"Because your father had more money doesn't make mine dishonest," retorted Fred, squaring himself to ward off the expected blow. But before it could be delivered, a stern voice exclaimed: "Boys, what does this mean?" "The Head! The Head!" gasped several of the onlookers, and like magic the crowd of students melted away, leaving Mr. Vining, for it was the principal of the school, with Fred and Bart. A moment he gazed from one to the other of the lads. "Second Formers should set an example of good behavior, not bad," he said. "Bart, come to my office at once. Fred, I shall expect you at the end of thirty minutes." CHAPTER II FACING SUSPENSION From behind trees and other points of vantage, scores of eyes had watched the headmaster, as, silent and with the gentle dignity that endeared him to his students, he entered the school building, followed by the unwilling Bart. The town of Baxter would never have been distinguished from countless other prosperous country villages had it not been for the High School. And Mr. Vining's personality had made that institution what it was--the best in the county. Never for an instant did the headmaster forget that he had once been a boy himself, wherefore he had been able to look with indulgence upon the harmless pranks of the lads and girls under his charge. It had been his good fortune to attract assistants who held the same general ideas, and, as a result, the one hundred and twenty pupils in the school were more like a big, happy family than anything else. For the most part, the students lived in Baxter, but each year saw more and more scholars come from other towns. Due to his understanding of young people, Mr. Vining had established the policy of allowing them to settle their differences themselves, only interfering in cases of unusual seriousness. But fighting in public was tabooed--and because they knew this, the students had fled when his unheralded arrival had put a stop to the quarrel between Fred and Bart. No sooner had he disappeared within the building, however, than the scholars emerged from their hiding places. Swarming about Fred, they looked at him like one about to receive condign punishment. "You're a nice one, you are, to get Bart in trouble on the very first day of school," came from the lad called Taffy. "Then he shouldn't have said such things about my father," retorted Fred. "And he called you a puppy," chimed in another. "It isn't a nice word, but it doesn't seem to me as mean as saying such things about Mr. Markham," asserted the new Second Former to his neighbor. "It don't, eh?" ejaculated the other. "Well, it's a good deal worse. 'Puppy' is the fighting word at Baxter." Fortunately for Bronson, his remark had not been heard by any except the boy next him, or he would have been drawn into the wrangle which was growing serious again as Taffy exclaimed: