c
individual. "I am nearly dead!"

"It's Rattleton!" shouted the freshmen.

They crowded around him.

"Well, say, you are a bird!" cried Lucy Little, whose right name was
Lewis Little.

"A regular bird of paradise," chuckled Bandy Robinson.

"Where are those fellows?" demanded Frank Merriwell. "Where did they
leave you? Tell me, old man."

"At the door," faintly replied Rattleton as he reached for a mug of beer
which some one held toward him. "They took me right up to the door and
made me come in here."

"Out!" shouted Frank--"out and after them! Capture one of them if
possible! We want to even this thing up."

Out they rushed, but once more the crafty sophomores had vanished, and
not one of them was to be found.

The freshmen went back and listened to Harry's story. He told how he had
been blindfolded and taken somewhere, he did not know where. There they
had kept him while his friends were searching. When there was no danger
that the freshmen would discover them, they set out to have fun with
Rattleton.

"Say, Merry, old man," said Harry, "I know Browning was the leader of
this job, although he was disguised. They seemed to feel pretty bad
because you got away. They got twisted--took me for you at first, and by
the time they discovered their mistake you were knocking them around
like tenpins. One chap insists you broke his jaw."

"Well, I am glad I did that much. I didn't mean to leave you, Harry.
Billy's was so near I thought I could get the boys out and rescue you
before they could carry you off. I couldn't rescue you alone, so I ran
here to stir up the fellows."

"That was right. I was glad you got away. They were laying for you. They
told me so."

"Well, come back, and we'll wash this stuff off you."

"I don't know as you can do it."

"Eh? Why not?"

"They said it was put on to stay a while. They told me we were so fond
of playing the noble red man's part that they would fix me so I could
play it for a week or two. Some of them advised me to use sand to scrub
myself with if I hoped to get the paint off."

"Oh, that must be all a bluff. It will come off easy enough if a little
cocoa butter is used on it. Here, somebody run out to a drug store and
get some cocoa butter."

After they had worked about fifteen minutes they looked at each other
in dismay, for they had scarcely been able to start the paint, and it
become plain that cocoa butter, soap and water would not take it off.

"Didn't I