"LAMBDA CHI!"
Ditson had fawned around Browning a great deal since entering college,
with the result that the king of the sophomores came to entertain a
feeling of absolute disgust for the fellow. The very sight of Ditson
made the "king" feel as if he would enjoy giving him a good "polishing
off."
But Bruce was no bully, although he was a leader of the sophomores. He
had proved his ability to fight when it was necessary, but no one could
say that he ever showed any inclination to do bodily harm to one who was
weak and peaceable.
During his freshman year Browning had originated any number of wild
projects for sport, and he had always succeeded in carrying them through
successfully. Thus it came about that he was called the "king," and his
companions continued to call him that when he became a sophomore.
But now there was a man in college who had fairly outwitted Browning on
several occasions, and so it came about that the king was aroused
against Frank Merriwell.
Browning keenly felt the sting of being beaten at his own game, and he
was obliged to confess to himself that Merriwell had accomplished the
trick.
But our hero was not inclined to let Bruce alone. He did not wait for
the king to become aggressive; he set about keeping Bruce in hot water,
and he succeeded very well.
The other freshmen, stimulated by the example of one who was distinctly
a leader among them, carried on such an energetic campaign against the
sophomores that the latter found themselves almost continually on the
defensive.
Such a thing had never before been known at Yale and the sophs were
highly indignant. They informed the freshmen that they were altogether
too fresh. They said the freshmen were breaking a time-honored custom,
and it must be stopped.
But the triumphant freshmen kept right on, laughing in the faces of
their angry foes.
It was expected that Browning would not delay about getting back at
Merriwell and his friends, and the admirers of the king were surprised
when he seemed to remain inactive.
Then it came out that Bruce was in training, and it was said that he was
putting himself in condition to give Merriwell the worst licking of his
life.
Frank heard about it, but he did not seem disturbed in the least.
Whenever any one spoke to him about it he merely smiled.
Among the freshmen there were some who believed Merriwell able to hold
his own against Browning. They were Harry Rattleton, Jack Diamond and
one or two more.
Diamond and Merriwell were not friendly, but they had ceased to be open
enemies. For the time being the hatchet was buried, and there was peace
between them.
But the two did not become friends. Merriwell continued to assert that
Diamond had sand, and Diamond was ready to back his judgment in saying
that Merriwell was a match for any man in Yale.
Morey's was a sophomore resort. Juniors and seniors patronized the
place, but a freshman was not allowed there unless invited to accompany
some of the regular frequenters of the place.
Ditson was ambitious. He was not satisfied to associate with those of
his own class, but he wanted it thought he was such a fine fellow that
the sophomores picked him up for his company.
Thus it happened that he had succeeded in getting into Morey's several
times, but he was killing his own chances of ever having any popularity,
although he did not know it.
Browning was angry when he saw the fellow come in. He called one of the
sophs over and said:
"Say, what are you bringing it in here again for, my boy? It's been here
too many times already."
"Who--Ditson?"
"Sure."
"We're working him."
"Working him? He's working you--for the drinks."
"That's all right. He's telling us what he knows about Merriwell. If
there is anything in that fellow's history that we can use as a sore
spot, we may be able to suppress him."
"All right," scowled Browning. "Go ahead and pump the crooked sneak, but
don't swallow his lies. I don't believe he knows anything at all about
Merriwell."
A few minutes later the soph returned and said:
"I don't think he knows much about him, myself, but he says he's down at
Billy's now--or was an hour ago. We might get a chance to Lambda Chi him
a little."
Browning seemed to arouse himself.
"That's right," he agreed. "We'll go down to Billy's."
The party filed out of Morey's and Browning took the lead. Ditson went
along with them as if he was a sophomore. He seemed to feel himself
highly honored, but Browning had hard work to choke back his absolute
contempt for the fellow.
As they went along, it was arranged that Ditson should go into Billy's
and see if Merriwell was there. One of the sophomores should accompany
him. If Merriwell was there and he should come out alone or in company
with one or two others, he was to be captured. Browning had a plan that
should be carried out if the capture was made.
Ditson seemed to think he was doing something very smart and cunning in
betraying a fellow freshman into the hands of the sophomores. He fancied
he was making himself solid with Browning's crowd.
Billy's was reached, and one of the sophs went in with Ditson, while the
others kept out of sight nearby.
After a little the soph came out and reported that Merriwell and
Rattleton were in there. He had treated the house, but Merriwell had
absolutely declined to take anything.
"Oh, yes," nodded Browning. "They say he never drinks. That's how he
keeps himself in such fine condition all the time. He will not smoke,
either, and he takes his exercise regularly. He is really a remarkable
freshie."
