If, for the beginning of this story, the reader finds himself carried back to the middle of "In the Line," let him not suspect a twice-told tale. The current of school life runs swiftly through its short channel. The present soon becomes the past, the past is soon forgotten. While the hero of to-day enjoys the sunshine of popularity, fondly imagining himself the flower and perfection of schoolboy development, the hero of the future, as yet unrecognized, is acquiring strength and determination for new records and greater triumphs. The scene shifts rapidly; new stories are ever beginning while the old ones are still unfinished. In those early days of June, while all Seaton was either gloomily anticipating or dolefully bewailing the disastrous Hillbury baseball game; while Wolcott Lindsay, fired by Laughlin's example and spirit, was throwing himself enthusiastically into the captain's projects for the football season, two lads in a town in western Pennsylvania were eagerly discussing plans for the next school year. They had sent to various institutions for catalogues; with the catalogues had arrived circulars, pictures, and letters. But catalogues and pictures are at best but lifeless things; they suggest many questions and answer few. A far better persuader is an enthusiastic alumnus, who puts personality into dull pages of names, and pours a rosy poetic haze over the groups of sombre brick barracks called the school. Such an enthusiastic alumnus had the entrée of the Owen household, with the natural result that Mr. Owen soon became a convert, and a room was engaged for Robert in a Seaton dormitory. Ned Carle was longer in uncertainty. His father was not as well able as Mr. Owen to bear the expense of boarding-school life, which, like many other luxuries of these modern days, often seems to cost more than it is worth. Ned himself had not long manifested an intense ambition to go beyond the bounds of the Terryville High School for his education. He was a light-hearted, quick-witted, intelligent fellow, easy-going and friendly, generally liked in town and liking to be liked. He would naturally have been popular if he had never had a baseball under his two fingers; but the fact that he was a pitcher,--and a good pitcher,--not merely established his popularity on a definite basis, but made him in a way a public character. When Ned Carle pitched on the High School nine and Robert Owen caught, the nine could generally be counted on to win. The battery was well-known outside the limits of the town, which was, in its way, a miniature baseball centre. The standard of play in Terryville was high. Mike McLennan, the famous professional, had once pitched on a Terryville nine; and Mike, when he was at home, took an interest in the "kids" of his native place and gave them the benefit of his instruction. Both Carle and Owen were started in their careers with professional advice of unquestioned competency.