In the first two years of their school life Dick and Dave had spent many pleasant hours in the society of Laura and Belle.  So far, during the junior year, the chums had had but little chance to see the girls, for the demands of football were fearfully exacting.

Laura, being almost at the threshold of seventeen years, had grown tall and womanly.  Bert Dodge began to notice what a very pretty girl the doctor’s daughter was becoming.  So, one afternoon while the football squad was practicing hard over on the athletic field, Bert encountered Laura and Belle as they strolled down the Main Street.

Lifting his hat, Dodge greeted the girls, and stood chatting with them for a few moments.  To this neither of the girls could object, for Bert’s manners, with the other sex, were always irreproachable.

But, presently, Laura saw her chance.  She did not want to be rude, but Bert’s face had just taken on a half-sneering look at a chance mention of Dick’s name.

“You aren’t playing football this year, Bert?” Laura asked innocently.

Bert quickly flushed.

“No,” he admitted.

“Of course everyone can’t make the eleven,” Belle added, with mild malice.

“I—–­I don’t believe I’d care to,” Dodge went on.  “I—–­you see—–­I don’t care about all the fellows in the squad.”

“I don’t suppose every boy who is playing on the squad is a chum of everyone else,” remarked Laura.

“Such fellows as Prescott, for instance, I don’t care much about,” Bert continued, with a swift side glance at Laura Bentley to see how she took that remark.  But Laura showed not a sign in her face.

“No?” she asked quietly.  “I think him a splendid fellow.  By the way, he and Dave Darrin haven’t received the reward for finding your father, have they?”

Bert gasped.  His face went white, then red.  He fidgeted about for an answer.

“No,” he replied, cuttingly, at last, “and I don’t believe they ever will.”

“Oh, I beg your pardon,” cried Laura in quick contrition.  “I didn’t know that it was a tender spot with you, or your family.”

“It isn’t,” Bert rejoined hurriedly.  “It simply amounts to this, that the reward will never be paid to a pair of cheeky, brazen-faced-----”

“Won’t you please stop right there, Mr. Dodge?” Laura asked sweetly.  “Mr. Prescott and Mr. Darrin are friends of ours.  We don’t like to hear remarks that cast disrespect in their direction.”

“Oh, I beg your pardon,” answered Bert, trying not to be stiff.  But he was ill at ease, leaving the girls very soon after.

Yet, in his hatred for Dick and Dave, young Dodge resolved upon a daring stroke.  He enlisted Bayliss, and the pair sought to “cut out” Prescott and Darrin with Laura and Belle.

Neither Dick nor Dave was in love.  Both were too sensible for that.  Both knew that love affairs were for men old enough to know their own minds.  Yet the friendship between the four young people had been a very proper and wholesome affair, and much pleasure had been derived on all sides.