down dazedly.

"He's gone, boys. The Captain's gone." The words came in a stammer
through pressed lips.

"I wish it had been I," muttered Swipes brokenly, when they were alone
again. "It was all my fault." He burst into a wild sobbing. "I'd give my
very life to have heard--the Captain--say he had forgiven me."

"I was more to blame than you were," replied Spuddy. "My mother.... God!
look at that sun!"

Bright rays slanted golden through the window upon the three woful
little freshmen who had ruined the "Cranium" Society.

CHAPTER XXVII

One day in the following July, Tessibel was going to Mrs. Longman's hut,
with a list of Bible words she did not understand. She stopped at the
edge of the forest, and listened to a curious sobbing sound she thought
issued from beyond the gorge. Then, thinking herself mistaken, she ran
nimbly on, avoiding the long thorns that lay in her path. The noise came
more distinctly through the clear air, making the squatter girl lift her
head and pause again. There was no mistake this time.

"It ain't no pup," she said aloud, "'cause a pup don't snivel like
that."

Raising the red head, she tore long threads of hair loose from the
briars, and, drawing the masses of curls about her shoulders, broke into
the opening of the forest. Some one was crying, and any sign of
suffering brought an immediate response from Tess. It might be Myra, or
it might be some little lost child. Spurred on by sympathy, she bounded
over a bed of dead chestnut burrs, waded through the water to the other
side of the creek, and struggled up the rocks.

Teola Graves, crouched in an attitude of suffering and despair, was
seated on the gnarled root of a huge tree. Tessibel watched her for an
instant. Here was a holy personage to the squatter, touched with the
finger of the mysterious God the student worshiped. And was she not the
sister of Frederick, and had not Teola given her coffee from her own
cup that winter night? Tessibel had not spoken to the minister's
daughter since her father had been taken away to Auburn, and some of the
intensity Tess had felt upon that one great day of her life came back to
her as she stood hesitant, watching the student's sister.

Perhaps the girl was weeping for some pleasure denied her--perhaps for a
jewel to wear about her neck. She went forward impulsively, and laid her
hand upon the rounded shoulder.

"What be ye blattin' over?" she stammered, with a tinge of awe in her