The tone of his voice was like a whiplash, and every member of the team knew that he was angry clear through.
Already the stands were beginning to fill with the friends of Ridgley and of Jefferson, though the cheering sections were as yet empty. In two long columns, stepping in time to the music of their respective bands, the Ridgleyites and the Jeffersonians were marching to the field.
CHAPTER VIII
STRANGE CAPTORS
Teeny-bits Holbrook was not the sort to give up hope quickly. When, after struggling vainly against his bonds, he had exhausted his strength and had at last lain back panting for breath, he had begun to think,—to try in some way to devise a plan that would offer hope of escape. But there seemed to be no possible loophole, no stratagem or maneuver by means of which he could win release. Inaction was galling, and, after lying still for a long time, Teeny-bits again began to struggle and twist and squirm. These bonds with which his arms and hands and feet and legs were fastened did not give way under his most violent efforts and, as previously, he exhausted himself before he had accomplished anything.
For hours Teeny-bits alternated these periods of struggling and resting. Twice he was aware that some one came into the room and went out,—evidently after watching him for a few moments. How much time had passed since his captors had pounced upon him on the hill road to Hamilton he had no means of knowing, but it seemed likely that more than half the night had gone.
In one of his struggles Teeny-bits rolled off the edge of the mattress on which he had been lying; to his surprise he did not fall with a crash some two or three feet, as he would have fallen from a bed of the usual height, but merely dropped a few inches before coming in contact with the floor. Evidently the mattress rested on springs that were laid directly on the boards. Teeny-bits rolled himself this way and that until he brought up against a wall. He was about to roll in the other direction when he realized that the folds of cloth that bound him were caught against something; from the feeling—the slight pull that was exerted against the movement of his body—he came to the conclusion that it was a nail. He wriggled a few inches length-wise along the wall, and the sound of ripping cloth came to his ears,—a sound that brought a thrill of hope. If the bonds that imprisoned him were too strong to be broken by the power of his muscles, perhaps he could tear and rip them by edging himself back and forth against the sharp projection which, judging by sound, had already effected the beginning of what he desired. By twisting and turning, he succeeded, in the course of the next five minutes, in gaining a certain amount of freedom for his arms.
When Teeny-bits had left his room in Gannett Hall to answer the telephone call he had pulled on a light sweater. Now it occurred to him that if he could catch the lower part of the sweater on the nail, he might, by working his body downward, pull the garment over his head and carry with it the stout cloth in which he was still swathed. At the cost of some skin scraped from his back, he got the nail fastened in the sweater and gradually succeeded in turning it inside out. In a minute or two he said to himself, exultantly, he would have his hands free, and then it would be quick and easy work to untie his feet.
At that moment, when escape was almost within his grasp, dreaded sounds came to his ears,—the opening of the door and the shuffle of running feet. Teeny-bits was in a hopeless position to make any resistance; the folds of tough cloth which had been wound about his body, pinioning his arms, had been pulled upward with the sweater until the whole mass was bunched across the top of his bare shoulders, and though he was able to move his arms slightly, he was still so tangled that he could do nothing except await whatever fate was in store for him. Two persons came into the room; he heard them speak sharply and knew then that they were Chinese; there was no mistaking the outlandish inflection of vowel and consonant. In a second rough hands were laid upon him and he was dragged away from the wall. He gave a few last futile wrenches and then lay still, face down, on the floor.