Mr. DeVinne was the teacher in the school. It was the best school yet, according to the Cody girls, because there were more pupils, and Mr. DeVinne seemed to know how to teach. Of course the school was not graded; it consisted of only one room, where the boys and girls sat on long benches, with other benches for desks. The scholars ranged from little Eliza Cody, who was six, up to big boys of twenty. The pupils had come from all over――from Missouri, Illinois, Vermont, Carolina, Mississippi, and the other States east and south. Davy, who had been herding for Russell, Majors & Waddell, and had proved his pluck, felt as big as any of them. Steve Gobel, who tried to be a kind of boss (when Billy Cody wasn’t there), started in to tease Davy, who was little and red-headed. Davy stood the teasing as long as he could; but when Steve grabbed his hair and pulled, saying: “Here, Red! Lemme warm my fingers,” Davy flared up. He would have fought Steve then and there, but another boy sprang between them. “You’d better let him alone, Steve Gobel, or Billy Cody’ll give you another licking.” “Yes, he will!” cried Helen Cody and all the girls. “He’s coming back pretty soon now.” “Aw, he never licked me. He ain’t big enough,” snarled Steve. “Well, he’s man enough, whether he’s big enough or not,” retorted the boys. And―――― “He did, too, lick you. And he’ll do it again as soon as he gets home,” called the Cody girls, loyally. Steve growled, but he strolled off and after that he let Davy pretty much alone. Davy learned that Steve had bullied Billy Cody, too――until in a fight Billy had been made mad enough to hurt him. Billy was the school’s hero, for he was out on the plains doing a man’s work and helping to support his mother and sisters. Everybody liked Billy if they knew him, or they wanted to see him if they didn’t know him. The cold, snowy winter of Kansas and a new West set in. The days and nights were below zero, blizzards of wind and snow swept through plains and valleys; and in the frontier cabins the settlers schemed hard to keep warm. His chores at the Shields cabin and his trips to school and back kept Davy busy; but he must make the best of his school term, for when winter quit school would quit too. Once in a while he stopped in at the Cody home; Mrs. Cody was putting up a large house as a hotel and eating place for the overland travellers, particularly the teamsters of the wagon trains. The girls named it “The Valley Grove House.” Then, in February, who should appear at school but Billy himself. “Hurrah! There’s Billy Cody!” “Hello, Red!” “Hello, Billy.” “When did you get back, Billy?” asked everybody. “Yesterday.” “Where’ve you been this time?” “Out to Laramie and Fort Walbach at Cheyenne Pass. Been trapping on the Chugwater, south of Laramie, too.” “How’d you come back? With a bull train?”