Front matter (continued 2)

Bobby suddenly saw the long-armed, white-headed Applethwaite Plunkit standing in the crowd eying him while he delivered his talk. The crowd before the rostrum laughed as usual, and those who had been in to see the show urged their friends to venture likewise.

The white-headed farm boy from Plunkit's Creek was pushing forward to enter the show. Bobby had hoped he would not venture, but when Ap approached, Bobby made up his mind quickly.

"You can't go in, Applethwaite," he said, decidedly. "We don't want you."

"Why not!"

"Never mind why not," said Bobby, firmly, looking straight into the flushed face of the boy who had treated him and Fred so meanly just a week before. "But you can't go in."

"Ain't my cent just as good as anybody else's?"

"Not here it isn't," declared Bobby, who knew very well that if the white head appeared in the tent where the red head was, there would be an explosion! Besides, he did not trust Ap. He believed Ap would do all he could to break up the show after he had seen it.

Ap began to bluster and threaten, but there were too many grown folk around for him to dare attack Bobby. "You jes' wait," he whispered. "I'll fix you some time."

Bobby did not know what Applethwaite might try to do, and when he saw him a little later with a group of boys who were pretty rough looking, he was worried. These boys stood across the street from the show and Bobby was afraid they were waiting for some slack time, when there were no grown folk about, to "rush" the tent.

He called Fred out and told him what he feared and Fred went through and told the biggest clerk in his father's store. The clerks were interested in the two young showmen, for they had been into the tent and were delighted with what they had seen.

The big fellow promised, therefore, to come running and bring the other clerks to help, if the boys whistled for assistance. This plan quieted Bobby's fears, and he gave his mind to the lecture, and to coaxing the audience into the show, one by one.

Suddenly the young lecturer saw Mr. Priestly in the crowd. He flushed up pretty red when he saw him, for Mr. Priestly was the minister at the church the boys attended, and Bobby thought he was about the finest man in town.

The clergyman was a young man who had made a name for himself in University athletics, and he had the biggest Boys' Club in town. Bobby and Fred were particular friends of the young minister, and for a moment Bobby wondered if Mr. Priestly would approve of the peep-show.

The gentleman's ruddy, smoothly shaven face was a-smile as he listened to Bobby's speech, and his blue eyes twinkled. He was the first to reach the tent entrance when Bobby stepped down from the platform.

"Which wonder am I to see, Bobby?" he asked, as he presented his penny to the youthful showman.

"We—we favor the clergy, Mr. Priestly," said Bobby, hesitatingly, yet with an answering smile. "You shall see two wonders." Then he called in to his partner: "Hey, Fred!"

"Hullo!" returned the red-haired one, coming to the entrance.

"Here's Mr. Priestly," said Bobby, in a low voice. "I want you to show him the strongest man in the world, and the very best man in Clinton!"

"Oh-ho!" cried Mr. Priestly. "That's the way of it, eh?" and he pinched Bobby's cheek as he went into the tent. "I believe I can guess your joke, boys."

"Never mind! nobody else has guessed it," chuckled Fred, going before him. "Stand right there, Mr. Priestly."

The oil lamp was in a bracket screwed to a post in the back of the tent. Just where its light shone best was a narrow red curtain. Fred became preternaturally solemn as he stepped forward and laid his hand upon the cords that manipulated the curtain.

"We will show you, Mr. Priestly," he said, "the Strongest Man in the World—and as Bobby says, the very best man in Clinton!"

He pulled aside the curtain and Mr. Priestly saw his own reflection in a long mirror that had been borrowed from the Martin attic.

"Well, well!" exclaimed the minister, nodding. "And is this all your show?"

"Anybody who is not satisfied with what he sees," returned Fred, chuckling, "can have the entrance fee refunded."

At that the clergyman burst into a great laugh. "You boys! you boys! You certainly have them there. One must be dissatisfied with himself to ask for the return of his penny. I—I am not altogether sure that this doesn't smack of a swindle; but it certainly is smart. You should show your own face in the glass, Fred, when the younger victims come in to see the Smartest Boy in the World."

"No, sir," grinned Fred. "Every fellow that comes in is better satisfied to see his own reflection, I reckon."

The clergyman went out, laughing. That the joke had kept up all day was the wonder of it. The audience became smaller as supper time drew near.

Then came Mr. Harrod, who kept the variety and ice cream store down the street. "Say," he said to Bobby. "You boys must have cornered all the pennies in town. I've got to have some. I'll give you a dollar bill for ninety cents, Bobby Blake."

"All right, sir," cried Bobby. "Is a dollar's worth all you want? I'll send them down to your store in a few moments."

"Send two dollars' worth," returned Mr. Harrod, hurrying away.

"Hi, Betty Martin!" shouted Bobby to Fred's "next oldest sister," who was on the fringe of the crowd. "Come here and count pennies—do, please!"

"Hi Betty Martin" stuck out her tongue promptly and did not stir. "Call me by my proper name, Mister Smartie!" she said, sharply.

"Oh, me, oh, my! I beg your pardon," laughed Bobby. "Miss Elizabeth Martin, will you please count some of these pennies and roll them into papers—right there on the box, please?"

"All right," said Betty, who did not like to be called after any Mother Goose character.

She was a bright girl and she counted the pennies correctly into piles of thirty, rolled them up that way, carried six of the rolls down to the variety store, and brought back a two dollar bill.

Then Mr. Martin needed copper money, and Betty counted a dollars' worth out for him—at the rate of exchange established by Mr. Harrod.

"Wow, Bobby!" murmured Fred, at the door of the tent. "We get them coming and going, don't we? Ten cents on the dollar, too! We're getting rich."

But the peep-show had had its run. Not many could be coaxed in after supper, and the boys were tired, too. They had not eaten a proper meal all day, and Mr. Martin advised them to shut up shop.

They took down the signs, put out the lamp, and went into the back room of the grocery to count the receipts. The amount was far beyond their expectations, and naturally Bobby and Fred were delighted.

"It takes you to think up the bright ideas, chum," said Fred, admiringly.

But Bobby looked thoughtful. "I wonder if Mr. Priestly thought it was just right?" he murmured. "I suppose we did fool them all," and he sighed.

"Shucks!" exclaimed Fred. "They didn't have to be fooled if they didn't want to. And even Prissy Craven didn't come back for her penny, did she?"

Only a few days more before they would start for Rockledge School. The chums bought the bats and mask and other things they craved. They packed their trunks two or three times over. They carried the books they liked best, and many treasures for which their troubled mothers could see no reason whatsoever.

"Now, this can of pins and nails, Bobby," urged Mrs. Blake, helplessly. "What possible good can they be? I do not see how I am to get your clothing into the trunk."

"Aw—Mother!" gasped Bobby. "Don't throw them away. A fellow never can tell when he'll want a pin—or a nail—or a button—or something. Never mind putting in so many stockings. Leave the can—do, Mother!"

All the Clinton boys who had been the chums' particular associates at school were greatly interested in what they termed Bobby's and Fred's "luck." They all had to be told, over and over again, of the expected wonders of Rockledge School.

"And I bet you and Fred turn things upside down there," said "Scat" Monroe, with an envious sigh.

"I bet we don't!" responded Bobby, quickly. "Dr. Raymond is awfully strict, they say. We'll have to walk a chalk line."

"Well, if Fred Martin ever walks a chalk-line," scoffed another of the fellows, "it'll be a mighty crooked one!"

However, the night before the boys were to start for Rockledge, the good natured groceryman gave his son a long talk, and Fred went to bed feeling pretty solemn. For the first time, he began to realize that he was not going away to boarding school merely for the fun there was to be got out of it!

"You haven't made much of a mark for yourself in the Clinton Public School, Frederick," said Mr. Martin, sternly; "but I do not believe that is because you are either a dunce, or stubborn. You have been frittering away your opportunities.

"I am tired of seeing your name at the foot of your class roster—or near it. Inattention is your failing. You are going where they make boys attend. And if you do not work, and keep up with your mates, you will be sent home. Do you understand that?

"And if you are sent home, you shall be sent to another school where you'll have very little fun at all for the rest of your life. I mean the School of Hard Experience!

"You shall be set to work in my store half of each day, like a poor man's son, and go to the public school the other half day, and your name will be on the truant officer's list."

"And I guess he meant it," said Fred to Bobby the next morning. "Father doesn't often scold, but he was mad at me for being so low in my classes last term."

The boys started for the railroad station with Mr. Blake, gayly enough, however. When Bobby had parted from his mother, he had to swallow a big lump in his throat, and he hugged her around the neck hard for a minute. But he had forced back the tears by the time they got to the Martins' house.

There the other children were all out on the front porch to bid their brother and Bobby good-by. "Hi Betty Martin" threw an old shoe after them.

"For luck," she said. "That's what they do when folks get married."

"But Bobby and I aren't getting married," complained Fred, rubbing his right ear where the shoe had landed. "And, anyway, no girl's got a right to shut her eyes tight and throw an old boot like that. How'd you know you wouldn't do some damage?"

"That's the luck of it," chuckled Bobby. "It's lucky she didn't hurt you worse."

CHAPTER X

NEW SURROUNDINGS

The boys were so eagerly looking ahead that they scarcely gave a backward glance at Clinton, as the train rolled away. Mr. Blake had his paper and a whole seat to himself. Bobby and Fred occupied a seat ahead of him, and laughed and chattered as they pleased.

"This is only Friday," said Fred, "and classes don't begin at Rockledge until Monday. We'll have two whole days to get acquainted in. Do you s'pose there will be some of the boys at the Rockledge station to meet us?"

"And a brass band, too, maybe—eh?" chuckled Bobby. "I guess nobody but the principal of the school knows we're coming, Fred. We'll be new boys, and the bigger fellows will boss us around at first."

