“I’ll stand my share,” laughed the other. “I want to stay. I’ve a grudge against that plebe Mallory myself.”
Bull bit his lip in vexation.
“The fact is, fellows,” he said, “we want to take these plebes to a place we don’t know anything about.”
“Why didn’t you tell us that before you asked us?” growled the four. “I’m going to stay, I don’t care what you say.”
The fact of the matter was that the four yearlings were just a little chary about leaving their prisoner in Bull’s hands, though they did not care to say so. They knew Bull Harris’ character. His hatred of Mallory was well known. Who had not seen Bull, one night when the yearling class took Mallory and started to beat him into submission, seize a lash and leap at the helpless victim in a perfect frenzy of hatred. And who had not heard him all that day wrathfully telling the story of how Mallory and his gang, in an effort to cure him of his meanness, had frightened him almost to tears? Truly, thought the four, Bull’s hazing was a thing to be supervised.
So they stayed, and finally Bull had to accept the situation.
“Come on,” he growled, surlily.
The crowd lifted their helpless victims from the ground and set out to follow Bull’s guidance. They had no idea where they were going, and in fact Bull had none himself. He could think of no form of torture that was quite cruel enough for that hated Mallory, and he did not have the brains to think of one that was as ingenious and harmless as Mallory had worked on him.
“I’d tie him up and beat the hide off him,” thought Bull, “if I could only get rid of those confounded fellows that are with us. As it is, I’ll have to find something else, plague take it.”
The crowd had been scrambling down the steep bank toward the river in the meanwhile. Bull thought it would be well to douse Mallory in the water, which was one of the tricks Mallory had tried on him. After that he said to himself it’ll be time enough to think of something more. They skirted the parade ground and made their way down past the riding hall and across the railroad track near the tunnel.