Langridge murmured something, but as there arose a general demand that he let some one else try, and as a new body of sophomores were rushing down to the attack, he handed over the lead weight.
“Can you pitch?” he asked of Tom.
“A little,” was the quiet reply.
The two faced each other in the darkness, as if trying to see of what stuff each was made. It was the first time Tom Parsons and Fred Langridge met, and it was rather prophetic that this first meeting should presage others which were to follow, and in which the rivalry thus early established was to be fought out to the bitter end.
“Hurry!” urged Kerr. “We’re going to have our hands full now. They’re going to rush us.”
Tom Parsons grasped the lead weight, and shook the cord to free it of kinks. He stepped back a few feet, looked up in the darkness to where the cross was dimly visible, and then, drawing back his arm, sent the lead with great force and straight aim up into the air.
“A good throw!” cried Sid Henderson, as the moon, just then coming out from behind a bank of clouds, showed that the cord had fallen squarely over one arm of the cross, the weight coming down to the ground on the other side of the chapel.
“A good throw!” echoed Clinton.
“Humph!” growled Langridge. “I could have done as well on the next try.”
“Haul up the rope!” ordered Kerr. “Lively, now!”