Langridge struggled to his feet, anger rendering him almost speechless. He started toward Phil, who stood in the attitude of a trained boxer, awaiting the attack. The light from a new moon faintly illuminated the scene, and the figures stood out with considerable distinctness against the background of the dark building.
Wallops, the messenger, was shrinking away, anxious to escape unobserved, though he cast a look of gratitude at Phil. Tom was surprised at his chum’s sudden attack, but he stood ready to aid him, in case Gerhart should make an effort to take sides. As for Phil and Langridge, they faced each other, one eager with righteous anger to continue the chastisement, the other mad with the lust of shame and unreasoning.
“What—what did you do that for?” asked Langridge thickly, and his hand went to his jaw where Phil’s fist had landed. His head was singing yet from the powerful blow.
“You know why,” replied Phil calmly. “Because you’re a coward.”
“Hold on!” cried the bully, taking a step forward. “I’ve stood about all I’m going to from you.”
He looked around at Gerhart. The freshman stood passive, and Langridge showed some surprise.
“Aren’t you going to stand by me?” asked the sophomore of his ally.
“Of course,” muttered Gerhart, but there was no heart in his tones. He remembered what his crony had said regarding Phil’s prowess.
“Certainly,” put in Tom with gentle voice. “We’ll make a quartet of it, if you like.”
“What are you interfering with my affairs for?” went on Langridge, taking no notice of Tom.
“Because it’s the affair of any decent college man to interfere when he catches a dirty coward beating a fellow smaller than he is!” and Phil fairly bit off the words.
“Take care!” cried Langridge. “You’re going too far. I’ll make a class matter of it if you call me a coward again!”
“I wish you would!” burst out Phil. “I’d like to make a charge against you before the whole college! Beating Wallops because he’s smaller than you are!”
“That wasn’t it. He didn’t do as I told him, and was insolent.”
“Who gave you the right to assume a mastery over him? Besides, from what I heard, you had evidently ordered him to do something against the rules.”
“Ah! So you were sneaking around to listen, were you?” sneered Langridge.
“You know better than that, or I’d answer you in the same way I did at first,” replied Phil. “If you send Wallops for liquor again I shall inform Dr. Churchill.”
“I always thought you were a tattling cad!” burst out Langridge. “Now I know it!”
Hardly were the words out of his mouth ere Phil was beside him. The quarter-back was fairly trembling, and his voice shook as he shot out the words:
“Take that back! Take it back, I say, or—or I’ll——”
He paused, emotion overcoming him, but from the manner in which he drew back his powerful left arm Langridge stepped aside apprehensively.
“Well, you haven’t any right to interfere in my affairs,” he whined.
“Do you take back what you said?” demanded Phil fiercely, and he laid a trembling hand on the shoulder of the bully.
“Take your hand from me!” exclaimed Langridge.“Yes—I suppose I’ve got to—I can’t fight a professional pugilist,” he added with an uneasy laugh.
“Thanks for the compliment,” spoke Phil grimly. “I guess this can end where it is. As for you, Gerhart, if I thought you had any other part in this than being a tool of this coward, I’d give you the soundest thrashing you ever had.”
The freshman did not answer, and when Langridge turned aside Gerhart followed him into the shadows. Poor Wallops waited until they were out of sight, then the messenger trailed after Phil and Tom. On the way he haltingly told the chums that Langridge had been in the habit of sending him to town to purchase stimulants for him. It had come to the point where that night where the bartender had refused to sell any more liquor, warning having been given that sales to minors were becoming too frequent. It was the failure of Wallops to return with the whisky that angered Langridge.
“Don’t say anything about this, Wallops,” advised Phil. “Langridge won’t bother you again. If he does, let me know.”
“Yes, sir, and thank you, Mr. Clinton. I’ll not tell.”
“I guess Langridge and Gerhart won’t, either,” commented Tom. “They’ll be glad to let it drop.”
“What cads those fellows are,” remarked Phila little later, when he and Tom, having had a refreshing shower bath, were preparing for bed in their room.
“Well, you took some of it out of Langridge, at all events,” said the pitcher.
“Maybe, but it will come back. I suppose I’ll have to be on the lookout now, or he may do me a dirty turn.”
“Shouldn’t wonder. I had my troubles with him last term. But I thought he was going to do better this season.”
“He can’t seem to, evidently.”
“Say,” exclaimed Sid, poking his head from beneath the sheet, “I wish you fellows would let a chap sleep. What are you chinning about?”
They told him, and, wide awake, he sat up and listened to the whole story.
“I wish I’d seen it,” he said. “It would have been as good as a football game. By the way, who does the team play this week, Phil?”
“Oh, we’ve got a little game with the Haddonfield Prep. School. Doesn’t amount to much. Some of the subs will play, I fancy.”
“I hope Holly doesn’t make the mistake of despising an enemy,” went on Sid. “Do you know, Phil, it seems to me that our fellows haven’t struck their gait yet.”
“Well, it’s early in the season,” said Tom.
“I know that,” went on Sid, “but they ought tohave more vim. There’s a curious lack of ginger noticed.Youdidn’t play with your usual snap, Phil.”
“I know it,” was the almost unexpected answer from the quarter-back. “I wondered if any one noticed it.”
“I did,” added Tom, “but I wasn’t going to say anything. I thought it was because it was the first game.”
“No,” said Phil slowly, “it wasn’t that. I’m all unstrung—nervous—that’s what’s the matter.”
“You nervous!” exclaimed Sid. “I wouldn’t have believed that. What’s the matter?”
“It’s my mother,” said Phil quietly, and there was a strange tone in his voice.
“She—she’s not worse—is she?” asked Tom, and the room became curiously quiet.
“No,” answered Phil; “but I can’t tell what moment she may be. Fellows, I’m living in constant fear of receiving a message that—that she—that she’s dead!”
There are several occasions when a young man can find no words in which to express himself. One is when he meets a pretty girl for the first time, and another is when his best chum has a great sorrow. There are other occasions, but these are the chief ones. Thus it was with Tom and Sid. For a few seconds after Phil’s announcement they sat staring at the floor. Their eyes took in the pattern of the faded rug, though little of the original figure was to be seen because of the many spots. Then Tom looked about the apartment, viewing the photographs of the two pretty girls, the sporting implements massed in a corner, the table, with its artistic confusion of books and papers. From these his gaze traveled back to Phil.
As for Sid, he breathed heavily. If he had been a girl I would have said that he sighed. Then, being a youth who did not shirk any duty, no matter how hard, Sid asked:
“Is—is she any worse, Phil? Have you hadbad news? Can’t we—can’t you go down where she is?”
Phil shook his head.
“There’s no specially bad news,” he said, “but it’s this way: She has a malady which, sooner or later, unless it is conquered, will—will take her away from me—and sis. Dad thinks an operation is the only hope, but they keep putting it off from time to time, on a slim chance that she may recover without it. For the operation is a desperate expedient at best. And that’s why I’m not myself. That’s why I can’t go into the games with all my might. I expect any moment to be summoned to the sidelines to get a telegram saying—saying——”
He choked up, and could not finish.
“Is it—is it as bad as that?” asked Tom huskily, and he put his arm over Phil’s shoulder, as his chum sat in the old easy chair.
“It’s pretty bad,” said Phil softly. Then, with a sudden change of manner, he exclaimed: “But say, I didn’t mean to tell you fellows that. I don’t believe in relating my troubles to every one,” and he smiled, though it was not like his usual cheery face that looked at his two chums.
“Oh, come now!” cried Sid. “As if we didn’t want to hear! And as if you shouldn’t tell us your troubles! Why, I expect to tell you fellows mine, and I want to hear yours in return, eh, Tom.”
“Of course,” said the pitcher heartily.
“Well, that’s mighty white of you chaps,” went on Phil, swallowing a lump in his throat. “But I’m not going to bother you any more, just now. Only that’s the reason I’m—well, that I can’t play as I want to play. But I’m going to try to forget it. I’m going into the next game, and help rip their line to pieces. I’m going to pilot our fellows to a big score or dislocate my other shoulder.”
“Good!” cried Sid. “Now let’s get to bed. It’s almost morning.”
The little talk among the three chums was productive of good. There was a closer bond of union among them than there had ever been before. They felt more like brothers, and Tom and Sid watched Phil for the next few days as if he was a little chap, over whom they had been given charge.
“Oh, say!” the quarter-back exclaimed at length one afternoon, when they had followed him to football practice, and walked home with him. “I’m not so bad as all that, you know.”
“Did you hear any news to-day?” asked Tom, ignoring the mild rebuke.
“Yes. Got a telegram from dad. Things look a little brighter, and yet——” He paused. “Well,” he continued, “I don’t want to think too much about it. We play Haddonfield to-morrow. I want to wipe up the gridiron with them.”
