Page:Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron.djvu/92

78 gave enough light to show them how matters stood.

"Hurrah! Kaiser cleared the decks! The last of the pirate horde has fled!" cried Amiel Tucker, whose reading was always along the old-time romances.

"And there's our friend Bones, all to the good, fondling that bristly terror! I say, three Bones for cheers!" shouted Red Huggins, known among his mates also as "Sorreltop," and who, when greatly excited, often became twisted in his mode of speech.

They clustered around, while Kaiser growled deeply, and licked the face of his young master. Bones was soaked to the skin, and already shivering, though possibly more from the nervous strain than the cold.

Frank immediately took off his own coat, and threw it over the shoulders of the boy who had been ducked again and again.

"What happened to you. Bones?" asked Lanky, who always wanted to know the full particulars, for he expected some day to branch out as a shining light in the legal profession, and believed he ought to practice while young.

"They jumped me, that's all," chattered the other, trying to laugh.

"When you went out to quiet your dog?"

"Yep. I hadn't gone half way when they pounced on me. Couldn't let out more'n a little peep when