"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."