To take up the story where Ralph and Ben Carver dropped out, we must return to the evening after the final examination.

They had come to their room early, as all the scholars had, to pack for their camp trip. Ben pulled out the valises from the closet, and began to stir up the contents of his trunk to make a selection of the thickest and oldest garments to take with him.

"There's a jacket in the sear and yellow leaf, but it's warm; in she goes. Those trousers, I don't know about them. There's a pretty big hole in them; but yes, they'll do to fish in. Come, Ralph, get your clothes together," exclaimed Ben, seeing that his room-mate had thrown himself down astride of a chair, and with his head supported by both hands, looked like a third-rate tragedy actor.

There was no answer, and Ben went on packing and talking.

"I'm going to take more things this time. I know I hadn't anything fit to wear last year. Camp-life is very hard on clothes and shoes."

There was no response from Ralph, and Ben, pausing in his packing, exclaimed,--

"What's the matter, Drayton? You look as glum as a catfish with a hook in his gills!"

"I feel just as I look, then."

"Come on, boy, we've got to start right after breakfast, and there'll be no time to pack then."

"I don't care."

"Nonsense! Come, here's your valise gaping at you."

"I'm not going, Carver."

"Fiddlesticks! you are too. There's the foot-ball and your fishing-tackle. I'll get your things together for you."

"No. I tell you I shan't go. I've let this thing go on far enough. I absolutely haven't courage to go with the rest of the crowd to that island, where I can't get away, if I feel ever so much like running."

"The supply of courage has given out, has it?" asked Ben laughing. "There has been a pretty heavy drain on it, I will admit."

"Yes, it has given out," and Ralph laughed in spite of his melancholy.

"That's bad; but come, old fellow, you'll feel better after we get off."

"And leave Joe Chester behind?"

Ralph got off the chair that he had been torturing, and, putting his hands deep in his pockets, paced to and fro.

"No, Ben; I'm a pretty mean lot, but I declare it's getting beyond my depth. The next thing I shall go all under."

"And drag me too," added Ben, casting a sidelong glance at his friend.

"Yes, you too. I have been dragging you along in the same mire, until, to accommodate me, you've got in about as deep as I have."

"Don't mind me, Drayton. It doesn't trouble me one bit," said Ben carelessly. "My lies have all been in the cause of friendship. Come, cheer up, old fellow. We'll both reform after this, and never again tell lies."

"If I ever do tell another, I'll be a fool," said Ralph emphatically. "It doesn't pay; besides, it is mean work."

"Yes, but what could you do? Confess to that job with the books? That was enough to expel you; don't you know it was?"

"I don't care; that would be better than living a lie here day after day, and seeing those eyes of Joe Chester's on me day and night. No, sir! I'm not going to the island and leave him behind. You are mistaken in me. I've got to the end of my rope."

Ben whistled dolefully; went and drummed a funeral march on the window; then coming back, and dropping into a chair, rested his elbow on the table, and his cheek on his hand, looking up meanwhile at his companion.

"What's the next thing on the bill of fare, then?"

"I'm going to cut," answered Ralph deliberately.

"What good will that do?"

"I'll leave a note for Bernard, confessing about the books, and then Joe Chester can go. Even if the master did not get the note till after the boat started, he would come back for Joe."

"Now, Ralph, if you do this I am set adrift too, you see. I have told as many lies as you have, and if you tell on yourself it will come out somehow,--that I know."

"No, it won't, Ben."

"It will, as sure as anything. Anyhow my courage is gone too. I don't want to face Mr. Bernard and the other fellows. No, sir! I shall stick by you. Give us your hand, old fellow. 'Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish,' we'll stick together. What's the use of a chum that won't stick? Now, where shall we go? That's the question."

"That's the question," repeated Ralph, beginning to throw things into his open trunk, to be left till called for, because he expected this was to end his school-days at Massillon Academy.

"If we start off now on foot we shall be tracked, for Mr. Bernard will not rest till he gets news of us."

"That's so. And if we wait and go by train in the morning, all the town will know it. That will never do."

Both meditated a while, and then Ben said, waving an imaginary hat around his head, "I tell you! Let's go over to the Cape and see if we can't find a vessel bound out. F............