– ah!”
The sergeant walked off, smacking his lips, and Don and Bert kept on up the stairs.
“I rather think Egan has been there,” observed the latter.
“I know he has,” replied Don, “and the taste of that maple syrup clings to his palate yet.”
On entering their room Don threw himself into a chair, stretched his legs out before him, buried his hands in his pockets, and gazed down at the floor in a brown study; while Bert leaned his elbows on the table, rested his chin on his hands, and looked at him. Presently Don threw back his head and laughed so loudly and heartily that his brother was obliged to laugh too.
“I never dreamed of such a thing,” said Bert, who knew what was passing in Don’s mind.
“No more did I. Just think how that dignified father of ours must have looked running the guard and standing punishment for it afterward! He took good care not to say a word to us about it, didn’t he? I say, Bert,” exclaimed Don, suddenly, and then he as suddenly paused.
“Don’t you do it,” said Bert, earnestly. “You will be certain to get yourself into trouble by it.”
“If I did, I should be perfectly willing to take the consequences. But father couldn’t haul me over the coals for it, could he?”
“If father were here now, he wouldn’t think of doing such things.”
“Neither would I if I were a man.”
“But you won’t go to Cony Ryan’s, will you?” pleaded Bert.
“Of course not. Don’t borrow any trouble on that score. I promised mother that I would behave myself, and I am going to do it. But I should like to taste those pies and pancakes, all the same,” added Don, to himself.
That evening, after supper, Don and Bert showed their pass to the sentry at the gate, and set out to pay their long deferred visit to Mr. Packard. Why was it that they did not think to read that pass when it was given to them? If they had, they might have saved themselves from something disagreeable that afterward happened. They passed a very pleasant evening at Mr. Packard’s house, and at half-past ten they took leave of their new friends and started for the academy.
As they were walking briskly along the road that ran around one end of the big pond, they heard an indistinct murmur of voices, and presently saw a crowd of boys, who were walking in a compact body, pass across the road in front of them, and direct their course toward the middle of the pond. They thought at first that it was a skating party; but as they did not stop to put on their skates, Don and Bert became interested in their movements and halted to observe them. Just then a voice, speaking in pleading accents, came to their ears.
“Don’t do it, boys – please don’t,” it said, in piteous tones. “I wouldn’t mind it so much if I could stand it, but I solemnly assure you that I can’t. I have had one attack of pneumonia this winter that was brought on by exposure, and ducking me in this icy water will surely give me another.”
“No it won’t,” replied another voice that Don knew belonged to Tom Fisher. “This is a time-honored custom, and we are not going to give it up; are we, boys?”
“Not much,” answered the others, in concert.
“Our fathers were hazed when they went to this school; they, in turn, hazed others, and we couldn’t think of disgracing them by refusing to follow in their footsteps,” continued Tom. “Everyone of the fellows you see around you – myself among the rest – has been hazed in one way or another; and are you, a New York boot-black, any better than we are?”
“Hurry him on and pitch him in,” said Clarence Duncan, in his deep base tones. “Wash some of the black out of him.”
“Yes, in with him,” piped little Dick Henderson.
“Well, boys, if you must do it to preserve your honor, let me take my clothes off first,” said the pleading voice. “This is the only suit I have in the world, and if I get it wet I shall freeze to death, for I have no fire in my room to dry it by.”
“Then go to bed,” was the rough rejoinder.
“Why, what in the world are those fellows going to do?” said Bert, who had listened in great amazement to this conversation, every word of which came distinctly to the ears of himself and his brother. “I am afraid they are going to do something to somebody.”
“Have you just found it out?” exclaimed Don, who now discovered that the boys were making their way toward a hole that had been previously cut in the ice. “A party of students, led by Fisher and Duncan, are going to haze a Plebe by ducking him in the pond. Now I shall have a word or two to say about that. They are the same fellows who blocked up our path this morning and wouldn’t let us go by. You know they promised to settle with me some day for showing so much ‘independence,’ as they called it, and they might as well do it now as any other time.”
“O Don, mind what you are about,” cried Bert.
“I will. I’ll black the eyes of some of them before they shall stick that boy through the ice. Why, Bert, what would father say to me if he should hear that I stood by and witnessed such a proceeding without lifting a hand to prevent it? He would tell me I wasn’t worthy of the name I bear.”
No one who knew the temper of the academy boys, and the tenacity with which they clung to the “time-honored customs” of the institution to which they belonged, would have thought Don Gordon a coward if he had taken to his heels and made the best of his way to his room. He knew very well that if he attempted to interfere with Tom and his crowd, he stood a good chance of being ducked himself; but the knowledge of this fact did not deter him from promptly carrying out the plans he had resolved upon. It would have been bad enough, he told himself, if the students had selected as a victim a boy who had an extra suit of clothes, a change of linen to put on, and a fire to warm himself by after his cold bath; but to pitch upon one who had none of these comforts, and who ran the risk of being thrown into a dangerous illness by the folly of his tormentors, was, in his estimation, a most cowardly act, and one that could not be too severely punished.
“Bert, you had better stay here where you will be safe,” said Don.
“I’ll not do it,” was the prompt reply. “If you are going into danger, I am going in too.”
Don, knowing that it would be of no use to argue the matter, ran out on the ice, and when he came up with the crowd his coats were off, and he was in his shirt-sleeves. Fisher and his companions stopped when they heard the sound of his approaching footsteps, and some of them acted as if they wanted to run away; but when they discovered that Don and Bert were alone, they waited for them to come nearer, thinking that perhaps they were a couple of the members of their own class who wanted to join in the sport. When they saw Don pull off his overcoat, however, their eyes were opened.
“Here comes an intruder, boys,” exclaimed one of the students, “and judging by the way he acts, he is getting ready for a rumpus.”
“Let him get ready,” said Fisher. “There are a dozen of us. If he turns out to be a Plebe, we’ll stick him in too. The more the merrier, you know. Who comes there?” he added, raising his voice.
“A peace-maker,” replied Don, throwing his coats on the ice.
“Yes, you look like it,” sneered Clarence Duncan. “If that is so, what did you pull your duds off for?”
“Because
