"About Merriwell."
"No. That is, nothing since morning. Has he----"
"Yes. He"s gone!"
The two students looked at each other as if in great consternation. Rowe drew a long breath and remarked:
"Great Scott! that"s awful."
Henderson sighed too, and both went out together without another word.
Then they got around the nearest corner and burst into a perfect fit of laughter.
"Say! but he looked as if he"d seen a ghost," chuckled Henderson.
"Gee whiz!" returned Rowe, "but he was blue. How will he look to-night, eh?"
"I"m just burning up to have the fun begin," answered Henderson, "and we shall have to wait until midnight."
"Yes, later than that if he shuts up at the usual late hour, but perhaps he"ll start home earlier."
"I shouldn"t wonder," remarked Henderson, "if this should work on his nerves through the evening and cause him to try to skip the town."
"We shan"t lose him," returned Rowe, in a satisfied tone, "and the only thing we"ve got to do now is to kill time until the hour comes for business. Let"s play billiards."
Accordingly they went to a billiard hall and knocked the b.a.l.l.s around until they were tired of walking about the tables. For the others interested, as well as those, the time pa.s.sed slowly.
A number of students, including Merriwell, who were to take part in this affair, a.s.sembled at the society rooms about the middle of the evening, thinking that possibly Miller might take fright and shut up his shop earlier, but the hours pa.s.sed and Miller still stuck to his counter.
Hodge and Rattleton, who, now that it was dark, stood nearer to the cigar store, could see that Miller was growing nervous as the time pa.s.sed.
He paced restlessly up and down back of his counter and occasionally shifted the position of boxes and did other things to indicate that he was suffering from extreme anxiety.
When customers came in he greeted them gruffly and had little to say, whereas his usual custom was to talk freely.
After eleven o"clock, when the store happened to be free from customers for a moment, the boys saw him empty his cash drawer into his pockets and also take what money there was in his safe and stow that in his clothes, too.
From that time on he put whatever money came in into his pockets instead of into the drawer. They judged from this that he had made up his mind that he must leave town, and that he was taking all the money that he could lay his hands on with him.
Finally, a little before midnight, he seemed to feel that he could stand the strain no longer, and prepared to shut up the shop.
He turned the lights down hastily, as if he feared that some customer might enter and detain him longer. He went out, locked the door behind him, and started rapidly toward his lodgings.
He lived at some distance from his shop, and had to pa.s.s through a long, quiet street to get there. Even in the daytime few persons were usually stirring upon this street, and at this hour it was entirely deserted.
Miller went along part of the time with his head down, and part of the time turning his eyes in every direction.
He was just approaching an intersection with another street when two figures in long, black robes with hoods drawn over their heads seemed to rise from the ground in front of him.
As a matter of fact, they had simply stepped from behind a tree, but Miller"s mind was in no condition to take things as they were.
He gasped with fright the minute he saw them, stopped short and then tried to run back. The figures leaped after him, and clutched him by the arms, while one clapped a hand over his mouth. "It"ll be safer for you,"
said one of them, sternly, "to make no resistance, for if you do you"ll be beaten to a pulp in less than no time."
Miller chattered with fear. In spite of this threat he might have tried to break away, but he saw other figures apparently rising from the ground.
He was quickly surrounded by not less than a dozen, all in black cloaks and hoods. He could not see the faces of any of them clearly.
CHAPTER XXIII.
TRIED BY THE "PIGS."
If Miller had not been guilty of the a.s.sault upon Frank, he might possibly have had faith that no Yale student would do him a serious injury, though that is doubtful, for he had the idea which many ignorant people hold that students are nothing short of young barbarians when they get to playing pranks.
As it was, he was fully convinced that he was in for the most horrible tortures, even if he were permitted to escape with his life.
He was in such an agony of fear that if he could have done so he would have disregarded the threats of the leader and yelled at the top of his lungs, but his very fear prevented this, to say nothing of the fact that one of the students kept his hand ready to close over Miller"s mouth.
The cigar dealer was so paralyzed with terror that he could only chatter. A few disjointed words came out which seemed to be to the effect that he hadn"t done it purposely.
If the students had needed any further proof that he was the guilty party, this would have settled it.
They were sufficiently satisfied, however, before they began their operations, and this partial admission merely stimulated them to more active work.
The dozen or so who had come out in hoods to capture the man, surrounded him and walked him rapidly toward the building in which the Pi Gamma had its rooms.
In so doing they pa.s.sed more than one person on the streets, but no more than a little curious attention was paid to them.
Whoever saw them supposed that some process in a secret society initiation was going on, and if they caught sight of the unhooded figure in the middle of the group, they undoubtedly supposed that it was a neophyte.
Miller longed undoubtedly to cry for help whenever the party met anybody, but with a student clinging to each arm and hands raised to choke his voice, he dared not so much as whisper.
So at length he was brought without interruption to the back entrance of the building, where he was hustled into the doorway and blindfolded.
There, strangely enough, he found his tongue for a moment.
"You fellers let me alone, or you"ll all go to jail for it," he muttered.
A chorus of hoa.r.s.e, long-drawn "ahs!" was the answer to this.
The outer door was closed then, and Miller was told to kneel.
"I won"t do it!" he protested. "I"m not going to have my head struck off with an ax----"
"Kneel, you scoundrel!" cried the voice of Baker, who was the leader of the party.