Tess of the Storm Country Part 35

Shorts, Swipes and Spuddy had broken the laws of the fraternity. Rather than suffer the disgrace of leaving it, they had elected a severe punishment.

"I'd rather be cut to pieces, boys," Swipes hiccoughed, turning upon the grave seniors, "than let my mother know what a beast I've been. Go ahead and lick!"

Afterward, the three little freshmen slunk to the rooms in the top of the Society house, which were kept ready for young men whom the officers reprimanded. They had been ordered to bed for three days, and were thankful that the punishment had been no worse than it was.

Swipes demanded a cigarette.

"Go to sleep," ordered Shorts. "It was all your fault in the beginning, and you're drunk."

"No such thing! I couldn't haul a whole bunch of girls up here alone, could I, if I'm drunk! Could I, now? I wish there wasn't any such a being in the world as a woman.... They bring heaps of trouble on us poor men."

Saying this, Swipes tumbled into bed, and sank into a stupor.

The cry of "Fire!" rang out upon the night air, startling Dan Jordan and Teola Graves. The volunteer fire companies were gathering from all parts of the town, and Dan stepped on to the Rectory veranda as a hose-cart rolled by. In an instant he was back in the drawing-room.

"Sweetheart, sweetheart," said he, with a strangling kiss upon Teola's pale lips, "I am sure it's our fraternity house. I must go, dear. I must, I must!"

He pressed her to him again, bounded through the door and was gone.

"Dan! Dan!" exclaimed Teola. "Dan, come back! I have something to tell you ... I'm so--afraid--so afraid!"

Teola stood watching the yellow flames kiss the sky. The whole campus gleamed under the lurid glare of the fraternity fire; the light in the heavens told her that it was no ordinary conflagration.

Until the day of her death she would not forget that night. She was longing to hear one word from Dan or Frederick. Her world seemed charged with hideous forces. .h.i.therto unfelt. Teola sickened, and waited. If Dan would only come back!

The very moment after he had fallen asleep, it seemed to Swipes, Shorts was pulling him out of bed, and the room was full of smoke. Spuddy was sleeping in the next chamber, and the first sound came to him in a haze-like dream. He thought he heard a roar of thunder, and rain descending upon the roof. Never mind. He was safe in bed, and had just escaped expulsion from his fraternity. As he rubbed his aching head, a dazed resolution took form in his brain. He would never get drunk again--never--never! Then the fumes of the wine brought visions of bright-colored dresses, of pretty faces and tender loving arms, such as his father had told him to beware of. He would toss such joys from him, if it brought him--Spuddy groaned, turned in bed, and tried to wake up.

But to wake up was to realize his disgrace. He groaned again, a sharp pain ripping through his head. He heard the sound of voices--he was dreaming, of course; the wine floated fantastic visions again through his misty brain, relieving it of the effort of thinking. Then Shorts'

voice rang in his ear.

"For the love of G.o.d, Spud, get up! The house is on fire, and we're boxed in this cupola like rats in a trap."

Spuddy sprang out of bed. The thunder he had dreamed of was the roar of the fire in the walls of the great house. The rain descending on the roof was the water being thrown from the long fire-hose. A strong stream of ice-cold water suddenly broke the window, driving Swipes against the wall. He whimpered drunkenly.

"Plagued fire! 'Course the house had to burn down on a night like this!"

Screams and cries from the crazed mob below came up to the boys through the broken pane. The water ceased its flow, and Shorts, the most sober of the three, crept to the opening. Spuddy had crawled back to bed. Far beneath him, Shorts could see his fraternity brothers running wildly to and fro, frantically waving their arms to him. He could hear orders given in loud tones, and recognized the voices of Frederick Graves and Dan Jordan. It all flashed upon Shorts in a moment how greatly he and his chums were to blame for the disaster, for the fire must have started in the dining-room. He thrust his head through the lurid gleam to attract attention, and saw the men and boys in the yard bringing ladders to rescue them. Now they were splicing them together, to make it possible to reach the great height. Shorts made quick resolves.... If he lived.... He turned with a groan, and dragged Spuddy from the bed to the open window.

"Stay there, and be ready, if you don't want to die," he commanded curtly.

Shorts saw the ladder rear upward, and a form dart from the shadows. Dan Jordan was coming, hand over hand, toward him, the long ladder creaking under his weight. Jordan's face appeared at the opening.

"Come out here," he commanded Shorts.

Shorts pushed Spuddy forward.

"Take him first, Captain," he said, with a twist in his voice. "He's drunk."

Spuddy hung limp on the window-sill for an instant, and was then gathered into Dan's long arms. Shorts' bleared eyes saw the little chap handed safely to the earth, and the ladder again creaked under the upward steps of the big freshman. Shorts pushed Swipes toward the window as Dan called his name.... Now he was alone, and he leaned as far out as he could.

"G.o.d! G.o.d!" he groaned. "The Captain's face is scorched brown.... G.o.d!

dear G.o.d, bless him!"

The crowds below were sending up cheer after cheer; myriads of sparks shot rocket-like high into the air, dying in the snow as they fell.

Streams of water poured into the flaming windows. Jordan was coming up again.

"Come out, Shorts," he heard Dan say, and he clambered over the sill.

"Slip into my arms, old man," the deep voice persuaded. "Come, now; let go.... There, hang limper.... You're heavier than the others."

He felt Dan take a downward step, and his head whirled around and around. They pa.s.sed window after window, Shorts being carefully held under Dan's arm. Flames licked at them greedily, touching and shriveling their flesh. Smoke choked their nostrils cruelly. Shorts could feel the trembling of Dan's body, as his burned fingers grasped each rung of the ladder. To his mind the figures below looked like goblins dancing in the light.

Suddenly, midway to the ground, the ladder creaked and groaned hideously. Jordan halted.

"The ladder is bending, Shorts," he breathed hoa.r.s.ely. He did not finish his sentence, but shouted,

"Catch him!"

Little Brown shot into the air like a rubber ball.... A crashing sound broke over the silent, gaping throng below. Then a giant form turned twice in the air, shooting downward like a stone from a sling.... The crowd parted, and Dan Jordan struck the frozen ground. His fraternity brothers lifted up the unconscious boy, and the great roof above, with a sickening din, sank into the fire.

The bitter frost hardened the streams of water pouring from holes in the burning house into ropes of ice. Toward morning, the fire died, leaving the huge frame, like an ice-covered palace, looming darkly against the college hill.

In another fraternity house, Shorts was in bed, face and hands swathed in bandages. Swipes and Spuddy, tear-stained and pale, stood by the door, waiting.

"If only they would come and tell us something!" moaned Spuddy. "Boys, if the Captain goes, I'm done for."

"We'll make it all right with him," came hopefully from Shorts. "He can't die, fellows! He's as strong as a horse. If he hadn't thrown me out into that snow pile, I would have been crushed under him. I'll never forget that in all my life," he finished, with a shudder.

"Gad, but he looked dead when they picked him up," said Swipes in despair. "I'm done for, too, if--if.... Here comes some one! It's Teddy!"

He stepped aside, and Manchester, entering deliberately, closed the door. Then he sat down dazedly.

"He's gone, boys. The Captain's gone." The words came in a stammer through pressed lips.

"I wish it had been I," muttered Swipes brokenly, when they were alone again. "It was all my fault." He burst into a wild sobbing. "I'd give my very life to have heard--the Captain--say he had forgiven me."

"I was more to blame than you were," replied Spuddy. "My mother.... G.o.d!

look at that sun!"

Bright rays slanted golden through the window upon the three woful little freshmen who had ruined the "Cranium" Society.