“Me—­speak?” exploded Sonora; and again; “Me—­speak?  Oh, the devil!”

“Sh-sh!” came warningly from several of the boys.

“Why, I didn’t mean that, o’ course,” apologised Sonora, colouring, and incidentally expectorating on Bucking Billy’s boots.  But to his infinite sorrow no protest worthy of the word was forthcoming from the apparently insensible Bucking Billy.

“Go on!  Go on!” urged the school.

Sonora coughed behind his hand; then he began his address.

“Gents, I look on this place as something more ’n a place to sit around an’ spit on—­the stove.  I claim that there’s culture in the air o’ Californay an’ we’re here to buck up again it an’ hook on.”

“Hear!  Hear!  Hear!” voiced the men together, while their fists came down heavily upon the improvised desks before them.

“With these remarks,” concluded Sonora, “I set.”  And suiting the action to the word he plumped himself down heavily upon the bench, but only to rise again quickly with a cry of pain and strike Trinidad a fierce blow, who, he rightly suspected, was responsible for the pin that had found a lodging-place in the seat of his trousers.

At that not even the Girl’s remonstrances prevented the boys, who had been silent as mice all the time that the instrument of torture was being adjusted, from giving vent to roars of laughter; and for a moment things in the school-room were decidedly boisterous.

“Sit down, boys, sit down!” ordered the Girl again and again; but it was some moments before she could get the school under control.  When, finally, the skylarking had ceased, the Girl said in a voice which, despite its strange weariness, was music to their ears: 

“Once more we meet together.  There’s ben a lot happened o’ late that has learned me that p’r’aps I don’t know as much as I tho’t I did, an’ I can’t teach you much more.  But if you’re willin’ to take me for what I am—­jest a woman who wants things better, who wants everybody all they ought to be, why I’m willin’ to rise with you an’ help reach out—­” She stopped abruptly, for Handsome was waving his hand excitedly at her, and asked a trifle impatiently:  “What is it, Handsome?”

Handsome rose and hurriedly went over to her.

“Whisky, teacher, whisky!  I want it so bad—­”

The school rose to its feet as one man.

“Teacher!  Teacher!” came tumultuously from all, their hands waving frantically in the air.  And then without waiting for permission to speak the cry went up:  “Whisky!  Whisky!”

“No, no whisky,” she denied them flatly.

Gradually the commotion subsided, for all knew that she meant what she said, at least for the moment.

“An’ now jest a few words more on the subject o’ not settin’ judgment on the errin’—­a subject near my heart.”

This remark of the Girl’s brought forth murmurs of wonder, and in the midst of them the door was pushed slowly inward and The Sidney Duck, wearing the deuce of spades which the Sheriff had pinned to his jacket when he banished him from their presence for cheating at cards, stood on the threshold, looking uncertainly about him.  At once all eyes were focused upon him.