Kingsford, Quarter

THE GREAT GAME.

Kingsford, Quarter

By

Ralph Henry Barbour

Author of “The Crimson Sweater,” “Tom, Dick, and Harriet,”
“Harry’s Island,” “Captain Chub,” etc.

With Illustrations

By C. M. Relyea

New York
The Century Co.
1910

Copyright, 1909, 1910, by
The Century Co.

Published September, 1910

Electrotyped and Printed by
C. H. Simonds & Co., Boston

TO

CARLETON NOYES

AS A TOKEN OF A
LONG FRIENDSHIP

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

KINGSFORD, QUARTER

[CHAPTER I]
EVAN HAPPENS IN

Evan climbed the second flight of stairs, pulling his bag heavily behind him. For the last quarter of an hour he had been wishing that he had packed fewer books in it. At the station he had stopped to telegraph to his family announcing his safe arrival at Riverport, and so had lost the stage to school and had walked a full mile and a quarter. That is ordinarily no task for a well-set-up, strong lad of fifteen years, but when he is burdened with a large suit-case containing no end of books and boots and other stuff that ought to be in his trunk, and when the last half-mile is steadily uphill, it makes a difference. Evan was aware of the difference.

At the top of the final flight he set the bag down and looked speculatively up and down the long, dim hallway. In front of him the closed door was numbered 24. At the office they had assigned him to 36 Holden. He had found the dormitory without difficulty, and now he had only to find 36. He wondered which way the numbers ran. That he wasn’t alone up here on the second floor was evident, for from behind closed doors and opened doors came the sound of much talking and laughter. While he stood there resting his tired arms, the portal of number 24 was flung open, and a tall youth in his shirt-sleeves confronted him. Behind the tall youth the room seemed at first glance to be simply seething with boys.

“Where is room 36, please?” asked Evan.

“Thirty-six?” The other considered the question with a broad smile. Then, instead of answering, he turned toward the room. “Say, fellows, here’s a new one. Come and have a look. It’ll do you no end of good.”

In a second the doorway was filled with curious, grinning faces. Perhaps if Evan hadn’t been so tired he would have accepted the situation with better humor. As it was, he lifted his suit-case and turned away with a scowl.

“He doesn’t like us!” wailed a voice. “Ah, woe is me!”

“Where’s he going?” asked another. “Tarry, stranger, and—”

“He wants 36,” said the tall youth. “Who’s in 36, somebody?”

“Nobody. Tupper had it last year; he and Andy Long.”

“Say, kid, 36 is at the other end of the hall. But don’t scowl at me like that, or I’ll come out there and give you something to be peevish about.”

Evan, obeying directions, turned and passed the group again in search of his room. He paid no heed to the challenge, for he was much too tired to get really angry. But he didn’t take the scowl from his face, and the boy in the doorway saw it.

[“Look pleasant, kid,” he continued threateningly]. He pushed his way through the laughing group and overtook Evan a little way down the hall. He was a big chap, good-looking in a heavy way, and seemed to be about seventeen years old. He placed a hand on Evan’s shoulder and with a quick jerk swung him around with his back to the wall. Evan dropped his bag and raised his hands defensively.

“What do you want?” he demanded.

“Didn’t I tell you to look pleasant?” growled his tormentor, with an ugly grin on his features. “Didn’t I? Well, do it!”

“You let me alone,” said Evan, the blood rushing into his cheeks.

“Of course I’ll let you alone, kid; when I get ready. Off with that scowl; do you hear?”

“You take it off!” answered Evan, pushing the other away from him.

“The new one’s game!” cried the tall youth. The others were flocking about them. Evan’s arms were beaten down swiftly and pinned to his sides in a strong grip, and a hand was passed roughly over his face, hurting so that, in spite of him, the tears rushed to his eyes. With an effort he shook off the other’s grip, stumbled over the suit-case, and staggered against a door. The next moment he was falling backward, the door giving way behind him. He landed on his back, his head striking the thinly carpeted floor with a force that made him see all sorts and sizes of blue stars and for an instant quite dazed him. Then he heard a drawling voice somewhere at the back of the room say:

[“‘LOOK PLEASANT, KID,’ HE CONTINUED THREATENINGLY.”]

“Welcome to my humble domicile.”

When he opened his eyes, his assailant was standing over him, and the group in the doorway held several anxious faces.

“Aren’t hurt, are you?” asked the cause of his mishap. “Give me your hand.”

Evan obeyed and was pulled to his feet. He had quite forgotten his anger. “I’m all right,” he said dully, feeling of the back of his head.

“That’s right,” said the other, with a note of relief in his voice. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. It was the door, you see.”

“Up to your tricks again, eh, Hop?”

It was the drawling voice Evan had heard a moment before, and its owner, a tall, somewhat lanky boy, came into view around the table. “You’ve got the keenest sense of humor, Hop, I ever met with. Why didn’t you drop him out of the window?”

“Oh, you dry up, Rob. I didn’t do anything to him. The door was unlatched, and he fell against it. It’s none of your business, anyway.”

“It’s my business if I like to make it mine,” was the reply. He pulled up a chair and waved Evan toward it. “Sit down and get your breath,” he directed. Evan obeyed, his gaze studying the youth called Hop.

“Now, then,” said his new acquaintance quietly, “all out, if you please, gentlemen. I’ll look after the patient. Leave him to me.”

The group at the doorway melted away, and Hop followed. As he passed out, he turned and found Evan’s gaze still on him.

“Well, you’ll know me, I guess, when you see me again,” he said crossly.

“I think I shall,” answered Evan, calmly.

His host chuckled as he closed and bolted the door. Then he came back and sank into a chair opposite Evan, his legs sprawling across the floor.

“Well?” he asked kindly. “Any damage?”

“No, I guess not. My head aches and I’m sort of dizzy, but I’ll be all right in a minute.”

“I guess so. Just come, did you?”

“Yes; I was looking for my room when that chap—”

“Frank Hopkins.”

“When he got mad because I scowled at him. We tussled, and I fell through the door.”

“That was partly my fault. I’m sorry. You see, I’d been fixing the latch so I could open it from bed, and I hadn’t quite finished when you bumped against the door. What’s your name?”

“Kingsford.”

“Mine’s Langton; first name Robert; commonly called Rob; sometimes Lanky. Glad to meet you. Nice of you to drop in so casually.”

Evan laughed.

“That’s better. Wait a minute.” Rob got up and went to the wash-stand and dipped a towel in the pitcher. “Put that around your head,” he directed. “It’s good for aches. Too wet, is it? Let me have it.” He wrung some of the water out on the carpet and handed it back. “There you are. What room have they put you into?”

“Thirty-six.”

“No good,” said Rob, with a shake of his head. “You’ll freeze to death there. The Gobbler had it two years ago, and he did something to the steam-pipes so that the heat doesn’t get around any more. He vows he didn’t, but I know the Gobbler.”

“Can’t it be fixed?”

“It never has been. They’ve tried dozens of times. I have an idea what the trouble is, and I told Mac—he’s house faculty here—that I could fix it if he’d let me. But he never would.”

“Well, I suppose I’ll have to live there just the same,” said Evan, with a smile.

“Oh, I don’t know. Where do you come from, Kingsford?”

“Elmira, New York.”

“Really? My home’s in Albany. We’re natives of the same old State, aren’t we? I guess we’ll get on all right. What class are you in?”

“Junior.”

“So am I. That’s another bond of sympathy. I call this great luck! I hate to live alone. Sandy Whipple was with me last year, but he had typhoid in the summer and isn’t coming back for a while. And now you happen in. Well, make yourself at home, Kingsford. It isn’t a bad room, you see. That’s your side over there.”

“But—this isn’t 36, is it?” asked Evan.

“Not a bit of it. This is 32. I told you, didn’t I, that 36 was no good?”

“But they’ve put me there! Won’t I have to go?”

“Of course not. I’ll settle it with the Doctor. You’re inclined to colds, you know, and 36 wouldn’t do for a minute. You leave it all to me. Any consumption in your family?”

“No. Why in the world do you ask that?”

“Well, if you had a consumptive uncle or cousin or something, it would help. I’d tell the Doctor that your lungs were weak and that your Uncle Tom had consumption. But never mind. I’ll fix it.”

“But—but do you really want me here?”

“Of course I do! Didn’t I just say that I was down in the mouth because I didn’t have a room-mate? Besides, I like your looks. And we’re both New Yorkers, and we’re both juniors. That ought to settle it, I should say.”

“Well, it’s awfully good of you,” said Evan, gratefully, “and I’ll be glad to room with you if they’ll let me. Only—”

“Only nothing!” said the other, decisively. “Fate threw you in here, and here you stay!”

[CHAPTER II]
THE BOY IN 32

Rob Langton was sixteen years of age, tall, a trifle weedy, like a boy who has grown too fast. He always seemed to be in difficulties with his arms and legs. Even his hair, which was dark and long, looked as though in a constant state of mutiny. There was one obstreperous lock which stood straight into the air on the top of his head, and several thick ones which were forever falling over his eyes and having to be brushed impatiently back. Comb and brush and water had little effect on Rob’s hair.

His face was thin, with a broad, good-humored mouth, a firm chin, a straight nose, and two very kindly brown eyes. Evan liked him from the very first moment of their meeting. And doubtless Evan’s sentiment was returned, otherwise Rob Langton would never have adopted him on such slight acquaintance, for Rob, while generally liked throughout Riverport School, had few close friends and was considered hard to know.

The two boys examined each other quite frankly while they talked, just as boys do. What Rob saw was a well-built, athletic-looking youngster, fairly tall, with a good breadth of shoulder, alert and capable. There was a pair of steady blue eyes, a good nose, a chin that, in spite of having a dimple in the middle of it, looked determined, and a well-formed mouth which, like Rob Langton’s, hinted of good humor. Evan’s hair, however, wasn’t in the least like that of the older boy. In the first place, it was several shades lighter, and, in the second place, it was very well-behaved hair and stayed where it was put. Even the folded towel which he wore around his forehead hadn’t rumpled it.

“I ought to be in the middle class,” Rob was explaining cheerfully. “When I came last year I expected to go into the junior, but Latin and Greek had me floored, and so, rather than make any unnecessary trouble for the faculty, I dropped into the preparatory. The fact is, Kingsford, I hate those old dead languages. Mathematics and I get on all right, and I don’t mind English, but Greek—well, I’d like to punch Xenophon’s head! Dad has it all cut out that I’m to be a lawyer; he’s one himself, and a good one; but if I can get my way I’m going to Cornell and go in for engineering. They call it structural engineering nowadays. That’s what I want to do, and there’s going to be a heap of trouble in our cozy little home if I don’t get my way. What are you going to be?”

“I don’t know—yet. I haven’t thought much about it. My father’s a doctor, but I don’t go in for that. I don’t like sick folks; besides, there doesn’t seem to be much money in doctoring.”

“Well, some of them seem to do pretty well,” replied Rob, thoughtfully. “You might be a specialist and charge big fees. When Dad was ill two years ago we had a fellow up from New York in consultation. He and our doctor got together in the library for about ten minutes, and then he ate a big lunch and went home again. And it cost Dad five hundred dollars.”

“That sounds all right,” laughed Evan, “but I guess he had to do a lot of hard work before he ever got where he could charge five hundred dollars.”

“I suppose so. Do you ever invent?”

“Invent? What do you mean?”

“Invent things, like—like this.” Rob began a search through his pockets and finally pulled out a piece of brass, queerly shaped and notched, some three inches long.

“What is it?” asked Evan, as he took it and examined it curiously.

“Just a—a combined tool, as you might say. I call it ‘Langton’s Pocket Friend.’ Here’s a screw-driver; see? And these notches are for breaking glass after it’s cut. Up here there’s a little steel wheel for cutting it, only I haven’t put that in. This is just a model, you know; I filed it out coming down on the train this morning. Then this slot is for sharpening pencils. There’s a nail-file here, you see, only it isn’t filed, of course, because this is just brass. The spur is for cutting wire, or you can open a can with it if the tin isn’t very thick. Then this end here is to open envelops or cut pages with. There are two or three other things I’ve thought of since that I can work in. Of course, if I ever made them, they’d be of steel.”

“That’s fine,” said Evan. “Did you think of it yourself?”

“Yes. I’m always tinkering with some silly thing. That’s the reason I don’t cut more of a figure with studies, I guess. Dad has patented two or three things for me, but I’ve never been able to sell the patents.”

“What are they?” asked Evan, interestedly.

“One’s a snow shovel made of wire netting like an ash sifter. It only weighs twelve ounces and works finely. But no one would buy it. Another’s a top with a slot just above the peg so you can put in a cap. Then when you throw it on the ground the peg comes up against the cap and explodes it.”

“I should think that would be a dandy idea.”

“Well, one man I tried to sell it to said if I could induce boys to spin tops around the Fourth of July he would buy my patent. You see, folks are so fussy now that you can’t buy paper caps except around the Fourth.”

“I see. And what was the other thing?”

“That’s the best of the lot,” said Rob, thrusting his hands into his pockets and sprawling his legs across the floor. “I’ve still got hopes of that. It’s a patent match safe to carry in your pocket. It looks just like any other match safe, but when you want a match you don’t have to open it. You just push a little button, and a match pops out. Maybe I’ll sell that yet. It’s a mighty good idea, and there ought to be money in it.”

“I should think you’d want to be an inventor instead of an engineer.”

“There isn’t much money in inventions, except for the patent lawyer; at least, that’s what Dad says. Besides, engineering is a good deal like inventing. You have problems to solve, and there’s always the chance of discovering a better way to do a thing. Dad says I’ve got a good deal of ingenuity, but that if I don’t look out I’ll never be anything but a potterer.”

“A potterer? That’s a funny name for you.”

“Yes; he means a chap who just potters around doing a lot of little things that don’t amount to anything. How’s your head?”

“Much better. Do you think I’d better unpack my bag, or shall I wait until I’m sure about my room?”

“Go ahead and unpack. It’ll be all right. Even if it isn’t, 36 is just across the hall, and I’ll help you carry things over. Trunks ought to be up pretty soon, too. Say, do you go in for anything?”

“In for anything?” repeated Evan, doubtfully.

“Yes, foot-ball or hockey or track or rowing or—”

[“I play foot-ball,” answered Evan. “I want to try for the team here.] Do you think I’d stand any show, Langton?”

“Do I think—” Rob stopped and chuckled. Evan flushed.

“What’s the matter? I’ve played a good deal, and I dare say I know as much about it as—as lots of fellows here.”

“As I do, you were going to say,” laughed Rob. “I wasn’t laughing at you, Kingsford. I dare say you can play better than a good many fellows on the team, but I don’t think your chances are very bright, and if you ask me why,—well, I can only say because the Riverport Eleven is what Dad would call a close corporation.”

“What’s that?”

[“‘I PLAY FOOT-BALL,’ ANSWERED EVAN. ‘I WANT TO TRY FOR THE TEAM HERE.’”]

