"They ought to have Bill Higgins here, then, to make the show complete," Merriwell remarked, with a smile. "But seriously, I don't believe they're playing anything. Those yells sound real."
"Help!" howled Willis Paulding, forgetting his drawl, "We're being stung to death!"
Willis was down on the ground, soiling his beautiful trousers and digging furiously at his head.
"Hornets!" shrieked Ollie Lord, kicking about not far from Paulding.
"Wow!" screeched Lew Veazie, bobbing up and down like a cork in water when a fish is nibbling at the bait.
"Take 'em off!" begged Julian Ives, neglecting his lovely bang and scratching with great energy at the places where he had been stung.
"We're in a nest of hornets, or bees, or something!" exclaimed Rupert Chickering, becoming decidedly belligerent in his efforts to rid himself of the stinging creatures.
"Are you going to stand there and see us killed?" Skelding demanded. "I tell you, we are being stung!"
"Glad to know it!" declared Bart. "You need it. It's hopeless, though, to expect that the hornets will sting any sense into your crowd."
Merriwell started toward the screeching, dancing, jigging, fighting youths, quickening his steps into a run, and his friends followed at his heels. As he did so he heard the loud and discordant jangle of a cowbell furiously shaken.