At the end of the school year there was to be a competitive examination. The credits for conduct and for recitations were to be taken into account, and the boy who stood highest on the books, and passed the best examination also, was to be the head boy of the school for the next year. From the first the field was abandoned to two competitors,—Hal Somers and Max Grenoble. All Hal's emulation was aroused. He would succeed. He even forsook his old ways, and for weeks together engaged in nothing that was contraband. He had really fine abilities. He learned some things more readily than Max himself, and he felt that all his prestige depended on his securing this leadership. Max took the matter more coolly, but still he worked with all diligence. And so, till within ten days of the examination, they were neck and neck.
Just then there came a dark night,—a warm, tempting June night,—when the moon was old, and only the stars shone, like very far-away lamps indeed, through the dusk. A friend of Hal Somers was night monitor, and doubtless the temptation afforded by such apparent security was too much for mischief-loving Hal. It chanced that Max Grenoble had received permission from one of the tutors to go to the neighboring village of an errand, and this fact was known only to his own room-mate, Molyneux Bell. About half-past nine he was returning, and for greater speed crossed a lot belonging to the president of the institution, which saved him an extra quarter of a mile of road. Half way across the lot he met Hal Somers with three other boys behind him, face to face. Hal carried a small lantern, and a great pair of shears such as are used to shear sheep. The light from the lantern struck upon the shears with a glitter which led Max to notice them. In the hands of one of Hal's followers he saw the long, silvery tail of a white horse, and another carried a bunch of hair of a similar hue, evidently the mane of the same animal.
"Hal Somers!"
He spoke in his first moment of surprise, without consideration; but there came no answer. The lantern was blown out in a moment, and the boys made the best of their way toward Eagleheight. As Max walked on more slowly he heard a pitiful neigh, and following the sound, he found President King's pet horse, utterly denuded of mane and tail. It was a joke carried a little too far even for Hal Somers's effrontery, he thought to himself. If there was any thing outside of his school that President King loved and prided himself on more than another, it was Snowflake. He gave her something of the fond care a family man bestows upon his children. Every afternoon she was the companion of his solitude, to whom he talked, with a sort of grave humor of his own, as he took his constitutional upon her back. He would not be likely to have much toleration for the young rascals who had shorn her of all her glory. Max went on, reported himself to Professor Vane, from whom he had obtained his leave of absence, and went to bed without hinting what he had seen, even to his room-mate.
The next morning when the school went to chapel, there was a sense of thunder in the air. President King had seen his favorite, as those who were guilty did not need to be told, after one look at his lowering face. He conducted the devotions with more than his usual solemnity, and then detained the school a little longer.
He uttered a few withering sentences, setting forth what had been done, and commenting satirically upon the invention, the gentlemanliness, the good sense of young men whose brains could originate nothing more brilliant or entertaining than the disfigurement of an unlucky quadruped, and an annoyance and insult to a teacher who had at least this claim upon their respect, that their parents had put them under his charge. Then he gave them the opportunity to confess their folly, assuring them that confession was good for the soul, and adding that he should take it as a favor if any one who knew any thing of the affair, whether personally concerned in it or not, would give him all the information in his power. It was not the practice at Eagleheight to ask any individual boy whether or not he had been guilty. It was one of President King's notions that to ask such a question of any one who had not manliness enough to confess his fault voluntarily was only leading him into temptation, offering safety as a premium for lying.
As the fellows filed out of chapel, Hal Somers said to his chum,—
"It's all up with me about the leadership. Of course Grenoble will tell, especially now the Prex makes a merit of it."