Arrangements were then made that a cab should be brought to the corner
near Billy's, where the driver should remain, apparently waiting for
somebody.
It was known to be quite useless to attempt to decoy Merriwell out, so
dependence must be placed on chance. If he came out with no more than
one or two companions his name was "mud," according to the assembled
sophs.
Arrangements were made to bind handkerchiefs over their faces to the
eyes, so they would be partly disguised. Some of them turned their coats
wrong side out, and some resorted to other means of disguising
themselves.
Then they waited patiently.
It was not so very long before Ditson came out in a breathless hurry. He
signaled, and they called him. As he hastened up he panted:
"Merriwell is coming right out, fellows! Be ready for him!"
The sophomores knew which way Frank was likely to go after leaving
Billy's, and they lay in wait at a convenient spot.
"Is he alone?" eagerly asked Puss Parker.
"No."
"Who is with him?"
"Rattleton."
"Any others?"
"Not likely."
"Good! Take a tumble to yourself and skip."
Ditson did so.
"Now, fellows," hurriedly said Browning, "be ready for a struggle.
Remember that Merriwell is a scrapper and he is likely to resist. We
must take him completely by surprise. Get back and lay quiet till I give
the signal."
They did as directed, and as they were in a dark corner, there was not
much danger that they would be seen till they were ready to light on
their game.
Footsteps were heard.
"Here he comes!"
Browning peered out, and two figures were seen approaching.
"How many?" anxiously whispered Tad Horner, quivering with anxiety.
"Two. They are easy. Ready for the rush."
The sophomores crouched like savage warriors in ambush.
Merriwell's peculiar, pleasant laugh was heard as the two unsuspecting
freshmen approached.
Rattleton was talking, and, as usual, he was twisting his expression in
his haste to say the things which flashed through his head.
"It doesn't make a dit of bifference if we haven't proved anything
against him, I say Ditson can't be trusted. He's got a mooked crug--I
mean a crooked mug."
"Oh, don't be too hard on the fellow till you know something for sure,"
advised Merriwell. "I will confess that I do not like him, but--"
There was a sudden rush of dark figures out of the shadows, and the two
freshmen were clutched. Coats were flung over their heads and they were
crashed to the ground.
Although taken by surprise, both lads struggled.
In the suddenness of the rush Browning had made a mistake and flung
himself on Rattleton, while he had intended to grasp Merriwell. The coat
being cast over the head of the lad prevented him from discovering his
mistake.
Punch Swallows and Andy Emery were devoting themselves to Merriwell, and
it was their first impression that they had tackled Rattleton.
For an instant it seemed that the trick had worked to perfection, and
the freshmen had been made captives easily.
Then came a surprise.
Swallows and Emery were unable to hold their man down. He tore off the
smothering coat and rose with them, despite all they could do. They
cried out for help:
"Give us a hand, fellows! He's like an eel! Quick!"
Some of the sophs had been unable to render much assistance, and they
now did their best to aid Swallows and Emery. In their haste to do
something they seemed to get in the way of each other.
"Well, I don't know--I don't know!" laughed a familiar voice, and the
freshman gave Swallows a snap that lifted him off his feet and cast him
into the stomach of another fellow, who received such a blow from
Punch's head that the wind was knocked out of him in a moment.
"We'll have to see about this," said the freshman as he cracked Emery on
the jaw and broke his hold.
"Great smoke! It's Merriwell!" gurgled Emery as he reeled back.
"Onto him, fellows!" urged a soph, and Frank suddenly found six or seven
of the crowd were at him.
Just how he did it no one could tell, but he broke straight through the
crowd and in another moment was rushing back toward Billy's, shouting:
"Lambda Chi! Lambda Chi!"
It was useless to try to follow him, as all quickly saw.
In the meantime Rattleton had been cornered, and the disappointed sophs
resolved to escape with him. They lifted him and made a rush for the
cab. He was bundled in, and away went the cab.
Frank rushed into Billy's and gave the alarm. He was out again in a
very few seconds, with a crowd of excited freshmen at his heels; but
when they came to look for the sophomores and Rattleton they found
nothing.
"Confound it!" exclaimed Frank in dismay. "How could they get him away
so quick? I can't understand it."
The freshmen searched, but they found nothing to reward them. Rattleton
was in the toils of the enemy, and the would-be rescuers were given no
opportunity to rescue him.
Then Merriwell blamed himself for leaving his roommate at all. But
Billy's had been so near and his chance with his many assailants had
seemed so slim that he had done what seemed the right thing to do on the
spur of the moment. He had not fancied that the sophomores would be able
to get Harry away before he could arouse the freshmen and bring them to
the rescue.
