ther,--he trumped
Tug's ace, as it were,--for though he saw that the fire was going out
and would not heat the pokers much longer, he decided not to wait for
this, but set his men to gathering stones and sticks to pelt the two
luckless Lakerimmers with.

And now Tug saw that the chances of escape were indeed small. He felt
that he could make a dash for liberty and outrun any one in the crowd,
or outfight any one who might overtake him; but he would sooner have
died than leave History, who could neither run well nor fight well, to
the mercies of the merciless gang that surrounded them.

"Let's give the Lakerim yell together, History," he said; "perhaps the
fellows have missed us and are out looking for us, and will come to
our rescue."

So he and History filled their lungs and hurled forth into the air the
old Lakerim yell, or as much of it as two could manage:

{ray!
{ri!
{ro!
"L`"iy-krim! L`"iy-krim! L`"iy-krim! Hoo-{row!
{roo!
{rah!"

The Crows listened in amazement to the war-whoop of the two
Lakerimmers. Then the first Crow, who had Irish blood in his veins,
smiled and said:

"Oho! I see what they are up to; they're calling for help. Well, now,
we'll just drown out their yell with a little noise of our own."

And so, when Tug and History had regained breath enough to begin their
club cry again, the whole two dozen of the Crows broke forth into a
horrible hullabaloo of shrieks and howls that drowned out Tug's and
History's voices completely, but raised far more noise than they could
ever have hoped to make.

After a few moments of thus caterwauling night hideous, like a pack of
coyotes, the Crows began to close in on the Lakerim stronghold, and
stones and sticks flew around the two in a shower that kept them busy
dodging.

"We've got to make a break for it, Hist'ry," said Tug, under his
breath. "Now, you hang on to me and I'll hang on to you, and don't
mind how your lungs ache or whether you have any breath or not, but
just leg it for home."

He had locked his arm through History's, and made a leap toward the
circle of Crows just as a heavy stone lighted on the spot where they
had made their stand so long.

Before the Crows knew what was up, Tug and History were upon them
and had cut