“I’ll try again,” said Rob, thrusting his hands in his pockets and falling into the queer drawl which he affected at times. “The team is like a very select club, Kingsford. If you know enough about foot-ball to kick the ball instead of biting it, and stand pretty well with—er—the manager or captain or some of the members, you can make it. Of course they’re always glad to have you go out and ‘try for the team’; it looks well and sort of adds interest. And of course you’re supposed to subscribe toward expenses. And when the team goes away anywhere to play, they allow you to go along and yell yourself hoarse. But don’t think for a moment, my friend, that you can make the team here by just playing good ball.”

“That doesn’t sound very encouraging,” said Evan, with a frown. “Especially as I don’t know a single fellow here—except you.”

“Well, at least you’ve got a speaking acquaintance with one other,” said Rob, dryly, the smile still lurking about the corners of his mouth.

“Who do you mean? The fellow who—”

“Yes, Frank Hopkins. He’s ‘the fellow who’—”

“Well, that doesn’t help any, I guess.”

“No; no, I don’t honestly think it does,” answered Rob, with a queer look. “Because, you see, Kingsford, Hop is the captain.”

“Foot-ball captain?” cried Evan, in dismay. Rob nodded with a wicked grin.

“Well, if that isn’t luck!” exclaimed Evan, subsiding on the foot of his bed to consider the fact. “I guess that settles my chances all right, Langton.” Rob nodded.

“As I don’t want to nourish idle hopes, Kingsford, I’ll just remark that I think you’ve got the answer.”

“Shucks!” said Evan, disgustedly. “And I thought I was going to have a great time this fall playing foot-ball. I wish I’d stayed at home, as my fond mother wanted me to. Say, you’re not fooling, are you?”

“Not a bit. Of course I’ve exaggerated a trifle about the exclusiveness of our foot-ball society; it isn’t quite as bad as I made it out; but it’s bad enough. If you happen to be a crackajack player with a reputation behind you, one of those prep school stars that come along once in a while, you’re all right. But otherwise, Kingsford, you’ll have a mighty hard time breaking into Hop’s foot-ball trust. I know, for I tried it myself last year.”

“Oh, do you play?”

“I used to think so, but after working like a horse for three weeks and then pining away for a fortnight on the side-lines, I changed my mind. I know how to play, but I don’t play. You catch my meaning, I hope.”

“Yes,” said Evan, gloomily. “Still, I guess I’ll have a try.”

“Of course you will,” said Rob, cheerfully. “It won’t do any harm, and you might even have a little fun. Besides, miracles still happen; you might get a place on the second team as third substitute. By the way, where do you play?”

“I’ve played quarter mostly; sometimes half. I was quarter last year.”

“On your school team?”

“Yes, grammar school. We won every game except one, too.”

“Well, you might let that information leak out in Hop’s direction; perhaps he will give you a fair show. Only thing is, I’m afraid he’s taken a—a sort of prejudice against you.”

“I guess he has,” laughed Evan. “And, for that matter, I’m not crazy about him. Still, if he will let me on the team, I’ll forgive him for mashing my nose flat.”

“It doesn’t look flat,” said Rob, viewing it attentively. “It’s a trifle red, but otherwise normal. By ginger! I wonder what time it is. I’m getting hungry. Oh, there’s no use looking at that clock on the mantel there. It hasn’t gone right for months. I borrowed one of the cog-wheels last spring, and now it has the blind staggers.”

“It’s twelve minutes to six,” said Evan, looking at his watch. “When do we have supper?”

“In twelve minutes if we get there. I’ll wash while you get your things out. Yes, that’s your closet. There’s some truck in there that belongs to Sandy. Pitch it out on the floor, and I’ll ask Mrs. Crow to store it away for him. Hold on! That vest isn’t his; it’s mine. Confound that fellow! I looked for that thing all summer. Thought I’d lost it. You see, Sandy Whipple and I are just the same size, and so we wear each other’s clothes most of the time. I guess you and I can’t exchange that way, Kingsford. Your trousers would be several inches too short for little me. How about collars?”

“Thirteen and a half,” said Evan.

“My size exactly! Thirteen and a half, fourteen, or fourteen and a half; I’m not fussy about collars. All through here.” Rob tossed the towel in the general direction of the wash-stand and looked around for his cap.

“Where do we eat?” asked Evan, filling the bowl.

“Dining-hall’s in Second House. If we hurry, maybe we can get at a side table. I’m as hungry as a bear. I forgot all about dinner this noon. I got so interested in that silly piece of brass that they’d stolen the dining-car before I knew it. Ready? Sometime I’m going to fix it so we can go down by the window. It would be lots nearer than going by the stairs, and I’ve got a dandy idea for a rope ladder!”

[CHAPTER III]
EVAN MAKES ACQUAINTANCES

It was still broad daylight when they left the entrance of Holden Hall and started across the yard, the golden end of a perfect September day. Down the long sloping hill, beyond the athletic field, the waters of Lake Matunuxet showed blue between the encircling foliage. Farther east the river wound its way through marsh and meadow toward the bay, some three miles distant. The railroad embankment was visible here and there, and due east the little town of Riverport lay huddled. The school buildings described a rude crescent, with Holden, the newest of the three dormitories, at one point and the gymnasium at the other. Next to Holden stood Second House, with the laboratory tucked in behind. Then came Academy; then First; then the gymnasium. Behind First House stood the principal’s cottage, and here the land sloped abruptly upward in forest, and Mount Graytop raised its bald crown of scarred and riven granite hundreds of feet above the surrounding country. The elms in the yard still held green, although here and there a fleck of russet showed. On the lower slopes of the mountain a well-defined belt of maples was already turning yellow.

Rob and Evan were not the only boys who had recognized the advisability of being early on hand at supper in order to choose tables to their liking. The corridor leading to the dining-hall was pretty thickly sprinkled with boys of all ages between twelve and eighteen. Rob was greeted many times, and Evan was introduced to at least a dozen fellows whose names he didn’t remember five minutes afterward. It was all very confused and noisy and jolly, and in the middle of it the doors were flung open, and the waiting throng surged into the dining-hall and made a decorous but determined rush for the tables.

Evan followed Rob down the room and across to a table under one of the broad windows. Here, however, a difficulty presented itself. The table seated eight, and seven of the places were already occupied. Evan, observing that, hung back, but Rob beckoned him on. At one side of the vacant seat sat a stout, cherub-faced youth of about Evan’s age. Rob drew back the vacant chair and fixed his gaze on the stout youth.

“Why,—Jelly,—” he drawled in mock surprise, “what are you doing here? You’re surely not thinking of sitting with your back to the window in all this draft, you with your delicate constitution? What would your parents say, Jelly? No, no, out you go. We can’t have you falling ill; flowers are too expensive.”

“I got this place, Rob, and I’ve a right to keep it,” answered the boy. He spoke defiantly enough, but his tones lacked conviction, and he paused in the operation of unfolding his napkin. Rob patted him tolerantly on the shoulder.

“It isn’t a question of right, Jelly; it’s a question of what is best for you. You know you can’t stand a draft; I know it; we all know it. It’s your welfare we’re considering. Now if you look sharp you can sneak across and drop into that chair that Hunt Firman has temporarily vacated; but you want to be quick.”

Jelly was quick. He was out of his chair and around the table on the instant; and before Firman, who had gone across to a neighboring table to greet an acquaintance, was aware of it, Jelly had stolen his place. A contest ensued, Firman trying to oust Jelly without drawing the attention of the faculty, and Jelly, stable with his one hundred and forty-odd pounds, paying no attention to threats or blandishments.

“I’ll lick you after supper!” hissed Firman.

“Wonder if we’ll have ham to-night,” remarked Jelly, serenely, to the table at large.

“Get up, do you hear? That’s my place, you big roly-poly!”

“I smell hot biscuits, anyway. Pass me the butter, Ned.”

“You wait till I get hold of you! Rob, make him give me my seat. It’s all your fault, anyhow. You might—”

A bell tapped somewhere, and an instant hush fell over the hall. Firman ran to cover, subsiding in the first unoccupied chair he could find, leaving Jelly master of the situation. The laughter died into chuckles, the chuckles to snickers, and the snickers to silence, and from the head of the hall came the deep voice of the principal, Dr. Farren, asking grace.

“I’d rather be on this side, anyway,” announced Jelly, as soon as conversation began again. “It’s too cold over there in winter, Rob.”

“Well, by that time, Jelly,” was the sober reply, “we may have you so strong and sturdy that you can stand it over here.”

Even Jelly joined in the laugh that ensued. Evan was aware that the six boys who, with Rob and himself, filled the table were viewing him with unconcealed interest and was relieved when Rob proceeded to introduce him.

“Fellow Luculluses,” said Rob, “I take pleasure in introducing to you my friend Mr. Kingsford. Mr. Kingsford is honoring the school with his presence for the first time. He hopes to remain with us at least until the end of the term. Kingsford, on your right you will find Mr. Law, of the well-known firm of Law and Order. Next, Mr. Pierce. Next, a gentleman whose acquaintance I haven’t the pleasure—”

“Peterson,” prompted Jelly.

“Mr. Peterson. Next to Mr. Peterson, Mr. George Washington Jell; Mr. Jell speaking eloquently, as you can see, for the excellence of the board provided. At the other end of the table you may dimly observe Mr. Devens. And here we have Mr. Wright, on my right. Now everybody knows everybody, and Jelly is requested to stop taking all the biscuits, as there are others here present.”

It was a very jolly meal, with a good deal of laughter and much fragmentary conversation. The supper was excellent, and Evan was hungry and did full justice to the hashed chicken on toast, baked potatoes, cold lamb, hot biscuits, preserves, and cake. He also accepted a second cup of cocoa at Rob’s suggestion, and then drank a glass of milk just to make certain of keeping life in his body until morning. And while he ate, as he took only a small part in the talk, he had opportunity to look about him.

The dining-hall was large and cheerful and well lighted. It occupied all one end of Second House, and so had windows on three sides. Between the windows were pictures, most of them photographs of Roman and Grecian ruins, while at either side of the door stood pedestals holding, on one side, a bust of Socrates and, on the other, a bust of Washington. There were twenty-odd tables, accommodating at present one hundred and seventy students and the faculty and staff of the school. Dr. Farren occupied a small table at the head of the hall with the school secretary, Mr. Holt, and the matron, Mrs. Crane, or, as she was called, “Mrs. Crow.”

“I don’t know how she got that name,” said Rob, as he pointed out the dignitaries. “Maybe it’s on account of her black hair. Anyhow, it isn’t because the fellows don’t like her. She’s a dear. That’s Holt next to her. He’s secretary. No one knows him very well. And there’s the Doctor. The rest of the faculty is scattered. The white-haired chap over at the far table is just ‘Joe’; real name Alden; Greek and Latin. The slim, youngish fellow over there is ‘Mac,’ who tries his level best to make me discern the beauties of algebra. He also teaches history, and it’s a cinch. The big fellow down here on your left is ‘Tommy’ Osgood. Tommy teaches chemistry and is also and likewise physical director; and he’s a tartar. Mr. Cupples, affectionately known as ‘Cup,’ is down there by the door. Cup pours French and German into you. Now you know the faculty. Be kind to them and very patient. After supper I’ll take you over to Mrs. Crow’s. You’d better get on the right side of her, because she’s a mighty good sort and can do a lot for you if she wants to. And I’ll try and see the Doctor and tell him about your consumption.”

“I never had a cold in my life,” laughed Evan.

“Knock wood. And if the Doctor calls you over to the office, try and look as delicate as possible. You might cough a little, too. A hacking cough would help a lot.” Rob turned from Evan and addressed Gus Devens, a large, ruddy-faced youth. “I say, Gus, what does the foot-ball situation look like to your practised eye?”

“Like the dickens,” answered Gus, promptly and heartily.

“About the same as usual, then,” suggested Pierce. “Say, fellows, why doesn’t some one do something?”

“Such as what?” asked Rob.

“Fire Hopkins!” blurted Jelly.

“Oh, Hop means well enough,” said Joe Law.

“Yes, he does!” answered Devens, sarcastically. “I’ll wager I could pick a better team out of the two lower classes than Hop will get together this fall. Adams will lick us again as sure as fate. They’ve got almost all of last year’s team left. Hop may mean well enough—only I don’t believe it—but he certainly doesn’t do well enough. I’m sick of seeing the school beaten every year.”

“We won year before last,” said Law.

“Yes, we’ve won once in five years,” said Rob. “I suppose that’s all we ought to expect. They tell us that defeat is much better for us morally than victory, victory enlarging the cranium and making us vain and arrogant and unlovely. Remember ancient Rome.”

“What about ancient Rome?” demanded Jelly.

“Eh? Oh—oh, nothing; just remember it. I heard Mac say that once in class, and it sounded rather well.” When the laugh had passed, Rob addressed Devens again: “Are you going out this year?”

“Oh, I suppose so,” answered Devens, disgustedly. “This will make the third time. But I’m sick of getting knocked around on the second team. I’m going to tell Hop that if he doesn’t give me a fair show for the first, I’ll quit, and he can find some one else to do the human stone wall act for him. Look here, you fellows, you all know, every one of you, that I can play all around Bert Reid.”

“That’s no joke,” said Wright, and the others concurred.

“Well, then, why can’t I get on? Favoritism, that’s all it is. Every one knows it, and there’s no harm in saying it. I don’t talk like this outside of school, of course, but—”

“What we ought to have is a coach,” declared Peterson.

“Of course we ought, and we’ve tried hard enough to get one ever since I’ve been here,” answered Devens. “One year it’s one reason and the next year it’s another; anyway, we don’t get him.”

“Hop said last year he’d be mighty glad to have a coach,” said Law.

“Yes, but he wanted a fellow he knew and wouldn’t talk about any one else. If the Doctor would take a decent interest in things—”

“He always begins to hum and haw about ‘the danger of investing sport with undue prominence,’” said Pierce, disgustedly.

“Oh, the Doctor means well, too,” protested Rob. “I’ve got an idea in my head, you chaps, and some day soon I’ll spring it. I’m going to let it seethe a bit first.”

“Another of your numerous patents?” asked Jelly, with a grin.

“Maybe. Look here, Gus, my friend Kingsford wants to try for the team. I told him what he was up against, but he has the—the indomitable will and reckless courage of his forebears, and refuses to be intimidated. You sort of put him up to the tricks, will you? See that he doesn’t get into any more trouble than necessary.”

“Glad to,” answered Gus Devens, with a friendly nod to Evan. “Played, have you, Kingsford?”

“Yes, quite a little.”

“What?”

“Half and quarter; quarter mostly.”

“Whew! we certainly could use a good quarter,” said Wright. “Miller’s the limit. I hope you get a show, Kingsford.”

“Yes, but don’t expect it,” remarked Jelly, despondently. “Just look at the way they treated me last year!”

A howl of laughter arose, and Jelly viewed his table-companions indignantly.

