What were the things, anyway ?" He said this with a great dread, for he already knew.
"Oh, I knew you were not guilty, Buck! Never fancy for a moment that I thought you guilty.

I told him you were innocent.

I knew that it couldn't be true that you were"-- she sobbed--"drunk when you went aboard the _Crested Foam_." Badger winced as if stabbed.

The dying boat-keeper, Barney Lynn, confessed to drugging Badger, but did not tell Winnie that Badger was drunk at the time.

The Westerner knew this, and had been, as he had admitted to Merriwell, just coward enough to be glad that Lynn did not tell Winnie the whole truth.