Dickinson was in his room. He had just returned, also planning for a long pull at his books, the usual evening routine for him. Melvin banged at the door, then jerked it open with little ceremony. Dickinson looked up in mild wonder.

“Hello! I thought you had consecrated your evening to the Muses. What’s up? You look as if you were on the war-path.”

“I am,” answered the visitor, fiercely. His face was set in harsh lines, while his voice, which he vainly strove to control, came forth choked and strained and trembling. “Do you know what makes a professional?”

“Why, I suppose I do,” replied the wondering Dickinson, who was giving less attention to the question than to his friend’s unaccountable agitation.

“Well, what is it?”

“Why, to play for money or your board, or any such compensation.”

“Anything else?”

“Yes, to compete with professionals, or for money prizes, or—”

“Or what?” demanded the questioner.

“Or take part in some kind of an open contest, which the governing boards for some technical reason or other forbid. I never understood about it very well,—in fact, never concerned myself with it. It doesn’t affect us, and it seemed to me quite enough to know the general rules. The genuine amateur doesn’t need rules, anyway. His own instinct for what’s right and fair would keep him straight.”

“Oh, it would!” replied the manager with virulent sarcasm.

“Yes, it would!” retorted Dickinson, catching fire himself at the persistent cross-examination. “What’s got into you, anyway? Why do you come here in this choking, crazy fashion and ask me wild questions? What do you mean?”

Dickinson was standing now, facing his visitor with a challenging look, which warned Melvin that he was beginning wrong. He hesitated a moment, trying to control his voice, and groping for a simple way back to the proper path.

“Well, what is it?” demanded Dickinson, in peremptory tones. “Don’t stand there rolling your eyes. Out with it!”

“It’s about you, Jim,” said Melvin, at last, abandoning any attempt at a wise leading of the conversation, and speaking, as his anger cooled somewhat, with less animosity and more sorrow in his voice. “Did you really run in Indiana last summer with professionals for a money prize?”

For a short minute Dickinson blinked at the questioner in stupefaction. Then with a quick transformation, as memory presented a picture of a past occurrence, the blood came rushing to his cheeks and a fierce light blazed in his eyes.

“Well, what about it?” demanded Dick, again the examiner, but losing his bitterness before the glare of indignation which Dickinson threw upon him. “Can’t you speak?”

“There’s no use in speaking,” answered the runner, sullenly. “If you think I’m that kind of a man, it makes no difference what I say. My word wouldn’t be good for anything. A man will always lie about the first money he gets for athletics.”

“It’s a question of knowing, not of thinking,” said Dick.

“Exactly!” returned Dickinson, bitterly. “And this is the way you know me! If my running hasn’t given any better impression of me than that, I’ll stop it altogether. I never wanted to run. You drove me into it against my will. I will slip out with pleasure.”

“Hang it, Jim! answer my question, won’t you?” cried Dick, desperate. “Did you run last summer in a Fourth of July race with professionals, or not?”

“Of course I didn’t,” replied Dickinson, sulkily. “You ought to have more sense than to take stock in such a yarn. I never ran a race in my life except in this school and at Hillbury last year.”

Melvin drew a long breath. His courage was coming back and his wrath was cooling, but the mystery was yet to be explained.

“How did this story start, then?”

“What story?” snapped Dickinson.

“Why, that you did take part in some such race in your town last summer,” returned Dick, patiently, yet feeling that Dickinson’s present balkiness certainly warranted suspicion of past folly if not of guilt.

“I don’t know anything about any story,” answered Dickinson. “I was asked to run in the races and declined. Through some misunderstanding my name was mentioned in the advertisements, but I did not run,—in fact, was not even present.”

“Was your name down in the handbills?”

“It may have been. I don’t know about that.”

“Who was the manager?”

“I don’t recall his name—one of the sporting men around town. I know the name of the head of the general committee, and that’s all.”

“Would he be able to give us a certificate proving that you did not compete?”

“He’s in Europe,” answered Dickinson. “He wouldn’t be of any use if he were here. He had nothing to do with the sports at all, and he doesn’t know me from Adam.”

“But there must be some one to whom you can write for evidence,” cried Melvin, in despair. “Wouldn’t your father look the matter up for you, or your clergyman or your high school principal?”

Dickinson’s features relaxed into a mournful smile. “My father indeed! Haven’t I told you of his attitude on the subject? He’d welcome any pretext that would shut me out. And as for Dr. Monroe, our minister, he’s a fine old man and one of the best friends I have in the world, but I shouldn’t wish to send him round the streets looking up evidence regarding my running. The principal of the high school would do the job thoroughly if we could give him plenty of time, but he’s a very busy man and might not get to it immediately.”

