“For shame, Lee,” he cried. “We all know that Clark does not deserve that. I’d like to know if you consider it more honorable to keep still and let a bad fellow lead a dozen others into evil ways, than to warn the professor and so save them. For my part, I’d rather be called a telltale than to feel that I’d had a hand in any boy’s downfall.”
Lee’s face darkened, and he muttered something, under his breath, about “cowards and cheats.”
It was Gordon who broke the silence that followed.
“I can bear witness that Clark was anything but cowardly in that affair last year,” he said; “and since I’ve become better acquainted with him, I’ve been convinced that there was some underhanded work about that pony business. I mean that somebody else, and not Clark, was the one to blame.”
“And I know who it was,” added Reed.
At this, all eyes were turned on him, and half a dozen voices cried out:—
“Who, who?”
For a moment Reed hesitated, then he said, “Henderson had a hand in it.”
“Well, who else? Why don’t you out with it?” questioned Hamlin, eagerly.
“Bet a cooky ’twas Crawford,” cried Raleigh. “It was, it was!” he added, as Reed colored, and remained silent.