ack a dollar out of it? I don't want to lose all I
have."

"I haven't got a cent. You'll have to wait till we meet again. So long,
boy! You've helped me out of a scrape."

"Or into one," thought Carl.

The tramp straightened up, buttoned his dilapidated coat, and walked off
with the consciousness of being a capitalist.

Carl watched him with a smile.

"I hope I won't meet him after he has discovered that the bill is a
counterfeit," he said to himself.

He congratulated himself upon being still the possessor of twenty-five
cents in silver. It was not much, but it seemed a great deal better than
being penniless. A week before he would have thought it impossible
that such a paltry sum would have made him feel comfortable, but he had
passed through a great deal since then.

About the middle of the afternoon he came to a field, in which something
appeared to be going on. Some forty or fifty young persons, boys and
girls, were walking about the grass, and seemed to be preparing for some
interesting event.

Carl stopped to rest and look on.

"What's going on here?" he asked of a boy who was sitting on the fence.

"It's a meeting of the athletic association," said the boy.

"What are they doing?"

"They try for prizes in jumping, vaulting, archery and so on."

This interested Carl, who excelled in all manly exercises.

"I suppose I may stay and look on?" he said, inquiringly.

"Why, of course. Jump over the fence and I'll go round with you."

It seemed pleasant to Carl to associate once more with boys of his own
age. Thrown unexpectedly upon his own resources, he had almost forgotten
that he was a boy. Face to face with a cold and unsympathizing world, he
seemed to himself twenty-five at least.

"Those who wish to compete for the archery prize will come forward,"
announced Robert Gardiner, a young man of nineteen, who, as Carl
learned, was the president of the association. "You all understand the
conditions. The entry fee to competitors is ten cents. The prize to the
most successful archer is one dollar."

Several boys came forward and paid the entrance fee.

"Would you like to compete?" asked Edward Downie, the boy whose
acquaintance Carl had made.

"I am an outsider," said Carl. "I don't belong to the association."

"I'll speak to the president, if you like."

"I don't want to intrude."

"It won't be considered an intrusion. You pay the entrance fee and take
your chances."

Edward went to the pr