ly, he was not
injured by the desperate leap.

"Fruit!" was yelled by a dozen voices, and the throng pressed together
again to lay hold on him.

But Don Pike's terror gave him the strength of a giant. He hurled aside
those who sought to detain him, and leaped through the crowd and away.
The next instant the Kansan dropped out of the tree, swinging for a
moment by one of the drooping branches, to break the force of the fall,
and alighting on the ground with ease and lightness.

"Fruit!"

The Westerner could not escape, for the students had closed in again,
and he was literally ringed in.

"Fruit! fruit!" was yelled on all sides.

Twenty men threw themselves on the Kansan. He tried to hurl them off,
and did succeed in flinging some of them aside. This enabled him to gain
his feet.

"Let go!" he snarled.

"Fruit! fruit!" was being chorused.

Again the hands and arms closed on him.

"Let me go, I say! I want to overtake that fellow!"

Only a few near him understood his words. The majority thought he was
merely showing a vigorous protest against the threatened loss of his
shirt-tab, and they had no sympathy with anything of that kind, for they
had suffered the same humiliation, and were naturally determined to
inflict the same thing on every student they could lay their hands on.

"Let go!" Badger shrieked, white with wrath, lunging with his hard right
fist.

It struck a student in the face and hurled him crashingly backward. But
the next moment the fist and arm were caught and held.

Then began a fierce struggle for the mastery. Time and again the
Westerner, whose strength was great, hurled off the men who sought to
hold him down. Twice he got on his feet, merely to be tripped and thrown
again. Not until he was almost beaten and choked into insensibility were
his assailants able to rip open his vest.

Ordinarily, Badger wore a soft silk shirt which had no tab, but on this
night he had on a white shirt, whose tab was amputated by a dexterous
thrust as soon as the vest was pulled open. Then he was permitted to
rise to his feet, reeling, sick, blind with rage and humiliation and a
sense of baffled hate.

But his chief thought still was of Donald Pike.

"Which way did he go?" he panted, as soon as he could get his breath.

"Well, your High-Muchness, the cats scattered and the man made himself
scarce!" was the scoffing answer, given by the student who had felt the
terrible force of Badger's fist. "Perhaps