all right, if I have to tackle every man, woman and child in town with that paper.”
“That’s the stuff!” whooped Chipper Cooper. “Being captain of a great football team, you are naturally a good man to tackle people. Rah! rah! rah! Cooper!” Then he skipped out of the dressing-room, barely escaping a shoe that was hurled at him.
“Bern’s home,” said a boy who was fussing over a head harness. “Came on the forenoon train with his folks. I saw him as I came by. Told him there’d be practice to-night, and he said he’d be over.”
“He’s a corking half-back,” observed a fellow who wore shin guards. “As long as we won’t have Roger with us next year, I’ll bet anything Bern is elected captain of the team.”
“Come on, fellows,” called Eliot, who had finished dressing in amazingly quick time. “Come on, Stone. We want to do as much as we can to-night.”
They trooped out of the gymnasium, Ben with them. A pleasant feeling of comradery and friendliness with these boys was growing upon him. He was a fellow who yearned for friends, yet, unfortunately, his personality was such that he failed to win them. He was beginning to imbibe the spirit of goodfellowship which seemed to prevail among the boys, and he found it more than agreeable.
Fortune had not dealt kindly with him in the past, and his nature had been soured by her heavy blows. He had come to Oakdale for the purpose of getting such an education as it was possible for him to obtain, and he had also come with the firm determination to keep to himself and seek no friends; for in the past he had found that such seeking was worse than useless.
But now circumstances and Roger Eliot had drawn him in with these fellows, and he longed to be one of them, longed to establish himself on a friendly footing with them, so that they would laugh and joke with him, and call him by his first name, and be free and easy with him, as they were among themselves.
“Why can’t I do it?” he asked himself, as he came out into the mellow afternoon sunshine. “I can! I will! They know nothing about the past, and they will never know.”
Never had the world looked more beautiful to him than it did as he passed, with his schoolmates about him, through the gate and onto the football field. Never had the sky seemed so blue and the sunshine so glorious. He drank in the clear, fresh air with his nostrils, and beneath his feet the springy turf was delightfully soft and yet pleasantly firm. Before him the door to a new and better life seemed flung wide and inviting.
There were some boys already on the field, kicking and passing a football. One of these – tall, handsome, supple and graceful – was hailed joyously as “Bern.” This chap turned and walked to meet them.
Suddenly Ben Stone stood still in his tracks, his face gone pale in an instant, for he was face to face with fate and a boy who knew his past.
CHAPTER II.
THE PARIAH
The other boy saw him and halted, staring at him, astonishment and incredulity on his face. In that moment he was speechless with the surprise of this meeting.
Ben returned the look, but there was in his eyes the expression sometimes seen in those of a hunted animal.
The boys at a distance continued kicking the football about and pursuing it, but those nearer paused and watched the two lads, seeming to realize in a moment that something was wrong.
It was Roger Eliot who broke the silence. “What’s the matter, Hayden?” he asked. “Do you know Stone?”
The parted lips of Bernard Hayden were suddenly closed and curved in a sneer. When they parted again, a short, unpleasant laugh came from them.
“Do I know him!” he exclaimed, with the utmost disdain. “I should say I do! What’s he doing here?”
“He’s attending the academy. He looks to me like he might have good stuff in him, so I asked him out for practice.”
“Good stuff!” cried Hayden scornfully. “Good stuff in that fellow? Well, it’s plain that you don’t know him, Eliot!”
The boys drew nearer and gathered about, eager to hear what was to follow, seeing immediately that something unusual was transpiring.
Not a word came from Ben Stone’s lips, but the sickly pallor still clung to his uncomely face, and in his bosom his heart lay like a leaden weight. He had heard the boys in the gymnasium talking of “Bern,” but not for an instant had he fancied they were speaking of Bernard Hayden, his bitterest enemy, whom he felt had brought on him the great trouble and disgrace of his life.
He had come from the gymnasium and onto the football field feeling his heart exulting with a new-found pleasure in life; and now this boy, whom he had believed so far away, whom he had hoped never again to see, rose before him to push aside the happiness almost within his grasp. The shock of it had robbed him of his self-assertion and reliance, and he felt himself cowering weakly, with an overpowering dread upon him.
Roger Eliot was disturbed, and his curiosity was aroused. The other boys were curious, too, and they pressed still nearer, that they might not miss a word. It was Eliot who asked:
“How do you happen to know him, Hayden?”
“He lived in Farmington, where I came from when we moved here – before he ran away,” was the answer.
“Before he ran away?” echoed Roger.
“Yes; to escape being sent to the reformatory.”
Some of the boys muttered, “Oh!” and “Ah!” and one of them said, “He looks it!” Those close to Stone drew off a bit, as if there was contamination in the air. Immediately they regarded him with disdain and aversion, and he looked in vain for one sympathetic face. Even Roger Eliot’s grave features had hardened, and he made no effort to conceal his displeasure.
Sudden rage and desperation seemed to swell Ben’s heart to the point of bursting. The pallor left his face; it flushed, and from crimson it turned to purple. He felt a fearful desire to leap upon his enemy, throttle him, strike him down, trample out his life, and silence him forever. His eyes glared, and the expression on his face was so terrible that one or two of the boys muttered their alarm and drew off yet farther.
“He’s going to fight!” whispered Spotty Davis, the words coming with a whistling sound through his missing teeth.
Ben heard this, and immediately another change came upon him. His hands, which had been clenched and half-lifted, opened and fell at his sides. He bowed his head, and his air was that of utter dejection and hopelessness.
Bern Hayden observed every change, and now he laughed shortly, cuttingly. “You see, he doesn’t deny it, Eliot,” he said. “He can’t deny it. If he did, I could produce proof. You’d need only to ask my father.”
“I’m sorry to hear this,” said the captain of the eleven, although to Ben it seemed there was no regret in his voice. “Of course we don’t want such a fellow on the team.”
“I should say not! If you took him, you couldn’t keep me. I wouldn’t play on the same team with the son of a jail-bird.”
“What’s that?” cried Roger. “Do you mean to say his father – ”
“Why, you’ve all heard of old Abner Stone, who was sent to prison for counterfeiting, and
