“Here.”
“They’re a pack of cowards,” was Don’s mental comment. “Such fellows always are, and I ought to have known better than to take up with them. My last act in this school will be to show them and everybody else that I am just as willing to pay the fiddler as I am to dance.”
At last the sergeant of the fourth company began, and near the top of his list was the name—“Donald Gordon.”
There was no response to it; but to the intense amazement of everybody present, and the almost overwhelming consternation of some, Don stepped quickly and firmly to the front. No one outside the “set” would have thought of picking him out as a guard-runner. The sergeant hesitated and stammered over the next name, and there was a perceptible flutter among all except the first-class boys. They showed their three years’ drill and discipline by standing as stiff as so many posts and holding their eyes straight to the front; but they could not control their countenances, and surprise and sorrow were depicted upon every one of them. When the roll-call was ended the sergeants went back to their places, and Don was left standing alone. He had passed through one ordeal, and now came another.
“Gordon,” said the superintendent, “I am glad to see that you have too much manhood to take refuge behind a lie. I should have been very much surprised and grieved if you had showed me that I had formed a wrong opinion of you.”
These words made some of the guilty ones in the third class open their eyes. Duncan’s face grew whiter than ever, while Tom Fisher said to himself:
“I really believe the old fellow knows right where to look to find every boy who was outside the building last night after taps. If I had had the faintest suspicion that Don intended to confess, I should have been ahead of him. He’ll get off easy by giving the names of the rest of us, and Duncan and I and a few others, who kicked up such a row last term, will be sent down.”
“You had charge of the third floor between the hours of eight and twelve last evening,” continued the superintendent, addressing himself to Don.
“Yes, sir,” was the reply.
“And while you were on duty several boys, who you knew intended to run the guard, left their dormitories, and you permitted them to pass out of the building?”