“That’s all right, you fellows, but I did as well as Ward did. He didn’t get through me very often, I can tell you! You know he didn’t.”

“You did great work, Jelly,” said Rob, soothingly. “They ought to have kept you on the second. I have an idea that the reason Hop dropped you was only because he was afraid that sometime you’d fall on the ball and squash the air out of it.”

“Oh, you run along,” growled Jelly. “I’m going to try again this year, anyway, and I’m going to make the second for keeps.”

“Why don’t you go out and be the ball?” asked Wright, pleasantly. Jelly pushed back his chair and walked disgustedly away, and his departure was the signal for a general exodus. Rob’s progress was often interrupted, and Evan had to shake hands with many more new acquaintances, most of whom, as there were a great many new-comers wandering around the corridors that night, shook hands with him in a perfunctory way, muttered that they were glad to know him, and paid him no further attention. But Evan didn’t mind. Although this was his first experience of boarding-school, he held no romantic notions of such places and so was not disappointed because so far nothing romantic had happened. He drew out of the way and waited for Rob to get through talking, thinking to himself that it would be nice to have as many acquaintances as his new room-mate had, and making up his mind that some day the fellows of Riverport School should be as glad to talk to him as they now were to Rob Langton. While he stood there waiting, Frank Hopkins passed, talking to the tall youth of whom Evan had asked his way that afternoon. If they saw him they made no sign.

Presently Rob parted from the last of his acquaintances and, followed by Evan, reached the door.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he apologized. “Some of those chaps, though, I wanted to be nice to—for a reason. I’ll tell you why some day soon. Now let’s cut across to First House and call on Mrs. Crow.”

[CHAPTER IV]
MALCOLM WARNE

They found the door of the matron’s office wide open and boys coming and going every minute. It was a good deal like a reception, Evan thought, as Rob, taking him by the arm, guided him into the room. The matron was a small, plump, middle-aged woman with red cheeks and very black hair, whom every fellow liked at first glance and usually worshiped devotedly by the end of his first term. Old boys returning to school made a bee-line from the stage to Number 1 First House, and shook hands with Mrs. Crow before they thought of anything else. Her sitting-room, or office as she preferred to call it, was a veritable museum of gifts from boys or their parents, gifts ranging from sea-shells to the mahogany arm-chair presented to her by last year’s graduating class. And there wasn’t a thing so tiny and trivial that she couldn’t tell you at once the name of the giver. She had very pleasant, kindly black eyes and a sweet voice, and loved a joke better than her afternoon tea. Rob wormed his way into the group about her, dragging Evan after him.

“How do you do, Mrs. Crow?” he cried, seizing her hand and shaking it violently. “Aren’t you glad to see me?”

“Why, Rob, how you do grow! Oh, my poor hand! Of course I’m glad to see you, even if you did forget to come and say good-by to me last June.”

“I tried to, really, Mrs. Crow, but I couldn’t stand the—the ordeal. It would have saddened my whole summer. I want you to know my brother Evan. Evan, this is Mrs. Crow, of whom I talked incessantly all summer.”

“How do you do?” asked Evan, taking the hand held out to him. Mrs. Crow gazed from Evan to Rob doubtfully. Some one sniggered. Evan felt somewhat embarrassed and looked appealingly at Rob’s beaming countenance.

“I don’t believe it,” said the matron, finally. “He’s never your brother, Rob Langton; he doesn’t look the least bit like you. Now is he?”

“My foster-brother, Mrs. Crow.”

“He’s just fooling,” said Evan. “My name’s Evan Kingsford, Mrs. Crow—I mean Mrs.—”

“Never mind,” she laughed; “they all call me that. I’m very glad to meet you, Mr. Kingsford. I hope you’ll like us. Let me see, you’re in Holden, aren’t you, if I’m not mistaken?”

“Yes, ma’am. I was sent there at first.”

“I remember; number 36.”

“Wrong, Mrs. Crow; he’s with me in 32,” said Rob.

“Really? But I’m sure my list says 36.”

“They had him down for there, but he’s very delicate, and 36 is such a cold room that I rescued him. I’m going over to explain to the Doctor about it now. Come on, Evan.”

“Well, I hope he will let you make the change,” said Mrs. Crow, dubiously. “But you know he doesn’t like to have the rooms empty.”

“Then you tell him to let us have 36 for a parlor,” laughed Rob, dragging Evan away.

“You must come to my teas, Mr. Kingsford,” called the matron. “Any Friday between four and six. Don’t forget, please.”

“I think,” said Rob, when they were outside again, “that I’d better see the Doctor alone. You go on over to the room and get your things unpacked. I’ll be along in a few minutes. There you are, over there, the last building. Don’t get lost.”

Rob turned toward Academy Hall and the office, while Evan picked his way through the twilight across the yard under the elms. When he reached the second floor he found the door of 24 open and a group of fellows, among whom he instantly recognized Frank Hopkins and the tall youth, standing around it. The conversation, which had been eager and animated, died down as he came into sight. It was rather an ordeal to pass that group, but he made the best of it, viewing them calmly and casually as he took the last few stairs and turned down the corridor. To his surprise, some three or four of the fellows nodded to him, and he returned the greeting in like manner. But Hopkins only stared disdainfully, while the tall youth grinned annoyingly and began to hum in time to Evan’s footsteps. The latter was glad when he was in 32 with the door closed behind him. Through the open transom, however, he heard the talk and laughter begin again, and caught the words, “Mighty well built, though, Hop. You’d better nab him for the team.” He couldn’t hear the foot-ball captain’s reply, but it was evidently humorous, judging from the laughter it summoned.

With reddening cheeks and a rather lonesome feeling he began the unpacking of his trunk, which, with Rob’s, stood in the center of the room. His mother had placed a letter on top of the till, and, although it was a very sweet and dear letter, it rather increased his homesickness as he read it. He went on with his unpacking, feeling a little bit choky about the throat, and was glad when there came a knock at the door.

“Come!” he called.

The boy who entered paused in surprise when he saw Evan.

[“Hello!” he said. “Oh, beg pardon. Where’s Rob?”]

“He’s over at the office,” answered Evan. “He will be up in a few minutes. Won’t you wait?”

“Thanks.” He glanced doubtfully about the room and then closed the door behind him and sat down. “Are you going in with Rob?”

“Do you mean am I going to room here?” asked Evan. “Yes; that is, I expect to. They gave me 36, but Langton asked me to come in with him, and he’s trying to fix it up for me with the principal. That’s what he’s doing now.”

“Oh, I see,” murmured the other. He seemed rather disappointed, Evan thought, and wondered why. “I suppose you and he are old friends?” asked the stranger.

“No; I never saw him until this afternoon. It—it was very decent of him to ask me, I think.”

“Yes,” said the other, thoughtfully. “Don’t let me stop you, please. I’ll just wait a minute for Rob.”

Evan went on with his unpacking, catching now and then as he went to and fro between trunk and closet and bureau a glimpse of the caller. He was a very good-looking fellow, with dark hair and eyes and a softness about mouth and chin that was almost girlish. He sat with elbow on knee, and chin in hand, looking dreamily across the room, evidently quite forgetful of Evan’s presence. After a while the silence grew oppressive.

“My name’s Kingsford,” announced Evan. The other looked up slowly and nodded.

[“‘HELLO!’ HE SAID. ‘OH, BEG PARDON. WHERE’S ROB?’”]

“Thanks. Mine’s Warne.” Then he went back to his rapt study of the opposite wall. Evan was distinctly relieved when he heard Rob’s footsteps in the hall.

“Well,” said Rob, as he came in, “it’s all— Hello, Mal! Where’d you come from? Been waiting long? Kingsford, let me make you acquainted with Mr. Warne, a particular friend of mine. Mal, this is Mr. Kingsford. He and I are going to try it together.”

Malcolm Warne shook hands with a smile which displayed a set of very white teeth. It was a nice smile and lighted up the somewhat serious face very pleasantly.

“Happy to meet you,” said Warne. Then, to Rob, “So he was just saying. I hope you will—like it—both of you.” He had a very soft voice, spoke slowly, and had a way of chopping off the ends of his words that was unfamiliar to Evan.

“Oh, we’ll get on all right, I think,” said Rob, easily. “Sit down, Mal, and tell us what you did all summer. By the way, though, Kingsford, it’s all right about the room. Doctor agreed with me that a chap with any tendency toward colds, grippe, pneumonia, and consumption ought not to live in 36. He got rather interested in your case, and I shouldn’t be surprised if he sent the doctor around to-morrow to report on you. If he comes, please cough for my sake! Well, I’ve got to get my trunk unpacked. Go ahead and talk, Mal.”

“No, I reckon I’ll go on. I just dropped in to say howdy to you.”

“What? ‘Go on’ nothing! Sit down, you idiot, and tell me what’s been happening with you.”

“Oh, nothing much. I had a very quiet summer. I was at home most of the time, although we went down to Virginia Beach in August for a couple of weeks. I’ll see you to-morrow, Rob. Good night, Mr. Kingsford. Pleased to have met you. Get Rob to bring you over to see me soon. So long, Rob.”

“Well, if you insist on going,” said Rob, following the caller to the door. “What’s the matter, Mal? Anything wrong?” They passed out, Rob drawing the door shut behind him. Evan heard their low voices outside in the hallway for several minutes. Then Rob reappeared, looking worried.

“Now there’s a crazy idiot,” he said, with a frown, thrusting his hands into his trousers pockets and spreading his long legs apart.

“Why?” asked Evan.

“He wanted to come in here with me, and he never said a word about it. Says he was waiting to make sure I hadn’t any one in view. He’s too blamed sensitive.”

“Well, that’s easily fixed,” said Evan, lightly. “It won’t take me ten minutes to move across to 36. That’s where I belong, anyway, Langton. I’d rather do it, really.”

“Not much! But I’ve got an idea.”

He hurried out, crossed the hall, knocked on the opposite door, and threw it open.

“Hello, Spalding!” Evan heard him say. “Want to use your window a second. Oh, Mal! Come back a minute, will you?” Evidently Warne heard, for Rob only sent one hail across the yard.

“Here’s the idea,” he went on, as he returned to 32. “We’ll get Warne to move into 36. He never knows whether he’s hot or cold, and he’s dead anxious to get out of the room he’s in. He’s in First House with a chap named Gammage; decent chap enough, but he and Warne don’t hit it off. Mal’s a Southerner, from North Carolina—or South, I’ve forgotten which. Where is Wilmington, anyway?”

“Wilmington? In Delaware, isn’t it?”

“Is it? Then I guess Wilmington isn’t the place; I’m pretty sure he’s from one of the Carolinas. Anyway, he’s an awfully nice fellow, and I want you to like him. Here he comes. Say, Mal, I’ve thought of a great scheme. Sit down and I’ll unfold it. Kingsford here was booked for 36. So that leaves 36 empty. You see the Doctor and get him to let you move into it. You don’t mind rooming alone, do you? Besides, you can make this room home if you like to.”

“I shouldn’t mind that a bit,” said Warne.

“Good! But I ought to tell you that 36 is a cold old hole; there’s something wrong with the pipes—some bronchial trouble, I guess. Anyway, in cold weather you’ll pretty nearly freeze. But you can always study over here, you know.”

“I don’t mind a cold room. That’s one thing Gammage and I are always scrapping about. He likes it about eighty. Do you think the Doctor will let me change?”

“I don’t see why not. Tell him that you don’t get on with what’s-his-name; tell him you like a cold room. He ought to be glad to have some one in 36 that won’t kick all the time for heat. He’s over at the office now. Go ahead and tackle him before he gets any one else down for the room. And come right back and let’s hear what he says.”

Malcolm Warne was back in ten minutes, looking very pleased.

“He said yes, Rob. My, but I’m tickled. I’d sleep in an ice-chest to get rid of Gammage.”

“That’s fine, Mal. I told Kingsford that you were disappointed about rooming in here, and he offered to get out. But I knew you wouldn’t want him to do that.”

“No, indeed,” said Malcolm, warmly, glancing gratefully across at Evan. “It was very good of you, though, Kingsford.”

“Not a bit,” murmured Evan.

“I say, you chaps,” began Rob. Then he paused doubtfully. The others waited, looking inquiringly at him where he stood rumpling his mutinous locks with a paper-cutter.

“Why, just this,” he went on presently. “Here are three of us, all pretty good fellows—speaking for the rest of you, that is. Now let’s cut out this surname nonsense. My name’s Rob, yours is Malcolm, or Mal for short, and yours is Evan. There, that’s settled.” He tossed the paper-knife down. “Now I want to show you fellows a little idea that occurred to me coming back from the office a while ago. Bring up your chairs.”

“What is it?” asked Evan, exchanging an amused glance with Malcolm.

“It’s an improved foot-scraper for doorsteps. It’s all well enough to get the mud off the soles of your shoes, but why not clean it off the uppers, too? Now, look here. Where’s my pad? Either of you got a pencil? Thanks. Now then!”

[CHAPTER V]
EVAN IS WARNED

“What’s the name?”

It was the tall youth whom Evan had begun to thoroughly detest who asked the question, and who, with note-book in hand and pencil poised, impatiently awaited an answer.

“Kingsford,” replied Evan.

“What age?” continued the other, looking as though he had never seen Evan before.

“Fifteen.”

“What class?”

“Junior.”

[“Ever played foot-ball?”]

“Three years.”

“Whereabouts?”

“Elmira, New York.”

“What position, I mean, you ninny!”

“Quarter—and half, a little.”

“We don’t need backs. Want to try for end?”

“I suppose so; yes.”

“Don’t do it if it’s going to hurt you,” sneered the other, turning away to catechise the next candidate. Evan looked after him angrily and then turned to his nearest neighbor, who happened to be Mr. George Washington Jell, resplendent in a new pair of khaki trousers which, because they had to be of generous proportions about the waist, fell ungracefully half-way to his feet.

“Who’s that chap?” asked Evan.

“Edgar Prentiss. He’s manager. He’s pretty much the whole show, for that matter. He and Hop are as thick as thieves, and Hop does about as Prentiss says. He’s no good; I hope he stubs his toe.”

“So do I,” agreed Evan, with enthusiasm. Jelly beamed on him.

“He’s a regular cad; no one likes him—except Hop. I made a good joke about him last year. Want to hear it?”

“Yes,” said Evan, good-naturedly. “What was it?”

“It’s a conundrum. What is a foot-ball manager? Give it up? He’s the captain’s apprentice. See? Prentiss—apprentice?”

[“‘EVER PLAYED FOOT-BALL?’”]

Evan had to laugh, not so much at the joke as at Jelly’s eagerness for appreciation. “That’s all right,” he said. “What are you trying for, Jell?”

“Guard—or ’most anything. But, say, don’t call me Jell; no one ever does; and it sounds funny. Besides, I don’t mind. I know I’m fat, and I can’t help it. I’d rather be fat than be a bean-pole like Prentiss.”

