"There"ll be gore spilled!" muttered Creighton.
"I"m sorry for Merriwell!" said another.
"Eh?" gurgled Hock Mason, more astonished than ever. "Is that a fact?"
"That is."
"Well, I"m going to thump him!"
Again he lifted his fist, and Danny Griswold cowered before it.
"Stop, Mason!" cried Frank, his voice hard and cold. "Strike him, and I"ll give you a mark to remember me by!"
"Ho, ho!" sneered Mason, and he smashed Griswold in the face.
The moment the bully struck the little fellow, he released his collar and whirled toward Frank.
Merriwell kept his word.
Crack--Frank"s fist struck fairly on Hock Mason"s left eye, and the big bully was knocked down in a second.
The witnesses gasped with astonishment.
With a roar of rage, Mason leaped to his feet and came at Merriwell, somewhat blinded and dazed, but raging like a mad bull.
With the utmost ease Frank avoided the big fellow, and then he struck Mason again.
The second blow did not knock the giant down, but it stopped him a moment, and the blood began to run down his face.
Frank"s fist had cut a long gash over the bully"s right eye, and the blood quickly began to blind Hock, for already his left eye was swelling swiftly, showing it might be entirely closed in a few moments.
Mason wiped away the blood with his coat sleeve, and went at Frank with another rush.
Merriwell dodged, thrust out his foot, and tripped the freshman, sending him to the ground with a thud.
Over by the fence a little party witnessed all this with astonishment unspeakable.
Was this Mason, the freshman bully, who was being handled in such a manner by Merriwell? Was this the man who had knocked out four New Haven cops?
Mason had struck at Frank savagely enough to lay him out, but Merriwell easily dodged the blow.
Now the bully got upon his feet the second time. Blood was streaming down his face, and he was fast going blind. He looked around for Merriwell, but saw him dimly and indistinctly.
"Oh, hang you!" he cried. "You took me by surprise, and I can"t see you now. If I could get hold of you----"
"But you can"t do it, you know," said Frank, cheerfully, as he skipped out of the reach of his enemy"s long arms.
Mason whirled around dizzily. He began to realize that it would be foolish to attempt to get the best of Merriwell then.
"Oh, I"ll fix you for this--I will!" he grated.
"You think you will, but you won"t," was the calm reply. "I shall be on the watch for you, and this is but a taste of what you"ll get the next time you go up against me. Your days as a bully around here are over. I told you I would mark you, and I have. Whenever you look in a mirror for some time to come you will see something to remember me by."
"Whenever I look in a mirror for some time to come I shall remember you, and I"ll repeat my vow to make you regret the day you ever saw me. Next time we meet to fight, I"ll hammer you within an inch of your life!"
Then, holding a blood-stained handkerchief to his bleeding eye, he turned and hastened away.
CHAPTER XLIX.
TO THE RESCUE.
Danny Griswold danced and crowed with delight.
"Oh, scissors!" cried the little fellow. "I don"t mind the crack he gave me a bit. It was worth it to see him get done up like that. And it was done so quick!"
The fellows at the fence rushed forward and gathered around Merriwell.
"Never touched you at all, did he?" asked Creighton.
"Didn"t come within a hundred miles of me," smiled Frank.
Then they got him by the hand, shook it, congratulated him, complimented him, expressed their wonder, and some of them almost seemed to doubt if they had actually seen Hock Mason done up in less than two minutes.
"Quickest job on record," declared Silas Blossom. "Biff--biff--it was over. Didn"t suppose he could be licked like that."
"He wasn"t licked," said Frank. "It is a mistake to think that. I took particular pains to give him the first soaker in the left eye, and that eye was closing up on him so he couldn"t see out of it very well. Then I let him have the next one on the right eye, and skinned my knuckles, see? Those knuckles cut him over the eye, and he bled as if he had been stabbed. The blood got into his eye, and he was more than half blind.
That was what stopped him, and I hoped all the time that I might do it, for I will confess that I have no desire to receive one of his prize-fighter thumps. I was lucky to do the trick just as I planned it."
"And you had a nerve to stand up to him at all," said Deacon Dunning.
"Especially here on the campus at this time of day, when it would mean something serious if the faculty knew of the fight."
"That was another thing I was thinking about," said Frank. "I wanted to end the sc.r.a.p as soon as possible, so we"d not be seen at it by anybody who"d make trouble for us. Hope it won"t kick up a muss and get us hauled over the irons."
They were astounded by Merriwell"s coolness. He did not seem in the least ruffled by his encounter with the "bad man" of the freshman cla.s.s, and was not particularly elated by his easy victory. He seemed to take it as a matter of course--a thing he had known would end just as it did.
It was not long before every freshman and junior knew what had happened, but all alike were slow to believe it possible. Frank Merriwell, single-handed, had got the best of Hock Mason--no, no, that could not be true!
The most of them wished to believe it, but could not at first. Mason was not popular among the freshmen, although he was their leader. He had bullied them too much, and he had many secret enemies, who pretended to his face that they were his friends.
The eyewitnesses of the encounter were forced to tell the story over and over till they were tired. Every one seemed to desire to know to the minutest particular just how Merriwell had gone to work to do the trick.
Some said it was pure accident, while others declared Hock Mason could not be knocked out by an accident. The latter were inclined to give Frank credit for all he had done, but the most of them prophesied that Mason would kill Merriwell as soon as his eyes were in condition to allow him to see properly.
Diamond had not seen the encounter, a fact which he bemoaned very much.