There was plenty of excitement in and about Lowell the morning after Hans and Hal returned from Boston. In fact there had been a good deal of excitement the evening before, but of this Hans and Hal knew nothing. They were in Boston having a good time with Delvin.

“What’s all the bustle about?” asked Hal as he and Hans entered the dining room at training table next morning.

“What! haven’t you heard?” asked Robb, to whom more than anyone else Hal seemed to be talking. “The diamond studded Championship Medal was stolen from the safe of the University treasurer’s office yesterday between twelve and one o’clock. There is no clue of any kind. Orders are from the faculty that every student in the University shall report at the dean’s study before six o’clock to-night, and explain his movements after twelve o’clock yesterday. Seems funny that they should suspect any student of doing it.”

“Wasn’t there some one in the room where the safe is all day yesterday?” asked Hal.

“What makes them think it was stolen between twelve and one o’clock? How do they know it wasn’t stolen a week or a month ago?” asked Hans.

“It seems that the secretary of the University brought it back from the jewelers at noon yesterday. It had been taken there to have one of the settings tightened. He had put it in the safe. A few minutes after one o’clock, Mr. Williams, the treasurer, came in and asked if the medal had come back yet. ‘I just brought it over,’ said the secretary, and walked over to the safe to get it. It wasn’t there and he almost collapsed.

“They searched everywhere a dozen times. It couldn’t be found. Finally they were forced to conclude it had been stolen. Who could have taken it? No one but students had called at the office during that hour. It was hard to believe any student could have taken it, but they had to admit the possibility.

“The police were notified and asked if they had seen any suspicious characters around the building. The Chief instructed all the patrolmen in town to bring in any suspicious characters.

“Finally late last night,” continued Robb, “the policeman down at the station reported that shortly after one o’clock yesterday a young fellow had asked to be directed to a pawnshop. He was very much excited and in a hurry. Might have been a student, but he thought he was a stranger because most students would know where the pawnshop was, even if they didn’t have any business there.

“So they have this cop stationed down by the entrance and he is looking at the students as they go in thinking he can identify the fellow if he should happen to be a student.”

“Seems silly to me,” remarked Hans, “that they should think any student of Lowell who would do a trick like that would be so bone-headed as to try to pawn it in this town. I doubt if any pawnbroker in the country would take a thing like that. It would be recognized immediately.”

“He could take out the diamonds and melt it up,” said Talkington, who had joined in the discussion.

Hal’s face was white. He knew they were looking for him, thinking that he was the guilty party! What should he do? He could account for all of his time. He would tell them the exact facts, every detail, even his visit to the pawnshop in Boston to find out what his watch was worth. Hans was with him all the time, excepting in the pawnshop, and so was Delvin most of the time. The pawnbroker would no doubt testify for him that he simply made an inquiry there and pawned nothing.

After breakfast he said to Hagner with as much self-control as he could muster, “Hans, I’m the fellow they are after. When I was crazy to get away yesterday for home, and was bent on pawning my watch, I went up to that policeman at the station and asked him where I could find a pawnshop.”

“Gee!” said Hans, “that looks bad, doesn’t it? Yes! it looks bad, but only looks. You’re all right. Wasn’t the pawnshop closed when you got there? Isn’t it the only pawnshop in town? They can find out that it was closed, can’t they? Wasn’t I with you all the time in Boston and on the way there and back? And wasn’t Delvin with us, too?”

“All but during my visit to the shop,” said Hal, “when I learned the value of my watch.”

“Well,” returned Hans, “the pawnbroker will know you if it comes to that, and can testify that you didn’t leave anything there.”

“That’s what I thought,” said Hal. “I am going right down there and tell the whole story. That will let me out, except that I may have to make another trip to Boston.”

“I’ll go along,” said Hans.

So they went on down. They didn’t see any policeman around outside. Inside they found Mr. Williams, the treasurer, who came to meet them. Hal told him that they had heard the police were trying to locate a fellow who had asked one of them to direct him to a pawnshop yesterday. He was the fellow, and he said he wanted to tell all about it, which he did.

Mr. Williams was impressed with the straightforwardness of his story and told him he needn’t worry about it. He felt sure it wasn’t any student that had stolen the medal. Only they had to run down this clew and he was sorry he had been annoyed. Hal told him he would like some one to go to the pawnbroker in Boston and verify what he had said about his visit there just to remove any possibility of suspicion that anyone might have against him on that account. He knew, of course, it would prove to be as he said, and that was the only space of time he was alone while in Boston. Without doing this, people might suspect that both Hans and himself, having made such an unusual trip to Boston together so soon after the robbery occurred, were in it and he didn’t want anything left undone to prove that neither of them was in any way connected with the matter or subject to suspicion.

Hal left with Hans, very much relieved. Not that he had anything to be worried over, but the way the matter had come about had upset him more than he himself could tell, and now that he had explained himself fully, his feelings again became normal, and he went about his work of the day in a much better frame of mind than he had enjoyed since he had the accident.