“Is there!” replied Clarence, angrily. “Do you suppose that I am going to submit tamely to an insult like that? We’ll make a way to get even with him. Things have come to a pretty pass if a plebe is going to be allowed to come here and run this school to suit himself.”
The mere reference to such an unheard-of thing was enough to raise the ire of Tom Fisher and all his companions, who with one voice declared that the Planter, having presumed to lay violent hands on an upper-class boy, and to set at defiance one of the old-established customs of the academy, must be made to suffer the consequences. They held a long and earnest consultation there on the ice, and Fisher and Duncan, who were fruitful in expedients, soon hit upon a plan which promised, if skillfully managed, to bring Sam Arkwright’s champion into serious trouble. It was a most dangerous plan, because it was to be carried out under the guise of friendship.
“That’s the only way to do it, fellows, you may depend upon it,” said Duncan, after their scheme had been thoroughly discussed. “We must bring him into trouble with the faculty, and let them do the hazing, for we couldn’t do it if we wanted to. I was nothing but a child in his grasp, and, to tell the honest truth, I have no desire to face him again.”
“I hope we shall succeed,” said Fisher. “But if the Planter turns out to be one of those good little boys who never do anything wrong, then what?”
If Tom had only known it, he need not have bothered his head on this point. Unfortunately for Don, something happened that very night which made it comparatively easy for the conspirators to carry out the plans they had formed regarding him.
Meanwhile Don and Bert were walking briskly toward the academy in company with the rescued boy, who was somewhat protected from the keen wind by Bert’s muffler, which the latter had wrapped about his neck, and by Don’s gloves which he wore upon his hands. He was lost in admiration of his new friend’s prowess, and complimented him in the best language he could command.
“Are you an Irishman, sir?” Sam asked, at length.
“Look here,” answered Don, “my name is Gordon—there’s no ‘sir’ about it. No, I am not an Irishman. I am an American, I am proud to say; but I understand the Irish ‘hand and foot’ well enough to give it to such fellows as that Clarence Duncan. I can throw a man weighing two hundred pounds in that way if he will let me take hold of his hand.”
“It was well done,” said Sam. “I never saw it done better.”
“I learned it of one of my father’s hired men—a discharged Union soldier who came to our plantation penniless and hungry, and asked for work,” said Don. “I always make it a point to pick up any little thing of that kind that happens to fall in my way. It may come handy some day, you know.”