He fell on his side and shoulder. The blow of his fall was heard above the storm of shouts and cheers that followed him. In an instant Van Loan had seized the cane, and flourished it for a second in heroic attitude above the prostrate body of his victim. Then finding Lee almost within touch, he turned and ran with it into an open doorway of South College.
But Lee did not follow him; he stopped where Parmenter lay in the moonlight, white-faced, limp, and unconscious, with flowing blood staining the pavement under his head.
“He’s hurt!” cried Lee, frightened at his friend’s appearance, and bending over him in deep anxiety. “He’s hurt! Maybe the brute has killed him! Here, give us a lift; let’s carry him in! Rob, run for Doctor Park—run!”
The crowd, suddenly quieted, pressed forward toward the point where Parmenter lay. Half a dozen of his classmen had already lifted him in their arms, and a moment later they were carrying him, hurt, helpless, still unconscious, across the moonlit campus to his room.
But the fight was won. Van Loan’s stroke, cruel and revengeful though it was, had placed victory in the hands of the Freshmen. Henceforth every man in the class was entitled, by virtue of the time-honored student law, to wear a high hat and carry a cane whenever and wherever he might choose to do so.
[CHAPTER II.]
THE GAMMA QUESTERS.
Parmenter recovered consciousness soon after he was carried to his room, after being thrown so viciously by Van Loan; but when the college physician came he declared that there was a fracture of the right clavicle.
There was also a deep scalp wound where Parmenter’s head had struck on a sharp edge of the stone pavement, and this required stitching and dressing.