the-Dark, who makes a specialty of frightening little boys! Take that towel and help mop up this water.”

They worked for a few minutes without a word. When the task was finished, Melvin tossed Tompkins a steamer rug from Littlefield’s sofa, and pointed to a chair.

“Wrap yourself up and sit down. This thing has got to be straightened out before we part. What have you to say for yourself?”

“Nothing.” Tompkins spoke for the first time.

“Great sport, isn’t it, to scare a timid little chap into brain fever! I always thought you were half fool, but I never knew before that you were such a coward.”

“I’m not a coward!” retorted Tompkins, aroused. “I didn’t mean to hurt the boy, I was just having a little fun.”

“Why didn’t you try it on me then, or some other fellow of your size?”

“It wouldn’t have been any fun.”

“And for the sake of your amusement you keep Littlefield in fear of his life for weeks. If that isn’t cowardly, what is it?”

“It’s selfish, I admit,” said Tompkins, soberly, “and mean, but not cowardly.”

“Call it selfish and mean, then,” continued Melvin, “if you prefer. Here you are chosen by the school to be pitcher on the nine, a position of honor and responsibility, and you behave like a monkey, doing all sorts of fool tricks, any one of which the Faculty would think ample reason for firing you. What do you call that? It seems to me like a breach of trust.”

“I don’t know,” answered the culprit.

“It’s just as if some one were to give you a thousand dollars to keep for him and you agreed to take care of it, and then spent it for your amusement.”

To this Tompkins said nothing at all. The senior paused a minute for a reply, and then continued: “And the worst thing about you is that you have no sense or conscience and never will have any. You aren’t bad; you’re just childish and selfish. But you have apparently set your heart on getting expelled, and your best friend can’t stop you. It’s really foolish in me to stand here talking to you at two o’clock in the morning. You can’t reform, or if you can, you won’t.”

With disgust stamped on every feature, Melvin turned to look at his watch. When he raised his eyes again, Tompkins was on his feet.

“Yes, I’m a fool, Dick Melvin, I don’t deny it; but I’m not a hopeless case. I can’t become a school balance wheel like you, but you won’t catch me in another scrape this year.”

“Do you mean it?” demanded the senior, with a sharp glance at the speaker’s face.

“I do. I’ll make it right with Littlefield,—and you see if I get into trouble again.”

Dick held out his hand, and gave the other a cordial clasp, but all he said was: “Clear out, then, and let me go to sleep. I’ll believe in the reform when I see it.”

Next morning Melvin waked to find Littlefield standing at his bedside.

“Come, get up,” said the boy, with a grin, “it’s only ten minutes to breakfast. What did you do with the water pitchers?”

On his way to chapel half an hour later Melvin suddenly felt Varrell’s grip on his arm.

“Well, Dick, it has happened!”

“What?”

“The thing that I said would happen. The stealing has begun again. Some one has taken ten dollars from Durand’s bureau drawer.”

“But Durand’s room is in the other entry.”

“That makes no difference. You can reach all the entries through the basement.”

CHAPTER XIX
THE COVETED OPPORTUNITY

“I’ll match you for ice-cream soda, Bosworth,” said Marks.

“All right,” replied Bosworth, cheerfully, as he flipped the coin with a skill born of experience. “Heads it is. I’ll pay, come on. Two ice-cream sodas, Sam.”

The clerk filled the glasses to the accompaniment of remarks on the ball games. Sam knew his business; agreeable conversation was served gratis at the counter with all soda orders. For fellows like Marks this made no great demand on the server’s originality.

“Taylor didn’t get his home run on Saturday,” remarked the clerk, gazing out of the window at the passers-by.

“No, he didn’t,” replied Marks. “I don’t know what’s got into Walt. He hasn’t made a long drive in two games.”

“Getting stale, perhaps,” said the clerk, who had only a dim idea as to what “stale” meant, but fancied the word.

“A little too sure,” said Marks. “He’ll take a brace before the Hillbury game.”

“Tompkins is making quite a pitcher.” The clerk offered the suggestion indifferently. There were two opinions as to Tompkins among his patrons.

“I don’t know about that,” answered Marks, with a knowing tilt of his head. “Tompkins isn’t anything great when he’s at his best, and when he’s poor, he’s no good at all. He’s got a good drop and an underhand rise, and the usual out and in, but that’s about all.”

“It’s Sands who really does the pitching,” added Bosworth, draining his glass. “Sands tells him exactly where to put the ball, and all the pitcher has to do is to follow his directions. There’s no great credit in that.”

The clerk was about to remark that to put the ball where it was wanted required some ability, but on second thought concluded that he had given his customers their money’s worth, and remained silent. Bosworth was going through his pockets.

