his beautiful trousers and
digging furiously at his head.

"Hornets!" shrieked Ollie Lord, kicking about not far from Paulding.

"Wow!" screeched Lew Veazie, bobbing up and down like a cork in water
when a fish is nibbling at the bait.

"Take 'em off!" begged Julian Ives, neglecting his lovely bang and
scratching with great energy at the places where he had been stung.

"We're in a nest of hornets, or bees, or something!" exclaimed Rupert
Chickering, becoming decidedly belligerent in his efforts to rid himself
of the stinging creatures.

"Are you going to stand there and see us killed?" Skelding demanded. "I
tell you, we are being stung!"

"Glad to know it!" declared Bart. "You need it. It's hopeless, though,
to expect that the hornets will sting any sense into your crowd."

Merriwell started toward the screeching, dancing, jigging, fighting
youths, quickening his steps into a run, and his friends followed at his
heels. As he did so he heard the loud and discordant jangle of a cowbell
furiously shaken.

A man, a woman, and a boy had come in sight, appearing from behind the
seats allotted to spectators. Evidently they had emerged but a minute
before from a strip of timber that cut off the view of a farmhouse that
was on the right of the gun club grounds and some distance away. They
were running as fast as they could, and were shouting something as they
came on. The boy, a lanky chap of fourteen or fifteen, was vigorously
shaking the bell. The man carried a large pail, and the woman swung a
roll of dirty cloth.

"Hold on! hold on!" the man howled. "Jest handle 'em gently, can't ye?"

The Chickering set, as well as Merriwell's friends, heard him.

"Oh, yes! we'll handle 'em gently!" snarled Skelding, slapping at one of
the stinging things and crushing it with his hand. He saw then that it
was a bee. He jerked his hand away and stuck his fingers into his mouth.
Then jumped up and began again to hop around.

"It run its stinger into my finger an inch!" he growled.

"Hold on! hold on!" the old man was howling.

"I'm holding on!' cried Rupert, smashing away at a handful of bees which
seemed to be settling down on him all at once.

"You're killing 'em!" screeched the old woman.

"Yes, we're killing 'em!" Skelding answered, flailing away as if he had
gone crazy. "I'd like to kill a million in a minute! I can't kill them
fast enough! I'd like to welt 'em with a club and smash a regiment at a
blow!"

Lew Veazi