Frank wondered as Bart swung away. He would have wondered still more had he observed where Hodge went and what he did.
Direct to a certain store the dark-eyed lad proceeded, and there he purchased a lantern, which he had filled with oil and prepared for lighting. With this lantern he struck out at a brisk walk, avoiding the vicinity of the college buildings.
More than half an hour later Bart was searching along the ridge of high land near where Merriwell had fallen on the road. The lighted lantern aided him in his search behind the mass of evergreen bushes.
He came to a place that interested him very much, for there was every indication that some one had been there ahead of him.
Then he uttered a low cry of satisfaction, and suddenly snatched something from the ground.
It was a handkerchief!
CHAPTER VI.
THE FIGHT WITH RAPIERS.
Defarge had roomed alone ever since entering college. He was so exceedingly unpopular that it would have been difficult for him to find a roommate had he desired one; but he declared that on no condition would he share his apartments with another.
His rooms were well furnished and comfortable, but he cared little about their arrangement or decorations, and about them there was not a single thing in the way of ornament that would suggest to a casual visitor that a Yale man slept and studied there.
In other rooms were flags, badges, blue ribbons, and a hundred other things gathered by the students as tokens to remind them of something connected with their college-life. When they visited home at holidays they took some of these things along to give brothers or sisters, who treasured them with pride.