CHAPTER XIII.
JUBILANT FRESHMEN.
Spat! Merriwell staggered.
"Down you go!" Browning followed the freshman closely, launching out again, with the full expectation that the second blow would be a settler.
Frank had been taken slightly off his guard, so that he had failed in getting away from the first blow, but he skillfully ducked the second, countering as the king's fist passed over his shoulder.
Browning reeled backward, having received a terrific crack on the ear.
If Frank had not been slightly dazed he might have followed the sophomore closely, but he was a bit slow in getting after Bruce.
For a few seconds the boys gave an exhibition of scientific sparring which would have proved very interesting to their comrades if all had not been too busy to watch them.
Frank Merriwell contiuued to laugh, and it had been said at Yale that he was most dangerous in an encounter when he laughed.
"You came near doing it, Browning," he admitted, "but it was rather tricky on your part.

I wasn't looking for a fight." "You will get many things you are not looking for before you have been at Yale much longer," returned the king.
"Think so ?" "Dead sure." The two lads seemed to be very evenly matched, save that Merriwell was the more catlike on his feet.

Browning was solid, and it took a terrific blow to stagger him.

Merriwell was plainly the more scientific.

He could get in and away from his foe in a most successful manner, but he saw that in the confined limits of a ring Browning's rush would be difficult to escape.
What the result of this encounter might have been cannot be told, for two freshmen suddenly appeared and gave the alarm that at least a hundred sophomores were coming in a body to aid their comrades.
A moment later the sophs appeared, hurrying along the street toward the scene of the encounter.
"'Umpty-seven! 'Umpty-seven! Rah! rah! 'rah!" Then the signal was given for the freshmen to break away and take to flight, which they promptly did.
"Oh, soph--oh, my poor soph!" cried many taunting voices.
"Good-evening, gentlemen!" called Bandy Robinson.