"What are you doing?" "Lowering this line, so it will just catch Mr. Officer under the chin. Get over the fence." Rattleton obeyed. He found a place where he could scramble to the top of the fence, and there he sat, calling to Frank: "Come on--hurry!" The policeman came out into the yard. It seemed that Merriwell had been waiting for him. Frank started to run, and the officer started after him. "I have yer now!" grated the policeman. Frank led him directly toward the clothesline. Just before the line was reached, Frank seemed to stumble and nearly fall. He did it in order to duck under the line. A triumphant exclamation broke from the officer. It was cut short by another sort of exclamation. The clothesline caught him under the chin. It snapped his head backward and his heels forward. He went down flat on his back with a terrible thump, and there he lay. With a triumphant laugh, Frank shinned up the fence and perched on the top beside Rattleton. The officer was sitting up. He had seen more stars and fireworks than it had ever been his fortune to behold before. "Ta, ta, old chappie!" tauntingly called Merriwell. "We'll see you some other evening." "Stop--stop right where you are!" ordered the policeman, in a bewildered way, looking around for the speaker. "You can't get away. It's no use for you to try." "You're twisted, old man," laughed Frank. "Good-night, and pleasant dreams! We certainly had you on a string to-night. Ha! ha! ha!" Then the boys dropped down from the fence into the next yard, made their way to the street, and hastened toward Morey's. "Christopher? what a racket!" laughed Rattleton. "Why, I haven't been in anything like this since I was a freshman." "It's good for a fellow once in a while," said Frank. "It stirs up his blood." "But I was in a hard place when you came to my rescue, Merry. The cop had me pinched, and he said the charge would be larceny. I thought I was in for it." "I wasn't going to leave anybody to be locked up." "You never do, Merry; you always stick. It does me good to see you out on a time like this, for you have not been like yourself in weeks. Now you seem like the old Frank Merriwell." They reached Morey's safely. Entering, they discovered nearly all the others of their party there ahead of them. And Rob Marline was there, drinking whiskey. As soon as Frank and Harry appeared, the others of the party surrounded them, asking about their adventures. Bruce Browning was wiping the perspiration from his flushed face, while he growled: "Haven't done anything like that for a long time. It was awful! Wouldn't done it then if it hadn't been to escape arrest. Cæsar's ghost! think of being arrested." "I was arrested!" said Rattleton. "What?" cried the others. "Come again!" "A cop pinched me." "No? How did you get away?"