"I'd have flung the bag in the river before I would give it to such a chap as Tom Rover," growled Larkspur.

"You trust me, Larky, old boy," answered Jerry Koswell. "I know what I'm doing."

"Humph!"

"I said I returned the case, but I didn't say I returned all that was in it."

"What do you mean by that?" demanded Flockley. "If you've got a secret, out with it."

Koswell looked around to make certain that no outsider was near.

"I kept a few things out of the bag--some things that had Tom Rover's name or his initials on them."

"And you are going to--" went on Flockley.

"I am going to use 'em some day, when I get the chance."

"Good!" cried Flockley. "I'll help you, Jerry!"

"And so will I," added Larkspur. "If we work it right we can get Tom Rover in a peck of trouble."

On Monday morning the college term opened in earnest, and once again the Rovers had to get down to the "grind," as Sam expressed it. But the boys had had a long vacation and were in the best of health, and they did not mind the studying.

"Got to have a good education if you want to get along nowadays," was the way d.i.c.k expressed himself. "If you don't learn you are bound to be at the mercy of anybody who wants to take advantage of your ignorance."

"d.i.c.k, what are you going to do when you get out of college?" asked Tom.

"I don't know--go into business, I imagine."

"Oh, he'll marry and settle down," chimed in Sam. "He and Dora will live in an ivy-covered cottage like two turtle doves, and--"

Sam got no further, for a pillow thrown by d.i.c.k caught him full in the face and made him stagger.

"Sam is thinking of what he and Grace are going to do," said d.i.c.k.

"And you and Nellie will likely have a cottage across the way," he added, grinning at Tom.

"Really!" murmured Tom, and got as red as a beet. "Say, call it off,"

he added. "Do you know we have the necktie rush this afternoon?"

"It won't amount to much," answered Sam. "Too many sophs out of it."

"Don't you believe it," said d.i.c.k. "Remember, the juniors come into this as well as the sophs."

"Say, I've thought of a plan!" cried Tom. "Greatest ever! I'm going to patent it!" And he commenced to dance around in his excitement.

"What's loose?" asked Songbird, coming up at that moment, followed by some others. "Tom, have you got a pain in your inwards?"

"No, an idea--it's about the same thing," responded Tom gaily. "We want to get the best of the second and third-year fellows during the necktie rush, and I think I know how we can do it. We'll all sew our neckties fast!"

For a moment there was silence, and then, as the others caught the idea, they commenced to laugh.

"That's it!" cried Sam. "I'll sew mine as tight as a drum!"

"I'll rivet mine on, if that will do any good," added d.i.c.k.

"Sure thing!" came from Songbird, and he commenced to recite:

"Oh, the sophs and the juniors will try To steal from the freshies each tie; But they will not win, For we'll fight them like sin--"

"And bust 'em right plumb in the eye!"

finished Tom. "Oh, say, but will you all sew your neckties fast?"

"Sure!"

"And we'll tell the rest to do so, too," added another freshman who was present.

The news soon circulated, and was kept from all but the first-year students.

It must be confessed that many of the students found it hard to fix their minds on their lessons that afternoon. One boy, Max Spangler, brought on a great laugh when the following question was put to him:

"What great improvement in navigation did Fulton introduce?"

"Neckties," answered Max abstractedly.

"Neckties?" queried the instructor in astonishment.

"I--er--I don't mean neckties," stammered the German-American student, "I mean steamboats."

When the afternoon session was over the students hurried to their various rooms. The soph.o.m.ores and the juniors who were to take part in the contest talked matters over, and as far as possible laid out a plan of action. It was decided that the largest and heaviest of the second and third-year students were to tackle the smallest freshmen first, while the others were to hold the rest of the first-year men at bay.

"We'll get fifteen or twenty neckties first clip that way," said one of the soph.o.m.ores, "and it doesn't matter who we get them from. A little chap's tie counts as much as that of a two-hundred pounder."

In the meantime the freshmen were busy following Tom's advice and sewing their ties fast to their collars, shirts, and even their undershirts. Then d.i.c.k, who had, unconsciously almost, become a leader, called the boys into an empty recitation-room.

"Now, I've got a plan," said he. "We want to bunch up, and all the little fellows and lightweights get in the center. The heavy fellows can take the outside and fight the others off. Understand?"

"Yes!"

"That's a good idea!"

"Forward to the fray!" yelled Stanley, "and woe be to him who tries to get my tie! His blood be on his own head!" he added tragically.

"Forward!" cried Sam, "and let our watchword be, 'Die, but no tie!'"

"Now don't get excited," said d.i.c.k. "Take it coolly, and I'm certain that when the time is up we'll have the most of our ties still on."

It was the custom to go out on the campus at a given time, and when the chapel bell sounded out the hour d.i.c.k led the freshmen forward.

They came out of a side door in a body and formed around the flagstaff almost before the soph.o.m.ores and juniors knew they had appeared.