he roots, their
heads not a foot apart, their eyes wide open, each glaring fixedly at
the other. They were suffering frightful torment, writhing and twisting
in the pangs of voluntary suffocation; for neither would let go and
acknowledge himself beaten. I tried to break Paul's hold on the root,
but he resisted me fiercely. Then I lost my breath and came to the
surface, badly scared. I quickly explained the situation, and half a
dozen of us went down and by main strength tore them loose. By the
time we got them out, both were unconscious, and it was only after much
barrel-rolling and rubbing and pounding that they finally came to their
senses. They would have drowned there, had no one rescued them.

When Paul Tichlorne entered college, he let it be generally understood
that he was going in for the social sciences. Lloyd Inwood, entering
at the same time, elected to take the same course. But Paul had had
it secretly in mind all the time to study the natural sciences,
specializing on chemistry, and at the last moment he switched over.
Though Lloyd had already arranged his year's work and attended the first
lectures, he at once followed Paul's lead and went in for the natural
sciences and especially for chemistry. Their rivalry soon became a noted
thing throughout the university. Each was a spur to the other, and they
went into chemistry deeper than did ever students before--so deep, in
fact, that ere they took their sheepskins they could have stumped any
chemistry or "cow college" professor in the institution, save "old"
Moss, head of the department, and even him they puzzled and edified more
than once. Lloyd's discovery of the "death bacillus" of the sea toad,
and his experiments on it with potassium cyanide, sent his name and that
of his university ringing round the world; nor was Paul a whit
behind when he succeeded in producing laboratory colloids exhibiting
amoeba-like activities, and when he cast new light upon the processes
of fertilization through his startling experiments with simple sodium
chlorides and magnesium solutions on low forms of marine life.

It was in their undergraduate days, however, in the midst of their
profoundest plunges into the mysteries of organic chemistry, that Doris
Van Benschoten entered into their lives. Lloyd met her first, but within
twenty-four hours Paul saw to it that he also made her acquaintance.
Of course, they fell in love with her, and she became the only thing in
life worth li