Tess shook her head with a troubled expression.

"I can tell you where it is! I want you to go there and ask for Dan
Jordan and tell him I am here. You must speak to no one else about me,
or they will come and take me away, and I told you I would almost rather
die than not be with my class at the banquet."

Tessibel's spirits rose high. She could help him--after all.

"How air ye goin' to get into the place where ye eats without gettin'
took again?"

A flashing intelligence leaped into the brown eyes during her question.

"I knows how I can help ye." She lowered her voice and began to describe
the escape and the final fulfillment of their plan.

Frederick chuckled when she had finished.

"That's capital. You tell Dan Jordan, then, to-morrow what you have told
me. You see the banquet takes place to-morrow night."

"Yep, I tells him, so I will. I goes to town early to-morry and up to
your house.... Come and eat now!"

CHAPTER XXIV

The next morning at eight o'clock Tessibel walked eastward up the long
hill toward the college. The "Cranium" fellows were yet asleep. The
whole house was tired out from looking for their captured president. The
underclassmen did not know that Graves had escaped, Frederick's enemies
keeping them in ignorance as long as possible.

Tessibel turned into the carriage drive toward the fraternity with a
fish-basket upon her arm.

A man cleaning snow from the flight of steps addressed her.

"What do you want here?"

"I want to see Mr. Jordan.... He air here, ain't he? I has somethin' for
him."

"Give it to me," ordered the janitor, "I'll take it to him."

"Can't! He said as how I wasn't to give it to no one but hisself, and I
won't, so there!"

"He ain't up yet."

"Don't care, I'll wait, then.... Tell him, will ye, that I air a
waitin'?"

Dan Jordan wondered as he crawled slowly out of bed what a girl could
want of him at that early hour. He met Tess at the front door, and
without waiting for him to speak Tessibel said in an undertone.

"I has somethin' to tell ye.... I air Tess the squatter's brat, what ye
gived the coffee to at the parson's house. I said as how I has
somethin' to tell ye!"

"Will you tell me now?" asked Dan kindly. "You see, I can't ask you in
here--"

"I ain't a comin' in," and lowering her voice with a furtive glance she
almost whispered, "I knows--I knows where the minister's son air."

Dan started and looked at her sharply. She could mean