course I have to stand by Jeff," he pleaded with a
smile.

"You were in the rebel army?" The words slipped out before the
schoolmaster could stop them.

"In the Confederate army," Chunn corrected quietly.

Webber flushed at the rebuke. "That is what I meant to say."

"I leave to-morrow for Alaska. It would be pleasant to know before I go
that Jeff is out of his trouble."

"I'm afraid Jeff always will be in trouble. He is a most insubordinate
boy," the principal answered coldly.

"Are you sure you quite understand him?"

"He is not difficult to understand." Webber, resenting the interference
of the Southerner as an intrusion, disposed of the matter in a sentence.
"I'll look into this matter carefully, Mr. Chunn."

Webber called immediately at the office of Edward B. Merrill, president
of the tramway company and of the First National Bank. It happened that
the vice-president of the bank was a school director; also that the
funds of the district were kept in the First National. The schoolteacher
did not admit that he had come to ingratiate himself with the powers
that ruled his future, but he was naturally pleased to come in direct
touch with such a man as Merrill.

The financier was urbane and spent nearly half an hour of his valuable
time with the principal. When the latter rose to go they shook hands.
The two understood each other thoroughly.

"You may depend upon me to do my duty, Mr. Merrill, painful though such
a course may be to me."

"I am very glad to have met you, Mr. Webber. It is a source of
satisfaction to me that our educational system is in the care of men of
your stamp. I leave this matter with confidence entirely in your hands.
Do what you think best."

His confidence was justified. After school opened next morning Jeff was
called up and publicly thrashed for playing truant. As a prelude to the
corporal punishment the principal delivered a lecture. He alluded to
the details of the fight gravely, with selective discrimination, giving
young Farnum to understand that he had reached the end of his rope. If
any more such brutal affairs were reported to him he would be punished
severely.

The boy took the flogging in silence. He had learned to set his teeth
and take punishment without whimpering. From the hardest whipping Webber
had ever given he went to his seat with a white, set face that stared
straight in front of him. Young as he was, he knew it had not been fair
and his outraged soul crie