It was a strange spectacle. The campus seemed almost as light as day. Two long lines of men in hoods and gowns entered from opposite sides and began their march, loudly singing their society songs.
It was the night of the initiations to the three junior societies, Delta Kappa Epsilon, Psi Upsilon, and Alpha Delta Phi. It was a strangely interesting sight, and crowds had gathered to witness it.
Slowly and with dignity the hooded and gowned members of the societies marched about the campus. This part of their doings was intended for the eyes of the public, but later things would happen within the solid walls of their society houses that the public had no hope of witnessing.
What were those things? Who can say? No candidate who has ever passed through the ordeal ever opens his lips to tell what happened to him. But certain it is that within those walls there was a merry old time that night, for it is there the local burlesque is given, and this has proved of spicy interest to the general public, being filtered to the outside world.
This year among the happy candidates were two of Merriwell’s friends. Jack Ready was one of them.
“La! la!” he said modestly, as he was congratulated. “Proclaim not the honor to the world. It will be a great privilege for the Four Hundred to catch me when I break away from Yale. Oh, I’m strictly the thing, and they can’t get along without me.”
“What you really need,” said Greg Carker, “is a crown. You are a king.”
“A fool’s cap would be better,” grunted Browning, who had been offering congratulations. “I don’t know how they ever made the mistake of taking him in, but I’m glad he’s made it.”
“Thanks, my fragile friend,” chirped Ready, with the old-time flirt of his hand. “When I am in need of a fool’s cap I’ll know where to come for it. Cluck! cluck! Git ap! My, my, how the wind blows!”
“I’d like to have the privilege of hauling you over the coals to-night!” said Bruce, with a baleful glare in his eye. “Oh, I wouldn’t do a thing to you! You’ll get it, anyhow, for they’ll be sure to give you a double dose to cure your freshness.”
“Alas!” sighed Jack, “it can’t be cured.”
“Try carbolic acid,” suggested Bruce.
Later Ready and Bingham had disappeared, and their friends knew they were going through the “fiery ordeal.”
What a wild night it was! Those who have passed through it know something about the events of that night. To-day the initiations are far milder than beforethe tragedy of Wilkins Rustin in ’92. Rustin was a fine, athletic fellow. During his initiation he was blindfolded and told to run at best speed along an unfrequented street. Being a swift runner, he drew away from the two men in whose charge he was. They shouted a cry of warning to him, but this he misunderstood, and, swerving from a direct course, he ran into the sharp pole of a wagon. They picked him up, bleeding and unconscious, and he died from his injuries.
A storm of indignation arose all over the country, and the faculty came near deciding to wipe out the societies altogether. It was fortunate for Yale life that this radical step was not taken. The men in charge of Rustin were overcome with grief, and their sorrow led to their acquittal of anything but a charge of grave folly.
This night of which I write nothing of the kind took place; but the old members of the society and the newly elected ones had a jolly time of it. They made a night of it.
Along toward morning, as it was growing light, the members of the societies engaged in a wild and weird game of baseball on the campus. That is, many of the members of the societies engaged in the game; but there were many others who curled up in the shelter of some near-by sheds and serenely fell asleep.
Ready was not one of the sleepers. Bingham wouldhave slept, but Jack mauled the big fellow till he got him out behind the bat, with a bird-cage over his head for a mask. Jack himself was pitching.
“Look out for my curves,” he advised. “Talk about Frank Merriwell’s double shoot! Why, I’ve got the corkscrew ball.”
“I’ve discovered to-night that you have the corkscrew habit,” rumbled Bingham, trying to make his queer cage balance on his shoulders.
“Put ’em over,” called the batter. “If you hit me, I’ll bring suit against you for breach of promise.”
It was rather dark, and Ready actually threw a curve. Fortunately, the ball was about as hard as a ripe cucumber, for it grazed Bingham’s fingers and struck the bird-cage a glancing blow, setting it to spinning about on his shoulders. The batter swiped at it furiously, and threw himself off his feet onto his back.
The watching crowd was boisterous in its applause. This was the kind of baseball that filled their hearts with exceeding great joy at about this hour in the morning.
“One ball,” decided the umpire, who had closed his eyes and turned his back.
“One ball!” shouted Ready. “Why, he struck at it, Mr. Umpire.”
“But it wasn’t over the plate,” said the umpire, with dignity.