Which Phil and his chums pretty nearly did. Haddonfield Preparatory School had the best eleven in years, but, even with a number of scrub players on Randall, the score was forty-six to nothing. There was a different air about the college team as the lads went singing from the field that afternoon. There was confidence in their eyes.
It was a beautiful afternoon in October. Lectures were over and a throng of students had strolled over the campus and down to the banks of Sunny River. The stream flowed lazily along toward Lake Tonoka, winding in and out, as though it had all the time it desired in which to make the journey, and meant to take the full allowance. There was nothing rapid or fussy about Sunny River. It was not one of those hurrying, bubbling, frothy streams that make a great ado about going somewhere, and never arrive. There was something soothing in walking along the banks that bracing, fall day. There was just enough snap in the air to prevent one from feeling enervated, yet there was hardly a hint of winter.
“Doesn’t it make you feel as if you could stretch out on your back and look up into the sky?” asked Phil of Tom as the three chums walked along. Tom and the quarter-back had been to football practice, and still had their togs on.
“Now hold on!” exclaimed Sid, before Tom could answer. “Is this going to lead anywhere?”
“What do you mean?” asked Phil.
“I mean that poetical start on a talk-fest. Are you going to ring in beautiful scenery, calm, peaceful atmosphere, a sense of loneliness, and then switch off on to girls? Is that what you’re driving at? Because if it is I want to know, and I’m going back and read some psychology.”
“You’re up the wrong tree,” declared Tom. “I don’t know what Phil means, but my answer to his question would be that to stretch out on the ground for any length of time at this season would mean stiff muscles, not to mention rheumatism.”
“You fellows have no poetry in your nature,” complained Phil. “Just look there, where the river curves, how the trees lean over to be kissed by the limpid water. Can’t you fancy some one floating, floating down it in a boat, with heart attuned——”
“It’s too late for boating!” exclaimed a voice behind the trio. “My uncle says——”
Phil turned quickly and tried to grab Ford Fenton. The youth with the uncle jumped back.
“Why—what—what’s the matter?” stammered Fenton.
“Matter!” cried Phil. “Why, you little shrimp, I’ve a good notion to chuck you into the river!”
“Yes, the river—the beautiful, meandering, poetical river,” added Tom. “Quit it, Phil; you’re getting on my nerves. I’m glad Fenton interruptedyou with a recollection of his uncle. What were you going to say about your respected relative?” he asked.
But Fenton was going to take no chances with Phil, and, turning about, he retraced his steps.
“What were you saying, Phil?” inquired Sid politely, if sarcastically.
“None of your business,” replied the quarter-back a little stiffly. “I’m going to write a poem about it,” he added more genially.
“And send it to some girl, I suppose,” went on Sid. “Oh, you make me sick!”
What further ramification the conversation might have taken is problematical, but it was interrupted just then by the arrival of Ed Kerr, who seemed in much of a hurry.
“I’ve been looking all over for you fellows,” he panted.
“Why hastenest thou thus so hastily?” asked Tom. “Is the college on fire? Has Pitchfork been taken with a fit, or has Moses sent to say we need study no more?”
“Quit your gassin’!” ordered Ed. “Say, we’re going to have the walk rush to-night. The freshies have just had a meeting and decided on it. Tried to pull it off quietly, but Snail Looper heard, and kindly tipped us off. Dutch Housenlager is getting the soph crowd together. You fellows want to be in it, don’t you?”
“Of course,” answered Tom. “We have not forgotten that we were once freshmen, and that we had many clashes with the second-years. Now we will play the latter rôle. Lead on, Macduff, and he be hanged who first cries: ‘Hold! Enough!’ We’ll make the freshies wish they had never seen Randall College.”
“Maybe—maybe not,” spoke Phil. “They’re a husky lot—the first-year lads. But we can never let them have the privilege of the walk without a fight.”
The “walk rush,” as it was termed, was one of those matters about which college tradition had centered. It was a contest between the freshman and sophomore classes, that took place every fall, usually early in October. It got its name from the walk which circled Booker Memorial Chapel. This chapel was the gift of a mother whose son had died while attending Randall, and the beautiful stained glass windows in it were well worth looking at—in fact, many an artist came to Randall expressly for that purpose.
