that he was told to translate ten pages of Cæsar the next afternoon—a task he hated. And there the whole matter rested for the time being. Merwell missed his cigarette case, sent to him by a friend for his birthday, and he warned Poole not to breathe a word about it.
"We have told the doctor we were not near the island," said the bully. "Now, if he finds out that we were, he'll punish us severely, and maybe he'll expel us." This fairly terrorized Nat, and he wished he had never seen Bush Island or listened to Merwell's plan to rob Dave and his chums of their rowboat.
In some way Roger became convinced that Dave was responsible for his being hauled up before Doctor Clay, and as a consequence he grew colder and colder toward his former chum, something that hurt Dave very much. Phil, in a roundabout way, tried to patch up the matter, but Roger would not listen. He spent his entire time in company with Shadow, Buster, and some others, and only spoke to Dave when the baseball nine did its practicing.
About six miles from Oak Hall was a private park known as Hilltop. This belonged to a gentleman named Richard Mongrace, who had a brother, a man who had once been a college football player, but who was now an invalid and could not leave the estate. Mr. Mongrace had a fine field for all sorts of outdoor sports at Hilltop, with
