hat, Cap."

"There's somebody in the gang that you don't like, then; somebody that
you don't know well and don't understand. Isn't that so? Who is it? You
ought to tell me."

"I would, Cap, if that were the reason, but it isn't. I like every man
of them all."

"What is it then?"

"Nothing that I can tell you." Poor Walt, he was ashamed of his uncle;
Lyman at the Hall had told him that the whole Beta Phi fraternity was as
scrubby as their Stanford chapter.

Cap's eyes had an angry gleam. "Somebody has been throwing mud," he
said, kicking up a splinter from the bridge floor. "There are plenty of
them to do it."

"It isn't that at all. I wouldn't be influenced that way," protested
Haviland. "It's another matter."

"Well, I suppose this is final," said Smith, struggling hard with his
disappointment. The Freshman's past attitude had paved the way for a
different answer.

"Let's not say that," Walt began slowly. "Give me a while longer, Cap;
things may change. I had hoped--" He broke off;--he could never tell
Smith--he had not until that very moment told himself--how much he had
looked forward to being a Rho.

"Things may change," he said again as Smith turned savagely and started
back. He was trying to compromise, but he had no idea how any change was
to come about. He brooded over it in his room that night, and the more
he pondered the more clearly he realized that the debt to his uncle
stood in his way. Plainly, he was up against it. He made the foot of his
iron bedstead jingle with a petulant kick, and, muttering the Phi yell
in a savage tone, went off to sleep.

At luncheon the next day at the Phi house, the Freshman was so friendly
and so gracious that two of the Chapter went out into the kitchen and
shook hands. Had he not inquired solicitously about the fraternity's
position in Amherst, had he not expressed great pleasure at learning of
their high political standing back there? Never a word had they heard of
his uncle, however. The Freshman who is in his own neighborhood does not
donate additional arguments.

The Phi house was shaken to its foundations. This was the greatest
piece of work for years. Walt was immediately invited to stay for dinner
and to spend the night and the next day, but although it was Saturday,
he declined. Even the tempting bait of a Populist campaign rally moved
him not.

The days passed and Walter Olcott Haviland was an unhappy child. His
sudden intimacy with the Phis could no