“Ends and backs this way!” called a voice, and Evan trotted down the field to where a lad wearing a tattered light blue jersey and an air of authority was impatiently awaiting.

Practice was neither hard nor long that first afternoon. Some thirty-odd candidates had reported, of whom twenty or so represented what remained of last year’s first and second teams. The new candidates numbered scarcely more than a baker’s dozen. Frank Hopkins, although in foot-ball attire, took no part in the drudgery of passing and falling on the ball, contenting himself with wandering about the field or talking with Prentiss on the side-line. The real work was in charge of three of the first team members, Carter, Connor and Ward. There was very little system in evidence, and the veterans shirked barefacedly. Toward the end of the hour there was a good deal of rather aimless punting across the field and then the fellows were dismissed with instructions to report every afternoon at four o’clock.

Evan, a little tired and sore, for the day had been a very warm one and a lazy summer had put him rather out of condition, walked up to the gymnasium with Gus Devens and Jelly.

“How did you get on?” asked Devens.

“All right, I guess. I told Prentiss I was out for quarter or half but he said they didn’t need those things and told me I’d better try for end. I’ve never played end, but I suppose I could learn.”

“I dare say. How about you, Jelly?”

“I don’t know. I saw Hop this noon and told him I wanted a fair show and he said I’d get it. Maybe I will, and maybe I won’t. All I want now is a shower.”

“Here too,” agreed Devens. “Anything doing to-night, Jelly?”

“A little something, I guess,” replied Jelly cautiously, with a quick glance at Evan. “I haven’t heard much about it.”

Evan looked at the others inquiringly, but asked no questions, and Devens changed the conversation.

“That’s a nice pair of trousers you’ve got there, Jelly. Why don’t you take a turn in them around the bottoms so as to keep them out of the mud?”

“You dry up,” responded Jelly good-humoredly. “I had to have them big so as I could get them around me. I guess I’ll ask Mrs. Crow to cut them off for me.”

“I would. Maybe she can make you an overcoat of the trimmings. Got a locker, Kingsford?”

“Yes, thanks,” Evan replied as they climbed the gymnasium steps and pushed open the big oak door. “But I haven’t any towels yet. Can you loan me one?”

“Sure thing—if I have any. I always forget to have ’em washed.”

But investigation proved that he had three clean ones in his locker and he handed one over to Evan.

“Toss it in the bottom here when you’re through with it, will you?” he asked. Evan promised and went off to get ready for his bath, encountering on the way Mr. George Washington Jell, who, hopping around on one foot, was pulling what appeared to be yards and yards of khaki trouser off the other leg.

“Excuse me,” panted Jelly, as he bumped into Evan. “Oh, that you? These fool breeches—”

“Here, sit down,” laughed Evan, “and I’ll pull them off. There you are. I really think I’d have Mrs. Crow fix those. You’ve got about a yard more than you need.”

“Or ankled,” growled Jelly, tossing the discarded trousers on to the bench. “Thanks, Kingsford. I’ll do as much for you sometime maybe.”

“I hope you won’t have to,” Evan laughed.

A half-hour later he walked back alone up the hill to Holden, and as he went he reviewed his first day at Riverport. It had been pleasant enough on the whole, he decided. Rob had awakened him at a quarter past seven and there had ensued a mad scramble into clothes and across to Academy Hall for morning prayers. Breakfast had been at eight, a jolly, leisurely meal with the big windows open and the September sunlight flooding the tables. At nine he had gone to his first class, presided over by Mr. Alden, or Old Joe as the boys called him. This was his Latin class, and at eleven came Greek, with Old Joe again presiding. Previous to that there had been a half-hour of mathematics under Mr. McGill, and in the afternoon, at three, there was English from the principal, Dr. Farren. In all, aside from physical training, which, as long as he was playing foot-ball, was not required of him, he had nineteen hours of recitations a week. This didn’t sound much, but it was evident that the work was going to be pretty stiff and the nineteen hours in class meant a good many other hours of hard preparation. Dr. Farren’s English class looked formidable, and so did the Greek, which study was entirely new to Evan.

He hadn’t seen much of Rob save at meals, for, although they attended the same classes, their seats were in each case separated by the length of the room, since Evan, as a newcomer, was forced to accept whatever unclaimed space he could find. But he was sure that he and Rob were going to get on very well together and was beginning to feel rather grateful to Frank Hopkins for bringing about the meeting which had resulted so fortunately. If Hopkins would let him on to the team, thought Evan, he would be more than willing to cry quits.

It was still only a little after half-past five when he reached his room, and so, as Rob was not there and he had it quite to himself, he decided to write a letter home. He had finished two pages of his epistle when there was a knock on the door and Malcolm Warne entered.

“Hello, are you all alone?” he asked. “Where’s Rob?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since English 3. Have you got moved?”

“Yes. I thought perhaps you’d like to come over and see my room.”

“I would,” said Evan.

“It isn’t quite as nice as my other place,” explained Malcolm as they crossed the corridor together, “but it fixes up rather well, I think. And it’s going to be peachy not having any one in with me.”

“Well,” exclaimed Evan as he paused inside the door of 36 and looked about him, “I didn’t see your other room, but if it beat this it must have been a wonder! Gee, but you’ve got a lot of dandy truck! Where did you get all the pictures? Is that couch yours? It looks good enough to sleep on.”

“Sit down,” invited Malcolm. “Try that wicker chair. Most of these things I brought up with me when I came, although I’ve fetched one or two things since then. Glad you like my pictures.”

“I like everything,” replied Evan warmly. “It looks—it looks almost like home! I don’t see how you ever got fixed up so quickly. Why didn’t you let me help you?”

“Oh, it wasn’t any bother, and I liked doing it. Besides, I reckon you were pretty busy playing foot-ball, weren’t you? There’s Rob, I think. I’ll call him in.”

[“Talk about your palatial mansions!” exclaimed Rob] as he surveyed the room. “I tell you what, Evan; we’ll use this for our parlor and all sleep in 32.”

“I’m afraid Mrs. Crow wouldn’t stand for that,” laughed Malcolm. “And then, too, you say this is cold.”

“Cold! What of it? Who would care whether he was cold or warm when he could lie in the midst of such luxury?” Rob stretched himself on the leather couch and crushed innumerable pillows under his head. “We will now have soft music and light refreshments, Mal.”

“I’ve got some crackers,” said Malcolm eagerly.

“Fetch them along. What do you think of all this, Evan? Isn’t our little friend a—a one of those things commencing with an S?”

“Cinch?” asked Evan gravely.

Rob viewed him doubtfully.

“Cinch! That doesn’t begin— Oh, you run away and play! Syb—sybarite! That’s the word. What is a sybarite, Mal?”

“Oh, a man fond of good things, I reckon. Actually the Sybarites were inhabitants of Sybaris, in southern Italy. Don’t you remember that Seneca tells of a Sybarite who complained that he hadn’t slept well, and when they asked him why he told them that he had found a rose petal doubled under him and that it had hurt him?”

“Isn’t he a wonder?” demanded Rob admiringly of Evan. “Do you wonder that he’s a whole class ahead of us stupids? Frankly, though, Mal, I don’t recall that story of Mr. Seneca’s, but he said a whole lot of things I’ve forgotten—or never heard of. Anyway, that’s what you are, Mal, a sybarite, a blooming sybarite.”

[“‘TALK ABOUT YOUR PALATIAL MANSIONS!’ EXCLAIMED ROB.”]

Malcolm passed the crackers around and they tried their best to spoil their appetites for dinner. Luckily the supply of crackers gave out before their end was accomplished. Rob, who, stretched luxuriously on the couch, had been too busy eating to talk, suddenly began to moan and grimace in a frightful manner and roll around.

“What’s the matter with you?” asked Malcolm.

“I—I think,” muttered Rob, speaking thickly because his mouth was full, “I think there must be a crumpled rose petal under me.”

Investigation, however, proved the rose petal to be nothing more romantic than a block of wood in Rob’s pocket, a block which, so he declared, was to be fashioned into the model of his greatest invention as soon as he could borrow somebody’s knife, his own having all blades broken.

They went over to supper together and as they parted from Malcolm at the dining-room door the latter brushed against Evan and thrust a bit of paper into his hand. Puzzled but discreet, Evan dropped it into his pocket and promptly forgot all about it until supper was almost over. Then, remembering it because Malcolm’s name was mentioned, he drew it out cautiously and read it under the protection of his napkin. The message, written in a tiny neat hand on hardly more than a square inch of paper, was short.

“Hazing to-night” (it ran). “Bunk in with me and they won’t find you. Destroy this and don’t tell.”

[CHAPTER VI]
THE HAZING

Evan tore the note into tiny bits and scattered them under the table, something undoubtedly in defiance of the rules. After supper, at which the foot-ball practice was the main subject of discussion, Evan and Rob, accompanied by Jelly, went back to Holden. Malcolm Warne had not returned, but that didn’t prevent Rob from taking possession of 36 and doing the honors. Jelly was properly impressed with so much magnificence and declared that next year he was going to make his folks furnish his room just like Malcolm’s. In a lull of the conversation Evan introduced the subject which since the receipt of Malcolm’s mysterious warning had occupied not a little of his thoughts.

“Do they haze here, Rob?” he asked.

There was a quick interchange of glances between Rob and Jelly. Then Rob smiled carelessly and shrugged his shoulders.

“You might call it that,” he said. “The new ones have to go through a few stunts, but they don’t amount to much. Faculty bars real hazing, which it ought. You’ll probably be requested to sing a song or do a dance some night, but you needn’t be worried about it.”

“I’m not at all worried,” answered Evan quietly. “I only wanted to know what to expect.”

“They made me recite ‘Curfew Shall Not Ring To-night,’” said Jelly, smiling foolishly at the recollection.

“It was funny, too,” laughed Rob. “Just picture Jelly in his little white nightie spouting that with inappropriate gestures!”

“I wouldn’t have minded if it hadn’t been for the gestures,” said Jelly with a grin. “They made me do all sorts of fool things, like pulling the bell-rope and clasping my hands.”

“Yes, and when it came to the last they made him swing by his hands from the transom. I can see him yet, kicking his legs back and forth and gurgling ‘Curfew shall not ring to-night!’”

“Well, I hope they don’t ask me for poetry,” said Evan, “for I don’t know any.”

“Better get Malcolm to coach you,” Jelly suggested. “He knows every line of poetry that was ever written, I guess. And I have thought,”—dropping his voice to a hoarse whisper—“that he even writes it!”

“Of course he does,” said Rob. “Every Southerner reads poetry and writes it. Southerners are romantic—whatever that is.”

Presently Malcolm returned, and Jelly took his departure, declaring that he supposed he would have to study although he had quite forgotten how. At Rob’s suggestion Malcolm brought his books into 32 and the three found places about the old green-topped table and prepared their lessons. It was hard going, though, and there were many interruptions, and after a while Malcolm gathered up his books and declared that he would have to go back to his own room if he was to do any work.

“Sorry, Mal,” said Rob. “It’s my fault. I can’t seem to get my mind on lessons to-night. I’ve thought of a way to make that foot-scraper a lot better. Supposing that instead of having the brush—”

“Never mind,” laughed Malcolm. “You tell me about it to-morrow. Good night.”

“Aren’t you coming back after study?”

“No, I’m going to bed.” He shot a questioning look at Evan. Evan smiled and shook his head slightly.

“What are you idiots signalling about?” asked Rob. “What’s up? Or isn’t it any of my business?”

“It isn’t,” answered Malcolm. “You’d better change your mind, though, Evan.”

“No, I guess not. I’m much obliged, though.”

“Well, if you do—” Malcolm left the sentence unfinished. “Good night, fellows.”

“Good night,” they echoed. Rob was already busy with the problem of the improvement of the foot-scraper, drawing strange lines on a fly-leaf. Evan went back to his algebra. After a while the bell in the tower of Academy Hall struck nine and he closed his book with a sigh and gathered his papers together. Rob was still drawing, his unruly hair straggling down over his puckered forehead. Evan watched amusedly for a minute. Then,

“Got your lessons, Rob?” he asked gravely.

“Eh? What?” Rob looked up with a startled frown. “What time is it?”

“Just struck nine.”

“Jingo! I’ve got to get busy. Look at this, though, Evan. I’ve got it dead to rights now. I’ll bet it will work finely.” So for the next five minutes Evan listened to an explanation of the drawings and a eulogy of the invention. Then Rob resolutely turned his mind to the Anabasis, remarking sadly that it was all Greek to him, and Evan finished his letter. They went to bed at ten and Rob fell promptly to sleep. Evan, however, with Malcolm’s warning in mind, preferred to stay awake and await developments. The dormitory was very quiet, and when fully a half-hour had gone by, Evan began to think that Malcolm had mistaken the date. He closed his eyes at last, for he was really very sleepy, and was afloat in that delicious state between slumber and waking when there sounded a quiet but peremptory knock on the door. Rob didn’t hear it but Evan was wide awake on the instant. He slid out of bed, stumbled across the room and fumbled at Rob’s patent latch.

“Open!” commanded a voice outside.

“All right,” answered Evan, “but you’ll have to wait until I find the combination of this plaguey thing.”

Then the latch slipped back and the door swung inward. In the hall were some twenty boys variously attired.

“What’s wanted?” asked Evan innocently.

Frank Hopkins, who was apparently master of ceremonies, replied grimly:

“You are. Come on.”

“What for?” asked Evan.

“Never you mind. Just come along.”

“Hello! What’s doing?” Rob appeared behind Evan, blinking. “Oh, I see. Buck up, Evan, it’s soon over. I’ll join the mob and see the fun.”

So Evan was marched off in custody, feeling somewhat ridiculous in his night attire. However, there were plenty of others who boasted no more elaborate costumes than his, for pajamas appeared to be the proper dress. There was nothing solemn in the occasion. Every one whispered or laughed under his breath and a handful of more cheerful spirits joined arms and did a snake-dance down the hall. Evan was conducted to a room at the far end of the corridor, a room which, because it was larger than most, was regularly used on such occasions. Here, standing dejectedly about, were six other new boys, one of them, a youth of not over twelve years, looking at once pathetic and ridiculous in a long nightgown several sizes too large for him. Evidently Evan was the last of the victims, for after he had entered with his captors the door was closed and bolted. The room was crowded to its full capacity and there was a general scramble for posts of vantage. The two beds served as grand-stands, all those who could securing seats on the edge and more standing up behind them. The others formed a circle about the center of the room, the study table having been pushed aside. Evan wondered if Malcolm was there, but failed to see him.

If Frank Hopkins was master of ceremonies, Edgar Prentiss was undoubtedly his first lieutenant and a most able one. Hopkins looked over the initiates disgustedly.

“A mighty small crop this year,” he said, “and a pretty poor one, too. Who’s first, Ed?”

“Let’s have Little Nemo,” said Prentiss, pointing to the boy in the nightgown. “Come out here, Little Nemo. Step forward and make a nice bow to the company.”

The youth obeyed, trying very hard to smile.