Around the chapel was a broad walk, shaded with stately oaks, and the path was the frequenting place of the college lads. From time immemorial the walk had been barred to freshmen unless, in the annual rush, they succeeded in defeating the sophomores, and, as this seldom occurred, few freshmen used the walk, save on Sundays,when all hostilities were suspended, in honor of the day. The rush always took place on a small knoll, or hill, back of the gymnasium, and it was the object of the freshmen to take possession of this point of vantage, and maintain it for half an hour against the rush of the sophomores. If they succeeded they were entitled to use the chapel walk. If they did not, they were reviled, and any freshman caught on the forbidden ground was liable to summary punishment.
Dark figures stole silently here and there. Commands and instructions were whispered hoarsely. There was an air of mystery about, for it was the night of the walk rush, and freshmen and sophomores were each determined to win.
Garvey Gerhart, by virtue of the “boosting” which Langridge had given him, had secured command of the first-year forces. As soon as it was dark he had assembled them on “gym hill,” as the knoll was called. There was a large crowd of freshmen, almost too large, it seemed, for the sophomores were outnumbered two to one. But Tom, Sid, Phil, Dutch Housenlager, Ed Kerr and others of the second-year class were strong in the belief of their power to oust their rivals from the hilltop. They had a moral force back of them—the conscious superiority of being “veterans,” which counted for much.
“We’re going to have our work cut out for us,”commented Tom, as, with his chums advancing slowly to the fray, he surveyed the throng of freshmen. “My, but there’s a bunch of ’em! And we’ve got to clean every mother’s son of them off the hill.”
“We’ll do it!” cried Phil gaily. “It will be good training for us.”
“Of course!” exclaimed Dutch, as he put out his foot slyly to trip Sid. Tom saw the act, he executed a quick movement that sent Housenlager sprawling on the ground.
“That’s the time you got some of your own medicine!” exclaimed Phil with a laugh, as Dutch, muttering dire vengeance, picked himself up.
The preliminaries for the rush were soon arranged, timekeepers and umpires selected, and, with the bright moon shining down on the scene, the battle began. It was wild, rough and seemingly without order, yet there was a plan about it. The freshmen were massed together on top, and about the center bunch were circles of their fellows who were to thrust back the rushing sophomores. Not until the last freshman had been swept from the hill could the second-year youths claim victory.
“All ready!” yelled Ed Kerr, and at the freshmen went their rivals.
There was the thud of body striking body. Breaths came quick and fast. There were smotheredexclamations, the sound of blows good-naturedly taken and given. There were cries, shouts, commands, entreaties. There was a swaying of the mass, this way and that. A knot of lads would go down, with a struggling pile on top of them, and the conglomeration would writhe about until it disentangled.
Tom, Phil and Sid (whose hand was now almost entirely better) tore their way toward the center. Time and again they were hurled back, only to renew the rush.
“Clean ’em off!” was the rallying cry of the sophomores.
“Fight ’em back!” was the retort of the freshmen.
At it they went, fiercely and earnestly. The entire mass appeared to be revolving about the hill now, with the little group of freshmen on the top as a pivot.
Gradually Tom, Phil and their particular chums worked their way up to the crest. Then they found that the freshmen had adopted strange tactics. Under the advice of Gerhart they stretched out prone, and, with arms and legs twined together, made a regular layer of bodies, covering the summit. It was almost impossible to separate the lads one from the other, in order to hurl them out of the way. They were literally “sticking together.”
“Tear ’em apart!” pleaded Tom.
“Rip ’em up!” shouted Phil.
“Hold tight!” sung out Gerhart.
And hang tightly they did. Tom succeeded in breaking the hold of one lad, and Phil that of another. But, in turn, the two big sophomores were borne down and overwhelmed by the weight of freshmen on their backs.
The referee blew a warning whistle. But two minutes of time were left. The sophomores redoubled their efforts, but the ruse of the freshmen was a good one. It was like trying to tear apart a living doormat.
The sophomores could not do it. Though they labored like Trojans, it was not to be. Once more the whistle blew, indicating that the rush was ended.
The sophomores had lost, and for the remainder of the term the freshmen could strut proudly about the walk of Booker Memorial Chapel.
“Well,” remarked Phil ruefully, as he and Tom, rather sore and bruised, went to their room. There was an air of quietness about the sophomores. They did not cheer and sing, but back on the knoll the victorious freshmen made the night hideous with their college cries.
“Is that all?” inquired Tom, for Phil had uttered only the one word.
“That’s all, son, as Bricktop Molloy would say. ‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’ We were dumped good and proper.”
