"Gee, I'm glad you're well out of that, Garry!" said Rooster, with a sigh of relief. "It would be a bad thing to get into a fight your first day in the high school." "Podder may peach, anyhow," Garry pointed out, but Bill Sherwood scoffed at this. "Not much! There are too many witnesses to testify that he started the row. He'll want to keep his own skirts clean." "Besides, his own part in it wasn't over-heroic," chuckled Rooster. "He'd hardly want to brag about it." "You sure got him mad when you chucked those drops of water at him," grinned Ted. "I wanted to crow." "The low coward!" exclaimed Garry, his hands clenching again at the memory. "I suppose that's the kind of thing we've got to look out for now. But if Sandy Podder's looking for trouble, he'll get all he wants! I can tell him that." "He got some this morning," replied the grinning Nick. "Cheer up, Garry. You handed that sneak one bitter dose of medicine, judging from the look on his face when he gulped it down." Some more of their classmates were coming in then, and as the time for the opening exercises was almost at hand they had no time for further conversation. Now that Garry had somewhat cooled down, he was glad that he had listened to Bill's warning and not let his anger run away with him. There would be other ways of dealing with the fellow and more appropriate places for that purpose. The principal of the school, Mr. Allen, gave the students a little talk in the assembly room before they scattered to their respective classes. It was a genial, kindly talk, and the new boys, as Bill later expressed it, "cottoned to him at once." He emphasized the necessity for hard study and the rewards that might be expected to come from it. Then he touched on the sports of the school, with which he was in hearty sympathy, though he warned them that scholarship must come first and that none would be allowed on any of the school teams whose work was not satisfactory to their teachers. In the absorbing round of new classes, new subjects, and new teachers, Garry soon forgot all about Sandy Podder. Not much work was expected of any one on that first day. It was more a matter of becoming acquainted with classmates and instructors, learning the rules, and the giving out of the books for the various studies of the term. It was the first period of the afternoon that brought a surprise to Garry Grayson. It was not a pleasant surprise, and served, together with the scrap with Sandy in the morning, to shadow considerably his first day in school. As Garry entered the classroom devoted to the study of English literature with the rest of his classmates, the tall, thin figure at the desk impressed him as being in some way familiar, and as the teacher turned his face toward the entering pupils Garry received a distinct shock. The face belonged to the stranger whose immaculate clothing Garry had soiled with the muddy football on that unfortunate day of practice!