At nine o’clock the excursionists started for the river forty-five people strong. To prove the sincerity of the social aspect of the excursion, Thropper and the other lovers separated themselves from their beloveds and walked, sacrificially, either with other young women or mingled freely with the male members of the party! Thus two by two and three by three we walked down the rutted, soggy lane past the root-fenced sheep pastures where the woolly young lambs squeaked and bleated like crying children, down past the grove where the wood-choppers were measuring cord wood; past dismal, wind-swept forests of burnt stumps and rusty underbrush, over which desolation huge vultures soared, and pivoted themselves in wait for prey; past clayey roads over which mud boats were dragged by struggling horses and oxen, past pig-pastures torn up by the sniffing snouts of the ruminants. Then we entered a fresh, dampish wood-path which led us along the rocky bed of a river over which a thin stream of water churned with great energy as if to impress us with its importance. At last we entered a cleared grass space over which the sun held itself and lighted gloriously the deep pool of water the river had become. Here we deposited our lunch boxes and began to arrange our games. So far the party had remained one, much to the admiration of Brock. But now, after the lunch boxes had been unloaded, a rearrangement of the party began to take place. Thropper, who had been walking and talking with me, hurried over to the side of his beloved, and said: “There’s a magic tree farther along the path, growing right through a big boulder, about which there’s a legend of Indians. I’ll tell you about it!” That was all. They two passed out of sight while the angry Brock gazed speechlessly after them. That was the signal for other couples who wanted to see the “magic tree,” and to such an extent did the defection of the lovers take place, that before long only two couples remained with the bachelors to share the games we tried to play. By the lunch hour, however, they came from their expeditions from this side and that, unapologetic for leaving us, came to eat their lunches and then go off again, paying no heed to Brock’s impassioned appeal to their _esprit de corps_. When the hour for the return to the University arrived, the couples returned and then either went ahead, arm in arm, or loafed behind, immersed in their own thoughts; leaving us bachelors to amuse ourselves by bantering flings at them, which, however, were no more than peas aimed at the mailed shell of an armadillo. “It’ll be the same over again next time!” growled Brock. “These lovers--oh!” _Chapter XIII. How One Dollar and a Half Secured “The Devil in Society.” The Medicine Chest which Became a Tract Depository under the Teachings of a New Creed. How I Stuck to Orthodoxy_