“Hoopla! keep it up!” roared Tom.  “Dutcha boy take the cake for flingin’ hees boots.  Faster, faster, or Big Wolf shoot, bang!”

“No, no; I vos dance so hard as I can!” panted Hans, and renewed his exertions until Tom could keep in no longer, and set up such a laugh as had not been heard around the Hall for many a day.  It is needless to add that the other boys joined in, still, however, keeping out of sight.

“You’re a corker, Hans!” cried Tom in his natural voice.  “You ought to join the buck-and-wing dancers in a minstrel company.”

“Vot —­ vot —­ ?” began the German boy in bewilderment.  “Ain’t you no Indian?”

“To be sure I am; I’m Big Wolf, the Head Dancing Master of the Tuscaroras, Hans, dear boy.  Don’t you think I’m a stunner.”

“You vos Tom Rofer, made up,” growled Hans in sudden and deep disgust.  “Vot for you vos blay me such a drick as dis, hey?”

“Just to wake you up, Hans.”

“I ton’t vos been asleep, not me!”

“I mean to stir up your ideas —­ put something new into your head.”

“Mine head vos all right, Tom.”

“To be sure it is.”

“Den vot you say you vos put somedings new py him, hey?”

“I mean to make you sharper-put you on your mettle.”

“I ton’t understand,” stammered the German youth hopelessly.

“That’s so, and you won’t in a thousand years, Hans.  But you are the right sort, any way.”

“I dink I blay me Indian mineselluf some tay,” mused Hans.  “Dot vos lots of fun to make me tance, vosn’t it?  Vere you got dot bistol?”

“Down in the barn.  Look out, or it may go off,” added Tom, as he held out the weapons, thinking Hans would draw back in alarm.

Instead, however, the German boy took the pistol and of a sudden pointed it at Tom’s head.

“Now you tance!” he cried abruptly.  “Tance, or I vos shoot you full of holes!”

“Hi, Tom; he’s got the best of you now!” cried Frank from behind the bushes.

“You can’t make me dance, Hans,” returned Tom.  “That old rusty iron hasn’t been loaded for years.”

 “It ton’t vos no goot?  No.  Maybe you vos only fool me.”

“Pull the trigger and see,” answered Tom coolly.

He had scarcely spoken when Hans Mueller did as advised.  A tremendous report followed, and when the smoke cleared away the boys in the bushes were horrified to see that the rusty pistol had been shattered into a thousand pieces and that both Tom and Hans lay on their backs in the road, their faces covered with blood.

CHAPTER VI

THE STRANGE FIGURE IN THE HALLWAY

At the fearful outcome of the joke Tom had been perpetrating the boys concealed in the bushes were almost struck dumb, and for several seconds nobody could speak or move.

“Oh, Heavens, Tom is killed!” burst out Dick, who was the first to find his voice.  He ran forth as speedily as possible, and one after another the other cadets followed.