"Poor Harry! I wonder what they will do with him?" Frank speculated.
"Oh, they won't do a thing with him!" gurgled Bandy Robinson.
"How did it happen, anyway?" asked Roland Ditson, who had joined the
freshmen after the affair was over.
He tried to appear innocent and filled with wonder and curiosity, but
his unpopularity was apparent from the fact that nobody paid enough
attention to him to answer his question.
Frank, however, found it necessary to tell his companions all about the
assault, and Ditson pretended to listen with interest, as if he had
known nothing of the affair.
The freshmen went back to Billy's and held a council. It was decided to
divide into squads and make an attempt to find out where Harry had been
taken.
This was done, but it proved without result, and not far from midnight
all the freshmen who had been there at the time of the capture, and many
others, were again gathered at Billy's. They were quite excited over the
affair, and it seemed that the beer they had absorbed had gone to the
heads of some of them.
In the midst of an excited discussion the door burst open, and a most
grotesque-looking figure staggered into the room. It was a person who
was stripped to the waist and painted and adorned like a redskin, his
face striped with red and white and yellow, his hair stuck full of
feathers, and his body decorated with what seemed to be tattooing.
"Bive me a gear--I mean give me a beer!" gasped that fantastic
individual. "I am nearly dead!"
"It's Rattleton!" shouted the freshmen.
They crowded around him.
"Well, say, you are a bird!" cried Lucy Little, whose right name was
Lewis Little.
"A regular bird of paradise," chuckled Bandy Robinson.
"Where are those fellows?" demanded Frank Merriwell. "Where did they
leave you? Tell me, old man."
"At the door," faintly replied Rattleton as he reached for a mug of beer
which some one held toward him. "They took me right up to the door and
made me come in here."
"Out!" shouted Frank--"out and after them! Capture one of them if
possible! We want to even this thing up."
Out they rushed, but once more the crafty sophomores had vanished, and
not one of them was to be found.
The freshmen went back and listened to Harry's story. He told how he had
been blindfolded and taken somewhere, he did not know where. There they
had kept him while his friends were searching. When there was no danger
that the freshmen would discover them, they set out to have fun with
Rattleton.
"Say, Merry, old man," said Harry, "I know Browning was the leader of
this job, although he was disguised. They seemed to feel pretty bad
because you got away. They got twisted--took me for you at first, and by
the time they discovered their mistake you were knocking them around
like tenpins. One chap insists you broke his jaw."
"Well, I am glad I did that much. I didn't mean to leave you, Harry.
Billy's was so near I thought I could get the boys out and rescue you
before they could carry you off. I couldn't rescue you alone, so I ran
here to stir up the fellows."
"That was right. I was glad you got away. They were laying for you. They
told me so."
"Well, come back, and we'll wash this stuff off you."
"I don't know as you can do it."
"Eh? Why not?"
"They said it was put on to stay a while. They told me we were so fond
of playing the noble red man's part that they would fix me so I could
play it for a week or two. Some of them advised me to use sand to scrub
myself with if I hoped to get the paint off."
"Oh, that must be all a bluff. It will come off easy enough if a little
cocoa butter is used on it. Here, somebody run out to a drug store and
get some cocoa butter."
After they had worked about fifteen minutes they looked at each other
in dismay, for they had scarcely been able to start the paint, and it
become plain that cocoa butter, soap and water would not take it off.
"Didn't I tell you?" murmured Harry, sorrowfully. "I'm done for! I'll
never be able to get it off! I'll have to go out West and live with the
Sioux! If I do I'll take along the scalps of a few sophomores!"
They continued to work on him for nearly an hour, but were unable to get
off more than a certain portion of the paint. Harry was still
grotesquely decorated when the boys arrived at the conclusion that
further scrubbing with the materials at hand was useless.
Then Frank went out and rang up a druggist who had gone to bed, for it
was after midnight. He told the man the sort of scrape his friend was in
and offered the druggist inducements to give him something to remove the
paint.
The druggist said it could not be paint, but must be some sort of
staining, and he gave Frank a preparation.
Frank went back and tried the stuff on Harry. It removed a certain
amount of the stain, but did not remove it all.
At last, being thoroughly worn out, Rattleton said:
"I'll give it up for to-night, fellows. Perhaps I'll be able to get the
rest off in the morning. I'll poultice my face and neck. But you'll
have to watch out, Frank. They say they will use you worse than this
when they get hold of you."
For the time the sophomores seemed to have the best of the game.