ke a thunderbolt.

Another inning passed, a confusion of hits, throws, runs, and plays
to Ken, and then Worry was pounding him again.

"Dig for the trainin'-house!" yelled Worry, mouth on his ear.
"The students are crazy! They'll eat us alive! They're tearin'
the bleachers down! Run for it, Peg!"

XV

A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE

Ken found himself running across Grant Field, pursued by a happy,
roaring mob of students. They might have been Indians, judging from
the way Ken and his fellow-players fled before them. The trained
athletes distanced their well-meaning but violent pursuers and gained
the gate, but it was a close shave. The boys bounded up the street
into the training-house and locked the door till the puffing Arthurs
arrived. They let him in and locked the door again.

In another moment the street resounded with the rush of many feet
and the yells of frantic students. Murray, the trainer, forced a way
through the crowd and up the stoop. He closed and barred the outside
door, and then pounded upon the inside door for admittance. Worry
let him in.

"They'd make a bowl-fight or a football rush look tame," panted Murray.
"Hey! Scotty--lock up tight down in the basement. For Heaven's sake
don't let that push get in on us! Lock the windows in the front."

"Who's that poundin' on the door?" yelled Worry. He had to yell,
for the swelling racket outside made ordinary conversation impossible.

"Don't open it!" shouted Murray. "What do we care for team-captains,
college professors, athletic directors, or students? They're all out
there, and they're crazy, I tell you. I never saw the like. It'd be
more than I want to get in that jam. And it'd never do for the varsity.
Somebody would get crippled sure. I'm training this baseball team."

Murray, in his zealous care of his athletes, was somewhat overshooting
the mark, for not one of the boys had the slightest desire to be trusted
to the mob outside. In fact, Ken looked dazed, and Raymond scared to the
point of trembling; Trace was pale; and all the others, except Homans
and Reddy Ray, showed perturbation. Nor were the captain and sprinter
deaf to the purport of that hour; only in their faces shone a kindling
glow and flush.

By-and-by the boys slipped to their rooms, removed their uniforms,
dressed and crept down-stairs like burglars and went in to dinner.
Outside the uproar, instead of abating, gathered strength as time
went by. At the dinner-table the boys