“With plenty of gravy on the side,” added Sid.
“I was afraid of it,” spoke Tom solemnly. “I said they were too many for us.”
“Listen to old ‘I told you so,’” mocked Phil. “Next he’ll be telling us that he predicted we’d lose the football championship. You make me tired!”
“I’m tired already,” retorted Tom good naturedly. “Some one gave me an extra good poke in the ribs the last minute.”
“It was Gerhart,” declared Sid. “I saw him. I had a good notion to punch him for you.”
“I’d just as well you didn’t,” went on Tom. “There’s no love lost between us and his crony, Langridge, now. No use making matters worse. But he certainly managed the freshies well. That was a good trick, lying down and making a mat of themselves.”
“Yes; hereafter I suppose it will be the regular practice for future classes,” said Phil. “We’ll have to think up a new plan to break up that kind of interference. My, but I’m lame!”
“Better not let Lighton hear you say that.”
“Why?”
“He’d lay you off from football. There are three candidates for every position on the ’varsity this term, and we fellows who have made the eleven will have to take care of ourselves.”
“That’s so,” admitted Tom. “Well, a hot bath will fix me up, and then for some good sleep.”
“I wish I could snooze,” spoke Phil.
“Why can’t you?” asked Sid.
“I’ve got to bone away on Greek. Got turned back in class to-day, and Pitchfork, who’s a regular fiend at it, as well at Latin, warned me that I’d be conditioned if I didn’t look out.”
“You want to be careful, son,” cautioned Sid. “Remember how I nearly slumped in Latin before the big ball game last year, and only just gotthrough by the skin of my teeth in time to play? Don’t let that happen to you. It isn’t good for the constitution; not a little bit.”
The three chums went to the gymnasium and had a warm shower, followed by a brisk rub-down, after which they all felt better. Then, in their room, they talked the walk rush all over again, until Phil threw books at Sid and Tom to make them keep quiet so that he might study.
The week that followed was marked by some hard practice on the gridiron, for there was in prospect a game with the Orswell Military Academy, the eleven of which was seldom defeated. Therefore, Coach Lighton and Captain Cross worked their men well.
Phil, in particular, received some very special instructions about running the team. Some new plays were practiced, and a different sequence was planned.
“I want three corking good plays to be worked in sequence when we get to within reaching distance of the twenty-five-yard line,” said the coach. “Maybe we can try for a field goal, but the chances are against it if the wind blows. A good sequence will do wonders.”
Then the coach explained the sequence plays. They were to be three, in which the right-half, the full-back and the left-tackle would successively take the ball, without a word being spoken after thefirst signal for the play had been given. The plays were to be executed in quick succession, and the coach depended on that to demoralize the cadet eleven.
“There’ll probably be such cheering when we get to within twenty-five yards of their goal that it will be hard to hear signals, anyhow,” Mr. Lighton went on. “So memorize these plays carefully, and we’ll try to work them. When Clinton remarks: ‘We have twenty-five yards to go, fellows; walk up together, now,’ that will be the signal for the sequence plays.”
They tried them against the scrub, and did remarkably well. Then came a day of hard work, followed by some light practice, and a rest on the afternoon preceding the game with the cadets.
There was a big attendance at the grounds, which adjoined the military academy, about twenty miles from Randall College. In their first half the home eleven, by dint of trick plays and much kicking, so wore out the Randallites that they could not score, while Orswell made two touch-downs. But it was different in the second half, and after a touch-down gained by a brilliant run on Tom’s part, there came a second one, which resulted from the sequence plays. Right through the line in turn went Kindlings Woodhouse, Holly Cross and Ed Kerr. The twenty-five yards weremade in three minutes of play, and the score tied. Then, by a skilful forward pass and some line bucking, another touch-down was made, and then, as if to cap the climax, Holly Cross kicked a beautiful field goal.
“Wow! Hold me from flying!” cried Phil, as he tried to hug the entire team after the referee’s whistle blew. His fellows had responded nobly to the calls he made on them, and he had run the team with a level head.
“Boys, I’m proud of you,” said the coach. “It’s the biggest score against the Orswell cadets in many a year.”
And there was much rejoicing in Randall College that night, so that Professor Tines felt called upon to remonstrate to Dr. Churchill about the noise the lads were making.
“Why, I’m not aware of any unusual noise; not from here,” spoke the venerable president, in his comfortable study, with a book of Sanskrit on his knee.
“You could hear it if you went outside,” said the Latin teacher.
