CHAPTER VII
THE LAST TRY-OUT
"I just got a letter," said Ralph, as Frank joined him.
"I see you have; but it isn't from over the water, because it has no foreign stamp on it," remarked the other, shrewdly.
"You're right, Frank. But it had the money in it, as usual. This is just after the first, you know," continued Ralph.
The freshman, who would enter the sophomore class next year, did not live in Columbia. He had come from a small place called Scardale, and boarded, being one of the pay pupils at Columbia High School.
There was a strange mystery connected with his life, and Frank had helped bring this very close to a settlement. Ralph had been adopted by the Wests when a mere baby, taken from the poorhouse in fact. Since the preceding summer, every month a remittance of forty dollars had come to him, with
