tudents.

When Diamond was lifted to his feet he was almost too weak to stand. He
clinched his teeth, vowing over and over to himself that he would find a
way to square accounts.

"If it takes me a year, I'll find out who the leaders in this affair
are, and they shall suffer for it!" he thought.

"Give him a chance to see the others put through the mill," said
Mephisto, and Diamond's hands were released.

The Virginian looked around, seeming irresolute for a moment. Not far
away he saw a masked lad whose clothes were wet and bedaubed with dirt
and sawdust.

In an instant Diamond sprang toward this person and snatched the mask
from his face.

"It's Merriwell!" he triumphantly shouted, "and he has helped to haze
me! His career at Yale will be suddenly cut short!"

CHAPTER III.

THE BLOW.

There was a sudden hush. The students saw that Diamond was really
revengeful, and his words seemed to indicate that he intended to report
any one whose identity he discovered.

The Virginian was pale and he trembled with anger.

"You don't mean to say that you will blow, do you?" asked one.

"That's exactly what I do mean, sir!" came resolutely from the lips of
the infuriated freshman. "I am a gentleman and the son of a gentleman,
and I'll never stand it to be treated like a cur. Hazing is said to be
no longer tolerated here, and an investigation is certain to follow my
report of this affair."

A little fellow stepped out.

"You claim to be a gentleman," he said, distinctly, "but you will prove
yourself a cad if you peach."

"I had rather be a cad than a ruffian, sir!"

"If you were a gentleman you would take your medicine like a gentleman.
You'd never squeal."

"You fellows are the ones who are squealing now, for you see you have
been imposing on the wrong man."

"Man!" shot back the little fellow, contemptuously. "There's not much
man about a chap that blows when he is hazed a little."

"A little! a little! Is this what you call a little?"

"Oh, this is nothing. Think of what the poor freshies used to go through
in the old days of Delta Kappa and Signa Epsilon. Why, sometimes a
fellow would be roasted so his skin would smell like burned steak for a
week."

"That was when he was burned at the stake," said a chap in the
background, and there was a universal dismal groan.

"This is some of the Delta Kappa machinery here," the little fellow
explained. "Sometimes some of the fellows come here to have a