"Huh! they can't boss me if I don't want to be bossed," declared the pugnacious Fred.

"Don't you begin to talk that way," advised his chum. "We'll have to be pretty small potatoes at first."

"I don't see why," grumbled Fred.

"You'll find out. My father went to a boarding school when he was a boy, and he told me," Bobby explained.

They did not have to wait until reaching Rockledge to learn something about the temper of the boys with whom they would be associated. At Cambwell several students got aboard and came into their car. They were all older than Bobby and Fred, and they were very noisy and self-assertive.

They sang, and joked together in the seats up front. Finally they spied the two boys from Clinton sitting in the middle of the car.

"Hullo!" exclaimed a tall, thin, yellow-haired boy who seemed to be a leader in the fun. "There's a couple of kids who look as though they'd just left home and mamma. Bet they're going with us."

One of the other boys said something in a low tone, and then he and the yellow-haired one got up and came down the aisle.

"Say!" said the second boy, who was short and stocky and squinted his eyes up in a funny way when he talked. "Goin' to school, sonnies?"

"Yes, we are," said Fred, sharply.

"Rockledge or Belden?"

"Rockledge, if you please," said Bobby, politely.

"Huh!" said the tall boy, grinning. "I don't know whether it pleases us any to have you go to Rockledge. But it's lucky you're not bound for Belden."

"Why?" asked Fred.

"We'd have to chuck your hats out of the window. We don't allow any Belden boys to ride in this train with their hats on."

"And do the Belden boys throw the Rockledge boys' hats out of the window?" asked Bobby, innocently enough.

"If they're able. But they ain't. You sure you are going to Rockledge?"

"You can wait till we get off the train and then find out whether we tell the truth, or not," said Fred, rather crossly.

"Say, young fellow! we don't like fresh fish at Rockledge," warned the yellow-haired boy. "If you're going there, you want to walk Turkey."

Bobby pinched Fred warningly, and both the chums remained silent.

"I never did like the looks of red hair, anyway—did you, Bill?" suggested the squinting chap, grinning.

"No. We'll have to dye it for him," said the yellow-haired boy. "What color do you prefer instead of red?" he asked Fred Martin.

"Well, I wouldn't like it to be straw-colored," responded Fred, promptly, and with a meaning glance at his interrogator's hair. "Any other will suit me better."

The yellow-haired boy flushed and his pale eyes sparkled. Fred stared back at him quite boldly, for the ten year old was no coward, whatever else he might be.

"Fresh fish—just as I told you," muttered the other strange boy, scowling and squinting at the same time. He was a very ugly boy when he did this. "Both of them."

"Well!" began Bill, and then stopped.

The train had halted at another station the moment before. Somebody entered the front door of the car, and at once the group of boys going to Rockledge School set up a shout.

"Hi, Barry!"

"See who's come in with the tide! Hey, Captain!"

"Hullo, Barry Gray!"

"Captain! Captain! How-de-do!"

Even the yellow-haired boy and his comrade turned to look. Bobby and Fred saw a handsome, brown haired fellow coming down the aisle. He was fourteen or older. He carried a light overcoat over his arm and he was very well dressed.

He tossed his coat and bag into one of the racks, and began shaking hands. Everybody seemed glad to see him. As he quickly glanced down the aisle his look seemed to quell Bill and the squinting boy.

"He's going to butt in, of course," growled the first named.

"Sure. Feels his oats—"

The fellow with the squint said no more. The handsome fellow, whose name seemed to be Barry Gray, came down the aisle almost at once.

"Hullo, Bill Bronson," he said, with some sharpness. "Up to your usual tricks?"

"It isn't any business of yours, Barry, what Jack and I do," growled the yellow-haired boy.

"I'll make it my business, then," said Barry Gray, laughing. Then he turned directly to Bobby and Fred.

"You kids going to Rockledge this term?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," said Bobby, quickly.

Barry Gray was not as tall as Bill Bronson, and perhaps not as old, but he evidently was not afraid of either of the bullies.

"Where are you from?"

"Clinton, sir," pronounced Bobby, again taking the lead.

"What's your name—and your chum's?" asked Barry.

"My name is Bob Blake, and this is Fred Martin," said Bobby.

"Glad to know you," said the older boy, shaking hands with both of them, and even Fred began to forgive him for calling them "kids."

"Ever been to school before?" asked Barry.

"Not to boarding school," Fred said.

"Come on up and I'll introduce you to the other fellows. Don't mind Bill Bronson and Jack Jinks, here," added Barry Gray, grinning at the two retiring bullies. "If they bother you much, come to me. I'm captain of the school this year, and Dr. Raymond expects me to keep all of the fellows straight. Being a captain is like being a monitor. You understand!"

"Oh, yes, sir," said Bobby.

"And you needn't 'sir' me so much," said the kindly captain. "Come on, now—"

Bobby turned to ask permission of his father. Barry at once saw that Mr. Blake was with the chums from Clinton.

"Who's this, Bob? Your father, or Fred's?"

"This is my father," said Bobby, politely.

The frank school captain stepped forward and offered his hand. "Glad to meet you, Mr. Blake," he said. "You trust the boys with me. I'll see that they get in right with the other fellows, and that they're not put upon too much."

"I'm sure of it," said Mr. Blake, smiling. "I shall feel better about leaving Bobby and Fred at Rockledge, knowing that you will have an eye on them."

"Oh, you can be easy about them," said Captain Gray who, despite his natural conceit, seemed a very nice fellow. "Of course, they'll have to take a few hard knocks, and the boys will 'run' them some. But they sha'n't be hurt."

"Huh!" muttered Fred. "I guess we can take care of ourselves."

Barry looked down at him and grinned. "Yes, I see you own red hair," he observed, and Mr. Blake laughed outright.

Fred followed his chum and Barry Gray up the aisle with rather a lagging step. He felt his own importance considerably, and he did not see why he should be as respectful as Bobby was to the captain of Rockledge School.

In a very few minutes Master Martin felt better. The other boys were a lot more friendly than Bill Bronson and Jack Jinks, who the chums learned later, were two of the most troublesome boys at the school. Not many of the others liked the bullies.

There were some fellows quite as young as Bobby and Fred, but none of them were "greenies," like the chums from Clinton.

"Sure you'll have to be hazed!" explained a fat, genial boy, named Perry Wise—called "Pee Wee" because of his initials and his size. "Every fellow has to, that comes to the school. But Barrymore Gray won't let them go too far. He's a nice fellow, he is."

"I think he is fine," said Bobby, enthusiastically.

"He's pretty fresh, I guess," grumbled Fred.

"We don't call the captain of the school fresh," said Pee Wee. "He has a right to boss us. The Doctor lets him. Next to the teachers, Barry's got more to say about things in the school than anybody else."

This did not please Master Martin much. He wanted to be of some importance himself, and he had never been used to giving in to other boys, unless it was to Bobby Blake.

However, there was so much to hear, and so many new people to get acquainted with that Fred had little time to worry about Barry Gray. The chums found the time passing so quickly that they were surprised when the train slowed down and the brakeman shouted, "All out for Rockledge!"

There was no crowd of boys and no band. Rockledge was a busy town, with oak-shaded streets, great bowlders thrusting their heads out of the vacant lots, and much blasting going on where new cellars were being excavated.

There was an electric car line through the middle of High Street, which turned off at the shore of the lake (they learned this afterward) and went as far as Belden.

Bobby and Fred, with Mr. Blake, took a car on this line and crossed the railroad, finally bringing up within sight of the grounds of Rockledge School.

It was not a large school, and there were only four buildings, including the gate-keeper's cottage where all of the outside servants slept. It had once been a fine private estate, and Dr. Raymond had made of it a most attractive and homelike institution.

The doctor and his family, and his chief assistant, lived in a handsome house connected with the main building of the school by a long, roofed portico. This last building was of brick and sandstone, and held classrooms, dining-rooms, the kitchen department in one end of the basement, and a fine gymnasium in the other.

In the upper stories were a hall, two large dormitories in each of which were beds for twenty boys, and five small dormitories for two boys each. The ten highest scholars occupied these small rooms, and from them was chosen the captain of the school each June.

The junior teachers slept in this big building, too.

There were beautiful lawns, fine shrubs, winding, shaded walks, and a large campus on which were a baseball diamond, a football field, and courts for tennis, basket-ball, and other games.

These facts Bobby and Fred gradually absorbed. At first they were too round-eyed to appreciate much but the fact that the place seemed large, and that there positively was an immense number of boys! Fifty boys seemed to have swelled to a hundred and fifty—and they all stared at the newcomers.

Mr. Blake went immediately to the doctor's study, taking Bobby and Fred with him. Dr. Raymond was a tall, big-boned man, wearing very loose garments and a collar a full size too large. The big doctor had bushy side-whiskers, and his chin and lip were very closely shaved. He had white, big teeth, and he showed them all when he smiled.

His eyes were kindly, and wrinkles appeared around them when he smiled, in a most engaging fashion. When he shook hands with Bobby and Fred, some magnetic feeling passed from the big man to the boys, so that the latter decided on the instant that they liked Dr. Raymond!

"Manly little fellows—both," said the doctor, to Mr. Blake, as the two gentlemen walked toward the big windows at the end of the room, leaving Bobby and Fred marooned, like two castaway sailors, on a desert isle of rug near the door.

The doctor's study was enormously long, with a high ceiling, and lined with books, save where a fireplace broke into the bookshelves on one side. There was a very large flat-topped desk, too, several deep chairs, and a number of smaller tables at which the older boys sometimes did their lessons.

"You'll find them just as full of fun and mischief as a couple of chestnuts are of meat," said Mr. Blake, with a chuckle. "But I don't think there is a mean trait in either of them. My boy has had, we think, rather a good influence over Freddie Martin. The latter's red hair is apt to get him into trouble."

"I understand," said the doctor, nodding and smiling. "I try to leave the boys much to themselves in the matter of deportment. The bigger boys are supposed to set the standard of morals, and I am glad to say that I have never yet had occasion to be sorry for beginning that way.

"We run Rockledge School on honor, sir. Every year—in June—we present to the boy who earns it, a gold medal stating that for the past year he has shown himself to be worthy of distinction above his fellows in a strictly honorable way.

"This medal is not given for scholarship—yet none but a fairly studious boy may earn it. It is not given for deportment strictly—though no boy who is not gentlemanly and of manly bearing and action, can win it. The medal is not given for mere popularity, for a boy may sometimes be popular with his fellows, without having many of the fundamental virtues of character which we hope to see in our boys.

"The boy who won it last year, and is gone from us now, stood ninth in his class only, and was not much of an athlete—which latter tells mightily among the boys themselves, you know. Yet my teachers and myself, as well as the school, were practically unanimous in the selection of Tommy Wardwell as the recipient of the Medal of Honor."

The gentlemen talked some few minutes longer. Then Mr. Blake came to bid Bobby and Fred good-by. He shook hands gravely with his own son and then took Fred's hand.

"You've got some trouble, some fun, and a lot of work before you, Master Fred," he said. "I expect your father and mother will be anxiously waiting for good reports about you."

Then he looked at Bobby again. That youngster was having great difficulty in "holding in." His father was going away—and going to a far country. Thousands of miles would separate them before they would meet again.

"You got anything to say to me, Bobs?" asked 'Mr. Blake, briskly.

"Ye—yes, sir!" gasped Bobby. "I—I got to kiss you before you go, Pa!" and he flung his arms around Mr. Blake's neck and for a minute was a baby again.

He knew that Fred would think such a show of emotion beneath him, and he saw the doctor looking at him curiously. Just the same, Bobby Blake was glad—oh, how glad!—many and many a time thereafter that he had bade his father good-by in just this way.

CHAPTER XI

GETTING ACQUAINTED

Pee Wee was the boy who first "took up" the chums from Clinton. The fat boy sat on the steps of the doctor's house, idly whistling and twiddling his fingers when Bobby and Fred came out. Perry Wise never stood when he could sit, and never walked when he could stand, and never ran when walking would get him to his goal just as well. He was the picture of peace just now.

"Hello, fellows!" he said.

"Hello!" returned Bobby.

"Is the Old Doc goin' to let you stay?" grinned the fat boy.

"Huh! why shouldn't he?" demanded Fred, quick to take offense.

"Cause you're so terrible green," chuckled Pee Wee. "They let the sheep loose sometimes to crop the lawn, and they might eat you."

"Aw—you're too smart," said the abashed Fred.

Bobby only laughed. He was glad to have his mind taken up by something beside the fact of his father's going away.

"Say!" said Pee Wee, cordially. "Don't you want to look over the place?"

"We'd be very glad to," admitted Bobby.

Pee Wee made no effort to rise at first. He merely bawled after another boy who was some distance away:

"Hey, Purdy! Don't you want to beau the greenhorns around?"

Fred Martin doubled his fist again and scowled at the placid fat boy, but Bobby warned him by a shake of the head. The boy addressed, who was smaller than Pee Wee, but who was well out of his reach, turned and made a face at the fat boy, saying:

"Do your own work, Fatty. Don't try to put it off on me."

Pee Wee was quite unmoved by this rough retort. He looked around and hailed another lad:

"Jimmy Ailshine! come on and show the newsies all the lions, will you?"

"For why?" demanded the boy addressed.

"Aw—well—I have a stone bruise," explained Pee Wee, hesitatingly.

"You must have it from sitting so much, then," declared Jimmy, with a loud laugh. "You better take them around yourself, or the captain will be after you."

"You needn't show us about if it is very, very painful," suggested Bobby, beginning to understand the fat boy now.

"Guess we can find our way around alone," grunted Fred.

"Aw well! we won't row about it," said Pee Wee, getting up slowly. "But that stone bruise—"

However, the trouble in question seemed, later, to be of a shifting nature, for first Pee Wee favored his right foot and then his left.

It must be confessed that Perry Wise was a very lazy boy, but he was a good natured one, and when once the exploration party was started, he played the part of show-master very well indeed.

They went through the school rooms and up to the dormitories first. In the second dormitory, where the smaller boys slept, in a pair of twin beds in one corner, Bobby and Fred were billeted.

"And no pillow fights, or other ructions, after 'lights out,' unless you ask the captain first," warned Pee Wee.

"Seems to me this captain has a lot to say around here," growled Fred.

"You bet he has. And what he says he means. And it's not healthy for anybody to do a thing when he says 'don't.'"

"Why not?" queried Master Fred.

Pee Wee grinned. "You try it if you like," he said. "Then you'll find out. Dr. Raymond says experience is the surest, if not the best, teacher."

The dormitory was a big, light room, cheerfully furnished, with a locker beside each bed for the boy's clothes and personal possessions, and a chair at the head of the bed.

That wall-space over the heads of the beds was considered the private possession of each couple, for the flaunting of banners, photographs, strings of birds-eggs, shells, pine-cone frames, and a hundred other objects of virtu dear to boyish hearts.

"You see, we can hang up a lot of stuff, too, when our trunks come," whispered Fred to Bobby, pointing to the blank spaces over their beds, lettered only with the names: "Blake" and "Martin."

"You can see clear across the lake from the window here," drawled Pee Wee, lolling on a sill.

The chums came to see. Lake Monatook was spread before them—a beautiful, oval sheet of water, with steep, wooded banks in the east, and sloping yellow beaches of sand at the other end.

Where the Rockledge School stood, a steep sandstone cliff dropped right down to a narrow beach, more than fifty feet below. A strong, two-railed fence guarded the brink of this cliff the entire width of the school premises, save where the stairs led down to the boat-house.

In the middle of the lake were several small islands, likewise wooded. The lake was quite ten miles long, and half as wide in its broadest part.

Across from Rockledge School was the village of Belden. On a high bluff over there the new boys saw several red brick buildings among the trees.

"That's Belden School," explained Pee Wee. "We have to beat them at football this fall. We did them up at baseball in the spring. They're a mean set of fellows anyway," added the fat boy. "Once they came across here and stole all our boats. We'll have to get square with them for that, some time."

"Come on," said Fred, who had begun to enjoy pushing the fat boy, now—knowing that he had been set the task of showing them around—and was determined to keep their guide up to the mark. "We don't want to stay here till bedtime, do we?"

"Aw-right," returned Pee Wee, with a groan. "That's my bed next to yours, Blake. Mouser Pryde is chummed on me this year. We call him Mouser because he brought two white mice with him to school when he first came.

"Shiner and Harry Moore have the beds on your other side. Shiner's the chap you saw down stairs—Jimmy Ailshine. He's a good fellow, but awfully lazy," remarked the fat boy, with a sigh.

"What do you call yourself?" demanded Fred, rather impolitely.

"Oh, me? I'm not well—honest. And that stone bruise—"

It was then he began to favor the other foot, and Bobby giggled. Pee Wee looked at him solemnly. "What are you laughing at?" he asked.

Bobby pointed out that the stone bruise seemed to have shifted.

"Aw, well! it hurts so bad I feel it in both feet," returned the fat boy, grinning. "Come on."

They went down to the gymnasium. It was a dandy! Bobby and Fred saw that it was a whole lot better than the one Mr. Priestly had for his Boys' Club in the Church House at home.

Then they inspected the outside courts, the ball field, and the cinder track—which was an oval, on the very verge of the cliff.

They met boys everywhere, and Pee Wee told them the names of some of them, while a few of about their own age stopped to speak to Bobby and Fred.

Jack Jinks and the yellow-haired youth, Bill Bronson, came up to the trio of smaller boys as they stood by the railing that defended the cliff's brink.

"So you're showing the greenies around, are you, Fatty?" proposed Jack. "Shown them the stake where the Old Doctor ties up fresh kids and gives them nine and thirty lashes if they as much as whisper in class?"

"Yes," said Pee Wee, nodding. "And I showed them the straps there where you were tied up last term, Jinksey."

"Aw—smart, aren't you?" snarled the squint-eyed boy, while Bill Bronson grinned.

"This red-headed chap's going to be a favorite—I can see that," said Bill, rolling the cap on Fred's head with one hand, but pressing hard enough to hurt.

"Let go of me!" cried Fred, hotly, jerking away.

"Don't you get too presumptuous, sonny," advised the yellow-haired youth. "There's lots of chance for you to get into trouble here."

"If I get into trouble with you," snapped Fred, "it won't all be on one side."

"Keep still, Fred!" said Bobby. "Let's come on away," and he tugged at his chum's sleeve.

"That's a pretty fresh kid, too," said Jack, eyeing Bobby with disfavor.

But the trio of younger boys withdrew. "Those fellows," said Pee Wee, "are always picking on fellows they think they can lick. If you don't toady to them, they'll treat you awfully mean!"

"I won't toady to anybody—not even to that captain," declared Fred.

"What! Barry Gray?" cried Pee Wee, in surprise.

"Yes. I don't like him—much," confessed the belligerent Fred.

"You'll be dreadfully lonesome, then," chuckled the fat boy. "For 'most every fellow in the school likes Barry. He's captain of the baseball team, and center in the football team. He can do anything, Barry can. And the Old Doctor thinks he is about right. He was next choice after Tommy Wardwell last year for the Medal of Honor, and he'll likely get it this year."

"What's the Medal of Honor?" asked Fred, curiously.

