“Well, Dick, another case of thieving,—or losing. You can’t tell anything about a careless fellow like Hayes.”

“What is it this time,” asked Dick, “money?”

“Yes,” replied Varrell, “a purse out of his clothes in the gymnasium locker. He dressed early for ball practice, and tucked his key under the locker door. When he came back, the money was gone.”

“It’s strange we can’t stop this thing!” exclaimed Melvin.

“There were a dozen fellows in the locker rooms during the afternoon. Bosworth was one, of course, and he was there early, but no one suspects him. Hayes thinks it was one of the bowling-alley boys, and Farnum, who told me about it, charges it to the painter. I know who did it, I’ll bet; but I have no more proof than in the case of the safe.”

“Given that up at last, haven’t you?” said Melvin, with a broad smile of amusement on his face. “You’re great on theories and suspicions, and can read a man’s lips fifty feet away, but all the same, when it comes to facts, you’re not there.”

“That may be so, and may not be,” said Varrell, with an air of superiority. “I don’t pretend to be a detective, but I haven’t given up hope, and shall not give it up till I board the train after the college exams in June. The fellow is getting reckless, and will sooner or later expose himself. All we can do is to watch and wait.”

“Watch and wait!” sniffed Melvin. “That’s what we’ve been doing, isn’t it? and see, what has the result been? Durand has lost money, and Hayes has lost money, and we’re no nearer getting our hands on the thief than we were before.”

“Oh, yes, we are,” said Varrell. “To begin with, Eddy has become intimate again with Bosworth. I have seen him two or three times lately in Bosworth’s room. Yesterday they had a hot discussion about something, and some of it was carried on near the window while I was at work behind my blinds. With the help of my Zeiss opera-glass I caught several expressions that gave me a clew to the conversation.”

“What did they say?” asked Dick, eagerly.

“Well, Bosworth was the first one who appeared. He came to the window, wearing that sneering look of his, and looked down to see if there was any one outside. Before he turned around he looked across to my window, and as he did so, he said: ‘You can’t help yourself. You’re in it as deep as I am. You gave me the information and shared the profits. If I get into trouble, I take you with me.’ Then both remained away for some minutes. Eddy was the next to show himself, with tears running down his cheeks, and his chin jerking with sobs, so that it was hard to follow the motion of his lips. Apparently he said nothing for a minute, but just leaned his forehead against the frame of the lower sash, which was raised high. Suddenly he clenched his fist and brought it down on the window seat, and cried out, ‘I won’t keep the dirty money! I’ll pay you back the first of next month, and then you will see, you miserable—’ He turned his head away so that I couldn’t see the next words. Bosworth appeared immediately and pulled him away from the window.”

“Poor little fool!” said Melvin, sadly. “What a pity we can’t do something to save him from that rascal! Bosworth has apparently got some grip on him and is scaring the life out of him.”

“He’s probably lent Eddy money, and by pretending it’s a part of what was in the safe, has tied the boy’s tongue. It is clear that Eddy holds the key to the situation. If some one could only induce him to tell what he knows, it would give us the evidence we need to banish Bosworth, and might help us to save Eddy. Does Phil know him well?”

“I don’t think they are intimate,” replied Dick, “but they know each other fairly well.”

“Why can’t Phil draw the little chap out?” said Varrell. “It’s for the boy’s own good.”

Phil yielded with bad grace to the older boys’ request. To a character transparently frank and wholly detesting underhand methods, the task savored of dishonesty. Only when he was assured that Eddy was in the power of a dangerous person whose grip on the boy it was important to break at the earliest possible moment, did he consent to make the attempt.

The next morning he offered to join Eddy in his room for the working out of the algebra problems. Eddy accepted the offer with alacrity, both because he welcomed assistance and because he was pleased to have a boy like Poole in his room. When the lesson was at an end, Phil asked him flatly what he found attractive in Bosworth. Eddy became red and white by turns, and said he didn’t know. Then Phil pressed his question, and Eddy “didn’t know” and “couldn’t tell” until a great storm of tears and sobs melted the heart of the unwilling inquisitor, and brought the examination to an abrupt close. Phil had just resolution enough left before he fled the painful scene, to urge the unfortunate boy to let Bosworth wholly alone, and if he had anything bad on his conscience to confide it to Grim or some one else who could help him.

“That settles it for the present,” said Varrell, when he heard the report. “The scoundrel has the little fool tied hand and foot. We must play the waiting game a while longer.”

“If Grim knew what we know, he would worm the facts out of Eddy in ten minutes,” said Phil.

“I’m not so sure of it,” replied Varrell. “That’s the last card, anyway; I’m not willing to play that yet.”

The season was drawing toward its interesting end. On the following Saturday was to be held the school track meet, a week later the contest with Hillbury, and after another week the great baseball game with the same rivals. Before and after the athletic contests, and sprinkled in among them, came the Morgan Prize Speaking, the Morgan Composition Reading, the contests for the English and Mathematical prizes, class dinners, society elections, preparation for class-day,—opportunities and pleasures of every variety to goad the conscientious and inspire the indifferent. Varrell restricted his ambition to his studies and pole vaulting, and so had strength in reserve for the still hunt after “Beelzebub,”—a name which after three months of Milton gradually and naturally replaced “Bosworth” in the private conversations of the two friends.

Melvin’s occupations were more varied. Besides his regular school work, which he was anxious to do well to the very end, there were the troublesome duties of track manager to be performed, the regular jumping practice to be kept up, and a class-day part to prepare. The “still hunt” he left to Varrell, who undertook to do the watching while Dick attended to the waiting.

