Finally the boy’s blues grew so blue that no one was much surprised when he announced his desperate determination to journey to the town where Heady was at school, and visit him.  Reddy got permission from the Principal to leave on Friday night and return on Monday.  He had been saving up his spending-money for many a dismal week, and now he went about borrowing the spending-money of all his friends.

One Friday evening, then, after class hours, all the Lakerimmers went in a body down to the railroad-station to bid Reddy a short good-by.

Jumbo felt inclined to crack a few jokes upon Reddy’s inconsistency in struggling so hard to get away from his brother, and then struggling so hard to go back to him, but Tug told Jumbo that the subject was too tender for any of his flippancy.

On reaching the depot they found that Reddy’s train was half an hour late, and that a train from the opposite direction would get in first.  So they all stood solemnly around and waited.  When this train pulled into the station you can imagine the feelings of all when the first one to descend was—­

Was—­

Heady!

The Twins stood and stared at each other like tailors’ dummies for a moment, while the strangers on the platform and on the train wondered if they were seeing double.

Then Reddy and Heady dropped each his valise, and made a spring.  And each landed on the other’s neck.

Now Sawed-Off seized Heady’s valise, and Jumbo seized Reddy’s, and then they all set off together—­the reunited Twins, the completed Dozen—­for the campus.  The whole Twelve felt a new delight in the reunion, and realized for the first time how dear the Dozen was.

The Twins, of course, were blissfulest of all, and marched at the head of the column with their arms about each other, exchanging news and olds, both talking at once, and each understanding perfectly what the other was trying to say.

Thus they proceeded, glowing with mutual affection, till they reached the edge of the campus, when the others saw the Twins suddenly loose their hold on each other, and fall to, hammer and tongs, over some quarrel whose beginning the rest had not heard.

Jumbo grinned and murmured to Sawed-Off:  “The Twins are themselves again.”

But Sawed-Off hastened to separate and pacify them, and they set off again for Reddy’s room, arm in arm.  Later Heady arranged with his parents to let him stay at Kingston for the rest of the school-year.

* * * * *

Heady had not been back among his old cronies long before they had him up in a corner in Reddy’s room, and were all trying at the same time to tell him of the atrocious behavior of the Crows, their harsh treatment of Tug and History, the magnificent resistance, and the glorious rescue.

“It reminds me,” said History, “of one of Sir William Scott’s novels, with moats and castles, and swords and shields, and all sorts of beautiful things.”