Pee Wee grinned. "It's something that no red-headed boy ever won," he declared, mysteriously.

CHAPTER XII

IN THE DORMITORY

By supper time Bobby and Fred knew ten boys to speak to—without counting Jack Jinks, Bill Bronson, and the school captain, Barrymore Gray. The latter they did not see at all again until they beheld him sitting at the doctor's right hand at the head of the "upper table," as they soon learned to call the one around which the head scholars and the assistant master sat with Dr. Raymond. The junior teachers sat at the heads of the other tables and kept order.

Rockledge was divided into the Upper School and the Lower School. Bobby and Fred would of course be in the Lower, but just how they would be placed in classes they would not know until the real business of the school opened on Monday.

The supper was plentiful, but plain. Bobby missed Meena's sweet cakes and hot tea-biscuit, and Fred whispered that there was hayseed in the strawberry jam, so he knew it was not "home made."

Pee Wee sat across the table from them and ate steadily, showing beyond peradventure that his plumpness arose from a very natural cause!

Until eight o'clock the boys were allowed to frolic outside as they wished, no tasks being set them as yet. Bobby noticed that one of the junior teachers was always within sight, while Captain Barry Gray, and some of the older fellows, were grouped on the main steps of the dormitory building, swapping vacation experiences.

Bobby noticed that Barry was always very well dressed—indeed, richly dressed, beside many of the boys—so he made up his mind that the school captain must come from a wealthy home.

Bill Bronson jingled money in his pockets and wore a handsome gold watch and a diamond pin in his tie. Most of the smaller boys, however, were no better dressed than Bobby and Fred.

Taken altogether, the boys who appeared at the supper table were a bright and interesting looking crowd. Bobby was sure he was going to be happy here, and Fred was already on terms of intimacy with half a dozen of the chaps about their own age.

The boys from Clinton chanced to be the only new ones to enter Rockledge this semester. There was usually a long waiting list, but Mr. Martin's influence had gained Bobby the chance to attend with Fred, because the two boys were chums.

Before they left the supper table the doctor arose and walked down the line of smaller tables and shook hands with each boy, called him by name, and welcomed him again to the school.

To some he said a word of warning, but all in a cheerful way that took the sting out of the admonition. He evidently knew the failings of each boy, and had studied their characters carefully.

When he came to Bobby and Fred he placed a hand on each boy's shoulder and said, so that all the school could hear:

"Our two new friends. I hope all of you will welcome them kindly. Make them feel at home."

This was before the evening run outside. Bobby and Fred were taken into a noisy game of "relievo," and the great clock in the tower chiming eight was all that brought the fun to a close.

The students filed into the library and general study-room on the first floor of the main building. For an hour every night the boys were allowed to read or play quiet games here. It was a cheerful, bright room, with rugs on the floor, and pretty hangings, and comfortable chairs. Although one of the teachers was always present, there was a feeling of freedom among the boys, and they could talk or read, as they pleased—just so they were not noisy.

When nine struck in the tower, they filed upstairs to bed. There was plenty of time to undress and prepare for bed before the half hour struck. Bobby and Fred found that the older boys in the small rooms were allowed to remain up a half hour longer than those occupying the big dormitories.

Captain Gray came in and advised the small boys to lay their clothing carefully on their chairs as they removed the garments.

"Part of the fire drill, you know," he said, cheerfully. "Coat and vest over the back of the chair. Pants folded nicely and laid across the back, too. Here, Pee Wee! None of that! Shake out your stockings and hang them on the chair-round. Shoes each side of the chair as you take them off—right and left. That's it."

He walked up and down between the rows of beds. He told Bobby and Fred just how to distribute the remainder of their garments so that they would be easily at hand if there came an alarm.

"Of course, there's no danger, and there are plenty of fire escapes and all that," said the big boy, cheerfully. "But the Old Doctor insists upon our being ready for any emergency. Some night you'll be waked up by the fire bell and find drill is called. Want to be ready for it."

Then he glanced again at Fred's chair. "Hi, Ginger!" he said. "Put your boots straight. Your left one's on your right side, and vice versa."

There was a good deal of fun at Fred's expense when Barry had gone. "Hi, Ginger!" resounded from all parts of the room; Fred Martin had won a distinctive nickname on the spot, and he didn't like it much.

"I knew I shouldn't like that big fellow," he confessed to Bobby. "And I'll lick some of these kids yet, if they keep on calling me Ginger."

"No, you won't," declared Bobby. "You know you won't. They all have nicknames, too. Yours is no worse than 'Pee Wee,' or 'Shiner,' or 'Buck,' or 'Skeets.' They'll stick me with one yet."

"But 'Ginger'—"

"Aw, stop your kicking," advised his chum. "It won't get you anywhere."

There was still a buzz of voices as the twenty boys finished getting ready for bed. The door opened and Bill Bronson and Jack Jinks, from their room across the hall, looked in.

"Sleep with an eye open, you kids," Bill ordered, in a shrill whisper. "Something doing by and by."

"Oh, what, Bill?" cried Purdy, near the door.

"Somebody's got to ride the goat," chuckled the squint-eyed boy, looking over his chum's shoulder.

At that several of the others looked at Bobby and Fred, and chuckled. The two Clinton boys did not hear this by-play. Bill and his chum looked over at the newcomers with wide grins.

Just at this moment Bobby was completely ready for bed and he dropped upon his knees before his chair at the head of the bed and proceeded to say his prayers as he always did at home. Fred, after a moment's hesitation, followed suit.

Instantly a hush fell upon the room. The boys who had been gabbling together stopped because they saw the facial expression of those boys grouped at the doorway. Everybody turned to look at the corner occupied by the chums from Clinton.

The silence was but for a moment. Then Bill laughed and took one long stride to the nearest bed. He snatched up a pillow and sent it with unerring aim and considerable force at the back of Bobby's head.

The pillow reached its mark, and Bobby jumped. But he did not rise until his prayer was completed. A second pillow came his way, while Jack and some of the other spectators laughed immoderately.

Fred Martin jumped up with an angry exclamation. Perhaps he did not finish his prayer at all. He grabbed one of the pillows which had struck his chum and made for Bill Bronson at the other end of the room.

"You big bully!" he exclaimed, all the rage which he had bottled up that day boiling over in an instant, "You big bully! Can't you leave a peaceable fellow alone?"

He slammed the yellow-haired youth over the head, and struck him so hard that the pillow-case burst and the feathers began to fly. Bill uttered a roar of rage, and tried to seize him.

"Don't, Fred! Stop! Stop!" called Bobby, from the other end of the room.

Fred Martin had gone too far to stop now. He expected to take a thrashing for his boldness, but meanwhile he was filling Bronson's eyes and mouth with feathers.

Jack Jinks put out his foot and tripped the smaller boy up. Fred fell with Bill on top of him. The bigger boy began to use his fists.

"No fair! Let him up, Bill!" cried two or three.

"Shut up!" ordered Jack, putting his back against the closed door. "You kids that holler will get all that's coming to you."

Bobby came running up the room to help his chum, and at just that instant the door knob was turned and the door was burst in, sending Jack sliding half way across the room.

"Cheese it!" squealed Pee Wee, jumping into bed with his trousers on.

But it was only Barry Gray who appeared.

"Hello! Can't keep quiet the first night, eh?" demanded the captain. "What you doing in here, Jack?"

Then he saw Bill Bronson on top of the struggling Fred. Bill had got in one savage punch and there was blood flowing from Fred's nose upon the burst pillow.

Captain Gray seized Bill by the back of his collar and with both hands jerked him to his feet. Bill squealed like a rat, thinking the Old Doctor himself had come to Fred's rescue.

"Ow! Ow! Ouch!" he squealed. "Aw—you! Let me alone, Barry Gray. This isn't any of your business."

"All right. I'll pass it up to the teachers if you say so," snapped the captain.

"Aw—well—"

"Hold on!" commanded Barry, stepping in front of Jack who was sneaking out of the room "You're in this, too."

"No, I'm not," said Jack.

"You were holding the door," said Barry. "Stop here till we hear what's the trouble."

Half a dozen shrill voices tried to tell him at once. But Barry pointed at Fred. "You tell," he said.

"I hit him with the pillow," growled Fred, ungraciously enough.

Barry glanced down the room toward Fred's bed. "It isn't your pillow," he said. "Did he shuck the pillow at you first?"

"No," said Fred, determined not to "snitch."

But Howell Purdy didn't feel that way about it. He said to the captain:

"Bill Bronson began it. He fired a couple of pillows at Bobby Blake when Bobby was saying his prayers. Then Fred went for him."

Barry looked from Fred's flushed and bloody face to Bobby's pale one. He said nothing for a moment to either of them, but turned on Bill Bronson.

"You know the rules. You had no business in this dormitory—neither you nor Jack."

"I suppose you'll tell on us," snarled Bill. "Of course! I knew what a tattle-tale you'd be just as soon as the Old Doc appointed you captain last June. He did it so that he'd be sure to have somebody to run to him with every little thing."

"Maybe," returned Barry, flushing. "But he doesn't call it a little thing for two boys to fight in a dormitory."

"Yah!" snarled Bill.

"Give me a fair chance and I'll fight him anywhere!" declared the belligerent Fred, sopping the blood with a handkerchief that Bobby had brought him.

"You are one plucky kid," said Barry, quickly. "But if there has got to be a fight, it must be between two fellows more evenly matched. I leave it to the room: Is a fight fair between Bronson and Martin!"

"No!" cried the boys in chorus.

"But Bill Bronson started the fight, so he ought to be accommodated," Captain Gray said. "Isn't that right?"

Some of the boys giggled. Fred muttered: "Let me fight him. I'm not afraid."

