this is rather interesting," confessed Frank, showing that he was
aroused. "I'll have to look out for Mr. Browning."

"He's a hard fellow to go against," solemnly said Dismal Jones. "He's a
Le Boule man, and they say he may take his choice of the other big
societies next year."

"Oh, what's that amount to?"

"It amounts to something here; but then he's a fighter, and he is
authority on fighters and fighting."

"He is too fat to fight."

"They say he can train down in a week. He was the greatest freshman
half-back ever known at Yale."

"Half-back--Browning a half-back! Oh, say, that fellow couldn't play
football!"

"Not a great deal now, perhaps, but he could last year. He'd be on the
regular team now, but his father swore to take him out of college if he
didn't stop it. You see, Browning is not entirely to blame for his
laziness. He inherits it from his father, and the old man will not
allow him to lead in athletics, so whatever he does must be done
secretly."

Frank was interested. He wondered how a fellow like Bruce Browning could
come to be know as "king of the sophomores," unless such a title was
applied to him in derision. Now he began to understand that Browning was
something more than the lazy mischief planner that he had seemed.

Frank's interest in Browning grew.

"And you say he is backing Diamond?"

"That's the way it looks from the road."

"Well, Mr. Bruce Browning may need some attention. It is he who puts the
sophs up to their jobs on us. We ought to put up a big one on him."

"That's right! that's right!"

"Merry," said Jones, "set the complicated machinery of your fertile
brain to work and see what it will bring forth."

"That's right! that's right!"

"I'll have to take time to think it over."

"We have a few soph scalps," grinned Rattleton, pointing to a number of
caps with which the walls were decorated, all of which had been snatched
from the heads of sophomores. "Have the rest of you fellows done as
well?"

"I have lost two," confessed Dan Dorman. "They seem to single me out as
easy fruit."

"And haven't you made an attempt to get one in return?" asked Bandy
Robinson.

"I haven't had a good chance."

"If you wait for a good chance you'll never get a scalp. You must snatch
'em whenever you can."

"By Jove!" laughed Frank, "this talk about scalps has given me an idea."

"Let's have it!" exclaimed several of the boys in unison.

"Not now," he said. "Wait till I have per