“What’s your name, kid?” demanded Hopkins.

“George Winship.”

“Say ‘sir’ when addressing the Honorable Court,” Prentiss commanded. “What are you doing here?”

“I don’t know—sir.”

“You don’t know? What did you come here for?”

“To learn, sir.”

“Good. Can you sing?”

“N-no, sir.”

“All right. Then go ahead and sing.”

“I can’t.”

“You’ve got to.” The boy looked distressedly around the circle of amused faces. “What—what shall I sing?” he asked.

“Anything,” answered Hopkins. “Only get at it.”

“Do you know ‘Rock-a-bye, Baby’?” asked Prentiss, scoring a laugh from the audience. The boy shook his head.

“All I know is ‘Rock of Ages,’ I guess,” he said apologetically.

“Let’s hear that, then,” said Prentiss. But there was a murmur of disapproval and Rob growled:

“Shut up, Prentiss; that’s a hymn. Cut it out and let the kid go.”

“Hello, Lanky Rob, you here?” returned Prentiss. “Don’t butt in. Can you recite anything, Little Nemo?” The boy shook his head again.

“Sure?” demanded Hopkins suspiciously.

“Yes—sir.”

“What can you do, then? Haven’t you any parlor tricks?” The boy considered a moment, painfully anxious to oblige but at a loss what to say. Then, his face lighting up,

“I can dance the Highland fling!” he announced eagerly. A howl of amused approval went up.

“Go ahead, kid!”

“Fling away!”

“I thought all along he was a Scotchman!”

“I—I usually have music,” said the boy doubtfully.

“Sorry, but the bagpipes have just left,” said Hopkins. “Let’s have it without music, kid.”

So young Winship danced the Highland fling for them, his face very serious and his long nightgown flopping and writhing about him with ludicrous effect. Some of the fellows began to hum and after that the boy did rather well, for he knew the dance thoroughly and was light and graceful. But it was terribly funny and even Evan had to laugh with the others. Winship ended amidst a howl of approval and much clapping.

“You’re all right, kid,” they assured him, and Hopkins let him go to find a place amongst the audience. The next youth was all ready with a song, but he was much too anxious and so Hopkins refused to allow him to sing and made him recite instead. He was a serious youth, and after he had reeled off two verses of “The Launching of the Ship” some one in the background threw a pillow at him and he was allowed to go in peace. The next victim had an extensive repertoire of popular songs and made such a hit that he was kept at it until he ran out of breath. And so it went for almost an hour. A stout youth was made to stand on his head—a feat which he only accomplished after innumerable failures—and then was required to imitate the cries of every animal any one in the audience could think of. His imitations were not successful as imitations but they were funny, notably when he was instructed to make a noise like an eel and whistled through his teeth. There was more dancing and a pale-faced, red-haired boy recited “Casey at the Bat” and won liberal applause. Evan was saved for the last, a fact which caused him some uneasiness. He would have much preferred to have some one other than Hopkins managing affairs. His turn came at last and Hopkins told him to step out.

“What’s your name, little boy?”

“Evan Kingsford.”

“‘Sir!’”

“Sir.”

“Kingsford, eh? Not—not Kingsford the great quarter-back, of course?”

“No—that is, no, sir,” answered Evan, flushing a little in spite of his determination not to let them worry him.

“Then you don’t play foot-ball?”

“Yes, sir, I do.”

“What position?”

“Quarter-back,” answered Evan good-naturedly.

“Ah! What did I tell you, Ed? It is—it really is the famous Mr. Kingsford of whom we have all heard. There’s no use trying to deceive us, Mr. Kingsford. All is discovered. We know you. You were quarter-back on the All-America Girls’ Preparatory School Team last year!”

Every one laughed at that, Evan as quickly as any.

“Now, Mr. Kingsford,” went on Hopkins, very much pleased by his wit, “we will ask you to give us a few lessons in the rudiments of foot-ball. A little more room, please. Ed, produce the pigskin.”

Prentiss pulled a foot-ball from under the bed. A strong cord was attached to the lacings, and Evan viewed it with misgivings. Hopkins placed the ball on the floor, retaining the end of the cord.

“Now, Mr. Kingsford, kindly show us how to kick. Aim the ball toward the wall, please, so as not to break a window.”

Evan knew well enough what to expect, but [he went through the motions of kicking from placement]. Of course the ball wasn’t there when his foot swung at it, and of course the audience was vastly amused. This performance was gone through with several times, Prentiss at each attempt shading his eyes with his hand and announcing the distance made, as:

“Fine work, Kingsford! Forty-five yards and excellent direction!” “Fifty-odd that time, but a little too low. Try again.” “Better, much better! Sixty yards at least and a beautiful corkscrew! Wonderful! Marvellous!”

[“HE WENT THROUGH THE MOTIONS OF KICKING FROM PLACEMENT.”]

Evan was almost as much amused as the others, and Hopkins didn’t like that. So,

“Now, Mr. Kingsford, if you please, we will have a little falling on the ball.” A chorus of delighted laughter greeted this announcement. Falling on the ball wasn’t quite as funny as kicking it, to Evan at least, although every one else enjoyed it hugely. The floor was very, very hard and, of course, the ball was never there when he dropped, never save once when he was too quick for Hopkins and managed to snuggle the pigskin under his arm before the captain could yank it away. This feat won applause from the spectators and a scowl from Hopkins.

“Put more ginger into it, Mr. Kingsford,” commanded the latter. “You’re not half trying. That’s better!” Evan’s elbow and hip crashed against the floor and the foot-ball bounded out of his reach. The audience howled approval.

“Now try a dive, Mr. Kingsford. Stand off there about six feet and let us see what you can do with a moving ball.”

But Evan was feeling pretty sore and lame by this time, and he rebelled.

“I guess I’ve done enough,” he said good-humoredly. “This floor isn’t quite as soft as the turf.”

“Enough,” said Prentiss, “why, we can never see enough of such clever work, Mr. Kingsford!”

“Well, I’ve had enough, if you haven’t,” replied Evan doggedly.

“You’ll do as we tell you,” said Hopkins. “We’re managing this show. Now you get over there and—”

“I won’t, I tell you. I’m not going to break my bones for you. I’ve done as much as any of the others already, and I don’t intend to get all lamed up.”

“That’s right, Hop,” said Rob, and some of the others agreed. But Hopkins wasn’t ready to let go.

“You dry up, Rob!” he snarled. “You haven’t got anything to say about this. You haven’t any business in here anyhow; you’re a junior. This is upper class, and so you shut up.”

“You can make me, I guess—not,” drawled Rob.

“There are plenty of us here to run you out of the room,” answered Hopkins angrily.

“All right, come try it. Let’s have a little rough-house,” replied Rob smilingly. But there was an expression about his eyes and mouth that Hop didn’t just like, and while he was hesitating some of the others broke in.

“Oh, cut out the slanging!”

“Shut up, Lanky!”

“Go ahead with the show, Hop!”

Hopkins glared angrily at Rob and then turned his attention again to Evan.

“Come on, fresh kid,” he commanded. “Do as we tell you.”

“I’m through,” said Evan quietly.

“Then we’ll make you! Put him over there, Prentiss.”

“Better not try it,” said Evan as the tall Prentiss came toward him. He was still smiling, but the smile was rather set and his eyes were fixed very steadily on Prentiss. Also, he stepped back and clenched his fists in a very business-like way. But Prentiss was no coward, and, besides, he was much bigger than Evan. There might have been real trouble in another moment had not the light suddenly gone out, plunging the room into complete darkness. A howl of laughter went up and good-natured rough-house began as the fellows swarmed from their places. Some one found the foot-ball and it went banging about in the darkness regardless of heads.

“Light! Let there be light!”

“I want to go home!”

“Look out for the table, fellows!”

And above the pandemonium could be heard Hopkins angrily demanding that some one turn the light on again. Evan, in the thick of the swaying, laughing throng, felt a hand on his arm.

“This you, Evan?” whispered Rob’s voice.

“Yes.”

“This way then, quietly. Make for the door.” Evan followed and in another moment they were in the dimly-lighted hall running for their room. Once inside Rob bolted the door and closed the transom. Then, much pleased with his strategy, he sat down on his bed and chuckled. From the other end of the hall came the sound of stampeding youths and from the floor below Mr. McGill’s deep voice:

“Fellows, be quiet up there! Go to your rooms!”

[CHAPTER VII]
UP THE MOUNTAIN

For several days after the hazing, fellows—many of whom were only dimly familiar to Evan—accosted him as he passed with such remarks as: “Kick it again, Kingsford!” or, “Sixty yards easy that time!” But it was all good-natured, and Evan only smiled and went on, and presently the joke died out. It was a very busy first week of school for Evan. In the first place, it was no easy matter to get shaken down to his studies, many of which were either quite new to him or presented in an entirely new way. And there was daily practice on the gridiron after recitation hours, and plenty of hard work in the shape of study in the evenings. But there was fun too, and, on one occasion at least, even adventure.

It was Malcolm Warne who suggested the trip up Graytop. Football practice was over and as Evan started up the slope toward the gymnasium he encountered Malcolm and Rob. Rob was lazing along with his hands in his pockets and a good-natured grin on his face, and Malcolm was talking earnestly to him as though striving to arouse him from his mental indolence. It was Rob who called to Evan.

“Hello, there, you Evan! Come over here.”

“I’ve got to change.”

“What of it?” asked Rob. “You can stop a minute, can’t you? What do you suppose this chump wants to do? You’d never guess!”

“I’m not even going to try,” replied Evan, with a glance at Malcolm’s amused countenance. “I’m too tired.”

“Well, he wants to climb Graytop.”

“Does he?” Evan turned and let his gaze travel up the side of the mountain. “Why not?”

“I guess you never tried it,” said Rob. “Moreover, he wants us to go with him.”

“Now?” asked Evan, startled.

“No, to-morrow,” answered Malcolm. “It’s Saturday, you know. We can start in the morning, take some grub and cook dinner on the top. It’s a lot of fun. Rob is such a lazy-bones that he thinks he can’t climb it.”

“Me?” said Rob indignantly. “Why, I’ve been up there a half-dozen times. It’s one of the easiest things I do. I was only considering Evan. He’s young and tender and it’s a hard climb up there. You don’t want to go, do you, Evan?”

“Sure I do,” answered his room-mate heartily. “I should think it would be lots of fun. I love to picnic on mountain-tops.”

“Well, I’m not going to lug the basket,” sighed Rob.

“We won’t take any basket,” explained Malcolm. “I know a trick worth two of that. We’ll divide the stuff into three lots and each of us will take our share in a pack.”

“A what?”

“A pack; done up in a bundle and tied on our backs.”

“You must think I’m a mule,” Rob grumbled. “All right, though, I don’t want to spoil anyone’s fun.”

And so it was finally settled that they were to start out bright and early after breakfast the next morning. The matter of rations was left to Malcolm because, as Rob put it, he could look pathetic and move the cook’s heart. It was necessary to obtain permission for the expedition and Rob attended to that that evening.

“I told Doc,” he related after supper, “that we were taking Evan up to show him the beauties of the surrounding country. And Doc was real pleased; said it was very thoughtful of me and showed a nice disposition. I guess I made a hit all right.”

“What are we going to take to eat?” asked Evan.

“Steak and potatoes and bread and coffee,” answered Malcolm. “We’ll broil the steak over the fire and bake the potatoes—”

“And boil the bread and toast the coffee,” interrupted Rob flippantly. “You talk like a guinea-pig, Mal! Isn’t there going to be any pie or doughnuts?”

“Yes, if I can raise them.”

“I hope you can. Doughnuts ought to be raised, oughtn’t they? I’ll carry the doughnuts because they’ll be light.”

“You’re an idiot,” laughed Malcolm. “We’ll have to take a coffee-pot along, too. Last year some of us went up there and took a lot of coffee and forgot the pot.”

“And this is the chap to whom we are going to entrust our young and innocent lives!” exclaimed Rob dejectedly. “A chap who has a record like that! I refuse to go along!”

“Oh, you’ll go all right enough when you see the steak and things I’ll get,” scoffed Malcolm.

“Huh! I know all about picnic steak. It’s burned black on the outside and is all red and raw in the middle. And it tastes of smoke.”

“Not the way I cook it,” laughed the other. “You wait.”

“Oh, I suppose you do it in a chafing-dish! The worst of it is, fellows, that after you’ve climbed up there you’re so hungry that you can eat anything. Last time I went up I had to gnaw the bark off the trees for the last half-mile to keep up my strength.”

“I wondered who had been blazing the trees up there,” said Malcolm innocently.

“Somebody’s telling whoppers,” laughed Evan, “for I can see from down here that there aren’t any trees on the top.”

“There were, but Rob ate them all down! Well, nine o’clock sharp, you fellows—don’t forget.”

Rob groaned.

“Forget! I wish I could. I shall dream of it all night. If I have the nightmare, Evan, please wake me up.”

“You have something that sounds like a nightmare about every night,” answered Evan dryly. “You’re lucky you didn’t get in here with him, Malcolm. He’s the noisiest brute when he’s asleep I ever heard.”

“I don’t believe it!” said Rob indignantly. “I never hear a sound!”

“Because you’re making too much noise.”

“He’s probably inventing things in his sleep,” Malcolm laughed from the doorway. “Good-night.”

“Good-night. By the way, Doc says we must be careful about fires up there, because things are so dry. Guess he’s afraid you’ll burn the old mountain down, Mal. Well, see you in the morning.”

When morning came, and when Evan, after lying half awake for a time with the consciousness of being disagreeably chilly, finally dropped himself on his elbow and glanced toward the windows, it seemed that the weather didn’t approve of the expedition, for the morning world was gray and damp and cold. The wind was blowing out of the east and a thin fog drifted in from the bay. Evan fumbled for his watch and found that it was time to get up. But the idea of arising in his pajamas and putting down the window didn’t appeal to him, so he huddled himself under the blanket again and called to Rob.

“O Rob! Time to get up!”

There was no answer from across the room, however, and Evan tried again.

“O Rob! Get up, you lazy beggar, and close the window!”

There was a grunt and Rob flopped over and flattened himself out more comfortably, with his face buried in his arm.

Evan threw a pillow across, but missed. A second landed on Rob’s head, but only drew a grunt.

“Sluggard!” muttered Evan contemptuously.

With both pillows gone he could no longer be comfortable, and so, after a minute’s hesitation, he scrambled out of bed and dashed across to the window and sent it down with a crash loud enough to awaken anybody but Rob. Shivering, Evan got some of his clothes on. Then he pulled blanket and sheet from the slumberer and gleefully watched results. Rob drew his legs up with a protesting murmur and sleepily groped for the bed-clothes. Not finding them, he opened one eye and discovered his plight. Then he opened the other eye and regarded Evan blinkingly.

“Huh?” he muttered inquiringly.

“Get up,” said Evan sternly.

“Huh?” Rob’s eyes closed slowly.

