he tragedy that have not yet
been explained: first, why on this day when all members of the school
were attending the game at Ridgley Field were these two students driving
_away_ from the school? No one has been able to tell where the young men
were going or how the accident occurred. The assumption is that while
traveling at high speed they attempted to take the sharp turn too
swiftly. The machine, which was wrecked beyond repair, belonged to the
father of Tracey Campbell."

The news flew from room to room, from dormitory to dormitory, with the
rapidity of wireless. It was as if the story had suddenly been blazoned
across the clear November sky above the Ridgley campus; in one moment,
it seemed, the whole school knew that Whirlwind Bassett had come to his
end under tragic circumstances and that Tracey Campbell was lying in the
Greensboro hospital with an even chance of recovery. It was difficult at
first for many a member of Ridgley School to believe that the tragic
news was true,--so vivid is life, so unreal seems death. They could not
quite imagine Bassett--Whirlwind Bassett--lying dead out there at the
bottom of Hairpin Gulch.

Certain incidents which previously had seemed quite unworthy of
attention now assumed proportions of importance. A third-year student
named Gilmore who had sat in the Ridgley stands beside Bassett
recollected that the self-styled "Whirlwind" had risen from his seat at
the start of the game, had made his way out of the stands and had not
returned. Fred Harper and one or two others of the Ridgley football
substitutes remembered that Campbell, after coming off the field when
Teeny-bits had arrived, had slipped out through the opening under the
stands and had not returned. Most of the members of the squad remembered
that Campbell had not appeared at the locker building during the
rest-period between the halves and recollected that it had occurred to
them that he was "playing baby" because of the fact that he had lost his
chance to start the game. There seemed to be no sufficient explanation,
however, of the simultaneous exit of Bassett and Campbell. The last
person who had seen them, according to rumor, was one of the
ticket-takers at the field-gates who said that just after the game began
he caught a glimpse of Campbell driving his father's big car down the
street toward Hamilton with some one beside him in the front seat.

To certain members of Ridgley School the tragedy served as a last link