“Might not get to it immediately!” echoed Melvin. “Why, Jim, do you know how much time we have?—just five days. The protest will have to be met on Wednesday. If we are not prepared then, judgment will go against us.”

“They’ll have to give us reasonable time in which to disprove charges, won’t they?” retorted Dickinson. “They certainly don’t expect every fellow to carry round in his pocket certificates of his amateur standing.”

“The rules say definitely that protests must be decided on the Wednesday before the games, and Hillbury will take good care that the rules are followed. Whatever we do must be done before Wednesday. We must write the letters to-night.”

“Let’s talk it over with Varrell first,” said Dickinson, “he knows more than all the rest of us put together. It may be that he will think of some way of getting us out of the hole.”

The meeting was adjourned to Varrell’s room, where the facts were discussed again. The wisdom of Varrell furnished no other expedient than that already proposed of writing to several men whose names Dickinson had mentioned, in the hope that out of the whole number at least one would answer fully and promptly, with evidence that could not be gainsaid.

Late in the evening the captain and the manager separated, having written the letters and made sure of their prompt departure by carrying them to the office instead of leaving them in the street boxes. Anxious as the boys were to speed the cause, there was nothing now left to them but to wait quietly for the returning messages and control their impatience as best they could. To Dickinson, whose temperament inclined to moroseness, this waiting was not so difficult. He had always shown an inconceivable indifference to the athletic ambition which was so powerful an animus in the lives of the boys about him. The immediate effect of the unpleasant news was to change his indifference to disgust. The accusation was groundless and unjust; if he must prove his innocence against every absurd charge which could be suddenly trumped up against him, the sooner he was done with athletics the better. The game was not worth the candle.

Weary of the disagreeable subject, Dickinson went to bed and fell quickly asleep. Not so the unfortunate manager. To him the fleet runner was a school possession, intrusted to his keeping as a fine blade to the care of the armorer, who must produce it at the call of its owner, glittering, keen, and ready for instant use. He heard the clock strike twelve and one, as he rolled nervously from one side of the bed to the other, vainly courting elusive sleep, or brooding over the perplexing situation. Dickinson might not have suggested the right men to appeal to; the letters might not reach their destination safely; the people to whom they were addressed might not answer promptly; the committee might not give proper weight to the answers received. He recalled with alarm stories he had read in newspapers of the accidental destruction of mail cars. The letters would be forwarded together; an accident to a single pouch would stop them all. He groaned aloud as he pictured himself and Dickinson and the school waiting hopeful and helpless, day after day, mail after mail, for letters which, having never been sent, could never arrive.

Varrell also was awake late. Stretched in his easy-chair, with feet comfortably cushioned on the window-seat, he gazed out into the peaceful night and pondered the same problem which was distressing his friend. When at length he rose to his feet and turned up the light, there was the shadow of a smile on his face and a gleam of satisfaction in his eye, which indicated that one at least of the three seniors had cudgeled his brain to some purpose.

The trio came together next morning on the way to chapel.

“Did you get the letters off?” asked Varrell.

Melvin nodded.

“Did you write to the newspapers?” continued Varrell. “The newspaper men are usually best posted on local happenings.”

Manager and captain looked at each other in surprise. “We didn’t think of them,” confessed Dickinson. “There’s the Times and the Chronicle. Some one in those offices ought to know the facts perfectly well.”

“I’ll write to them both immediately after chapel,” said Melvin, joyfully. “Much obliged, Wrenn; I knew you’d help us.”

While Melvin composed his letters, Varrell was at the telegraph office sending messages to the same addresses. But he kept his own counsel.

The school sports were held on Saturday, with rather disappointing results. Dickinson won his races, as was expected, but he made no new records, and his form was evidently not as good as he had shown in the same sports a year before. The school was disappointed, but not hopelessly so, for Marks’s expert opinion that Dickinson had reached his limit and would now go backward, found no general acceptance outside his own small set. Melvin won second place in the high jump, barely succeeding in doing five feet five, though in practice the week before he had several times got easily over the bar at five feet six. It was little comfort to him to know, as the others did not, that his slump was due, not to inability, but to anxiety for Dickinson. Varrell alone of the three gained glory by the work of the day, winning his event by a vault only a trifle below the school record.

That night came formal notice of the protest of Dickinson, to be adjudicated on the following Wednesday. The news flashed through the school with the usual electrifying force, charging every loyal heart with dismay and indignation.