“That’s the way it looks to me,” added the senator’s son.
“Say, you don’t suppose that wild man has anything to do with the fellows Nat used to train with—Jasniff, Merwell, and that crowd?” questioned Buster.
“It’s possible, but I don’t think so,” returned our hero. “He is surely a crazy individual, and as nobody around here seems to know him, he must be a stranger to these parts.”
“But what would make Nat so interested?” asked little Chip Macklin. 95
“Give it up,” answered Roger.
“Maybe he has something to tell, but won’t tell it to us,” ventured Phil. “He may go right to the doctor.”
But if Nat Poole went to the master of Oak Hall, or to anybody else at that institution, the boys did not hear of it. He asked no more questions about the wild man, and when any of our friends came near him he immediately walked away, thus avoiding an interview.
The proposed meeting of the athletic committee of Oak Hall was held on Saturday afternoon in the gymnasium and was well attended. An even twenty names had been put up for the regular baseball nine of the institution. Of these names, fifteen belonged to old students and five were those of newcomers to Oak Hall. As he had said he would do, Gus Plum had handed in his name, and so had Sam Day and some of our other friends. But Dave, Phil, and Roger were conspicuous by their absence.
“See here, Porter, you’re going to play, aren’t you?” asked the former manager.
“No,” answered Dave, quietly but firmly.