"I will be along for the Fourth. I've just had a letter from Sid Lambert, that new fellow from Pittsburg. He says he knows Link Merwell and met him about a week ago. He says Merwell is very bitter against you and Porter and Lawrence. Merwell was going West on some business for his father and then he was coming East. I would advise you and your chums to keep your eyes peeled for him. He can't show himself, for fear of arrest, and that has made him very vindictive. Sid tried to get his address, but Merwell wouldn't give it, and he left Sid very suddenly, thinking maybe that some one would put the police on his track." CHAPTER II DAVE PORTER'S PAST "What do you think of that, fellows?" asked Roger, as he concluded the reading of the letter. "I am not surprised," answered Dave. "Now that Merwell finds he can't show himself where he is known, he must be very bitter in mind." "I thought he might reform, but I guess I was mistaken," said Phil. "Say, we had better do as Buster suggests,--keep our eyes peeled for him." "We are not responsible for his position," retorted Roger. "He got himself into trouble." "So he did, Roger. But, just the same, a fellow like Link Merwell is bound to blame somebody else,--and in this case he blames us. I am afraid he'll make trouble for us--if he gets the chance," concluded Dave, seriously. And now, while the three chums are busy reading their letters again, let me introduce them more specifically than I have already done. Dave Porter was a typical American lad, now well grown, and a graduate of Oak Hall, a high-class preparatory school for boys located in one of our eastern States. While a mere child, Dave had been found wandering beside the railroad tracks near the little village of Crumville. He could not tell who he was, nor where he had come from, and not being claimed by any one, was taken to the local poor-house. There a broken-down college professor, Caspar Potts, had found him and given him a home. In Crumville resided a rich jewelry manufacturer named Oliver Wadsworth, who had a daughter named Jessie. One day the Wadsworth automobile caught fire and Jessie was in danger of being burned to death, when Dave rushed to the rescue and saved her. For this Mr. Wadsworth was very grateful, and when he learned that Dave lived with Mr. Potts, who had been one of his instructors in college, he made the man and the youth come to live with him. "Such a boy deserves to have a good education and I am going to give it to him," said the rich manufacturer, and so Dave was sent to boarding school, as related in the first volume of this series, entitled "Dave Porter at Oak Hall." There he made a host of friends, including Roger Morr, the son of a United States senator; Phil Lawrence, the son of a rich shipowner; Shadow Hamilton, who loved to tell stories; Buster Beggs, who was fat and jolly; Luke Watson, who was a musician of considerable skill, and many others.