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 quietl............