“Ah, yes, doubtless; but, you see, my dear professor, I’m not going outside,” and Dr. Churchill smiled benevolently.
“Humph!” exclaimed Mr. Tines, as he went back to his apartments. “If I had my way, footballand all sports would be abolished. They are a relic of barbarism!”
It was late when Phil and Tom got to their room that night. They narrowly escaped being caught by Mr. Snell, one of the proctor’s scouts, and dashed into their “den” at full speed.
“Can’t you make less row?” demanded Sid, who was studying. “You’ve put all the thoughts I had on my essay out of my head.”
“Serves you right for being a greasy dig!” exclaimed Tom. “Why don’t you be a sport? You’re getting to be a regular hermit.”
“I want my degree,” explained Sid, who was studying as he had not thought of doing his first term.
It was after midnight when Tom, who did not sleep well on account of the excitement following the football game, awoke with a start. Through the glass transom over the door of the room he saw a red glare.
“Fire!” he exclaimed, as he jumped out of bed and landed heavily in the middle of the apartment.
“What’s that?” cried Phil, sitting up. “Is there a telegram for me? Is there—is there——”
He was at Tom’s side, hardly awake.
“It’s no telegram,” answered Tom quickly “Looks like a fire.”
He threw open the door. The corridor wasfilled with clouds of lurid smoke which rolled in great masses here and there.
“The whole place is ablaze!” cried Tom. “Get up, Sid!” and he pulled the bedclothes from his still sleeping chum.
“Here, quit!” cried Sid, making an effort to pull back the coverings on which Tom was yanking. “Let a fellow alone, can’t you? Quit fooling! This is no freshman’s room!”
“Get out, you old duffer!” yelled Phil. “The place is on fire!”
“Who’s on the wire?” asked Sid, thinking some one had called him on the telephone. “I don’t care who it is. I’m not going to answer this time of night. I want to sleep. Tell ’em to call up again.”
“Fire! Fire! Not wire!” shouted Tom in his ear, and this time Sid heard and was fully awake. He caught a glimpse of the clouds of lurid smoke pouring in from the corridor.
“Jumping Johnnie cake! I should say it was a fire!” he cried. “Come on, fellows, let’s get some of our stuff out! I want my football pictures,” and with that Sid rushed to the wall and yanked down the only bit of ornamentation he cared for—a lithograph of a Rugby scrimmage. “Come on!”he yelled, grabbing up a pile of his clothes from a chair. “This is all I want. Let the books and other stuff go!”
“But the sofa! The chair!” cried Tom, who had peered out into the hall, only to jump back again, gasping and choking. “We can chuck them out of the window.”
“That’s right. Can’t hurt ’em much,” added Phil, who was getting into his trousers.
“Grab hold, then. But wait until I button my vest,” ordered Tom, who was fumbling with the garment, the only one he had grabbed up. He had switched on the electric light, and the gleam shone through a cloud of the reddish smoke. “What’s the matter with this blamed thing, anyhow?” he cried, as he fumbled in vain for the buttons.
“You’ve got it on backwards!” cried Sid, who had tossed his clothes out of the window, following them with the picture, and was now ready to help his chums.
“Great Jehosophat!” cried Tom. “So I have!”
He yanked off the garment and tossed it into a corner. Then, clad only in his pajamas, he started to carry the old armchair to the window. It was almost too much for him, and Sid came to his aid.
“Let that go, and get the sofa out first!” criedPhil. “The chair can fall on that. Say, listen to the row!”
Out in the corridor could be heard confused shouts, and the sound of students running to and fro. Every now and then some one would cry “Fire!” and the rush would be renewed.
“The whole place must be going!” cried Sid. “Hurry up, Tom, shove it out! Maybe we can save some other things.”
“Better save ourselves first!” exclaimed Phil. “The stairs and halls are all ablaze!” He came back from a look into the corridor choking and gasping. “We’ve got to jump for it! Shove that chair out, then the sofa, and pile the bedding on top. That will make a place to land on.”
“Here she goes!” shouted Tom, and he and Sid shoved their precious old chair from the window. It fell with a great crash to the ground, two stories below.
“Broken to bits!” said Tom with a groan. “Now for the sofa. There’ll be nothing left of it.”
They had raised it to the window sill, after much effort, and were balancing it there while recovering their breaths. Their room was filled with the heavy fumes of smoke, and the noise in the corridor was increasing.
