"Rats!" laughed Bull. "It's hardly started. I'll manage it."
Bull's "management" proved rather untrustworthy; for Bull had forgotten to take into account the dryness of the twigs, and also another factor. The air had been still as he struck the match, but just at that moment a slight breeze swept along the ground, blowing the leaves before it. It struck the little fire and it seized one tiny flame and bore it up through the pile and about the legs of the imprisoned plebe.
The next instant the yearlings were thrown into the wildest imaginable confusion by a cry from one of them.
"Look out! Look out! His trousers are afire!"
CHAPTER XVIII.
TO THE RESCUE.
Things happened in a whirl of confusion after that. To the horrified cadets a thousand incidents seemed to crowd in at one moment.
In the first place there was the terrified captive, bound helplessly to the tree, his clothing on fire, himself shrieking at the top of his lungs. Then there were the yearlings themselves, all crying out with fright and alarm and rushing wildly in to drag the burning wood away. Finally there were other arrivals, whom, in the excitement, the yearlings scarcely noticed. There were two of them; one tore a knife from his pocket and cut the rope in a dozen places, the other flung off his jacket and wrapped it quickly about Indian's feet, extinguishing the flames. And then the two stood up and gazed at the rest—the frightened yearlings and their infuriated victim.
Infuriated? Yes, wildly infuriated! A change had come over Indian such as no one who knew him had ever seen before. The fire had not really hurt him; it had only ruined his clothing and scorched his legs enough to make him wild with rage. He had tugged at his bonds savagely; when he was cut free he had torn loose from the friendly stranger who had knelt to extinguish the fire, and made a savage rush at the badly scared cadets.
Indian's face was convulsed with passion. His arms were swinging wildly like a windmill's sails in a hurricane, while from his mouth rushed a volley of exclamations that would have frightened Captain Kidd and his pirate band.