"Ugh!" grunted Hole-in-his-Face. "This paleface talks heap much. Remove his outer garments, so the fire may reach his flesh without delay."
Then Browning was held and his clothes were stripped off till he stood in his under garments, barefooted, bareheaded, and still defiant.
"Oh, say!" he muttered, "won't there be an awful hour of reckoning! Merriwell will regret the day he came to Yale!"
At this Hole-in-his-Face laughed heartily, and Browning cried:
"Oh, I know you, Merriwell! You can't fool me, though you have got the best makeup of them all."
When everything was ready, one of the savages actually touched a match to the various piles of brush about the feet of the unfortunate sophomores.
As the tiny flames leaped up the painted band joined in a wild war dance about the stakes, flourishing their weapons and whooping as if they were real Indians. Some of their postures and steps were exact imitations of the poses and steps taken by savages in a war dance.
"Say, confound you fool freshmen!" howled one of the captives. "This fire is getting hot! Do you really mean to roast us?"
"Yah! yah! yah! Hough! hough! hough!"
Round and round the stake circled the disguised freshmen, and the fire kept getting higher and higher.