"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 later, when the occupants of dormitories Nos. 11 and 12 got up, they were surprised to find, just inside of one of the doors, a big pasteboard box, securely tied with a heavy cord.