"If Bill doesn't want me to go to the Doctor with this, he'll have to abide by my decision, won't he?" proceeded Barry, his eyes twinkling.

"Sure!" cried the crowd, led by Pee Wee, now delighted by what they saw was coming.

"Aw, you're too fresh," grumbled the bully.

"That's not the question," said Barry. "Do you agree?"

"To what?"

"To have me set the punishment for this infraction of the rules, instead of putting it up to the Old Doctor?"

"Well!"

"You, too, Jack?" demanded Barry of the squinting fellow.

"Yes," muttered the latter.

"All right. Then I announce that as Bill wants to fight, he shall be accommodated. Jack is a good match for him. Isn't that so, boys?"

There was a storm of giggling. The two bullies looked at each other and grinned. The idea of them fighting each other was preposterous—or, so it seemed.

"And for fear," said the captain, his eyes twinkling, "that they won't play fair, if they are matched in a regular fight, we'll make it a 'poguey fight' to-morrow morning at nine—in the gym. Now, you two fellows run to your rooms—and show up at nine in the gym, or I'll come after you."

He drove the bullies out of the room before him, and then went himself. There was a subdued whispering and giggling all over the dormitory.

"What's a 'poguey fight'?" demanded Bobby, of Pee Wee, in some alarm.

The fat boy was rocking himself to and fro on the bed in huge delight, and could scarcely answer for laughing.

"You wait and see," he finally chuckled, "It's more fun than the Kilkenny cats!"

CHAPTER XIII

THE POGUEY FIGHT

Fred staunched his bleeding nose at the basin in the corner, and then exchanged pillows with Howell Purdy. Fred slept on the burst one.

"I'll get into trouble anyway over this," Fred growled in Bobby's ear. "I wish I could have hit that mean bully just once with something hard."

Bobby hadn't the heart to scold. Fred had attacked a much bigger boy than himself just because that bully had flung a pillow at Fred's chum. That was the impulsive way of Fred Martin. Bobby knew that his chum was going to have a hard row to hoe here at Rockledge, unless he learned to control his temper.

Bobby Blake had some difficulty in getting to sleep that night—and that was not usually the case with him. The plan of Bill and Jack to haze the two newcomers to Rockledge had evidently been stopped. The dormitory was not disturbed until morning, save that once in the night Pee Wee had a nightmare and groaned and fought, until the next fellow to him punched him and woke him up.

"Wow!" said the fat boy, "I thought I was up in a balloon and they wanted to put me out instead of dropping sandbags."

"Don't eat so much at supper; then you won't dream such stuff," growled Mouser Pryde, punching his pillow and settling down again.

The rising bell at half past six got everybody but Pee Wee out of bed. Mouser pulled off the bed clothes, but that did not start the fat boy, and finally, when the others were half dressed, Mouser tiptoed over from the basins with a glass of water, and let the drops trickle down, one by one, upon Perry's fat neck.

"Ow! ow! ouch!" bawled Pee Wee. "Something's sprung a leak. Let me up before I drown!"

He struck the floor before he was half awake and landed in his bare feet upon a set of "jacks" that Shiner had conveniently dropped on the rug.

"Ow! what are these things? Wow! I'll bet I can't walk at all now."

"They hurt worse than the stone bruise, eh?" asked Bobby, grinning.

"These fellows are always playing jokes on me," grumbled Pee Wee. "And I never do a living thing to hurt them."

The fat boy was a tempting subject for a joke, and he probably was the butt more often than anybody else.

While they were dressing, Fred almost got in a fight with Shiner because the latter called him "Ginger." Bobby took his chum aside.

"Now, Fred, that name's bound to stick," he said. "What's the use of getting mad at it? They all like you; no use in making enemies. Take it laughingly."

"That's because of Smartie Gray," grumbled Fred. "He called me 'Ginger' first."

"That isn't as bad as 'Bricktop'," suggested Bobby, smiling. "You ought to be glad it's no worse. I expect they'll find a nickname for me pretty soon, that will be a corker!"

At seven the bell rang again and they all marched down to breakfast. Bill Bronson and Jack Jinks scowled at Bobby and Fred on the stairs, but the captain was near and they did not say a word to the chums.

Before the boys separated, the first master, Mr. Leith, said:

"Young gentlemen: Doctor Raymond will see you all in the hall at eleven. Nobody is to be out of bounds this morning. Be prompt at eleven, remember. You are excused."

Bobby thought Mr. Leith a very grim and serious gentleman indeed.

As the smaller boys scurried out of the hall to the porch, they found a steady stream of boys going down the basement steps to the gymnasium. Howell Purdy and Shiner were set, one on either side of the doorway, where they whispered to those who passed:

"Poguey fight in the gym at nine. Don't forget the poguey fight."

"What is that, Shiner?" asked Bobby.

"You don't want to miss it," grinned Shiner. "You and your chum are at the bottom of it."

"But we're not going to fight," declared Bobby.

"No. But Bill and Jack are. No fear!"

Bobby and Fred did not go down into the basement at once. There was still an hour before the time set by Captain Gray, the evening before, for the mysterious "poguey fight." Nobody whom the chums asked would tell them any particulars.

"I expect I'll get into trouble over bloodying that pillow," said Fred. "What shall I tell them if they ask me?"

"Say your nose bled," returned Bobby. "If they ask you how it came to bleed, that's another question."

"Well, that's the question I'm afraid of."

"Wouldn't you tell on that Bill Bronson?"

"No. The other boys would say I snitched. I hate him, but I won't snitch on him," declared Fred.

"Maybe nobody will ask you. And Barry Gray will take your side."

"I don't want him to take my side," growled Fred. "He's a big fellow, too, and expects to be toadied to."

"You're making a mistake about him, I think," said Bobby, mildly. He knew it was no use to argue the matter with his chum.

They walked out across the campus to the railing that bordered the edge of the bluff. They were standing there looking across the beautiful lake, and talking, when there was a sudden scrimmage over on one of the tennis courts.

"Hello! a fight!" exclaimed Fred, with lively interest.

"Pshaw!" said Bobby, with some disgust. "You're always looking for a fight!"

"I'm not either! What do you call that?" denied and demanded Fred in the same breath.

"It's the captain," said Bobby, slowly. "And some of the big fellows—I know! they're dragging Bill Bronson and Jack Jinks away to the gym. There's going to be something doing—"

Just then Pee Wee appeared at the corner of the main building and yodled for the Clinton boys, beckoning them across the campus with excited gestures.

"Come o-o-on!" bawled the fat boy.

Fred grabbed Bobby's hand and started running. The chums were at the gym steps almost as quickly as the big fellows and their captives.

"You let me alone, Barry Gray!" yelled Bill, as he was shoved down the steps. "I'll fix you for this."

"Thanks, Billy Bronson. I can do my own fixing. You agreed to this, and you'll go through with it," Barry said, firmly.

"I didn't do a thing," Jack was urging.

"Ah! but you're going to," chuckled Barry, who seemed to have answers ready for both objectors.

The bullies were dragged below. The smaller boys followed. Every boy in the school was waiting in the gymnasium, and no teacher—not even the athletic instructor—was present.

Some of the boys had been at work on the bars, or the ladder, or otherwise using the gymnastic paraphernalia. They all gathered around in interest to see what the big boys were going to do with the bullies.

Bill Bronson and his chum kicked and struggled for a time. But there were enough to help Barry, so that their struggles were useless. The bullies' shoes were quickly removed, despite their kicking. Then a sort of harness made of straps was buckled around both boys under their arms. There was a steel ring sewed into the crosspiece of each harness at the back.

Somebody produced eight objects that looked like huge boxing-gloves—only they were made of cotton cloth stuffed with cotton-batting. One of these clumsy things was strapped on each foot, and another on each hand. The victims of the joke were now unable to hurt any of their captors when they struck out at them, and the crowd was greatly amused as well as excited.

"Come on, now!" panted Barry. "Boost them up here. Throw the rope over a couple of rungs of the ladder, Max. That's it."

The rope in question was a strong manilla, about four feet long. At each end was a snap, such as is spliced upon the ends of hitch-ropes.

Two boys lifted each of the embarrassed prisoners, and held them under the ladder. The snaps were fastened in the rings back of their shoulders.

There they hung, kicking and sprawling. At first Barry Gray and Max Bender, one of the other big boys, held the victims.

"Here you are now," said Captain Gray, sternly. "You wanted to fight a fellow much smaller than yourself last night, Bill; and you agreed to take on a fellow nearer your size. Here's Jack willing to accommodate you. Now, go to it, you chaps, and may the best man win!"

He and Max both stepped back, dragging their prisoners with them, and then they let the two helpless ones swing together.

Their heads bumped. Bill let out a roar and tried to kick Max with one of his muffled feet. In doing so his other foot caught Jack above the knee.

"Look out what you're doing—you chump!" exclaimed Jack. "Keep still, can't you?"

"Keep still yourself," growled Bill, as his gyrating friend collided with him again with some force. He tried to push Jack away. At once the latter put out his mittened hand and punched Bill between the eyes.

"Look out what you're doing!" yelled Bill, striking madly at his opponent.

In a moment they were at it! The poguey fight was on. The two erstwhile chums swung over the rungs of the horizontally laid ladder, like the famous Kilkenny cats, punched and kicked and batted at each other in a most ridiculous manner.

They couldn't hurt each other very much, save when they bumped heads, and that was not often. But they grew madder every moment.

The spectators were delighted, and the harder the combatants tried to strike each other, the more ridiculous the whole thing appeared.

Why it was called "poguey" nobody seemed to know, but Bobby discovered that it had long been practiced at Rockledge School, and that usually the two victims accepted the situation philosophically and did not really get mad.