The cares of management proved considerably greater than Melvin had anticipated. In addition to the worry of collecting subscriptions, and the necessity of bothering with the large number of men and numerous details involved in a dozen events, he found himself bearing burdens that really belonged to another. Dickinson, the captain, possessed a very peculiar character. He could run like a deer. In the two-twenty and the quarter ordinary handicaps seemed of no use against him. This year he had been experimenting with the hundred yards as well, and in two trials out of three, he could give Tommy Travers, who had been for two years the best hundred-yard man in school, three or four yards and beat him with ease. Yet with this marvelous natural ability, which had lifted him suddenly the year before from a position of unimportance to one of great popularity, he had only a slight interest in his sport. He ran because the school wanted him to run, not because he either loved the sport or hankered after the glory of winning. Left to himself, he would sooner or later have abandoned the track altogether and settled back into solitary moping with his books. As it was, he often appeared moody and apathetic, and neglected many of the duties which a captain likes especially to perform. Inspiration and push had to come from the manager.

The jumping took a course discouragingly uncertain. Almost every day Dick began his practice with the feeling that he had reached his limit. Sometimes, as he dropped an inch or two below previous records, he was convinced of it. Then, on the next day, perhaps, or the day after, when he had concluded that there was no great jump in him, and that he must be satisfied with a moderate achievement, he would surprise himself by going a half inch higher than he had ever attained before. And there were times, when he had enjoyed a particularly long and restful sleep, or his physical condition was exactly right, at which he really felt like jumping. Then his ambition went wild, and he told himself, exultantly, that the limit was still far away. Such days came rarely. Should he have one on the twenty-third, or more important still, on the thirtieth?

On Tuesday evening Dick and Varrell and Phil went together to the chapel to hear the Prize Speaking. Curtis joined them at the door, and all four took seats near the front. It was a long performance, but the boys listened with interest, and amused themselves by guessing on the merits of the contestants, as speech followed speech in close succession. Curtis voted for Planter, Melvin for Durand, Varrell for Todd, and Phil for a boy who delivered an extract from a speech by Henry Clay. When the judges returned the award of first prize to Planter, second to Von Gersdorf, and honorable mention for Todd and Durand, each flattered himself on his critical judgment.

Varrell said good night at the steps of Carter, and went on to his own dormitory. Curtis, who was in a talkative mood, proposed to “go up for a minute.” When he had settled himself in an arm-chair, Phil, who distrusted such “minutes,” gathered up his Greek books and retreated to a classmate’s room across the hall.

“Do you know, Dick, Planter is the kind of fellow I admire. He ranks well,—almost as well as you do,—and he’s an editor of the Seatonian and on the Lit., and is always to the fore on an occasion like this. Fletcher is a better scholar, I suppose, but he’s nothing else; Planter can write and speak as well as get marks; he has good manners too, and is always a gentleman.”

“I didn’t know you admired gentle qualities,” said Dick, amused, “and as for marks, why, it’s only this year that you’ve been on friendly terms with any kind of school-books.”

“Better late than never. I’ve had a lot of new ideas this year.”

“Are you going back on athletics?” asked Dick.

“They are all right in their place. I wouldn’t exchange my football experiences for anything this crank factory ever gave to Daniel Webster or any other great genius who got his first ‘call down’ on our benches. But I don’t want to be always John Curtis the football player. I want something better than that.”

“John Curtis the Harvard freshman?” suggested Dick.

Curtis smiled grimly. “That’s what I’m going to be, if it’s possible for the possessor of my brains. I’m making headway, too. If I’d only begun last year, I might have been somewhere now.”

“You can do it yet,” said Dick, encouragingly.

“I’ll make a bluff at it, anyway,” replied the football captain; “but it’s like trying to rush the ball seventy yards in the last ten minutes of the game.”

Phil came in, looked significantly at the clock, and took off his coat.

“Yes, I know it’s time for me to go,” said Curtis, struggling to his feet. “We’re all in training, and ought to be in bed by this time. That was a good game you put up last Saturday.”

Phil looked at him suspiciously.

“Oh, I mean it,” added Curtis. “And you’ll have the crowd with you, too, if you can keep it up. Don’t mind what you hear from Marks and that gang.”

On Thursday Dick came home promptly after supper for a long evening’s pull at his class-day part. Phil was already there.

“Did you see that letter from Cambridge, Dick?” he asked. “I put it on the mantelpiece.”

Melvin took it up carelessly. “From Martin,” he said, glancing at the address. “I wonder what he wants.”

He opened it while Phil stood quietly by, waiting for news of their old school friend. As Melvin read, a tense, serious look came over his face, and he lifted his head instinctively, as if to meet an adversary. After he had finished, he still held the letter in his hand, and sat staring stupidly at the window.

“What is it?” cried Phil. “Has anything happened to Martin?”

“No, but something has happened to us. Read it and see.”

And Phil read this:—

“Dear old Dick: Just a word to tell you of some kind of a scheme on foot to protest Dickinson. I got it from a junior who rooms in my entry, who got it from an old Hillbury man. They say that Dickinson ran in a race in Indiana last Fourth of July for a money prize, and they have posters to show that he was advertised to take part in the race. Is it so? If it is, he has buried himself for school and college athletics as deep as China. If it isn’t, you’ll have to disprove the charge fair and square, beyond the point where a doubt can be imagined, or they’ll shut him out. Bestir yourself!

“Yours and Seaton’s forever,

“L. M. M.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Phil, as Dick put on his hat.

“I’m going to have it out with Dickinson first,” replied the senior, bitterly. “Then we’ll see what’s to be done.”