A strong friendship had sprung up between Hodge, Ned, Smith, and Dan. At the Christmas holidays the three boys had been visitors in Dan’s home in Rodman. The country life in winter had been so new and novel to the visitors that the three boys had highly enjoyed their vacation-time. The fact that Dan’s home was a humble one apparently only served to increase the feeling of friendliness which they had for Dan, while for his quiet little mother everyone had an admiration that was as strong as the respect and affection for her boy. Dan had urged Walter to come to Rodman with his friends, but the latter had curtly declined and Dan had not repeated the invitation. On the train which the four boys took when the day of departure from Rodman arrived, Dan and Ned were seated together. The enthusiasm of Dan’s friends over their visit was keen and in course of their conversation Ned said to Dan: “It’s simply great! I never coasted right over the tops of fences before. The crust was hard enough to hold up a horse.” “The coasting is all right,” replied Dan lightly. “It is the snow-shovel that is the instrument of torture. When you have shoveled through two or three of those eight-foot drifts you lose a little of your enthusiasm for snow that sometimes comes in November and stays right with us till April. Last year we had a hundred and forty-three days of sleighing.” “Great!” exclaimed Ned. “That is what puts the breath of life into you. I can understand now where you get some of the nerve you’ve shown.” “‘Nerve’! I don’t know that I have any nerve.” “Well, you have, whether you know it or not.” “I guess it’s because you’re my friend that you say that.” “Not a bit. It takes nerve to do what you’re doing.” “I don’t see how.” “Look here, Dan, I know it’s none of my business, but I’ve sometimes been afraid you’d leave school.” “Why should I?” asked Dan, though his face betrayed something of his feeling, which was not altogether surprise. “Why, we all know――it’s none of my business,” said Ned lamely. “I don’t suppose I ought to speak of such things.” “Go ahead,” said Dan quietly. “Well, you know,” said Ned hesitatingly, “all the fellows understand how it is that you are in the Tait School.” “That Mr. Borden pays my way?” “Yes.” “I didn’t ask him.” “Of course you didn’t. Everybody knows that, and what we’ve been afraid of, now that Walter has shown himself to be such a chump, was that you――that if he didn’t quit――that some day you’d――――” “I’d what?” inquired Dan, aware of his friend’s confusion. “Oh, that you’d quit and call the whole thing off,” said Ned. “Would you?” “I don’t know,” replied Ned in a low voice. “I have thought of it,” said Dan quietly. “We all know that. But don’t you do it.” “Why not?” “We’ll need you in the pitcher’s box, for one thing.” “That’s what Walter thought when he got his father to take me up. You know Walter was behind the whole thing.”