at the stake. Ugh! We have
held a council of war, we have excavated the hatchet, we have smashed
the pipe of peace to flinders, or something of the sort, and have struck
out upon the war trail."

"You act as if you had struck out," growled one of the captives.

"That's because he has had a few balls," gurgled Browning. "Talk about
being burned at the stake! That's not torture after being obliged to
inhale his breath. My kingdom for some chloroform! Will somebody please
hit me on the head with a trip hammer and put me out of my misery?"

"Whither art thou bearing us, great chief?" asked one of the captives.

"We will bare you out yonder," answered Dismal. "At the stake you shall
stand arrayed in the garments nature provided for you."

"I don't care for tea," murmured Browning--"not even for repartee."

"This is worse than being roasted at the stake!" muttered a soph in a
corner. "It is severe punishment."

"Help!" cried Dismal. "Somebody take me out! I can't get ahead of these
miserable palefaces."

"You'll get a head if I ever find a good chance to give it to you,"
declared the voice of Puss Parker from the darkness.

Outside the painted savages were roaring:

"Farewell! farewell! farewell, my fairy fay!
Oh, I'm off to Louisiana
For to see my Susy Anna,
Singing 'Polly-wolly-woodle' all the day."

And thus the captured sophomores were borne in triumph out to East Rock,
and as they were the ones who engaged the hack, they paid for their own
conveyance.

Never before had anything like it happened at Yale. It was an event that
was bound to go down in history as the most audacious and daring piece
of work ever successfully carried through by freshmen in that college.

And Frank Merriwell was to receive the credit of being the originator of
the scheme and the general who carried it out successfully.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE "ROAST" AT EAST ROCK.

A strange and remarkable scene was being enacted in the peaceable and
civilized State of Connecticut--a scene which must have startled an
accidental observer and caused him to fancy for a moment the hand of
time had turned back two centuries.

Near a bright fire that was burning on the ground squatted a band of
hideously-painted fellows who seemed to be redskins, while close at
hand, bound and helpless, were a number of palefaces, plainly the
captives of the savages.

That a council of war was taking place seemed apparent. And still the
savages