"Oh, come, that's mean. What! Aeroplane up those steps to have an interview with a big yellow dog at the top? Well, I should rather say nix! Go on--tell me about it." "Nothing doing," said Bob. "Not a word for the note-book," chuckled Steele. "Well, I'll make an entry, just the same," snapped Benny, highly aggrieved. "It'll read like this: 'Mysterious visit of Coach Steele and Bob Somers to Mr. Rupert Barry's. Principals refuse to be interviewed. Were they called down for the punk showing of the team?'" With a loud, "Good-night!" the tone of which indicated a decidedly ruffled state of feeling, Benny was off. "A sarcastic little chap," declared Roger Steele. "I'm rather sorry this happened. He's a regular chatterbox, you know." "Benny is good hearted enough, but thoughtless," mused Bob. "If the fellows hear about our calling upon Mr. Barry they may put too serious a construction on it." "And 'Crackers' Brown and his crowd haven't been silenced by any means." "They can't knock my confidence in the team. What kind of stuff would a captain be made of to become discouraged at the very outset?" "That's the talk," said Steele, approvingly. "Let the croakers croak. Perhaps we know our own business best." As Steele had feared, the news leaked out. Benny Wilkins told a friend, in confidence; this friend unbosomed himself to a chum, in confidence, and so on, until the "leak" could only be compared to the bursting of a great water main that sends up streams far above the housetops. Naturally enough, it created a mild sensation. Boys discussed it animatedly on the campus, as they walked home, and at Terry Guffin's. In some remarkable manner vague suggestions of what Mr. Barry may have said became changed, by a steady process of evolution, into definite phrases. Bob expressed the situation correctly when he said: "Those 'They say' chaps have the floor." But the Somers party treated all insinuations and rumors with a hot breath of scorn that almost, but not quite, extinguished the tiny fire which was kindled. A few days later three lads strolling along the bank of Wolf River were considerably surprised and interested to discover a large motor yacht approaching. Some of the richer residents of Kingswood owned gasoline launches or yachts; but none could be compared to the magnificent boat which now cut swiftly through the placid water of the river. "Well, that's certainly a corker," remarked Luke Phelps, who had been busily engaged in throwing stones at a half-submerged barrel. "Never saw a finer," said Jim Wilton, a junior at the High. "Wonder what she's doing here? Slowing up, by Jingo!" "All boats slow up before they stop," grinned Phelps. "Say, fellows, it's got a real saucy name, hasn't it?" "The 'Fearless,'" read Jim. "Makes me think of the high school ball nine. They're fearless before defeat." "Or fearless afterward--in this case, the same thing," came from Aleck Parks.