“We’ll do the thing up brown,” said Sam.

“We must strike higher than that feast we had, last year.”

“Right you are!” came from Tom, “Oh dear, do you remember how we served Mumps that night!” and he set up a roar over the remembrance of the scene.

Hans Mueller had become one of the occupants of the dormitory, and he was as much, interested as anybody in the preparations for the spread.  “Dot vill pe fine!” he said.  “I like to have von feast twist a veek, ha I ha!

“He’s a jolly dog,” said Tom to Frank.

“But, say, I’ve been thinking of having some fun with him before this spread comes off.”

“Let me in on the ground floor,” pleaded Frank, who always wok a great interest in Tom’s jokes.

“I will, on one condition, Frank.”

“And what is that?”

“That you loan me that masquerade suit you have in your trunk.  The one you used at that New Year’s dance at home.”

“You mean that Indian rig?”

“Yes.”

“Hullo, I reckon I smell a mouse!” laughed the senator’s son.  “I heard you giving Hans that yarn about us training to fight Indians."’

“Did you indeed.”

“I did indeed; and I heard Hans say that he wanted nothing to do with the Indians.”

“Well, he’s going to have something to do with at least one Indian,” grinned Tom.  “What do you say I get the suit?”

“Yes; if you’ll fix it so that I can see the sport.”

“All of the crowd can see it, if they don’t leak about it,” returned the fun-loving Rover.

Tom soon had the masquerade suit in his possession and also, some face paints which Frank had saved from the New Year’s dance mentioned.  Shortly afterward Tom joined the crowd in the gymnasium, where Hans Mueller was trying to do some vaulting over the bars.

“I dink I could chump dem sticks of I vos taller,” the German youth was saying.

“Or the sticks were lower,” replied Tom, with a wink at the crowd.  “That’s right, Hans, you had better learn how to jump now, and to run, too.”

“The Indians have come,” put in Frank.

“Indians?” repeated Hans Mueller.  “Vere is da?”

“They say a band of them are in the woods around here,” answered Tom.  “If you go out you want to be careful or they may scalp you.”

“Cracious, Rofer, ton’t say dot!” cried Mueller in alarm.  “Vot is dem Indians doing here annavay?”

“They came in East to hunt up some buffalo that got away.  They had something like half a million in a corral, and about two thousand got away from them.”

This preposterous announcement was taken by Hans Mueller in all seriousness, and he asked Tom all sorts of ridiculous questions about the savage red men, whom he supposed as wild and wily as those of generations ago.

“No, I ton’t vonts to meet any of dem,” he said at last.  “Da vos von pad lot alretty!”