Jimmy was indignant. "By George, that was tough. Who did it?"
"Oh, I don't know; half a dozen fellows were waiting for me in my room, dumped me on the floor, tied my hands, carried me off with a muffler around my face, and then, when I was half way across the Wampaug, skipped and left me."
"Was Chip Dixon in the gang that hazed you?"
"I couldn't tell. The fellows were all masked."
"It's a beastly shame," blurted out Jimmy. "It'll come out, see if it don't, and I wouldn't give a licked postage stamp for the chances of the fellows who did it, if it comes to the Doctor's ears. I've a notion to go out and play detective. To think that I was studying here quietly, and you were being ducked in the river not two hundred yards away!" And Jimmy jumped up and began to walk around the floor, threatening vengeance on the perpetrators of the outrage.
"Oh, don't you bother about it. It gave them lots of fun, and it didn't hurt me," said Frank. "The water sure was chilly when I struck it first, but the swim wasn't long. It made me sleep like a top. And perhaps some good may come out of it."
Jimmy continued to growl, but Frank laughed the incident away, and the talk turned on the afternoon's football practice which Horton had threatened would be a stiff one.
"Speaking of football," said Jimmy, "why don't you go out and do a little something for your newly adopted school?"
"Oh, I wouldn't be any good. I'd like to try it, all right. But I've got my work cut out for me, staying in school without mixing up in football this fall anyway. Maybe by the time hockey comes around I'll do some work if I'm standing well enough to escape the terrible eye of the Doctor. But for this fall at least I'll do most of my football work on the bleachers, and giving the right halfback of the eleven friendly advice."
"No luck like that for me. I guess I'm not much good and I don't stand well enough with the ruling powers. But maybe, bye-and-bye, I'll get a chance. In the meantime I'll keep pushing and learn all I can. Horton knows the game, doesn't he?"