He tried to hurl them off, and did succeed in flinging some of them aside.

This enabled him to gain his feet.
"Let go!" he snarled.
"Fruit! fruit!" was being chorused.
Again the hands and arms closed on him.
"Let me go, I say! I want to overtake that fellow!" Only a few near him understood his words.

The majority thought he was merely showing a vigorous protest against the threatened loss of his shirt-tab, and they had no sympathy with anything of that kind, for they had suffered the same humiliation, and were naturally determined to inflict the same thing on every student they could lay their hands on.
"Let go!" Badger shrieked, white with wrath, lunging with his hard right fist.
It struck a student in the face and hurled him crashingly backward.

But the next moment the fist and arm were caught and held.
Then began a fierce struggle for the mastery.

Time and again the Westerner, whose strength was great, hurled off the men who sought to hold him down.