At the end of half a mile they came to a shallow cave in the face of a ledge of rocks. A brawling brook ran by it, and overarching trees helped shut it in. Here they halted, and made preparations for what was to follow. After a few moments the victim’s eyes and mouth were unbandaged. It was a grotesque sight that he looked upon. The masks and costumes of the hazers were both ludicrous and hideous. Their huge mock weapons were swung menacingly. They arranged themselves in a semicircle about the candidate. At their backs were the mysterious shadows of the cave. The Grand Inquisitor stepped forward, flourishing a mighty broadsword--of wood. His voice was deep and hollow. “Before we proceed to the graver and more intense portion of the initiation,” he said, “the candidate is requested to reply to certain questions, which, being satisfactorily answered, will entitle him to pose for the first degree. The first question is: Do you admire our personal appearance? And the answer is: ‘Yes.’ The candidate will please say ‘Yes.’” “Yes,” replied Van Loan, without hesitation. “Is it your fond and earnest desire to be initiated into the grand and illustrious order of Gamma Questers, without which honor you feel that life is not worth living? The answer is ‘Yes.’ Say ‘Yes.’” “Yes,” responded Van Loan, quietly. “Do you desire any part of the initiation ceremonies to be omitted, however painful, disagreeable, or surprising they may prove to be? The answer is, ‘No, I do not.’ Say so.” Van Loan said so. “Do you acknowledge yourself to be wholly unfit and unworthy to enter into fraternal relations with brethren so exalted as ourselves, and do you humbly implore us to overlook your thousand faults and follies, and to receive you into fellowship? The answer is, ‘I do.’” “‘I do,’” said Van Loan. “Finally, will you always strive to uphold the dignity and further the aims of our most noble order, to endeavor, so much as in your feeble intellect lies, to induce the president and members of the faculty of Concord College to become members hereof, and forgetting your unworthy, dishonorable, and utterly idiotic past, press on to the coveted goal that awaits all true Gamma Questers? The answer is: ‘I will.’” “‘I will,’” was the final response. “Most Grand and Worthy Scribe, are the candidate’s answers duly recorded?” “They are,” came the reply in hollow tones from a black-robed figure at the extremity of the cave. He sat under a torchlight, his black mask hideously splashed with red, an immense volume spread open before him, and in his hand a huge long-handled pen. “Then advance and give the candidate sign A, of rite number one.” The person in the black robe arose, laid down his pen, and advanced to within five feet of the victim.