“That doesn’t make any difference. He struck at it.”
“Be silent,” commanded the umpire. “He had no business to strike at such a bad one. It is one ball.”
And that decision stood. The next pitched ball struck the batter in the small of the back.
“Dead ball,” said somebody.
“No; dead man,” said the umpire. “Take him off the field. Remove the corpse.”
“Hold on!” cried the batter. “I want to get one crack at that ball. Give me a show.”
“I have declared you dead,” said the umpire; “so you’ll have to make room for the next man. Drop that bat and take to your hole, you lobster!”
The next man came up and hit the first ball straight at Jack, who did not stop it with his hands, but with the pit of his stomach.
“Judgment!” he gasped. “I have it!”
“That’s right,” said the umpire. “Corbett got it there at Carson City. You’re out.”
“Out?” squealed Jack. “It’s the other man who is out!”
“I tell you that you are out,” insisted the umpire. “Get off the grass.”
And Jack was compelled to make room for another fellow who was ambitious to do some pitching.
“Alas and alack!” he sobbed, as he stood aside. “It is thus we poor mortals get it in the neck!”
“I thought you got it in the stomach,” said Bingham.
“Only a bird in a gilded cage,” Jack exclaimed, pointing to the big sophomore.
But the pitching of the new man was of a most terrific order, and Bingham loudly called for him to “ease ’em over.” The second ball the new man pitched was a foul tip, which the catcher misjudged, getting it just where Ready had received the batted ball.
Over on his back rolled Bingham, while the crowd whooped with joy and danced grotesquely in the gray morning twilight.
“Drag off the dead,” solemnly ordered the umpire.
Jack Ready rushed in, caught Bingham by the heels and started with him, dragging the big fellow along on his back. He succeeded in pulling Bingham for at least a rod before the fellow recovered enough to kick him off.
“Hey!” roared Ralph, as he sent Ready reeling. “What in thunder do you take me for, you jackass? Think I’m a dump-cart? Is that why you promptly harnessed yourself into the thills?”
“Excuse me!” chirped Jack, standing off and surveying the other with comical gravity. “I thought you were dead, and I was on the way to the dumping-grounds with you.”
“You’ll find I’m not dead!” snapped Bingham, as he got up and made a dive for Jack.
“I surrender!” Ready helplessly cried, throwing up his hands. “I might escape you by running, but the effort is too great.”
“You can’t run,” declared Ralph, as he grasped the joker.
“I know it. I have discovered something that can outrun me or any other man living. I’m going to enter it in all the races this season.”
“What is it?”
“A gas-meter.”
Bingham thumped Jack.
“You’ll have to pay for this coat,” he declared. “You tore it when you pulled me along.”
“Where did I tear it?”
“Why, on the back, of course.”
“And you were on the part that was torn. Oh, well, you are used to that. You often get on a tear.”
Then, with their arms about each other, they stood and gazed on that wild and grotesque game of ball. It was a hilarious spectacle, to say the least, and all the rules of baseball were ignored and violated by both players and umpire. In fact, the closer the players stuck to the regular game the greater penalties the umpire put upon them.
Arm-in-arm, Bingham and Ready entered the neighboring shed, where they saw dark forms stretched about.
“Behold!” said Jack, in a hoarse whisper. “This is a battle-field, and here are the slain who by the ruthless enemy have been shot.”
“I’m only half-shot,” declared one of the sleepers, sitting up in a dusky corner. “Gimme ’nother drink.”
Then another sat up and began to sing in a wild and weird manner:
“How dry I am! How dry I am!Lord only knows how dry I am!I want a drink, I want it now!How dry I am!Lord only knows, how dry I am!”
“How dry I am! How dry I am!Lord only knows how dry I am!I want a drink, I want it now!How dry I am!Lord only knows, how dry I am!”
“How dry I am! How dry I am!
Lord only knows how dry I am!
I want a drink, I want it now!
How dry I am!
Lord only knows, how dry I am!”
One by one the others roused up and joined in the singing, sitting there in the gloom, some swaying slightly, some holding themselves rigidly straight on account of the queer feelings in their heads.
It was a strange sight, and the hoarse, tuneless chanting sounded like a funeral dirge.
“Shut up!” grunted one fellow, who had refused to sit up. He put his hands over his ears and tried to go on sleeping.
