ut his right hand, for it was the left arm that had been
injured.

"I want to tell you that I feel pretty punk now over the way I've
treated your crowd, Jerry. This is mighty white in you, and that's what,
to act as you have with me. I'm right sorry now I ever laid out to hurt
you fellers. I ain't goin' to keep it up no longer, and that's dead
certain. If Pet Peters wants to, he can go it alone. I'm all in. You've
made me ashamed."

Jerry understood. There was really no need of further words. Between two
boys such things are instinctively grasped; and Jerry knew what a
tremendous effort it must have been for this rough fellow to frankly
admit that he had been led to see the error of his ways.

Perhaps the repentance was not wholly genuine, and time would swing Andy
back to his old ways; but just then, sitting by that friendly fire, he
seemed to feel very warmly disposed toward the lad whose coming may have
saved his life.

"Oh! that's all right; don't mention it. Glad to know you mean to let us
alone. It's all we ask, anyway. But what brought you away up here, Andy?"
said Jerry.

Andy dropped his head and gazed into the fire. The other even thought he
could see what looked like a blush mantle his cheeks, though the chums of
the town bully would have shouted at the very idea of such a thing.

"I reckon it was some more rotten business, Jerry. To tell the truth I
was up to see old Bud Rabig, trying to get him to join us in a raid on
your camp. You see," the boy went on hurriedly, as though fearful lest
his courage might fail him before he got the whole thing off his mind,
"we'd tried to smoke you out and made a botch of the trick; and I even
pushed Bluff over into the lake this afternoon, to get him a duckin',
'cause the temptation was too great But it's all up with me now. After
this I ain't goin' to lift a hand against any of your crowd."

"Did you get lost, too, trying to make your way back to your camp?"
asked Jerry.

"That's just what I did. Thought I could save time by taking a short-cut
through the big woods. Then the storm came down on me, and I reckon I got
some rattled. I lost my head, and while I thrashed around, that pesky old
tree came down on me. Thought I was a-goner, I give you my word," and
Andy shuddered.

"How long did you lie there?" questioned the other.

"Hours and hours, it seemed to me. I'd shout when I could, but something
seemed to tell me it wasn't no good--that I just deserved to di