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