His confidence was justified. After school opened next morning
Jeff was called up and publicly thrashed for playing truant. As a
prelude to the corporal punishment the principal delivered a
lecture. He alluded to the details of the fight gravely, with
selective discrimination, giving young Farnum to understand that
he had reached the end of his rope. If any more such brutal
affairs were reported to him he would be punished severely.

The boy took the flogging in silence. He had learned to set his
teeth and take punishment without whimpering. From the hardest
whipping Webber had ever given he went to his seat with a white,
set face that stared straight in front of him. Young as he was, he
knew it had not been fair and his outraged soul cried out at the
injustice of it. The principal had seized upon the truancy as an
excuse to let him escape from an investigation of the cause of the
fight. Ned Merrill got off because his father was a rich man and
powerful in the city. He, Jeff, was whipped because he was an
outcast and had dared lift his hand against one of his betters.

And there was no redress. It was simply the way of the world.

Jeff and his mother were down that afternoon to see their new
friend off in the _City of Skook._ Captain Chunn found a chance to
draw the boy aside for a question.

"Is it all right with Mr. Webber? What did he do?"

"Oh, he gave me a jawing," the boy answered.