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246 law as well as state law—must be punished or else there will be neither order nor safety. I want you to go back, Harry.”

The boy was troubled and he showed it.

“You an’ me always got along all right, jedge,” he urged, “but that ain’t fair.”

“You have n’t been fair to me, or to Mr. Raymond, or to the principal,” said the judge.

“There 'd be trouble if anybody else said that to me, jedge,” the boy asserted aggressively.

“But it ’s true,” insisted the judge, “When you went in to settle things for yourself, you were trying to make your own laws, and that ’s anarchy, I am constantly sending people to jail because they refuse to accept any law except that which they make for themselves. This leads them to break the laws that are made for the common good, and they aught to go to jail.”

“Ought I to go to jail?” asked Harry.

“Well, I am quite sure you ought to go back to school,’ said the judge. “You have made a mistake, Harry,—a natural one under the circumstances,—and when a good man makes a mistake he accepts the consequences without a whimper.”

“Nobody ever heard me whimper!” protested the boy.

“To run away is much the same thing. If a man does wrong and owns up to it, you like him a good deal better than you do the man who does wrong and then hides and lies and makes excuses.”

“But, jedge,” pleaded the boy, “after being an officer of the court with you, it’s mighty hard to be bossed round by a lot of fellers that think they know it all. They don’t treat me the way you do.”

“Why not be an officer of the school, Harry? Don’t they have boy officers?”

“Sure. And that’s just what I don’t like. I never had to knuckle under to any kid before.”

“But you ’ve got to learn to do that before you can be an officer,” explained the judge. “The man who can’t obey can’t command successfully. We all have to learn that. The soldier, above all others, has to learn that, and I want you to be a good soldier, Harry—a good soldier in the battle of life. And I want you to be fair with Mr. Raymond. If you don’t think you are treated justly, tell him about it; write to me, too, if you wish. But no one is wise enough to settle everything for himself, without advice. That ’s why we have legislatures and councils and courts.”

“Don’t you really think I was fair?” asked the boy, doubtfully.

“No, I don’t, Harry.”

The boy pondered this with clouded brow.

“You ’re the squarest man I know, jedge,” he said finally; “an’ if you say so I ’ll go back all right.”

“I do say so, Harry,” the judge said earnestly, “I want you to go back and face the music like a man. I want you to stick it out, and go with the others into their summer camp at the end of the school year; I want you to make such a record that you will be a cadet officer the next time you come to see me. Then you will be ready for Mr. Raymond and he will be ready for you. Take a fresh start right where you left off.”

“In the guard-house?” asked Harry.

“If necessary, yes; but I ‘ll give you a letter—”

“Not for me!” interrupted the boy, quickly. “They “d think I was sent back. I’m goin’ by myself—like a man.”

Like a man he went, but, with a boy’s whimsical idea of taking a fresh start just where he had left off, he returned under cover of darkness through the window by which he had made his escape. And the principal, notified by telegraph of the situation, watched and waited in vain. Dick Tyner came back in charge of his father late that evening, but no Harry had appeared. In the interest of discipline it was necessary that Dick should complete his term in the guard-house, his father taking the same view of this that the principal did, Dick, having escaped, was half a hero in the eyes of the boys, in spite of the ignominious method of his return. Harry, when the guardhouse door was opened, was all of a hero in their eyes. For out of the darkness he rose, struck his heels together, and saluted.

“I ’m here all right,” he said, “but I was n’t sent back. I talked it over with the jedge, an’ I came back—like a man.”