“Get up, you silly chump. Don’t you know you’re freezing?”

“Yes, I—know.” Rob made a supreme effort and turned over. “What time is it?”

Evan told him. “And look at the weather,” he added. “Isn’t it rank?”

Rob cast an uninterested glance toward the windows and then sighed and arose.

“Gee, but it’s cold!” he muttered as he went over and regarded the gray and misty landscape. “What rotten weather,” he sighed. “Still, it’s mostly fog and maybe it will burn off before long.”

“I suppose we might leave our climb for another day,” Evan suggested.

“Oh, this isn’t bad. I rather like a cloudy day. Besides, it will be cooler, and climbing that old hill is rather warm work.”

“Thought you didn’t want to go.”

“Well, when I once make up my mind that a thing has to be done,” responded Rob as he splashed and spluttered over the basin, “I like to do it and get it over with. Br-r-rr! This water feels as though it had ice in it.... Besides, Mal would be disappointed.”

“All right; I’m game,” Evan assented.

They were ready to start shortly after nine. Malcolm had secured his provisions and had discovered a potato-sack in the cellar. This he cut into three squares. Then he divided the load and wrapped the portions up in the pieces of sacking. These were tied to the shoulders of the three members of the expedition with pieces of twine. As they started off towards the Doctor’s cottage they created quite a sensation among the fellows they met and were the recipients of many inquiries, while humorous comments on their appearance were not wanting. Mr. George Washington Jell hailed them from the steps of Academy and hurried after them.

“Where are you fellows going?” he asked. “Up Graytop?”

“We are,” replied Rob soberly.

“Let me go, will you, Rob?”

“No, Jelly, I will not.”

“Oh, go ahead! Why not?”

“Because I have some consideration for your welfare, Jelly. You’d be just skin and bones by the time you got to the top—if you ever did! And besides, I have troubles of my own, Jelly, and can’t stop to pull you over the rocks or carry you in my arms when you get tired.”

“I won’t get tired, honest, Rob. I’m a dandy climber!”

“You look it,” laughed Malcolm.

“You don’t mind if I go, do you?” asked Jelly, turning his attention eagerly to Malcolm.

“Indeed I do, Jelly. You see, we have only an ordinary amount of food with us, and either you’d starve or we would.”

“If you’ll just walk slow I’ll run back and get some more,” said Jelly. “It won’t take me but a minute. Go on, Rob, let me go along.”

Rob looked inquiringly at Malcolm and Evan. Evan laughed.

“Let him come, Rob,” he said. “The more the merrier. But he will have to get some more grub.”

“We-ll,” began Rob. But Jelly was already hurrying back toward the kitchen. “I suppose we might as well take him,” said Rob. “He’s a decent chap. But he will be just about all in by the time he gets up. We’ll go ahead slow and let him catch up to us.”

But by the time they had reached the first ascent it was evident that if they were to have the pleasure of Mr. Jell’s society on the climb they would have to wait for him. So they perched themselves on top of the stone wall that divides the school property from the woods and waited.

“Let’s cut some sticks,” suggested Malcolm. “They help a lot until you get to the rocks.”

“Right you are,” Rob agreed. “We must have some alpen-stocks. Who’s got a good strong knife?”

Evan supplied that article, and they set out in search of suitable branches for their purpose. By the time they had cut and trimmed four stout sticks Jelly was in sight, toiling breathlessly up the slope with a package wrapped in a flapping newspaper in one hand. When he reached them he was so out of breath that they mercifully perched themselves on the wall again and allowed him to recuperate.

“All I could get,” panted Jelly, “was bread and potatoes and six raw eggs. Cook was grumpy as she could be. Said she’d given out all the food she was going to. Said somebody had helped himself to a lot of crullers from the pastry-room.”

Malcolm looked idly at the sky and hummed a song.

“I thought they were doughnuts,” murmured Rob.

“It was extremely thoughtless of ‘someone,’” said Evan. “I hope you like eggs and potatoes, Jelly. You must be a vegetarian.”

“No, he’s a Presbyterian; aren’t you, Jelly?” said Rob.

“Don’t you worry about me,” answered Jelly with a grin. “I swiped a pair of chops when cook wasn’t looking. I think they’re veal.”

“A pair!” laughed Malcolm. “How do you know they’re a pair? Wouldn’t it be awful if you’d got two rights or two lefts, Jelly?”

“Let us hope they’re not veal,” said Rob gravely, “because you have to bread veal chops and serve them with tomato sauce, and our culinary arrangements are extremely limited.”

“It was very, very wrong of you,” observed Malcolm sternly, “to steal chops from dear cook. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you choked yourself on the bones.”

“Aren’t any bones,” replied Jelly triumphantly. “They’re all meat. Besides, you swiped the crullers.”

“Not at all,” answered Malcolm calmly. “The crullers were lying there in a big pan and I merely helped myself to our share instead of waiting until dinner-time.”

“Well, I just took my chops instead of waiting,” responded Jelly.

“I have a feeling,” said Rob, “that this excursion is going to end in disaster. The presence of a thief in our midst will certainly work us ill. However, as I am particularly fond of eggs, Jelly, we won’t send you back. You may come along if you will promise never to steal a pair of veal chops again. And now, if you have sufficiently recovered your breath, we will proceed. Where’s my alpen-stock? Ah, here it is. I love my little alpen-stock.”

It was not hard work for the first quarter of a mile, for the ascent through the maple woods was easy and there was a well-defined path to follow. The path led around the right elbow of the hill and in the course of time reached the summit from the farther side. But to make the ascent by the path was not considered “sporty” at Riverport, and presently, when the maples had given place to black and yellow birches and oaks and ashes, Malcolm, who was in the lead, swung away from the path and started almost straight up the mountain. The alpen-stocks proved their value now and it wasn’t long before the four boys were puffing like porpoises and the muscles of their legs were protesting vehemently. Jelly was soon occupying a position well in the rear, the perspiration trickling down his face and the sound of his breathing reaching the others like the exhaust of the steam pump in the boiler house at school. He held his precious parcel of rations in one hand and used his stick with the other, and there were times when he wished heartily for a third. The clouds still hid the sun, but the morning had grown warmer, and here in the woods what breeze there was failed to penetrate. Suddenly there was a cry of dismay from Jelly and the others turned anxiously.

“What’s the matter?” called Evan.

Jelly, some twenty yards down the slope, was dimly visible through the trees. He was stooping over his bundle and pulling the paper away with frantic anxiety.

“Anything wrong?” called Rob.

“Wrong!” shouted Jelly at last in a despairing voice. “My bundle’s leaking! I’ve lost both chops and two eggs and a whole lot of potatoes!”

[CHAPTER VIII]
ON TABLE ROCK

A howl of laughter arose from Rob and Evan and Malcolm. Jelly peered up at them disgustedly.

“I don’t see anything to laugh at!” he cried. “All I’ve got left is two eggs and three potatoes!”

“That’s enough for anybody,” answered Malcolm. Rob had seated himself on a tree-root and was laughing helplessly.

“I’m going back to look for them,” called Jelly. “You fellows wait. Don’t you run off and leave me, now!”

“We won’t,” gurgled Rob. “But—but get a move on!”

“Poor Jelly,” chuckled Evan. “He’s nearly dead already. If he can’t find his ‘pair of chops,’ Malcolm, have we got enough for him to eat?”

“Nobody ever had enough for Jelly to eat yet,” answered Rob, wiping his eyes on his sleeve.

“There’ll be enough at a pinch,” Malcolm replied. “Personally I’m not sorry to get a chance to sit down a moment. This is something of a climb, isn’t it?”

“You bet it is,” replied Evan, following the example of the others and seating himself with a sigh. “How much further is it?”

“We’ve done about half,” Malcolm answered, “but the rest of the trip is the hardest. What time is it, I wonder.”

It was twenty minutes to eleven.

“Time enough,” muttered Rob, leaning back against a tree, “if Jelly doesn’t delay the game too long. Isn’t he funny with his ‘pair of chops?’”

“There he comes, I think,” said Evan. “I hear something down there. O Jelly!”

“Hello!”

“Did you find ’em?”

“Yes, most of them,” was the faint reply. After another minute Jelly appeared below. Stopping to recover his parcel, he toiled up to them, his face as red as a beet and the perspiration running down his cheeks. He sank to the ground and puffed and panted.

“I found the chops,” he said. “And six—potatoes—but the eggs—were—smashed.”

“Didn’t you recover any of them?” asked Rob solicitously.

“If you want them—you can—go back and—get them,” Jelly retorted with a grin. He pulled the parcel to him, threw back the paper and exposed his treasures; nine small potatoes, two eggs, two slices of buttered bread and two pink chops covered with dirt and leaves. Jelly took up the chops and lovingly cleaned them while the others looked on laughing.

“They’re perfectly good chops,” asserted Jelly, faintly indignant.

“Of course they are,” answered Rob soothingly. “A few leaves and a little dirt will give them a fine, gamey flavor. They look like mutton to me, Jelly.”

Jelly held one to his nose and sniffed it critically.

“N—no, I think they’re veal,” he replied gravely. “I wish these eggs were hard boiled; then they wouldn’t have broken.”

“So do I,” said Rob. “I only allowed you to come, Jelly, because I am extremely fond of eggs. And now you have only half an excuse for your presence.”

“Say, Jelly,” Malcolm suggested, “you’d better stuff that truck in your pockets. Then you won’t lose it.”

“Guess I will,” muttered Jelly. He wrapped the chops tenderly in a piece of the newspaper and then distributed his rations about him. “Now,” he said, “it won’t be so hard to climb.”

“Well, let’s get on then,” said Rob. “I used to think, fellows, that I’d like to be a Swiss mountaineer and leap from crag to crag and yodel merrily in my glee, but I’ve changed my mind. Where’s my— Thank you, Evan. As I said before, I love my little alpen-stock.”

A quarter of an hour later they left the trees behind them and found themselves on a rocky slope sparsely grown with low bushes and tough, wiry grass. Here the sticks were no longer of use and they discarded them. Boulders and stones made progress slow and uncertain, and several times they had to climb on hands and knees up the face of some bare ledge. This was hard work for Jelly, and near the summit they were forced to stop and allow him to recover. A final scramble along the side of Table Rock and they were on top, breathless and weary but triumphant.

On all sides the country was visible for miles, although the mist to-day hid the further distances. South-eastward Narragansett Bay stretched out to the Sound, dully blue. White sails appeared here and there, and a steamer was making its way westward with a dark streak of smoke trailing ahead. The school buildings, directly below, looked no larger than cigar-boxes. Northward the country stretched away in wooded hills and meadows, sprinkled with farms and tiny white houses. Riverport was like a toy village and only a haze of smoke told where Providence lay at the head of the bay. Lake Matunuxet wound its long length toward the west like a wide blue-gray ribbon. The roads were buff scratches that dipped and turned across the green and russet landscape. The distant screech of a locomotive drew their eyes to where a freight train crawled along the edge of the bay beyond Riverport.

“It’s a dandy view, isn’t it?” asked Evan, who had seated himself on the edge of the great flat ledge with his legs hanging over a sixty-foot drop.

“Yes, but it’s all-fired cold,” answered Rob. “Let’s get over on the other side and start a fire. I’m hungry enough to eat Jelly’s dirty chops.”

The wind which, since they had left the protection of the trees, had been growing stronger each moment, blew coldly from the water. Overhead the clouds were drifting fast, and now and then a faint yellow radiance momentarily gave promise of sunlight. The others were glad to follow Rob’s suggestion. The ledge sloped westward to a litter of giant boulders and slabs, and among these there were traces of many former fires. The boys set about collecting wood: small branches of bushes and the remains of previous stores. Malcolm viewed the result dubiously.

“This isn’t going to be nearly enough fuel, fellows,” he said. “Somebody will have to go down and get some more.”

Rob looked interestedly at the distant hills. Jelly continued emptying the treasures from his pockets into a crevice in the rock. Evan looked thoughtfully at the pile of wood.

“How far do we have to go?” he asked.

“Down to the trees. It’s not so far on this side. You and I will go, Evan, and leave these lazy duffers to start the fire. I want a good big bed of coals to cook on.”

“All right,” said Evan, “but let’s wait a few minutes more. Gee, I haven’t really got my breath back yet.”

“I wish you’d let me go,” murmured Rob. “What a beautiful view it is, to be sure.”

“I’d go for wood,” said Jelly earnestly, “but I’m pretty tuckered, Malcolm. I suppose it’s being so fleshy that—”

“You’re not fleshy,” said Rob, “you’re fat, Jelly. Fleshy is much too polite a name for your trouble.”

“Never mind,” said Malcolm. “You sit down and get rested, Jelly. At least, you had the decency to offer to go, which is more than I can say for somebody.”

“I believe you are insinuating, Malcolm Warne! Your words and manner are alike insulting. I challenge you to mortal combat, up here above the clouds.” Rob picked up Jelly’s two precious eggs, “Behold the weapons! Eggs au naturel, at a distance of forty paces!”

“Here, you put those down, Rob!” shrieked Jelly in alarm.

“I shall be glad to put them down when they’re cooked, Mr. Jell.”

“Please don’t break them,” begged Jelly. “Malcolm, make him let my eggs alone.”

“That’s right, Rob. If you must play with those do it over the frying-pan so they won’t be wasted. Let’s go down and get the wood, Evan. How about it—rested enough?”

“Yes, I’m ready.”

“Just to show you that you have misjudged me sadly,” said Rob, “I will go along and help. You start the fire, Jelly, and keep it going until we get back with more supplies.”

[CHAPTER IX]
DINNER IS SERVED

Malcolm pointed out the “stove,” a hollow between three big ragged boulders, already blackened by former fires, and Jelly set to work to pile the fuel there. The others climbed cautiously down the ledge and stumbled and scrambled their way to the tree line. Once there, fuel was plentiful, but it was no easy task to make the ascent again with one’s arms piled with splintered branches. They made two trips, however, and assembled a fine big pile of wood on the surface of the ledge. After that they laid themselves down flat on their backs and puffed and panted like three steam-engines. The fire was crackling and Jelly was feeding it assiduously. The sparks, driven by the wind, went flying over the edge of the ledge in a shower of orange and red.

“Have a look at this, will you, Malcolm,” called Jelly. “I guess I’ve got enough coals for you now.”

Malcolm pronounced the fire about ready for operations, and gave his attention to the provisions. There was steak in two big slices, plenty of potatoes for roasting, buttered rolls and a full dozen and a half of doughnuts. There was ground coffee and an egg for clearing it, and salt and pepper, sugar and condensed milk. The utensils included coffee-pot, frying-pan, tin plates and cups, forks, knives and spoons. Rob viewed the display approvingly.

“Looks good to me,” he said. “But your frying-pan isn’t big enough, Mal.”

“Well, I didn’t want to bother with a very large one. This will do all right. We can cook one slice at a time. Where’s the coffee-pot? Throw it over, will you? I’ll start the coffee first, I guess. I’ll—”

Malcolm stopped suddenly while an expression of utter dismay came into his face.

