It was two weeks after the regatta, and again the boys were on the water. Six of the Wilders had taken advantage of a pleasant Saturday afternoon to walk up to the lake, and take out the Flemming for two or three hours’ fishing. For some time they had been watching their lines with a patience which was but ill-rewarded, for they had only a meagre number of worthless little fish to show for their waiting. Now, at the suggestion of Max, they were about to seek a fresh ground, and with their light anchor still dragging, they were slowly rowing up to the northern end of the lake, to try their fortunes in a deep, quiet pool which they had known of old. Suddenly Harry paused on his oars.

“Halt! I say,” he exclaimed. “This place is too cool and pleasant to leave; let’s lie off here for half an hour and enjoy it. We shall have time then for all the fishing we want.”

“Only four weeks more,” sighed Jack; “and then where’ll we be?”

warbled Max sentimentally, from his seat in the bow. “We’ll be the seniors then,” he added complacently, “and you’d better believe we’ll show you how to do things.”

“No use to put on airs, Max,” retorted Jack. “There’ll never be another class like ninety-one, and you may as well make up your mind to it.”

“Conceit, thy name is—Howard!” paraphrased Max, dropping his oar and bending over the edge of the boat, to paddle in the clear water.

“Oh, Hal,” asked Alex, all at once; “how comes on the poem?”

Harry groaned, as he lay down on the narrow seat and turned his face up to the blue sky above.

“It doesn’t come,” he said, “I’ve a few ideas, but I can’t make them rhyme. I don’t see why, in the name of all common sense, you fellows put me in as class poet.”

“Probably because there wasn’t anybody else to do it,” suggested Max benevolently. “When we come to our class day plans, though, we sha’n’t have any trouble over our poet, we have one all ready and waiting to step into office.”

“Who is it?” inquired Leon curiously.

“Wing, of course,” responded Max. “Didn’t you know he wrote poetry? He does, ever so much, and grates his teeth, and his eyes roll like anything while he’s doing it. Then he tears it up. I saw one bit of it, though. I’ve forgotten just how it was; but it went something like this:—

“Max Eliot, you hold your tongue,” interrupted Louis, blushing and wrathful. “You make up stories faster than you can tell them.”

“What’s struck you to-day, Max?” asked Alex. “You’re even wilder than usual.”

“Aren’t we all Wilders, I’d like to know? But I feel unusually hilarious; I’m invited to a great and glorious spread to-night, and it excites me, don’t you see?”

“Who has a spread?” queried Jack idly.

“Frank Osborn. It’s his birthday, I believe; anyway, he’s going to have a great time of it.”

“Say, Max, I wouldn’t go,” said Alex persuasively.

“Not go! Why not, I’d like to know?” returned Max.

“Osborn isn’t any sort of fellow for you to be with,” Alex answered, with a troubled look on his pleasant face. “I thought your liking for him had died the death, anyway.”

“So it had, for we had a little row; but that’s all over now,” said Max carelessly. “I don’t think Osborn’s a bad fellow, though, Alex.”

“He’s not my style, and I don’t like him at all,” returned Alex; “I think he’s fast, and I hate to have him think he’s going to get in with any of our set. I’d cut his acquaintance and let him go, Max.”

“Maybe I will, after I’ve had a taste of his spread,” answered Max, laughing. “You seniors don’t like him because he won the race for ninety-two; but it was a magnificently plucky thing to do, you know it was.”

“If you want my candid opinion of Osborn,” said Jack deliberately; “he’s a low-bred sneak and a disgrace to Flemming. He did do a plucky thing when he jumped overboard; but he’s been insufferably conceited about it ever since, too cockahoop for anything.”

For a minute Max glared at Jack, with an angry gleam in his blue eyes; but Harry interrupted them,—

“Oh, come now, you fellows, don’t get into a row. There isn’t room here. Besides, I’ve never noticed that the fish came down the lake to look for us, and if we’re going to try our luck up above here, it’s time we were starting.” And he took up his oar, letting its blade fall into the water, with a splash which sent the drops flying into the faces of the belligerent boys around him.

It had the desired effect of cooling their tempers; and the boys rowed away up the lake, the long, steady sweep of the oars sending the tiny waves far to the left and right of their track. The shadows from the bank had grown long upon the water, as the boys skirted the little island and then struck off towards the eastern shore. As they neared the bank, Max rose and peered eagerly over the bow of the boat.

“Slow!” he commanded. “I want to be sure when we get there. Steady! We’re in the shallows. Start her up a little; it’s more than ten feet ahead.”

Forgetful of their anchor which was still dragging, the boys at the oars made a sudden spurt. The little boat sprang forward for a few feet, then stopped with such suddenness that Max was sent plunging forward, into the clear, bright water below. For a moment there was a panic, and as the boy disappeared under the ripples, his companions sprang to their feet in alarm.

“Sit down!” commanded Alex instantly. “Do you want to upset the boat, and give us all a ducking? Max is all right; he’s a good swimmer, and here he comes up again, anyway.”

As he spoke, there was a miniature whirlpool at a little distance from the boat; and the forehead, eyes, nose, mouth and chin of Max slowly rose to their sight. Then one arm appeared, as Max made a hasty snatch at his cap which was floating past him.

“Can you keep up a minute, till we get to you?” called Jack.

“Keep up; I should say so,” answered Max, spluttering and wiping the water from his eyes. “I’m standing on the ground all right; but I can’t wade over to you, for I’m just across that hole I was looking for. Told you I’d find it,” he added, with a triumphant chuckle.

“All right, we’ll come over to you,” said Leon. “You didn’t go out quite as gracefully as Osborn, but ’twasn’t so bad for a first attempt. Is it wet any, over there?”

“I should think ’twas, slightly,” returned Max, as he rubbed away the streams which were trickling from his yellow hair. “If you doubt it, come in and see. Do hurry up with that boat, though, for I am nearly frozen.”

For again and again the boys had bent to their oars, but the boat remained motionless.

“Confound the old tub!” exclaimed Jack. “What’s the matter with her? She can’t be aground, for I can’t touch bottom with my oar. Pull again, boys, and start her up.”

They did pull, but with no more result than before, while Max, his teeth chattering from his chill, stood fifteen feet away, railing at their efforts.

“It’s the anchor,” said Leon suddenly. “We forgot and left it dragging, and it’s caught on something. Back her, some of you, till I get this loose.”

“Anything you please, only do hurry up,” said Max. “I’m getting a little damp about the ankles, and besides, I shall be late for the spread.”

“I shouldn’t much mourn about that,” said Jack, in an undertone, as he went forward to help Leon in his efforts to free the anchor. “From what I’ve heard, Osborn is getting ready to have a high time to-night. Max,” he added, as a few powerful strokes sent the boat over to the drenched and shivering boy, “now you tumble in here, and let us get you home as soon as ever we can. If you didn’t have more lives than a cat, Max Eliot, you’d be dead long before this. Now, boys, pile your coats over him, and we’ll run him home in a hurry.”

Max came to the breakfast-table, the next morning, complaining of a severe headache for which not even his unpremeditated bath of the afternoon before, seemed sufficient to account. His unusual pallor and the dark lines under his eyes were proof enough of his not being well, so no one was surprised at his excusing himself from church, and spending the morning in his room. Soon after dinner, however, he appeared at the door of the Arnolds’ room, yawning and stretching, and invited Leon to go out for a walk. In spite of the unseasonable warmth of the day, the clear May sunshine was too attractive to be resisted, so Leon gladly enough laid aside his book and went away with him.

Half an hour later, Alex put his head in at the door.

“Do you know where Max and Leon are, Hal?” he asked.

“No,—wait a minute, though; I think they said something about going up to the ravine, but I didn’t pay much attention. What do you want?”

“Nothing special,” answered Alex lightly. “To the ravine? Well, perhaps I’ll walk up that way, on the chance of meeting them.”

Alex went on his way; but instead of going directly to the ravine, he paused irresolutely in front of the doctor’s house. Then he went up the steps and rang the bell. The doctor himself came to the door. He looked tired and anxious; but at sight of Alex his face brightened.

“Oh, Alex,” he said cordially; “I’m glad to see you. Come in.”

“May I have a little while to talk to you?” asked Alex, with simple directness.

“Yes, indeed; I am always glad to have a call from you.” And the doctor led the way into his study, where they could be free from interruption.

“Sit down,” he said; “and tell me about it.”

“It?” said Alex inquiringly.

“Yes, it,” returned the doctor, smiling. “You look as if something were wrong.”

“So there is,” replied Alex, anxiously knitting his brows; “and the worst of it is, I don’t know whether I have any business to be here, it seems so like telling tales.”

Dr. Flemming bent forward and laid his hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“Don’t you know, Alex, that I always want to hear all that concerns my boys, whether for good or ill? I can rely on your sense of honor, I am sure, for you have proved yourself far above the meanness of ordinary tale-bearing. If you wish, I promise you that whatever you say shall remain a secret between the two of us.”

“Thank you.” And Alex met the doctor’s steady gaze without flinching. “Of course you know how gossip flies, in a place like this, and won’t be a bit surprised when I tell you it’s common talk that you had an interview with Osborn this morning.”

“I didn’t expect it quite so soon,” replied the doctor quickly. “But go on.”

“Well, the boys all think it means expulsion for him and his set; but very likely that’s wrong. Now, what I wanted to ask you was—” Alex stopped for a moment, then went on in a lower voice; “whether you knew Max Eliot was at the spread last night.”

The doctor started; this was unexpected news.

“Please understand the reason I’m telling you this,” Alex continued hastily, as if to free himself from any charge of meddling with another’s concerns. “I knew you’d hear of it sooner or later, perhaps from Osborn himself, for he’s always spited our set, and would like to hurt us through Max. But if you heard it that way, you would never know what a mere chance it was that Max was there. If he was in the scrape, it’s the first time he’s done anything of that kind, for he isn’t a bit fast, like the others.”

“And what then?” asked the doctor kindly.

“Just this,” replied the boy, with a quiet dignity all his own; “if it should come to where you have to punish the other fellows, please remember that Max isn’t quite one of them. He’s gay and full of his pranks; but he’s not fast, and last night is the first time he’s ever been at one of their wine spreads. He’s broken off with them lately, and we were all surprised at his saying, yesterday afternoon, that the friendship was on again. But upon my honor, Dr. Flemming,” here the blue eyes were again fixed on the master’s face; “on my honor as a Flemming boy, it is Max’s first offence, and I hope you’ll be as easy on him as you can.”

The doctor closely studied the earnest face before him; then he rose and took one or two turns up and down the room.

“Alex,” he said, as he came back to his chair; “I can trust you, and I am going to talk plainly to you. The boys did have a very wild time at their spread, last night, and one or two of them were the worse for the champagne. For some time I have been suspicious of their spreads, but this was the first time I could prove anything against them. This morning I saw them, and quietly told them not to come back here, after the close of this term. I have been thinking for months that this must come, but the year is so nearly over that I thought best not to make a public expulsion of it. I had no idea that Max was there, or he might have shared the same fate. But if you can tell me on your honor that this is his first offence, I will let him off this time. Max isn’t a bad fellow, only too full of fun and a little weak, too easily made by his companions of the moment. I will give him another chance, but I must have a long talk with him. Can you see him this afternoon, tell him what has occurred and ask him to come to me this evening?”

Alex tried to thank him; but he interrupted,—

“Never mind the thanks, Alex; they come to me in the perfect freedom you have shown in talking with me. If only all my boys had felt to me as you do, this miserable affair need never have taken place. But don’t go; stay and tell me about yourself, for it’s a long time since I’ve had a chance to talk with you.”

“I’d better not,” Alex answered. “I want to see Max, if I can, before he gets wind of this.”

“Go, then; perhaps you’d better. I am glad you came to me as you did, for if I had heard that Max was there, and nothing more, I might have been unwisely severe.”

As Harry had suggested, Alex found the two boys in the ravine. After the heat of the May afternoon and his rapid walk, the coolness around them was a great relief, and Alex was glad to drop down on the coarse, uneven turf by their side, and rest for a few moments, before beginning upon the subject which was weighing so heavily on his mind. The ravine, as the boys called it, was a deep gorge in the hills, worn away by the swift mountain brook that hurried through it, to seek the calmer waters of the Connecticut and go with them to the sea. The brook was so narrow and the slant of its sides so abrupt that the branches of the trees on either side mingled overhead to form one common shade; while below them the water now plunged over a little precipice, now raced along the shallows, breaking into a lacelike foam over its rocky bed, now flowed smoothly and silently through the still pools, so dark and deep, where trout love to hide under the shelter of the over-hanging ferns, then rushed away, to go on racing and plunging and eddying, over and over again, till it joined the quieter current of the mighty river, three miles and more away.

“Max,” Alex began abruptly, after the interval of silence which had followed their greetings; “you went to that spread last night, didn’t you?”

Instantly Max was on the defensive.

“Yes, I did,” he replied curtly, as he threw a stick into the whirlpool below him, and watched it circle round and round in the swirling eddy. “What then?”

“I hear you had rather a lively time,” said Alex, trying to approach the subject so gently that Max should not be roused to anger.

“Well, as I said, what then?” said Max defiantly, as he tried in vain to meet the kind blue eyes so steadily fixed upon his own. “I don’t know as it’s any of your business, if we did.”

Leon looked up in surprise, for in his ignorance of the matter, he was at a loss to account for Max’s unwonted irritability.

“Perhaps it is my business,” Alex replied, and he went on to tell of his talk with the doctor.

As Max listened, his face slowly lost a little of its frown, and he rolled over on his back, to stretch his hot hand up to Alex.

“You’re a good fellow, Alex,” he said, with a new and softer light in his eyes. “You’ve done me a good turn to-day, and I know it.”

“Prove it by letting those fellows alone, in the future,” responded Alex quickly.

