"Said Chuckwalla Bill, 'Oh, boys, plant me With my boots on--on the wide prair-eee'-- Where the coyotes howl, they planted Bill-- An' so far as _I_ know, he's sleepin' there still!"
"Here they come," grinned Butch, hearing a tumult in the bunkhouse, and a confused Babel of voices. "Hicks has awakened the camp. Now watch the fellows wreak summary vengeance on his toothpick frame!"
From the sleep-shack, aroused at that weird hour by the clamor of the irrepressible youth, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., tumbled others of the squad, in varying stages of _déshabille_; big Beef McNaughton, right half-back, Roddy Perkins, the Titian-haired right-end, Pudge Langdon, a ponderous tackle, and Monty Merriweather, a clean-cut, aggressive candidate for left end. From within, other wrathy youths howled vociferous protests at their tormentor:
"Stop that noise; put your muzzle on again, Hicks!"--"Where's the fire? Say, Hicks, muffle your exhaust!"--"Say, Coach, must we endure this day and night?"
The bunkhouse fairly erupted angry collegians, boiling out like bees swarming from a disturbed hive; Hefty Hollingsworth, the Herculean center-rush. Biff Pemberton, left half-back, Bunch Bingham, Tug Cardiff, and Buster Brown, three huge last-year substitutes; second-string players, Don Carterson, Cherub Challoner, Skeet Wigglesworth, and Scoop Sawyer. A dozen others, from sheer laziness, hugged their bunks devotedly, despite the terrific turmoil outside.
"It's a disgrace, a _howling_ shame!" exploded Beef, his elephantine frame swathed in blankets to conceal a lack of vestiture, "Last night, until midnight, that graceless wretch roosted on 'Lookout There' and because the glorious moonlight made him sentimental and slushy, he twanged his banjo and warbled such mushy stuff as 'My Love is young and fair. My Love has golden hair!' When does he expect us to sleep?"
"He doesn't!" explained Monty Merriweather, with succinct lucidity, grinning at his comrades. "Say, fellows, you know how Hicks dreads a cold shower-bath; well, some of you rage at him from the other side of the rock, while _I_ climb up the rope-ladder and close with him! Then some of you prehistoric pachyderms ascend, and we'll chuck that pestersome insect into the cold, cold lake--"