Page:Dave Porter and his Rivals.djvu/230

214, had had little to say to the other boys, but now he spoke to Dave, and asked him quite a number of questions concerning himself and the other occupants of dormitories Nos. 11 and 12.

"I'd like to be in with your bunch," said he, wistfully. "I don't like our crowd very well."

"Where are you?" asked Dave.

"In No. 13—with Nat Poole and his crowd."

"They aren't very much of Nat's crowd any more, are they?"

"Oh, several boys still stick to him. But he makes me sick."

"Well, I am sorry, Hally, but our rooms are filled up," said Dave.

"Poole is down on you, isn't he?"

"Yes."

"He told me you and he had had a lot of trouble."

"So we have—but I claim it was mostly Nat's fault. He does some pretty mean things."

"So he does, for a fact," and Tom Hally nodded earnestly. "He is down on Maurice Hamilton too, isn't he?"

"Yes, but Shadow never did him any harm. It's just Nat's mean disposition," returned Dave; and there the conversation had to come to an end.

But that talk, coupled with the fact that Dave and his chums had so bravely gone to Tom Hally's rescue, produced an unexpected result. Two days