“I thought I had a quarter,” he murmured, a little confused.

Marks displayed no interest in the search. He had change in his purse, but it was late in the season to lend. Besides, he did not want to lend twenty cents: it was too small a sum to ask back again.

“I shall have to break a bill, then,” said Bosworth, drawing out a ten-dollar note from his waistcoat pocket.

“You’re lucky!” said Marks, opening his eyes. “I’ve only two dollars left, and it’s ten days to my next allowance.”

The clerk changed the bill with his usual nonchalant air, and turned his attention to more interesting customers. The two boys sauntered out.

In front of the store they met Poole. Bosworth gave him a stare, and Marks a cool nod, which Phil returned as coolly.

“He has cheek, that cub, to try for the nine,” said Marks. “I told Sands he was a fool not to fire him long ago.”

“He’s Melvin’s room-mate,” returned Bosworth, in a spiteful tone. “These athletic fellows hang together. I shall be surprised if they don’t work the little lamb in somewhere.”

“Not Sands,” replied Marks. “Favoritism doesn’t go down with him. There’s been a lot of talk about it, though. I’ve heard fellows say that the kid was the best thrower in the out-field, and pretend that Lyford thought so, too. I heard Lyford say one day that Poole was the only man playing who knew how to bunt; but that’s nothing. I don’t believe they’ll be likely to put out big husky fellows like Vincent and Sudbury and Taylor, who are good for long hits, for a little bantam that can only bunt.”

Bosworth, less interested in baseball than in cultivating the acquaintance of a man whom he thought popular, drew out his watch.

“I must be getting home,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of Latin to work out before twelve o’clock.”

Marks sniffed: “Work out! Still doing that, are you? Come up to my room and I’ll lend you a trot. I’ve got a whole stableful,—Bohns, Interlinears, Teachers’ Editions, Hinds and Noble,—whatever you want. It’s the best collection in town.”

On Wednesday the nine played the Harvard Second. Phil sat on the bench as usual, waiting for the chance that never came, amusing himself by guessing from the attitude of the players at the bat where their hits would be, and planning the position he should take in left-field, if he were playing, for the various men. Ordinarily, when a visiting nine had already played Hillbury, he contrived to strike up a conversation with the pitcher or some of the fielders, and learn if possible where and how the various Hillbury batters had hit. To-day the players from the University had seemed so imposing—one of them was a famous Varsity half-back—that the boy had not yet mustered courage to accost them.

By this process of questioning visiting teams, Phil had gathered a very considerable fund of information about the peculiarities of the individuals who made up the Hillbury team. The pitchers contributed most to this fund, for they were often able to recall clearly just what kind of balls had deceived the respective Hillbury batsmen, and what had proved unsuccessful. One was easily caught by a sharp drop, another could not hit a fast straight ball kept high, still another was regularly fooled by a change of pace. All these discoveries, with other facts culled from newspaper accounts, went down in the baseball note-book which Phil had started early in the winter, but no one except Dick had yet seen. He meant in time to submit the results to Sands and Tompkins; at present he was still collecting facts.

The game was already past the fourth inning, without a run scored on either side. The visitors had twice got a man as far as second base, once on a fumble by Hayes, the short-stop, and a hit to centre-field; once on a long drive to left-field close to the line, which Taylor ran for but did not reach. Tompkins was getting acquainted with the batters. He had his own way of testing a new man. First he tried to drive him away from the plate by a ball close in. If the batsman pulled away, he was sure he was pitching to a timid man, and caught him on an assortment of swift curves; if, on the other hand, the batsman declined to pull away, Tompkins knew that he had to do with a cool, determined hitter who would probably be able to detect the curve on the break, and meet it squarely. To such dangerous men he gave his best drops and worked high and low straight balls with a change of pace. So far his method had been successful with the visitors.

Taylor came in at the beginning of the fifth with a pale face. “I’m afraid I can’t finish out, Archie,” he said to Sands. “I feel so blamed sick I can hardly stand.”

“What’s the matter?” demanded Sands, with little show of sympathy.

“My stomach’s out of order, I think,” groaned Taylor. “I haven’t been well all day.”

“What have you been putting into it?”

“Nothing,—that is, nothing unusual.”

Sands peered at him for an instant questioningly. “Well, then, go home and lie down. Here, Poole, take Taylor’s place. You’re up next.”

The blood rushed to Phil’s face; his pulse began to leap in excited throbs. He was to have a chance in a real game,—a hard game, too! He bent over the pile of bats to choose his favorite, glad of an opportunity to hide his confusion, and a little afraid of hearing unfriendly criticism.

“Now’s your chance to show what’s in you, Phil,” said Watson, the third baseman, who liked the boy. “You can hit him all right.”

