“Well, I am glad I did that much.  I didn’t mean to leave you, Harry.  Billy’s was so near I thought I could get the boys out and rescue you before they could carry you off.  I couldn’t rescue you alone, so I ran here to stir up the fellows.”

“That was right.  I was glad you got away.  They were laying for you.  They told me so.”

“Well, come back, and we’ll wash this stuff off you.”

“I don’t know as you can do it.”

“Eh?  Why not?”

“They said it was put on to stay a while.  They told me we were so fond of playing the noble red man’s part that they would fix me so I could play it for a week or two.  Some of them advised me to use sand to scrub myself with if I hoped to get the paint off.”

“Oh, that must be all a bluff.  It will come off easy enough if a little cocoa butter is used on it.  Here, somebody run out to a drug store and get some cocoa butter.”

After they had worked about fifteen minutes they looked at each other in dismay, for they had scarcely been able to start the paint, and it become plain that cocoa butter, soap and water would not take it off.

“Didn’t I tell you?” murmured Harry, sorrowfully.  “I’m done for!  I’ll never be able to get it off!  I’ll have to go out West and live with the Sioux!  If I do I’ll take along the scalps of a few sophomores!”

They continued to work on him for nearly an hour, but were unable to get off more than a certain portion of the paint.  Harry was still grotesquely decorated when the boys arrived at the conclusion that further scrubbing with the materials at hand was useless.

Then Frank went out and rang up a druggist who had gone to bed, for it was after midnight.  He told the man the sort of scrape his friend was in and offered the druggist inducements to give him something to remove the paint.

The druggist said it could not be paint, but must be some sort of staining, and he gave Frank a preparation.

Frank went back and tried the stuff on Harry.  It removed a certain amount of the stain, but did not remove it all.

At last, being thoroughly worn out, Rattleton said: 

“I’ll give it up for to-night, fellows.  Perhaps I’ll be able to get the rest off in the morning.  I’ll poultice my face and neck.  But you’ll have to watch out, Frank.  They say they will use you worse than this when they get hold of you.”

For the time the sophomores seemed to have the best of the game.

CHAPTER XII.

Freshman against sophomore.

On the following morning a large piece of cardboard Swung from the door of Merriwell and Rattleton’s room in Mrs. Harrington’s boarding house.  On the cardboard was this inscription: 

  “Good-morning! 
  Have you used
  Soap?”

Harry was up at an early hour industriously scrubbing away.  He succeeded fairly well, but despite his utmost efforts the coloring refused to come off entirely.