“We’ve got to make a break for it, Hist’ry,” said Tug, under his breath.  “Now, you hang on to me and I’ll hang on to you, and don’t mind how your lungs ache or whether you have any breath or not, but just leg it for home.”

He had locked his arm through History’s, and made a leap toward the circle of Crows just as a heavy stone lighted on the spot where they had made their stand so long.

Before the Crows knew what was up, Tug and History were upon them and had cut a path through the ring by merely brandishing their incandescent pokers, and had disappeared into the dark of the woods.

There was dire confusion among the Crows, and some of them ran every which way and lost the crowd entirely as History and Tug vanished into the thick night.

The glowing pokers, however, that were their only weapons of defense, were also their chiefest danger, and a pack of about a dozen Crows soon discovered that they could follow the runaways by the gleam of the rods.  Tug realized this, too, very shortly, and he and History threw the pokers away.

Tug and History, however, had come pretty well to the edge of the wood, and were just rushing down a little glade that would lead them into the open, when the first Crow yelled for some of his men to take a short cut and head them off.

The Lakerimmers, then, their breath all spent and their hearts burning with the flight, which Tug would not let History give up, saw themselves headed off and escape no longer possible.  Tug knew that History would be useless in a scrimmage, so, in a low tone, he bade him drop under a deep bush they were just passing.  History was too exhausted to object even to being left alone, and managed to sink into the friendly cover of the bush without being observed.  And Tug went right into a mob of them, crying with a fine defiance the old yell of the Athletic Club: 

“L`"iy-krim!  L`"iy-krim!  L`"iy-krim!  Hoo-ray!”

VII

The nine Lakerimmers who had set forth to the rescue of Tug and History had no more clue as to the whereabouts of the kidnapped twain than some broken furniture and an open door; and even one who was so well versed in detective stories as B.J., had to admit that this was very little for what he called a “slouch-hound” to begin work on.  There had been no snow, and the frost had hardened the ground, so that there were no footprints to tell the way the crowd of hazers had gone.

As Jumbo said: 

“It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack after dark; and it wouldn’t do you any good to sit down in this haystack, either.”

The only thing to do, then, was to scour the campus in all its nooks and crannies, pausing now and then to look and listen hard for any sign or sound of the captives.  But each man heard nothing except the pounding of his own heart and the wheezing of his own lungs.  Then they must up and away again into the dark.