CHAPTER XXIV

UNEXPECTED VISITORS

For a few moments no one in the room spoke, and as the boys glanced at one another the embarrassment under which they were laboring seemed to increase. What could have induced Tim and Ripley to visit him, Ward could not conceive. The intensity with which he disliked both increased even as he looked steadily at them and waited for them to speak; for Ward had quickly decided that they must declare their errand without any questioning on his part.

What an evil face Tim had, Ward thought. And yet his own face flushed slightly at the recollection that only a few months before this time he and Tim had stood much in the same position, had engaged in the same pranks, and had reaped the same result at the end of the year. But Tim apparently had sunk even lower, and while Ward was fully conscious of his own failures and falls, yet there was a little feeling of rejoicing that he certainly was now trying to do better. And his own heart rebelled against Tim and all his ways. Surely there was a wide difference between them now, for while they might have started from almost the same plane both had been moving steadily onward, but drifting apart, with the consequence that there was now a distance between them greater than either could conceive.

And too, in that moment of awkward silence, Ward thought of how their positions had changed since the beginning of the present school year. Then Tim had seemed to be a leading force in the school. The boys, even those whose hearts were repelled by him, still outwardly acknowledged his position, and his word had been law with them in many ways. His wealth, his fine physique, his ability as a baseball player and a general athlete, had all their weight, as Ward himself was fully aware. And indeed, had he not himself felt the influence of all these things in the previous year, and been among those whom Tim had easily induced to follow him in his evil ways?

Now, however, it was clearly evident to Ward that to a large extent Tim had lost in influence in the school, while he himself had risen in the estimation of his fellows. What had wrought the change? Was it the winning of the game from the Burrs? Doubtless that had not been without its influence, but it was something more than that, and although Ward Hill could not find a name for the cause of the change, and perhaps was not fully aware of the change itself, it was still due far more to something within him than to anything he had done which could be seen by his fellows.

The struggle had been a difficult one, and what the sensitive, highly-strung lad had suffered no one but himself could know. And perhaps the battle was not entirely won even now, nor would it ever be until life itself should be ended, for no matter how high a person may rise there still lies the unattained before him. The successful merchant is not willing to rest on the laurels won; the statesman finds difficulties confronting him even when he has gained the coveted position, and even the schoolboy is not satisfied with the victories he has achieved, but is looking out upon fields all untrodden by him. And all this is because life is at work. When a man ceases to struggle he ceases to live. Dead men are never hungry. They rest from their labors, but the living rest for their labors.

The main difference between Ward Hill and Tim Pickard lay not in the positions they then occupied, widely apart as these at the time seemed to be, but rather in the direction in which each boy was moving. Tim was slipping and drifting, and his direction was downward. Ward was struggling and striving, falling too many times in spite of all his endeavors, but the direction in which he was moving was after all steadily upward. If their relative positions were so far apart now, what would they be at the end of the journey?

Not all of these thoughts had come to Ward in the awkward silence which had followed the unexpected entrance of Tim and Ripley, but a dim suggestion of some of them had made itself felt in the heart of the puzzled lad.

In a moment, however, all his better impulses were swept away as he thought of the troubles Tim had brought upon them. The "stacking" of his room, and all the petty annoyances he had suffered at his hands in the earlier part of the year were as nothing now in contrast with the condition of Jack and Henry, and even his own body was not without its witnesses in the shape of bruises and sores.

When he thought of Jack, Ward's anger quickly returned, and a harsh and bitter taunt arose almost upon his lips, but by a great effort he restrained himself. After all, who was he to taunt Tim with his shortcomings? Possibly Tim might not be entirely without flings to give him in return. No, silence was the better part now, and he need not stoop because Tim had fallen so low.

Tim was the first to speak. Assuming an air of indifference and bravado, and looking boldly about the room he said "Well, we might as well have it out at the beginning as at any time, I suppose. We've come over to see what you intend to do about it."

"Do about what, Tim?" said Ward. "Of what are you talking?"

Tim laughed noisily, as he replied. "That'll do to tell the doctor, but it won't go here. You know as well as I do what we've come over here for."

"You'll have to explain yourself," said Ward coldly.

"All right then, if you must have it; it's the accident. We came over to see about it. You might as well speak it right out now as any time, and it may save a heap of trouble."

"I suppose by 'the accident' you mean the ashes you had sprinkled on the road on West Hill, and your trying to crowd 'The Arrow' upon them," said Ward.

"Now look here, fellows," said Tim with an air of assumed indifference, "it's all very well for you to talk about my steering into you. No one can ever say that I did that purposely. You can't hold two bobs going as swiftly as ours were right to a chalk line. It's simply impossible. You happened to have the lower side, that's all there was about it, anyway, and when 'The Swallow' veered a little from her course, why you thought we were coming straight for you. But even then you didn't have to leave the track, and you wouldn't have done it, only Speck lost his head. He looked behind him and, like Lot's wife, he had to suffer the consequences of his own mistake, and that's all there was to it."

As none of the boys made any reply, Tim hastily continued. "And it's all true what I was saying about it's not being necessary for you to leave the track, even if we had gone out of our course a bit. We know it's so, because some of us have been up and examined the place again."

"Is that what Ripley was running down the hill so for?" inquired Brown quietly.

Ripley's face flushed as he said quickly: "I wasn't running away. If any of you fellows think you can go down West Hill across lots at a walk when the crust is as hard and slippery as it is now, why just try it, that's all I've got to say, and you'll sing a different tune. I couldn't stop and I couldn't turn around. I wasn't running away. What was there to run from, I'd like to know?"

