There was a dead silence. "Do you hear me, you fellows?" tormented Hal's even voice again, "you who have of your own free will placed me, a quarter blood, as the leading boy in this school, my mother is a halfbreed, if you wish to use that refined term, and my mother is proud of it. Her mother, my grandmother, wore a blanket and leggings and smoked a red stone pipe upon the Red River years ago, and I tell you my mother is proud of it, and so am I. I have never told you fellows this before--what was the use? I felt you would never understand, but you hear me now! Do you quite grasp what I am telling you--that _my mother is a halfbreed_?" Shorty's hand went blindly to his head; he looked dazed, breathless. "Lady Bennington a halfbreed!" was all he said. "Yes, Lady Bennington," said Hal. "And now will you let Shag read that address?" But Shag was at his elbow. "Hal, Hal, oh, why did you tell them?" he cried. Hal whirled about like one shot. "_Tell them_--what do you mean by tell _them_? Did you know this all along?" "Yes," said Shag regretfully. "I always knew that Lady Bennington was half Indian, but I thought that you didn't, and I promised father that I should never tell when I came down East." But softly as he spoke, the boys near by heard him. "Do you mean to say," Locke, gripping Shag's shoulders in vice-like fingers, "that all this time we have been ragging you and running on you, that you knew Hal's mother was a half Indian and you never said a word?" "Why should I?" asked Shag, raising his eyebrows. "Boys," said Locke, facing the room like a man, "we've been--well, just cads. And right here I propose that Shag Larocque read the address to His Excellency to-day." "And I second the motion," said Shorty--"second it heartily"; then he walked over to Shag. "I'm not going to ask you to shake hands with me, Larocque," he said; "I've been too much of a cad for that. You must despise me too much to forgive me, despise me for my cowardice in not going with you to help Hal when he was drowning, despise me for my mean prejudices, despise me for--oh, pshaw! I ain't fit to even ask you to forgive me. I ain't fit to even offer you my hand." "Hold on! hold on!" smiled Shag. "There is nothing to despise in a chap who is big enough to offer an apology. Here's my hand, Shorty. Will you take it at last?" And Shorty took it. A few hours later, just before Shag stepped out on the platform to read the address to His Excellency, he paid a flying visit to Hal, who, feeling much better, in fact quite on the mend, was sitting up in bed devouring toast and broth. "Luck to you, old Shag," he said between mouthfuls. "Oh, Hal, you've been all the world to me," was all he could reply. "And you'll be all the world to my dad and mother when they hear what you have done, fishing me out of the drink and saving my life." But Shorty shouting up the hall interrupted them.