“What’s the trouble?” asked Evan. Malcolm settled back on the ground and stared blankly at the coffee-pot.

“I—we—”

“Out with it. What did we forget to bring along?”

“We forgot to bring any water,” murmured Malcolm.

“By Jove!” said Evan.

“What do you think of that?” muttered Rob disgustedly. The three looked at each other blankly. Finally,

“How far is it to the spring?” asked Evan.

“It’s almost half-way down the hill,” answered Malcolm.

“Thunder!”

“I don’t see how you came to forget it,” exclaimed Rob.

“I didn’t forget it any more than you did,” Malcolm defended.

“Oh, let’s do without coffee,” said Evan.

“I guess we’ll have to,” Malcolm answered. “I don’t believe any of us want to make the trip down there.”

“I’m plumb sure I don’t,” growled Rob. “But we’ve simply got to have something to drink. Hang it, I’m thirsty now! I didn’t realize it until I found there was no water.”

Jelly had joined them in time to learn the catastrophe.

“I’ll go down,” he said cheerfully. “I know where the spring is; been there twice.”

The others viewed him doubtfully, and then each other. Finally Rob shook his head.

“That’s nice of you, Jelly,” he said, “but you’d die if you climbed half-way up here again. I’ll go down myself.”

“No, I will,” said Malcolm. “After all, it was more my fault than any one else’s.”

“I’d be glad to go if I knew where the spring was,” said Evan. “Perhaps you can tell me so I can find it.” But Rob shook his head again.

“We couldn’t. I’ll go down. I don’t mind. You go ahead with dinner, Mal. I’ll be back as soon as I can, but I guess it will take me a half-hour.”

“Really,” protested Jelly, “I’d like to go. It won’t hurt me a bit if I take my time coming back. And besides, I want to get my weight down. Hopkins says I’m too fat for football. Where’s the can?”

“Haven’t any; you’ll have to take the coffee-pot. Are you sure you don’t mind?” asked Malcolm anxiously.

“Sure. I’d rather like it. Let me go, won’t you, Rob?”

“Why, yes, if you want to. But you take it slow coming back, Jelly; hear?”

Jelly promised, seized the coffee-pot and disappeared over the edge. The others watched him until he had reached the woods. There he turned and waved the pot at them cheerfully. The next moment he was out of sight.

“He’s a good little dub,” said Rob gratefully. “I suppose I ought to have done it myself, though.”

“It won’t hurt him,” said Malcolm. “And it will take some fat off, I guess. Well, I suppose I might as well get the potatoes in.”

“Hello,” exclaimed Rob, “what’s happened to the wind?”

“That’s so; it’s quit, hasn’t it?” Evan looked down into the valley. “And it’s getting foggy. Look over there toward the bay, Rob.”

“I should say so! I bet it will rain before we get back.”

“Hope it will hold off until we’ve had dinner,” observed Malcolm. “I don’t fancy sitting up here in a rain with nothing over us.”

“I don’t believe that means rain,” said Evan. “It’s just fog. The wind has stopped and it’s sort of thickening up.”

“You talk like a weather bureau,” laughed Rob. “Anything I can do to aid the chef, Mal?”

“Not a thing. These potatoes will want a half-hour at least, I guess. Meanwhile we might as well take it easy.” He found a niche in the rocks and settled himself into it with a sigh of content. The others followed his example. Now and then Malcolm arose and added more fuel to the fire, at the bottom of which, in a bed of glowing gray ashes, the potatoes were hidden. They talked desultorily. It was very comfortable lying there and watching the fire. Now that the wind had died down it was quite warm, although there was a perceptible dampness in the air. At the end of a half-hour Malcolm bestirred himself. Taking a stick and shielding his face with his cap he poked around in the ashes until he had brought to view one of the potatoes. He coaxed it away from the fire and then broke it open.

“How is it?” asked Rob lazily.

“Pretty nearly done,” was the answer. “I’ll start the steak, I guess.” He raked some live coals to the edge of the fire, placed one of the slices of steak in the pan, sprinkled it with salt and pepper and placed the pan on the coals. Then he drew more coals around it and set about sharpening a two-foot stick.

“What’s that for?” asked Evan.

“To turn the meat with,” was the reply. “Think I want to singe my hair off?”

“Isn’t he the haughty chef?” murmured Rob. “Seems to me it’s about time Jelly was getting back.”

Evan arose and walked to the edge of the rock.

“See him?” asked Malcolm.

“N—no, but it’s so foggy that I can’t even see the trees,” Evan replied. “Yes, I do, though. Here he comes. Hello, Jelly!”

“Hello!”

“Did you get it?”

“Yep. Would you mind coming down and getting it, please? I don’t believe I’ll ever climb up the rock without spilling it.”

“All right.” Evan scrambled down and met Jelly at the foot of the ledge and relieved him of his burden.

“You wouldn’t think a quart of water could be so heavy,” panted Jelly. “You see, you have to hold it like this or it runs out the spout. That makes it awkward, doesn’t it?”

“Decidedly,” answered Evan. “I don’t know whether I can get it up there myself without losing most of it.”

But he did finally, and a minute or two later the coffee was “on the stove.” Jelly was pretty well fagged out and they made him lie down and rest. From the frying-pan came a heartening sizzle and, now and then, a fragrant whiff.

“May I cook my chops next?” asked Jelly.

“You may not,” Malcolm replied. “You just lie there on your silly back. I’ll cook them for you. You can start in on the steak, though, while they’re frying. Wonder if those potatoes are ready to come out.”

“Well, if I’d been in there as long as they have,” said Evan, “I’m sure I’d be ready to come out! Want me to help you?”

“Yes, will you? Get a long stick and poke around for them. But don’t get too near the coffee-pot, whatever you do!”

“No, Evan, if you upset that coffee-pot we will descend upon you and rend you limb from limb,” threatened Rob. “I’m so thirsty now that I could drink suds. Are these tin cups all the same size, Mal?”

“Of course. Why?”

“I was going to pick out the biggest one,” sighed Rob. “How are the potatoes, Evan?”

“All right, I guess. They look—er—a trifle well-done, but I suppose they’re all right inside. Want to see one?”

Rob deftly caught the blackened object that Evan tossed him but didn’t hold it long in his hand. “Wow!” he exclaimed. “Want to kill me?”

“Get your plates!” said Malcolm. “Dinner’s ready!”

[CHAPTER X]
STORIES AND SLUMBER

That dinner was worth waiting for, worth all the trouble and weariness it had entailed. They sat around the smoldering fire, balancing tin plates on their knees, with cups of steaming hot coffee and buttered rolls and doughnuts and salt and pepper-boxes dotting the immediate landscape, and did full justice to it. Malcolm’s opinion of his culinary ability was justified by results. The steak was just right, Jelly’s chops were cooked to a turn, the two precious eggs were perfectly fried and the coffee—well, perhaps the coffee was a trifle muddy, but it was hot and it was drinkable and there were no criticisms. The potatoes belied their outward appearance and were surprisingly white and mealy when opened. Jelly had forgotten to provide himself with plate, cup, knife, fork or spoon and ate his dinner from a flat stone, using borrowed implements and his fingers by turns. Malcolm shared his tin cup with him.

“Have a piece of chop, Rob?” asked Jelly.

“No, thanks.”

“I wish you would. I had some of your steak.”

“What kind of chops are they?”

“I—I think they’re veal. Anyhow, there isn’t much taste to them.”

“Then of course they’re veal,” laughed Malcolm. “Evan, I’ll bet you didn’t get all the potatoes out; we’re shy four or five.”

“Here’s one if you want it. I got all I could find. How’s the coffee holding out, Rob?”

Rob seized the pot and shook it.

“Plenty here, I guess. Pass your cup.”

“It’s always well to shake it about a bit,” said Malcolm dryly. “It makes it so nice and clear.”

“Oh, don’t be so fussy. Any one seen the canned cow? And the sugar? Thanks. Jelly, you got my spoon?”

“Yes, I’m eating egg with it. Want it?”

“Well, scarcely,” replied Evan. “Let me take yours, Rob. These are dandy doughnuts, fellows.”

“They’re crullers,” said Jelly indistinctly by reason of the crowded condition of his mouth. “Cook said so.”

“What’s the difference between a cruller and a doughnut, anyway?” asked Evan.

“A doughnut is a cruller with a hole through it,” answered Malcolm.

“It’s a doughnut with a college education,” amended Rob.

“That’s an old one,” scoffed Malcolm.

“Doughnuts and crullers are just the same,” said Jelly. “It just depends where they live what they’re called. In some places they call them fried-cakes.”

“Well, I call them fine,” said Evan, biting into his second one. “A cruller by any other name would taste as good.”

“Suppose you toss a couple over here,” suggested Malcolm, “if you don’t want them all.”

“I do want them all,” was the reply, “but being generous I will allow you one.”

“You’ll allow me a couple more presently,” responded Malcolm. “Say, I should think there would be a big waste in making them this way; with holes in the middle, I mean.”

“Waste? Why?” asked Rob.

“Well, what becomes of the piece that’s cut out?”

The others laughed and Malcolm looked surprised.

“What’s the joke?”

“Why, they take the dough that’s cut out and make more crullers, you idiot,” said Rob. Malcolm considered a moment.

“Oh,” he said. “I never thought of that. I had an idea they threw that away.”

“Wasn’t there a story,” asked Evan, “about a man who got it into his head that if he could make the holes in doughnuts larger he’d make more money on them?”

“There was—and is,” answered Rob gravely. “There is also a conundrum about the reason why a miller wears a white hat. But if you had any respect for age you’d let them both alone.”

“Say, Rob,” said Jelly, “I should think you’d invent a cruller with a little box in the middle to hold raspberry jam. That would be swell, wouldn’t it?”

“Why raspberry?” asked Evan.

“Oh, I like raspberry best,” answered Jelly calmly. “In that way you’d be economizing space, Rob. It always make me feel badly to see all that empty place in the middle.”

“Well, you won’t have any empty place in your middle,” said Rob scathingly. “No wonder you’re fat, Jelly.”

Mr. George Washington Jell sighed comfortably. “Well,” he replied, “I’d rather be a little bit fat and have enough to eat, Rob.”

“How about football, though?” asked Malcolm. “I thought you told us that Hopkins thinks you’re too fat?”

“Oh, I’ll soon train down,” answered Jelly, reaching for another doughnut. “In a week or two I’ll be twelve pounds lighter.”

“Mercy!” Rob held up his hands in awe. “Why, we’ll hardly know you! Think of Jelly losing twelve pounds, fellows!”

“Twelve pounds of Jelly,” murmured Malcolm. “You’ll be a regular skeleton, Jelly.”

“You’ll get rid of another pound or two going down the mountain,” observed Evan.

“Mal, did I ever tell you about a fellow I knew back home who had a cocker spaniel?” asked Rob.

“No, I don’t think so. What about him?”

“Well, it was a fine dog and he wanted to enter him at the dog show.” Rob pushed his tin plate aside and stretched himself comfortably. “But when he had the dog weighed he was eight pounds too heavy. The show was to open the next morning and he didn’t know what to do. He tried starving the dog and in the evening he weighed him again, but he was still seven and a half pounds too heavy.”

“This is a pathetic tale,” muttered Malcolm.

“Well, he didn’t know what to do—”

“You said that before, Rob.”

“But he had an idea. He remembered that once he had seen a chap wrapped up in sweaters running along the road getting his weight down. So this chap, whose name was—”

“Smith,” suggested Evan.

“Shut up. His name was Jones. So Jones decided that if that would work with a man it ought to work with a dog. So after dinner he wrapped the dog—”

“What was the dog’s name?” asked Jelly.

“Smith,” said Evan again.

“The dog’s name was—was—I don’t remember.”

“That’s a crazy name,” commented Malcolm. “Why didn’t he call him I-Don’t-Care?”

“Say, do you want to hear this story or don’t you?” Rob demanded. They assured him that they did. “Well, shut up, then! Smith wrapped the dog in a big woolen sweater—”

“Jones, you mean.”

“No, the dog,” answered Rob irritably. “I mean Jones wrapped—”

“Smith,” said Evan.

“Wrapped the dog in a sweater and started out with him on a leash.”

“On a what?” asked Malcolm politely.

“On a leash; the dog was on a leash.”

“Oh! What was Smith on?”

Rob found the remains of a baked potato within reach and scored against Malcolm’s neck. While the latter was wiping away the fragments Rob went on.

“Well, he walked that dog and walked him. Took him away out into the country and back again into town; pulled him all around the city; dragged him eight times up and down the City Hall steps. By that time it was about two in the morning, and Jones—”

“Smith,” corrected Evan helpfully.

“And Smith—hang it, his name was Jones, I tell you! Jones was pretty nearly dead for sleep. He’d taken naps as he went along. Finally he came to a lunch-wagon and went in and got a cup of coffee. He gave some of it to the dog—”

“Oh, come now!” Evan protested. “Dogs don’t drink coffee!”

“This dog was very fond of coffee,” replied Rob with dignity.

“Of course,” agreed Malcolm. “Did you hear Rob say he was a coffee spaniel?”

“Well, that woke them both up and they went on walking.”

“Say, for goodness sake, Rob, get through walking!” begged Malcolm. “My legs are just aching already. Have them sit down for a minute, won’t you?”

“He walked that dog around until four o’clock in the morning,” declared Rob impressively, “and when he got him home he put him on the scales, and what do you think?”

“He’d gained another eight pounds,” said Evan.

“There wasn’t anything left but the collar,” guessed Jelly.

“No, but that dog had lost eight pounds exactly and was half a pound under the limit! What do you think of that?”

“I’d rather not tell you,” answered Malcolm evasively.

“And did he win a prize with him?” asked Jelly.

“N—no, he didn’t. You see, when he took him around to the show he found that he had walked two inches off the dog’s legs and they made him enter him as a dachshund.”

There was a deep and painful silence. Then Malcolm began to whistle softly and Evan reached out for the last doughnut and tossed it into Rob’s lap.

“You win,” he said.

That reminded Jelly of a story that he had heard his father tell. Moreover, he assured them seriously, it was a true story.

“Well,” sighed Rob, “go ahead with it and get it off your mind.”

Whether it was true or not, it was very long and somewhat complicated and the audience soon gave up trying to follow its intricacies. Rob went to sleep and snored shamelessly. This annoyed Jelly and he lost connection.

“And so—and so—Where was I?”

“The druggist was just filling the prescription,” replied Evan.

“Whereupon,” murmured Malcolm sleepily, “the goat climbed on to the counter and ate up the nail-files, shrieking in a high falsetto voice, ‘Death to tyrants!’ But see, who comes here? Ah, ’tis our hero! Vaulting nimbly upon the back of his restless steed Diamond Dick Tolliver drew his trusty bean-shooter and waving it above his head cried—”

“Oh, shut up, Malcolm! Can’t you let me tell my story?”

