"You are now going to ascend," said Baker, solemnly, "to the mystic regions of Pi Gamma. It is becoming that a neophyte should enter there in a modest attitude, therefore you will go on your hands and knees until commanded to rise. Proceed." Frank immediately began to climb the steps upon his hands and knees. The moment he began to move his ears were fairly deafened with a hideous uproar. It seemed as if a tribe of demons had been let loose around him. There was an infernal clatter, made, as he afterward learned, by beating upon tin pans and shaking large squares of sheet iron. There was a chorus of savage yells and shrieking. The air was foul with the odor of firecrackers that were exploded close to his ears. Every kind of barbaric noise that student ingenuity can invent was brought into play. "By the bones of Cæsar!" thought Frank. "If I hadn't been pretty well seasoned by adventures before this, I believe I should be scared." As it was, far from being scared, he shook with laughter as he slowly and patiently climbed up the stairs. It seemed as if they would never end. It was a winding stairway, and went from the ground clear to the top of the high building. Later he learned that this was a back stairway built expressly for the students, whose society rooms were in the top of the building. It seemed to him as if he had climbed higher than the top of the Washington monument when at last he found no steps in front of him, and the diabolical racket ceased as suddenly as it had begun. He was told to rise, and he did so with a sigh of relief. He was then led two or three paces and ordered to sit down. He did so, and felt that he was in something like a swing. There were chains at each side of him, holding the seat. He was told to grasp these chains tightly, and hang on, lest he be dropped the entire distance to the ground. "That would be a pretty long fall," thought Frank, who at the moment really believed that there was a well beneath him that extended clear to the bottom of the building; so he gripped the chains and heard the voice of Baker crying: "All ready, send him up." "I'd like to know how much farther up I can go," thought Frank. He heard the creaking of a windlass and knew that he was rising. As he went up his seat swung back and forth a little, making him feel all the more how important it was that he should hang on securely. This journey was as long, and in one sense as trying as the climb upstairs had been. There was no noise in connection with it, except the constant creaking of the windlass. Blindfolded as he was, it really seemed as if he had been hauled up at least a hundred feet when at last the creaking ceased and he was lifted from his seat. Then he was laid upon an inclined plane, feet downward. It seemed steep, too, and when his fingers accidentally touched the little rail at the side he noticed that it was well greased.