“Let her go!” cried Phil. “Lively, now, if we want to get out alive!”
But just as the three chums were about to release their hold on the sofa, Mr. Snell, one of the under-janitors of the college, and a sort of scout or spy of the proctor’s, ran into the room.
“There’s no fire! There’s no danger!” he called. “Don’t throw anything out.”
“No fire?” questioned Tom.
“No. Some of the students burned red fire in the halls, that’s all,” went on Mr. Snell. “There’s no danger. The proctor sent me around to explain. It’s only some illuminating red fire.”
Tom, Sid and Phil looked at each other, as they stood at the window, holding their precious sofa. The clouds of smoke were rolling away, and the noise was lessening. Tom looked out of the casement, and, in the semi-darkness below, saw the chair they had thrown out. Just then, from below, a crowd of freshmen, who had perpetrated the trick, began singing “Scotland’s Burning.”
Tom glanced at his chums. Then he uttered one word:
“Stung!”
“Good and proper!” added Phil.
“By a nest of fresh hornets!” commented Sid wrathfully.
The scout withdrew. Phil looked at his trousers, and then he began slowly to take them off. Tom took one more look out of the window.
“They’re jumping all over our chair,” he said.
“They are? The young imps!” cried Sid. “Come on to the rescue! Get into some togs and capture a few freshmen.” Then, as he realized that he had tossed his clothes out of the window, he groaned. “You fellows will have to go,” he said. “I haven’t any duds.”
“They’re parading around with your best go-to-meeting suit,” observed Phil. Sid groaned again.
“Hurry, fellows, if you love me,” he said.
“There’s a crowd of sophs after ’em now,” added Tom, and so it proved. The freshmen beat a retreat, and some of our friends’ classmates formed a guard around the things on the ground.
The three chums were not the only ones who had tossed articles out of their windows in the moments of excitement. Many possessions of the sophomores were on the ground below, and, now that the scare was over, they began collecting them. Tom and Phil managed, with the help of some of their classmates, to get Sid’s garments and the chair back to their room. The chair was in sad shape, though, and Sid groaned in anguish as he viewed it.
“Oh, quit!” begged Phil, as he tossed Sid’s clothes on the bed. “We can fix it up again.”
“It’ll never be the same,” wailed Sid as he tried it. “There was a place that just fit my back, and now——”
He leaped up with a howl, and held his hand to the fleshy part of his leg.
“What’s the matter?” asked Tom.
“A broken spring stuck me,” explained Sid, who was too lightly clad to indulge in indiscriminate sitting about. “Oh, those freshies! What can we do to get square with them?”
“That’s more like it,” said Tom. “We’ve got to pay them back in some way, and the sooner the better.”
It was an hour or more before matters had quieted down in the west dormitory. From various sophomores who came into their room to exchange notes, Tom, Phil and Sid learned that the freshmen had executed a well-organized fire scare by the simple process of burning in each corridor some of the powder extensively used on Fourth of July, or in political parades.
“Well, there’s no use talking about what they did to us,” said Ed Kerr. “The question is, what can we do to them? They certainly put it all over us.”
“Dutch, you ought to be able to suggest something,” said Tom. “You’re always up to some trick. Give us one to play on the freshies.”
“Sure,” agreed Dutch. “Let me think.”
Sid arose and turned out the light.
“What’s that for?” asked Dutch.
“So you can think better. I can, in the dark. Go ahead, now. Let’s have something good.”
Dutch was silent for a few minutes, and then he proposed a plan which was received with exclamations of delight.
“The very thing!” cried Tom. “I wonder we didn’t think of it before. We’ll be just in time. Now, maybe we can make them laugh on the other side of their heads.”
The next morning there were triumphant looks on the faces of the freshmen. They had played a good joke on their traditional enemies, the sophomores, and felt elated over it. But, in accordance with a plan they had adopted the night after Dutch revealed his plan, the sophomores made no retort to the taunts of their enemies. And there was no lack of railery. Gathered on the walk about Booker Memorial Chapel, whence for many terms freshmen had, by traditional college custom, been barred, the first-year lads made all sorts of jokes concerning the scrabble that had ensued among the sophomores when the cry of fire was raised.
“And we have to stand it!” exclaimed Tom, gritting his teeth.
“For a couple of days,” added Sid. “But it strikes me, old chap, that last term you played the rôle of the aforesaid freshies to perfection.”
“Oh, that was different. But let them wait.We’ll put the kibosh on their fun in a few days. Has Dutch got the stuff?”