The singing—if singing it could be called—continued in the same dirgelike strain.
“We’ll see if we can’t accommodate you,” murmured Ready, who had found in a corner of the shed ahose used for washing wagons. Investigation showed that the water could be turned on in that corner. Jackshut the nozzleand turned the water on. Then he was ready.
“How dry I am! How dry I am!Lord only knows, how dry I am!”
“How dry I am! How dry I am!Lord only knows, how dry I am!”
“How dry I am! How dry I am!
Lord only knows, how dry I am!”
“Perhaps this will wet you down a little,” observed Ready, as he calmly turned on the hose and let drive at the crowd.
Swish! spat! spatter!
The water flew, the singing stopped, the men shrieked, and there was a wild scramble to get away.
“It’s a cloudburst!” yelled somebody.
“Help! help! Fire!” cried another.
“Oh, goodness!” gasped another. “That stuff struck me in the mouth just as I was singing. I’ve swallowed more than a gallon of real water. It’ll be fatal!”
They made a wild scramble to get out of the shed. Some of them got up and ran; others crawled as fast as they could on their hands and knees. And all the while Ready continued to serenely play the hose upon them.
Not one stopped to investigate, for that water was “cold and wet.” It was too much for their nerves. In a very few minutes Ready had cleared the shed. As the last of them went out, he dropped the hose and ranafter them, wringing his hands and pretending that he had been driven out with the others.
He left Bingham in the shed roaring with laughter.
“Oh, my, my!” gurgled Jack, as he came tearing out into the midst of the water-dripping crowd, “and I was having such a lovely dream! What happened, anyhow?”
“The waterworks exploded!” declared one drenched fellow, wringing water out of his coat and wiping it out of his eyes.
“Wasn’t it awful!” gasped Ready.
“Hush!” commanded one. “Listen!”
Bingham was heard laughing in the shed.
“’Sdeath!” panted Ready.
“’Sblood!” hissed another fellow.
“Somebody turned that water on us!”
“That’s right!” agreed Jack excitedly. “The wretch who did it is in there now!”
“He must die!” savagely howled one of the wet chaps. “I am ready to kill him with my faithful boot-jack!”
“He must suffer!” they all declared. “Who dares go in there and capture the wretch?”
“Wait,” advised Ready. “He’ll come out, and then we can pounce upon him.”
Even as he spoke, Bingham came strolling out of the shed, still shaking with laughter.
“At him!” hissed Jack, and they flung themselves upon him.
“To the stake!” snarled one.
“What stake?” asked another.
“Mistake,” chuckled Ready, to himself.
Then he plunged into the thickest of it, yelling for them to give the wretch some of his own medicine.
“Hold on!” cried Bingham. “What are you going to do? Hold on!”
“Don’t be afraid,” said Jack. “We won’t let go of you. There is no reason why you should worry about that.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Bingham again.
“Give you your just deserts, base-born wretch!” cried Ready. “Didst think to escape retribution?”
“But I haven’t done anything! It wasn’t me!”
“Don’t think to deceive us with thy false tales.”
“But you know I didn’t do a thing, Ready! Why, you——”
Jack, however, raised such a racket that Bingham’s words were drowned and the big fellow was dragged back into the shed, where the hose was found on the ground, still hissing and squirting.
Two men who had been drenched volunteered to hold Bingham. A dozen were eager to play the hose. They gave it to him at once. He ducked his head, and the water struck him under his collar at the back of his neck and poured down his back. It seemed totake the strength out of him and leave him gasping and helpless for the moment. Then that cold and chilling stream played all over him.
Jack Ready stood aside, his hands clasped, a look of sadness on his face and deep joy in his heart.
“It is ever thus,” he said to himself, “that the innocent man ever gets it in the neck, while the other chap gets off and becomes a hero. Let this be a lesson to you, Jack, my boy, to always take care not to be the innocent one.”
They did not let up on Bingham till the big soph was drenched to the skin and in a furious mood. He broke away from the fellows who were holding him and rushed from the shed, vowing he would murder Ready on sight.
“I’ve had a lovely time to-night,” whispered Jack still to himself; “but something tells me that I had better fade away. Here is where I fade.”
He managed to escape from the shed, round which he stole, making off into the gloom. At a distance, watching the men near the shed, stood a lonely figure. Jack drew near and saw it was Bertrand Defarge.