“It’s a lie,” he spluttered. “But if Baldwin runs this school I suppose I’ll have to stay out.”
“No more back talk, Freshie,” remarked the Senior. “Don’t speak that way to your superiors. Call me Sir.”
“Don’t let it fuss you, Kirkland,” said Arries mildly. “It isn’t important. It is all for fun.”
Larry, raging inwardly, turned and walked with Katsura from the field, while the Sophomores jeered. He was hot with the injustice of it and burning for revenge. He took his seat with the Freshmen and strove to watch the slaughter of the Freshmen, but before long he slipped from the crowd, and hurried away, refusing to be comforted even by the calm philosophy of Katsura, who followed.
CHAPTER IV
An Old Friend is Found
The train bearing Larry Kirkland back to Shasta View ranch for the long summer vacation carried a heavy-hearted, discouraged youth, for whom even the pleasure of home-coming was dimmed. His college year had been a series of disappointments and rebuffs. He had gone to Cascade College filled with high hopes and dreams of winning a place among the men of the institution. The year had been one of rebukes, and loneliness, except for the friendship of a few. He, who had always been a leader and popular, found himself looked upon with suspicion, and rated as undesirable by many. His attempts, which were few, to add to his circle of friends, had been met with coldness. Every effort had been a failure, and some of them, he realized, had been serious mistakes, chiefly because they were misunderstood.
For all his woes he blamed Harry Baldwin who had exerted his influence against his boyhood rival in every direction. Larry realized that he had been beaten by Baldwin, and felt, bitterly, that he could not fight his neighbor with the same weapon. Instead of choosing his own circle of friends, ignoring Baldwin and living in a different set and circle, Larry, rebuffed, had withdrawn more and more, to himself, and avoided introductions, even to those who were with him in classes. Katsura, the diminutive Japanese boy, had remained his staunch and loyal supporter, and at times, a valuable advisor who had prevented him from making even more serious mistakes in his dealings with the other boys. He had Winans, the hearty, good-natured youth who had caught for the Freshman team, and Lattiser occasionally favored him by stopping to talk with him on the campus, always with a quiet word of advice. Larry did not understand, until during the final month of the spring term, that his friendship for Katsura was an additional cause for his unpopularity, or that, among a certain element of the student body, there existed a hatred for the Japanese. That discovery aroused his resentment.
It was with relief that he finished his examinations and caught the train for Shasta View. The train was panting out of the wide valley into a narrow gorge in the mountains and commencing its twisting, tortuous climb over the Cascades when he awoke. His first glimpse of Mount Shasta, towering high overhead, revived his spirits, which rose with the altitude as the train labored upward through the twisting canon, past the gushing, geyser like springs of Shasta, over the Black summit, and went racing downward through the fir forests into the valley garden of the Rogue River.
He was standing in the vestibule, grip in hand, when the train stopped at Pearton, and, almost before the porter could throw open the doors he sprang to the platform. The depot wagon from the ranch was waiting and, recognizing the wagon and ponies, Larry ran toward it, expecting to see Major Lawrence. He saw the driver jump down, and glance along the long line of cars. There was something familiar to him in the slope of the huge shoulders and the easy grace of movement. Before Larry could recall where he had seen that form, the driver turned toward him. Larry dropped his suitcase and sprang forward.
“You—you, Mr. Krag? Where did you come from?” he cried.