T. Haviland Hicks, Jr. was silent as he stood by the window of his room, gazing down at the campus where the collegians were gathering before marching to the Auditorium for the nightly mass-meeting that would vainly strive to arouse a fighting spirit in the football "rooters." That blithesome, heedless, happy-go-lucky youth was capable of far more serious thought than old Bannister knew; and more, he possessed the rare ability to read character; in the case of Thor, he saw vastly deeper than his indignant comrades, who beheld only the surface of the affair. They knew only that John Thorwald, a veritable Colossus, had exhibited football prowess that practically promised the State Championship to old Bannister, and then--he had quit the game. They understood only that Thor refused to play simply because he did not want to, and as to why their appeals to his college spirit and his love for his Alma Mater were unheeded they were puzzled. But the gladsome Hicks, always serious beneath his cheerful exterior, when old Bannister's interests were at stake, or when a collegian's career might be blighted, when the tragedy could be averted, fully understood. Of course, as originator of the Billion-Dollar Mystery, and producer of the Prodigious Prodigy, he knew more about the strange John Thorwald than did his mystified comrades. He knew that Thor, as he named him, was just a vast hulk of humanity, stolid, unimaginative of mind, slow-thinking, a dull, unresponsive mass, as yet unstirred by that strange, subtle, mighty thing called college spirit. He realized that Thor had never had a chance to understand the real meaning of campus life, to grasp the glad fellowship of the students, to thrill with a great love for his Alma Mater. All that must come in time. The blond giant had toiled all his life, had labored among men where everything was practical and grim. Small wonder, then, that he failed utterly to see why the youths "loafed on the campus, or in their rooms, twanging banjos and guitars, singing silly songs, and skylarking." "I must save him," murmured Hicks softly, for the others in his room were talking of Thor. "Oh, imagine that powerful body, imbued with a vast love for old Bannister, think of Thor, thrilling with college spirit. Why, Yale's and Harvard's elevens combined could not stop his rushes, then. I must save him from himself, from the condemnation of the fellows, who just don't understand. I must, some way, awaken him to a complete understanding of college life in its entirety, but how? He is so different from Roddy Perkins, or Deke Radford."