And this made him still more furious, and though they were ten to one, Tug flung himself at them without fear or hesitation.  When five of them fell on him at once, he dragged them round the room as if they were football-players trying to down him; but the odds were too great, and before long they overpowered him and tied his wrists behind him; not without difficulty, for Tug had the slipperiness of an eel, along with the strength of a young shark.  When they had him well bound, and his legs tethered so that he could take only very short steps, they lifted him to his feet.

“I think we’d better gag him,” said the leader of the Crows; and he, produced a stout handkerchief.  But Tug gave him one contemptuous look, and remarked: 

“Do you suppose I’m a cry-baby?  I’m not going to call for help.”

There was something in his tone that convinced the captain of the Crows.

VI

A detachment was now sent to scurry through the dormitory and see if it could find any other Lakerimmers.  This squad finally came down the stairs, the biggest one of the Crows carrying little History under his arm.  History was waving his arms and legs about as if he were a tarantula, but the big black Crow held him tight and kept one hand over the boy’s mouth so that he could not scream.

Then Tug began to struggle furiously again, and to resist their efforts to drag him out of the room.  He could easily have raised a cry that would have brought a professor to his rescue and scattered his persecutors like sparrows; but his boyish idea of honor put that rescue out of his reach, and he fought like a dumb man, with only such occasional grunts as his struggle tore from him.

He might have been fighting them yet, for all I know, had not History twisted his mouth from under the hand of his captor and threatened—­he had not breath enough left to call for help: 

“If—­you—­don’t let me go—­I’ll—­tell on you.”

The very thought of this smallness horrified Tug so much that he stopped struggling, and turned his head to implore History not to disgrace Lakerim by being a tattler.  The Crows saw their chance, and while Tug’s attention was occupied one of them threw a loosely woven sack over his head and drew it down about his neck.  Then they started once more on the march, History scratching and kicking in all directions and doing very little harm, while Tug, with his hands tied behind him and his head first in a noose, used his only weapons, his shoulders, with the fury of a Spanish bull.  And before they got him through the door he had nearly disabled three of his assailants, making one of them bite his tongue in a manner most uncomfortable.  And the room looked as if a young cyclone had been testing its muscles there!