Heady was the first to leave town.  He slipped away on an early morning train without telling any one, for he felt very much ashamed of his stubbornness; and he and his brother shook hands with each other as nervously as two prize-fighters.

A few days later the five sixths of the Dozen that were booked for Kingston stood on the crowded platform of the Lakerim railroad-station, bidding good-by to all the parents they had, and all the friends.  All of them had paid long calls on their best girls the evening before, and exchanged photographs and locks of hair and various keepsakes more or less sentimental and altogether useless.  So, now that they were in public, they all shook hands very formally:  Tug with a girl several years older than he; Pretty with the beautiful Enid; Quiz with the fickle Cecily Brown; bashful Bobbles with the bouncing Betsy; B.J. with a girl who had as many freckles as B.J. had had imaginary encounters with the bandits who had tried to steal her; the unwilling Sleepy with a lively young woman who broke his heart by congratulating him on being able to go to Kingston; tiny Jumbo with plump Carrie Shields, whom he had once fished out of the water; and Reddy with the girl over whom he and his brother had had their bitterest quarrels, and who could not for the life of her tell which one she liked the better.

[Illustration:  Stop the train and wait for me, I’m going to Kingston, too!]

But there was one very little girl in the crowd whose greatest sorrow, strangely enough, was the fact that she had no one to bid good-by to, since her dearest friend, the huge Sawed-Off, was not to go to Kingston.

Just as the engine began to ring its warning bell, and the conductor to wave the people aboard, there was a loud clatter of hoofs, and the rickety old Lakerim carryall came dashing up, drawn by the lively horses Sawed-Off had once saved from destroying themselves and the Dozen in one fell swoop down a steep hill.  The carryall lurched up to the station came to a sudden stop, and out bounced—­who but Sawed-Off himself, loaded down with bundles, and yelling at the top of his voice: 

“Stop the train and wait for me.  I’m going to Kingston, too!”

II

There was just time to dump his trunk into the baggage-car, and bundle him and his bundles on to the platform, before the train steamed away; and the eleven Lakerimmers were so busy waving farewell to the waving and farewelling crowd at the station that it was some minutes before they could find time to learn how Sawed-Off came to be among them.  When he explained that he had made arrangements to work his way through the Academy, they took no thought for the hard struggle in front of him, they were so glad to have him along.  Jumbo and he sat with their arms around each other all the way to Kingston, their hearts too full for anything but an occasional “Hooray!”