“No, thank you,” said Bobs, cheerfully, and, without an instant’s hesitation, he began shinning up an oak tree, whose branches grazed the school windows. From a perch in that, he swung himself lightly to an addition which leaned against the main building, and, safely landed there, made a low bow to the admiring crowd now gathered. After that, by the aid of window ledges and cornices, he clambered to the many-gabled roof and began to climb—nimbly, cautiously.
The late October wind crackled with a brittle sound through the yellow-brown leaves of the oaks. It flapped sharply at the girls’ gowns, as they stood there with the cold autumn sunlight shining down on their upturned faces. Suddenly, a gust of it snatched Bobs’s cap from his head, and swept it a block away before the best runners in Marston could capture it, but sure-footed Bobs, undisturbed, stood up on the highest gable, in the midst of an exultant shout from his spectators, and calmly watched the race to the end, before he knelt again, and crept carefully, slowly, along the last ridge-pole, straight to the Indian’s side!
“’Rah for Bobs! Bobs! Bobs! Bobs!” came from below, and then a silence fell while everyone watched to see what he would do next. Before they had seen, it was done. Whipping a ball of heavy twine from his pocket, Bobs had tied one end around the Indian’s neck, had cut the cords which bound him to the flag-staff, and was swiftly lowering him down the front of the building.
With a whoop, seniors and juniors closed upon the helpless dummy, but, in the end, the seniors triumphed, and bore the abject Indian, torn limb from limb, to a vacant field near by, where they promptly set fire to him.
It was a tame cremation, though, with few spectators, for all the girls and most of the boys had lingered to see that Bobs got safely down. Everyone realised that there was actual peril in the feat he had undertaken so gaily, and each danger point passed in the downward climb brought forth a noisier cheering. Once he missed his footing and slipped, the length of his body, down the steep roof. The crowd held its breath, but he stopped himself somehow, and struggled back to safety, amid a tremendous yelling. At last, leaping down to the lowest roof, he caught a branch of the tree, went hand over hand into the boughs, and slid down the trunk to the ground, where he found himself looking straight into the rosy face of a girl with golden hair, who was clapping her hands and shouting “Hurrah!” with the best of them.
Bobs had never seen her until that minute, but, involuntarily, his hand went to his capless head. “Thanks, I’m sure!” he said, with a merry twinkle. Then his admirers closed around him and carried him off to the lunch-room.
“What was that he said to you, Jack?” asked a resentful voice over her shoulder.
“Oh, Quis, are you there? He said ‘Thanks,’ that was all. I don’t know him, you see. Wasn’t it great?”
“Great foolishness, yes! Don’t you know you mustn’t let fellows speak to you until they’ve been introduced?” Marquis answered, in an undertone, and Jacquette, turning away with the girls, felt, suddenly, that the time might come when she should outgrow her cousin’s leading-strings.
The week slipped away, after that, and Saturday came. The Sigma Pi initiation, fixed for that day, was to take place at Nell Brewster’s, but early in the forenoon, two girls came down the street, leading a third, who was blindfolded, and deposited her in the laundry at Jacquette’s home, without a word to anyone. Jacquette had already gone over to Nell’s and presumably had offered the use of her house to the sorority, for, a little later, Miss Granville found another strange girl in the pantry, taking a double handful of cookies out of the jar, and, still later, two more walked into the front door, without greeting of any sort, seated themselves in the living-room, and staid there, silent, for an hour.