Knowing then that this was either a mistake in the initiation, or something not on the programme, and that at all events he was in serious danger, he made the most desperate effort to help himself.
Naturally this was no easy matter, for his hands were tied behind his back and his eyes were blindfolded.
The knots had not been tied with the greatest skill, but the line was a stout one and in the short time he had to make the effort, Frank could not release his hands.
He was more than half stunned by the collision, but he kept his wits sufficiently to roll over and over in front of the moving car, trying the best he could to kick himself out of its way. Meantime the car was rapping him repeatedly.
It was all over in a second or two, but the time seemed terribly long to the neophyte.
He was only half conscious of what happened, but he knew that the noise of the wheels upon the rails had ceased, and that he was picked up in strong arms and carried somewhere; then his brain whirled and everything became a blank.
That was the way the event seemed to Frank. The way it appeared to his mentors was this:
Following the usual custom of such initiations, they had stood Frank close to the car tracks, but not so close that the passing car would have so much as brushed him.
Such events were not so uncommon in New Haven as to make them dangerous when conducted in the ordinary way. Motormen get used to the pranks of students and accordingly send their cars past blindfolded figures at full speed, oftentimes clanging the footbell furiously in order to help out the joke by alarming the neophyte as much as possible.
Sometimes a motorman who is new to the business gets so disturbed at the sight of the blindfolded figure near the rail that he stops the car just short of him.