I'm (puff) all (puff) in!"

"Oh, well, it's all in the game. We'll be out of this class next term,
and we can watch the other fellows sweat! Cut along!"

"Wood! Wood over here!"

"Where's Andy Blair?"

"I don't know. Oh you Swipes! What you got!"

"All right! This'll make a flare, all right!"

"Oh, for the love of Peter! Look what Swipes has!"

Harry, otherwise "Swipes" Morton, was convoying four laboring and
perspiring freshmen who were carting over the campus a big box that had
ones contained a piano.

"Oh, you Swipes!"

"Where'd you crab that?"

"Say, ain't he the little peach, though!"

"Oh wow! What a lark!"

"I guess this won't make some nifty little blaze, eh?" demanded Harry.
"Eh, Andy?"

"Sure thing! Where'd you get it?"

"Over back of Hanson's store. He used it for a coal box, but I made
these boobs dump out the anthracite and cart it along. Maybe I ain't
some nifty little wood gatherer, eh?"

"You sure are, Swipes!" came the admiring retort from many voices.

"Wood!"

"More wood!"

Still the pile grew apace. And with it grew the fun, the jollity, the
excitement, the cries and the spirit of the school.

Dr. Morrison, the head master, and his teachers, had wisely retired to
their rooms. On such an occasion as this it is not wise on the part of
discerning professors to see too much. There are matters to which one
must shut one's eyes. And Dr. Morrison, from contact with many boys, was
wise in his day and generation.

For he knew it would be only honest, clean fun; and what matter if there
was much noise and shouting? What matter if the fire blazed high? The
boys never so far forgot themselves as to endanger the school buildings
by their beacon, which was kindled well out on the big campus.

What if numerous rules were cracked or broken? It only happened once a
year. And what if ginger pop and sandwiches were surreptitiously
introduced into the dormitories? That, too, need not be seen by the
authorities.

"Wood! More wood!"

"Where's Tom Hatfield?"

"Yes, and Chet Anderson?"

"Over here boys!"

"Heads up!"

"Slap on Swipes's piano box!"

"Oh, what a find!"

You could not have told who was saying which or what. It was all one
happy, unintelligible jumble.

"Light her up!"

It was the signal for the kindling of the fire.

A score of matches flared in the darkness of the June night. The straw
and paper piled under the chaos of wood blazed with puffs of flame. The
wood