It was not likely, however, that Hester Grimes would get her deserts. They were all agreed on that point, if on no other. That Wednesday afternoon when the girls separated it was with drooping spirits--all but Laura Belding, at least. Perhaps it was because she always had so many irons in the fire that trouble seemed to roll off her young shoulders like rainwater off a duck's feathers. At least, when she started for the street car that took her to the hospital before she went home, she was cheerful of countenance and smiling. She carried that same cheerfulness into the hospital itself and to Billy Long's ward. The active Billy was, as he himself expressed it, "fed up" on the hospital by now. He was grateful for what they had done for him there and the way in which they treated him in every way, but confinement was beginning to wear on his spirits. "Gee, Laura Belding!" ejaculated the young patient, seizing her hand with both his own when she appeared, "a sight of you is just a stop-station this side of eternity. Have they changed the hours? Aren't they twice as long as they used to be?" "No, indeed, my poor boy," Laura said. "There are only sixty minutes in each. I wish I could shorten the time for you." "Take it from me," growled Short and Long, having hard work to keep back the tears, "this being in bed is the bunk. Don't let anybody tell you different." But Laura caught his attention the next moment with Purt Sweet's trouble. What Chet had found out from Dan Smith, Hester Grimes' neighbor, interested the quick mind of Billy Long immensely. "Gee! I knew it must be something like that. Sure! Purt is shielding somebody for Hester. That's it!" "Have you no idea who it can be? The man who drove the car, I mean, or the one who possibly took the nine-ten express out of town that night? Hester has no brothers----" "Say!" exclaimed Billy, "there is somebody who will know. If Purt was there at the party, so was Lil Pendleton." "Lily!" exclaimed Laura. "I never thought of her." "And if she is likely to be sore on Hester now, as you say you all are," Billy continued, "she won't be for shielding Hester or any of her friends or relatives. Let me tell you that!" "I believe she must have been at the party. Hester invites her to everything of the kind she has; although she seldom invites any of the other girls of Central High." "Go to it!" urged the patient "Ask Lil Pendleton. I'd like to have Purt cleared of this. I told that man from Alaska so. But, gee, Laura! I wish we could find some way of giving him the right steer." "You mean you would like to help him find his name and identity?" "Yep. He says sometimes he feels that he is just going to remember--then it all dissipates in his mind like a cloud. He's bad off, he is!" "I am going to see him now. I have an idea, Billy."