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 a.s.sistance, 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 soph.o.m.ores 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 a.s.sailants 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 soph.o.m.ores 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 n.o.body paid enough attention to him to answer his question.

Frank, however, found it necessary to tell his companions all about the a.s.sault, 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 soph.o.m.ores 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?"