He felt this was a decision that should be acted on at once. He decided to pack up right away. He didn’t stop to think he didn’t have anything like the amount necessary to pay his fare home. Hans wasn’t in his room and wasn’t to be back until three o’clock, so he thought in his excitement that he would pack hurriedly and get out without seeing anybody. He did so. He wasn’t going to be dependent on his folks or anyone else for another day. He left a note for Hans. This was at noon. He hunted up a time table and found that the train for Boston to catch the through train for the West left at three o’clock. He would buy his ticket and go. He had no thought of changing his mind. He went to the depot to get his ticket. All at once, he realized that he hadn’t any money. What was he to do now? It was one o’clock already. Hal’s mind worked quickly. How could he get two hundred dollars? Quickly he ran over in his mind the things he had that he might raise some money on. There was only one thing that was worth anything like that sum. At first he couldn’t think of parting with that. It was his watch. He had never told the story of the watch in Lowell to anyone but Hans. The previous winter while swimming in the lake at home in California, a rowboat in which there had been a man and two little girls, was suddenly capsized. Hal was a regular “fish” in the water, just as natural there as in anything that he understood at all, and he swam to the rescue. He caught one of the little girls and held her up with one hand while he righted the boat, and he then put her in. By that time the man, who was the father of the little girls, had the other one safe, but he was a big man and fat and couldn’t swim very well, so Hal helped them both into the boat again, jumped in himself and rowed them back to the shore near the hotel where they were stopping. They were tourists from the East and wanted to reward Hal, but he didn’t think he had done anything so great, so he ran away. That was the last Hal heard of it, until a month later a package came by express addressed to him. He opened it and found a letter and a very fine gold watch with two large diamonds in the case. The letter was from the father of the two little girls. He said he had found out who Hal was and begged him to accept the watch in token of the sender’s gratitude for the rescue of the little girls. They were twins and exactly alike--so were the diamonds in the case. Hal hardly ever wore the watch and so very few knew he had it. Now he decided to pawn it if he could borrow enough on it to get to California.