“Here comes an intruder, boys,” exclaimed one of the students, “and judging by the way he acts, he is getting ready for a rumpus.”
“Let him get ready,” said Fisher. “There are a dozen of us. If he turns out to be a Plebe, we’ll stick him in too. The more the merrier, you know. Who comes there?” he added, raising his voice.
“A peace-maker,” replied Don, throwing his coats on the ice.
“Yes, you look like it,” sneered Clarence Duncan. “If that is so, what did you pull your duds off for?”
“Because I did not know how you would receive my overtures, and I thought it the part of wisdom to be prepared for any emergency,” answered Don.
So saying, he walked boldly into the crowd, which gave way right and left as he advanced, and took his stand by the side of the prisoner, who was firmly held by two of the largest and strongest students, while two others stood close behind him, in readiness to lend their assistance in case he made any attempt at escape. Although Don had never exchanged a word with the boy, he knew him at once, for they belonged to the same company. It was the new student whose presence, if we are to believe Fisher and his friends, was a disgrace to the academy and everybody belonging to it. He wore the same thin clothes in which he had shivered as he walked up the path that morning, and the keen wind that swept across the icy surface of the big pond must have chilled him to the very marrow. He had no muffler about his face nor any gloves on his hands, which he held clasped one within the other, as if they were very cold. Don looked at him and then at the comfortably clad boys who were standing around, and his blood, which was none of the coolest at any time, boiled with indignation.
“You are a pack of contemptible cowards,” said he, pulling off his gloves and slamming them down on the ice.
“Why, bless our royal heart, it’s the Planter!” exclaimed Tom Fisher, who now, for the first time, recognized the intruder. “Here’s luck, boys. Grab hold of him, some of you, and we’ll wash him too.”
“If that’s the Planter, this must be his brother,” said Dick Henderson.
“Why, so it is,” said Fisher, after he had taken a sharp look into Bert’s face. “Here’s more luck. Take hold of him too, boys; and since they have had the assurance to push themselves in among us without being asked, we will give them the post of honor. We’ll duck them first.”[first.”]