Two minutes previous a sepulchral voice had spoken the awful words:
"Slide them into the endless pit!"
Then, with a gay college song, the mob that had led Frank and Bob on a hazing trip, that had been positively hair-raising in its incidents, had seemed to retire from the spot. Their laughter and songs now faded far away in the distance.
"Well," uttered Bob, getting his eyes clear and his arms free, "we've had an experience."
"I should say so," echoed Frank. "That old ice chute they dropped us into must have been a hundred feet long."
"The hogshead they rolled us downhill in went double that distance," declared Bob.
"Well, let's get out of this," advised Frank.
That was more easily said than done. Comparative strangers as yet to the country surrounding Bellwood, even when they had got on solid ground out of the muck and mire of the boggy waste, they knew not which way to turn.
It was dark as Erebus and the wind was blowing a gale. Nowhere on the landscape could they discover a guiding light. They were in a scrubby little patch of woods, and they were confused even as to the points of the compass.
"I think this is the direction of the academy," said Frank, striking out on a venture.