"Rube's drowned!" he said, suddenly, and seemed to shudder at the very words.
"Drowned!" repeated the president, greatly shocked, "Drowned!"
"Yes, sir …" Benz pulled himself together with an effort, then began to explain as though it was a relief to get the matter off his mind. "You see the second team was havin' a celebration at the bend of the river last night because they beat the varsity. Well—I collected a bunch of fellows and we broke up the meeting. We caught Rube and McCabe an' we thought … er … er … that is, I thought I'd like to scare Rube. So, as I was leader, I ordered the guys to carry him down to the old bridge an' hold him over the rail."
"You!" broke in President Windell, excitedly.
"Yes,—me!" cried Benz, bound to make a clean breast of it. "I didn't mean to do what I did but for some reason I … I grabbed his feet an' … an' when we held him over the rail … I … I let go!"
"What!"
"I don't know why I did it, sir. We only meant to scare him. I never intended that we should drop him in. Honest, I didn't!" Benz's tone turned to pleading. "Oh, it'll just about finish my folks, Mister Windell. What shall I do? … What shall I do?"
President Windell was a highly strung, very excitable little man, well along in years. The sudden tragic news brought by Benz at such an early hour had done much to upset him.
"How do you know that Judd's actually drowned?" he asked, after a moment of serious deliberation.
"Why I … we've searched the river … as far as we could see he never even came up!" Benz answered, then added with conviction, "He's drowned all right!"