Allan was much interested in dinner to-night. He even found it necessary to indulge in a couple of “extras,” in order to satisfy a very healthy appetite. For these he signed with an impressive flourish. When the last spoonful of ice-cream had disappeared he pushed back his chair and went out. In the coat-room he found a dark-complexioned and heavily built youth in the act of drawing on a pair of overshoes. “Couldn’t find my boots,” explained Hal Smiths, “so I put these over my slippers. Wait a minute and I’ll go along.” They left the hall together and walked briskly toward Main Street. Allan and Hal Smiths had never been particularly intimate at Hillton, but as they were the only two fellows from that school in the freshman class, they had naturally enough felt drawn toward each other since they had reached Erskine. During the last week, however, Hal had been making friends fast, and as a consequence Allan had seen less of him. Hal had quite a reputation, gained during his last year at Hillton, as a full-back, and he was generally conceded to be certain of making the freshman football team, if not the varsity second. To-night Hal was full of football matters, and Allan let him talk on uninterruptedly until they had reached the corner. There: “Come on down and play some pool,” suggested Hal. But Allan shook his head. He liked pool, but with a condition in mathematics to work off it behooved him to do some studying. “I’ll play some other night,” he said. And then: “Say, Hal,” he asked, “do you know a chap in our class named Burley?” “Pete Burley? Yes; what about him?” “Oh, nothing. What’s he like?” “Like an elephant,” answered Hal, disgustedly. “A big brute of a chap from Texas or Montana or somewhere out that way.” Hal’s ideas of the West were rather vague. “Met him the other day; struck me as a big idiot. Well, see you to-morrow.” Hal swung off down Main Street and Allan turned toward his room, feeling quite virtuous for that he had resisted temptation in the shape of pool and was going home to toil. When he opened his door a sheet of paper torn from a blue-book fluttered to the floor. There was a pin in it and it had evidently been impaled on the door. Allan held it to the light and saw in big round, boyish characters the inscription: “PETE BURLEY.” CHAPTER III ON THE CINDERS On the following Monday, Allan set out after his three-o’clock recitation for Erskine Field. He stopped at his room long enough to leave his books and get his mail--the Sunday letter from home usually put in its appearance on Monday afternoon--and then went on out Poplar Street. It was a fine, mild afternoon, with the sunlight sifting down through the branches of the giant elms which line the way, and a suggestion of Indian summer in the air. If he hadn’t been so busy with his letter he could have found plenty to interest him on the walk to the field, but, as it was, he was deeply concerned with the news from home.