But the only voice he could hear, save that of the tree toad, was the voice of his conscience, which seemed to whisper over and over: “You’re a murderer! You’re a murderer!” “Who says so?” he almost shouted. “It’s a lie! It’s a lie! I am not a murderer!” But a gloomy echo answered: “Murderer!” CHAPTER XIII. FORCED TO FIGHT. Until the shadows began to deepen and night was close at hand, Chet lay hidden in the thicket. “I am getting what is due me,” he finally confessed. “No fellow ever treated me better than Merriwell has. What a fool I have been! It’s too late now—too late! I may as well go forth and confess. Let them hang me; what do I care!” Then the horror of the scaffold, the shadow of which seemed upon him, made his blood run cold through all his body. “They won’t hang me!” he half sobbed. “Why, they can’t! My father is a rich man! He will save me! They will never hang the son of D. Roscoe Arlington!” But still, although he kept telling himself over and over that he would escape such a fate, the benumbing fear of it would not leave him. “What a disgrace it will be to my mother! And June—how can she bear it! Poor June! Never any fellow had a better sister. But how have I treated her! This very day I insulted her before Merriwell and Darrell. Oh, if I could begin over again! But it is too late—too late!” Then he noted that darkness was coming on, and the shadows added to his terror. “I can’t stay here any longer,” he said. “I must get out of the woods.” Wearily he dragged himself to his feet and forced his way through the thicket. Again the branches whipped against him and tore at his clothes. At times, with savage rage, he snatched himself free from the clinging twigs. At last the darkness grew so great that the wretched lad feared he would be unable to find his way out of the wood. This fear seemed to give him new energy, and he plunged on and on, escaping at length from the jungle-like thicket and finally coming to the edge of the timber. In the west, where the sun had vanished, there was a faint, reddish tinge as of a conflagration. Overhead the sky was dark and grim. “There is the academy,” he murmured, as he saw gleaming lights in the distance. “Shall I go back there? What shall I do? I might run away, but it would do no good. They would overtake me. They would know then that I was guilty. If I go back I may be able to bluff it through. What a fool I was! Why didn’t I rob Merriwell of his trinkets and money and bury them somewhere in the woods? Then they might think it was done by a tramp. But it is too late for that now.” It was difficult, indeed, for him to return to the academy, but he set his teeth and started on a run. Across the fields he went, leaping the fences. In this manner he finally came into the road not far from the academy and unexpectedly ran fairly into a number of boys who were walking along that road.