y
cared.

The young moon, sloping toward the shaggy rim of the Palo Alto hills
soon after eight o'clock, looked down into the pasture lands back of the
campus. There she saw Walter Haviland, blindfolded and with a rope about
his waist. Three other Freshmen were in a similar condition in different
parts of the field. Haviland had been intrusted to the tender mercy of
Cap. Smith, a 'Varsity man, and Pellams Chase, greatest of all joshers.
This was indeed a high honor. Two of the less distinguished members
hovered about them, eager to add their services. Their objective point
was a fence skirted by a gully through which water ran in the winter
time; into this gully they flung the luckless Walt and left him there
while they took their ruthless course to a part of the field where
another group of men had gathered.

The moon touched delicately the redwood trees upon the western ridge,
then slipped down beyond them. With her last look into the field she saw
Haviland lying on his face at the bottom of the gulch. She saw also
Professor Lamb, of the botany department, hurrying home cross-country
from the day's collecting on upper San Francisquito Creek, tired, dusty,
bedraggled, thinking with an unscientific enthusiasm of the hot dinner
awaiting his homecoming. The lingering moon, peering over the mountain
edge, saw the instructor clear the fence and plunge into the shadowy
gulch. Then, before she could see what happened next, the stern law of
the solar system drew her reluctant down.

The four men who had charge of Haviland came back from their
consultation with the others. When they were near the place where they
had left their victim, a man appeared, climbing out. This called for
investigation; they bounded along through the gulch and came up with the
fellow. To their surprise it was Haviland with his bandage off and the
rope nowhere. It was the first time a man had ever tried to give them
the slip. He should pay for it! Cap. Smith threw himself on the Freshman
at the first glimpse of his face. In a jiffy there was a new bandage
over his eyes and another rope coiled around his waist; this time it
included his hands. He struggled resolutely, but in silence, for his
breath had left him when he struck the ground with Smith on top.

They seized him firmly and ran him at breakneck speed over a terrible
course, heading for an old well which waters a back pasture. Here they
stopped, spent with running.

"On your knees, Professo