ute, young man!" Professor Windell was waking fast now. He
jerked on his purple bathrobe and jumped his feet into some house
slippers and made haste to escort poor Benz into the library.

"Have a chair. Now, compose yourself! What's the trouble?"

Benz did not appear to notice the proffered seat but strode nervously
up and down the room.

"Rube's drowned!" he said, suddenly, and seemed to shudder at the very
words.

"Drowned!" repeated the president, greatly shocked, "Drowned!"

"Yes, sir ..." Benz pulled himself together with an effort, then began
to explain as though it was a relief to get the matter off his mind.
"You see the second team was havin' a celebration at the bend of the
river last night because they beat the varsity. Well--I collected a
bunch of fellows and we broke up the meeting. We caught Rube and
McCabe an' we thought ... er ... er ... that is, I thought I'd like to
scare Rube. So, as I was leader, I ordered the guys to carry him down
to the old bridge an' hold him over the rail."

"You!" broke in President Windell, excitedly.

"Yes,--me!" cried Benz, bound to make a clean breast of it. "I didn't
mean to do what I did but for some reason I ... I grabbed his feet an'
... an' when we held him over the rail ... I ... I let go!"

"What!"

"I don't know why I did it, sir. We only meant to scare him. I never
intended that we should drop him in. Honest, I didn't!" Benz's tone
turned to pleading. "Oh, it'll just about finish my folks, Mister
Windell. What shall I do? ... What _shall_ I do?"

President Windell was a highly strung, very excitable little man, well
along in years. The sudden tragic news brought by Benz at such an
early hour had done much to upset him.

"How do you know that Judd's actually drowned?" he asked, after a
moment of serious deliberation.

"Why I ... we've searched the river ... as far as we could see he never
even came up!" Benz answered, then added with conviction, "He's drowned
all right!"

"But he could swim, couldn't he?" persisted the professor, hopefully.
"Perhaps he ..."

"That's just it!" interrupted Benz, despairingly. "He might have had a
good chance if he could ... but you see ... his feet were tied!"

"Feet tied!" President Windell laid a hand upon Benz and shook him.
"See here--what were you young men up to? ... That's not much short of
murder!"

"I know ... it sounds almost like it," admitted Benz.

"It's apt to go pretty hard with