"Here they come," grinned Butch, hearing a tumult in the bunkhouse, and
a confused Babel of voices. "Hicks has awakened the camp. Now watch the
fellows wreak summary vengeance on his toothpick frame!"
From the sleep-shack, aroused at that weird hour by the clamor of the
irrepressible youth, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., tumbled others of the squad,
in varying stages of déshabille; big Beef McNaughton, right half-back,
Roddy Perkins, the Titian-haired right-end, Pudge Langdon, a ponderous
tackle, and Monty Merriweather, a clean-cut, aggressive candidate for left
end. From within, other wrathy youths howled vociferous protests at their
tormentor:
"Stop that noise; put your muzzle on again, Hicks!"—"Where's the fire?
Say, Hicks, muffle your exhaust!"—"Say, Coach, must we endure this day and
night?"
The bunkhouse fairly erupted angry collegians, boiling out like bees
swarming from a disturbed hive; Hefty Hollingsworth, the Herculean
center-rush. Biff Pemberton, left half-back, Bunch Bingham, Tug Cardiff,
and Buster Brown, three huge last-year substitutes; second-string players,
Don Carterson, Cherub Challoner, Skeet Wigglesworth, and Scoop Sawyer. A
dozen others, from sheer laziness, hugged their bunks devotedly, despite
the terrific turmoil outside.
"It's a disgrace, a howling shame!" exploded Beef, his elephantine frame
swathed in blankets to conceal a lack of vestiture, "Last night, until
midnight, that graceless wretch roosted on 'Lookout There' and because the
glorious moonlight made him sentimental and slushy, he twanged his banjo
and warbled such mushy stuff as 'My Love is young and fair. My Love has
golden hair!' When does he expect us to sleep?"
"He doesn't!" explained Monty Merriweather, with succinct lucidity,
grinning at his comrades. "Say, fellows, you know how Hicks dreads a cold
shower-bath; well, some of you rage at him from the other side of the rock,
while I climb up the rope-ladder and close with him! Then some of you
prehistoric pachyderms ascend, and we'll chuck that pestersome insect into
the cold, cold lake—"
"Done!" chuckled Butch Brewster, delightedly. So, while he, Beef
McNaughton, Hefty Hollingsworth, and others beguiled the jeering Hicks,
expressing in dynamic, red-hot sentences their exact opinions of his
perfidy, the athletic Monty imitated a mountain-scaling Italian soldier.
He climbed stealthily up the swaying rope-ladder; nearer and nearer to the
unsuspecting youth he crept, while the cherubic Hicks, to tantalize the
group below, again burst forth:
"Whoop-eee! I'm a bold, bad man (bang-bang)! I got ten notches on my
ole six-gun—I'm a killer. I wings a man before breakfast every day! I
got a private burying-ground, where I plants my victims (bang-bang)!
Yip-yip-yip-yee! Oh, I'm a—Ouch, Monty—leggo me—Oh, I'll be
good—why didn't I pull that rope-ladder up here? Don't bust my banjo
—don't let Butch get me—"
Monty Merriweather, reaching the flat top of the rock, had courageously
flung himself, without regard for the Bad Man's desperate record, on the
startled Hicks, whose first thought was for his beloved banjo. While he
held the blithesome tormentor helpless, Butch, Beef, and Roddy Perkins
climbed the rope-ladder, and the grinning youth was soon in their clutches,
while the collegians below, like a Roman, mob aroused by the oratory of Mr.
Mark Antony, howled for revenge:
"Bust the old banjo over his head, Butch!"—"Sing to him, Beef—that's
an awful revenge on Hicks!"—"Tie him to the rock—make him miss his
breakfast!"