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“Don’t be too sure of that,” Lon advised. “That Orkney boy thinks a heap of you, Sam—all the more, likely’s not, ’cause you’re kinder an acquired taste with him. Mind how you two started to scrap, and how you misjudged each other, and how he ran away, and how you was mighty glad to have a hand in bringin’ him back? And——”

Sam stopped him. “Lon, that’s all true. But that’s another story. This one’s about me, and I—well, I’m the goat. And for that crowd to keep bringing up to me how that woman grabbed me, and told me she’d give me a mince pie—but say! I didn’t mean to tell you.”

“I know you didn’t,” said Lon calmly. “But now you might as well go ahead, and fill in the blanks in the yarn.”

Sam drew a long breath. It would be a relief to have a confidant, and he trusted Lon’s discretion.

“Well, I’ll tell you—tell you the whole thing,” he said, and plunged into the narrative, beginning with his dash for the head of Mrs. Grant’s runaway horse, and continuing through the scene at the school and the interrupted performance at the Safety First Club.