"Done!" chuckled Butch Brewster, delightedly. So, while he, Beef McNaughton, Hefty Hollingsworth, and others beguiled the jeering Hicks, expressing in dynamic, red-hot sentences their exact opinions of his perfidy, the athletic Monty imitated a mountain-scaling Italian soldier. He climbed stealthily up the swaying rope-ladder; nearer and nearer to the unsuspecting youth he crept, while the cherubic Hicks, to tantalize the group below, again burst forth:
"_Whoop-eee_! I'm a bold, _bad_ man (_bang-bang_)! I got ten notches on my ole six-gun--I'm a _killer_. I wings a man before breakfast every day! I got a private burying-ground, where I plants my victims (_bang-bang_)! Yip-yip-yip-_yee_! Oh, I'm a--_Ouch_, Monty--leggo me--Oh, I'll be good--why didn't I pull that rope-ladder up here? Don't bust my banjo--don't let Butch get me--"
Monty Merriweather, reaching the flat top of the rock, had courageously flung himself, without regard for the Bad Man's desperate record, on the startled Hicks, whose first thought was for his beloved banjo. While he held the blithesome tormentor helpless, Butch, Beef, and Roddy Perkins climbed the rope-ladder, and the grinning youth was soon in their clutches, while the collegians below, like a Roman, mob aroused by the oratory of Mr. Mark Antony, howled for revenge:
"Bust the old banjo over his head, Butch!"--"Sing to him, Beef--that's an _awful_ revenge on Hicks!"--"Tie him to the rock--make him miss his breakfast!"
"Hicks," growled Butch, eyeing his sunny comrade ominously, "you ought to be tarred and feathered, and shot at sunrise! When Bannister opens, you will be a Senior, and you'll disgrace '19's dignity! This is a sample of what we have endured at college for three years, and the worst is yet to come! You have committed the awful atrocity of awakening Camp Bannister at five A. M. with your ridiculous imitation, of a Western desperado. To dampen your ardor, we will chuck you into the cold lake--just as you are!"
"Help! Assistance! Aid! Succor!" shouted the happy-go-lucky Hicks, as the behemoth Butch and Beef seized him, swinging him aloft with ludicrous ease, "Police! Fire! Murder! Take care of my banjo, Monty. Tell all the fellows at old Bannister I died game, and plant Hair-Trigger Bill with his boots on! _Oooo_, Beef, Butch, _have a heart_, that water is _cold_!"