"Why, he is
even bigger than I am!"

"That's the way with most bullies," put in Fatty. "They don't feel like
tackling a fellow of their size. They like to pick out little chaps."

"Oh, don't misunderstand me," returned the oldest of the Rover boys.
"Fred may be small, but he is very strong and wiry, and he knows how to
take care of himself. But I shouldn't like to see any out and out
fighting--at least not so soon. We don't want to get a black eye before
we get settled down."

"That's the talk!" came from Andy. "I'd rather have some fun than have
any fighting. I hope we'll find the other fellows at the Hall more
pleasant than this Martell and that great big Slugger Brown."

"It's queer you didn't mention Martell to us on the train," remarked
Fred.

"I thought he had left school," answered Spouter. "You see, he went
home before the term closed last Spring, and I didn't know that he was
coming back."

"He and Brown seem to be pretty thick," was Randy's comment.

"Yes; they were always together last term, they and a fellow named
Henry Stowell. Stowell is a regular little sneak, and most of the boys
call him Codfish on account of the awfully broad mouth he's got."

"Well, there's one thing sure," remarked Jack; "we'll all have to keep
our eyes open for Martell, Brown and Company."

While on the train the Rover boys had learned that Haven Point was a
clean and compactly built town containing about two thousand
inhabitants. It was located at the head of Clearwater Lake, a beautiful
sheet of water about two miles long and half a mile wide and containing
a number of picturesque islands. At the head of the lake was the Rick
Rack River, running down from the hills and woods beyond. Up in the
hills it was a wild and rocky watercourse containing a number of
dangerous rapids, but where it passed Colby Hall it was a broad and
fairly deep stream, joining the lake at a point where there were two
rocky islands. The distance from the railroad station to the Military
Academy was a little over half a mile, along a road branching off
through the main street into a country highway bordered on one side by
the river and on the other by a number of well-kept farms, with here
and there a small patch of timber.

"There's the Hall!" exclaimed Spouter presently, after the auto-stage
made a turn through a number of trees and came out on a broad highway
running in a semi-circle around a large campus. "What do you think of
the place? Look