"Why should Bond Saxon have a theory? And how did he know where to find me? And how did that gray-haired woman and her dog happen in on the scene just then? This is a grim sort of dime novel business, Norrie. Things don't fall out this way in real life unless there is some reason back of them. I think I'll bear investigating."

"I think so myself--you or your romantic rescuing squad. You might call the dog to the witness stand first, for he was the first on the scene. I forgot though that the dog is dead. They found him down the river with his throat cut. The plot thickens." Elinor's frivolous spirit was returning with the lessening of care.

"Tell me about the ball game," Fenneben said next.

"Oh, it rained for hours and hours, and there wasn't any train service for Lagonda Ledge for a week, and all the Inter-Collegiate Athletic events for the season were called off for Sun rise-by-the-Walnut."

"And the students, generally?" Dr. Fenneben questioned.

"Mr. Trench will be back," Elinor exclaimed, "and folks have just found out that it's old Trench who's keeping that crippled boy in school, the one they call `Limpy.' Trench rustles jobs for him and divides his own income for college expenses with the boy for the rest of the cost. I don't know how the story got out, but I asked him about it when he was up here to see you. He just grinned and drawled lazily, `I can save a little on shoe leather, that some fellows wear out hurrying so, and I don't burst up so many hats with a swelled head as some do. So I keep a little extra change on these accounts. We're going down to Oklahoma when we graduate. Limpy's going to be a Methodist preacher and I a stockman. I'll keep him in raw material for converts out of the cowboys I'll have to handle.' Isn't old Trenchy a hero? He says Dean Funnybone showed him how to think about somebody else beside Trench a little bit."

"Oh, yes; Trench is a hero and I've known about that whole thing for a long while," the Dean asserted. "And Victor Burleigh?"

A shadow in the beautiful dark eyes, a half-tone lowering of the voice, and a general indifference of manner, as Elinor answered: