Crow:

"They can't get back to their rooms before their pokers grow cold, and it is only a matter of a few minutes until they chill, anyway, so all that we have to do is to wait here a little while, and then go back and finish up our work—and perhaps add a little extra on account of this last piece of rambunctiousness."

Tug saw that they were prisoners indeed, but intended to hold the fort until the last possible moment. He told History to put his poker back in the fire and to heat it up again, while he stood guard with his own.

To this stratagem the first Crow responded with another,—he trumped Tug's ace, as it were,—for though he saw that the fire was going out and would not heat the pokers much longer, he decided not to wait for this, but set his men to gathering stones and sticks to pelt the two luckless Lakerimmers with.

And now Tug saw that the chances of escape were indeed small. He felt that he could make a dash for liberty and outrun any one in the crowd, or outfight any one who might overtake him; but he would sooner have died than leave History, who could neither run well nor fight well, to the mercies of the merciless gang that surrounded them.

"Let's give the Lakerim yell together, History," he said; "perhaps the fellows have missed us and are out looking for us, and will come to our rescue."

So he and History filled their lungs and hurled forth into the air the old Lakerim yell, or as much of it as two could manage:

                                           {ray!
                                           {ri!
                                           {ro!
  "L`¨¡y-krim! L`¨¡y-krim! L`¨¡y-krim! Hoo-{row!
                                           {roo!
                                           {rah!"

The Crows listened in amazement to the war-whoop of the two Lakerimmers. Then the first Crow, who had Irish blood in his veins, smiled and said:

"Oho! I see what they are up to; they're calling for help. Well, now, we'll just drown out their yell with a little noise of our own."

And so, when Tug and History had regained breath enough to begin their club cry again, the whole two dozen of the Crows broke forth into a horrible hullabaloo of shrieks and howls that drowned out Tug's and History's voices completely, but raised far more noise than they could ever have hoped to make.

After a few moments of thus caterwauling night hideous, like a pack of coyotes, the Crows began to close in on the Lakerim stronghold, and stones and sticks flew around the two in a shower that kept them busy dodging.

"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`¨¡y-krim! L`¨¡y-krim! L`¨¡y-krim! Hoo-ray!"