ALTHOUGH Bob was, as it seemed, so to Ned’s black eye, not so with the other members of the household.  
Filled with recipes from his friends, for changing a black eye to normal white, Ned returned home, and unseen save by Bob, gained his room. He put in an anxious half hour experimenting; but at the end his eye seemed blacker than ever—a , deep, wicked black. It seemed to Ned that there was nothing to his face but that black eye; and assuming a manner of unconcern he the stairs and went about his chores.
 
“N-Ned!” his mother, meeting him in the kitchen. Maggie, the girl, . Ned dropped his armful of wood into the wood-box with the usual crash, and answered, mildly, keeping his head down while he pretended to arrange some of the sticks.
 
“Yes, ma’am?”
 
“Look up here.”
 
Ned obeyed, trying to present only his white side.
 
“Why, what in the world have you been doing? Is that a around your eye, or is it dirt?”
 
“Bruise, I guess,” responded Ned, his feet uneasily.
 
 
“Where did you get it?”
 
“Fight. Fellow stuck his thumb in it.”
 
Ned wished that his mother would let him alone; but she would not.
 
“The very idea! Whom did you have a fight with?”
 
“Big Mike Farr—and I’d have licked him only they all jumped onto me.”
 
“Come here and let me look at it,” bade his mother, aghast.
 
Ned approached, sheepish in , yet to stick up for himself in case she took him to task.
 
But she did not. She stood him by the sink, and while she treated his wound with remedies, by soft touch, she let him tell his battle-story. And when his story and his treatment had been finished together, and he had emerged with a huge bandage encircling his crown like a turban, she only sighed:
 
“Oh, Neddie! Why will boys fight!”
 
“Indeed, ma’am, an’ I for one am glad that he wor havin’ the best of that Mike Farr,” Maggie, who had been listening with approval. “Sure, Mike Farr is nothin’ but a coward an’ a blow. I know him; I know him well, bad cess to him.”
 
“He’s mean, isn’t he, Maggie?” appealed Ned.
 
“That he is. He’ll come to the ; he will. An’ all that South Beaufort gang, too. Yes, I know ’em,” declared Maggie, wagging her head. “They’re regular little divils.”
 
“Maggie!” exclaimed Mrs. , somewhat shocked.
 
“Well, they’d better not tackle us fellows again,” asserted Ned, swaggering out for another armful of wood.
 
Maggie gazed after him admiringly.
 
“Sure, an’ I bet he’s a fighter when he gets started,” she . “Look at them legs an’ arms! An’ Big Mike twice his size, too.”
 
“Maggie,” reproved Mrs. Miller, “I don’t want you to encourage Ned in fighting. I don’t like it.”
 
And she withdrew in dignity to the , where, safe in privacy, she did not know whether to laugh or be provoked. At any rate, she did not the idea of her Neddie going about with a chip on his shoulder, challenging boys “twice his size,” according to Maggie.
 
Mr. Miller, coming home, from afar Ned’s turban as it bobbed around in the back yard.
 
“Hello,” he hailed. “That’s a new kind of cap, isn’t it?”
 
“Yes, sir,” smiled Ned. “And I’ve got a new eye, too. Want to see it?” and advancing toward the front to meet his father he obligingly lifted the bandage.
 
“Phew!” said Mr. Miller, gravely. “I think I prefer the old eye. Was this a present?”
 
“I traded for it,” laughed Ned.
 
His father put a hand on his shoulder, and together[171] they entered the house. Here Ned, helped out by his mother, again made his explanations. At the close his father simply said:
 
“Well, Ned, I don’t see how you could have acted any differently—but I don’t approve of fighting, any more than does your mother. Fighting is not always a fair test of your side of a question, you know. It is better to avoid a fight by every honorable means in your power. Sometimes it is more cowardly to fight than to keep from fighting. But if you can’t avoid it,” he added, quizzically; “if there’s nothing left to do, to save honor, but fight, then fight for all there is in you!”
 
“Will!” protested Mrs. Miller, .
 
“But if I had to fight—just had to fight—you’d want me to lick, wouldn’t you, mother?” appealed Ned.
 
“I can’t bear to think of your fighting at all, Neddie,” declared his mother, firmly.
 
Ned’s black eye went away rapidly—although not so rapidly as it had come—and he was made to wear the bandage only a short time. For this he was thankful, since warm weather arrived, and with it “good packing”—and what boy can throw straight with but one eye.
 
At first the improved the coasting, but in the end it spoiled it. So long as the coasting lasted the South Beaufort gang continued to use the hill, but no more fights occurred.
 
The two crowds let each other alone, carefully[172] ignoring each other’s presence, the only exception being when Bob dropped his tail between his legs, reminded of past insults, and raised the on his back, and when Ned and Big Mike exchanged of . In this by-play of looks Ned came off rather the worse, his eye still showing up, while Big Mike was as good—or as bad—as ever.
 
The careful , however, was merely the calm before the storm. Big Mike and his companions were their time.
 
Much to Ned’s disappointment, the thaw into a Saturday of foggy , under which the snow silently ran away in water, instead of as silently, but more slowly, vanishing as into the air.
 
Bound to have what few coasts might yet be found on the hill, Ned and Bob hastened there the moment that they had finished their early morning chores—“their” chores, for Bob, although of no real help in a manual way, always faithfully “stood by.”
 
At the same time with Ned and Bob, arrived on the hill Hal and Tom. Les’ Porter, Orrie Lukes, and three or four other boys already were there, and several more came within a few moments.
 
The coasting was . The track was slush down to bare road, and from top to bottom the sled-runners tore through with a “squshy” sound. Ned’s clipper loyally set out to carry him as far and as swiftly as ever, but after a few trials he was obliged to retire it to one side, and take a seat on Hal’s bob.
 
So poor was the going, that when a party of South Beauforters appeared at the , they looked on for a minute, , and then slouched away, bobs, and all, in the direction whence they had come.
 
“Good riddance!” Ned.
 
“Good riddance!” congratulated the crowd generally, following his example.
 
Bob his tail at the retreating backs.
 
Half an hour passed. The coasters, now about twenty—including girls and small boys—were, as it happened, for the most part at the top, preparing to plough down again along the soft course, when “thud!” “slap!” “biff!” into their midst tore a hail of snowballs, smashing on face and body and sled.
 
“Ki!” yapped Bob, startled by a stinging missile.
 
“Ouch!” exclaimed Jeff Patting, clapping his hand to his cheek.
 
Before the coasters could look around, hurtled upon them another volley, escorted by a slogan of , , vengeful yells.
 
South Beauforters!
 
That riddance had not been so “good,” after all. Reinforced, the party was returning, and pouring from the mouth of a convenient , down swept the enemy, to profit by his sudden approach.
 
Big Mike was there, and the Conners were there, and Patsy, as fierce as any of them, was there. South Beaufort had been wily enough to use the hill while the hill was usable; but at last, in this day of slush, it was free to throw off its mask and declare war.
 
The coasters . The small boys, some of them frightened or hurt into crying, ran for home; the girls, with scornful looks, to hurry, withdrew in fair or............