CHAPTER XVII.

THE SEVEN MAKE A NEW MOVE.

“For Heaven’s sake, man, what has happened?”

The cause of this exclamation was Dewey. At the moment his uniform was dirty and torn, and his face was far from handsome. It was bruised and blue in lumps, and there were ugly places of a bright red, lending a startling effect indeed.

The speaker was Mark. He had been sitting at his tent door rubbing his gun diligently, but he sprang up in alarm when he espied the other.

“What on earth has happened to you, Dewey?” he repeated.

Dewey laughed to himself, in spite of his sorry condition.

“I don’t exactly know,” he said. “B’gee, I’ve forgotten lots of things in the last ten minutes. I’ll come in and think ’em over and tell you.”

He entered the tent, and after gazing at himself ruefully in the looking-glass that hung by the tent pole, wet a towel and fell to washing things gently.

“B’gee!” he muttered, “Mark Mallory, there’s going to be no end of trouble on account of this.”

“You haven’t told me yet,” said the other. “You don’t mean that you’ve been getting hazed some more?”

“Would you call it hazing,” responded Dewey, “if you’d been pummeled until you looked like rare beef? You needn’t be getting angry about it. We’ll have plenty of time for that later. Meantime, just you listen to my tale of woe, b’gee! I was down on Flirtation Walk a while ago, off in a lonely part. And all of a sudden I came across half a dozen yearlings. One of them was Bull Harris, and when he saw me he turned to the other cadets and called: ‘There’s one of the gang now! We might just as well start at what we agreed on.’ And then, b’gee, they started. Do you think that eye’ll shut up entirely?”

“What did they do?” demanded Mark, his blood boiling as he surveyed his comrade’s bruises.

“Well, b’gee, they sailed up, in the first place, and began a lot of talking. ‘You belong to that Mallory gang, don’t you?’ said Bull Harris. ‘Yes,’ says I, ‘I do, and I’m proud of it, too. What’s the matter with Mallory?’ ‘Matter?’ roared Gus Murray. ‘B’gee, he’s the confoundedest freshest plebe that ever came to this academy. Hasn’t he dared to refuse to let us haze him? Hasn’t he played all kinds of tricks upon us, made life miserable for us? Hasn’t he even dared to go to the hop, something no plebe has ever dared to do in the history of West Point?’ ‘Seeing that you’re asking the question, b’gee,’ I said, ‘I don’t mind telling you by way of answer that he has, and also that he’s outwitted you and licked you at every turn. And that he’ll do it again the first chance he gets, and b’gee, I’ll be there to help him, too! How’s that?’”

Here the reckless youngster paused while he removed the cork of a vaseline bottle; then he continued:

“That made old Bull wild; he hates you like fury, Mark, and he’s simply wild about the way we fooled him with that treasure. He began to rear around like a wild man. ‘If you fool plebes think we’re going to stand your impudence,’ he yelled, ‘you’re mistaken! I want you to understand that we’ve found out about that confounded organization Mallory’s gotten up among the plebes to fight us----’”

“Did he say that?” cried Mark, in surprise. “How did they learn?”

“They didn’t,” said Dewey. “They don’t know we call it the Banded Seven, or anything else about it, but they’ve seen us together so much when they’ve tried to haze us that they’ve sort of guessed it. Anyway, they’ve determined to break it up, b’gee.”

“They have! How?”

“Simply by walloping every man in it, b’gee. And they started on yours truly. The whole crowd piled on at once, Mark.”

“The cowards!” exclaimed Mark.

“Well, I gave ’em a good time, anyway,” laughed Dewey, whose natural light-heartedness had not been marred in the least. “I made for Bull. B’gee, I was bound one of them would be sorry, and I chose him. I lammed him two beauties and tumbled him into a ditch. But by that time they had me down. And----”

“Where are the rest of the Seven?” cried Mark, springing up impatiently. “By George, I’m going to get square for this outrage if it’s the last thing I ever do in my life. I’ll fight them fair just as long as they want it. I’m ready to meet any man they send, as I did. But, by jingo, I won’t stand the tricks of that miserable coward Bull Harris another day. He’s done nothing but try to get me into scrapes since the day I came here, and refused to let him haze me. And now I’m going to stop it or bust. Where are the rest of the fellows?”

“I don’t know,” began Dewey, but he was interrupted by an answer from an unexpected quarter. Texas came rushing down the company street and bounded into Mark’s tent.

He, too, was marred with the scars of battle. His clothing was soiled, and his bronzed features were sadly awry. And Texas was wild.

“Wow!” he roared, his words fairly tripping each other up, in such rapid succession did they come. “Whoop! Say, you fellows, you dunno what you been a-missin’! I ain’t had so much fun since the day I come hyar. Jes’ had the rousin’est ole scrap I ever see. There was a dozen of ’em, them ole yearlin’s, and they all piled on to once. Whoop! Mark, git up thar an’ come out an’ help me finish it.”

Texas was prancing around the tent in excitement, his fingers twitching furiously. He gasped for breath for a moment, and then continued.

“It was that air ole Bull Harris and his gang. Bull had been a-fightin’ somebody else, cuz one eye was black.”

“Bully, b’gee!” put in Dewey.

“An’ he was mad’s a hornet. ‘Look a yere,’ says he, ‘you rarin’ ole hyena of a cowboy, I want you to understand that you an’ that air scoundrel Mallory’----an’, Mark, I never gave him a chance for another word, jes’ piled right in. An’ then all the rest of ’em lit on to me an’ there was the wust mess I ever heerd tell of.”

Angry though Mark was, he could not help being amused at the hilarity of his bloodthirsty friend and fellow-warrior, who was still dancing excitedly about the tent.