The two bullies, however, had never learned to control their tempers. Besides, both considered that the other was somewhat to blame for their predicament.

The battle continued, fast and furious. Bill Bronson's face was blazing. Jack Jinks' was very ugly indeed to look at. If they could have torn the gloves off their hands they would have done so and struck each other with their bare fists.

Suddenly Jack drew up his knee as they swung together, and he caught Bill right in the belt. It was a solid blow and the victim uttered a cry of anger and pain. Captain Gray stepped forward and stopped the two from swinging together again.

"Foul blow," he said, decidedly. "You know the penalty well enough, Jack. When you're let down, Bill's got the right to punch you with his bare fist—if he likes."

"And if he does, I'll hand him all he's looking for," declared the squint-eyed youth, glaring at the boy who had been his chief friend.

"Do it, and you'll get what's coming to you!" threatened Bill, just as angrily.

Barry winked at Max Bender. "Let's take them down. I guess they won't be half so thick hereafter—and then maybe some of the little fellows will have a better time."

CHAPTER XIV

THE HONOR MEDAL

Bill Bronson and Jack Jinks were released from their harnesses, and the "pillows" were taken off their feet and hands, they went to opposite ends of the gymnasium and had nothing to say to each other.

Barry did not mention the foul blow and its punishment, and none of the smaller boys dared speak of it. It was certain, however, that the intimacy of the only two boys in the school inclined to bully the smaller ones had taken a decided set back.

The fun of the "poguey fight" was not to end so quickly, however. Some of the bigger boys caught Pee Wee and Mouser Pryde, and fastened them into the harness and put the mufflers on their feet and hands.

The fat boy and his chum made no decided remonstrance, and when they were swung up, they made an earnest endeavor to give the fellows all the fun they were looking for. Their gyrations certainly were amusing, and Bobby and Fred laughed as loudly as any of the other boys.

But when the fat boy and Mouser were let down, and Max and Barry grabbed the chums from Clinton, for a moment, Fred was inclined to cut up rough.

"Aw, be a sport, Fred!" said Bobby, earnestly. "If Pee Wee can stand it, we can."

So Fred thought better of "getting mad" and for a while the two friends swung in the air and punched and kicked at each other to the delight of the other boys. Bobby was very careful not to anger the red-haired lad, and they came through the poguey fight with smiling faces. It was borne in upon Bobby's mind more and more that Fred Martin was going to have difficulty in keeping out of trouble in this new environment.

At eleven o'clock the whole school filed up to the hall on the second floor. None of the teachers were present and there was some little confusion and noise at first.

Barry stepped forward and held up a hand for silence. "You fellows better take a tumble to yourselves," he said calmly. "You want to show the Doctor that you don't have to be watched all the time. You all know—at least, all of you but Bobby Blake and Fred Martin, and they are not making the noise—that this isn't the place for skylarking.

"We had our fun downstairs. I hear the Doctor coming now. Let's give him a Rockledge cheer when he comes in and then—silence!"

The door opened as he ceased speaking and the tall, heavy-set principal with his quiet smile and pleasant eyes peering through the thick lenses of his glasses, appeared.

Captain Gray raised his hand again. The roomful of boys sprang to their feet. Bobby noted that many of them placed their left hands upon the little blue and white enameled button that they wore on the lapels of their coats, as they shouted in unison:

"One, two, three—boom!

Boom—Z-z-z—ah!

Rockledge! Rockledge!

Sword and star!

Who's on top?

We sure are—

Rock-ledge!"

Bobby and Fred had both noticed the blue and white buttons with the star and sword upon them, but they did not know what they meant. Now Bobby guessed that there was some society, or inner circle at Rockledge School that they, as newcomers, knew nothing about.

All the boys did not belong to it. Pee Wee did not wear a button, nor did many of the fellows from their dormitory. Bill Bronson and Jack Jinks did not possess the badge, either.

Meanwhile, Doctor Raymond, smiling and bowing, approached the rostrum. Bobby—his mind always on the alert—noted the little blue and white spot against the dead black of the doctor's coat.

"Well, boys! I am extremely obliged to you, I am sure," said the Doctor, bowing again. "I am just as sensitive to compliments as the next person. I hope you will always be as glad to see me as you appear to be at this moment.

"Now, I shall not detain you for long. You know my little lectures have usually the saving grace of brevity. We have come together once more to face a year of study. Let us face it like real men! Star and sword, my boys! The star we are aiming for, and the Sword of Determination will hew our way to the goal.

"There! I will give you no homilies. There are but two new boys with us this year—Robert Blake and Frederick Martin. Give them a warm welcome. They only do not understand about our Medal of Honor."

He suddenly opened his large hand and displayed in its palm a five-pointed gold star, at least two inches across, and with a beautiful blue-velvet background.

"Here it is—all ready for the engraving. At the close of the school year, this medal will be presented to the one among you who has won it by studiousness, good conduct, manliness and general popularity.

"It is not always the boy who sets out to win the medal who really does win it. You, who are older, know that. We teachers try not to influence the opinion of the school in the choice of the recipient of the Honor Medal.

"The winner must stand well in his classes, or he cannot have the faculty vote. His deportment must be good, or we teachers cannot vote for him. But you boys yourselves must—after all—choose the winner.

"There are fifty of you in Rockledge School. You have each, individually, a better chance to understand your neighbors' characters than anybody else. You are quick to find out if there is something fine in a lad's temper. You will soon learn the one who restrains himself under provocation, who bears insult, perhaps, with confidence in his own uprightness; who keeps straight on his way without turning aside because of any temptation.

"That is the sort of a lad who will win this Medal of Honor," concluded the Doctor, very seriously. "Any boy—even the youngest—may secure it. It does not have to go to the boy at the top of his class, nor to the oldest boy in the school. You little chaps stand just as good a chance for it as Captain Gray," and he rested his hand upon Barry Gray's shoulder for an instant as though there was some secret understanding between him and the captain of the school.

"Now, I have talked enough. School will begin in earnest on Monday. Remember, bounds are as usual. You little fellows, see Barrymore, or some of the masters, if you are not sure of a thing. And remember that my office door is never locked."

He went out quickly at the door behind the platform. Somehow, the boys felt rather serious, and there was no shouting or fooling as they filed out and down the stairs to the open air.

"Say! that was a handsome gold medal he showed us," said Fred, with enthusiasm, to Bobby.

"Wasn't it?" returned his chum, with sparkling eyes.

"I'd like to get that myself," admitted the red-haired one.

"Didn't I tell you, you'd have no chance at that, Ginger?" chuckled Pee Wee's voice behind them.

"I see it," admitted Fred, without getting angry. "But it would be fine to win it, just the same."

So Bobby thought. He remembered what his mother had said to him on one occasion, and wondered if it were possible for him to win the gold medal and present it to her when she returned from that far journey which she and his father were soon to take.

"She certainly would be proud of me then," thought Bobby Blake. "I guess she'd think after that, it would be safe to leave me alone anywhere—yes, sir! And I certainly would like to own such a medal."

This set his mind to thinking upon the fact that at daybreak the very next morning the ship on which his parents had bought their stateroom would sail from New York. They were already on the train which would bear them to the coast.

After they sailed it would be a long time before he could even expect a picture post-card from them—a month, at least. And then, they would be thousands of miles away!

He slipped away from Fred and Pee Wee and went into one of the schoolrooms. There was a big globe there, and he timidly turned this around and around until he found the pink splotch of color which marked Brazil.

There was the gaping mouth of the Amazon, with the big island dividing it, and the river on the south side, against which was the black dot marking the city of Para—where his parents would land.

He thought of all he had ever heard or been taught about the Amazon—"that Mighty River." He knew how the current of the vast stream met the ocean tides and fought with them for supremacy. He knew how the river overflowed its banks in the rainy seasons and covered vast areas of forest and plain.

The trader's station, to which his parents were bound, was a thousand miles up the Amazon, and then five hundred miles more up another river. Why—why, if he fell ill, or anything—

He never realized until this moment just what it would mean to have his mother and father so far away. It had been great fun to come to Rockledge to school. He liked it here. He hoped he would learn, and advance, and win his way with both the boys and the teachers.

But to have a mother and father so many, many miles away—especially to have a mother going away from one just as fast as steam could take her—

Bobby Blake put his arm on the big globe, and laid his face against his jacket-sleeve. His shoulders shook.

CHAPTER XV

GETTING INTO STEP

The routine of the school did not really begin, as Dr. Raymond had said, until Monday morning. Yet by that time Bobby Blake and Fred Martin felt as though they were really old members of the Rockledge Fifty.

They had learned many of the stock stories of school—legends of great fights with the boys of Belden School, or of mighty games at football or baseball or some other sport, in which victory had perched upon the banners of Rockledge.

The loyalty of boarding school boys is second only to family feeling or patriotic love for one's country. Bobby and Fred and the other boys of Dormitory Two were just at that age when the mind and heart are both most impressionable.

The new boys learned the school yell, or cheer, which they had first heard given in eulogy of Dr. Raymond. They thought it the finest yell they had ever heard.

They were told about the Sword and Star, too. It was indeed an honor to wear the little blue and white button. One had to be at least one year at Rockledge, to stand at a certain mark in recitations, and to have a pretty clean record in deportment, to gain entrance into the Order of the Sword and Star.

It was true that such chaps as Pee Wee, and the Mouser, as well as Shiner and Howell Purdy, were rather skeptical about the value of membership in the school secret society. Dr. Raymond was a member and that "looked bad" to those boys who were out for fun. And "f-u-n" spelled—in their minds—"mischief," and vice versa!

Those first few weeks of the new school year, however, passed without any very wild outbreak upon the part of either the merely mischievous, like Pee Wee and his mates, or by the really disturbing element (which was small) headed by Billy Bronson and Jack Jinks.

