Ralph felt better after that.
“I’ll be around to-morrow without fail to talk it all over with your uncle. Please don’t let him know anything about it until I come. I’d like to be the one to tell him the story, Frank.”
“I’m mum on that score. But I wonder if those sophs succeeded in stealing the spread of the freshmen, or were they kept out of the barn by main force? You’ve got some husky chaps in your class this year, and they could give a good account of themselves in a scrap. But Helen will tell me later,” laughed Frank, as his comrade started for the door.
Ralph was really quite exhausted, and knew that he must get home and to bed. The tremendous strain of that strenuous day was indeed telling on him.
It was well on to midnight before voices outside announced that the freshmen had returned from the country. Helen came in, her face aglow with excitement, to tell what a tremendous scuffle had followed the attempt of the sophomores to break in and spoil the spread.
“But our boys put them out all right, Frank! Oh, it was a tremendous time. Perhaps some of us girls were in the scrimmage, too, for I know I found this cap in my hand when it was all over,” and she laughingly held up a boy’s headgear, decorated with the ribbon of the second class, as well as the purple and gold of Columbia.
And that was all Frank could coax her to tell. He could look back to several similar experiences in his own school life, and appreciate what it meant to these freshmen, for Frank was a junior now.
In the morning Frank sauntered around to a certain modest house in town, where he greeted a young fellow by the name of Gabe Brown. Gabe was in the store which Frank’s father ran, known as the department store of Columbia. Moreover, he had charge of a certain counter in which Frank was somewhat interested just then.
“Hello, Gabe!” he said, as the other looked surprised at seeing the son of his employer look up on Sunday morning, “just wanted to get a little information from you. Here’s a new bandana handkerchief I picked up yesterday. Some fellow dropped it out at the baseball grounds, and I’d like to find out who he is. Can you help me?”
Gabe took the article, and examined it.