followers, although just at present they seemed to be getting on pretty well. Mr. Holwell knew boys “like a book,”[Pg 7] however, and from the little incident of the day he feared the “snake was scotched, not killed,” as the saying has it.

[Pg 7]

While the boys are continuing their game after the sudden dispute had been settled by an umpire whose decision none of them ventured to question, a few words concerning Dick and his comrades may not come in amiss, especially to such readers as may not have read the preceding volume of this series, entitled, “The Y. M. C. A. Boys of Cliffwood.”

Dick Horner lived with his mother, grandfather and little sister Sue in a neat cottage close to the bank of the Sweetbriar river. They had been barely able to get along on the veteran’s pension and the proceeds from a small investment. Suddenly bad news reached them to the effect that part of their little property had been swept away.

As has already been related in the previous story, a splendid thing happened for the Horners, and they were now comfortably fixed, so that Dick need not worry concerning his future.

Some of his friends were Leslie Capes, Dan Fenwick, Phil Harkness, Elmer Jones, Andy Hale, “Peg” Fosdick, “Clint” Babbett and Fred Bonnicastle.

Among the new members of the Boys’ Club was Asa Gardner, a boy whose reputation had not been very good in times past, for he had always[Pg 8] been called “light-fingered,” being prone to take things that did not belong to him. His mother, whom Asa dearly loved, had died not long before, and the boy was said to have solemnly promised her at the last that he would never again surrender to his strange weakness that had amounted to what is called “kleptomania”—an itching to take the property of others when an opportunity arises.

[Pg 8]

Some of the boys were doubtful as to Asa’s ability to overcome his faults; but Mr. Holwell stood by the lad, and stoutly backed him up. Dick, too, had a certain amount of faith in Asa, for reasons of his own, in spite of the fact that Dan Fenwick, who was more skeptical, had more than once urged him to “keep an eye on that Asa.”

Dick had been enabled to do Old Jed Nocker, the richest merchant in Cliffwood, a great favor, whereby he found happiness in the possession of a grandchild, little Billy, together with his only son’s widow, Tilly Nocker. Since that time Mr. Nocker had lost much of his former cynicism regarding boys in general, and found 

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