"You are very anxious to help Prettyman Sweet, aren't you, Billy?"
suggested the girl of Central High as she rose to go.

"You bet I am."

"Why? You boys never thought much of him before, you know."

Billy flushed, but he stuck to his guns. "I tell you," he said, "we never
gave Purt a fair deal, I guess. He's all right. He isn't like Chet, or
Lance, or Reddy Butts, or the rest of the fellows, but there's good parts
to Purt."

"You think he has proved himself a better fellow than you thought before?"

"You bet!" said Billy vigorously. "He's been mighty nice to me; and I
always was playing jokes on him, and--Aw! when a fellow lies like I do in
bed and has so much time to think, he gets on to himself," added the boy
gruffly. "Sending dead fish to other fellows isn't such a smart joke after
all."

"I am going to see your friend, the Alaskan miner, now," the girl said,
squeezing the boy's hand understandingly.

"If you find out some way of jogging his memory, I'd like to be in on it,"
Billy cried.

"You shall," promised Laura, as she tripped away.

By this time Laura was so well known at the hospital that nobody stopped