“Stand up to the plate,” warned Sands, “and don’t let him frighten you. Manning isn’t as bad as he looks.”

Sudbury had two strikes called on him, then hit a liner over second.

“Now, Phil,” said Tompkins, quietly, “you know what we expect of you.”

Poole planted his left foot firmly beside the plate, raised his bat, and waited, wondering whether Manning would try on him the method Tompkins used for new men. The pitcher wound himself up with the usual absurd motion, and sent a ball whistling hot, that veered suddenly off the plate. Phil smiled to himself and gripped the bat more firmly. “No, I’ll not bite at any such,” he said to himself. “Old Rowley has given me too many of them.” Next came a drop, but it was low. “Two balls!” Then one close in, which the batter hesitated on and then let pass. This was also called a ball. The next was straight and fast.

“I know you,” thought Phil, and swung straight at it, meeting the ball fairly “on the nose.” As he sped exultantly away to first, he saw the ball cutting a line well above the first baseman’s head. Knowing that the hit was good for two bases at least, he rounded first with all his attention centred on his running, passed second, and then, looking for the ball for the first time and seeing the right-fielder just about to throw, he went on easily to third, where Watson caught him by the shoulders and made him pause. Sudbury was already back upon the bench.

“Splendid!” exclaimed Watson. “I always said you could do it. Bring your fielding to that level, and you’ll get your ‘S.’”

Sands went out on strikes; Waddington hit a long fly to centre, which the Harvard fielder got under without much exertion and secured. He threw it in with all the speed he could, but Phil, who was waiting on the bag for the ball to touch the fielder’s hands, was off with the Harvard man’s first motion, and easily beat the ball to the plate.

“Why didn’t he throw to second, and let second throw it home?” inquired Tompkins of the coach. “Wouldn’t that have been quicker?”

“I think so, at that distance,” said Lyford. “The great out-fielder makes a single long throw, but with players of average ability two quick line throws will bring the ball in sooner and more accurately.”

Hayes hit to second base and made the third man out. The Seatonians trotted contentedly away to their positions; they were sure of two runs, anyway.

Out at left Phil was abandoned to his own devices. Either because he wanted to try the player, or because he had no distinct notion as to where the batter was likely to hit, Sands gave no hint as to the best position for the fielder to take. As Hawkins, the second baseman, who led the batting list, stood boldly up to the plate as if he were longing to pound the first ball pitched, Phil took a position well out, drawing, he knew not why, somewhat toward the side-lines. Hawkins did pound the first ball pitched, but he struck a trifle too soon, and a little underneath. The result was a beautiful high foul over by the benches on the edge of the field. Instinctively, as the ball rose, the left-fielder started. It fell easily into his hands ten yards outside the foul line. The second batter went out on a grounder to Watson. The next man up sent a fly between centre and left, which Poole, who was nearer, also took. In five minutes Seaton was at bat again.

In the sixth and seventh neither side scored, though the collegians repeatedly got men on bases, and Phil captured another fly, this time in short out-field. In the eighth the visitors, through an error by Robinson, and hard hitting, succeeded in tying the score.

The schoolboys came in for the last inning a little depressed. Hillbury had beaten the Harvard Second six to four. If their rivals had made six runs, in the face of a good pitcher like Manning, while Seaton could make but two, the inference was obvious. With three balls called, Robinson went out on strikes. Watson got his base on balls. Sudbury made his second hit,—a clean drive to centre, advancing Watson to third. Phil took his bat and started for the plate.

“Bunt the first one and let Watson come home,” said Lyford, as Phil passed him.

“I can bunt a low ball,” said Phil, “but what shall I do if it comes high?”

“Hit it out,” said Lyford.

There were calls for the batter, and Phil hurried to his position, took a firm stand, and waited. The first one was low and a little wide, but Phil reached over to meet it, and dropped it along the side-lines halfway between home and third. The same instant he was off, running with all his might for first. Watson had started at half speed with the pitch, and on the bunt came on with all his strength, reaching home just as the pitcher picked up the ball. Meantime Phil, with his left-hander’s start, was safe at first when the pitcher threw to cut him off, and Sudbury went on to third.

The schoolboys on the benches cheered loudly at the successful play, breaking suddenly off to watch the next move. Sands hit at the first ball pitched and sent a grounder to the third baseman, who fumbled just long enough to prevent his throw to first. Then came two strikes on Waddington in quick succession. Sands gave the signal for a double steal, and on the next pitch started hard for second, and Phil a trifle later for third. The Harvard catcher hesitated, then threw to third; but in his haste he threw a little wide and the boy slid safely. Waddington went out on strikes, and Hayes took his place.