"THE NEW YORK-CHRISTIANIA STEAMSHIP LINE, "per J. L. G." A moment of silence; outside on the campus the Bannister youths, preparing for the mass-meeting in the Auditorium, started cheering. Someone caught sight of Thor, standing now by the window of Hicks' room, on the third floor of Bannister Hall, and a few seconds later there sounded: "Thor! Thor! Thor! Thor will bring the Championship to old Bannister! Rah! Rah! Rah!--Thor!" "Oh," shouted T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., grinning happily, his arm across Thor's massive shoulders, "'All's well that ends well,' as Bill Shakespeare says. It's all right now, Thor. Fate dealt you a hard punch, but it served its purpose; for it made you realize how you would regret to leave college. Now you won't have to hustle and have all your time filled with toil and study; you can go after every phase of campus life, and serve old Bannister in so many ways." John Thorwald stood, a contented look on his placid, impassive face, gazing down at the campus below and hearing the plaudits of the excited collegians. The stately old elms, gaunt and bare, tossed their limbs against a leaden sky; a cold, dreary wind sent clouds of dry leaves scurrying down the concrete walks. In the faint moonlight that struggled through the clouds, the towers and spires of old Bannister were limned against the sky-line. Across the campus, on Bannister Field, the goal-posts, skeleton-like, kept their lonely vigil. On that field, in less than a week, the Gold and Green must face the crucial test--against Ballard's championship eleven, in the Biggest Game; and now, almost on the eve of battle, the shackles had been knocked from him; he was free of the great burden, free to serve his Alma Mater, to fight for the Gold and Green, to grow and develop into an all-round, representative college man. All of a sudden it dawned on the slow-thinking young Norwegian just how much this freedom to grow and expand meant to him, and he turned from the window. From below, the shouts of "Thor! Thor! Thor!" drifted, stirring his blood, as he looked at Hicks, Butch, Beef, Monty and Deacon. "'All's well that ends well,' you say. Hicks," he spoke slowly, his face joyous. "That's true; but I'm just starting, fellows. I'm just _beginning_ to live my college years, not for myself, but for old Bannister, for my Alma Mater, for I am awake, and _free_!" CHAPTER XII THEOPHILUS BETRAYS HICKS Big Butch Brewster, a life-sized picture of despair, roosted dejectedly on the Senior Fence, between the Gym and the Administration Building. It was quite cold, and also the beginning of the last study-period before Butch's final and most difficult recitation of the day, Chemistry. Yet instead of boning in his warm room, the behemoth Senior perched on the fence and stared gloomily into space.