Those two worthies had, after a time, joined forces again; but they were not as good friends and co-workers as they had been before the poguey fight.

Bobby and Fred really gave most of their attention to studies. The school at Clinton had been graded so differently from this preparatory institution, that the chums had to work hard to pick up in some studies, while they were well advanced beyond their mates in others.

Fred was inspired by Bobby's example to win good marks for himself. Even the stern master, Mr. Leith, who looked over the work of the smaller boys fortnightly, commented favorably upon what the chums had accomplished.

In play hours the Lower School kept together for the most part. Here was where Fred Martin's plans were proven smart. The baseball outfit that he and Bobby had purchased with their peep-show money was welcomed with great approval by the boys of Number Two Dormitory.

Bobby and Fred won their places on the Second Nine at once. They played the First Dormitory Nine on Saturday of the first week of school, and won. Bobby's "fade-away," as Fred had prophesied, puzzled the other nine's battery splendidly.

The next Saturday the victorious nine played against a team of town boys and again won. Captain Gray then began to take notice of the victorious nine. He coached them a little and then they challenged a nine belonging to the Belden School across the lake.

It was after the first of October when this match occurred, and the Rockledge boys went across in their own boats. Although visiting a hostile camp, the boys of Rockledge were very nicely received by the older Belden boys. Naturally, the home team had the crowd with them, but Bobby held the enemy down to ten hits and only six runs, and the Rockledge nine won by two runs.

Although their hosts remained polite to the visitors, Bobby and Fred saw very plainly that the rivalry between the two schools was deep-seated. They heard Captain Gray and Max Bender talking to some of the big fellows of Belden, and both sides were boasting of what the rival football teams would do to each other on Thanksgiving Day.

On that day the Belden crowd would come over to Rockledge, and from this time on, there was little more baseball played by the Rockledge boys. They were deeply interested in football.

In this game Bobby and Fred did not shine so brightly, but they went into hard training with the second junior team and under Captain Gray, who coached the smaller boys as well as the first team, learned a whole lot about football.

Meanwhile, not a word had come to Bobby from his parents after they had sailed from New York. He heard from Clinton every week, for Michael Mulcahey painfully indited a scrawly letter to him, enclosing sometimes a note from Meena. Michael, having crossed from Ireland in a sailing ship years before, was considered by Bobby a marvel of sea-lore. One time he wrote:

"DERE BOBBY:—

"It ain't nawthin alarmin that we don't here yet from Mistur Blake an his good lady an so I tell Meena whos got the face ache most of the time now and is just as good compny as a mad cat. She's rayfused to marry me agin, an I do be thinkin thats struck in an worries her face a lot. Howsomever 'tis about your feyther and mother Id write to cheer you up a bit. I well remember the long passage we made from the Ould Sod when I kem to this counthry. Twas head winds we had, an its like head winds that has held the big ship back thats takin Mistur Blake an his good lady to these Brazils. An tis a mortal far ways they do be goin. Mistur Martin says the offices in New York hav had no wareless telegraf despatches (what iver they be) from the ship since she was off Hattie Ross—an whoever she is I dunnaw. But if she's like most females, she's cranky, an that accounts for the delay.

"Be good an ye'll be happy, aven if ye don't have so much fun, from your friend and well wisher, rayspectfully,

"MICHAEL MULCAHEY."

This letter—and similar epistles—cheered Bobby some, and Mr. Martin wrote him a jolly little note, enclosed in a longer letter to Fred. But Bobby could not help feeling worried about the silence of his parents, especially at night.

When he knelt to say his prayers (and most of the other boys in Dormitory Two did likewise), he remembered what his mother had said about her praying for him at the same time every evening, and sometimes he had to squeeze his eyes shut tight to keep back the tears.

That the time on board the great steamship going south to the Tropics, and the time in New England was vastly different, did not enter Bobby's mind. It just seemed to him as though his mother was very near him indeed as he knelt before his chair.

For a sturdy, busy boy, however, there was not much time for worriment. Every day there was something new; one could not be lonesome at Rockledge.

The boys went from their beds to breakfast, from their meals to work in the schoolroom, from their lessons to play—a continual round of activities.

The athletic instruction interested the chums from Clinton immensely, and until the real cool weather set in, the boys of the school enjoyed swimming in the lake every day.

Dr. Raymond hoped that, before long, he would be able to build a gymnasium with a swimming pool in a special building by itself. This was something to look forward to, however.

All aquatic sports did not stop when the frost came. There were plenty of boats belonging to the school—from light, flat-bottomed skiffs which the little fellows could not possibly tip over, to a fine eight-oared shell manned by the bigger boys. In this they raced the Belden School every June before Commencement.

Wednesday and Saturday afternoons were holidays, but without special permission the boys of the Lower School could not go out of bounds. On Saturdays the bigger boys went to town if they so desired, or took long tramps through the woods, or rowed to the upper end of the lake.

If the smaller fellows wanted to go out of bounds, usually a teacher went with them. There was a picnic of the Lower School on one of the islands in the lake, however, that Bobby and Fred were not likely to forget for a long time.

Pee Wee and Mouser got it up. They first got permission to take a cold dinner on Saturday and row to the island. There was a farmer whose land joined the school property on the east. From him they obtained several dozen ears of late greencorn—nubbins, but sweet as sugar—and some new potatoes.

They were excused from lessons that day at eleven—all but Pee Wee himself. He had been lazy, as usual, and was behind in his work. It looked, for a time, as though the picnic had to be delayed.

But urged on by the others, Bobby faced Mr. Carrin, who had Pee Wee's class in history, and begged the fat boy off.

"Do let him do the extra work to-night, sir, after supper," begged Bobby. "We were going to have such a nice time, and Pee—I mean Perry—got the picnic up, and—"

"It is a pity that Perry cannot spend a little of his mind and effort on his lessons," said Mr. Carrin, with a smile.

"Yes, sir. I know, sir," said Bobby, eagerly, "but he doesn't seem to be able to think of two things at once."

"I guess that is right," chuckled Mr. Carrin, who was a much more pleasant gentleman than Mr. Leith. "Tell him he may go, but I shall expect a perfect recitation on Monday morning, first thing."

"Huh!" growled Pee Wee, who had overheard some of this. "I'm glad enough to get off, Bobby Blake. But you needn't have told him I was weak-minded."

Bobby grinned at him. "What do you care if you are a little bit crazy? And I didn't tell him anything new. He was on to it."

The crowd rowed off in three boats. There were seventeen of them. They went to the upper island, which was the biggest, in an hour and a half, and as soon as they landed they set to work to build a fire and make the picnic dinner.

Of course, they were too hungry to wait until the potatoes were baked, but as soon as the light wood had burned down to ashes and coals, they thrust the potatoes under the bed of the fire to bake slowly.

Meanwhile they ate the sandwiches and cake they had brought from school, and each boy cut a stick, on the end of which he stuck an ear of corn. These ears they roasted in the flames.

Of course, they were scorched a little, but they had butter and pepper and salt with which to dress the corn and it did taste mighty nice!

"And there's pretty near a bushel of the potatoes," said Fred, happily. "After the fire dies down again, we can rake them out and eat them. There's a big dab of butter left and plenty of salt and pepper. Crickey! I could eat a peck of them myself."

"We ought to have brought more potatoes and corn along," suggested Pee Wee, licking his fingers, "and hidden the stuff here somewhere. Then we could come another day and have a bake like this."

"Say! the corn wouldn't be much good," Bobby said.

"Scubbity-yow!" yelled Fred, suddenly. "I have it."

"Gee! you must have it bad," responded Mouser. "What kind of a battlecry is that?"

"Say!" went on Fred, without paying the least attention to Mouser's question, "I've got the dandy idea."

"Let's have it?" proposed Bobby.

"Let's build a shack, or a cabin, or something, up there in the thick trees. Nobody would ever see it from the lake. Then we can bring things over to furnish it—on the sly, you know—"

"Why on the sly?" demanded his chum.

"Aw—well—if the other fellows knew it, they'd come and bust it up, wouldn't they?"

"Not our fellows," declared Shiner.

"But you bet the kids from Belden would," urged Pee Wee.

"We could keep still about it, I s'pose," admitted Bobby.

"Well, then!" returned Fred. "Now, we'd fit it up, and store stuff in it for winter—nuts, and popcorn, and 'taters, and turnips—"

"You can't bake turnips," objected Howell Purdy.

"Well! they're good raw, aren't they?" demanded the eager Fred.

"It's a great old scheme," declared Jimmy Ailshine, otherwise "Shiner." "Let's get at it at once. Skeets Brody has his ax. Come on!"

And the excited boys trooped away from the beach and left the potatoes under the coals of the campfire to finish cooking.

CHAPTER XVI

HOT POTATOES

Bobby and Fred had already become leaders to a degree, with the boys of their own age at Rockledge School. This suggestion of the red-haired one about building a hut was accepted with enthusiasm by the fifteen others in the present crowd.

They trooped up into the thick grove that crowned the summit of the rocky island. Bobby and Fred had been on many camping expeditions at home, along the banks of Plunkit Creek. They wasted no time in discussing how they should build a shelter with the materials at hand.

"Leave it to us, and we'll go ahead and show you how to make a nice shack," promised Bobby, when the others began to gabble as to how it should be done.

"Good idea!" cried Pee Wee. "Let's elect Bobby Blake, captain.

"And Fred Martin, lieutenant," said Shiner. "They both know what to do and we don't."

This was agreed to without a word of objection from any of the fifteen. Bobby took charge at once.

"Here are four trees," he announced, pointing to four that stood almost in a square, some twelve feet apart, and with nothing but saplings in the square made by them. "These will be our posts. First we want to clean out all the small trees and brush inside these big trees, and for some feet around the outside—so we can work."

