Page:Dave Porter in the South Seas.djvu/30

14. Gus Plum took the matter up, and for a while poor Dave was made miserable by those who turned their backs on him. But Doctor Clay, who presided over the academy, sided with Dave, and so did all of the better class of students, and soon the affair blew over, at least for the time being. But now the bully was agitating it again, as we have just seen.

During the winter term at Oak Hall one thing of importance had occurred, of which some par ticulars must be given, for it has much to do with our present tale. Some of the boys, including Dave, had skated up the river to what was locally called the old castle—a deserted stone dwelling standing in a wilderness of trees. They had arrived at this structure just in time to view a quarrel between two men—one a sleek-looking fellow and the other an elderly man, dressed in the garb of a sailor. The sleek-looking individual was the man who had robbed Senator Morr's house, and just as he knocked the old sailor senseless to the ground, the boys rushed in and made him a prisoner.

When the old sailor came to his senses, he stared at Dave as if the boy were a ghost. He said his name was Billy Dill and that he had sailed the South Seas and many other portions of the briny deep. He insisted that he knew Dave well, and wanted to know why the youth had shaved off his mustache. The boys imagined that the tar was