“I will, honestly, now. I didn’t stay as late as the others,” confessed Max penitently; “I did take some of the stuff, though, but when I saw how ’twas going, I sneaked out and came home. I wish I’d come earlier, so I needn’t have had this abominable headache. Truly, though, Alex, I only took a little.” And his voice was almost pleading, as he spoke. “I’m sorry I did that, but it wasn’t enough to do the least bit of hurt.”

Once more the silence was only broken by the rushing water below them, and the bird-songs from the branches above their heads. Then Alex spoke again, but slowly and as if with an effort.

“Max,” he said, “I’m not over fond of pulling family skeletons out of their closets, and you fellows all know that I’m not much given to talking about my own affairs. I suppose you all have wondered at my being here, when I’m so much older than the rest of you. I think I’ll tell you all the story now, for it can’t do any harm, and it may save you a little something by and by.”

As he paused, there was a slight catch in his breath. Leon rose, as if to leave them alone.

“Don’t go, Leon,” he went on. “Except for the doctor and Lieutenant Wilde, Hal is the only one here who knows this, so you may as well stay and hear it out, too. It isn’t a pretty story, but I’ll try to make it as short as I can.”

Leon dropped back into his former place beside Alex, who continued, with his eyes fixed on the water below,—

“You see, in the first place you must remember that life in Denver isn’t much as it is here in the east. Out there, everybody drinks wine, as a matter of course, and it comes into everything from a business contract to an evening call. You have it here, I know; but not near so much. Well, my father, when he went out there, was a gay, handsome young man with a splendid reputation in his profession—he’s a doctor, you know—just the kind of a man to be popular and in demand in a social way. Being in society out there means, almost as a matter of course, taking more or less wine; and father was just like all the rest of them, only he couldn’t stand as much as some others. From a little and a little, he went on until the little had come to be a great deal, and he had grown to depend on it, as a daily need. Even then, his old patients stuck to him, for ’twas a saying that they’d ‘rather have Dr. Sterne drunk than any other doctor sober.’ But it had gone too far to stop, and slowly—What’s the use of dwelling on it? Father finally reached the point where he was a common street drunkard, without practice and without money. I tell you, Max, those were bad times, and I remember them well. They aren’t the kind of thing one wants to live through, or to talk about, either. It went on so for several years, and then, eight years ago, the change came. People said ’twas miraculous and wouldn’t last, and even we never knew what started him; but all at once father braced up a little. He had a few good friends out there, among the solid, true men of the city, and with their help, he scrambled up on his feet again. They wanted him to go away, and start fresh somewhere else; but he said no, he’d gone under there, and there he’d come up, till he’d lived down the past. There aren’t many men strong enough to do it, and the fight was a terrible one; but now he has won back his old place in the city, and his reputation is higher than ever. Still, it has made an old man of him; and it all started from just such light social drinking as you tried last night.”

Max had rolled over and turned his face away from his friends. He lay very still.

“But that wasn’t the worst of it,” said Alex, in a lower tone. “As far as a man can do, father has left the past behind him; but there is one side of it that can’t ever be set right. I’ve a brother about ten years old; I don’t believe you ever heard me say much about him.”

Leon shook his head.

“Poor little Jack! He’s had the hardest of it all to bear. He was born just in the most dismal days, when father was at his worst, and mother was overworked and worried till she didn’t know which way to turn to get us food and clothes, for she was too proud to ask help from her old friends. You ought to know my mother, Leon. Well, I suppose that affected Jack; anyway, his mind has never been quite right, so he couldn’t go to school or anything of that kind. He’s a dear little fellow, but he’ll always be like a baby; and father has to watch him, year after year, and know that he alone is the cause of it, that Jack has to take the penalty of his father’s sins. That’s all there is to the story; but if you’d lived through what we have done, you wouldn’t want to play with wine-drinking, for it’s easier to go down than up, and where one comes up again, one hundred stay down. Besides, if you can bring yourself up out of the rut, you don’t know what harm you may be doing to the next generation who aren’t to blame, but can’t help themselves and just have to grin and bear it. Keep out of it, Max, if you want to be a happy man.”

There was another silence, a long one this time. Max did not move, so Alex beckoned to Leon, and together they stole quietly away, leaving the boy to himself.

The boys never knew what passed in the doctor’s study, that night. Max was gone for a long time, and when he went back to his room at bed-time, his eyes were red and his voice unsteady. With scarcely a word to Louis, he went to bed, but not to sleep. Far into the night, he lay staring at the darkness, while Dr. Flemming’s last words still echoed in his ears,—

“But above all, my dear boy, you will never be a full-grown man until you have learned to stand alone, without leaning on your friends. Whenever the question arises, make up your mind, once for all, where the right lies, and then go towards it, even if your path leads across the bodies of your dearest friends. Right is always right; and I am here only just to help my boys to find it out and march steadily towards it. That done, I need no other reward. Now, bless you, my boy; and good night.”