“Hush!” exclaimed Phil. “The least hint will spoil the scheme of revenge! Revenge! Revenge!” he hissed, after the manner of a stage villain. “We will have our re-venge-e-e-e-e!”
It was the night of the freshman dance, an annual affair that loomed large in the annals of the first-year students and their girl friends. It was to be held in a hall in Haddonfield, and many were the precautions taken by the committee to prevent any of the hated sophomores from attending, or getting to the place beforehand, lest they might, by some untoward act, “put it on the blink,” as Holly Cross used to say.
The hall was tastefully arranged with flowers and a bank of palms, behind which the orchestra was to be hidden. About the balcony were draped the college colors, with the class hues of the freshmen intermingled.
Early on the evening of the dance, Garvey Gerhart, who was chairman of the committee on arrangements, left the college on his way to town to see that all was in readiness.
“Doesn’t he look pretty!” exclaimed Phil, who, with a group of sophomores, stood near Booker Chapel.
“I wonder if he has his dress suit on?” asked Tom.
“We ought to see if his hair is parted,” put in Sid. “Freshmen don’t know how to look after themselves. Have you a clean pocket handkerchief, Algernon?” and he spoke the last in a mocking tone.
“Look out; there may be another fire,” retorted Gerhart with a grin, and the sophomores could only grit their teeth. They knew the freshmen still had the laugh on them.
“But not for long?” muttered Phil. “Is Dutch all ready?”
“All ready,” answered that worthy for himself. “We’ll slip off to town as soon as it’s dusk.”
“Think you’ll have any trouble in getting in?” asked Ed Kerr.
“Not a bit. I bribed one of the doorkeepers. Be on hand outside to listen to the fun.”
A little before the first arrivals at the freshman dance had reached the hall, a figure might have been seen moving quickly about the ballroom in the dim illumination from the half-turned-down lights. The figure went about in circles, with curious motions of the hands, and then, after a survey of the place and a silent laugh, withdrew.
The music began a dreamy waltz, following the opening march. Freshmen led their fair partners out on the floor, and began whirling them about. The lights twinkled, there was the sweet smell of flowers, fair faces of the girls looked up into theproud, flushed ones of the youths. Chaperons looked on approvingly. The music became a trifle faster. The dance was in full swing.
Suddenly a girl gave a frightened little cry.
“What’s the matter?” asked her partner.
“My shoes! They—they seem to be sticking to the floor. I—I can’t dance!”
From all over the room arose similar cries of dismay from the girls and exclamations of disgust from the boys. The dancers went slower and slower. It was an effort to glide about, and some could scarcely lift their feet. The floor seemed to hold them as a magnet does a bit of iron. Garvey Gerhart, releasing his pretty partner, leaned over and touched the floor.
“It’s as sticky as molasses!” he cried in dismay.
The music stopped with a discord. A strange spell seemed thrown over the dancers. Some, who had come to a stop, now tried to move, and found that their feet were fast to the floor. It was an effort to lift them. The surface that had seemed well waxed was now as sticky as if glue had been poured over it. To walk was almost impossible; to dance, out of the question.
“Maybe it’s only in a few places, and we can scrape it off,” suggested Will Foster, a chum of Gerhart. “Let’s try.”
He endeavored, with his knife, to remove some of the sticky stuff, but he might as well have tried to dig up a board in the floor.
“What is it?” asked Gerhart’s partner.
“I don’t know,” he answered ruefully. “Something very sticky has gotten on the floor.”
“Maybe some of the waiters spilled ice cream or coffee, or some candy got there,” she suggested.
“This is stickier than any of those things,” spokeGerhart. “I—I guess some one has played a trick on us.”
“A trick?”
“Yes; the sophomores. I should have been more on the lookout, but I didn’t think they could get in. I told the men at the door not to let any one in who didn’t have a freshman pin. But—well, we’ll wait a bit and see if it dries up,” he concluded.
But the stuff on the floor didn’t dry up. Instead, it became more sticky. The ballroom was like one big sheet of adhesive flypaper, and the dancers, walking about, felt their shoes pull up with queer little noises every time they took a step. They tried to dance once more, but it was a miserable failure. One might as well have tried to waltz or two-step on the sands of the seashore.
Then from a window there sounded the old song: “Clarence McFadden, He Wanted to Waltz.” The chagrined dancers turned to the casement, to behold a circle of mocking faces. Gerhart looked, too.