"I'll tell you what you were running from, Ripley, if you want to know," said Brown.

"What was it?"

"Ashes."

Ripley's face could not entirely conceal his alarm as he heard Brown's words, but he only laughed lightly by way of reply.

"Yes, sir," said Brown. "We found out all about it. We dug over the snow you had thrown on the road and then tried to tramp down so that it wouldn't show. We know all about that, my fleet-footed friend."

"No one can say that either of us put any ashes on the road," said Tim boldly. "We didn't do it, we didn't have anything to do with it--if any ashes were scattered there, which, for my part, I very much doubt."

"No one would ever accuse you of doing it," said Ward hotly. "You never yet had the manliness to stand up and have a decent share in the mean tricks you set the other boys up to. Oh, no, you probably didn't carry the ashes up the hill. No one would ever think of you as doing that. You'd rather have some one else do all your dirty work, and then you'll crawl out when the pinch comes."

"Well, there's one thing I never did, anyway," replied Tim slowly, although his eyes betrayed the anger which Ward's words had aroused. "I never went back on my friends by the 'I am holier than thou' dodge. I never stooped to pose as a pious fraud after I'd been guilty of some things I could mention. Not much! If ever I went over to Dorrfield and had a supper at another fellow's expense and got drunk, I never whined and lied out of it, nor told of the other fellows, anyway. If I ever stole any examination questions, I never denied it. If I flunked when it came to the end of the year, I never bootlicked the teachers and tried the 'good little boy' dodge. Now suppose I did know that ashes were to be scattered on the path? What could I do about it, I'd like to know? If some of the fellows couldn't bear the thought of Jack Hobart, with such a crowd of bootlicks as he had on his bob, coming in ahead of 'The Swallow,' why whose fault was it, I'd like to know? I couldn't help it, could I? I've got enough to answer for myself, without taking on my shoulders every fellow that is despised by the school."

The anger which Ward felt when Tim first began to speak soon gave way to shame and mortification as the brutal lad went on. All his thrusts went home, and Ward could hardly speak when Tim stopped. All his former disgrace came back upon him, and he felt as if every boy in the room must be regarding him as Tim pretended to himself.

But Henry, who felt deeply for his room-mate, with flashing eyes quickly came to his assistance. Rising from the chair in which he had been seated and standing directly in front of Tim, he said: "Look here, Tim Pickard, you'll not gain anything by raking up old scores, or trying to get us off on the track of last year's work, whether it's true or false what you say. You know as well as I do that some of these things are not true; but I don't care anything about them, one way or the other. And you can't scare us in any such way, either. Now look here, Tim Pickard! do you see that arm of mine? I've got to carry it in a sling for weeks, and why? Just because of your sneaking trick. Jack Hobart's lost a finger and no one knows how long he'll be in bed, or whether he'll ever leave it alive or not, for that matter. Now what was the cause of it? Answer me, will you? Where did all these fellows get their bumps and bruises, and how does it happen that 'The Arrow' is smashed into pieces? Can you tell me that? You want to know what we're going to do about it, do you? Well, I could tell you mighty quick what I'd do if it was left to me. I'd go straight to Doctor Gray and lay the whole thing before him. We'd arranged for a square race with you, you know that. And I don't care whether you carried the ashes up there yourself or had some of your sneaking 'Tangs' do the work for you; it's all one to me. I don't think the fellow who would be guilty of such a mean, contemptible trick as that is fit to be in such a school as this. I haven't a bit of fear of being called a tell-tale. I'd think I was doing the very best that could be done. Yes, sir, if I could have my way I'd even get up a petition to the doctor to have you put out of the school. When you set the little fellows up to stacking rooms, I thought that was pretty small business for a senior to be engaged in, though I didn't think it was worth noticing; but when you come to do things that endanger our lives, it's another matter entirely, and I don't believe in mincing matters, either. If you'd settle down and behave yourself, there isn't a fellow in the Weston school that would do a thing against you; but it's time you put a stop to some of the things you're doing, and if you won't do it, then I claim the fellows themselves ought to do it for you."

Henry ceased, and for a moment all the boys looked at him in astonishment. He was usually such a quiet fellow that the outburst seemed to them all the more remarkable. Even Tim apparently had been affected by Henry's righteous indignation; but in a moment he recovered himself and said:

"That's just what we came over for. Then we are to understand, are we, that you intend to report the matter to the teachers?"

"No, Tim," said Ward, who now had somewhat recovered from his mortification. "No, Tim, we don't say we shall do that. We talked it all over and made up our minds that it wouldn't be quite fair to Jack to do that. He's suffered the most and he ought to have the most to say about what shall be done. We sha'n't do anything till he is better and can say what he wants."

"Jack Hobart never will squeal, if you leave it to him; but it won't be left to him, I'm thinking. Some of these pious frauds will not be able to keep still and wait for him. Well, Ripley," he continued, rising as he spoke and turning to his companion, "we'll have to face the music, I suppose." And face the music they did for Dr. Gray in some mysterious way heard of their part in the almost fatal accident and immediately expelled Tim from school. He gave Ripley a severe reprimand but did not deal as severely with him, for the just master realized Tim's mastery over the weaker boy.

Ward felt greatly relieved when he heard of Tim's expulsion. An evil genius had passed out of his life.