"Wish we had more axes," said Fred.

"We all have knives. Those with knives can cut off the smaller brush. Skeets is really our only woodsman. Come on, Skeets, and let's find four good trees for the cross-timbers."

They were all soon very busy. Bobby did little but show the others what to do and make measurements with a piece of fishline. Fred gave his attention to cutting spruce boughs for walls and roof.

Skeets cut the four trees needed, they were measured and notched at the ends and then lifted into place—each end in a crotch of the low branching trees Bobby had selected for the corner posts of the hut.

The roof would not be exactly flat, for one crotch was somewhat higher than the others, but the four timbers lay firm, being lashed together with black-birch withes.

Soon the other boys began to bring the spruce boughs; but first Bobby laid several good sized saplings across the string-pieces, to strengthen the roof.

They worked so hard and with such enthusiasm that they really forgot the potatoes under the bonfire. In two hours a heavy roofing of boughs lay upon the poles, and the boys could all stand up under it and be sheltered.

Suddenly Fred exclaimed: "Crickey! Let's see if those potatoes are done. I'm as hungry as a hound right now."

This set them all on a run. It does not take much to put an edge on a boy's appetite. Just the suggestion of the potatoes was enough.

"First at the fire!" yelled Howell Purdy, as he hurried down through the grove, and over the rocks.

"Bet you I make it first!" declared Shiner, vigorously following the leader.

It was a stampede. With whoops and shouts the seventeen scrambled down the descent to the shore.

Suddenly they halted. Shiner and Howell, who had been wrestling to put each other behind, looked, too. There was a crowd of boys around their campfire on the shore.

"Who are they?" demanded Bobby, in amazement.

"Say! they're raking out our potatoes!" gasped Fred Martin.

"They're Beldenites!" declared Pee Wee, panting, and on the high ground behind. "There's their boats. And there's half as many more of them as there are of us."

"I don't care if they're two to one!" cried Fred in anger. "Those are our potatoes."

"Suppose they beat us and take away our boats?" demanded Howell Purdy, falling back. "You know—those Belden fellows can fight."

"Well! can't we?" demanded Fred Martin, panting and doubling his fists. "What are we—babies?"

"We won't fight—yet," put in Bobby, calmly. "Perhaps they don't realize that that is our fire and our potatoes."

"What'll we do?" asked Pee Wee, by no means anxious to advance.

"Come on," said Bobby; feeling dreadfully shaken inside, but too proud to show it. "Let's talk to them."

"Better get some clubs and go for them," growled Fred.

"No. They haven't clubs," declared Bobby. "Let's not start any fight."

He and Shiner and Mouser proceeded along the beach. They saw the Belden fellows scrambling for the hot potatoes, and shouting and skylarking.

"That's Larry Cronk—that fellow with the curly hair. Don't you remember, Bobby? He pitched for their club when we went over to beat them that day."

"I remember. And that's their first baseman—Ben Allen." Then Bobby raised his voice so the Belden crowd could hear him: "I say! that's our fire and those are our potatoes. We were just coming down to get them."

"Is that so?" sneered Larry Cronk, standing up and laughing at the Rockledge boys. "Well, you came too late—do you see?"

"I'll throw a rock at him!" growled the belligerent Fred.

"Keep still!" commanded Bobby. Then to the Beldenites he said: "That's not fair—or honest. Those are our potatoes—"

Larry swung back his arm, and poised one of the potatoes. The next moment he flung it with all his force at Bobby. The latter just escaped it by dodging.

"Mean thing!" yelled Fred, and he picked up a stone on the instant (there were plenty of pebbles on the beach) and flung it at the Belden's captain.

"That's right! let's drive them off!" cried Pee Wee, from the rear.

Fred's stone was flung true and Larry Cronk received it in the shoulder. He yelled and dodged, and at once the Belden boys let go a flight of hot potatoes!

The potatoes burst wherever they struck—and not a few of them landed upon the boys who had hoped to feast upon the tubers. This was adding insult to injury, and the Rockledge boys were greatly enraged.

"They're spoiling all our 'taters!" cried Pee Wee—almost wailing, in fact. "There! there's another busted."

He had turned just in time to get the potato in the back instead of in the chest. Mouser and Howell were jumping about and rubbing their cheeks. The hot potatoes burned as well as stung, and although they were mealy enough to fly all about when they burst—like miniature bombs—when flung by a vigorous arm, they hurt more than a little.

The Rockledge crowd broke before the flight of hot potatoes, and seemed about to run back to the woods. But Bobby and Fred could not stand that.

"Hold on, fellows!" yelled Fred. "We can lick those chaps—I know we can! Get some stones! They can't hurt more than hot potatoes."

Bobby did not delay in joining in the return fusillade of stones. Some of the pebbles landed heavily. Although outnumbering the Rockledge boys by considerable, the Belden crowd began to retreat toward its boats.

"Come on! push them!" yelled Fred, running ahead.

The others, thus encouraged, ran after him. They reached their own boats and felt safe, then. The Beldens could not get their craft away from them.

At the fire there were a lot of the potatoes scattered about and trampled into the sand. Pee Wee began yelling:

"Use the stones! use the stones! Don't fling those potatoes—we want them!"

This brought about some laughter, and the Rockledge boys did not throw their missiles so viciously thereafter. The Beldens had gotten enough, anyway. Two of them were nursing bad bruises on their heads, and were crying. Bobby was glad the battle was so soon over, for he was afraid somebody would be seriously hurt.

The Belden youngsters scrambled into their boats and pushed off from the island, while the Rockledge boys collected all the potatoes they could find, that had not burst, and enjoyed their delayed feast with the sauce of having won it by force of arms.

They did not finish the hut on the island that day, but agreed to come back to complete it the next half holiday—if they could gain permission.

CHAPTER XVII

LOST AT SEA

And then there came an unhappy time indeed for Bobby Blake. In the back of his mind, for weeks, had been the uncertainty about his father and mother. Now that uncertainty suddenly developed into a great and lingering horror—a horror from which not even the elasticity of youth could easily rebound.

One morning Dr. Raymond sent a note into Mr. Carrin's school. Had not Bobby been so busy at his work, he would have seen the pale faced teacher grow still more pallid, and look at him.

Mr. Carrin arose and walked up and down the room. The boys soon discovered that he was not watching them. Occasionally he stole a glance at Bobby, but he noticed no other boy.

Then, without saying another word, he went out, and in a minute came back with Barry Gray. Barry looked startled himself, and very serious. He stood in the doorway and said:

"Blake! Doctor Raymond wants you in his office. You are to come with me."

Bobby got up quickly, and with a suddenly beating heart. He believed he must have done something to bring down upon his head the wrath of the good Doctor. He could not imagine what it was, but he was frightened.

You see, Bobby had gotten it into his head that possibly he might have a chance at the Medal of Honor. He was trying to be an exemplary scholar for that reason—and because he knew it would delight his absent father and mother, if he gained such an honor.

Now, this sudden and unexpected call shocked him. Fred grabbed his hand secretly as he passed his seat and squeezed it. Bobby knew that his chum, thoughtless as Fred usually was, appreciated his present feelings.

When he reached the door, his own face was aflame. He knew all the boys of the Lower School were looking at him. Mr. Carrin, too, seemed to be staring at Bobby in a strange way.

Barry put his arm across the smaller boy's shoulder just as soon as the classroom door closed behind them.

"Buck up, old man!" he said, with a funny choke in his voice. "Things are never so hard as they seem at first. And there's such a lot of uncertainty about such reports—"

"What reports, sir?" asked Bobby, breathlessly.

"Didn't Carrin tell you a thing?" gasped Barry, stopping short.

"No! What have I done? What's Doctor Raymond going to do with me?"

"Why, you poor little kid!" ejaculated the big boy, grabbing Bobby tightly again. "You mustn't be afraid of the Old Doc. He wouldn't hurt a fly. And you're not in bad with him—don't think it!"

"But what is the matter, then?" demanded Bobby.

"It's your folks, Bob," blurted out Barry. "There's uncertain news about them—"

"They're not sick—not dead?" cried Bobby, shaking all over.

"No, no! Of course not," returned Barry, heartily. "Nothing as bad as that."

"What is it, then?"

"Why, it's only a shipwreck, or something like that. Of course they've been rescued; folks always are, you know. And they'll have lots of adventures to write you about."

Bobby was speechless. His pretty, delicate mother shipwrecked! Of course, his father would save her, but she might get wet and catch cold; that was the first thought that took form in his mind.

"News has come about the big ship they sailed away on," Barry Gray went on, cheerfully. "Another ship has found part of the deckworks of your father's steamship, all scorched and burned. There must have been a fire at sea."

"Well, don't you s'pose they could put the fire out with so much water around?" asked Bobby, seriously.

"That's right!" exclaimed Barry. "But perhaps the machinery was hurt, so the ship couldn't be made to go. There wasn't any sails to her, of course."

"I see," said Bobby, gravely, nodding.

"So they had to take to the boats. You know how it is: Women and children first! The sailors are always so brave. And the officers stand by to the last—and if the ship sinks, the captain always goes down with her, standing on the quarter deck, with the flags flying. You've read about it, Bobby!"

"Sure!" choked Bobby.

"Of course there are always boats enough for the passengers—and life-rafts. And they float about for a while and are either picked up by other ships, or the natives row out in their canoes and save them."

"Yes!" gasped Bobby, letting out the great fear at his heart. "But—but suppose she should get cold? You know she has a weak throat. The doctor always tells her to look out for bron—bron-skeeters, or somethin' like that."

"Who has bronchitis?" demanded Barry, rather puzzled.