"That's what," added Jack.

"Maybe they aren't going to stay--they may have just come here for a
bluff, and are going away again," suggested Bert.

"How about that, George?" asked Tom, and the small lad, who was too
much engrossed with the possibility of some excitement presently to ask
his usual number of questions, replied:

"I guess they're going to stay all right. I heard Sam tell Nick to
hurry up and pick out a room in Hollywood Hall, or all the best ones
would be gone."

"By Jove!" ejaculated Jack. "They mean to stay all right!"

"If we let 'em," added Bert significantly.

"Come on," urged Tom. "If we're going to have a run-in with 'em, let's
have it in the open, before they get in the dormitory."

And while our hero and his chums are thus hastening to meet the lads
who had played such a mean trick on them that summer may I be permitted
a few pages in which to make my new readers a little better acquainted
with Tom Fairfield?

Tom, aged about sixteen, was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Brokaw Fairfield.
He lived in the village of Briartown, on the Pine river, and had much
sport running his motorboat on that stream.