Then Shorty took the floor.  “Boys,” he yelled, “we won’t stand for it.  No Indian’s going to be head of this school, and Shag Larocque isn’t even a decent Indian, he’s a halfbreed, a French halfbreed, he’s—­”

The door burst open and Hal Bennington flung himself into the room; his trousers were dragged up over his nightshirt, his feet were in slippers without socks, his hair was unbrushed, his eyes were brilliant with fever, his face was pinched and grey; but his voice rang out powerfully, “Stop it, boys!” He had taken in the situation instantly—­the crowd breaking from all rule, two masters endeavoring to restore order, and Shag, alone, terribly alone, his back to the wall, his face to the tumult, standing like a wild thing driven into a corner, but yet gloriously game.  “Shorty, how dare you speak of Shag Larocque like that?” Hal cried furiously.

“And how dare you support him?” Shorty flung back.  “How dare you ask us to have as our leader a halfbreed North-West Indian, who is the son of your father’s cook?”

“Yes, he is the son of my father’s cook, and if I ever get the chance I’ll cook for him on my knees—­cook for him and serve him; he saved my life and nearly lost his own—­while you, Shorty, a far better swimmer, would have let me drown like a dog.”

“He’s nothing but a North-West halfbreed,” sneered Shorty, hiding his cowardice behind ill words for others.

“So is my mother a North-West halfbreed, and she’s the loveliest, the grandest woman in all Canada!” said Hal in a voice that rang clear, sharp, strong as a man’s.

There was a dead silence.  “Do you hear me, you fellows?” tormented Hal’s even voice again, “you who have of your own free will placed me, a quarter blood, as the leading boy in this school, my mother is a halfbreed, if you wish to use that refined term, and my mother is proud of it.  Her mother, my grandmother, wore a blanket and leggings and smoked a red stone pipe upon the Red River years ago, and I tell you my mother is proud of it, and so am I. I have never told you fellows this before—­what was the use?  I felt you would never understand, but you hear me now!  Do you quite grasp what I am telling you—­that my mother is a halfbreed?”

Shorty’s hand went blindly to his head; he looked dazed, breathless.  “Lady Bennington a halfbreed!” was all he said.

“Yes, Lady Bennington,” said Hal.  “And now will you let Shag read that address?” But Shag was at his elbow.

“Hal, Hal, oh, why did you tell them?” he cried.

Hal whirled about like one shot. “Tell them—­what do you mean by tell them?  Did you know this all along?”

“Yes,” said Shag regretfully.  “I always knew that Lady Bennington was half Indian, but I thought that you didn’t, and I promised father that I should never tell when I came down East.”  But softly as he spoke, the boys near by heard him.  “Do you mean to say,” Locke, gripping Shag’s shoulders in vice-like fingers, “that all this time we have been ragging you and running on you, that you knew Hal’s mother was a half Indian and you never said a word?”