had come out of the war with
a constitution weakened by the hardships of the service. Rumors had
drifted to him that the taste for liquor acquired in camp as an antidote
for sickness had grown upon his comrade and finally overcome him. From
Jeff he learned that after his father's death the widow had sold her
mortgaged place and moved to the Pacific Coast. She had invested the
few hundreds left her in some river-bottom lots at Verden and had later
discovered that an unscrupulous real estate dealer had unloaded upon her
worthless property. The patched and threadbare clothes of the boy told
him that from a worldly point of view the affairs of the Farnums were at
ebb tide.

"Did... did you know father very well?" Jeff asked tremulously.

Chunn looked down at the thin dark face of the boy walking beside him
and was moved to lay a hand on his shoulder. He understood the ache in
that little heart to hear about the father who was a hero to him. Jeff
was of no importance in the alien world about him. The Captain guessed
from the little scene he had witnessed that the lad trod a friendless,
stormy path. He divined, too, that the hungry soul was fed from within
by dreams and memories.

So Lucius Chunn talked. He told about the slender, soldierly officer in
gray who had given himself so freely to serve his men, of the time he
had caught pneumonia by lending his blanket to a sick boy, of the day he
had led the charge at Battle Creek and received the wound which pained
him so greatly to the hour of his death. And Jeff drank his words in
like a charmed thing. He visualized it all, the bitter nights in camp,
the long wet marches, the trumpet call to battle. It was this last that
his imagination seized upon most eagerly. He saw the silent massing
of troops, the stealthy advance through the woods; and he heard the
blood-curdling rebel yell as the line swept forward from cover like a
tidal wave, with his father at its head.

Captain Chunn was puzzled at the coldness with which Mr. Webber listened
to his explanation of what had taken place. The school principal fell
back doggedly upon one fact. It would not have happened if Jeff had not
been playing truant. Therefore he was to blame for what had occurred.

Nothing would be done, of course, without a thorough investigation.

The Captain was not satisfied, but he did not quite see what more he
could do.

"The boy is a son of an old comrade of mine. We were in the war
together. So of