es approached him he backed out into the road, retreating steadily until he came to the edge of a muddy pool of water left by the melting snows.

“You are robbers!” he shouted, fiercely. “What right have you to stop a gentleman in the public road and demand his property?”

[16]

“The right that might makes,” came the quick reply from some one in the group.

The Sophomores were gradually encircling their victim. Van Loan glanced about him nervously, and clutched his cane as if to make ready for action.

“Give them up peaceably, and we won’t even disturb the part in your hair,” said some one.

“And be quick about it, too,” said another, “for tempus is fast fugiting.”

Another body of students, scenting sport and trouble from afar, was rapidly approaching from the direction of South College. The circle about Van Loan was completed and contracting. He saw that his only hope lay in holding his enemies at bay until help should arrive from his own classmen. Yet he could not face all ways at once.

“Come, here’s the last word,” said Robinson, who recognized the men now bearing down on them as members of the Freshman class; “will you surrender the obnoxious articles peaceably, or won’t you?”

Van Loan, too, saw that assistance was at hand, and his courage increased accordingly.

“Never!” he shouted. “These things are mine, and I’ll keep them, and the first man that lays his hands on them or me, I’ll break his—”

What it was that Van Loan would have broken, no one ever knew; for Parmenter, advancing quickly to his side, tripped him so suddenly and dexterously that he measured his[17]