ish I'd never met
that man!" And now Brassy seemed almost on the verge of tears.

CHAPTER XXIX

A CONFESSION

After that it was an easy matter for the other boys to get Brassy to make
a complete confession.

"My first trouble came when I got a job with John Calder who has a farm
on the outskirts of Omaha," said Brassy. "I had had a quarrel at home,
and also a quarrel with my uncle here, and had made up my mind to get a
place and support myself. But I couldn't get along with Calder, who was a
very strict man, and one afternoon we had a lively quarrel, and I told
him I'd leave, and I did so and went to Omaha. About a week after that
Calder's barn burned down and a number of horses were caught in the fire.
That was just after I had fallen in with Bud Haddon and his two chums,
Jillson and Dusenbury. Haddon pretended to be quite friendly. But all at
once he accused me of setting the fire and said that Jillson and
Dusenbury, who had left the day before, could prove it. I protested my
innocence, but he insisted I was guilty and worked me up to such an
extent that I gave him almost every dollar I had in my pocket to keep him
quiet."

"And you say positively that you had nothing to do with the fire?"
questioned Fred.

"Not a thing!"

"Couldn't you prove that you weren't there when the fire took place?"
asked Andy.

"No, I couldn't, because I went to a vaudeville show that evening, and I
was among strangers, so that I couldn't account for my time."

"Did Haddon hound you when you came to Colby Hall?" questioned Gif.

"He certainly did--not once, but half a dozen times. And I gave him all
the money I could scrape up. In fact, I even borrowed some money from
Halliday and a couple of the other fellows."

"But what about the robbery at the Hall?'" questioned Fred.

"Several times Haddon came to me and spoke in a mysterious manner about
its being an easy matter to make a big haul. Then he hinted about the
robbery; but I would have nothing to do with it. On the afternoon when we
were getting ready to celebrate that night, he sent word that he wanted
to see me at a certain barn not far from the school. When I got there he
demanded that I help him go through the bedrooms while the fellows were
having a good time on the campus and down by the river. I said I wouldn't
do it, and then all of a sudden he hit me on the head and knocked me
down. Then he stripped me of my trousers and jacket and tied me fast in
one of th