_ CHAPTER III. THE BLOW
There was a sudden hush. The students saw that Diamond was really revengeful, and his words seemed to indicate that he intended to report any one whose identity he discovered.
The Virginian was pale and he trembled with anger.
"You don't mean to say that you will blow, do you?" asked one.
"That's exactly what I do mean, sir!" came resolutely from the lips of the infuriated freshman. "I am a gentleman and the son of a gentleman, and I'll never stand it to be treated like a cur. Hazing is said to be no longer tolerated here, and an investigation is certain to follow my report of this affair."
A little fellow stepped out.
"You claim to be a gentleman," he said, distinctly, "but you will prove yourself a cad if you peach."
"I had rather be a cad than a ruffian, sir!"
"If you were a gentleman you would take your medicine like a gentleman. You'd never squeal."
"You fellows are the ones who are squealing now, for you see you have been imposing on the wrong man."
"Man!" shot back the little fellow, contemptuously. "There's not much man about a chap that blows when he is hazed a little."
"A little! a little! Is this what you call a little?"
"Oh, this is nothing. Think of what the poor freshies used to go through in the old days of Delta Kappa and Signa Epsilon. Why, sometimes a fellow would be roasted so his skin would smell like burned steak for a week."
"That was when he was burned at the stake," said a chap in the background, and there was a universal dismal groan.
"This is some of the Delta Kappa machinery here," the little fellow explained. "Sometimes some of the fellows come here to have a cold bot and hot lob. You freshies walked right in on us to-night, and we gave you a pleasant reception. Now, if you blow I'll guarantee you'll never become a soph. The fellows will do you, and do you dirty, before your first year is up."
"Such threats do not frighten me," haughtily flung back the lad from Virginia. "I know this was a put-up job, and Bruce Browning was in it. He got us to come here. Frank Merriwell knew something about it, or he'd never been so ready to come. And I know you, too, Tad Horner."
The little fellow fell back a step, and then, with a sudden angry impulse, he tore off his mask, showing a flushed, chubby, boyish face, from which a pair of great blue eyes flashed at Diamond.
"Well, I am Tad Horner!" he cried, "and I'm not ashamed of it! If you want to throw me down, go ahead. It will be a low, dirty trick, and will show the kind of big stuff you are!"
The masked lads were surprised, for Tad had never exhibited such spirit before. He had always seemed like a mild, shy, mother-boy sort of chap. He had been hazed and had cried; but he wouldn't beg and he never squealed. After that Browning had taken him under his wing, had fought his battles, and had stood by him through the freshman year. Anybody who was looking for trouble could find it by imposing on Horner; and Browning, for all of his laziness, could fight like a tiger when he was aroused.
Some of the students clapped their hands in approbation of Tad's plain words, and there was a general stir. One fellow proposed that everybody unmask, so that all would be on a level with Horner, but the little fellow quickly cried:
"Don't do it! You'd all be spotted, and the faculty would know who to investigate if anything should happen to Diamond. If I'm fired, I want you fellows to settle with him for me."
"We'll do it--we'll do it, Tad!" cried more than twenty voices.
Diamond showed his white, even teeth and laughed shortly.
"Perhaps you think that will scare me," he sneered. "If so, you will find I am not bluffed so easily."
"We are not trying to scare you," declared another of the masked students, "but you'll find we are in earnest if you blow."
"Well, you will find I am in earnest, and I do not care for you all."
The boys began to despair, for they saw that Diamond was determined and obstinate, and it would be no easy thing to induce him to abandon his intention of reporting the hazing. If he did so, Browning and Horner would find themselves in deep trouble, and others might become involved during the investigation. It was not probable that the consequences would be serious for Merriwell, who would be able to prove his innocence in the matter.
What could be done?
The boys fell to discussing the matter in little groups, and not a few expressed regret that Tad Horner had unmasked, as an alibi could have been arranged for him if he had not done so. Now he would be too proud to permit them to try anything of the sort, and he would tell the truth about his connection with the affair if the truth were demanded of him.
"We're in a bad box," said one fellow in one of the little groups. "Diamond is mad enough to do as he threatens."