“Who won?” inquired Mark.

“I dunno,” said Texas. “I never had a chance to find out. First they jumped on me and smothered me, an’ then I got out and jumped on them, only there was so many I couldn’t sit on ’em all to once, an’ so I had to git up ag’in. Oh, say, ’twas great. I wish some o’ the boys could a’ been thar to see that air rumpus. An’ I ain’t through yit, either. I’m a-goin’ to lambast them air yearlin’s--what d’ye say, Mark?”

Texas gazed at his friend inquiringly; and Mark gripped him by the hand.

“I’ll help you,” he said. “I’m going to settle that crowd for once and for all if I have to put them in hospital. And now let’s go out and hunt for the rest of the Seven and see what’s happened to them.”

Mark’s patience was about exhausted; he had stood much from Bull Harris, but as he left that tent and strode out of camp with the other two at his side, there was a set look about his mouth and a gleam in his eyes that meant business.

He had scarcely crossed the color line that marked the western edge of the camp before he caught sight of one more of the Seven. And Mark had seen him but an instant before the thought flashed over him that this one had been through just the same experience as Texas and “B’gee” Dewey.

The new arrival was Parson Stanard. His face was not scarred, but it was red with anger, and his collar was wilted by excitement which betrayed itself even in his hasty stride as he walked.

“Yea, by Zeus!” he cried, as soon as he reached his friends. “Gentlemen, I have tidings. The enemy is risen! Even now he is hot upon our trail. My spirit burns within me like that of Paul Revere, the messenger of liberty, riding forth from good old Boston town. Boston, cradle of liberty, father of----”

The Parson’s news was exciting, but even then he could not withstand the temptation to deliver a discourse upon the merits of his native town. Mark had to set him straight again.

“Has Bull been after you, too?” he asked.

“Yea!” said the Parson. “He has, and that, too, with exceeding great vehemence. Truly the persistency of the yearling is surprising; like the giant Antaeus of yore, he springeth up afresh for the battle, when one thinks he is subdued at last. Gentlemen, they attacked me absolutely without provocation. I swear it by the undying flame of Vesta. I was peregrinating peacefully when I met them. And without even a word, forsooth, they sprang at me. And mighty was the anger that blazed up in my breast, yea, by Zeus! As Homer, bard immortal of the Hellenic land, sang of the great Achilles, ‘his black heart’--er, let me see. By Zeus, how does that line go? It is in the first book, I know, and about the two hundred and seventy-fifth line, but really I----”

“Never mind Homer,” laughed Mark. “What about Harris? What did you do?”

“I replied to their onslaughts in the words of Fitz James: ‘This rock shall fly from its firm base as soon as I!’ The two who reached me first I did prostrate with two concussions that have paralyzed my prehensile apparatus----”

“Bully for the Parson!” roared Texas.

“And then,” continued the other sheepishly, “observing, by Zeus, that there were at least a dozen of them, I concluded to think better of my resolution and effect a retreat, remembering the saying that he who runs away may live to renew his efforts upon some more auspicious occasion.”

The Parson looked very humble indeed at this last confession; Mark cheered him somewhat by saying it was the most sensible thing he could have done. And Dewey still further warmed his scholarly heart by a distinction that would have done credit to even Lindley Murray, the grammarian.

“You didn’t break your resolution,” said Dewey.

“Why not?” inquired Stanard.

“Because, b’gee, you vowed you wouldn’t fly. And you haven’t flown since, that I see. What you did was to flee, b’gee. If you flyed you wouldn’t have fleed, but since you fleed you didn’t fly. Some day, b’gee, when you’ve been bitten, you’ll understand the difference between a fly and a flea. You’ll find that a flea can fly a great deal faster than a fly can flee, b’gee, and that----”

Somebody jumped on Dewey and smothered him again just then, but it wasn’t a yearling. He bobbed up serenely a minute later, to find that the Parson’s grammatical old ribs had been tickled by the distinction so carefully made.

“People are very grammatical in Boston, aren’t they, Parson?” inquired Dewey. “Reminds me of a story I once heard, b’gee--you fellows needn’t groan so, because this is the first story I’ve told to-day. Fellow popped the question to his best girl. She said, ‘No, b’gee.’ ‘Say it again,’ says he. ‘No!’ says she. ‘Thanks,’ says he. ‘Two negatives make an affirmative. You’ve promised. Where shall we go for our honeymoon?’ B’gee, Parson, there’s a way for you to fool your best girl. She’s sure to say no, and I don’t blame her either.”

The lively Dewey subsided for a moment after that. But he couldn’t keep quiet very long, especially since no one took up the conversation.

“Speaking of oranges,” said he, “reminds me of a story I once heard, b’gee----”

“Who was speaking of oranges?” cried Texas.

“I was,” said Dewey solemnly, and then fled for his life.

The other three members of the Banded Seven arrived upon the scene just then and put an end to hostilities. Chauncey, Sleepy and Indian had not had the luck to meet with the yearlings yet, and they listened in amazement and indignation while Mark told the story of Bull Harris and his latest tactics.

“Bless my soul,” gasped Indian in horror. “I--I’m going home this very day!”

“I’ll go home myself,” vowed Mark, “if I don’t succeed in stopping this sort of business. I honestly think I’d report it to the authorities, only Bull knows I’ve been out of bounds and he’d tell. As it is, I’m going to settle him some other way, and a way he’ll remember, too.”

“When?” cried the others.

“This very night.”

“And how?”

“The cave!” responded Mark; and it was evident from the way the others jumped at the word that the suggestion took their fancy.

And in half a minute more the Seven had sworn by all the solemn oaths the classic Parson could invent that they would haze Bull Harris and his cronies in “the cave” that night.