“You can see how popular I am here. Now you can see how it would be if I had a square show.” “My dear boy!” she said. “It is plain enough! Something shall be done.” June Arlington was looking around. She was dressed in a tasty and stylish manner, and she was the kind of a pretty girl to set the plebes to making “goo-goo” eyes. However, she paid no attention to them. Her eyes had discovered Dick and Brad at a little distance beneath the leafless trees, and something like a faint smile came to her face. “What’s the matter with Arlington?” shouted a plebe, waving his cap over his head. “He’s all right!” bellowed the others. “Who’s all right?” questioned the first speaker. “Arlington!” rose from the gathering in a grand shout. Chester rose and bowed with all the grace at his command. “Thank you, fellows,” he said. “It does me proud to have my classmates welcome me back to school in this manner. At one time I feared I could not return so soon, but, fortunately, I was not injured nearly as much as was supposed at first, and I am almost all right now.” “We’ve just said you were all right,” reminded one of the gathering. Chester bowed and smiled again. When he chose he could be very pleasant in his manner, and it must be confessed that he was not entirely lacking in personal magnetism. True, he regarded himself as quite a superior party, but he was wise enough to court popularity with fellows he classed as far beneath his level. This was not the case when he first came to Fardale. At that time he had been haughty and over-bearing to almost every one, and it had seemed he would soon have nothing but enemies, even in his own class. But he had found, not a little to his surprise, that he was not gazed on in awe as a superior person, that he could not domineer over whomever he chose, and that he was likely to find himself without popularity or power if he persisted in the course he had chosen. That was not all. He had found that Dick Merriwell seemed to be the acknowledged leader in the school, and Dick soon betrayed the fact that he had no thought of permitting Chester to order him about or even to accept advice that was not to his liking. Dick had declined to take Chester on to the football-team unless he proved his efficiency and fitness for a position. And, therefore, it was not long before Arlington became Dick Merriwell’s bitterest enemy. Then it was that Arlington set about the task of winning as many friends and followers as possible, and he began on his own class. The plebes wanted a leader, and Chester soon secured the position, which he determined to hold at any cost. Dick Merriwell was generous to a fault, but, not believing in bought friendship, he did not sow his money with a lavish hand. He was more like the general run of boys, and from his behavior no one would have dreamed that on arriving at age he was to come into a fortune of mammoth proportions.