"Sure," nodded another. "And that breaks up this joint. No more little lunches here--no more games of penny ante."
"It's a howling shame!" exploded a third. "It makes me feel grouchy."
"I move we strangle Diamond," suggested the first speaker.
"It seems that that is the only way to keep his tongue still," dolefully groaned a tall chap. "This is a big horse on us."
"That's what," sighed a boy with a face like a girl's. "The whole business puts me in a blue funk."
Then they stood and stared silently at each other through the eyeholes in their masks, and not one of them was able to propose anything practicable.
The rest of the assembled sophomores seemed in quite as bad a plight, and some of them were inclined to indulge in profanity, which, although it relieved their feelings for the moment, did not suggest any way out of the scrape.
At this point Merriwell spoke up, addressing Diamond.
"Look here, old man," he said in a friendly way, "you've only taken the same dose they gave me. It's nothing when you get used to it."
Diamond gave him a contemptuous look, but did not speak.
"Now, I don't propose to make a fuss about this little joke," Frank went on. "What's the use? I'm not half killed."
"Perhaps you think you can hoodwink me!" cried Diamond. "Well, you cannot! You were in the game all the time. That's why you were so ready to meet me in a duel--that's why you came here."
"I assure you on my word of honor that you are wrong."
"Your word of honor!"
"Yes, my word of honor," he calmly returned. "See--look at my clothes. You can tell that I have been through the mill."
"You may have had them fixed that way on purpose to fool me."
"Oh, you must know better than that! Be reasonable, Diamond."
The Virginian made a savage gesture.
"If you are so pleased to be made a laughingstock of it's nothing to me," he flashed. "Keep still if you want to. I'm going to tell all I know."
"That would make a very large book--full of nice clean, blank pages," said some one in the background.
Frank's manner suddenly changed.
"Look here, Diamond," he said, "you won't tell a thing."
The Southerner caught his breath and his eyes stared.
"Eh?" he muttered, surprised at the other's manner. "I won't?"
"Not on your life."
"Why not?"
"Because it will mean expulsion for you as well as myself if you do."
Every one was listening. They gathered about the two freshmen, wondering not a little at Merriwell's words and manner.
"Expulsion for me?" slowly repeated Diamond. "How is that?"
"It's straight goods."
"Explain it."
"Well, I will. We came here to fight a duel, didn't we?"
"Yes, sir."
"You admit that?"
"I do, sir."
"That is all that's needed."
"How? Why? I don't understand."
"Duels are not countenanced in the North, and nothing would cause a fellow to be fired from Yale quicker than the knowledge that he had had anything to do with one while here. Do you twig?"
There was a moment of silence and then a stir. A deep sigh of relief came from the masked lads, and some of them showed an inclination to cheer Merriwell.
Diamond seemed nonplused for the moment. He glared at Frank, his hands clinched and his face pale.
At last he slowly said:
"A duel is something no gentleman can blow about, so if you are a gentleman you will have to remain silent, sir."
"That's the way you Southerners look at it, but yon will excuse us Northerners if we do not see it in the same light. A hazing is something we do not blow about, but you seem determined to let out everything, for all that it would be a dirty thing to do. In order to even the matter, these fellows are sure to tell that you came here to fight a duel with deadly weapons, and you'll find yourself rusticating in Virginia directly."
"'Way down in ole Virginny," softly warbled one of the delighted sophomores. "That's the stuff, Merry, old boy!"
Diamond trembled with intense anger. He tried to speak, but his voice was so hoarse that his words were unintelligible. A blue line seemed to form around his mouth.
"Merriwell's got him!" Bruce Brown lazily whispered in Tad Horner's ear. "See him squirm!"
Tad was relieved, although he endeavored not to show it; but a satisfied smile crept over his rosy face, and he felt like giving Frank Merriwell the "glad hand."
Diamond's anger got the best of him. He strode forward, looked straight into Frank's eyes, and panted:
"I hate you, sir! I could kill you!"
And then, before he realized what he was doing, he struck Merriwell a sharp blow on the cheek with his open hand. _