A swift glance passed between the cadets, a glance which the Longs noticed and wondered at. Don again took the lead.
"Are you sure you have told us everything, Mr. Long?" he asked, looking directly into the former cadet captain's eyes. "Can't you tell us why you went around so glumly after Gates won the chance to compete against Roxberry, and again in the same manner after he had won against that school and had claimed the highest honors? It looked to everyone then as though you were jealous, but we have a feeling that there was something else. Suppose you tell us now."
Long hesitated, and his wife reached over and touched his arm. "George, you must tell everything to these boys. I know that you consider it honorable to keep quiet, and that you have done so for all of these years during which you have been cruelly misjudged, but I think it is high time you made some effort to clear yourself."
Long came to a decision. "Very well, boys. I'll tell you everything. Perhaps I've been foolish to keep it all to myself in this way, but I've thought it the honorable thing to do. The reason I looked so glum at the time Arthur Gates won in the competition examinations and later again Roxberry, is simply because Gates won them dishonestly!"
"Yes, both of them! Copied his answers out of textbooks for the elimination and later bribed a professor from Roxberry on the big examination! His money did it, and the professor mentioned gave him a complete list of the questions to be answered before the interscholastic contest. No wonder he won hands down!"
"I knew, judging by our class records, that I should have defeated Gates in the eliminations. But I didn't say anything until he won the big event with one hundred per cent. Then, on the night that I first placed that cup on my dresser, I pinned him down to the facts and made him confess that he had stolen the entire thing. Gates was always rather weak and he admitted it readily, even telling me the methods employed.
"As you can imagine, I was utterly appalled. We were always a school noted for our cadet spirit and our honor, and it had been literally smeared by Gates' hideous act. The next day he was to step up on the platform and take a cup that belonged to another school, or at least one which he had not won cleanly, and he was going to do it with a smile on his face. Boys, I'm no cry-baby, but I did cry a bit then for the utter hopelessness of a man who would do that. Now I know where I was wrong. I should have dragged him to the colonel or have beaten the life out of him, but I thought I knew of a better way. I talked for two solid hours to him about honor and then left him alone in my room, after he had promised to write down a confession and stand clean. It wasn't an easy thing to do on his part, but he agreed, and he said he'd write it where it would be eternal and there would be no mistake about it. I didn't understand that, but I went outside for a walk, to cool off in the fresh air.
