Bauer turned his face toward Walter with a look Walter never forgot. They were walking near one of the old ruins of an abandoned village. Pieces of broken pottery and grinders were littered over the ground. Felix motioned to Walter to go farther up into the mound where these ruins were scattered. "We can catch up with the teams. The folks will think we are looking for specimens," he said. Walter anticipated Bauer's story as he sat down by him and in the midst of an ancient cliff dwellers century old debris of a home, heard his chum's simple story. After it was told in Bauer's slow but in this case intense manner, Walter said: "I'm awfully sorry, old man; but I don't believe you stand a ghost of a chance with Helen." "I don't suppose I do," assented Bauer humbly. "But you can see now why I feel as I do and what it means to me to see a fellow like Van Shaw with her. It is not only torture to me. I think some one ought to tell her." "Tell her what?" "About Van Shaw. Such men have no business to make love to pure girls like Helen." Walter remonstrated. "It's absurd, Felix. He isn't making love to her. Nonsense." "He is!" said Bauer with a passionate burst that astonished Walter. "You do not know him as well as I do. I am acquainted with Van Shaw's history through the Raines-Bracken affair. You were not at Burrton when that happened. Nothing but the fear of losing some of old Van Shaw's legacies to the school prevented young Van Shaw's expulsion at the time. I can't go into the affair, Walter, but it gave me a loathing for Van Shaw that I never can overcome. It isn't because I feel holier than thou or anything like that; God knows I am in need of his great forgiveness; but it seems as wrong for us to leave your sister unacquainted with the real character of Van Shaw as it would to let her play with one of these rattlesnakes we are going to see in Oraibi the day after to-morrow, not knowing how deadly they were." "Who'll tell her? Will you?" "I? How can I do it. No. But it would seem quite the thing for you or your mother------" "Mother doesn't know him," Walter interrupted somewhat curtly. "I don't see how I can say anything," Walter went on, with the caution many school boys feel about telling on others. "I really believe Helen is capable of protecting herself. And one of the quickest ways to get a girl interested in a man is to hint that he is not as good as he might be." "That's your philosophy imbibed from your six best sellers," retorted Felix. Walter was a constant novel reader. "I am going to have a talk with your mother about the whole affair. She will know what to do." "Will you tell her how you feel about Helen?" Felix winced. "She knows already." "Oh, you have told her." "No, she knows without my telling." "Have you spoken to Helen?" The colour swept up over Bauer's face. "No, and I never will." "Does she know?" Walter persisted.