“Proceed,” breathed Malcolm sweetly. “Wake me when you’re through, Jelly.”

So Jelly went on. Ten minutes later he paused at the climax of his narrative.

“What do you think of that?” he asked beamingly. There was no reply: His three auditors were sound asleep. Jelly viewed them disgustedly one after another. Then he lay down on his back, put an arm under his head and followed the general example.

[CHAPTER XI]
JELLY CLIMBS A TREE

Evan was the first to awake. For some time he had been dimly conscious of discomfort. The rocks were very hard and there was a chilliness in the air that sent his thoughts groping sleepily toward the fire. But when he sat up stiffly and looked for the fire he saw only a pile of ashes and cinders from which a few curls of smoke arose. Then he looked about him in surprise. The world was shut out by a great gray fog. Even the farther edge of the rock, only some forty feet distant, was scarcely discernible. He drew his hand along his sleeve and found that his clothes were saturated with moisture. He awakened the others and it was agreed that it was time to be going.

“We must be in a cloud,” said Malcolm. But Rob declared that they weren’t high enough to get into clouds.

“It’s just a plain every-day fog,” he said. “But it’s certainly a wonder. What time is it? Who’s got a watch?”

“Two twenty-three,” replied Evan. “I’ll have to hurry or I won’t get down in time for football practice.”

“Me too,” said Jelly. “Let’s get the things packed up and start.”

“Wish that fire hadn’t gone out,” growled Rob, shivering in his wet clothes as he helped the others collect the tin dinner service. “I feel like a clam.”

“I say nothing of how you look,” remarked Malcolm pleasantly. “Where’s that other piece of sacking? And where’s the string got to?”

“Blown away, probably,” said Evan. “Why not put all the things into one bundle and take turns carrying it? It won’t be very heavy, anyhow.”

So that was done and presently they were scrambling down over the edge of Table Rock to the boulder-littered slope below. The fog hid objects forty feet away and presently Rob gave voice to a thought which had occurred to all of them.

“I guess we’ll have to trust to luck to find the path,” he said. “But we’re bound to come to it if we keep on going down hill.”

“We’ll find the bottom, all right,” answered Malcolm, “although we may not arrive just where we want to.”

“I don’t see how we can fail to find the path,” said Evan. “And when we come to it all we have to do is to follow it down.”

“There’s the edge of the trees,” remarked Rob. “Isn’t that spring right here somewhere, Mal?”

“Further down and a bit to the left. Want some water?”

“Yes, I’m as dry as the dickens. Let’s have a look for it.”

“All right. I could drink a quart or two myself.”

But when they were in the thin woods and, after descending for what seemed the proper distance, had turned to the left, it became evident that finding the spring was not going to be an easy task. After some ten minutes of prospecting along the slope Evan advised giving over the search.

“Let’s get home, fellows,” he said. “It’s getting late, and we may have to hunt here for an hour.”

“I guess that’s so,” Rob agreed. “We’ll suffer the pangs of thirst a while longer. Let’s make a bee-line down the hill and find the path.”

When one’s legs are stiff from climbing up hill the worst punishment one can inflict on them is to require them to take one down again. Theoretically, descending a mountain should be as easy as rolling off the proverbial log. Actually, it is almost as hard on the muscles as going up. Jelly was the first to protest.

“I’ve got to sit down a moment, fellows,” he declared, suiting the action to the word. “My legs are nearly killing me.”

“It’s not a bad scheme,” said Rob, finding a place on a dead log. “Who wants to carry the luggage a while?”

“I’ll take it,” said Evan. “We ought to be pretty near the path, hadn’t we?”

“Yes,” replied Malcolm. “I thought we’d have reached it before this. But it can’t be far away.”

But when they resumed their journey the path remained elusive. They went down for another ten minutes, dodging between trees, sliding and slipping down the slope, tripping over roots and snags and forcing their way through the young growth. At last Rob stopped, clinging to a sapling, and surveyed the tiny space about them left visible by the fog.

“There’s one thing certain,” he said, “and that is that we’ve gone by the path. We’re in the maples now.”

“That’s so,” Malcolm agreed, “but I don’t see how we missed it. I’ve been watching for it all the way down.”

“It wouldn’t be hard to miss, I guess,” ventured Jelly. “It isn’t much of a path even when you’re on it.”

“No, and we’ve probably crossed right over without seeing it at all. Well, the only thing to do is to keep on down and see where we land.”

“How much more is there, do you suppose?” asked Evan rather dubiously.

“Oh, a quarter of a mile, likely. It won’t take long. Give me that bundle of tin-ware, Evan.”

Evan surrendered the load to Malcolm and they went on again. But it was slow work, for the trees were thick and the undergrowth often made detours necessary. Finally they rested again and Jelly set to work vigorously rubbing his leg muscles.

“You know,” remarked Rob calmly, “the plain fact of the matter is, fellows, that we’re plumb lost.”

The others nodded.

“Lost as anything,” said Malcolm. “Still, we’re bound to get down finally.”

“Seems to me we’re about down now,” said Evan. “The ground is pretty nearly level, isn’t it?”

“That’s so,” Rob replied. “We stopped coming down hill two or three minutes ago. In that case we’re nowhere near school.”

“Must be over to the north, then,” said Malcolm thoughtfully. “We sort of got off our bearings, I reckon, when we went to look for that silly spring.”

“Wish I could see it now, though,” said Rob, running his tongue over parched lips. “I’m beastly thirsty.”

“So am I,” said Jelly sadly. “I wish I were home.”

“Well!” Evan arose energetically. “Let’s get home. There’s no use sitting here. I feel as though I’d taken a shower bath. Every thing I’ve got on is sopping wet.”

“This is the foggiest old fog I ever did see,” grumbled Rob. “Come along, Jelly. I told you fellows when we started out that something unpleasant would happen to us if we took such a dishonest person as Jelly along. He’s our Jonah.”

“I guess I’m not getting any more fun out of it than you are,” grunted Jelly crossly as he arose painfully and limped after them. Ten minutes later there was a shout from Evan, who had taken the lead.

“What is it?” asked Rob eagerly.

“Here’s a field,” was the answer. They had at last emerged from the woods, but Rob and Malcolm viewed each other questioningly.

“Where do you suppose we are?” asked Rob. Malcolm shook his head.

“I don’t know. This isn’t the meadow back of school because there’s no stone wall here. What I think is that we’ve got around to the north side of the mountain, toward Hillsgrove, you know. They say that in the woods you always unconsciously bear to the left.”

“If this old fog would only get out,” said Evan. They moved undecidedly into the field and in a moment the woods had vanished from sight behind them.

“What time is it?” asked Rob.

“Almost four,” Malcolm replied.

“What?”

“That’s right,” Evan confirmed, glancing at his own watch. “No football for us to-day, Jelly.”

“Glad of it,” answered Jelly morosely. “I couldn’t play football if my life depended on it.”

“Pshaw, they wouldn’t hold practice a day like this,” said Rob. “Why, you couldn’t see the ball twenty feet away. What time did we leave up there, Mal?”

“About half-past two.”

“Great Scott! We’ve been wandering around this fool mountain for an hour and a half! No wonder I’m tired! Does anybody know where we are headed for now?”

Apparently no one did.

“Seems to me,” said Malcolm, “we’d better strike off to the right.”

“Well, the fog on the right looks just as nice as that on the left,” answered Rob philosophically. “Come on. Perhaps, though, we’d have done better to have followed the edge of the woods.”

“That’s so,” Evan agreed. “Let’s do that.”

“First find your woods,” said Malcolm.

“They’re right back there,” said Evan, pointing.

“Get out! They’re off there!” And Rob indicated a different point of the compass. Malcolm shrugged his shoulders.

“I guess we won’t look for them,” he said dryly. “Come on and let’s hit up the pace. At least we’ve got level ground to walk on, and that’s something.”

“It may be level,” Jelly muttered from the rear, “but it’s mighty wet. My feet are sopping.”

“Take ’em off and carry them,” answered Rob flippantly. “And you might carry the bundle for awhile, too, Mr. Jell. You haven’t had a go at it yet, have you?”

“Hand it over,” said Jelly.

Presently they came to a little slope and at the bottom of that found a stone wall.

“Now what?” asked Evan.

“Climb over it and keep going,” answered Malcolm doggedly. “We’ll have to get somewhere some time.”

“So you say! Bet you we’re walking in a circle.”

“But think of the exercise we’re getting, Evan,” said Rob. “And look at the lovely view! How beautiful are the distant hills in the sunset glow!”

“Don’t talk hills to me,” grunted Evan, “or mountains either. I would like to see a sunset glow, though,” he added.

“Hello, what’s that?” Rob stopped and peered into the fog ahead.

“A rock, you idiot,” said Malcolm.

“It isn’t; it’s a cow! And there’s another. We’re probably away out West in the cattle country. I knew I’d walked a long distance!”

“There are dozens of them,” said Jelly as they went on. “If there are cows there must be a house somewhere around.”

“We’ll ask one of them,” said Rob. “Good-afternoon, Mrs. Cow, will you kindly tell me where—”

“I don’t believe,” murmured Malcolm, “that I’d have much to say to that cow, Rob.” He pulled the other aside. “She happens to be a bull.”

“Gee, that’s so! And I don’t think he likes us. Let us alter our course and steer around him. Nice bull, nice bull!”

They were in the middle of the herd now. The cows stopped nibbling at the grass and viewed them with calm curiosity, some moving slowly away. The bull, however, which was a particularly large and active looking animal, displayed more interest. As they moved to the left he pawed the ground and then trotted ahead as though to intercept them.

“I believe he’s going to speak to us,” murmured Rob. “Perhaps we’d better go back.”

He was and he did. He stopped some twenty feet away, lowered his head and bellowed. Jelly gave a yell of dismay and took to his legs. The others didn’t waste time in vocal manifestations of alarm; they fled silently. As there had been no agreement as to direction they put out toward four different points of the compass. Just what it was about Jelly that attracted the bull is difficult to say; perhaps it was the bundle of tin plates and coffee-pot and things that rattled enticingly as he ran. At all events, it was on Jelly that the bull centered his attention and it was in his wake that he galloped. When the others paused for breath, through the silent mist came the rattle of tins and the thud of bovine hoofs. They listened in anxious suspense. Then, farther away, there was a terrorized shriek followed by an awesome bellow. Then silence, heavy and depressing, broken a moment later by a great rattling of tinware. Then silence once more.

“Jelly!” cried Rob from one part of the field.

“Jelly!” called Malcolm from another. And,

“Jelly!” called Evan from another.

Faintly from a distance came an answering hail.

“Are you all right?” called Malcolm.

“Did he get you?” called Evan.

“Where are you?” shouted Rob.

“I’m up a tree,” was the answer, “and the blamed bull is waiting for me to come down!”

Three figures moved cautiously in the direction of the voice, calling softly to each other as they went.

“Come and drive him away!” appealed Jelly from the misty void. “I can’t hang on much longer!”

“We’re coming,” shouted Rob. “That you, Mal? Where’s Evan?”

“Here I am. What shall we do, fellows?”

“Blessed if I know,” answered Rob, pushing his cap away from his damp forehead and scowling. “We haven’t even a stick.”

“Much good a stick would do,” said Malcolm. “Come on, anyhow, and let’s do something. Shout again, Jelly!”

“Over here, you—you fools!” came Jelly’s voice from nearer at hand. “He’s trying to eat the coffee-pot!”

“Hope it chokes him,” muttered Rob as they hurried along.

“There he is!” whispered Evan, seizing Malcolm’s arm. But it was only a peaceable cow which trotted away at sight of them. Then, dimly in the fog ahead of them, they descried a small misshapen apple tree and a moving object beneath. They halted.

“Is he still there, Jelly?” asked Rob softly.

“Of course he is! Can’t you see him? Aren’t you going to do anything?”

“Ye-es, certainly; only—what shall we do, Jelly?”

“Drive him away!”

“How?”

“Make a noise; scare him; do something; I can’t hold on here any longer, I tell you! I’m slipping now!”

“Let’s all yell together,” suggested Evan. “Come on!”

“Wait!” cried Malcolm. “Let’s run toward him and yell like thunder. That ought to scare him.”

They viewed each other doubtfully.

“Aren’t you ever going to do anything?” wailed Jelly.

“Come on!” said Rob desperately.

They charged three abreast, yelling like Comanche Indians, charged blindly, heroically. For one instant the result trembled in the balance. Then the bull gave a short, terrorized bellow and vanished into the mist. And at the same moment there was a thud and a crash and Jelly descended into a litter of tin plates and cups.

[CHAPTER XII]
IN THE FOG

“Are you hurt?” asked Malcolm anxiously as he helped Jelly to his feet.

“I guess not,” was the aggrieved reply. “You fellows might have hurried a bit, though, it seems to me.” Jelly disencumbered one shoe of the coffee-pot and felt of himself gingerly. Around the foot of the gnarled apple-tree lay the contents of the bundle, trampled and battered. The piece of sacking decorated a lower branch like a flag of distress.

“You silly chump,” exclaimed Rob irritably, “what did you think we were going to do? Seize the bull by the horns and hold him while you came down and walked home? We don’t like bulls any better than you do.”

“Maybe we’d better get out of here,” suggested Evan, casting nervous glances into the encircling fog. “He might come back to finish the job, you know.”

“That’s so. Maybe he’s gone off to get his friends,” said Rob. “Here, let’s pick this stuff up. Did you throw the bundle at him, Jelly?”

“Throw it at him! There wasn’t time to do any throwing,” answered Jelly crossly. “He nearly got me. I dropped the things and made a flying leap at that branch. The next thing I knew he was digging his horns into the bundle. He got one horn through the sacking and couldn’t get it off at first. And that made him mad. So he gave a bellow and tossed it into the tree and it just rained tin plates and frying-pans and forks and things for a minute. Then he danced around on them and butted the tree as though he was trying to jar me out. I’ll bet you he’s got an awful headache! I—I’d like to shoot him!”

“I can’t find the string,” said Malcolm. “We’ll just have to hold the sack by the corners. Come on and let’s get away from here.”

“All right, but which way shall we go?” asked Rob.

“Oh, it doesn’t matter; any old way. What’s that?”

It was the shriek of a distant locomotive. They turned toward the sound.

“Well, that proves that the railroad is in that direction,” said Malcolm. “Let’s head that way.”

“All right,” Rob answered, “but that train may be at Engle or it may be ten miles north. Still, one way’s as good as another. Come along. If we meet that bull, though, I tell you right now that I shall drop this tin shop and run like thunder!”

They went on across the meadow through the fog which, instead of decreasing, seemed to thicken as evening drew near. They may have traversed a quarter of a mile of meadow or it may have been twice that distance, but at last a row of trees loomed out of the grayness ahead. The trees proved to be growing along a fence and on the other side of the fence was a country road. Rob seated himself on a rock and wiped his face with a damp handkerchief.

“Well, here we are,” he said.

“Where?” scoffed Evan.