"Possibly."
"Who was it, then?" coaxed Greg Holmes.
"Was it Fred Ripley?" shot out Dave Darrin.
"Will you fellows keep a secret, on your solemn honor, if I tell you one?" Dick questioned.
Dave and Greg both promised.
"Well, then," Prescott admitted, "I'm convinced in my own mind that it was Fred Ripley that I had hold of for an instant tonight. But I didn't see his face, and I can't prove it. That's why I'm not going to tell about it. But this fellow wore lavender striped trousers, just like a pair of Fred's. There is just a chance or two in a thousand that it wasn't Ripley—-and I'm not going to throw it all over on him when I can't prove it. Fellows, I know just what it feels like to be under suspicion when you really didn't do a thing. It hurts—-awfully!"
CHAPTER XI
THE WELCOME WITH A BIG "W"
Ben Badger sat perched aloft among the bare, spreading branches of a giant maple near one corner of the school grounds. The maple stood at the curbing of the sidewalk.
Down below stood nearly a hundred High School boys of Gridley.