that on general principles. The bonfire was worth it,
especially since we managed to get a few palings from old Scroggs' fence
for it--but, as usual, the wrong men got pinched. There was the
intercollegiate track meet due in two weeks, and there, in the list of
felons, were Evans, our crack sprinter, Petersen, our hammer heaver, and
yours truly, who could pole vault about as high as they run elevators in
Europe, even if he was only a sub-Freshman with field mice in his hair.

Now, this was really serious. We could afford to lose an oratorical
contest--it just meant no bonfire for another year--but we had our
hearts set on that track meet. We were up against our lifelong
rivals--Muggledorfer, the State Normal, Kiowa, Hambletonian, and all the
rest of them. We had to win--I don't know why. Beats all how many things
you have to do in college that don't seem so absolutely necessary a few
years afterward. Anyhow, if we three point-gobblers had to spend the
next ten days in the works instead of rounding into form, the points
Siwash would win in that meet could be added up by a three-year-old boy
who was a bad scholar. It was so desperate that we hired a lawyer and
laid the case before him that night as we sat in our horrid cells--they
wouldn't take Hinckley for bail any more.

"Get a continuance," said he. And the next morning he appeared with us
before the awful presence and demanded the continuance on the score of
important evidence, lack of time to perfect a defense, other
engagements, poor crops, Presidential election, and goodness knows
what--regular lawyer style, you know.

Old Scroggs glared at us the way an unusually hungry tiger might look at
a lamb that was being taken away to get a little riper. "I cannot object
to a reasonable continuance," he said sourly. "And I don't deny that you
will need all the defense you can get. The case is an atrocious one, and
I propose to do my small part toward putting down arson and riot in this
unhappy town. You will appear two weeks from this morning."

The field meet was two weeks from that afternoon! And we didn't have a
ghost of a defense!

We three scraped up the required bail and went back to college feeling
cheerful as a man who has been told that his hanging has been postponed
until his wedding morning. Of course we sent for Petey Simmons. He
arrived dejected. "No use, fellows," he remarked as he came in the door.
"I know what you all want. You all want engagements with