He thought of a trick he had acquired in wrestling. Quickly arching his back like a bow, he suddenly straightened it with a snap, and the holds of Gladdus and Fenmore were broken. They were hurled back and then other freshmen took them up bodily, thrusting them beyond the outer line of defense.
Then the whole body of sophomores quickly threw themselves against the freshmen, as if to force them away from the pole by weight of numbers. They nearly succeeded, and Tom and his fellow defenders of the flag staff thought their arms would be pulled out of the sockets. But, as if it was a second down in a fierce football game, the freshmen held their opponents and thrust the wave of sophomores back.
So it went on, the attack becoming fiercer until, when the timekeepers announced that there were but two more minutes left in which to hold or gain the pole, the second-year men seemed fairly to overwhelm the others.
“Tear ’em up! tear ’em up!” pleaded Gladdus.
“Hold, boys, hold!” begged Langridge. And hold they did, for when time was called the defenders were found with their arms still locked about the flag staff.
“We win, fellows!” yelled Tom, capering about, with his hands grasping those of Sid and Phil.
Then followed an impromptu war dance, while the vanquished sophomores filed away in the darkness, the exultant freshmen sending cheer after cheer out on the air.
“Here’s where we wear ribbons on our hats!” cried Ford Fenton. “Now, I’d like to see any soph make me take it off.”
He pulled from his pocket a band and fixed it to a new hat he had bought to replace the slashed one.