On their trail came a motley assortment of excited boys, rushing out of every room. Without a single hope they tore around to the back of the Upper, and, there, sitting bolt upright in the position in which he had fallen, they found George Barker Smith. They stopped astounded. "Smith, is that you!" Egghead said, in a hoarse, incredulous whisper, and the answer returned faintly: "It's me, Egghead." "Are you dying?" "I don't know." "Are your bones all broken?" "I don't know--I'm full of gravel!" The boys gazed astounded up at the dark outline three stories above them. Half-way, the slanting roof of the porch had broken the fall and saved him from certain death. They gazed in silence, and then the chorus arose: "Holy cats!" "Great snakes!" [Illustration: "'I don't know--I'm full of gravel!'"] "Marvellous!" "Can you beat that!" "Mamma!" "Simply marvellous!" Smith, still in a comatose condition, caught the sounds of astonishment, and suddenly comprehended, first, that he had done something without parallel in school history, and, second, that he was alive. "You fellows, get me upstairs," he said, gruffly, "and send for Doctor Charlie. I want to get this gravel out of me." Macnooder and Turkey reverently carried him to his room, while Shy Thomas, who was clothed in a dressing-gown, went streaming across the campus for the doctor. A quick examination revealed the amazing fact that not a bone had been fractured. "You've got a few bruises, and that's all, by George!" said the doctor, looking at him in open-eyed wonder. "It's the gravel that bothers me," said Smith, twisting on his side. "You did sit down rather hard," remarked the doctor, with a twitch of his lips. In half an hour he had removed thirty-seven pieces of gravel, large and small, and departed, after ordering rest and a few days' sojourn in bed. Hardly had the doctor departed when Hickey arrived, full of importance and enthusiasm. For a moment he stood at the foot of the bed surveying the bruised hero with the affectionate and fatherly joy of a Barnum suddenly discovering a new freak. "My boy," he said, happily, "you're a wonder. You're great. You're it. There's been nothing like it ever happened. Smithy, my boy, you're a genius. You're the wonder of the age!" "I suppose everyone's excited?" said Smith, faintly realising that Fate had touched him in her flight and made him famous. "Excited? Why, they're howling with curiosity," responded Hickey, who, having cautiously turned the key in the door, returned and continued with importance: "Say, but I suppose you don't realise what we can make of this, do you?" "What do you mean?" said Smith. "First, where are those thirty-seven pieces of gravel?" "I threw them away." "My boy, my boy!" said Hickey, sitting down and burying his head in his arms. "Pearls before swine." "But they're over there in the basket." Hickey, with a cry of joy, flung himself on them, counted them and thrust them into his pocket.