But the next morning he was both astounded and relieved, at the assembling of school, to find the three truants back in their places.  His urgent questioning of them brought only the one and same response from each:  “Got lost on the ridge.”  He further gathered that they had slept out for two nights, and were together all the time, but nothing further, and no details were given.  The master was puzzled.  They evidently expected punishment; that was no doubt also the wish of their parents; but if their story was true, it was a serious question if he ought to inflict it.  There was no means of testing their statement; there was equally none by which he could controvert it.  It was evident that the whole school accepted it without doubt; whether they were in possession of details gained from the truants themselves which they had withheld from him, or whether from some larger complicity with the culprits, he could not say.  He told them gravely that he should withhold equally their punishment and their pardon until he could satisfy himself of their veracity, and that there had been no premeditation in their act.  They seemed relieved, but here, again, he could not tell whether it sprang from confidence in their own integrity or merely from youthful hopefulness that delayed retribution never arrived!

It was a month before their secret was fully disclosed.  It was slowly evolved from corroborating circumstances, but always with a shy reluctance from the boys themselves, and a surprise that any one should think it of importance.  It was gathered partly from details picked up at recess or on the playground, from the voluntary testimony of teamsters and packers, from a record in the county newspaper, but always shaping itself into a consecutive and harmonious narrative.

It was a story so replete with marvelous escape and adventure that the master hesitated to accept it in its entirety until after it had long become a familiar history, and was even forgotten by the actors themselves.  And even now he transcribes it more from the circumstances that surrounded it than from a hope that the story will be believed.

WHAT HAPPENED

Master Provy Smith had started out that eventful morning with the intention of fighting Master Jackson Tribbs for the “Kingship” of Table Ridge—­a trifling territory of ten leagues square—­Tribbs having infringed on his boundaries and claimed absolute sovereignty over the whole mountain range.  Julian Fleming was present as referee and bottle-holder.  The battle ground selected was the highest part of the ridge.  The hour was six o’clock, which would allow them time to reach school before its opening, with all traces of their conflict removed.  The air was crisp and cold,—­a trifle colder than usual,—­and there was a singular thickening of the sun’s rays on the ridge, which made the distant peaks indistinct and ghostlike.  However, the two combatants stripped “to the buff,” and Fleming patronizingly took position at the “corner,” leaning upon a rifle, which, by reason of his superior years, and the wilderness he was obliged to traverse in going to school, his father had lent him to carry.  It was that day a providential weapon.