Professor Raymond," was the answer. "They think I
stole the examination papers."

"Stole! _Stole!_" roared Teddy. "Why, they're crazy! What makes
them think anything like that?"

"They'd been taken from Professor Raymond's desk, and they found them in
my locker."

He blurted out the whole story and Teddy was wild with grief and rage.
But in the absence of the slightest clue, they were unable to do
anything but await events while they ate their hearts out in silence.

A week went by without results. The winter had set in in earnest, and
the lake was coated with ice, thick enough for skating.

Fred had been looking forward to hockey and skating, in both of which he
took great delight. But now, he had little interest in them, and kept as
much as possible to himself.

The boys, of course, saw that something had happened, and did all they
could to cheer him up.

"You've simply got to come to-day, Fred," said Melvin, one bright
December day, bursting into the room, his eyes dancing and his cheeks
glowing with the frost. "It's just one peach of a day, and the ice is as
smooth as glass.

"Nothing doing," he went on, as Fred started to protest. "Come along,
fellows, and we'll rush him down to the lake. A bird that can skate and
won't skate must be made to skate."

"I never heard of a bird skating," objected Fred, but yielded, as the
whole laughing throng closed around him and hurried him out of doors.

Once on the ice, with the inspiring feeling of the skates beneath him,
with the tingling air bringing the blood to his cheeks, and the glorious
expanse of the frozen lake beckoning to him, the "blues" left him for a
time, and he was his natural self again, all aglow with the mere delight
of living.

He had gone around the lower end of the lake, and was making a wide
sweep to return when he passed Andy Shanks and Sid Wilton. They shot a
malicious look at him as they passed, and he saw them whisper to each
other.

Once more he made the circuit of the lake, with long swinging strokes,
his spirits steadily rising as the keen air nipped his face and put him
in a glow from head to foot.

At the northern end of the lake was a bluff about twenty feet high. As
there had been two or three heavy snowfalls already that winter, the top
of the bluff held a mass of snow and ice that was many feet deep. The
wind had hollowed out the lower part of the drifts so that the upper
part overhung the lake for some distance from the shore