lly, and led them
into the scrimmages so furiously, that they won a glorious victory of
18 to 6.

But this is getting a long way into the future, and away from Tug on
his walk to his room that beautiful evening, when all these triumphs
were still in the clouds, and he had only one victory to look back
upon.

Tug's responsibility had been great that afternoon, and the strain of
coaxing and commanding his scrub players to assault and defeat the
heavier eleven opposed to them had worn hard on his muscles and
nerves. When he got to his room he was too tired to remember that he
had forgotten to take the usual precautions of locking his door and
windows, or even of drawing the curtains. He did not stop to think
that hazing had been flourishing about the Academy grounds for some
time, and that threats had been made against any of the Lakerim Dozen
if they were ever caught alone. He could just keep awake long enough
to light his student lamp; then he dropped on his divan, and buried
his head in a red-white-and-blue cushion his best Lakerim girl had
embroidered for him in a fearful and wonderful manner, and was soon
dozing away into a dreamland where the whole world was one great
football, and he was kicking it along the Milky Way, scoring a
touch-down every fifty years.

A little later History poked his head in at the door. He also had left
the crowd seated on the fence, and had started for his room to study.
He saw Tug fast asleep, and let him lie undisturbed, though he was
tempted to wake him up and say that Tug reminded him of the Sleeping
Beauty before taking the magic kiss; but he thought it might not be
safe, and went on up to his room whistling, very much off the key.

Tug slept on as soundly as the mummy of Rameses. But suddenly he
woke with a start. He had a confused idea that he had heard some one
fumbling at his window. His sleepy eyes seemed to make out a face just
disappearing from sight outside. He dismissed his suspicions as
the manufactures of sleep, and was about to fall back again on the
comfortable divan when he heard footsteps outside, and the creak of
his door-knob. He rose quickly to his feet.

A masked face was thrust in at the door, and the lips smiled
maliciously under the black mask, and a pair of blacker eyes gleamed
through it.

Tug made a leap for the door to shut the intruder out, realizing in a
flash that the hazers had truly caught him napping.

But he was too late. The masked face was