"I took that for granted," Frank remarked. "How did the car get along?" The seniors laughed. This question showed them better than anything else could that Frank was not dangerously injured. "The car seemed to stand it pretty well," Rowe answered. "How is he, doctor?" "Well," answered the physician, who had been making an examination, "I don't see any evidence of broken bones, and what is more surprising still, the young man's brain doesn't seem to have suffered under the strain to which you have subjected him." "I can stand more than that!" muttered Frank. "There's nothing for me to do here," said the doctor. "I should advise him to go to bed and lie still for the rest of the night. If he feels badly in the morning you can send for me." With this the doctor took himself off. Frank then slowly sat up. "There are some aches about me," he said, with a wry grimace, "but I suppose the more I talk of them the more black marks I'll get." "Oh, hang the black marks!" exclaimed Rowe. "There's been initiation enough for you, old fellow, and there isn't a doubt that when the matter is explained to the rest of the 'Pigs,' that you'll be excused from any further test." "No, siree!" exclaimed Frank, emphatically. "Eh, what's that?" "If you think," responded Frank, "that I'm going to do the baby act and crawl out of the rest of the circus you're mistaken." "But----" "There's no 'but' about it! I've been through worse things than this and if you fellows don't put the initiation through just as if nothing had happened, I'll be hanged if I'll join the society." CHAPTER XIX. THE LEAP INTO THE RIVER. "That's the right kind of talk anyway!" said Rowe, "and it's just what we might have expected from you, but really, Merriwell, this was the last thing on the programme for to-night, and even if that scoundrel hadn't pushed you in front of the car we should have made you go to bed at this time." "Well, I'm bound to obey you in any case," said Frank, "but speaking of that, am I at liberty to talk?" "Of course, for you're in the presence of members of the Pi Gamma in good standing." Rowe grinned when he said this, for he thought of the black-mark nonsense and realized that Frank took it in earnest. He added: "Out of consideration for this accident, Merriwell, I shall ask the president to score off the black marks already entered against you and let you begin with a clean record." "Well, I can't object to that," said Frank, "for I must say it struck me that some of those marks were chucked on rather harshly." "You'd better not make any criticisms of the way this society is run," declared Rowe, sternly. "That's so; I take that all back, but what I wanted to say was that it seemed to me as if somebody had interfered with the game." "That was it exactly, Merriwell, and it was something that we shall have to take a hand in before long." "How did it happen?" The others told Frank what they had seen. He listened thoughtfully and remarked: