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                          BOOKS FOR YOUNG MEN

                            MERRIWELL SERIES

                  Stories of Frank and Dick Merriwell

                          PRICE FIFTEEN CENTS

                   _Fascinating Stories of Athletics_

                                -------

A half million enthusiastic followers of the Merriwell brothers will
attest the unfailing interest and wholesomeness of these adventures of
two lads of high ideals, who play fair with themselves, as well as with
the rest of the world.

These stories are rich in fun and thrills in all branches of sports and
athletics. They are extremely high in moral tone, and cannot fail to be
of immense benefit to every boy who reads them.

They have the splendid quality of firing a boy’s ambition to become a
good athlete, in order that he may develop into a strong, vigorous
right-thinking man.

       ---------------------------------------------------------
       ---------------------------------------------------------

                      _ALL TITLES ALWAYS IN PRINT_

     1—Frank Merriwell’s School Days         By Burt L. Standish
     2—Frank Merriwell’s Chums               By Burt L. Standish
     3—Frank Merriwell’s Foes                By Burt L. Standish
     4—Frank Merriwell’s Trip West           By Burt L. Standish
     5—Frank Merriwell Down South            By Burt L. Standish
     6—Frank Merriwell’s Bravery             By Burt L. Standish
     7—Frank Merriwell’s Hunting Tour        By Burt L. Standish
     8—Frank Merriwell in Europe             By Burt L. Standish
     9—Frank Merriwell at Yale               By Burt L. Standish
    10—Frank Merriwell’s Sports Afield       By Burt L. Standish
    11—Frank Merriwell’s Races               By Burt L. Standish
    12—Frank Merriwell’s Party               By Burt L. Standish
    13—Frank Merriwell’s Bicycle Tour        By Burt L. Standish
    14—Frank Merriwell’s Courage             By Burt L. Standish
    15—Frank Merriwell’s Daring              By Burt L. Standish
    16—Frank Merriwell’s Alarm               By Burt L. Standish
    17—Frank Merriwell’s Athletes            By Burt L. Standish
    18—Frank Merriwell’s Skill               By Burt L. Standish
    19—Frank Merriwell’s Champions           By Burt L. Standish
    20—Frank Merriwell’s Return to Yale      By Burt L. Standish
    21—Frank Merriwell’s Secret              By Burt L. Standish
    22—Frank Merriwell’s Danger              By Burt L. Standish
    23—Frank Merriwell’s Loyalty             By Burt L. Standish
    24—Frank Merriwell in Camp                 By Burt L. Standish
    25—Frank Merriwell’s Vacation              By Burt L. Standish
    26—Frank Merriwell’s Cruise                By Burt L. Standish
    27—Frank Merriwell’s Chase                 By Burt L. Standish
    28—Frank Merriwell in Maine                By Burt L. Standish
    29—Frank Merriwell’s Struggle              By Burt L. Standish
    30—Frank Merriwell’s First Job             By Burt L. Standish
    31—Frank Merriwell’s Opportunity           By Burt L. Standish
    32—Frank Merriwell’s Hard Luck             By Burt L. Standish
    33—Frank Merriwell’s Protégé               By Burt L. Standish
    34—Frank Merriwell on the Road             By Burt L. Standish
    35—Frank Merriwell’s Own Company           By Burt L. Standish
    36—Frank Merriwell’s Fame                  By Burt L. Standish
    37—Frank Merriwell’s College Chums         By Burt L. Standish
    38—Frank Merriwell’s Problem               By Burt L. Standish
    39—Frank Merriwell’s Fortune               By Burt L. Standish
    40—Frank Merriwell’s New Comedian          By Burt L. Standish
    41—Frank Merriwell’s Prosperity            By Burt L. Standish
    42—Frank Merriwell’s Stage Hit             By Burt L. Standish
    43—Frank Merriwell’s Great Scheme          By Burt L. Standish
    44—Frank Merriwell in England              By Burt L. Standish
    45—Frank Merriwell on the Boulevards       By Burt L. Standish
    46—Frank Merriwell’s Duel                  By Burt L. Standish
    47—Frank Merriwell’s Double Shot           By Burt L. Standish
    48—Frank Merriwell’s Baseball Victories    By Burt L. Standish
    49—Frank Merriwell’s Confidence            By Burt L. Standish
    50—Frank Merriwell’s Auto                  By Burt L. Standish
    51—Frank Merriwell’s Fun                   By Burt L. Standish
    52—Frank Merriwell’s Generosity            By Burt L. Standish


In order that there may be no confusion, we desire to say that the books
listed below will be issued during the respective months in New York
City and vicinity. They may not reach the readers at a distance
promptly, on account of delays in transportation.


                   To Be Published in January, 1923.

    53—Frank Merriwell’s Tricks                By Burt L. Standish
    54—Frank Merriwell’s Temptation            By Burt L. Standish


                   To Be Published in February, 1923.

    55—Frank Merriwell on Top                  By Burt L. Standish
    56—Frank Merriwell’s Luck                  By Burt L. Standish


                    To Be Published in March, 1923.

    57—Frank Merriwell’s Mascot                By Burt L. Standish
    58—Frank Merriwell’s Reward                By Burt L. Standish

------------------------------------------------------------------------


                       Frank Merriwell’s Setback;


                                  OR,




                       TRUE PLUCK WELCOMES DEFEAT


                                   BY
                            BURT L. STANDISH
                Author of the famous MERRIWELL STORIES.



                            Publisher’s Logo



                       STREET & SMITH CORPORATION
                               PUBLISHERS
                     79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York



------------------------------------------------------------------------






                          Copyright, 1900-1901
                           By STREET & SMITH
                                  ————
                       Frank Merriwell’s Setback






               (Printed in the United States of America)

    All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign
                 languages, including the Scandinavian.


------------------------------------------------------------------------


                       FRANK MERRIWELL’S SETBACK.

                                -------

                               CHAPTER I.

                        THE GIANT OF THE WHEEL.


In its various forms it was an old trick, and it ought not to have
worked on Starbright, who had come from the famous preparatory college
at Andover. But by some chance, Dick had never heard of it, and the
sophomores, discovering this, prepared to “work” him with it.

It was a principle with the lordly sophomores to annoy freshmen, and the
towering young giant, who had already made himself so famous at Yale,
suffered as much at their hands as less noted mortals.

There is a streak in human nature which causes those who have been
“through the mill” to want to put others through. This spirit accounts
for “hazing,” in all its forms.

Jack Ready started it by offering to bet Dick Starbright ten dollars
that he could not ride a bicycle from New Haven to Guilford and back, a
round-trip of thirty-two miles, in three hours. Starbright snapped him
up quicker than a wink, for though there were many things he could do
better than bicycling, Dick knew that he could do this, and the trip to
Guilford, along the pleasant shores for a great part of the way, was an
attractive one.

The bet was made one Wednesday evening, and Dick was to do the riding
the next Saturday afternoon. Starbright told his friend Dashleigh about
it.

“Of course you can do it!” Bert declared.

“Dead easy! Why, I could do that trip in two hours, even if the roads
are sandy. But three! I don’t know what Ready is thinking about. He must
fancy that I can’t ride a wheel. Perhaps it is because I started in to
take part in the relay race and Merriwell pulled me out of it and put me
at other work. But that was only because you are a faster rider than I
am, and my size and strength made me a promising candidate for the
shot-putting and hammer-throwing.”

“And you did your part well, old man. You covered yourself with glory!”

“And I’ll show these duffers that I can ride a wheel. I’ll see how
quickly I can do the trip, and I’ll make their eyes bulge out when they
see me back.”

Dick did not get an opportunity to see Merriwell, but he told Browning;
and Browning, who had been “let in on the ground floor,” assured Dick
that he could make it “dead easy,” and that Jack Ready was a fool for
offering such a bet.

“It will be a good way to open up Merriwell’s entertainments,” said
Ralph Bingham, when Starbright chanced to speak to him about it. “I’d do
it, if I were you.”

Bingham was a sophomore, but Dick did not think of that.

Carker, alone of the sophomores, objected, urging that he disliked to
see so good a fellow as Starbright toyed with in that way.

“Well, you aren’t going to chip into the thing and spoil the fun, just
because it doesn’t suit you, are you?” demanded Bingham. “We sophomores
must hang together. Ready is an especial friend of yours, and he is
managing the thing. Don’t you think it would be rather a scaly trick to
give the snap away?”

“If Merriwell should hear of it?”

“He’ll not hear of it. He has his hands full of other matters just now.
And he wouldn’t interfere, anyway, for he’s no milk-and-water kid. He
had to go through the mill when he was a freshman, just as we did, and
it did him good. I like Starbright. He’s a fine fellow. But he’s a
freshman, and he’s in great danger of coming to think that he is ‘it’!
He has boomed right up, and he’ll be wearing frills of great importance
round the gray matter of his thinking machine the very first thing we
know. Already he believes that he’s better than any sophomore that ever
trod the campus or sat on the fence. This thing won’t hurt him. It will
do him good, and tend to make a man of him.”

This sort of logic, directed to a fellow classman, was irresistible.

Ready was not at all sure that Merriwell would interfere; but, fearing
that he might, for Dick was recognized as his protégé, he contrived to
keep the two apart most of the time, managing to be with one or the
other whenever they met, and to so skilfully direct the conversation
that no opportunity presented for a discussion of Dick’s proposed ride.
As for the other students of all classes, they shut up mum on the
subject whenever Frank came to their midst.

There was a lowering gray sky and a hint of a change in the weather on
that Saturday afternoon when Dick wheeled up in front of the New Haven
House for his start. He rode a very high frame to accommodate his great
height. It was a heavy roadster, not adapted to racing, but Dick had
been able to crack it up for good speed on more than one occasion.

As for his attire, Dick was comfortably clothed in a woolen bicycle-suit
somewhat the worse for wear, and wore a visored cap. Like most Yale men,
the cut and quality of his clothing were of secondary consideration, his
only demand being that it would suit his needs and be comfortable.

Jack Ready was there, to lead the cheer with which Dick’s departure was
greeted, swinging his cap and yelling, after a preliminary offer to
double his bet, which offer Dick would not accept. He was sure he would
win Ready’s money, and for that reason he did not want the bet raised.

Dashleigh was there, too, and other freshmen. There were some juniors
and seniors, also. But the larger number gathered in front of the hotel
were sophomores.

Starbright liked a bicycle, though he was too large and heavy to become
a crack rider. He was a good wheelman, though, and he swung away with
cheerfulness through the level streets of the college city and out
toward the road that leads close along the shore of the Sound, following
as closely as he could the railway line.

He found the wind heavy as he began to wheel over the Sound route. The
breeze was off the water and he was forced to bore into it quarteringly,
which, with the character of the road, made the wheeling rather too
heavy for pure pleasure.

Nevertheless, Starbright “hit it up” at a good gait, bending forward
over the handle-bars and thrusting his visored cap into the wind like
the sharp prow of a racing yacht.

Now and then a farmer stared curiously at him as he slipped by. This
grew so frequent as he neared the first of the half-abandoned summer
resorts of that part of the Sound that he dismounted from his wheel,
feeling that something in his personal appearance caused these men of
the hoe to inspect him in that way.

Having looked his wheel over and found it all right, Dick took off his
coat and inspected that. There was no legend pinned or chalked on its
back, and nothing about him which could draw so much attention.

“The fellows act as if they had never seen a bicycle!” he grumbled, as
he replaced his coat and remounted for the continuance of his journey.
Yet that this could not be so seemed to be proved by the proximity of
the summer-resort hotels, which poured out scores of wheelmen for these
roads every season, to make no mention of the bicyclists of New Haven.

On reaching the first of the summer resorts, Dick was surprised still
further to find a number of men and women, chiefly composed of the class
who get their living in the winter from the waters of the Sound or by
taking care of the abandoned caravansaries, standing grouped on a corner
as if awaiting his coming, and staring at him with undisguised curiosity
as he wheeled by.

“Don’t think much o’ yer wheel!” one of them shouted. Then added: “No; I
don’t think I’ll buy one of ’em next summer!”

Stopping by a spring for a drink, he leaned the wheel against a fence,
and a country youth came forward to look it over. Dick would have
thought nothing of this if the young fellow had not asked him if he
thought he received enough pay for that kind of work.

“Not doing it for pay,” said Dick.

“Y’ain’t racin’ ag’in time, then?” was the bland question.

“Not exactly.”

“Can’t say that I want to buy the wheel!”

“I haven’t any notion of selling it.”

Then the countryman stared at him.

“You ain’t Jimmy Michael?”

“Jimmy Michael, the famous bicyclist? No. What made you think so?”

“And ain’t you advertisin’ a new kind of wheel that’s a world corker?”

“Nothing of the kind.”

The country lad flushed and moved away with explanation.

“What’s the matter with the fellow?” Starbright thought. “Jimmy Michael?
Nobody could mistake me for Jimmy Michael!”

Still the farmers stared at him as he wheeled by. Sometimes, when they
beheld him coming, they came close down to the road, often the whole
family, and stared after him as he passed on.

Once a young woman waved a handkerchief roguishly at him from a kitchen
window. Dick began to feel red and uncomfortable; and then, at the next
village, he was asked by a member of the mob that was apparently
gathered to see him, what the make of his wheel was, and if it was to be
sold cheaper than other makes of good wheels, he inquired why the
question was asked.

For answer the man pointed to a large placard on a wall:

    “Richard Starbright, the world-famous giant of the wheel, will
    this afternoon make a race against time from New Haven to
    Guilford and return for the purpose of advertising our new make
    of record-beater roadsters. Starbright has beaten the record of
    Jimmy Michael, and our wheels beat the world. He has circled the
    globe in the interest of our wheels. Wait for him! You cannot
    afford to miss seeing him!”

“You look a good deal like a Yale guy, but yer size made us think mebbe
you was the man,” the citizen explained.

“Yes, I am the man!” said Dick hotly flushing. “I’m a guy all right,
too!”

“What’s the make o’ the wheel?” another queried, walking round as if to
inspect its fine points. “Looks like you’ve rid it a lot. I should think
they’d have sent you out on a shinin’ new one?”

“What countries have you ridden through?” queried a vinegary woman in
spectacles. “I do hope you’ve been through Tibet. But if you have, the
natives did’t treat ye as bad as they do some folks. I’ve got some real
good buttermilk, and if you’d like to drop into my house a minute to
rest and tell me about Tibet I’d take it kindly. I’m so interested
readin’ ’bout Tibet that I can’t hardly sleep o’ night sometimes. It’s
the first house on the corner as you go down—a little white house with
green winder-blinds.”

Starbright was in a profuse perspiration.

“Thank you!” he said. “You’re very kind. But I must really hurry on.
I’ve stopped too long now.”

Then, feeling that the only way to get away from these people was to
mount his wheel, he hopped on it and fled through the village, giving a
glance at the little white house with the green blinds as he swept by,
and thinking that perhaps the proper thing would have been to stop there
and talk Tibet to the inquisitive, spectacled lady and sip her
buttermilk while he thought out some plan for outwitting his tormentors.

“This is Ready’s work!” he panted, as he wheeled down the road. “I’ll
have to murder that fellow! I see there is no help for it! I shall have
to take him between my two thumbs and squash his life out as I would any
common bug!”

He tried to smile when the village was behind him.

“It’s a good joke, anyway, and it’s on your Uncle Richard! Of course,
the whole college knows of it now, and New Haven will know it before
night. Heavens! If it should get into the newspapers!”

Dick wheeled on so fast, hardly knowing now that he was speeding, that
he found himself approaching the next little village almost before he
thought it possible. He saw the inevitable crowd gathered on the
principal corner of the street, through which he must pass unless he
elected to make a wide détour and avoid the village altogether. Some
boys raised a cheer as he drew near, swinging their hats with an
urchin’s delight.

“I’ll not stop!” Dick grunted, shrinking from the thought of again
encountering some one who would ask him about his world-wide travels.
“They’ll want to know if I’ve been in China, likely, and if I’ve fought
the Boxers, and how many I’ve killed!”

So he put on extra speed, lowered his visored cap, bent over the
handle-bars, and went through the street like a streak of lightning. The
boys yelled and whooped, and he could not help hearing one citizen
remark that “Jimmy Michael ain’t in it with that feller!”

“Here comes the bikeist!” a boy was shouting to another group at the
lower corner. “Come quick, Sammy, ’er ye’ll be too late!”

“Geewhiskers! ain’t he a snorter?” another boy yelled.

The group broke into a wild cheer as Dick swept past, pedaling as if he
were racing for life. When he had escaped from these innocent
tormentors, he began to think over the situation and to ask himself if
he should go on to Guilford or stop where he was and retrace his way to
New Haven by another route. To do that would be to lose his bet. Not
that he cared so much for the money or for the mere winning, but that
would give Ready and the sophomores a perhaps coveted opportunity to guy
him for cowardice.

No, he was in it, and there seemed to be no way out but to make the ride
according to plans and schedule and win out, so far as that part was
concerned. So he rode on, wondering if there were no means by which he
could yet defeat the sophomores.

“Yes, this is the beginning of Frank Merriwell’s entertainments!” he
rather grimly thought. “I didn’t know that I would be chosen to open the
show in this way, though! Merry doesn’t know anything about it, I’m
sure.”

Merriwell was planning some festivities of an athletic character with
which he and his friends and other students were to celebrate the many
victories won by Yale that season. The college had been wonderfully
fortunate and triumphant on the gridiron, not having lost a single game
during the entire season. Never had a Yale team equaled the performance
of the football eleven of that year under the leadership of the
redoubtable senior. And not only in football, but in many other ways had
Yale won honor with the victorious teams Merriwell had trained and led.

There was a grim humor in Starbright which made him appreciate the
situation in which he found himself, even though he was the victim. At
first he had paid no heed to anything placarded on the walls, but now,
looking out for those glaring signs, he soon found one stuck against the
side of a barn. It was on the side of the barn that was invisible to him
as he came toward it.

So this had been Ready’s plan! These glittering advertisements of the
performance of the “Giant of the Wheel,” produced, no doubt, by some New
Haven printing press, had been skilfully plastered up along the roadside
and in the villages in such a way that the wheelman approaching them
could not see them. And the chances were small that he would look back
and discover them after he had whirled by. This accounted for the fact
that Dick had not for a time observed the notices which drew out the
curious villagers and farmers.

In the next village, which was also of the summer-hotel variety, though
there was a substantial element of people who resided there the year
round, a larger crowd than ever stood in the street to await his coming.

The crowd broke into a cheer as he came in sight and wheeled up to the
corner. He had resolved to ask some questions.

“When were these placards stuck up?” he inquired.

“Yisterday. Say, mister, when’s yer book comin’ out?”

“What book?”

“Why, the feller that come along yisterday stickin’ up the bills said
that you was about to put out a book tellin’ about yer wonderful
adventures with the Toltecs while you was coastin’ down one of them old
Peruvian roads in South Ameriky.”

“What sort of looking fellow was he?”

“Well, about so high and so wide. He was a sort of stocky chap with
bright eyes and red cheeks. Come to think of it, when he got off his
wheel to stick up the sign, I noticed that he toed in with one foot.”

“That was Jack Ready.”

“Was it? I didn’t know! I believe he did say somethin’ ’bout bein’
always Ready.”

“Aw! that feller’s a Yale man!” a boy was heard to sneer. “He ain’t
never been in South Ameriky ner nothin’. I know them fellers soon’s I
see ’em.”

“Be you a Yale man?” an old man growled, not relishing the idea of being
drawn out and fooled in that way by a mere college student. He had
walked nearly a mile to see the “Giant of the Wheel” go by, and he
wanted his money’s worth.

Dick was saved from answering this disconcerting question by a young man
with a pale face and large nose, who crowded forward to inspect the
wheel, saying that he intended to purchase a bicycle the coming season.

“I thought, mebbe, when I heard that feller talkin’ yesterday, that it
was one of them headless wheels made in Indianapolis. D’y’ever see one
of ’em? You sort of set in the handle-bars as if they was the arms of a
rockin’chair. I didn’t know but I’d like to have one of ’em. I’m sure
the feller said somethin’ ’bout headless!”

Dick thought it quite likely that the irrepressible Ready had referred
to the rider of the wheel as “headless,” or something of like character,
indicating that he was “easy.”

“Well, perhaps I am easy,” he thought, as he wheeled on, glad to be past
another inquisitive village.

Branford Point, a favorite watering-place, turned out a good-sized crowd
to see the “Giant of the Wheel,” but Dick concluded that he did not care
to ask further questions or make the acquaintance of the curious people,
so he flew through the place as rapidly as he could pedal.

He was making good time, even though the road was not of the best, in
spots, and the wind blew cold from the leaden clouds in the northeast.
He was warm enough, in spite of the wind, and sometimes, when he
reflected too strongly on the condition in which he found himself, and
of the laughing sophomores in the campus, he grew altogether too warm.

There were other groups to meet and pass, other farmers who hurried down
to the road to look and wonder, other boys who whooped and yelled and
told each other to “git onto de legs of de Giant,” and other things
equally uncomplimentary to the bicyclist.

But Dick, having resolved to take the whole thing good-naturedly and
philosophically, smiled back at them; and, whenever he dismounted, he
answered the rain of questions as best he could, without revealing that
he was the victim of a sophomore joke.

But when he reached Guilford, the end of his route—Guilford, celebrated
as the birthplace of the poet, Fitz Greene Halleck—he met a surprise
that took away his breath. In front of a conspicuous hotel was a brass
band, surrounded by Yale sophomores, with Jack Ready prominent in their
midst. They were waiting to give the “Giant of the Wheel” a right royal
reception; and, as Dick wheeled up, almost too disconcerted to know what
to do or say, the band struck into “See the Conquering Hero Comes!” and
the sophomores gave a yell that shook the building and almost rattled
the curbstones.

But Dick Starbright was quick-witted, and he pulled himself together, so
that he was able to dismount with a smile and a bow.

“What sort of fool circus are you idiots trying to make of yourselves?”
he blandly demanded, walking forward, pushing his wheel.

Ready wiggled his fingers characteristically.

“An immense one, old man, and you have been the clown of the show. We’ll
take supper at your expense to-night. In the meantime, you will find
refreshments in the house of this publican.”

He gave his fingers another wiggle and jerked them toward the hotel
proprietor, who stood by with red face expanded in a grin.

“It’s one on me!” Starbright admitted smilingly. “But the end hasn’t
come. Before Frank Merriwell’s entertainments are over you Smart Aleck
sophomores will acknowledge that the freshmen know a thing or two, and
are more than your masters. And we’ll not resort to deceit to win our
victories or to give us a chance to ‘holler’.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                               CHAPTER II

                       TO THE AID OF DADE MORGAN.


Jack Ready and the sophomores had rushed to Guilford by train with their
band, after Starbright’s departure from New Haven, and had easily beaten
him there, with plenty of time to spare. They returned by train, feeling
supremely joyous over their success.

Dick, however, in accordance with the terms of the wager, was forced to
wheel back to New Haven over the route he had come, again stared at and
questioned by the curious people along the road.

The leaden clouds thickened and darkened, portending a northeaster; but,
with the wind for a large part of the trip at his back, Dick sped
swiftly along, approaching New Haven well ahead of time.

On the outskirts of the city he came upon a sight that stirred his
blood. Dade Morgan, who had been out on a wheel accompanying Rosalind
Thornton, found himself confronted by a rough-looking man whose brutal
face was somewhat familiar to him, and who planted himself in the center
of the street as if to intercept him.

Dade was not particularly afraid of the man, but rather scorned him.

“Out of the way!” Dade roughly commanded.

He rang his bell furiously. Rosalind paled.

Seeing that the man did not mean to step aside, and having no desire for
an altercation with him in Rosalind’s presence, Dade veered his wheel to
pass. The man leaped at him, thrust a foot out in front of the wheel,
stopping it, and Dade was thrown heavily over the handle-bars.

Rosalind, who was close at his side, was also thrown to the ground,
though she saved herself from injury and skilfully alighted on her feet.

When Starbright saw this he set his pedals in still swifter motion, all
his chivalrous instincts aroused.

Dade scrambled up; but the man struck him a heavy blow which knocked him
backward.

“Dis is me time I git even wid you fer dat insult. See!” the ruffian
growled. “Ye insulted me t’other night, when ye hadn’t no call. Now I
pays ye back!”

Rosalind gave a scream of fright. Starbright, swinging forward like a
whirlwind, saw Dade dodge the next blow and grapple with the ruffian and
saw them begin a furious fight.

Dade, who was a good, hard fighter, had been weakened by his fall, so
that it was evident at a glance that he was no match for his burly
adversary. He struck savagely, however, and managed to release himself
from the man’s grip.

The tough now struck at him, using a big doorkey as brass knuckles, with
the amiable intention of cutting open the face of the “college dude.”
Morgan evaded this and landed a blow, but the fellow tripped him and
kicked him heavily as he fell.

Rosalind, screaming for help, ran to one side of the road. Dade jumped
to his feet again, and, managing to fasten on the tough, the two went
down together.

Then the whirring wheel stopped beside the struggling couple; and, as
the rough pulled loose and tried to strike Dade in the face with the
heavy brass key, a blow from Starbright’s big fist sent him reeling.

“Anodder college dude!” growled the ruffian, wheeling about. “Ye’ll
wish’t ye’d kep’ out o’ this!”

His hand went to his hip-pocket, but he found no weapon. Then he
gathered himself and made a spring at the newcomer. As a result, he ran
his face into the big fist on the end of a long, straight, stiffened
left arm. At the other end of the arm were something like two hundred
pounds of hard-trained muscle and over six feet of young manhood.

A feeling of jarring surprise penetrated to the evil brain. It was not
often that he ran against anything quite like that. He paused a moment
to stare his surprise; and Dick saw that he was a big, brawny fellow,
with heavy jaw, small head and piggish, wicked eyes, the type so often
found in the lowest slums of great cities, but seldom seen in New Haven.

The effect of that blow rendered the man cautious.

“Dis ain’t your cut in, young feller!” he snarled.

Then, thinking to take Dick by surprise, he struck out suddenly, with
the force of a piledriver. But his maul-like fist did not connect with
Dick’s face, and the force of the blow almost threw him to the ground.

Crack! Dick’s hard right fist sounded like the smack of a board striking
a house. The fellow reeled, but recovered. His head was like iron.

“W’en I gits me fingers onto ye, ye’ll wilt! See!”

He dodged Dick’s next blow and rushed in with the ferocity of a bulldog.
Dick stepped lightly aside; and the hard, white fist pounding the
ruffian on the jaw threw him senseless to the ground.

Dade Morgan, having regained his strength somewhat, was on the point of
coming to Dick’s assistance, but drew back when he saw the man senseless
on the ground.

“That was handsome of you, Starbright!” he acknowledged. “I’ll try not
to forget it.”

Rosalind tried to stammer her thanks, but the presence of the ruffian,
even though he was insensible for the moment, made her wildly anxious to
escape from the vicinity. Some people were approaching, those in the
lead seeming to be of the same type as the fellow knocked out.

Before their arrival the man was stirring into consciousness, making
Rosalind more than ever wildly anxious to proceed. So she and Dade
remounted and wheeled away.

“Perhaps the fellow is your friend,” said Starbright, speaking to the
man who arrived first. “If he is, look after him. He interfered with
that young lady and her escort, and got what he deserved!”

Then he, too, rode on into the city.

Having reported his return, Dick put away his wheel, and, feeling
tremendously hungry, went to a restaurant and had something to eat. It
was not until long after nightfall that he went to his rooms. The
sophomores had returned to New Haven by rail long before.

“Gone out nagging signs!” was the scrawl left for him on the table by
Dashleigh.

Dashleigh had not heard of what had befallen his chum on the trip to
Guilford, for the joke had been kept from the freshmen. The sophomores
had feared Starbright would learn of it through his freshmen friends;
and, besides the sophomores had other plans in store for making it
interesting for the men of the lower class.

After changing his clothing, Dick went out to give instructions for the
“dinner” he meant to give to Ready and other sophomores that night. When
he returned he encountered Dashleigh as the latter was about to ascend
to their apartments.

“What have you got tucked under your coat?” Dick asked.

“Sh!” Bert warned. “It’s a sign.”

“Nagging,” or stealing, signboards is, for some inexplicable reason, one
of the standard forms of amusement for freshmen. No one can tell just
where the fun comes in, unless it is found in imagining the stormy anger
of the storekeepers and others when they find their signs gone.

“Had a great time!” Dashleigh panted, as he and his chum hurried
up-stairs. “Never had more fun in my life. Ready was with us. Say, that
fellow is a corker!”

“What time did he get back?”

“Back where?”

“New Haven.”

“I didn’t know he was out of town. Anyway, he didn’t say anything about
it. We nagged a lot of signs this evening. Ready went along to put us
onto the thing right, you see. I hardly thought he’d favor freshmen that
way, but he was just as jolly about it; said he’d been a freshman not
long ago himself, and that he hadn’t forgot it.”

“What kind of a sign did you get?” Dick asked dryly.

He had cause to fear the “friendliness” of Jack Ready for unsuspecting
freshmen.

“The dandiest in the lot. It’s a new blacksmith’s sign, or a
blacksmith’s new sign, and it has a picture of a horse on it that is a
real work of art.”

They had arrived at their rooms, and Dashleigh carefully unbuttoned his
overcoat and took from under it the sign. He stared at himself and the
sign in comical amazement.

The sign had been freshly painted, and his clothing was coated with the
paint. In addition, he had slapped the picture of the horse up against
his dark new coat as he tucked the outer coat over it, and the
impression of the horse had been transferred to the coat. Starbright
could not help laughing.

“Seems to me it is literally a horse on you! That is more of Ready’s
work.”

“Why——”

Dashleigh looked from the paint to the red face of his friend.

“Jack Ready?” he gasped. “Say, did Jack put up a job on me?”

“He certainly did, and he put up another on me this afternoon.”

Dashleigh daintily put down the sign, stripped off his overcoat, and sat
flat down in a chair.

“Well, say, when I meet that fellow I’ll kill him! Don’t you suppose
there was a mistake?”

“Biggest kind of one!”

“What?”

“When we let ourselves forget that Jack Ready is a sophomore and we are
only freshmen.”

Dashleigh looked ruefully at his clothing and at the fresh red paint of
the sign. Then the humor of the situation came to him, and he smiled,
though the smile was somewhat ghastly.

“I’m an idiot!”

“Of course you are. We’re a pair of idiots!”

“What did he do to you?”

“Tell me about the sign first.”

“Well, you see, I’ve been wanting to go out nagging for several nights.
Jack heard of it, and he told me that he could give me some pointers. So
I spoke to some other fellows.”

“All freshmen?”

“Yep.”

“So I thought.”

“And Ready piloted us to-night. He showed me this beautiful sign in
front of the blacksmith’s, and told me that it had been up there only a
short time, and it would be a lovely one to nag.”

“It had been up there only a short time!”

“Confound him! I see it had. I thought it felt damp as I pulled it off
the hooks, but we had a few drops of rain this evening, and I supposed
that was the reason. Then I clapped the thing under my coat and fled
hitherward. And there the thing is. And my beautifulest suit is ruined.
Well, when I meet him I’ll kill him!”

“It will give a good job to some coat-cleaner. Better tackle the thing
yourself, while the paint is fresh. There is some benzine over on the
shelf.”

Then, while Bert Dashleigh tried to remove the paint from his clothing,
Starbright told of his race to Guilford and of the advertisements and
greeting given to the “Giant of the Wheel.”

“Say, we’ll have to murder that villain!” Dashleigh whispered. “I feel
to-night fit for treason, stratagem, and spoil.”

Nevertheless, after laboring with the suit and benzine for an hour, he
hung the sign against the wall, went out again, and, meeting Ready,
greeted him with great cheerfulness.

“Thanks for the sign!” he murmured. “I’ve hung it on our wall, and
intend to have it framed as a memento of our adventure.”

Ready grinned.

“That blacksmith will be tearing mad in the morning. His sign hadn’t
been hanging there long.”

“Confound you! Don’t I know it hadn’t? That blacksmith never saw that
sign in his life, and he never will!”

“It had a beautiful steed on it!” Ready purred.

“A sort of transfer picture! I transferred it to my coat!”

Then they adjourned to Traeger’s and buried the hatchet, after which
Ready betook himself to the dinner which Starbright was giving to the
sophomores.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                              CHAPTER III

                         SPORT WITH THE LASSOS.


The first of the “entertainments” was given that night in the gymnasium.
It was a roping-contest between Bill Higgins, of Badger’s ranch, and Tom
Bludsoe, a cowboy from the neighborhood of El Paso, who had been
traveling with a “Wild West” exhibition and had somehow become stranded
in New Haven. Drink may have had something to do with Bludsoe’s loss of
position and his consequent poverty; but he was a fine roper,
nevertheless, and in arranging to put Higgins against him for the
amusement of the students, Merriwell was not at all sure that his friend
from Kansas would be able to win out and cover himself with glory.

Perhaps because Merriwell had seemed in some of the class contests to
side with the freshmen, Tom Bludsoe was enthusiastically backed by the
sophomores, while the freshmen took Higgins for their champion.

“It chills the corpuscles of my sporting-blood to have to turn your
picture to the wall to-night, Higgins,” said Ready, ambling into the
gymnasium, after his “feed” at the expense of Dick Starbright; “but the
sophomores have taken up Bludsoe, and I’m a soph.”

“Oh, that there is all right!” Higgins grinned, as he strung his riata
across the gymnasium floor, to make sure it was in good condition. “This
hyer ain’t fer blood, ye know! Jist a little fun, to please Merry and
t’other fellers! I hear tell there’s another feller that’s got a picture
he’d like to turn to the wall.”

“Dashleigh?”

“Picture of a hoss!” grunted Higgins, critically examining his rope and
working at it with his fingers to take out an incipient kink which he
fancied he had found. “I’m going to hold that agin’ you!”

“He held it against himself!”

“Yes, so I heerd. But I’m a lover of hosses, and I don’t like to have
even a picture of one fooled with. That makes me willin’ to champion
these pore freshmen fellers to-night, and I’ll string ropes fer ’em fer
all I’m wu’th.”

Indeed, Higgins was going into the contest with “blood in his eye.” He
believed that he was a better roper than the man from El Paso, even if
Bludsoe had been engaged in giving public exhibitions of his roping
proficiency, and he was glad of this chance. Higgins delighted in
keeping himself in the public eye. Though he was a noble fellow in many
respects, he was as vain as a peacock, and he “felt his oats
considerably” that night, as he stretched his riata across the floor and
walked round in his new cowboy clothing, with his great spurs musically
clinking and jingling on his heels.

Bludsoe was a lithe, wiry man, younger than Higgins and smaller. He wore
a smooth face, which was as bronzed as a copper mask. It was a sharp,
hatchety face, keen and shrewd—the typical face of the cowboy of the
plains, whose intense activity, combined with the dry, sap-extracting
climate, tends to keep down all superfluity of flesh.

The opening feature of the contest was an attempt to pull down a tin cup
hung by its handle on a nail against a post. A large roping-space had
been cleared in the gymnasium by removing some muscle-strengthening
machines and horizontal bars.

The room was filled to overflowing, the pushing, laughing crowd
seemingly the more jolly because the night without was windy and
inclement.

“Makes me think of the plains,” chirped Higgins, as, in a lull of the
noise, he heard the singing of the wind round the building. “A feller
that’s lived with the wind as I have sort o’ likes to hear its mournful
whistle. I’ve heerd it sing that way, wrapped in my blanket, with the
stars shinin’ brighter’n diamonds; and oncet I remember it had thet wail
when me and some other fellers was lying in a sod house, with the
Pawnees creepin’ onto us through the grass.”

It was amusing to notice how the Chickering set and all the enemies of
Merriwell invariably became champions of whoever they thought was
opposed to him and his friends.

When Bludsoe pulled the tin cup from the post in two throws and Higgins
took three throws for the same feat, the Chickering crowd clapped their
hands and stamped the floor in their glee.

“Say, I will have to go over to the freshmen side if this keeps up!”
Ready moaned in Merriwell’s ear. “It plants an ache in my heart and a
desire in my foot to kick somebody. Yet I seem doomed by fate to howl
with the Chickering set. Don’t jot it down against me in your book of
remembrance!”

The next attempt of the ropers was to catch and hold the corner of a
swinging trapeze-bar, and as Higgins turned to get his rope, which he
had dropped on a seat while talking with some friends, he roared with
rage.

His new rope, in which he took such pride, had been split and ripped and
cut in a dozen places by a keen knife. Higgins reddened under his tan as
he surveyed the work of the unknown hand.

“If I kin lay my paws on the skunk ’t done that, I’ll try to see if
they’s enough of the rope left to hang him with!” he exploded.

He turned slowly round, with blazing eyes, and looked over the sea of
excited faces.

“Gents, is this hyer Yale? A man mean enough to be a hoss-thief wouldn’t
do that on the ranges! All I asks is fer the scalawag that done it to
step up to the counter and let me look at him oncet.”

There was no forward movement, and every one seemed to glance at his
neighbor. Bludsoe sneered.

“I don’t reckon that any of yer friends did that to keep ye from bein’
beat?”

Higgins turned on him with those blazing eyes. He saw that, in spite of
the sneer, Bludsoe had no knowledge of the author of the outrage, and
his hot heart relented. He remembered that Bludsoe was a brother roper
of the plains, and that plainsmen in a strange land ought to be friends
and not enemies.

“I won’t hold that again’ ye, pardner. If you beat me, I’ll know that
you wouldn’t do it by a trick like that. Some skunk that never set eyes
on the peraries done that!”

Merriwell knew that another riata could not be had in New Haven, and he
was about to suggest that something be substituted for the
roping-performance, but Higgins asked if a common rope could be had.

“But a common rope won’t give you much show!” Frank insisted. “I’d like
to have you win in this thing if you go on with it.”

“I’m goin’ to win, b’jing!” Higgins vowed. “I’ll win now if it kills me!
Send fer a rope!”

Then he gave more explicit directions; and while some one hurried away
for the rope, Starbright came upon the scene, and was asked to amuse the
crowd by trying to beat the gymnasium freshman record for
hammer-throwing and putting the shot, which he did.

When the hemp rope ordered by Higgins came he amused the students by
showing them how to make a riata from an ordinary hemp rope. To make the
“loop” he spliced an end back on the rope, wrapping it with shoemaker’s
wax, also securing the ends from fraying by wrapping them tightly with
this wax. Not a knot was used.

“The thing ought to be soaked in water fer two or three hours,” he
explained, “and then stretched with weights, but it’ll haf to do as it
is.”

“If you can win out with that rope, you will show yourself to be a much
better roper than if you had used your own lasso,” Merry whispered
encouragingly.

Then the rope-kings went at it again, catching the trapeze-bar as it
swung from side to side, roping students who volunteered to run before
them for the purpose, pulling caps and gloves from pegs and doing other
roping-feats.

Though the rope so hastily prepared was clumsy and inclined to kink in
an aggravating way because it had not been stretched, Higgins succeeded
in doing some remarkably good work with it, duplicating every feat of
Bludsoe.

The applause was pretty equally divided between the ropers, for the
freshmen, feeling that their champion had been foully dealt with by some
sophomore jealous of his ability, cheered every throw of Higgins with
wild delight.

“Try the trapeze again,” said Merriwell. “Then we’ll try the cane, and
those two things ought to settle it. Higgins is handicapped, but we’re
banking that he will beat Bludsoe anyway.”

The first throw at the trapeze fell to Bludsoe. He stepped forward,
holding the free end of the lasso in his left hand and the big swinging
noose trailing in his right. He took a keen look at the swinging
trapeze, then threw and caught the end of the bar.

The Chickering set went wild with joy.

“That’s all right!” grinned Higgins, getting on his feet. “I dunno ’bout
this hyer rope, but I’ll make my try.”

Merriwell asked that the trapeze be given a quicker movement. It dropped
like a bird with a broken wing, and Higgins’ noose flew up to meet it.

The rope kinked and seemed about to fall short, but it caught the tip
end of the bar, hung and tightened, and the descent of the trapeze was
stayed.

Merriwell had secured a cane, round whose center he wrapped a white
handkerchief to make it more conspicuous.

“I want Gene Skelding to throw this cane whirling through the air in
that direction!” he requested, indicating the direction. “Let him throw
for both Bludsoe and Higgins.”

Skelding flushed and colored. Merriwell had made some of the throws, and
Skelding had been claiming that the throws made by Merry for Bludsoe
were not as fair and easy as those made for Higgins.

He would have backed out, but the sophomores pushed him forward, and he
took the cane from Merriwell’s hand, and sent it spinning end over end,
as directed.

This was one of the most difficult roping-feats that could have been
chosen, for the object was to put the noose of the lasso over the flying
cane, and so bring it down.

Bludsoe’s noose struck the whirling cane, but simply sent it on faster.

Then there were shouts for Higgins, and he rose in all his cowboy
dignity.

“Gents, I ain’t a-sayin’ that I’m goin’ to do this, but I’m goin’ to
try. I reckon I couldn’t do it every time with the best rope ever strung
acrost a floor. But I’m goin’ to try!”

Skelding saw that Merriwell was watching him closely and that the eyes
of others were on him, so that, in spite of his desire to make an unfair
toss, he did not dare to.

The wrapped cane flew out again, a whirling white streak, and Higgins’
rope shot after it. He had nerved himself to make the throw of his life,
and he made it. The stiff hemp rope swept through the air with the
sinuosity of a serpent, and the noose, dropping over an end of the cane,
brought the cane to the floor.

There could be no question that Higgins had won, and won fairly; for not
only had he won this trick handsomely, but throughout the contest he had
shown that, even with the handicap of the stiff hemp rope, he could do
as good work as Bludsoe with his smooth, supple riata.

“Curse the luck!” Skelding growled to his friends, the Chickering set,
some time afterward, when all were in Chickering’s rooms. “Do you
suppose that Merriwell knew I cut that rope?”

“Did you cut it?” Chickering gasped.

“Of course I did. I wonder if Merriwell knew it?”

“Well, it wath the handthometht thing I’ve known done in many a day!”
purred Lew Veazie. “Chummieth, we’ll have to dwink thome wine on that!
That wath gweat!”

“But the fellow won, anyhow!” Skelding snarled. “And what I did only
made his victory seem the greater. It was a regular boomerang! And my
plan was to claim that some of his friends cut the thing for him to
prevent him from going to the defeat they foresaw. I can’t make that
claim now, confound it!”

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                               CHAPTER IV

                      AN APPARENT CHANGE OF HEART.


Sunday afternoon Dade Morgan received a call from Donald Pike. The
northeaster had turned to a snowstorm. Pike shook from his coat the
feathery flakes as he came into Dade’s room.

“There is to be a snowball battle in the campus in the morning, before
college hours, between sophomores and freshmen. I’m told that you’re to
lead the freshmen.”

“That’s the plan now,” said Dade. “Have a chair.”

Pike hung up his coat as if he were at home, and seated himself. Dade
closed the door, for he had a feeling that Pike desired to say something
that ought not to go beyond the walls of the room.

“There’s only one thing in this whole business that I don’t like,” Pike
began.

“You mean of the entertainments?”

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“Merriwell!”

“There are others I like myself better than Merriwell.”

“That sounded funny. ‘I like myself better than Merriwell!’ Of course
you do.”

“You know what I mean.”

“It seems to me that these ‘entertainments,’ as they’re called, are
planned solely to cover Merriwell with glory. That’s the thing I don’t
like. He proposed them, of course. Some way, he always proposes
everything, and then the rest fall in like a flock of sheep following
their leader. We’re not celebrating Merriwell’s victories, but the
victories of Yale. Yet the fellows are already calling them ‘Frank
Merriwell’s Entertainments.’”

“You’re warm!”

“I’m hot as a cake of ice!”

“I think I’ve seen you in that frame of mind before!” commented Dade,
with the utmost coolness.

“Another thing I don’t like, and which I should think you wouldn’t like,
is the way he has of pushing Starbright forward. He seems determined to
make Starbright the king of the freshmen.”

Dade’s face darkened, and Pike saw that he had struck a vulnerable spot.
Yet Dade only said coldly:

“I don’t need to be told that!”

“And you haven’t anything to say about it?”

“I’ve had a good deal to say about it, at one time and another.”

“You’re the real king of the freshmen, Morgan, and you know it. All your
friends know it. It’s for the freshmen to say who shall be their leader.
Yet here comes a senior to dictate who the freshman leader shall be!”

“I’d like to help it if I could. I don’t see any way to help it just
now.”

Pike was silent for a moment.

“Perhaps not. Merriwell seems to have the whip-hand at present.”

He glanced toward the door.

“No need to fear that you’ll be heard outside of this room!”

“Well, about that snowball battle in the morning?”

“We’ll do up the sophomores, all right.”

“I hope so. But that wasn’t it. You ought to be able to do up
Starbright, also, while you’re about it.”

There was not the encouragement in Dade’s face that he hoped to see, but
he went on.

“I’ve heard of soldiers being shot accidentally by their own men!
Stonewall Jackson was killed that way!”

Dade looked at him earnestly.

“You want me to do that work?”

“Well, I thought you might thank me for a suggestion. You hate
Starbright. There’s your opportunity. When the fight is on, a snowball
with a rock hidden in it would bring that big freshman down like a
bullet if it was thrown right.”

Dade flushed, and, getting up, took a turn round the room.

“I’d do it myself if I were one of the freshmen fighters. As it is, I
give you the suggestion for what it is worth.”

He began to feel that Morgan would accept and act upon the suggestion.
Dade came back and sat down.

“I ought to thank you for that, Pike,” he said in a low tone. “I’m no
better than I ought to be, and I presume that if you had come to me
yesterday, I should have thanked you for this. But I don’t think I’ll
try to do what you say.”

Donald Pike stared.

“Getting goody-goody?”

“No, it’s not that!”

“Just the same with all of them!” Pike snarled, under his breath.

“I don’t think I understand you if you meant that for me.”

“Well, you are just like all the others!” Pike asserted almost fiercely.
“I don’t know why it is, for it hasn’t worked on me that way, but nearly
every fellow who has started in here at Yale to down Merriwell has done
one of two things: He has either become afraid of Merriwell and
practically dropped out of the fight, or he has gone over to Merriwell.”

Dade’s face was again flushing.

“There was Buck Badger! I’ve told you of him before. He was the
bitterest enemy Frank Merriwell had for a while, and he ended by
becoming a Merriwell maniac. He thinks now that there never was another
such man on earth. Why, I’ve been told that even Browning and Hodge, two
fellows who can’t think unless Merriwell first gives them license, were
once his enemies! You’re traveling the same road. I was Badger’s chum
and saw how he went over to Frank Merriwell, and you’re struck with the
same symptoms. What in thunder is the matter with all you fellows,
anyway?”

“It was Starbright you wanted me to strike with a rock, I believe?” said
Morgan, not pleased with this lecture.

“Yes.”

“Starbright isn’t Merriwell.”

“But he’s Merriwell’s protégé, and when you can’t strike Merriwell
himself, the best way to get at him is to strike Starbright, or some
other of his friends. But you needn’t do it if you don’t care to. It was
merely a suggestion.”

“I’m still against Merriwell. Don’t let yourself forget that, Pike!”

“But you won’t be at the end of the year.”

“And I’m still against Dick Starbright.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I’ve a reason for not trying to do what you suggest. It isn’t because
I’ve suddenly grown too good. Perhaps I have a little honor left, Pike,
though you mightn’t think it. Not enough to boast of, I presume!”

“You haven’t heard of it, but yesterday Starbright saved me from being
half-killed by a tough that I met while out wheeling. The place was a
lonely one in the suburbs, and I was wheeling with Miss Thornton. I met
the tough in a drinking-den a few nights ago, and struck him with a
beer-glass, after we’d had some words. When he saw me yesterday he came
at me for revenge, tripped me off my wheel, and then, while I was too
shaken up by the jar of the fall to be able to do much, he set on me,
and would have pounded and kicked me to a jelly. Starbright happened
along at that moment. He took a hand in the game—and I’m here to-day,
instead of being in the hospital.”

Both were silent for a moment after the completion of the story.

“He did you a good turn, and maybe you’re right. But really, I didn’t
think you had any soft spots about you.”

“You thought such a thing wouldn’t make any difference?”

“Yes, honestly, that’s what I thought.”

“And you thought I had no heart at all?”

Pike was quite blunt.

“I thought you had something like a gizzard doing duty for that organ.
But it’s all right, of course! I suppose I’d feel the same way if any
fellow should stand up for me in such a fight.”

“It wasn’t a fight on my part. I was clean knocked out. I would have
been hammered to pieces.”

“Let the thing drop, then!” Pike begged. “And say nothing about it to
any one. I didn’t know you had changed in your feeling!”

The sneer stung Dade Morgan.

“I thought I should never let an opportunity go by to strike at
Starbright or Merriwell. I’ll get over this in a day or two. But I can’t
forget quite so quick. Starbright will do or say something soon that
will make me forget his favor, and then I presume I’ll be ready to
hammer him up. But to-morrow, in that battle, I’m going to play fair, so
far as he’s concerned, at least.”

“Good-by!” snarled Pike, rising. “You can keep your face closed about
this, anyway!”

“See here, Pike!”

The voice was so hard and commanding that Don Pike stopped.

“I’m a fool! Don’t fancy for a minute that I would mention such a
matter. You’ve stood by me, even though you’re not a freshman, and I
don’t forget it. Some other time I’ll be likely to strike at Dick
Starbright. Just now I feel a little queer about that matter, and I
can’t. That’s the truth of it.”

“I’m going!”

“Just remember that. And if you’ve any bets to lay, put them on the
freshmen.”

“If they win, Starbright will get most of the glory! It doesn’t matter
to me, though. I’m not trying to beat him in the race for the freshmen
leadership. You are.”

Dade Morgan sat for a long time in silence after Donald Pike’s
departure. Finally he roused himself.

“I wish the fellow hadn’t come to me with that!” he thought, rising.
“Either that, or I wish that it hadn’t been necessary for Starbright to
come to my help yesterday afternoon. I wonder what Rosalind thinks about
it? I fancied she was somewhat cool to me after it. No doubt he is her
hero now, and I’m nothing. Well, if he wants her again, he can have
her!”

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                               CHAPTER V

                    STARBRIGHT SHOWS HIS LEADERSHIP.


The crisp air that blew across the famous Yale quadrangle was filled
with flying snowballs. The freshmen, under the leadership of Dade
Morgan, were battling with the sophomores, under the command of Jack
Ready.

At one end of the quadrangle a snow-fort had been built. It was held by
the freshmen, and the sophomores were allowed twenty minutes in which to
take it.

The plan of the battle, of Merriwell’s devising, contemplated after that
the rebuilding of the fort and a change of sides, permitting the
sophomores to hold the fort and the freshmen to become the assaulting
party.

Behind the snowy walls of the fort and out in the open where the
sophomores were collected were great piles of snowballs, the artillery,
grape-and-cannister of the contending forces. The snow was in the best
of condition for the purpose, balling readily under pressure into light
yet compact missiles.

Ready had directed his men to begin with a fierce “rifle-fire” of
snowballs, and then charge the fort before the freshmen could recover
from the hail of balls; and the sophomores were doing their best to
follow his instructions.

Nothing was to be used, however, but snowballs and snow. Tackling with
the hands, and all rough work, such as kicking or striking or the use of
other than snow missiles, was strictly barred, and every offender was to
be summarily ejected from the fight, with the loss of his services to
his side.

Merriwell stood with his old friends Browning and Hodge at one side of
the quadrangle, all interested spectators. Merriwell was the umpire to
decide on fouls of all kinds, with the power of expulsion from the play
of every offender.

The freshmen behind the walls met the rain of freshmen snowballs with a
counter-fire that was as hot as they could make it.

“Better save our ammunition for closer quarters!” Starbright advised,
venturing to speak to Morgan.

The interference stung Morgan to the quick.

“Who’s commander here?” he snarled.

“You are. I only make the suggestion.”

Morgan moved away, and, as if to show that he disliked the interference,
he gave commands that caused the freshman fire to grow even hotter.
Seeing that this was the order, and determined to be in the front rank,
Starbright flew to the nearest opening, and, with an armful of
snowballs, rained them on the sophomores.

He had scarcely done this when he felt a crushing blow on the back of
the head which tumbled him half-senseless on his face. As he rose,
staggering, and felt of his head, he found blood trickling down over his
fingers.

The ball that had struck him had “exploded,” and, noticing it at his
feet, he saw that in its center there had been a ragged rock.

The air was filled with flying snowballs. Nevertheless, feeling wofully
faint and dizzy, he turned squarely round, cowering meanwhile behind the
snow embankment, and looked over the freshmen.

“Morgan did that!” he thought. “I’d bet anything Morgan did that!”

Yet it seemed strange that a commander should want to knock out one of
his own men.

Starbright picked up the rock and looked at it. Then he thrust it into
his pocket and again felt of his cut and bleeding head.

“Hello!” said Dashleigh, seeing blood on Starbright’s fingers and the
stain of it on the snow.

“Hit with this!” said Dick, producing the rock. “It came near laying me
out.”

The big fellow was reeling sick, but he tried to conceal it. And as
there was no possibility of telling who threw the stone, he gathered
himself together, tied up his head with his handkerchief, and again went
into the fight.

Dade was now in front of him, at the head of his men, though a short
time before, as Starbright knew, he had been in the rear.

As Dick straightened up and reentered the fight he saw a ball strike
Morgan in the back of the head, saw the ball split open, and, as it
fell, saw a ragged stone drop out of it.

Dade went down on his face insensible.

Dick half-wheeled to ascertain from what point the treacherous missile
came, but at that moment he collided with Dashleigh and fell.

“Pardon!” Dashleigh bellowed, racing to a point that he thought needed
defense.

The fire of the attacking party was slacking, and Dick felt sure that an
assault was to come.

Morgan lay insensible, and Dick saw a red stain on the snow.

“Was that an accident?” was his thought. “Were they both accidents? If
so, some of our men aren’t fighting fair, but are putting stones in the
snowballs.”

It was so comtemptible a trick that his blood boiled and he felt ashamed
that such men could be among freshmen.

But there was no time for thought. There seemed to be no time for
anything, for, under the lead of Ready, the sophomores were advancing to
the charge.

Outside, the students and other spectators were wildly shouting and
whooping. The rain of snowballs had been so thick that the fall of
Starbright and Morgan had not been perceived even by the keen eyes of
Frank Merriwell.

“Take care of him!” Starbright commanded, speaking to two of the
freshmen.

These two were not in the fighting-line, but had been detailed, with two
others, by Morgan to manufacture snow ammunition.

The freshmen had been weakened by Morgan’s fall, and now were wavering
and undecided. But the instant that Starbright sprang into position at
their head and began to utter sharp, quick commands, they recognized his
natural leadership and gave him instant obedience.

“Hold them back!” Starbright roared.

Fierce as the fight had been, the ammunition was not all exhausted; and
the two men left for this purpose began to heap a great mound of balls
at the feet of the fighters.

“Charge ’em!” came in the shrill voice of Jack Ready; and, with their
arms filled with snow, the sophomores came on in a mighty, sweeping
rush.

“Now, give it to ’em!” Starbright roared back.

Ready, in the lead, was right against the walls, with a dozen of his men
at his heels.

“Snow! snow!” Starbright bellowed.

It was a signal agreed on, having been issued by Morgan before the
beginning of the fight.

The snowballs in the hands of the freshmen were thrown; then great
armfuls of snow were picked up and dashed into the faces and eyes of the
advancing sophomores.

Ready mounted the wall and fell over on the inside. His men tried to
emulate his example. Four of them came over with Ready, but the others
were beaten back and almost smothered.

Then Ready and Starbright found themselves face to face. At it they
went, each digging up snow by the armful and hurling it at the head and
face of his opponent.

Ready fought blithely and chirpingly, pushing the snow out of his mouth
and eyes. But a great armful fell on him out of the arms of the giant
freshman, and Ready fell under it.

As if in a frenzy, Starbright danced about, heaping snow and still more
snow on the prostrate freshman leader, until, from beneath his snowy
covering, Ready was willing to confess his defeat.

“Let up!” he begged. “I’m not an Esquimaux! My maux is full now, clean
down to my twinkling toes.”

The other sophomores had been overthrown, and the assault had failed.

The time was so nearly up that it was seen to be impossible for the
sophomores to take the fort in the few minutes remaining. So there was a
truce.

Two of Ready’s men had been hurt, and another of Starbright’s; but not
by snowballs containing pieces of rock.

Morgan was so weak from the effect of the blow that it was seen he could
not again assume the leadership of the freshmen.

Sitting on a heap of snow, white and weak, he looked up at Starbright,
as the latter walked over to inquire about his injury.

“You did that, you sneak!” he hissed.

Starbright grew red.

“If so, who did that?”

Dick showed the wound in his own head.

“I was knocked down by a snowball just before you were, and my head was
split open. I saw the ball strike you.”

“You were behind me, then?” said Morgan.

“Yes, and I saw the ball strike you, and saw that it held a stone. Here
is the delightful piece of granite that struck me!”

Starbright produced it.

“Well, you know I didn’t throw that!”

“I thought you did, until I saw you get one of the same kind. Now I
don’t know what to think!”

“Oh, I guess you threw it, all right!” Morgan grunted. “You were mad
because I told you to mind your own business.”

Starbright walked away.

“I don’t know who did it,” he said to Merriwell, explaining the whole
matter. “Dade thinks I threw the stone that struck him, but I wouldn’t
be fool enough to bang up my own head in this way.”

“I’ll try to look into the thing,” was the promise. “Dade is too weak to
go on with the play. It was a rascally piece of business, and I’m
tempted to call off the battle because of it. The freshmen want you for
captain during the continuance of the fight if it’s to go on. But you’re
looking pretty weak.”

“Oh, I’m all right!” Dick earnestly asserted. “Give us another man in
the place of Morgan, and we’ll take the fort from the sophomores, or
know why!”

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                               CHAPTER VI

                          CAPTURING THE FORT.


The snowball battle was raging again, with Dick Starbright captain of
the freshmen and Jack Ready of the sophomores.

There had been some hasty preliminary work given to the manufacture of
an abundant supply of ammunition. Now, with great heaps of snowballs
near each man and deposited along the line of advance, and with other
snowy heaps inside the reconstructed fort, the conflict was on once
more.

“Don’t throw away your ammunition. Take time to aim, and throw to hit
something whenever you throw. It don’t do any good to hammer the walls
of the fort. Aim at the openings and at the men behind the walls!”

These were Starbright’s instructions, and his men were trying to carry
them out. The balls for this reason, did not fly so thick and fast as
when the sophomores were the attacking force, but they did quite as much
execution.

Starbright intended to make the preliminary “rifle-fire” and “cannonade”
comparatively short, and charge suddenly, in the effort to take the
sophomores by surprise. But when his forces quickly ceased raining
snowballs on the white fort and swept forward, they found themselves
confronted by the sophomores leaping the walls and coming at them.

Ready had ordered a sortie in force, for the purpose of surprising the
freshmen. In the front of the walls of the snow fort the contending
parties came together.

Unfortunately for Ready’s plan, some of his men, seeing the freshmen
coming, did not leap over the walls, but remained behind them; and
these, now beginning to shoot snowballs at the enemy, rained their
missiles alike on friends and foes. Within less than a minute it was
hard to tell sophomores from freshmen, for each party, in attempting to
shower and beat down the other with armfuls of snow, found its members
transformed into snowy images of men, in which clothing and features
were hidden under the white coating.

Again Starbright and Ready came face to face. For a moment they stopped,
looking at each other as if trying to measure strength. Ready tossed
back his hair with a flirt of his right hand that at the same time
cleared the snow out of his face.

“I’m coming for you!” he panted.

“Here’s where the Giant of the Wheel evens the score!” Starbright
laughed back.

Then, with armfuls of snow suddenly snatched up, they dived at each
other, and the hottest fight of the whole field began.

Starbright had the advantage by being taller; yet Ready was as supple,
lithe, and active as a panther.

The air was filled with snow. Other sophomores and freshmen were
struggling almost as fiercely on every side, the sophomores trying to
keep the freshmen out of the fort, and the latter desperately struggling
to walk over the opposition and enter the enclosure.

Ready went down under Starbright’s assault, but clung to one of Dick’s
legs, as this could not be considered, he thought, a violation of
Merriwell’s rules.

But Starbright, not to be thus impeded, sprang for the fort, dragging
Ready; and the latter, letting go with extraordinary suddenness,
Starbright fell over the wall upon the inside.

A half-dozen other freshmen had scaled the wall, beating back the
opposition, and these now engaged with the defenders of the fort within.

In less than ten minutes from the time of the beginning of the struggle
the fort was in the hands of the victorious freshmen.

Dick seized the flag which had at first been planted on the wall, but
which had been knocked down, and, mounting to the defences, swung it
over his bandaged head and led the almost breathless freshmen in a
cheer.

It was not loud, for the freshmen were too spent to give the cheer
volume; but an exploding roar was added to it, coming from the throat of
Bill Higgins, the cowboy, who had watched the fight with great interest
at one side of the quadrangle, out of the way of the snowy bullets.

“Whoop!” Higgins howled, yelling again when the freshmen yells subsided.
“I’d never believed so much fun could be got out o’ a little snow.
B’jings, that’s a sport I’ll ’naugurate on the ranges soon’s I git back
there. If I don’t wallop and throw down and bury Saul Henderson so deep
that a badger can’t dig him out, I’m a liar! That’s the sport fer the
short-grass country!”

He was speaking to Merriwell.

“Which Badger?” Frank quietly asked.

“Which badger? Why, ye don’t reckon I know the names of all the badgers
of Kansas, do ye?”

Then, seeing the pun, he roared again.

Starbright came up to them, digging the snow out of his hair.

“How is your head?” Bruce asked.

Starbright put a hand to his bandage.

“Oh, I was so determined to do up Jack Ready that I forgot I had a
head!”

“You didn’t fight as if you’d forgotten your head, anyway,” said
Browning. “You kept it on your shoulders pretty well, I’m thinking.”

“Yes, that was a great fight, Starbright!” Merriwell declared warmly.
“And you showed good leadership. I want to congratulate you.”

The words and the handshake that followed were more to honest Dick
Starbright than had been the winning of the battle.

That evening Dade Morgan received another call from Donald Pike.

Dade’s head was bandaged, but he had otherwise entirely recovered. The
blow of the stone hidden in the snowball had been a heavy one,
sufficiently heavy to temporarily knock him out, but, with the exception
of the cut on the head, which promised to heal readily, he had already
thrown off its effects.

“Nice little souvenir of the fun of the morning!” said Pike, nodding at
the bandaged head. “I guess you know you have Starbright to thank for
that?”

“I did think so at first, but I don’t know now. He denies it.”

“Of course he denies it! He’d be an idiot to confess, wouldn’t he?”

“Then who struck him? I didn’t. How do you account for the fact that he
was also hit on the head with a stone hidden in another snowball?”

“You’re easy, Morgan!”

“What do you mean by that?” Dade queried, flushing.

“Just what I say. You’re dead easy. Starbright threw that snowball. How
do I know? Jimmy Seldon saw him!”

Dade straightened in his chair, while the dark look on his face
deepened.

“Did Seldon tell you that?”

“Oh, I’m giving it to you straight! You were so soft that you declared
you’d play fair in that battle, and the man you were to play fair with
gave you that.”

“Then who hit Starbright?”

“He wasn’t hit. He fell as he was rushing toward the walls of the fort,
and was kicked on the head by accident. The kick laid open his head; and
he made a great fuss about it for the purpose of making you think that
he, too, was hit on the head. That’s all there was to that. Seldon was
in the rear at the time, and saw the whole thing!”

“Why didn’t Seldon come and tell me, then?”

“He’s ready to tell you now!”

Don Pike pushed the door open, and a stripling, with a pale, nervous
face, entered. He came in hesitatingly and stood with hat in hand till
Dade asked him to take a seat.

Morgan knew Seldon well, and did not highly regard him, though the
fellow had been one of the twenty freshmen selected to take part in the
snowball battle.

“We’ve talked it over, and Seldon is ready to tell you all about it,”
said Pike, as Seldon dropped into a chair.

“Yes, I saw it!” Seldon avowed. “Starbright was behind you, and he aimed
that snowball straight at your head, while pretending to be aiming it at
the sophomores. I was so close to him that I’m sure I couldn’t be
mistaken.”

“Did you see Starbright when he was struck?” Dade asked, his heart
flaming again against Dick.

“No. I don’t think he was struck. He fell, and one of the fellows kicked
him. I think so, anyway, for I saw a fellow stumble over him. A moment
later I saw there was blood on Starbright’s fingers. But I’m sure he
wasn’t hit by a ball.”

“Why didn’t you make a report of it to Merriwell, or to me?” Morgan
demanded.

“Well, to tell the truth, I was afraid to.”

“Afraid to?”

“Afraid of Dick. He would say it was a lie, and perhaps try to take it
out of my hide. So I kept still.”

“And only told Pike?”

“Yes. Pike and I have been pretty good friends, and we got to talking
about the fight, and I told him.”

“And I insisted that he should come and tell you,” said Pike. “I thought
you ought to know it.”

Morgan looked at Seldon.

“This is all right!” he declared. “I’m glad you came to me with it. You
needn’t think I’ll blab and get you into trouble. It’s not my way.”

“I assured Seldon that it would be perfectly safe for him to tell you,
though he was doubtful at first.”

“No, I won’t say anything about it. But I’ll get even with Dick
Starbright!”

When Seldon had gone, Pike sat talking with Morgan for some time, trying
to fan into fiercer energy the anger which Dade again felt toward the
big freshman. Starbright was Merriwell’s friend, and Pike had come to
hate Merriwell so much that he wanted to injure whomever Merriwell
liked, though Frank had never done anything to win such enmity from
Donald Pike. There are some natures, however, which increasingly hate
the man they try to injure, and their hate grows more and more bitter
with each failure. Pike really feared to test strength with Merriwell,
hence resorted to the use of tools to accomplish what he feared to
attempt himself.

Scarcely was Pike gone when Roland Packard came in with Gene Skelding.
With Don Pike, they formed a trio who seemed to live on hate of
Merriwell. They were no sooner seated than they began to talk of the
snowball fight of the morning, and of the blow which Morgan had
received.

“It was Starbright who did that,” said Skelding. “I know, because I saw
it. I was standing near one of the monuments where I had a good view of
all that was going on. I thought, when I saw him lift his hand to throw,
that he was aiming at the sophomores, but when I saw you drop as if you
were hit by a rifle-bullet, I knew whom he had aimed at.”

If Dade Morgan had doubted the story told by Jimmy Seldon, this would
have driven away his doubts.

“It’s all right, fellows, and I’m obliged to you. I shall remember that
little blow against Richard Starbright. You needn’t be afraid that I
won’t. He did me a good turn the other day, and I was feeling a bit soft
toward him, but I shall not hold back now.”

“I don’t know how you are going to even the score with him,” Packard
craftily suggested.

“Oh, there are plenty of ways,” Morgan snarled. “I’ll find a way.”

“Or make one?”

“Or make one!”

“Well, you know that you can count on our aid in anything you want to
undertake.”

There were times when Dade Morgan despised these tools. He saw their
innate cowardice, but often he felt forced to use them, for he knew he
could not fight the battle he had undertaken against Merriwell alone.

When his pretended friends had departed, he sat for a long time alone,
lost in thought, trying to plan some means to “even the score” with the
big freshman.

“I wish Hector King were here!” he muttered finally, as he prepared to
turn out his light. “But he has disappeared since Merriwell unmasked
him. Given up the fight, probably. Well, I haven’t given it up! I’ll
have to be careful, though, and strike in the dark. Merriwell and
Starbright are too dangerous for me to fight them in the open.”

Then he extinguished his light and crept into bed, where he lay awake a
long time, discarding plan after plan as impossible or impolitic, and
listening to some freshmen singing in another part of the building.

The silver moon crept aloft in the cold sky and looked down on the snowy
and deserted campus.

Dade’s heart burned when he heard the deep, rich voice of Dick
Starbright join in the rollicking college songs. Bert Dashleigh was with
the singers, gleefully thumping his mandolin.

By and by Dade slept.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                              CHAPTER VII

                            ON LAKE WHITNEY.


The change in the weather had brought a change in the character of
“Merriwell’s Entertainments.” Down by the famous fence on many a recent
evening the “senior committee of three,” fresh from the gymnasium or
athletic field, had discussed and laid plans for the merrymaking. The
“committee of three” consisted of Merriwell, Browning, and Hodge, into
whose hands everything had been committed. Their first plans had
contemplated field-contests, burlesque football-games, and similar
sports, but the freezing weather suggested something new and different,
and they promptly accepted the hint of the weather-clerk, and made the
change.

When, on Wednesday morning, it was reported that Lake Whitney would bear
skaters, the “committee of three” decided instantly that races on
ice-skates would be the proper thing for the half-holiday entertainment
of the students that afternoon.

Except in spots, the ice was found sufficiently thick and firm, and the
new attraction drew an immense crowd to the shore of the lake that
afternoon. Huge bonfires were built, for the air was sharp and the
ground still covered with snow, and a prettier picture can scarcely be
imagined than that of the rosy-faced girls and young women clad in
winter garments gathered round these bonfires, while they watched the
skaters cutting figures and writing the names of themselves and their
sweethearts in the glassy ice with their skates.

Inza and Rosalind were there, Inza having come out with Merriwell, and
Rosalind with Dade Morgan.

There was no prettier skater on the lake that afternoon than Dade
Morgan. His movements were as graceful as those of a bird, and Rosalind
watched him with pleasure, now and then casting a sly glance at big Dick
Starbright, as if for the purpose of reading his face. She wondered in
the depths of her heart if Dick were very jealous of Dade, and told
herself that surely he must be.

As Jack Ready had boasted that he could beat Morgan in a mile race, and
Dade had accepted the challenge, that was the first thing on the
program.

“Oh, you can beat him!” Rosalind urged in the ear of her escort.

“Of course I can beat him!”

Dade made good his boast. Jack Ready had chirped of himself as a “winged
wonder,” but Morgan beat him in at the finish more than twenty yards.

“Well, you see, it was this way,” Ready explained, stepping up to
Rosalind as Dade moved to meet her. “I knew how you felt about it, and
that took away my heart. No one can skate well with the wishes of a
handsome young lady against him.”

“Oh, come off!” Morgan snarled. “I beat you fair and square, and you
know it.”

Somehow, Morgan had never appreciated the humor of the fellow of the
apple-red cheeks.

Ready wiggled his right hand in his bland way.

“There’s a fellow over there you can’t beat!”

“Who?”

“Dick Starbright.”

Rosalind’s dark face grew warm, for the words had been caught up by
Dashleigh and some other of Dick’s friends.

Finding himself growing angry, Morgan assumed a smile.

“It’s all right! I don’t care to race with Starbright!”

At the same time he was anxious for the race, for he fancied that he
would be able to defeat Starbright more easily than he had Ready. His
face showed nothing of the anxiety and plotting that had recently
harassed him, and as for the wound on his head, the effects of it had
entirely passed away, though there was a scar concealed by the hair and
the cap.

As Dick was nothing loath to meet his enemy in a skating-race, the
matter was quickly arranged, with Beckwith for the starter and one of
the athletic-trainers for the timekeeper.

As the contestants skated away, Morgan remembered that Rosalind had not
insisted that he could defeat Starbright, as she had that he could
defeat Ready. He wondered about it, and his heart grew hot.

“I’ll beat him, all the same!” he determined, and started in with clean,
quick strokes, remembering to skate handsomely at the same time, for the
eyes of the spectators were on him.

To all appearances, the big freshman did not seem to be so good or so
fast a skater as his slighter rival, but the way he went over the ice
was surprising. His stroke was longer, though not so quick, and it took
him forward with astonishing speed.

Morgan tried to draw ahead of him, but found Starbright hanging doggedly
at his heels.

Away they went like birds down to the half-mile point, and, turning
there, came flying back, with about the same relative distance still
between them, Morgan skating with all his strength and skill, and
Starbright, seeming slow, but still right at Morgan’s heels.

The crowds on the shore began to cheer. Dade heard it and increased his
efforts. Then he heard Starbright’s stroke quicken, and, to his dismay,
saw the big fellow go by him.

The fight to the finish was pretty. Starbright still seemed to be
skating slowly, and Merriwell, who was watching him, saw that the giant
freshman had a lot of reserve force, and that he was not doing all that
he could.

Dashleigh danced up and down and almost broke the ice through, so
jubilant was he when he saw his big chum in the lead.

Rosalind was paling and flushing by turns, and even Frank, who glanced
at her occasionally, could hardly determine whether she favored
Starbright most, or Morgan.

In the final twenty-five yards Starbright seemed to lift himself and
fly, and crossed the line easily and neatly the winner.

The smile was still on Morgan’s face as he returned to Rosalind’s side.

“My skates are dull,” he said. “I think I could beat him with another
pair. But now we’ll see what Merriwell will do!”

One of the interesting things of the afternoon was to be a race between
Frank Merriwell and Jack Simmons, a junior, who was everywhere noted as
the “Skate King.”

The enemies of Merriwell were jubilant. They had openly boasted that
Frank would never dare to meet Simmons in a race on ice-skates, though
they were forced to concede that in nearly every form of athletics Frank
was the best man who had ever been seen in Yale. But Frank, though he
had defeated Jack Ready and some others, had never laid any claims to be
a wonder on skates.

He had not wanted to enter a race against Simmons, for, in arranging the
“entertainments,” his idea was to give others an opportunity to show
what they could do. Therefore, he had no desire to exploit his
abilities. But he had finally consented, when Simmons came to him and
told him that he personally wished to make the race.

The excitement over the previous contests was tame compared with that
now witnessed.

Frank came on the ice wearing the winged skates which had been given him
by Inza Burrage the previous winter. They were as handsome as were ever
turned out by a skate-maker, and on the heels, as ornaments, were pairs
of tiny metal wings, in imitation of the winged sandals of Mercury.

Jack Simmons wore racing-skates of the most approved pattern. He
believed that he was really the king of skaters, and he was anxious to
prove his superiority to Merriwell in this great winter sport.

The cheering ceased when the skaters moved forward side by side for the
line, which they crossed together. It broke out again as they sped away,
and was renewed as the racers neared the half-way point.

“Merriwell is fooling again!” growled Hodge, who was standing with Inza.

The skaters neared the half-mile turn, with Simmons slightly in the
lead.

“He will win, you may be sure,” said Inza. “Frank always wins!”

“Well, I’ve known him to fail, and often to come near failing by being
altogether too generous. It’s not my way!”

Inza smiled sweetly and serenely.

“Oh, I know it isn’t, you fire-eater! You want to murder everybody who
comes against you in a contest!”

“Well, if I could beat them, you bet I’d beat them, without any
monkey-business!”

There was no “monkey-business” as Frank came down on the home-stretch.
He walked away from the skate king with marvelous ease, the winged
skates bearing him on as if they were truly winged.

Simmons spurted in an effort to lessen the widening distance, but found
it impossible; and Frank shot across the line far in advance of him,
with Inza clapping her hands in delight, and Hodge growling that he knew
Merriwell had “monkeyed” in the first half of the race.

There were other races; between Beckwith and Browning, which Bruce won,
between seniors and juniors, and between sophomores and freshmen; races
of all kinds, from singles to team-races. Combined with all of this
there were many exhibitions of fancy skating.

Some boys came down to the shore drawing their sleds.

“A sled-race!” said Inza.

Rosalind heard it. Inza was talking to Starbright, and Rosalind’s
jealous heart was flaming.

“Starbright beat you before,” she whispered to Morgan. “Perhaps you can
beat him in a sled-race.”

“How?” Dade asked.

“Why, don’t you know? When I went to school in our village the boys used
to skate races, drawing girls on sleds. Every fellow was anxious to draw
his sweet-heart in such a race, and to win, of course. You can do it!”

Something in Dade’s heart made him rebel against the proposition; but
looking at Starbright, and feeling keenly the rankling sting of his
recent defeat, he determined to offer the challenge. So he walked over
to the big freshman and proposed the sled-race.

“If Miss Burrage doesn’t object,” said Dick, his fair face flushing.
Inza did not object. She had seen and read the jealous look of Rosalind
Thornton, understood its meaning, and was willing that the race should
take place, believing firmly that Starbright could win.

“I think it would be delightful,” she said. “Only, if I should fall off
while you are going so fast, your skates might run away with you, Mr.
Starbright, and take you into the woods.”

Merriwell might have objected if he had been consulted, but this was
outside of the program, and he had no wish to interfere. At the same
time, he did not quite like the look in Morgan’s eyes.

The race was to be across to the opposite point of land, and back; and
as there were to be no official starters and timekeepers or red tape,
the arrangements were quite simple.

The sleds were brought forward, the girls seated themselves, and
Starbright and his enemy were away, each dragging his fair load in the
race across the ice.

Rosalind now and then gave Inza a stab out of her dark eyes, but the
other dark-eyed girl affected not to notice this as they were whirled on
almost side by side.

The character of the ice made a divergence from the direct line
necessary, thus increasing the distance to be skated.

Dick, who was not “playing” with Dade Morgan, even if Frank Merriwell
had been “playing” with the skate king, reached the opposite point
first, and turned to retrace his way.

Looking back as he carefully swung the sled round, he saw the crowd on
the opposite shore waving handkerchiefs and caps, and heard their
encouraging cheers. Then an increased desire to defeat Dade Morgan by as
great a margin as possible came to him.

When Morgan turned the point, more than twenty yards behind Dick, his
face was white and set. This second defeat meant much to him. He had not
thought when he entered into it so readily that its result might mean
his permanent defeat for the freshman leadership by his rival, but now
his heart told him this was the peril before him.

To be twice defeated in one afternoon by Starbright might bring about
the enthronement of the big freshman as the undeniable leader of the
freshmen athletic forces.

“I will beat him!” he hissed. “He shall not defeat me again!”

“I’m not afraid!” Rosalind encouraged, feeling also the sting of defeat.
“Go as fast as you can!”

Thus urged, Dade swept forward on the home-stretch with all his might.
He saw that an advantage could be gained by pressing nearer the
dangerous ice, and to get that advantage he swung inward.

“We’re going so fast that there isn’t the least danger!” he told
himself. “At this speed, one could safely pass over the thinnest ice.”

Then he swerved still more.

Suddenly Starbright, who, taking the safe course, and was losing by this
device of his opponent, heard the cracking of ice and a scream. He
stopped, turning his skates sidewise, and almost being thrown by the
sled, which ran against his heels.

Then he saw a sight that chilled his blood. The ice had given way under
Rosalind’s sled, and she had been thrown into a yawning opening.

She was struggling wildly in the icy waters.

The momentum had carried Dade across in safety, and the dropping of
Rosalind from the sled had pitched him headlong.

Before he could recover, Starbright had skated back past him, and,
without hesitation, seeing that nothing but prompt action could save the
imperiled girl, had leaped into the water to Rosalind’s assistance.

The lake was instantly covered with skaters hurrying to the scene of the
disaster, among the foremost being Merriwell and Hodge.

Starbright secured a grip on Rosalind’s jacket, and though the icy
waters seemed to strike a chill to his bones, he succeeded in holding
her head up, and swam slowly with her to the edge of the broken ice.

A half-dozen fellows threw themselves on the ice in a line, with
Merriwell in the lead, crawled to the dangerous and crumbling brink, and
thus drew Starbright and Rosalind out to safety.

Fortunately, carriages were in waiting, and into these the soaked skater
and the equally soaked and half-drowned girl were quickly placed, and
the drivers lost no time in getting their charges into the city.

“I’m awfully sorry!” said Inza, as she and Frank returned to town. “It
was partly my fault. But I didn’t think Morgan would be such a fool.”

“There is no telling what a fellow will do when he is angry or jealous!”

“Or a girl, either,” said Inza. “I could see that Rosalind was both when
she saw me talking with Starbright.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                              CHAPTER VIII

                          DONALD PIKE’S PLOT.


There was no more disgusted individual in New Haven that night than
Donald Pike. All his scheming and lies seemed to have come to naught.
Morgan had not only done nothing to Merriwell or Starbright, but had
been badly worsted in every way.

He met Gene Skelding, and they talked it over, but could get no cheer
out of the situation. Roland Packard came along, in an equally unamiable
mood, and after walking round a while together, the worthy trio climbed
up to Chickering’s rooms.

They found Rupert and some of his friends trying on various sorts of
costumes for the masked-ball of that night.

This was another of Merriwell’s “entertainments,” and it seemed that
nearly everybody who had a right to go was going.

“You fellows make me sick!” said Pike.

“What troubles you now, Donald?” asked Chickering.

“Lotht on the watheth thith afternoon, I’ve no doubt!” lisped Veazie.

“A plague on the races!” Pike growled.

“Why do we fellows make you sick?” queried Julian Ives, looking at
himself admiringly in the long mirror. Julian had arrayed himself in a
glittering imitation of chain armor, and was going to the ball in the
character of a Knight of the Round Table.

“For thinking of going to that ball.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t mith it for anything!”

“You’re just like all the rest of the fools, Veazie!”

Veazie looked immensely fierce for a moment; then concluded to change
his attitude, and mildly inquired:

“I don’t underthand you?”

“You’re just helping Merriwell out! Can’t you see it? Now, look here!
Yale wins a lot of victories—beats Carlisle, Princeton, Harvard, and
everything else that comes its way. The claim is made by Merriwell’s
friends that Yale’s glorious victories of this season were made possible
because Merriwell had the running of things. Merriwell sits back and
smiles and fans himself and believes that he is ‘it’!

“Then the idea is conceived that it would be the proper thing to
celebrate the victories of Yale. Immediately Merriwell is put in charge
of that, as if the other things were not enough. He and his two
inseparable chums, Hodge and Browning, are the committee of
arrangements. They are called the ‘committee of three,’ and they proceed
to run things to suit themselves and favor their friends. Again they
contrive to cover Merriwell with glory. Everything is Merriwell. Will
you kindly tell me if we are celebrating the victories of Yale or the
victories of Merriwell?

“And here, now, I find you fellows arraying yourselves in chain armor
and other togs, for the sole purpose of going to Merriwell’s mask-ball,
that you may help it out with your presence and commendation. After it’s
over you’ll come home, saying what a tremendous success it was, and so
help to stick another star on the gilt crown of Yale’s little tin god.
I’m sick of it!”

Julian Ives drew his long sword, and, holding it in hand, stood posed
before the mirror.

“Too late to help it now,” he said, “even if all you say is true, and I
guess it is. The way the fellows are talking, that ball is going to be a
howling success, and it will be that whether I stay or go. So I’m
going!”

There was small likelihood that Julian would lose any opportunity to put
himself on exhibition.

“Well, you’re a set of fools! That’s all I’ve got to say!”

Don Pike was too uneasy in mind to remain long in Chickering’s, and
strolled out shortly, leaving Roland Packard and Gene Skelding still
there. As he went away a thought came to him.

“Just the thing!” he said.

“What is?”

Bertrand Defarge clapped him on the back.

Pike started and bit his lip.

“I didn’t know I was talking to myself!” he said. “It’s a bad habit, and
I shall have to break myself of it. Going to the ball?”

“Certainly. There will he hosts of pretty girls there, and I shouldn’t
want to miss it.”

“Another fool!” Pike growled, as he and Defarge separated. “No matter
what Merriwell plans, not only his friends but his enemies turn in to
make a success of it. Is it dead luck, or is the man positively a
genius?”

Hurrying away now to a costumer, Pike hired a cowboy-suit as nearly like
that worn by Bill Higgins as he could get, and, with the long lasso that
went with it, sneaked back to his rooms.

“Higgins has been drinking a little,” was his thought, “though the
fellow has been awfully mild for a plainsman. He wasn’t drinking any
to-day, to be sure, but who’s to say that he didn’t fill up this
evening? He’s made himself a general nuisance here, whooping things up
for Merriwell. He’s Merriwell’s protégé quite as much as Dick Starbright
is. If I can bring him down and roll him in the gutter of disgrace, it
will be a little something.”

The trick he contemplated was a small one, worthy of a smaller brain
than Pike was usually supposed to possess.

In an angle of the wall near the steps which he had seen Professor
Warburton ascend but a few moments before, Donald Pike crouched in his
cowboy garb. Hiding his face was a mask which he had also obtained of
the costumer.

“If I can just rope Warburton, and make him think it the playful work of
Bill Higgins, I couldn’t ask anything better. Warburton is a fellow who
would hate a creature like Higgins by instinct.”

Warburton was, indeed, a man of considerable pomposity and
self-importance, whose dignity would have been outrageously offended by
such a thing as Pike contemplated.

“If I can do it, and Warburton makes a row over it, as he surely will,
Higgins will be in such bad odor that Merriwell will feel precious
small. If the thing gets to the faculty, or into the courts, so much the
better. I’d like to have the newspapers of New Haven make a few roasting
comments on Merriwell’s dear friend from the Western ranches.”

Don Pike had taken roping-lessons from his former chum, Buck Badger, and
could throw a rope reasonably well, though he could not be called an
expert. He felt sure, though, that if Warburton came down the steps in
his customary leisurely way that there would be no difficulty in getting
the noose over his head. Even if it only struck him, that would answer,
for it would show what Higgins’ intentions were and serve to prove,
also, that Higgins was intoxicated.

Pike expected Warburton to come out as he went in, but the man who
appeared on the steps five minutes later was masked and wore a
cowboy-suit which looked, in the rather dim light, identically like the
one worn by Pike himself.

“That costumer lied to me!” was Pike’s thought. “He said I had the only
cowboy-suit anything like that. And I had no idea that Warburton would
think of attending that ball! He’s masked close and tight, and does not
intend to reveal his identity.”

If Pike had been given time for thought, he might have reached radically
different conclusions. He was not given time, and thinking that if he
made a mistake he could run away and the thing would not be serious, he
let fly with his rope at a venture, and caught the supposed Warburton
round the neck, giving, at the same time, a sharp jerk on the rope. Then
he turned to run.

The roar that went up was disillusioning; but not more so than the noose
that now dropped over Pike’s own neck.

“What in time d’ye mean by that?” came in the voice of Bill Higgins
himself.

Then Higgins began to draw in on the rope, pulling the startled youth
toward him. Pike tried to cast the noose off, and, failing in that,
sought for his knife.

All the while Higgins was drawing the scared student toward him, making
the air blue with his exclamatory questions and objurations.

“I’ll learn ye some sense!” Higgins howled. “I’ll wring yer neck fer ye,
b’jings! I’ll hang ye up on one o’ these hyer trees fer the crows to
eat! That’s what! Why, you stepfather to a hoss-thief——”

He almost fell to the ground as the rope parted under a cutting slash
from Pike’s knife, and, having freed himself, Pike darted away, with
Higgins bellowing at his heels.

Merriwell and Browning came down the steps, having heard the outcry.

“What’s up?” Frank demanded.

Higgins turned back, finding Pike too light-footed for him. He brought
with him the rope which Pike had dropped in his flight.

“Some feller slammed this hyer round my neck as I come down the steps!”
Higgins declared. “One o’ yer dinged student friends, I reckon, fer no
real cowboy’d do another cowboy sich a measly trick as that. Playin’
cowboy! Well, if I git my hands onto him, he won’t monkey no more with
yer Uncle William!”

                  *       *       *       *       *

The mask-ball was the success Don Pike had known it would be. Everybody
praised it and its excellent arrangements.

Three nights later Merriwell’s “entertainments” concluded with a banquet
at the New Haven House, which witnessed a crush.

When the toast came round, “To Yale!” Merriwell responded in his usual
happy way.

“There was one thing I should have been pleased to say in that little
speech,” he remarked to a number of friends later, “but it wasn’t the
time and place.”

“What was that?” asked Browning.

“It’s a bit of news which I must convey to Starbright and Morgan. As the
result of an investigation, I have discovered who threw the rocks in the
snowball battle which struck those two fellows.”

Hodge was at once interested.

“It was Jimmy Seldon! I ran the thing down, and then confronted him, and
he confessed. The fellow has fancied from the start that he is an
athlete, and that he ought to be the real leader of the freshmen. It was
a case of unappreciated and unobserved genius! He brooded over it.
Perhaps it turned his head. Anyway, he went into that fight determined
to knock out the men he fancied had without merit been chosen above him.
When the opportunity came, he threw his prepared snowballs.”

“You’ll report it?” Bruce asked.

“As he left Yale and New Haven this morning, and isn’t coming back, it
isn’t worth while!”

“You told him he would have to go?”

“Well, I talked with him! He said he was going, anyway, for he has
failed in his examinations. Perhaps that was one of the things that made
him desperate. He is better out of Yale than in it, and Yale is better
without him than with him.”

“And who roped Higgins?” asked Hodge.

“I don’t know about that, but I think it was Don Pike. He is likely to
go out of Yale, too, very suddenly, unless he mends his ways!”

“A few other villains came near being unmasked in this series of
entertainments!” droned Browning. “I’m keeping my weather-eye on Dade
Morgan.”

“If it will show that scoundrel up in his true light, we’ll have another
series!” said Hodge.

Then he arose and proposed this toast:

“To the confusion of the few enemies of Frank Merriwell! To the success
of his legion of friends!”

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                               CHAPTER IX

                           ROSALIND’S REWARD.


“I should like to know what you mean by that, Mr. Morgan?”

Rosalind Thornton stood before Dade Morgan, her pretty lips trembling.

He had made an evening call on her at the residence of her aunt, and was
now on the point of taking an early leave. They were standing together
at the foot of the stairs, under the red globe of the swinging hall-lamp
near the outer door.

“You don’t know how pretty you are in that mood, Rose! But perhaps you
do know? It tempts me to steal a kiss.”

Rosalind Thornton was, indeed, a pretty girl, and never more so than at
that moment. A flash of hurt pride made her winsomely attractive—so
attractive that Morgan almost relented from the purpose he had formed in
his heart.

She drew back and put out a little hand.

“You have no right to say such things to me!”

There was a glow of fire behind the unshed tears. Morgan laughed in his
usual reckless, nonchalant way, and hurt Rose by saying roughly:

“Well, I didn’t call to take you out riding this afternoon, as I
promised to do—because I didn’t care to!”

How handsome he was as he stood there looking at her with eyes as dark
as her own. She was as fully alive to his good looks as he was to hers.
There was a mysterious something in his strong, athletic form; in the
resolute face, smiling mouth, and white, even teeth. Dade Morgan was
undeniably a handsome youth, aside from a trick he had of dropping his
lids down over his eyes, to shut out the strange glitter that
occasionally took the beauty out of them.

It was the magnetism of his beauty and strength that had made pretty
Rosalind Thornton willing to hurt the honest heart of big Dick
Starbright—had made her willing to turn from him and accept the pleasant
company of this man, who was his confessed and deadly enemy.

Rosalind’s affections were warm and womanly, but they were not of an
enduring type. She was, besides, of a petulant, jealous disposition. She
had at first accepted Dade’s attentions in the thought that this would
bring Dick Starbright to her feet as a willing and devoted subject. Then
she had suddenly found herself captivated by Dade’s good looks and
winning smile, and wavered in her affection for Starbright, telling
herself that, if Dick did not care to come back, Morgan would be as
acceptable, perhaps more so.

“I suppose I’m a fool, Rose!”

He again moved toward her. Once more she put out a detaining hand.

“Yes, I think you are; but do not call me Rose, please!”

“Rosalind!”

“Nor that!”

He laid his hand on his heart in mock gallantry.

“Miss Thornton, any fellow is a fool who doesn’t fall in love with you!”

“Thanks!”

The laughing smile which he so admired and which he hoped to coax back
to her eyes did not make its reappearance.

“You are quite angry?”

“You didn’t care to keep your word this afternoon!”

Her lips again trembled as she thought of it—thought of the pride and
pleasure with which she had gowned herself—the triumphant pride, which
had made her desire to sweep in Dade’s carriage in grand style past her
former lover, Dick Starbright, whom she was still anxious to draw after
her, as a conquering captor draws a captive.

Dade laughed and dropped the lids over his eyes.

“Well, to tell the truth, I came up here to-night principally to say
that I don’t care to go out driving that way any more.”

The girl’s cheeks paled.

“You’re an awfully pretty girl, Miss Thornton——”

She put out her hand again, but he went on.

“I don’t need to tell you that, for you know it. But there’s no use of
keeping this thing up, you see. You might begin to think that I—I care
for you. To be frank, I don’t. I suppose you’ll say that’s brutal.”

She dropped into a seat on the stairs. Dade looked at her a moment,
still handsome and smiling.

“I hope you aren’t crying,” he said, crossing to her side. “When you
seem so distressed, you know, it makes me—makes me almost lo—care for
you!”

He tried to take her hand. She dashed it away, and turned toward him.
She was undeniably crying now. A strange thrill came to his heart. He
began to think he had been blunt and harsh. His pride was flattered. It
was something to make a pretty girl cry—it evidenced the fact that he
was attractive to women. And he began to ask himself why he had not been
content to go on and make her believe that he cared for her? His vanity
was lashing him, not his conscience.

“I don’t think you care to talk to me any longer,” she declared, in a
low, icy voice. “At least, I don’t care to continue the conversation. I
thought you something which you are not—a gentleman! You were going, I
believe?”

“But perhaps I don’t care to go. Perhaps I—perhaps I prefer to stay. If
we can go on with the understanding that what we’re doing is just for
fun, just for a jolly time and to make Dick Starbright——”

“You were going, I believe!” she icily repeated.

Her eyes were very bright now, and, with the exception of a red spot
glowing in each cheek, her face was white. The tears had dried.

A step was heard on the outer step, making Dade start. He stood in a
listening attitude and heard footsteps departing. Some one had been on
the piazza, and was now going away. Morgan stood a moment in silence,
then opened the door and looked out. The electric light was more than
half a block distant, and the light in front of the house was not good.
Yet he saw a tall form moving down the street.

“If I didn’t know that he couldn’t be guilty of such a thing, I should
say that our good friend Starbright had followed me here this evening
and had been eaves-dropping,” he said, as he withdrew his head and
shoulders from the doorway and closed the door.

“I don’t want to leave until we have settled this matter!” he continued,
still feeling that perhaps he had acted too hastily, and that Rosalind
was altogether too pretty and winsome a girl to be thrown over in that
manner, even if he did not care for her.

“It is settled, I think!” she declared; then turned from him and began
to mount the stairs.

He looked after her, flushed and angry. He had come to the house with
the deliberate intention of telling her that he did not care to take her
driving any more, or to continue their further intimate acquaintance,
and had half-broken down in it because of her beauty and evident
distress. Dade Morgan loved himself better than anything else in the
world, and his self-pride had been hurt. Some way he did not feel as
care-free about the matter as he had fancied he would. He had never
cared for Rosalind Thornton, and had used her merely as a weapon with
which to strike Starbright, but this was somewhat like the weapon
striking back at him when he sought to discard it.

Yet he did not try to speak to her again, though a strange and fiery
light came into his eyes, which, through force of habit, he besought to
conceal. Then he put on his hat, opened the door without saying “Good
night!” and was soon trailing down the street after the person he had
fancied was Dick Starbright.

“Well, she’s off my hands!” he reflected, as he hurried on. “I guess
it’s better that way, though she is deucedly handsome, and I might come
to like her in time, if I could ever like anybody! But that finishes it,
unless I really want to go back. I think I can do that, if I care to try
the trick. Likely I sha’n’t care to try it. I wonder if that was
Starbright? It would be a joke if she’s been playing double, and
Starbright has been calling here all the time. But, no, he wouldn’t do
that. Starbright isn’t a chump, whatever else he is!”

He failed to see Starbright or any one resembling him.

“Taken an electric for down-town, I suppose!”

Then his thoughts went back to Rosalind.

“Umph! Women cry easily; but crying sometimes makes them pretty!”

Hurt, angered, humiliated, Rosalind had rushed into her room, thrown
herself on her bed, and was crying as if her foolish little heart were
about to break.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                     CHAPTER XHAZERS IN MERRY MOOD.


The youth who had stood for a moment on the steps of the residence of
Mrs. Virgil Throckmorton had indeed been Dick Starbright. He had chanced
to pass along the street, and a sudden impulse had taken him to the
door. His friend, Bert Dashleigh, had told him that Rosalind was soon to
leave New Haven. A desire to see her and have a few words with her
before she went away sent him up the steps, where he became an unwilling
listener to some of the words spoken by her and Morgan, for Morgan had
spoken louder than he knew.

“I guess I’ve made a mistake!” he had grumbled to himself, his heart
flaming against the conduct of the youth whose words he had overheard;
and he had beaten a quick retreat to the street, mentally raging against
Morgan, and assuring himself that he had been an idiot for yielding to
the temptation to speak again to Rosalind.

His thought, as he went down the street toward the car-line, was to wait
for Morgan and demand an explanation; but he did not do this, and,
flinging himself into the first electric that came along, he rode back
to the campus. The recent snow had passed away in a rain-storm, which
had been followed by a return of sharp, frosty weather.

He found the famous quadrangle filled with college men, who seemed to be
having a high old time about something. Dashleigh caught him by the arm.

“What’s up?” Dick demanded.

“I don’t know. They’re roping in the freshmen. Perhaps we’d better make
ourselves scarce.”

But Starbright had already been sighted.

“Oh, Starbright! Come bow to the golden image!” was shouted from the
crowd.

Dashleigh started to run, but he found himself opposed by Bingham and
Jack Ready, who cleverly tripped him as he put his nimble legs in
motion.

“Refuse me!” said Ready, thrusting out his right hand in a wiggling way
as he planted himself before Starbright. “Will you go of your own ’cord,
or shall we cord you?”

He had an arm linked through one of Dashleigh’s, while Bingham was
holding Dashleigh up on the other side.

“What’s up?” Dick calmly asked.

“We are! It isn’t late, you see!”

He saw other sophomores gathering round him, but made no attempt to run.
Down near the fence was a howling mob of students, mostly sophomores and
freshmen, who seemed to be dancing a war-dance about a captive.

“There was a fellow in the Scripture——” Ready began.

“Oh, there was!” Dick interrupted.

“No impertinence, freshman!” cried Ready, blowing out his red cheeks.
“There was a fellow in Scripture who was commanded to bow before the
image of Somebody-or-other, and he refused, and awful things happened to
him!”

“Yes; I remember that he came out all right in the end!”

“Oh, did he? I’ll have to quit quoting Scripture, or go to studying it.
But you’ll not come out all right in the end.”

Dashleigh tripped Bingham and tried to break away.

“Oh, gentle friend, why dost thou try to flee?” Ready purred, holding
onto Bert with iron grip. “Dost thou not see that the enemy surrounds
thee?”

“What’s up?” Starbright again asked.

“Morgan! Morgan!” came as if in answer; and it seemed strange to
Starbright, too, for he was thinking more of Morgan at the moment than
he was of what Ready was saying, or of the antics of the rollicking
sophomores near the fence.

For the sophomores, he cared little enough, having long ago made up his
mind that the only way to deal with them was to let them have their way,
if it was not too rough, and so get rid of them in the shortest order.

Morgan, following Starbright toward the campus, had been suddenly
surrounded by a lot of sophomores who seemed to be lying in wait near
the entrance to capture straggling freshmen. Morgan was in an ugly mood,
because of the events of the evening; and, instead of gracefully
submitting, he began to fight, using his fists freely. In consequence of
this he was roughly thrown down, tied snug and tight with a stout cord,
and then carried bodily toward the rioting mob near the fence, who
seemed to be waiting for just such obstreperous victims.

“I guess I’ll go along and see the fun!” said Starbright good-humoredly,
though his heart was panting against Dade Morgan. Then to himself, as he
moved on with Dashleigh and another freshman who had been caught in the
sophomore net, he said:

“I’ll see Morgan after this thing is over, whatever it may be. I’ll see
him, ask him some questions, and get the answers, too!”

The howling mob gave way, and Starbright saw a large picture of the
rotund proprietor of “Billie’s,” the freshman inn. It was a mere daub on
wood, displaying the round stomach and the shining, bald head of the
genial proprietor. It had been painted by some humorous student and
placed in front of “Billie’s” one night in lieu of a sign-board which
some other student or students had stolen. The proprietor, knowing the
ways of college youths, had smiled his benediction on it and set it up
over the show-case between his two front parlor windows.

And now this gem of art had been surreptitiously extracted from the
tavern, and all the freshmen caught in the sophomore drag-net that
jubilant, crisp evening were being made to go down on their knees before
it and affectionately kiss the bald head.

Morgan was hurt and indignant. He somehow fancied that, because he was
conspicuous as a leader of the freshmen and had done many things to draw
about him a circle of adherents, he should not be forced to do so
humiliating a thing as to kneel on the frosty sand and plant an unctuous
kiss on the pictured bald head.

“Oh, you didn’t half-salute Billie!” Bingham declared, giving Morgan a
push that almost drove his nose through the wood on which the portrait
was drawn. “If you should plant a kiss like that on the ruby lips of
your best girl she would have odious opinions of you.”

“Oh, let up!” Morgan growled. “This is too silly for anything!”

“Except freshmen!” said Bingham. “Salute the bald spot of the human
billiard-cue in a respectful manner, or——”

Two or three sophomores caught Morgan by the neck and shoulders and
forced his lips to the picture, and held him there, in spite of his
protestations, while he kissed Billie’s bald head over and over again.
When released he was mad clean through.

Starbright was pushed up to the daub, murmuring, though he was known
never to drink:

“Oh, thou human punch-bowl, thou concocter of that nectar of the gods!
How I love thee!”

He appeared to want to take the picture to his bosom in a rapturous
embrace, but was dragged back.

“Thou varlet!” cried Ready, pleased with Starbright’s apparent
nonchalance, which was in such marked contrast to Morgan’s fuming rage.
“Avaunt, there! A dog is not privileged to embrace a king!”

“The dog was merely trying to bite him!” chattered Bingham.

“Your pardon!” said Starbright. “The dog mistook his baldness for a link
of sausage!”

“And thought he recognized a kinship!” laughed Greg Carker.

At which sally from the solemn and philosophical Carker the boisterous
sophomores cackled with glee.

The twang of a mandolin was heard, as Bert Dashleigh was made to waddle
forward on all fours and kiss the shiny pate of the pictured host. It
was Dashleigh’s own mandolin, produced by a student who had hastily
invaded Dashleigh’s room for the purpose.

“How did you get in?” Bert coolly asked, stopping in the midst of his
osculatory adorations.

“Fell through the transom,” said the student. “Why the dickens do you
always keep your door locked? That transom is so contracted that I
sprained my wish-bone.”

“Good thing if you had sprained your neck!” Bert flung back; and was
then dragged away, lest in his fervent kissing he should lick all the
paint off the wood.

Two stools were produced from some invisible source, and, while other
freshmen were compelled to bow before and kiss the picture, Dashleigh
and Starbright were made to sit on the stools and sing:

     “Oh, who will smoke my meerschaum pipe, meerschaum pipe?
      Oh, who will smoke my meerschaum pipe, meerschaum pipe?
      Oh, who will smoke my meerschaum pipe, when I am far away?

     “Oh, who will go to see my girl, see my girl?
      Oh, who will go to see my girl, see my girl?
      Oh, who will go to see my girl, when I am far away?

     “Oh, who will kiss her ruby lips, ruby lips?
      Oh, who will kiss her ruby lips, ruby lips?
      Oh, who will kiss her ruby lips, when I am far away?

     “Oh, who will squeeze her snow-white hand, snow-white hand?
      Oh, who will squeeze her snow-white hand, snow-white hand?
      Oh, who will squeeze her snow-white hand, when I am far away?”

It was one of those popular college songs which can run on forever, like
Tennyson’s brook, and never get weary; and while Dashleigh thumped away
on the mandolin and he and Dick bawled out every variation and every
verse they had ever heard of or could think of, the captured freshmen
were, one by one, forced to crawl reluctantly forward and honor the
proprietor of “Billie’s.”

It was all very funny—to the sophomores, and to students who, like Dick
and Bert, could take the thing coolly and good-humoredly. To others it
was gall and wormwood. Morgan was brought back three times and made to
moisten the top of “Billie’s” head with his “roseate spoon-bill,” as
Jack Ready facetiously termed Dade’s lips, and Dade grew madder and
madder, until he was in a fighting-mood.

When released at last he stumbled blindly away, vowing vengeance on the
whole tribe of Yale sophomores. As he pitched on in the semigloom,
almost too blind to see which way he was going, he heard his name
called, and, turning about, beheld what he took to be one of the
tormenting sophomores.

“If you follow me any farther, I’ll spread your nose all over your
face!” he threatened.

Whereupon the supposed sophomore drew nearer, laughing in a silent,
mirthless way.

“My dear Dade, you are losing your customary calm!” came the warning in
a familiar voice.

The supposed sophomore was Hector King.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                               CHAPTER XI

                           SETTLING A SCORE.


Hector King’s disguise was so very superficial that Dade wondered at the
daring of the man. Yet it was more effective than an elaborate disguise
would have been. His face and hands were darkened, his hair cut short,
and his dress was that of one of the numerous “sweeps” who take care of
the rooms of the Yale students. The disguise had served so well that
King had been able to hover on the outskirts of the sophomore mob
without detection or question.

The last time Dade Morgan had seen the man whom he had come to call
Hector King, the latter was in the disguise of a Hindu juggler. The
pretended juggler had been unmasked by Frank Merriwell, to whom he stood
revealed as Brandon Drood, alias Dion Santenel, the hypnotist, the
deadly enemy of Frank and his father, whose ruin and disgrace he sought
with a bitterness and tenacity almost beyond comprehension. Dade had
dragged him from the room in which Merriwell had hypnotized him, and
forced from him an important confession—Frank having overthrown him by
his own methods, in his chosen field, and on his own battle-ground—had
dragged him away, and thus prevented Frank from making him a prisoner
and taking steps for his punishment.

“You are losing your customary calm!” Santenel cynically repeated.

“And it seems to me you are losing your customary caution!”

“I can look out for myself!” Santenel answered somewhat tartly. “You
lost your temper and made an ass of yourself. How long do you suppose
you can hold your influence in Yale by acting in that way? A man who
would be a master of others must learn first to master himself. That is
the very primer of the whole thing—the first lesson.”

“Oh, well!” Dade snarled. “That stuff made me sick!”

He was about to say more, but ceased when he observed that they were
being followed.

“That’s a student, sure! Yes, and it’s Dick Starbright!”

“Let’s move on!” said Santenel. “I don’t care to make intimate
acquaintances among your student friends.”

He emphasized the word “friends” in a way that made Dade writhe, for he
knew how Dade hated the big freshman. Though they walked on, it was soon
apparent that Starbright was following them. They did not like the
lighted streets, so they turned into the green, but Starbright sauntered
after them.

“I’m going to halt and see what the scoundrel means by that,” Dade
declared, stopping. Santenel did not object, but walked on.

Dade waited impatiently and angrily by the side of the path.

“You’ve been following me!” he cried curtly, when Starbright came up.

“Yes,” said Dick; “I’ve a settlement to make with you.”

Dade coaxed the smile to his face.

“I’m not a bone, to be followed and sniffed at by a dog like you!”

Starbright angrily reddened.

“You’ve been following me all evening!” Dade continued.

“That’s a lie.”

Dade clenched his fist.

“You followed me to Mrs. Throckmorton’s this evening. You stood on the
steps, eavesdropping, trying to hear what I might say. You’re a sneaking
puppy!”

He was white with wrath, and found it impossible to keep that famous
smile on his face.

“Go on!” said Dick coldly. “The more you say, the more occasion I shall
find for thumping you to my complete satisfaction when I begin on you. I
did not follow you to Mrs. Throckmorton’s. I went there to make a call
on Miss Thornton, hearing that she is to leave the city soon. I was a
fool for going, I’ll admit. When I mounted the steps——”

“Crept up like a sneaking dog, you mean!” interrupted Dade, holding
himself in readiness for the blow which he expected.

“When I mounted the steps I overheard you talking to Miss Thornton, for
you were speaking so loud that I couldn’t help hearing. You know what
you said to her. I caught only a few words, but enough to understand the
whole thing. I have seen it all along, but have had no proof of it till
now. You went with her simply because you thought it would hurt me and
make me jealous. You thought me weak enough to throw myself into the
saloons and make a fool of myself generally. You have seen that I did
nothing of the kind, and now, having failed in your object, you throw
her over with no feeling whatever, showing you to be a thoroughbred
cad!”

Dade was trembling, but fear of the big freshman’s fist made him
cautious. In spite of his bluster and sharp words he had learned to
respect that fist and the man behind it.

“Is that all?” he sneered.

“No. It won’t be enough until I have taught you to respect women. I
regret that I have been compelled to mention Miss Thornton in this
matter. She is a lady, and has had the misfortune to become acquainted
with a conscienceless villain and to be made his tool. I shouldn’t have
mentioned her name, but I want you to understand just what I mean.”

He slipped up his sleeves.

“There is no other way to redress such things, and, as Miss Thornton
doesn’t happen to have a brother to do this for her, I shall take the
pleasure. Put up your hands, you scoundrel, or I’ll knock you down!”

There was no mistaking the tone of Dick Starbright’s voice. Morgan
glanced round. The place was isolated and poorly lighted, and Dion
Santenel had disappeared.

“Defend yourself!” Dick hissed.

Dade backed away, but he put up his hands, for he saw that Starbright
meant to strike him.

“Why, you puppy!” he snarled.

The freshman’s big fist caught him on the cheek and almost lifted him
from his feet.

The blow drove away every atom of fear from the heart of Morgan and
filled him with inconceivable wrath. Gathering himself, he rushed at
Starbright with the ferocity of a mad dog. But again that huge fist met
him and knocked him backward.

“Come again!” said Starbright, as coolly as if he were merely sparring
in the gymnasium. “I want to hammer that villainous smile off your face.
Your friends won’t think you so handsome in the morning!”

Morgan tried to calm his raging heart. He saw that if he did not he
would be knocked out in short order. So, instead of making another mad
rush, he called to his aid all his undoubted skill, and began to circle
slowly about Starbright, looking warily for an opening.

Twice Starbright lunged at him, and twice Morgan dodged out of the way.
Then, with a quick leap, Morgan sprang in and landed a resounding blow.

Dick, finding an opening, then drove his terrible right with such weight
that Morgan went down on the grass with stunning force.

Thud! A club in the hands of Dion Santenel fell on Starbright’s head,
blinding and stunning him. The club was lifted again and hung poised in
the air.

Then there was a swish of a rope, which was preceded by light, springy
footsteps, and the club, while poised in mid-air, was plucked from the
hand of Santenel.

“No, ye don’t!” came in the roaring voice of Bill Higgins, the cowboy.
“Fair play’s a jewel, and I’m the jeweler that sees ’t gits a proper
settin’, b’jing!”

Santenel knew that voice only too well. He had met Higgins while posing
as the Hindu juggler, and knew that Higgins was the friend of Merriwell.
Visions of a capture and unpleasant interview with Frank, and other
disagreeable consequences, flashed through his mind. The club had been
torn from his hand, and he was weaponless. So, without stopping to
further take the part of Dade Morgan, who was struggling to his feet,
Santenel hurried off and disappeared behind the trees, Higgins looking
after him, as if he did not know whether to follow and rope him or let
him get away.

Dade rose to his feet, his face distorted with anger, pain, and baffled
hate. He dared not again face the fist of Dick Starbright.

“I don’t care to fight you further, when you’ve got help!” he sneered,
his words trembling and his whole form shaking. “But I’ll settle with
you yet, Starbright!”

“Any time!” said Dick, pulling down his sleeves. “I’ve more where that
came from!”

Though his head was throbbing and he felt a trickle of blood on his
face, caused by the blow of the club, he stood erect again, firmly
facing Dade Morgan.

“I’ll settle with you for this!” Morgan slowly repeated, as if his brain
were in a whirl and his mind still incoherent. Then he flung the cowboy
a look of hate and disdain, and walked away in the direction taken by
Santenel.

                  *       *       *       *       *

“Who was that there feller? The one that hit ye with the club?” asked
Higgins, staring in the direction Dade was taking. “I ’low I was a fool
to let him go.”

It was a question that Dick could not answer.

“There was only one thing I clearly understood about that business, and
that was that you ran up against a bigger man than you could handle!”
said Santenel, when they reached Morgan’s room.

“Oh, don’t say anything more about it!”

Santenel took a seat by the fire, while Dade applied liberal douches of
hot water to his battered head.

“But I want to know about it. I stood behind one of those trees while
you were engaged with that big two-fisted cyclone, and I had my
curiosity aroused. My advice to you is to keep away from him. He’s too
much for you. What did he tackle you about? I couldn’t just make out!”

Dade dropped the hot towel he had been holding to his face, walked to a
drawer, drew out a photograph and threw it into Santenel’s lap.

“That!”

“Quarreling about this girl?”

“Yes, if you must know. I didn’t care anything for her—not a thing! and
I only went with her to spite him and make him jealous. I was fool
enough to think it might drive him to drink. Either he didn’t care for
her as much as I supposed, or that story of his all-absorbing appetite
for liquor is a fairy-tale. I found out that I was wasting my time, and
I threw her over. He heard about it, and he—well, you saw what he did!”

His face crimsoned; not with shame for his treatment of Rosalind
Thornton, but because he had been worsted so completely by Starbright,
and the memory of it stung him to the quick.

“A handsome girl!” commented Santenel. “Well, you failed!”

He seemed in a lenient mood, and tossed the photograph back. He
remembered that he, too, had met with a bitter failure some days before,
when he thought he had Frank Merriwell completely under his hypnotic
control, only to discover, when too late and after he himself had been
hypnotized by Frank, that Merriwell had been playing with him all along
for the purpose of getting him in his power and unmasking him. The
recollection was quite as irritating as that which so stung Dade Morgan.

Dade gave the photograph a savage kick, which landed it in the fire.
Santenel watched it leap into flame and crisp and curl to ashes. A
cynical smile sat on his cold lips, and the leaping flame seemed to
light up kindred fires in the depth of his black eyes. They were
peculiar eyes; and, as he sat staring into the grate, the pupils
appeared to contract and expand somewhat like those of a cat.

“You are wondering why I am here again?” he said, at length, to Dade,
who had gone back to his hot towels. Dade affected a show of
indifference.

“I knew you would tell me after a while—when you got ready!”

“I’m back here because I never give up. I never yet was defeated at
anything which I seriously undertook, and I never will be. You know my
purpose?”

He spoke in a low, droning tone, seeming to direct his words to the dim
face of a girl which he fancied he could still see in the ashes of the
photograph—spoke in so low a monotone that, though the words were
clearly heard by Dade, they could not have been overheard by any one
with less alert ears or beyond the room.

“You have told that to me scores of times!”

“You’re no more likely to forget it than I am. But you thought I failed
and abandoned the field. You were mistaken. You don’t know me yet as you
ought. I can still crush Merriwell and his father, and I shall do it.
That’s what I’m here to talk about—to plan for.”

Dade did not answer, though he stood with a hot cloth to his face,
staring at Santenel in a fascinated way. There was so strong a bond
between them, and the capabilities of the greater villain were of so
sublime and audacious a character that Dade felt drawn to him, as an
inferior mind to a superior.

Santenel was thinking, as he looked at the face in the ashes of the
photograph—thinking first of a face somewhat like that, which he had
known and loved so many years ago, then of his life since those distant
days, and particularly of his connection with the elder Merriwell, whom
he had deeply wronged—Merriwell, who had hounded him throughout the
world, and whom he was now determined to crush at once and forever in
the most humiliating way that his fiendish inventiveness could suggest.

“You want to get even with the young fellow who knocked you out a while
ago?” he asked, at last arousing himself, but speaking in that same low
monotone, as if addressing the picture. Dade, who had not taken his eyes
off the strange man, started at the sound of his voice.

“Be careful, or you will be heard!”

Santenel sat more erect, shrugged his shoulders, passed a hand
half-dreamily over his darkened and stained face.

“I’ve studied something of acoustics,” he answered. “You couldn’t have
heard that yourself if your ears hadn’t been on edge.”

“I hate him!” snarled Dade, speaking of Starbright. “I shall never rest
until I’ve wiped out the insult of those blows to-night.”

“You can’t do it by going at him face to face and fist to fist. He would
simply knock you out again. You must try another way. Only fools and
pugilists resort to slugging-matches to settle real or fancied wrongs. A
man who is a mere bulldog fighter is only a bungler and blunderer. There
are other ways, surer ways, safer ways.”

Dade had crushed the towel in his tremulous hand and was still staring
at Santenel, as if the reserved and unseen power of this terrible man
enchained him.

“There are two things!” Santenel droned on, dropping his shoulders and
sinking lower in his chair, as he again seemed to talk to the fire. “I
want to strike Charles Conrad Merriwell, and you want to even your score
with Dick Starbright. Both can be done at the same time.”

Dade leaned forward, his face working with hate against Starbright.

“How?” he whispered. “Only tell me how?”

“I had Charles Merriwell in my power a short time ago, and his son broke
my grip and got him away. I must get him in my power again. I can’t do
it while Frank Merriwell is here in New Haven, for his father will not
leave the place now for a number of days, and it may be weeks and
months. He fears me too much since that. Frank must be lured out of the
city.”

“How are you to do it?” Dade demanded.

“Get him away on a ball-game, or some kind of game.”

“The football season is over.”

“There is a polo-team at New London.”

“Merriwell might play them if they would come here.”

“He must play them there.”

“He won’t do it.”

“He must be made to do it.”

“How?”

“That’s for you to answer. Perhaps I can help you. But it must be done.
Starbright is on his team?”

“Yes.”

“That’s what I thought. They must play the New London polo-team in New
London. And while they are over there I will work my plans to get
Charles Conrad Merriwell again in my power. But Frank must be out of New
Haven. Must be lured out, I say. I can’t cope with him, and I must have
a clear track here if I am to win. I know I can win if he can be led
away. I don’t care how you do it, so it is done. Perhaps I can help
you.”

He sunk his head deeper between his shoulders, and his eyes blazed as
brightly as the fire.

“And Starbright?” Dade anxiously and tremulously asked, for he was, at
the moment, more interested in the overthrow of Starbright than of
Merriwell.

“A polo-game is a rough game, and a polo-stick may be a dangerous weapon
in the hands of the right man. If there is not a man on the New London
team who will do the work for you, scheme some way to get a man on that
team who will. I have heard of men having their arms broken in such
games. I see no reason why a man mightn’t be killed in such a game!”

He spoke as coldly as if his eyes were not flames of fire and his heart
a seething volcano. Dade flushed and paled, while his breath came
panting hot from between his lips.

“I’ll do it!” he said, gasping out the promise. “I’ll do it, somehow.
I’ll need money to work the trick, maybe, and a lot of it. Money can do
anything, if a fellow only has enough of it.”

Santenel turned on him those awful eyes. The pupils had shrunk to a
pin-point in size and Dade shivered, for they seemed to shoot out at him
points of fire.

“You’re a devil!” he half-gurgled to himself, but the words caught the
keen ears of Santenel.

“Only a villain, with the purse of Fortunatus! How much will you need?
I’ll help you out of what I won from Frank Merriwell in those
poker-games with him, when I was trying to conquer him and he conquered
me. There will be an added pleasure in fighting him with his own money.
The battle isn’t lost, Dade; the fighting has only begun!”

He felt in an inner pocket, and taking out a roll of bills, threw it to
Dade.

“That’s a good deal more than I obtained from Merriwell. But take it. We
can’t afford to count the cost. Spend it like water. A thousand dollars
will buy half the thugs in New York. Get the right men on that New
London polo-team, and do what you please with Starbright; just so you
secure for me a clear field here in New Haven. We’ll have money enough
after we have won out!”

Dade took the roll, looked it through with paling and flushing face, for
he saw that Santenel had been more than generous, then he tucked it away
in his pocket.

“I could buy up the police force of New Haven with that!” he laughed.
“Don’t be afraid but that I’ll put it where it will do the most good!”

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                              CHAPTER XII

                     MORGAN SETS THE BALL ROLLING.


“Seen yer friend goin’ away!” said Bill Higgins, catching hold of
Starbright’s arm, the next morning. “I reckon’t you thumped him so that
he’s goin’ to cut out. Anyway, he looked like a critter that had pulled
his picket-pin and was stampedin’ from the range.”

“Oh, you mean Morgan?”

Starbright had been walking up the street from the station toward the
college when overtaken by the cowboy.

“Yep! You give him sich a thumpin’ last night that I reckon he’s lit
out. ’Feared you’d tell of it, and he hain’t the sand to face the laugh
that the fellers will give him.”

Starbright also had been at the railway-station, though he had not been
observed by Higgins.

“Didn’t know but there mought be an elopement, first off!” grinned
Higgins. “Durn purty young woman come trippin’ ‘long at the same time he
did, goin’ to take the same train, and he waltzed toward her and offered
her his wing, er ruther I thought ’t he was goin’ to offer it to her.
But dinged if she seen him at all! Mighty queer, too, for he was big
enough. But she didn’t see him—didn’t notice him, when he tuck off his
cap and scraped his foot across the floor like a nigger fiddler at a
dance, per nuthin’, but jist sashayed right by him ’thout lookin’ at
him, and hopped onto the car steps all by her lonesome! Say, ye don’t
reckon she done that there fer a blind, and that they was really goin’
away together, do ye?”

Starbright had observed the same performance—had seen Rosalind Thornton
come down to the station and cut Dade Morgan dead when he came forward
to assist her to the platform of the car.

“No elopement!” said Dick. “I guess she wanted to cut his acquaintance.”

“Well, the manners of this hyer effete East goes ahead of me,” said
Higgins. “Out on the ranches when ye want to cut an acquaintance ye do
it with a knife. But I reckon I’ll ketch on bimeby. Had a notion hoppin’
on that there train myself, only it was goin’ the wrong way. I’d ‘a’
gone if’t hadn’t been fer Merriwell. Say! I tie to that feller! I never
seen another like him. Hyer I come fer a day er two, and I’ve been hyer
I don’t know how long, a-stayin’ jist on account of him. If them Yale
perfessors would let a feller read their books with a lasso and write
with a picket-pin, I’d enter the blamed old college myself, jist to stay
with Merriwell. Never seen no sich man on this hyer earth. Treats every
feller like a king! And ’t don’t make no difference to him whether a man
stepped out of a bandbox er come straight off the ranges. All he asks is
that a man shall be a man!”

Dick Starbright was quite as willing, ordinarily, to sing the praises of
Frank Merriwell as any one, but just then his thoughts were too much
engrossed with the departure of Dade Morgan and Rosalind Thornton from
the city. He did not know that Dade was on his way to New London, with
scheming brain filled with plans for the carrying out of the wishes of
Dion Santenel, but he knew that Rosalind was on her way home after her
prolonged visit in New Haven.

He made rather a poor companion for Bill Higgins, as he and the cowboy
walked together up the street, almost forgetting Higgins’ chatter while
thinking of all that had occurred since Rosalind came to New Haven on a
visit to her aunt. He and Rosalind were confessed sweethearts then; now
she had gone away, and he had not even said good-by to her.

It had been his intention to at least say “good-by” as she took the
train, if a favorable opportunity came, but Morgan had loomed into the
foreground at the wrong time, and the words had not been spoken. He had
not even gone forward, and he did not believe that Rosalind had observed
him as he stood in the crowd at the station.

“It’s just as well, no doubt!” he thought, with a little ache in his
big, generous, manly young heart.

Yes, it was just as well. Rosalind had shown that she had a jealous,
narrow, spiteful disposition, which was certain to bring trouble to any
young man who really cared for her. But Starbright knew that she was, in
spite of all this, a lovable girl in many other respects; and, though
the dream he had cherished concerning himself and her was shattered and
gone, and he felt that it was better so, he could not quite cure that
ache in his heart—yet.

Starbright and Higgins separated on reaching Chapel Street. They met
again in the gymnasium late in the afternoon, where Merriwell and some
others were skimming round on roller-skates engaged in roller polo
practise.

“Oh, he won’t accept the challenge!” Bertrand Defarge was sneering. “He
never jumps at anything that isn’t dead sure.”

“Who ye talkin’ ’bout?” Higgins asked, for he saw that Defarge was
looking toward Merriwell.

“Merriwell!” the French youth answered, not abashed by the presence of
the cowboy, who was known to be a “Merriwell maniac.” Higgins’ hand went
into his pocket and drew out a bulky wallet, from which he produced a
roll of bills.

“Bet ye any amount you’re minded to name that he will!”

“Will what?” asked Starbright, stepping forward; whereat the Chickering
set, who had been grouped round Defarge, drew back as if they feared his
bulk or the weight of his fist.

“Durn if I know!” Higgins admitted. “But he seems to think that
Merriwell’s afraid, and I’m backin’ the general proposition that
Merriwell ain’t afeared of anything! So there’s yer money. Put up er
shut up!”

“I don’t care to bet with a man who doesn’t know what he’s talking
about!” sneered Defarge.

“I know Merriwell! That’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout and what my money’s
talkin’ ’bout! Put up er shut up!”

“Oh, come away!” begged Chickering, the professed peacemaker, tugging at
Defarge’s sleeve. “We don’t care to bet about this thing, you know.”

“Put up er shut up!” bellowed Higgins; but Defarge and the Chickering
set moved away.

“He shut up!” Higgins observed, grimly tucking the money back. “That’s
what I intended. I dunno a durn thing what he was talkin’ ’bout, but I
don’t ’low nobody to slander Merry.”

They soon discovered what Defarge had been talking about. A challenge by
wire had been received by Merriwell’s polo-team from the polo-team at
New London, asking Frank to set a date for a game, but insisting that
the game should be played in New London. This was of interest to
Starbright, for he was a member of the polo-team which Frank had
organized and was training.

Defarge came back after a while, and this time he had a roll of bills
which he had obtained from Dade Morgan. Roland Packard and Don Pike also
appeared on the scene with goodly sums of money, which they were willing
to wager that Merriwell’s team would not dare to accept the challenge of
the New London men.

“Why do you want to bet against Yale?” Rupert Chickering hypocritically
protested, when Gene Skelding also appeared, clothed with funds and
renewed confidence. “Loyalty to Old Eli, you know!”

“Rot!” said Skelding. “It isn’t a question of Yale and Old Eli.
Merriwell has organized a team of his individual friends. They represent
nothing but Merriwell’s swelled head. They are trying to make themselves
and every one else believe that they can wipe up the earth with
everything in the polo line. We intend to prick the bubble. We’re going
to show that they won’t dare to meet any team that can play.”

“You’re sure of the New London team?”

“Yes; but it isn’t the regular New London team. It’s a private team,
just as Merriwell’s is; but it holds some crack players. They are
willing to meet Merriwell. If he was at the head of a regular Yale team
he could refuse by saying that he would only meet college teams. But as
it is, he won’t have a leg to stand on if he refuses. We’re going to
make him play or take water.”

That night Hodge met Merriwell in a troubled mood. He was a member of
Frank’s team, and the bets that were being freely offered more than
irritated him, and he did not hesitate to say so.

“You’ll have to meet them, Merry, just to take the wind out of these gas
balloons!” he argued. “They say that you won’t accept the challenge, and
that if you should you would insist on playing the match here. Those New
London fellows demanded that we should go over there because they say
they wouldn’t have a fair show in a New Haven rink.”

“I don’t know that I shall pay any attention to the challenge. Whoever
heard of those fellows before, anyway?”

Dick Starbright talked the matter over with Bert Dashleigh that night in
the seclusion of their room. Dashleigh sat in an easy chair, toying with
his mandolin, which he now and then thumped when the conversation
lagged. There was a rap on the door, and when it was opened Ready came
in.

“Going into the thing?” he queried, squatting on the arm of a chair.

Dashleigh had risen, and now put down his mandolin. Though Ready had
hazed and annoyed him in common with other freshmen, he had great
respect for him.

“Camp down!” Ready requested, then repeated his question.

“Into what thing?” Dick asked, wondering if Ready was setting another
sophomore trap for him and his friend.

“Oh! Then the news hasn’t floated hitherward? I’m to be congratulated.
Thanks! I think I’ll shake hands with myself.”

Which he did, very solemnly.

“Chance for a fortune!” he said, winking owlishly. “Merriwell’s
polo-team, of which you and I are the most important members”—bowing
toward Starbright—“has been challenged by a little upstart-team from
hinky-dinky New London. Now, I’d like to go to New London. Acquainted
with a young lady over there, you know. I should like to wear my
beautiful polo-suit and show her that I am a Pole. Merriwell won’t go.
At least, he says he won’t. Now, we’re getting up a sort of combination
jack-pot. Every Merriwell enemy is walking around the streets of this
great and glorious city with his pockets turned inside out and his hands
bulging with great rolls of green-backs, saying that Merriwell won’t go.
So we’re collecting a fund for the needy, which is going to say that
Merriwell will go, and that his team will knock the tar out of the
boasters at New London. I was sure you’d want to get into the game;
hence trotted my feet hitherward. Subscriptions to this fund unlimited;
repayment guaranteed with one hundred per cent. interest immediately
after the New London match.”

Then, seeing that Starbright hesitated, he continued, as if the
information was all that was needed:

“Bill Higgins heads the subscription-list with fifty dollars, which he
says he already owes for board, but which he is willing to stack up on
Merriwell. Bart Hodge goes Higgins ten better. Browning has roused
himself long enough and sufficiently to stop smoking and draw a check
for a pretty little sum. Yours truly, the undersigned, is into it so
deep that I’ll have to shave myself for the next five years or grow
Pfeffer whiskers if we lose. And there are likewise others and some
more. So, I thought——”

He took out a square of legal cap, on which the signatures of various
students appeared, with figures set opposite their names. This he tossed
to Starbright.

Dashleigh was going down into his pockets.

“Oh, I’m always strapped!” he grunted. “I’m spending my allowance faster
than it comes to me. But if Starbright will lend me twenty-five, I’ll
wager it.”

Starbright passed him the paper.

“Why, you’re bound to lose!”

Ready winked another owlish wink of wisdom.

“Milord, why sayest thou so?”

“Because, as you say yourself, Merriwell has declared that he won’t
accept the challenge.”

Ready rose, reseated himself, wiggled the fingers of his right hand from
the armhole of his vest, and winked again.

“What makes you so confident?” Dick demanded, while Bert was looking
over the list.

“I have been commanded to tell it not in Gath, to publish it not in the
streets of Askelon, yclept New Haven; but in these rooms——”

He arose, walked solemnly about as if peering for a possible
eavesdropper, peeped under the lounge and under some chairs, and came
back.

“Put all you can beg, borrow, or steal on this proposition. It’s a dead
sure thing. The bet isn’t that our team will win the game, but that our
team will play. We’re going to clean out the boasters that have been
tantalizingly shoving their money under our noses—clean them out so
slick that they won’t have enough to take them home for the Christmas
holidays. Why do I know?”

He looked around again, lowered his voice and funneled his hands.

“I know, because Charles Conrad Merriwell has himself bet a little roll
with a New London man that Frank will accept the challenge and will beat
the New London challengers!”

Both Starbright and Dashleigh stared. The thing was unbelievable.

“Are you sure?” Dick asked.

“Sure! The fellow came to the New Haven House to-night, made the offer
in the presence of a dozen men, shook the cold cash under Charles
Merriwell’s nose, and Merriwell, like the true sporting man and
gentleman that he is, promptly covered the money.”

“Oh, say! let me have a hundred, somebody!” Dashleigh begged.

“The New London man was a fool to offer such a wager!”

“I think so myself; and a ‘fool and his money’ are likely to be soon
parted. But the idea is out, somehow, that Frank is afraid to accept the
challenge and will not accept it under any consideration. They say he
values his reputation as a successful leader of athletic-teams more than
he does his father’s money; that five thousand dollars is nothing to
Charles Merriwell, and a defeat of his polo-team, made up as it is of
his close friends, would be everything to Frank. So, the fools are silly
enough to think Frank won’t play, and that they’ve got a cinch.”

“You’re sure, then, that Frank will accept?”

“Why, of course he’ll accept! If I didn’t know him so well I’d think he
was holding off this way on purpose to get big bets out of the
proposition. He will accept the challenge to please his father. Nothing
else would make him do it, probably; but that will.”

“Say! somebody lend me two hundred dollars!” Dashleigh begged. “If I
thought my folks would do it, I’d telegraph them to forward me two or
three months’ allowance in advance. But they wouldn’t. You’re going to
put up money on the game, too?”

“Sure!”

Jack Ready did not go away from the rooms of the chums empty-handed; and
not long after, when all arrangements had been made and other sources
laid under contribution, Bertrand Defarge, Don Pike, Roland Packard,
Gene Skelding, the members of the Chickering set, and many others who
had been flashing their “rolls” under the nose of every friend of Frank
Merriwell, found their offered bets covered, and were bantered to lay
wagers on the game.

It was a night of excitement, for in all the places of resort for
students, and in many other places as well, the challenge of the New
London men and the probable action of Frank Merriwell, together with the
bets that were being offered and made, were almost the sole topics of
conversation.

Dade Morgan went to his rooms smiling and elated. He had worked out the
plan given to him by Dion Santenel.

To his surprise he found Santenel sitting before the grate, awaiting his
coming.

These mysterious appearances and disappearances of the man he obeyed,
loved, and feared were often quite puzzling to Morgan. Time and again he
had walked into his rooms, after carefully unlocking the door, and found
sitting there the strange man of mystery; and often, after leaving the
man there, he returned in a very few moments to find Santenel gone for
an absence of a week or more. Santenel’s abiding-place seemed to be as
changing and unsubstantial as that of the Wandering Jew; and where he
stayed while in New Haven Dade had never yet been able to learn.

“Waiting for your report,” said Santenel. “I heard a few things myself,
but I thought it unwise to appear too publicly.”

“Everything has gone on swimmingly!” was Dade’s jubilant preface.
“Things worked right from the start. I found two men at New London who
played right into my hands. One of them I knew before, and that made the
thing easy for me. He had done dirty work for me before, and he’s all
right. They had been talking of organizing a polo-team out of some
fellows who had been rejected or expelled from the other team, and they
organized it on the spot, and wired their challenge.”

Then he gleefully told of the bets that had been made, dwelling
especially on the bet which Charles Conrad Merriwell had made with one
of Dade’s tools from New London.

“The challenge will be accepted, and the game will be played,” was
Santenel’s satisfied comment. “I’ll see that Charles Conrad Merriwell
stays in New Haven that day and meets me. You must have the game early
in the afternoon—Saturday afternoon. Not a night game! I want plenty of
time to do my work. Have the New London men stand to that.”

He rubbed his fingers joyously, and, sinking into the chair, stared into
the grate with his burning eyes.

“Merriwell will accept the challenge!” he declared, as he rose to go.

He was a true prophet. Frank accepted the New London challenge the next
morning.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                              CHAPTER XIII

                             THE POLO KING.


Saturday morning the Yale forces trooped to New London. The number of
persons who went that morning, or said they were going later in the day,
was really surprising. That such a mob should be drawn to New London to
see a polo-game between Merriwell’s team and an unknown team of New
London was, on the surface, unaccountable; yet Merriwell’s friends
accounted for it by the fact that Merriwell and the men who composed his
five were wonderfully popular, and that a tremendous interest had been
aroused by the sky-rockety character of the betting.

But there was something below the surface that they did not see; the
crafty hand and brain of Dade Morgan, and the mysterious man who was
standing behind him urging him on. Santenel wanted the mob bound for New
London to swallow up every Yale man who was likely to interfere with his
plans concerning Charles Conrad Merriwell. Hence Morgan sent all of his
friends and adherents, and all the enemies of Merriwell he could muster,
knowing that this would cause a counter rally of the friends of
Merriwell and take them to New London, also.

But the elder Merriwell himself was not going. He could not go, he told
Frank, because he had received a telegram from a broker who was handling
Western mining stock for him, and who was coming on from New York that
day for a business interview.

The importance of the occasion seemed to demand music, and Dashleigh’s
mandolin club invaded the New London train, loaded down with cases
containing mandolins, guitars, and various other musical instruments.
The crowd was very jolly and very musical, and bellowed such classics as
“Good-by, Lady!” and “Good-by, My Lover, Good-by!” until many of the
passengers who were not interested in such things, and particularly some
Boston drummers on their way to Providence, who were investigating the
mysteries of a jack-pot at the other end of the car, wished that
mandolins had never been invented, or that musically inclined students
had all been born dumb.

Dashleigh and his fellow musicians were supremely satisfied with
themselves, however, and with the world in general, proving it by
bubbling over with exuberant spirits. Dashleigh and Starbright had taken
the first train, in order that they might get ahead of the crowd and
secure good hotel accommodations. When New London was reached, and,
finding there a great crowd assembled, Starbright put his bulky weight
in the advance, with Dashleigh and the mandolin club trailing after him,
and plowed a wide furrow through the crowd and escaped to a hotel in
time to get the desired rooms and accommodations.

“There’s only one thing that can save my mandolin,” said Bert, when he
and Dick were ensconced in comfort and security. “You’ll have to lend me
another tenner. And, then, it may not save it.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, I haven’t money enough to liquidate for this gorgeousness.”

Starbright frowned.

“Been betting some more?”

“Well, you see, I couldn’t help it. And I’ve about bet the mandolin.”

“How was that?”

“Well, you see, Rol Packard shook a fiver under my nose, and I told him
I hadn’t any more money, but would put my mandolin against it.”

Starbright sighed.

“Dashleigh, you’ll bet the coat off your back next!”

“There are others! And I’ll be all right as soon as I get the money I’ve
already won.”

Indeed, there were “others” of Merriwell’s friends who were as wild in
their betting as Bert Dashleigh.

The game was to be called at half-past two o’clock. Before that hour the
polo-rink was crowded with men and boys, Yale students and pretty girls,
who were interestedly watching a preliminary match-game between two New
London teams of amateurs.

Dashleigh’s mandolin club was there, in seats at one end of the big
rectangular “surface,” thumping away in the intervals of play.

The blue colors of Yale were everywhere conspicuous, as if to refute the
assertions of Merriwell’s enemies that Frank’s team was not an
accredited Yale institution. More blue would not have been displayed if
a regular Yale college five was about to meet a five from another great
university. The crowd grew denser and denser, as the watches showed the
approach of the hour.

By and by the amateurs concluded their playing, and the New London team,
which was a New London team in name only, came upon the “surface” for a
warming-up before meeting Merriwell’s men.

While they were engaged in this, Frank and his five entered the room,
their entrance immediately attracting attention. They came in, clothed
in their roller-polo costume, with roller-skates on their feet.

Then more than half the crowd seemed to rise up; and, led by Bill
Higgins, who swung his big sombrero and yelled like an Indian at a
horse-race, they gave Merriwell and his men a rousing cheer. Dade Morgan
whitened with rage.

“Hear the fools!” he inwardly snarled. “When will they ever get done
worshiping Merriwell?”

The difference between the two teams was marked. Two of the opposing
team looked like New York toughs, which they were, and the captain was a
truculent-looking fellow, with eyes set close together.

When the New London team gave way for Merriwell’s, and Frank led his men
on the floor for practise, the difference between the teams was so
noticeable that Higgins again started a cheer which seemed to rock the
building.

“I thould like to get that fellowth wope awound hith neck and choke
him!” Lew Veazie disgustedly lisped to his chums of the Chickering set,
as he listened to the cowboy’s bellowing. “It maketh me thick!”

“You’ll be sicker before the game is over!” said Beckwith, the big guard
of the Yale football-team, who chanced to overhear him. “It makes me
ashamed to know that you fellows are Yale men.”

“But Merriwell’s isn’t a Yale team!” snarled Skelding.

“Oh, it isn’t? Well, the best men in Yale think so. Listen to that
yelling, if you don’t believe it! Look at those blue ribbons, if you
don’t believe it! Merriwell is the king of Yale, and you know it, you
miserable puppies!”

“If he wathn’t tho big I’d thump him!” Veazie gasped, when Beckwith had
pushed on. “Why, the audathious villain!”

Merriwell’s team finished its practise. Silence reigned; even
Dashleigh’s mandolin club ceasing its efforts when the hour arrived for
the match-game on which so much was staked.

The referee came upon the floor, or “surface,” with the ball, and the
teams grouped in front of the goal-cages. This was the line-up of the
teams:


             YALE.          POSITION.       NEW LONDON.
            Merriwell       Rush            Crowder.
            Starbright      Rush            Gates.
            Ready           Center          Mehan.
            Hodge           Half-back       Weathers.
            Browning        Goal            Bascom.


The referee placed the rubber-covered polo-ball on the spot in the
middle of the floor. The members of the teams, who had been standing in
front of their respective goal-cages, straightened up and leaned
strainingly forward, ready to dash for the ball when the whistle
sounded.

The referee stepped to one side of the surface when he had placed the
ball, and put his whistle to his lips. Crowder, who was captain and
rush—he of the narrow eyes and truculent face—was in motion before the
sharp blast cut the air, but the referee did not send him back, and the
whistle blew almost immediately. Then Frank went down the floor like a
shot, and from under Crowder’s outstretched stick uncovered the spot and
sent the ball bang against the planking at the back of the New London
cage.

Bill Higgins opened up again with the roar of a buffalo, and the Yale
men yelled.

Weathers, the New London half-back, got the ball and sent it flying
toward the middle of the surface, where Ready blocked its passage with
his feet and shot it again toward the New London goal. Bascom was in
front of it, however, and kicked it away with a savage snarl, as if he
were kicking at an enemy’s head. He was big and fat, with an enormous
face and an unwholesome form.

Then Weathers struck the ball; but it was stopped by Hodge, and there
was a furious mix-up near the center of the floor, from out of the midst
of which the ball was shot by Starbright.

Mehan now took a hand and skipped the ball toward the Yale end; and
Gates, getting in ahead of Starbright and Merriwell, shot it for the
Yale goal.

Big Bruce Browning was there, however, with legs and stick ready for
duty, and he blocked the play, driving the ball to one side.

Gates, who was a fast skater, got behind it with his stick and again
sent it toward Bruce. It missed the goal, however, going behind it; and
a struggle for its possession ensued between Crowder and Starbright,
Crowder roughly trying to shoulder Dick out of the way; but in the
attempt he was hurled against the planking, and the ball, dragged by
Starbright’s stick away from the wall and from behind the goal, was
caromed by him to Ready, who ran with it down the floor and shot it
toward the New London end of the surface.

Here another fight ensued for its possession, the ball being batted and
banged about, stopped by clubs and feet and sticks, until it was flirted
out of the mêlée by Bart Hodge and again flew toward the New London
goal.

Bascom was in place. He kicked it out of the way, and, lunging for
another kick, uncovered the ball, and Merriwell shot the ball into the
cage.

The first goal of the play had been made.

The teams now changed goals; and, while this was being done and they
were getting in readiness for the next play, Dashleigh’s mandolin club
began to “discourse sweet music,” which was drowned, however by the
yells of the Yale men, led by Bill Higgins.

The yelling and the music ceased as the referee advanced again toward
the middle of the floor with the ball. The contesting teams crouched in
readiness while he put the ball on the spot. Then, before walking aside,
the referee made his announcement:

“First goal, Yale; made by Merriwell. Time, two minutes and twenty
seconds.”

He put the whistle to his lips, having walked aside while concluding the
announcement, and Crowder started. The referee waved him back; then
sounded his whistle, and the rushers darted out.

Again Merriwell got the ball and sent it flying down the floor. It was
stopped by Mehan, the New London center; but Ready took it away from him
and sent it again toward the New London goal, where it was stopped by
the fat goal-end, who knocked it back with his stick. Then Hodge
succeeded in getting the ball and started down the floor with it,
driving past Mehan and Weathers. But Gates, who had skated round in a
half-circle, stopped the ball with his stick before it reached the
goal-end.

Bang! Weathers drove it straight and hard to the Yale end of the floor
and against the planking, Starbright and Merriwell drove it from the
vicinity of the Yale goal, Merriwell running it down to Starbright and
the latter passing it around Crowder by a handsome carom against the
wall and on to Hodge, who again tried to drive a goal.

But in doing so he slipped and came down with a thump on the floor. One
of his skates had broken. The referee’s whistle blew and time was given
for Bart to put on other skates.

Dade Morgan, who had secured a good seat in one of the side galleries,
which enabled him to look down on the surface and observe every movement
of the players, found it difficult to keep the smile on his face. He
fiercely wanted the New London men to win—not because of the bets which
had been made, but because he fancied the loss of the game would
humiliate Merriwell and Starbright.

He was watching Mehan and Bascom, who, with others, were walking about
the floor near their goal with their skates skewed to the sides of their
feet, in this interval of play. Bascom and Mehan were the men from New
York who had been hired by him to knock out Dick Starbright, by breaking
his arm, or otherwise seriously injuring him before the end of the game.

Dade was thinking, too, as he looked at them, of what he fancied was
transpiring in New Haven at that time, and rejoicing in the probably
successful result of the efforts of Dion Santenel to snare Charles
Conrad Merriwell.

“I’m afraid that Merriwell’s men are the better players,” he was forced
to confess to himself. “But only one goal has been made, and there are
plenty of chances. Anyway, if one of those fellows knocks out Starbright
satisfactorily I shall be satisfied, whichever way the game goes.”

Again the game was on, the skaters flying here and there after the
elusive sphere, swooping down on it from all quarters, as it skipped
back and forth under the constant strokes of the sticks.

It was clearly to be seen that Merriwell’s men were the more scientific
players. They did not hammer at the ball constantly, as if trying to
smash it into dust, as the New Londoners did, but made team plays,
gliding the ball from man to man around opposition players, caroming it
against the walls and skilfully shooting it for goal.

The playing of the New London men was of the slugger type, as befitted
their appearance. Bascom, their goal-tend, was savage and fierce as a
chained wolf, hopping about in front of the cage, kicking at the ball,
striking at it, and frantically warding it off when it was shot at the
cage. Now and then he lifted his club and glared at the Yale men as they
swooped on him, as if he desired to hammer their heads. More than once
Mehan caught a Yale player round the shoulders and pushed him about, yet
the referee did not announce a foul.

Mehan tried this once too often, jamming with terrific force into Dick
Starbright, who was skating in the opposite direction. The result was
disastrous to the New London man, who was hurled from his feet by the
force of the impact, being literally lifted by Starbright’s greater
weight and strength. He fell with a crash, striking his head on the
floor, and lay for a moment stunned.

The referee blew his whistle; and, as if to cover up the confusion,
Dashleigh’s band began to play.

“I’ll git even with ye for that!” Mehan growled viciously, as he crawled
to his feet.

Then it was found that in the fall he had broken his skate, and a wait
was occasioned.

“Look out for that fellow, Dick!” Frank warned. “He has been acting ugly
toward you ever since the game began. Once, when he struck at the ball
in the air, as if his stick were a baseball bat, and missed it, I
thought he really struck at you. I believe now he did!”

“Oh, I saw the rascal!” Dick smiled. “I’ve been watching him ever since.
But I don’t fancy he will care to run into me again, as he did just
then.”

The fierceness of the New London men seemed to increase when the play
began again, and within two minutes they had caged the ball, catching
Browning off his guard and shooting the sphere between his legs.

Then how the friends of Dade Morgan cheered, in spite of the fact that
the goal had been won from Yale!

“They’re fools!” Morgan snarled to himself. “I warned them against
making such a show of themselves; but lots of fellows haven’t any more
tact than to exhibit themselves in that way.”

Yet he was so pleased that the smile came to his face without any effort
on his part.

Dashleigh’s band was again twanging away, but its strains could not
soothe the heart of Morgan, who, in that moment of temporary victory,
felt that he hated Merriwell and Starbright more than he had ever hated
them.

When the playing recommenced it was fast and furious, and within less
than a minute Starbright made a goal. Then Crowder drove a goal for New
London, the score was again tied, and the referee’s whistle blew,
announcing the end of the first period of the match.

When the referee’s whistle blew again and the game recommenced,
Merriwell reached the ball first and sent it flying for goal. Bascom
stopped it with his padded shins, kicked it away, and a fight for its
possession took place near the middle of the floor.

Then Starbright secured it and drove it again toward the New London
goal; but Weathers, the half-back, blocked it with his feet, and it shot
to one side of the hall, with four or five men diving after it. Ready
was there, and drove it into the New London goal, but it bounded out;
and another struggle for its possession ensued, right in front of the
cage, yet far enough away to prevent the calling of a foul. Hodge now
got the ball and shot it into the cage, and it stayed there.

There was a transference of goals, and the game was renewed. Again
Merriwell drove the ball for the cage; but Bascom, the goal-tend,
stopped it with his foot. Weathers skipped it back to the middle of the
floor, where there was a struggle for it, and such hot work that the
spectators were brought up standing with a yell.

The New London men secured the ball and fought their way toward the Yale
end. But Browning was there, and, though they made a desperate effort to
put the ball in the cage, he prevented it.

Starbright drew the ball out of the mix-up, but lost it; and, to keep it
from being caged, Ready shot it behind the goal. It caromed against the
wall, flying to Merriwell’s side, and before Crowder could get to him,
Merriwell shot it for a goal.

It went across the room like a streak of light. Bascom jumped to prevent
it from going into the cage, but missed it; and another goal was added
to the score of Merriwell’s side.

Again goals were changed, but before another score was made by either
team the referee’s whistle blew, announcing the end of the second period
of the game. The work had been so hot and fierce that neither spectators
nor players had realized the quick passage of time, and the sound of the
whistle came as a surprise.

Bascom, the fat goal-tend of the New London team, who had worked with
such savage energy, was dripping with perspiration, and all of the men
were more or less blown.

Whizz—plunk! The game was on again, and Merriwell had again driven the
ball into the New London cage. Morgan’s face looked black. He had
forgotten to smile. He saw that Merriwell’s men were playing now, and
that the New London sluggers, though they were fierce fighters, were
really no match for the Yale five.

The goals were changed, and the battle raged anew. Crowder was furious.
At the sound of the whistle he tried to take the ball off the spot ahead
of Merriwell, a thing he had not yet been able to do. But Frank took the
ball, as before, and shot it past him, bang against the netting of the
cage. It bounded out, was caught up by Weathers’ stick, and danced to
the middle of the floor. Then Mehan sent it along, and there was another
tussle near the Yale goal.

In the struggle that ensued, Mehan struck savagely at Dick Starbright’s
head. Dick saw the blow coming and dodged, and the stick, swinging over
and banging against the floor, was broken short off.

The ball had been in the air at the time, and Mehan, profusely
apologizing, declared that the blow had not been aimed at Dick, but at
the ball; and, after another stick had been given to him, the game was
renewed.

“See here!” Dick hissed, when he was skating by the fellow, “if that
happens again, I’ll know it’s no accident, and I’ll thump you as soon as
the game is over. See?”

Mehan whitened, but made no answer.

The New London men, appearing now to realize that if they were not to be
defeated badly they must make a fierce fight, began another effort to
cage the ball on the Yale side. But Merriwell’s men pushed the ball away
from the neighborhood of their goal out into the center of the floor. It
came back, however, and Bruce time and again stopped it, in a way to win
admiration from the spectators.

“They can’t get it past him!” Bill Higgins bellowed, hopping up and down
in his excitement and waving his big sombrero, while his great spurs
tinkled and jingled.

Two more skates were broken, and stops were made. Then Bruce, trying to
stop a ball, pitched forward headlong on the floor, and Crowder, who was
striking at the ball, deflected his stick and struck Bruce heavily over
the head.

“It was an accident,” was the verdict of the referee.

Bruce’s head was bandaged, and, though he felt so dizzy from the effect
of the blow that he could hardly stand, he remained at his post.

Then Ready drove another goal, and Bill Higgins whooped.

“Them New London fellers’ll never git another!” he yelled.

But they did. The New London men rallied, and in less than two minutes
made two goals, setting their sympathizers wild with excitement.

“I ought to have prevented that,” Bruce apologized. “If I do that again,
Merry, take me off the team.”

But Frank knew that New London would not have made those goals if Bruce
had been in his usual condition, and he kindly told the big fellow so.
The pain seemed somehow to go out of Bruce’s head after that, so that,
when the next time the ball came skipping toward him, he blocked it
promptly with his padded shins, and sent it flying back to the other end
of the room with his stick. Again the battle was forced out into the
middle of the rink.

Two goals were made, one by Starbright and the other by Merriwell. The
New London men, growing more and more furious, tried again and again to
cage the ball; but Bruce Browning was seemingly himself again, and each
time cleverly blocked it and kept the Yale cage empty.

“Beat ’em out of sight!” Higgins yelled from his seat in the balcony;
and Merriwell seemed suddenly to resolve to do this, and show the
spectators what real polo-playing looked like. He was angered, too, by
the dastardly blow which had been given Bruce and by the attempt against
Starbright.

There were not many minutes more of play, but in that time Merriwell
proved his worthiness of the title of Polo King. Again and again the New
London men came charging down the room with a clanking roar, for a
struggle for the ball, but Merriwell’s men, seeming to be imbued with
the resolution which had come to Frank, met them firmly, took the ball
from them easily, and, shooting it from man to man in beautiful team
play, caged it again and again. Ready caged a goal, being followed by
Bart Hodge, and he by Dick Starbright. Each time, when these goals were
made, it was Merriwell who sent the ball to the one who made the goal,
sending it at just the right time and in just the right way to enable
the player to do the work.

Then Merriwell himself took a hand at the work of goal-making, and caged
the ball twice in less than two minutes of play.

The New London men found that they simply were not in it, though they
tried to pull themselves together and prevent this furious goal-making
on the part of the Yale team. Bascom hopped up and down and to and fro
in front of the cage, like the proverbial chicken on the proverbial pan
of live coals. He lunged, kicked, flounced, and writhed; but he could
not prevent the goals, for they seemed to shoot from Merry’s stick past
his lunging feet, over them, under them, and between them.

Everybody in the big barnlike building was standing up in mad
excitement, as the game thus drew toward its close, and Bill Higgins was
whooping as if he meant to take off the roof.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                              CHAPTER XIV

                       THE BLOW OF THE HYPNOTIST.


While the polo-teams were battling at New London, Dion Santenel was not
idle. Charles Conrad Merriwell, sitting up-stairs in his pleasant front
room at the New Haven House, looking over a paper, heard a knock on the
door, and a colored boy came in bearing a card.

“Fisher Stokes, stock-broker and mining-agent, Denver, Colorado,” was
what Mr. Merriwell read on the card.

“Been waiting for you,” said Merriwell, smiling pleasantly, when
“Stokes” was shown into the room.

“Detained by a little business down-town,” the man explained suavely,
giving the apartment a comprehensive, sweeping glance out of the corners
of his dark eyes before sinking into the chair which Merriwell politely
placed for him.

The furnishing was substantial and old-fashioned. In the center of the
room was a round-topped table covered with a heavy slab of marble.
Between the two windows which looked out on Chapel Street and the green
was a long pier-glass. A green velvet carpet covered the floor, and the
room was furnished with an abundance of comfortable chairs and a sofa.
An alcove bedroom opened off from this main room, its doorway
half-concealed by curtains. In addition to this there was a bathroom.
The apartments were the best and most expensive in the house, and the
house the best that New Haven afforded.

As Fisher Stokes took all this in, he came to the quick conclusion that
the white-haired man who had been waiting for him, seated at the round
marble-topped center-table, was comfortably situated, to say the least.

“As I had to come on to New York, I wired you that I would call here
this afternoon to see you about the shares in the Anaconda group in the
Cripple Creek district,” he continued, beginning to open a case which
the colored boy had brought into the room. He looked now with his keen,
dark eyes at Merriwell pretty much as he had looked at the room and its
furnishings.

“I knew you were Merriwell as soon as I saw you. I think I should have
known you, even if I had met you by chance in the street, though we have
never met before. You see, I had a man in my office who once worked for
you in Arizona in a minor capacity. When he found out that I was
handling stocks for you, he became so interested that he gave me a
complete description of your personal appearance and told so many things
concerning you that I have felt for months as if we were personally
acquainted. Some of this business might have been conducted by mail and
wire, but I thought, as I was so near in New York, that it was a duty I
owed to myself and you to run up and see you.”

There was nothing in the man’s appearance to indicate to Merriwell that
he was Brandon Drood, alias Dion Santenel, his old and bitter enemy,
from whose power he had escaped so short a time before, through the aid
of Frank. “Fisher Stokes,” who was evidently past middle age, was almost
Frenchy in appearance, with well-waxed mustache and imperial that hid
the lines of his thin lips and cold, cruel mouth. His thin, straight
form was encased in a dark-gray business suit. A diamond blazed on the
middle finger of his left hand and another shone in his scarp-pin. The
fiery gleam of the eyes had been subdued and almost banished; and, as he
talked, Merriwell noticed that his voice was soft and well modulated. It
held nothing of the real accents of Brandon Drood, nor of the droning
tones of the pretended Hindu. In all things “Fisher Stokes” seemed to be
what he professed to be, a prosperous, alert, rather self-important
mining-broker of the West. And, as Mr. Merriwell had never seen the real
Fisher Stokes, who was handling Western mining-shares for him, he was
the more easily deceived.

“What was the name of the man?” Merriwell asked, at once interested in
Drood’s statement; for, like many men who have made themselves immensely
wealthy by a lucky turn of fortune, Merriwell was sometimes garrulously
fond of recalling and dilating on the past and on the days of his
hardships and misfortune.

“Byron Macomber.”

“Ah, yes!”

Mr. Merriwell’s face lighted.

“Macomber was one of my most trusted clerks while I was in Arizona. So
he is with you now? I am afraid that I failed to reward him properly for
his services to me. Tell him so, please, and that at any time if he
needs aid I shall be glad to extend it.”

Santenel had taken the papers from the leathern case and placed them on
the table.

Then the fiery gleam came into Santenel’s eyes—those terrible,
fascinating, serpentlike eyes—and they glowed and burned, contracting
and expanding their pupils, as they eagerly studied the face of Charles
Conrad Merriwell.

“So soon!” Santenel mentally croaked. “So soon I have him in my power!
And I feared it might be the work of hours. Yes, he is already under my
influence and does not know it. I have him again. Ah! Charles Conrad
Merriwell! You, who hounded me over the earth until at length I turned
at bay, determined to crush you instead of permitting you to crush me, I
have you again in my power, and you shall not escape!”

The reflective light began to fade out of the eyes of Mr. Merriwell, to
be replaced by a look of vacancy. Then he made a struggle to arouse
himself, but the struggle was weak and ineffective. Santenel’s
mysterious power was already over him, holding his will in subjection.

And Frank, who had saved him before, was far off in New London, battling
with the New London polo-team!

In a little while Santenel began to talk in a low, soothing monotone,
still stabbing Merriwell’s face and eyes with his terrible eyes.

“In those days I was not known as Dion Santenel,” he droned, as if
seeking to strengthen a memory that he sought to stir in the mind of the
man he was subjugating. “Then I was called Brandon Drood. You struck me,
you know—struck me like a dog, for cheating you at cards, and I planned
a revenge, a sweet revenge. I discovered, as I lay on my bed where your
blow had placed me, that I was able to hypnotize you—made the first
discovery of the fact that I have that mysterious power over other men.
I used it. I made you imprison yourself in that tunnel in the Ragged
Queen Mine, where I supposed you would die. But you found a way out. You
regained possession of what I thought a used-out mine, which you named
the Lost Man, and from which you dug a fortune. Then, with that wealth
at your back, you began to hound me, pursuing me everywhere, dragging me
down when I climbed to affluence and striking at me without mercy. But
now my time has come! The worm has turned. I have studied and plotted
and planned for this hour. For this hour I have made myself all
men—coming and going with the silence of night and like the changing
characters on the theater boards. All for this hour! What have I not
suffered, endured? For this hour! For this hour!”

The dilating and contracting pupils seemed miniature furnaces with their
shooting flames, and the words lulled Merriwell as the crooning lullaby
of a mother lulls to sleep the babe.

“You are in my power, and you will do as I wish!” Santenel said at
length, ceasing that low droning.

He arose and locked the door, turning the key in the lock and hanging a
cloth over it to keep out any penetrating gaze, though the position of
the door made it most unlikely that any one could see where Merriwell
sat, bolt upright now in the chair.

Coming back, Santenel made a pass with his hands over Merriwell’s face,
commanded him to rouse up, and Merriwell sat up yawning as if he had
been aroused from a nap. He looked at Santenel with vacant curiosity.

“Now as to that business,” said Santenel, spreading out some blank paper
on the marble-topped table and producing pen and ink.

“Oh, yes,” said Merriwell. “Let me see, I forgot what it was?”

“This is the last day of your life, you know! When the sun rises
to-morrow, Charles Conrad Merriwell will have ceased to exist. Aye!
before the sun goes down in the west to-night—goes down where the Ragged
Queen was and the Lost Man Mine now is—you will be gone from this
world!”

“Yes, yes!” Merriwell assented, without a note of fear or regret in his
voice. “That was what brought you here? I had forgotten, but that was
it.”

“But before you go I want you to write a statement, which will show the
world why you go and what is to become of some of your property—a great
deal of your property.”

“Yes, yes!” Merriwell again assented.

Santenel produced a book of bank-checks which he had previously filled
in. There were many of them, all for large amounts, and bearing various
dates, some as much as six months before.

“You are not so wealthy as the world thinks you, when your debts are
paid! My commissions for kiting the Blue Bird mining-stock for you were
one hundred thousand dollars. It was no fault of mine that the Blue Bird
was a worthless hole in the ground. You knew that, and I was only
pushing your ventures. You lost, but you gave me two notes of fifty
thousand each for my commission.”

He pushed out two notes, which Merriwell merely stared at.

“Then I took up and developed the Golden Nugget, at a cost to you of one
hundred and fifty thousand dollars, every cent of which I paid out of my
own pocket, though for business reasons we permitted the world to think
you advanced the money yourself. The Golden Nugget had no golden nuggets
in it, and you lost; but, of course, I must have my money, and you gave
me two more notes for that, each of seventy-five thousand dollars.”

He pushed them over, properly filled out, bearing interest, and a date
of five months previous.

“Then there was that big deal in Rocky Mountain coal land, and all those
other deals which you so readily remember. The whole of it amounts to
eight hundred thousand dollars, and I should make it two millions if I
wasn’t afraid of the courts. Sometimes a man’s desire to suddenly enrich
himself bumps him up against the courts, and he loses all that he hoped
to gain and more, too. Your son Frank is a fighter!”

These last remarks seemed to be directed to himself and not to
Merriwell, and Merriwell appeared not to hear them.

Santenel slowly pushed the prepared notes across the table and reached
out the pen to Merriwell, the latter taking it without hesitation.

“You will sign these notes; after which you will prepare a written
statement of the reasons which led you to take a sudden departure from
this earthly sphere!”

Merriwell drew the notes to him, not noticing that they were drawn
payable to another name than that of “Fisher Stokes,” and, dipping the
pen in the ink-well, he proceeded to append his name.

Santenel dried the ink of the signatures with a blotter and placed the
notes in a little heap on the marble table. Then he shoved a sheet of
paper to Merriwell and commanded him to write.

“This is what you are to say,” commanded Santenel, and Charles Conrad
Merriwell set his pen to the paper:

    “TO MY SON FRANK.

    “DEAR FRANK: The only regret I have is in leaving you, for I
    know that you love me and that you will be shocked and grieved
    at my death, the death of a suicide. But life has become
    unbearable to me. I can stand it no longer. I have studiously
    concealed this from you, though I fear sometimes that you have
    read it in my face. I am in good mental health; but I have
    ceased to have any desire to live. You have sometimes noticed
    idiosyncrasies in me. The attempt to hide from you my real
    feelings and my heart-sickness of the world will go far toward
    explaining them. I hope that my body will not be cast up by the
    waves, and that if it should be, it may lie unburied, though
    this last I know you will not permit. Pay all my debts. I have
    some notes outstanding, among others some heavy ones occasioned
    by wildcat mining speculation. These I must ask you to meet. The
    rest of my fortune is yours. So good-by; don’t think too hard of
    me, and do not grieve, for I am not worthy of it.

              “Your unfortunate father,

                   “CHARLES CONRAD MERRIWELL.”

This was properly dated.

“We will leave that here on the table—or, rather, you will; and then you
will do what I tell you. Just a plunge, and it will all be over. Any man
might crave so easy an exit from the world!”

He was again fixing his terrible eyes on the now almost vacant face of
Frank’s father, thinking at the same time of the steps he must now take
to carry out his plan to its conclusion and secure his own safety.

“You will do all that I tell you?”

“Yes,” Merriwell answered. “Everything!”

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                               CHAPTER XV

                          INZA TO THE RESCUE.


Spat—whiz—plunk! The game was still on at New London, and Frank
Merriwell drove and caged a ball.

The referee’s whistle blew, denoting the close of the last period of the
game; and he followed this with the announcement of the scores:

“Goals made by Yale, fifteen; by New London, four.”

Dade Morgan was gnawing his smiling lips, in his seat in the balcony.

“Curse the fellows, they have failed me!” he was thinking.

Then he saw Bascom jostle heavily against Dick Starbright! saw a sudden
altercation, and beheld Bascom’s polo-stick flash through the air. When
it fell, Dick Starbright fell with it.

The crowd was rising and streaming out of the building. Bascom dived to
the nearest netting, which he cut away with furious slashes of a knife,
leaped through the opening thus made, pushed aside the men who were
there, and sprang for a small door, the position of which he had
previously ascertained. Before the extent of Starbright’s injury could
be known or a pursuit organized Bascom was gone.

Frank Merriwell was the first to reach Starbright. He lifted Dick and
saw that the polo-stick had struck his head. There was a small gash and
some blood. But Frank saw almost immediately that, though the blow had
knocked Starbright senseless, its effects were not likely to be of a
serious character.

A doctor came out of the crowd, and an excited group soon gathered in
the “surface.”

Bart Hodge and others were trying to discover what had become of Bascom.
The other members of the New London polo-team pushed into the crowd and
expressed their sympathy, and were free in their declarations that
Bascom must have acted in a fit of anger on the impulse of the moment
and without any malice.

Dick Starbright did not long remain unconscious. The blow had been aimed
well enough, but Dick’s upthrust arm had deflected it and it had fallen
glancingly, producing only temporary concussion.

“Oh, he’s all right!”

The doctor said it, and the doctor laughed encouragingly. A boy pushed
toward Frank with a telegram. Frank tore open the envelope and read:

    “Man here with your father. I think D. S. Come quick. Will meet
    you at wreck with automobile.

                                                             “INZA.”

Inza Burrage had sent it from New Haven.

Frank, after a cheering word to Dick Starbright, jumped out of the room,
hurrying toward the street without changing his clothing. As a short
cut, he took the little door through which Bascom had fled. He was about
to emerge into the light from a small and unused side entrance, when he
heard a rustling and became aware that a man who had been about to leave
the place ahead of him had drawn back and was now apparently in hiding.

“Bascom!” was Frank’s thought.

Before the man knew that his presence had been observed, Frank was on
him, pouncing down like an eagle.

It was indeed Bascom, who had succeeded in hiding in the building, and
who, fancying that the coast was now somewhat clear, had decided to
venture forth and try to get out of the town before a more thorough
search might reveal his place of hiding.

Frank clutched him by the throat, bore him backward to the floor,
calling for assistance. Before it came, however, he had found a rope and
tied Bascom up ready to turn him over to the authorities.

Then he relinquished him to Hodge, who had come with others in answer to
his call. After a few words with this most faithful friend, Frank
hurried away for the railway-station and telegraph-office.

There he learned that a freight had been wrecked on its way from New
Haven, and that the track would not be open for some time.

Then he fully understood Inza’s message. It would be impossible for him
to get through to New Haven by rail, because of this wreck; and she
would be at the place where the wreck occurred, with the automobile,
ready to take him on into New Haven at the highest speed of the auto, as
soon as he reached her.

“Brave and quick-witted as ever!” was his thought. “I wonder what she
has learned of Dion Santenel now? I thought the rascal would abandon his
attempts and be afraid to return to New Haven. But I will get there, and
I will thwart him in his scheme, whatever it is.”

Frank might not have been so confident if he had known just what
Santenel was doing, and how he was succeeding.

“When will there be a train through to New Haven?” he asked of the
agent.

“All trains abandoned,” was the answer.

“What about a wrecking-train?”

“It won’t take passengers, and it will go no farther than the wreck.”

Frank did not ask anything more, except the distance the wreck had
occurred from New Haven. He heard two men talking, and from their
conversation learned that the wrecking-train would be along in ten or
fifteen minutes, from some city down the road, and that the chances were
it would go through New London without making a stop.

Frank’s mind was at once made up. He would try to get on that
wrecking-train, even if he had to make a flying leap for it at great
risk from the New London platform. Then he sent a message to Inza.

“Ten minutes to spare, anyway!” he reflected. “I’ll make a change in my
clothes.”

Hurrying back to the polo-rink for this purpose, he thought over the
message from Inza. There was a possibility that she might have been
deceived as to the identity of the man who was with his father, but
Frank knew that her eyes were keen. The chances were that she was not
deceived. In that case, there could be no doubt that the elder Merriwell
was in serious peril.

The thought that he might be too late made Frank wish for a special
train for the scene of the wreck; but that could not be had in New
London. Nor was anything to be gained by trying to hire a special
engine. He decided that if he missed the wrecking-train he would try to
get a special engine by wire.

When he returned to the station, having been stopped on the way by
crowds of enthusiastic men who insisted on shaking hands with him over
the great fight he and his men had made in the polo-game, he sent a
telegram to Selton Dirk, the little New Haven detective whom he had more
than once employed, asking Dirk to call on his father at the New Haven
House and do what in his judgment he thought proper.

“Dirk is quick and he’ll catch on,” was Frank’s thought, as he gave this
message to the operator and asked him to hurry it through. The message
went through; but Frank did not know until later that Dirk was out of
the city and that it could not reach him.

The whistle of the engine of the special wrecking-train was heard at
this moment. Its character told him that the train was not to stop.

Frank remained close against the wall of the station until the engine
whirled in sight, then walked toward it.

                  *       *       *       *       *

Five miles out from New Haven, at the scene of the wreck, Inza Burrage
sat in Frank Merriwell’s automobile, with smiling confidence. She had
received his message, which said he would reach that point on the first
train through, and she believed he would do so, even though the men who
were plowing round the wreck with spades and picks told her that the big
wrecking-train, whose coming they anxiously awaited, would not stop at
New London, and that her friend could not possibly come through on that.

When the train came and stopped at the wreck Inza found her faith in
Merriwell justified. He was in the caboose of the wrecking-train; and,
leaping down the clay embankment, he extended his hands to her, climbing
at once into the automobile.

“I knew you’d be waiting for me!” he said, starting the machine.

“And I knew that you would come, even though the men at the wreck told
me you couldn’t. You always do the things that other men can’t do, or
are too timid to do, and I knew it would be so this time.”

“It was very simple,” Frank answered. “There were some empty flat cars
on the New London siding. I climbed upon these, took a good run along
them as if I was going at a hurdle when the wrecking-train came along,
and jumped from them to a flat car of the train. It was a lively jump,
but I made it. The conductor didn’t want me there, and said I oughtn’t
to be there, and some other things, but he was in too big a hurry to
stop and put me off, as I knew he would be, and I came right through at
a double quick, without further trouble.”

He gave the lever a touch and sent the automobile forward at its highest
speed.

“Father?” he questioned simply.

“I’m sure that Santenel is with him! I shouldn’t have thought anything
about it, if you hadn’t told me that awful story of the Hindu. I saw
this man, and some way I was sure he was the Hindu, for you’ll recollect
that I saw the Hindu at the charity fair. Well, I followed him along
Chapel Street, saw him enter the New Haven House, and heard him ask to
have his card taken up to Charles Conrad Merriwell! Perhaps I was a bit
bold in following him into the New Haven House, but I thought it a thing
I ought to do, and there was no time to get any one else to do it.

“Before venturing to send you the telegram I hired a boy on the street
to go again to the New Haven House and ask the proprietor if Mr.
Merriwell could be seen, and he came back and said that Mr. Merriwell
was busily engaged and was to be seen by no one. Then I sent you the
telegram, and as soon as I got your answer I started for this point with
your automobile.”

For a time there was nothing heard but the br-r-r-r-r of the automobile,
as it took the straight road before it like a racer under Frank’s
manipulation. He had an inner feeling that Inza’s keen eyes had seen and
perceived the truth, and that his father was in the greatest peril of
his life.

                  *       *       *       *       *

The feeling that makes a cat love to toy with a mouse which is helpless
in its power and half-unconscious filled the soul of Dion Santenel.

“If Frank Merriwell should learn that I am here he could not reach me,
unless he has the wings of a bird!” the villain chuckled, as he looked
at Charles Conrad Merriwell. “If he should telegraph Selton Dirk, Dirk
is in New York City, sent there on a mission by one of my trusted
agents. If any ordinary policeman should attempt to touch me, I should
simply laugh at him and make the fellow go away feeling worse than a
sneak for having suspected me. Everything has worked to my hand. Frank
is away, and can’t even dream of the plot that sent him away, and I am
free to work my will!”

Then he began again to talk to the elder Merriwell, speaking in the
droning way he sometimes delighted to affect, again playing with the
helpless man like the cat with the mouse. By and by he took up the
statement which Merriwell had prepared at his dictation, smilingly read
it, and placed it on the table in a conspicuous manner, with a
paper-weight to hold it down.

After that, he looked through the notes bearing the signature of Charles
Conrad Merriwell, ascertained that they were all right in every way on
their surface, and tucked them away in an inner pocket in a leather
wallet.

“Come! It’s time to go!” he said, speaking to Merriwell.

Merriwell aroused.

“Yes?”

“You will take the electric car at this corner for the boat landings.
There you will hire a boat or steal one, row out a half-mile from shore,
and throw yourself overboard and sink. This letter on the table will
explain to the world why. This is my command. You will do it. You obeyed
me in the mine and fired the blast that shut you in; you must obey me as
implicitly in this. I will it, and my will is now your law. Go!”

His face had assumed a wolfish look, and his eyes were again shooting
out their red gleams.

“Yes!”

Merriwell made the promise and rose to his feet to carry it out, as
completely subjected to the will of the man before him as if he were an
automaton.

“But I will go first,” said Santenel, speaking to Charles Merriwell.
“Ten minutes after I am gone you will leave this house and carry out my
instructions. Good-by!”

“Victory is mine!” chuckled Santenel, as he turned to leave the room.

At that moment there was a whirr of wheels and the br-r-r-r of an
automobile in the street, which stopped in front of the house. A second
later and a knock sounded on the door.

Santenel muttered a malediction, but walked to the door and opened it.

The colored boy stood there, and with him Frank Merriwell.

Before Santenel could recover from his surprise and mentally resume his
pretended character of “Fisher Stokes,” the broker, Frank crowded
through the doorway and stood before him.

“You scoundrel!” Frank hissed, and with a swoop of his hand he tore away
the false mustache and imperial.

With a cry of defeat and fear Santenel leaped at Frank, and was stricken
to the floor, where he lay in a senseless heap.

Frank Merriwell had come in time!

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                              CHAPTER XVI

                         THE FALL OF SANTENEL.


With difficulty Frank Merriwell held himself in check. He was in a
towering rage, and the impulse was strong in him to hurl himself on the
prostrate form of Dion Santenel. He felt an awful thirst for the life of
the wretch who lay on the floor before him, sent there by a mighty blow
of his fist. Twice before had such a feeling come to him—once when he
struggled with Sport Harris on the rotten bridge in England, and again
when he overthrew Santenel in Louisville and held his life, as it were,
in the hollow of his hand.

“You miserable whelp!” he panted, looking with loathing and contempt
into the face of the man who had sought his father’s ruin and death.

He cast a quick glance at his father, who had dropped down, crouching,
into the chair by the marble-topped center-table.

Though Santenel had now entirely recovered consciousness, he lay
cowering on the floor, in deadly fear of the young athlete whose wrath
he had felt. The fierce fire had gone out of his shining black eyes, to
be replaced by a gleam that was full of subdued and cowardly hate.

Then he recollected that he had come to the room, not in the person of
Dion Santenel, or Brandon Drood, or even of Hector King, but as “Fisher
Stokes,” the mining speculator and stock-broker of Denver.

“You are making a mistake!” he cried quickly. “I don’t know why you
knocked me down as you did. I’d have you know, sir, that I am Fisher
Stokes, of Denver, stock-broker and mining speculator. And I shall have
you arrested for this insult and for your unwarranted blow!”

“Bah!” Frank sneered. “Put these on, will you?”

He snatched up the false mustache and imperial which he had torn from
the man’s face but a few moments before, and flung them at him.

Santenel sank back, pale and trembling. He saw that further lies and
threats would not serve him. The fire died out of his eyes, to be
replaced by a look of pleading. He glanced toward the door.

Frank turned to the colored boy, who stood dumb with amazement, and sent
him with a hasty message to Inza, who was waiting below. The boy
vanished, diving for the elevator with comical speed.

Santenel rose to his feet and looked longingly at one of the closed
windows.

“You can’t go out by the door,” said Frank, “and if you pitch yourself
out of that window it will be pretty sure to save the hangman an
unpleasant job.”

Santenel groped weakly to a chair.

“You are making a great mistake,” he quiveringly urged. “On my honor,
Mr. Merriwell, you are making a dreadful mistake!”

“Release him from that spell!” Frank ordered, in so commanding a tone
that Santenel fairly leaped in his chair.

“Yes, yes!” the hypnotist replied, though he wanted to deny that the
elder Merriwell was under any spell. But he did not dare to do this;
and, with a word and a few passes of his long, thin hands, he removed
the strange influence under which Charles Conrad Merriwell had been
laboring.

The change produced was remarkable. The face resumed its accustomed
appearance and the eyes held their natural light, except that Mr.
Merriwell seemed to be stupefied by what he beheld. He recognized Frank,
but it was clear that he did not recognize the man who was retreating
from him and who soon again crouched uncomfortably in the chair.

“It’s all right, father. This is our mutual friend, Santenel.”

Frank said this with an unnatural and bitter laugh.

“Our mutual friend has struck again, and again he has failed!”

The elder Merriwell could hardly credit the words. He recalled the
entrance into the room of “Fisher Stokes,” the pretended stock-broker.
The man who crouched and whined in the chair wore the same clothing, yet
the mustache and imperial and the jaunty business air were gone. What
had occurred after the man’s entrance and their talk of a few moments
Charles Merriwell could not remember. The interval was now a blank to
him.

Yet, with eyes enlightened by Frank’s words, he perceived that this was
really “Fisher Stokes,” minus the mustache and imperial, which he now
saw on the floor; and Frank had assured him that the man was his bitter
and deadly enemy, Dion Santenel.

Charles Merriwell’s brain whirled when he tried to comprehend this
transition and the peril he had been in. A sense of terror filled him,
giving to his face, under its crown of white hair, a pitiful look.

“It must be as you say!” he managed to articulate.

Santenel was racking his clever brain for something that would stand him
in stead now, and trying at the same time to still the trembling of his
limbs and subdue the fear that filled him.

“I am Santenel,” he gaspingly confessed. “But there is a great mistake.”

He saw the “confession” which he had forced Charles Merriwell to write,
lying, as he had meant to leave it, on the marble-topped table. He put
out his hand, hoping he might be able to secure it unobserved.

Frank Merriwell saw the movement, and, advancing to the table, secured
the writing, his face darkening as he read it over, for it revealed in
all its details Santenel’s cruel plan against his father. Nevertheless,
Frank put it quietly in his pocket. He had regained control of himself.

Santenel sat with fear-filled face and blue lips, staring at him.

“What do you intend to do with me?” he asked, seeing that further
efforts at evasion and concealment were useless.

There was a rap on the door, followed instantly by entering footsteps.

“This!” said Frank.

Two officers had come in, sent by Inza in response to the request
conveyed to her by the colored boy. Santenel rose, after another
hesitating glance at the closed windows. Then his coolness returned to
him. He advanced toward the officers.

“I am informed that you have been sent for to place me under arrest. I
demand to know with what I am charged, for I have committed no crime.
You have no right to seize me without a proper warrant, merely on
complaint of this person!”

The smaller officer smiled and produced a paper.

“We have a warrant,” he said. “It was sworn out by a young lady, Miss
Inza Burrage, who charges that you cut the balloon-rope on the day of
the Yale-Carlisle football-game, with the intention of causing her death
and the death of Charles Conrad Merriwell, who was in the balloon with
her. You will see, therefore, that we can do nothing but go ahead, and
we place you under arrest.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                              CHAPTER XVII

                       FORCING HIS ENEMY’S HAND.


Frank Merriwell took his way thoughtfully toward the rooms of Dade
Morgan, whither Dade had gone but a moment before. Dion Santenel lay in
prison, having been committed to jail that afternoon.

When Frank rapped on the door of Morgan’s room, the freshman calmly
invited him to come in. He was sitting on his trunk, with various
articles scattered about in confusion. Appearances indicated that he had
contemplated a hasty flight from New Haven.

“Not going to leave us?” Frank asked, dropping into the chair to which
Morgan pointed.

“No! What made you think so?”

“This array, or, rather, disarray.”

“Merely getting some things together for the laundry.”

He smiled in his pleasant way and really was so cool that Frank could
not help admiring him.

“I think I’ll close the door,” said Frank, stepping over and shutting
it. “I came up for a little talk.”

Dade did not get off the trunk.

“It is a bit cool in here. I ought to have done that myself. You’ll
pardon me.”

“Perhaps you can guess what I want to say?”

“I suppose it’s something about that polo-game. I’m free to admit that I
wanted the other fellows to beat, Merriwell, chiefly because I don’t
like certain members of your team. I hope the fact that I bet on the
other team doesn’t stick in your crop?”

“No; I didn’t intend to talk of the polo-game. As for that rascally
goal-tend who struck Dick Starbright on the head and laid him out, the
law will take care of him. Of course, you had nothing to do with that?”

Dade flushed.

“It’s an insult to insinuate such a thing, Merriwell!”

“I beg your pardon, then, if I am wrong. I have no means of knowing; but
I’m fully aware of the fact that you don’t like Starbright—and you would
do such a thing!”

Dade lowered his eyelids and turned over a pair of golf-stockings which
lay on the trunk-lid beside him. He feared what was coming and shrank
from it.

“I didn’t come up here for polite talk, Morgan,” Frank went
remorselessly on. “We’re alone here?”

“Quite alone.”

He had thrown down the stockings and now turned squarely toward Frank.

“You know that Hector King is in prison!”

Dade paled and perceptibly weakened.

“I don’t know the man. I heard that you had sent somebody to jail this
afternoon, but I thought it was another name.”

“We want to be quite plain, Morgan. A man was jailed here to-day. He is
your friend, Hector King, alias Dion Santenel, alias a dozen other
things probably. What you and he have plotted against me and my father I
don’t know; but I know of some things—enough to send him ‘up,’ I am
sure. As I said, I will be quite frank with you. It is my way. I can’t
prove it, but I am sure that all that skyrockety betting, on money which
I believe you furnished, was done to get me and my polo-team out of New
Haven to-day. I can’t prove it, and may not be able to prove it, unless
Santenel makes a confession that you did that to give him opportunity to
work his plans against my father.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Dade protested.

“I can’t prove those things, but I think I have collected enough
evidence of various kinds against you to convince the faculty that you
are not a proper person to be a student in Yale. Perhaps I can’t put you
in jail, but I can send you headlong out of college.”

Dade whitened still more.

“And that is what you intend to do?” he demanded, almost fiercely.

“I don’t know. I have as yet reached no conclusion. But I am here now to
ask you to tell me why you have struck at me? I see that there is a
connection between you and Hector King, alias Santenel. When you entered
Yale, at the beginning of this year, you had not, so far as I know, ever
seen me before. At once you became my bitterest enemy. These things are
not done without reason. You had some powerful reason.”

“I——”

Merriwell cut short the protest.

“You told me once, you will remember, that you were my enemy. I did not
ask why, at the time. I can see why enmity might grow up between you and
such a man as Starbright—might grow up, I say. Yours against me did not
grow up; it was full grown at the start, and without apparent reason. As
to whether or not I use the proofs against you which I have, and force
your expulsion from Yale, depends in a great measure on your answer to
my question: Why are you my enemy?”

Dade Morgan sat still, but waited a moment before replying.

“If I tell you, Merriwell, you will not believe me!”

“If you tell me the truth, I will believe you. When I hear your story I
shall know whether it is the truth or not. You won’t be able to deceive
me in the matter.”

“Why, you have a multitude of enemies in Yale!” Dade evaded.

“But not one who was my enemy before he knew me or saw me; not one who
came to the college and was my deadly enemy with no seeming cause
whatever. It has not been jealousy on your part, for there can be no
real ground for jealousy between a senior and a freshman. Most of my
enemies dislike me merely because of jealousy. It hasn’t been so with
you.”

Again Morgan began to evade and shuffle. Frank took his watch from his
pocket and consulted it.

“I’ve a good many things to attend to this evening. I have asked my
question. Suit yourself about answering it. I will not say that any
answer you can give will keep me from putting my proofs in the hands of
the faculty. Perhaps it will. I haven’t yet made up my mind.”

“There isn’t much to tell, but if I tell you all, will you keep mum?”

“I haven’t any promises to make. I hoped that you would be able to say
something in defense of yourself which would incline me to let the
matter drop. Your sins have been largely against me, Morgan. In other
respects you have been a capable, even an admirable college man. You
have, I’m told, made good progress in your classes. You have, for a
freshman, won wonderful distinction in the field of athletics. You have
gathered round you many friends—not of a class I admire—yet a numerous
following. You are recognized as a freshman leader. This shows that you
have uncommon abilities. If you should use your undoubted abilities in a
proper way, a great future may lie before you. It might be a great wrong
for me to set anything in your pathway. I have asked you a question. You
may be able to show that you are not so black as appearances indicate!”

Morgan saw that “confession and avoidance,” as the lawyers phrase it,
was the only safe course left open to him.

“Well, it isn’t much, Merriwell,” he said, assuming a show of frankness.

“Whatever it is?” Frank invited.

“I did come to Yale as your enemy—your enemy before I ever saw you! That
sounds strange and even mysterious, but you’ll see that there is no
mystery about it; for the man you have put in prison is my uncle!”

Frank showed his surprise.

“I thought you were in his pay!” he admitted.

“Not in his pay. If I disliked and even hated you, he taught me to. He
taught me, schooled me to hate you and your father—your father far worse
than you. For, as perhaps you know, your father pursued my uncle nearly
over the world, trying to ruin him or kill him. When he made a fortune
in New York, speculating, your father took it from him by
counter-speculations which were aimed solely at him. He lost the Ragged
Queen Mine, and your father has taken an immense fortune out of it. But
for your father he would to-day be a wealthy man, and I, as his only
heir, would be the heir to a splendid fortune. As it is, he has but a
beggarly pittance. He has been forced to save and scrimp in many ways to
get money. He borrowed the money with which he sent me here to Yale, and
I am now living on money which he furnishes me. He has been able at
times to get hold of and make use of considerable sums, but mostly by
borrowing. If the truth were known and payment forced, he would to-day
be a pauper.”

Frank could see that Dade was telling the truth in the main. He believed
that the story contained exaggerations, and some concealments, but he
saw that its thread was true.

“That makes a good many things plain that were quite dark to me before,”
Frank admitted.

Dade was quick to catch at the hope thus held out.

“If our positions had been reversed, Merriwell, I think you would have
been as bitter against me as I have been against you. It isn’t pleasant
to feel that money and fortune which rightfully are mine are in the
possession of some one else.”

“That will do, Morgan. I haven’t said that I accept your story without
reservation, and you will not be able to win me to your way of thinking
by slandering my father. I know the history of that case much better
than you do.”

“No offense intended,” Morgan urged. “I have given you the story as it
was told to me. It explains why Mr. Santenel is so bitter against you,
and why I have done the things that you complain of. But I have never
struck at you criminally.”

Dade’s face was firm as he made the claim, even though it was under
Frank’s searching glance.

“You look as if you don’t believe that, Merriwell; but it is true, every
word of it. I have tried to injure you, I will admit, but in legitimate
ways.”

“Are there any legitimate ways of injuring a man?”

“Well, you understand what I mean! I tried to organize Yale sentiment
against you. You were flying pretty high when I came here, and I thought
to take you down.”

The smile had come back to his face, and with it an air of almost
defiant courage.

“And failed!” said Frank.

“Well, yes; I suppose I shall have to admit that I didn’t accomplish
just the things I intended.”

“Perhaps you think that the things you attempted against me were
allowable; but the faculty will not think so, if I go before them with
the proofs.”

Dade wavered again.

“I hope you won’t do that.”

“It will depend on you somewhat. I understand the situation now, even
though I don’t accept everything you have said as absolute truth. I will
say quite frankly that the villain back of you is a greater villain than
you are. He has reached the end of his rope. Perhaps his fall will serve
as a lesson.”

“You’re too hard on me!” Morgan insisted. “I have failed in my efforts
against you. Santenel has even charged me with being your friend and
playing into your hands. Well, there are things about you, Merriwell,
that I like, that any one must like! I’m willing to call it a truce, if
you say so?”

Merriwell arose to go.

“As I said at the first, I haven’t much time to spare. If you understand
your own interest, there will be a truce on your part. As for myself, I
have never done anything to injure you. What I may do hereafter will
depend on you.”

Dade Morgan scowled at the door after Merriwell’s departure.

“It’s a good thing that he’s squeamish. If he had the disposition of
some men, he would kick me out of Yale without a word.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                             CHAPTER XVIII

                        DASHLEIGH IS LATE AGAIN.


The snow came again, covering the levels and the hills and the icy
expanses of the lakes. The morning after its fall, Bert Dashleigh
appeared in the campus on skies, and was promptly challenged by numerous
freshmen friends for various races.

“Hello, old ski-zicks!” said Ready, coming on the scene. “I’ll race you
on those things. No, I don’t mean just that, for you’ll want to wear
those. I mean I’ll race you on another pair.”

“You’ll wear the other pair?”

“Yes. I’ll wear a pair and you’ll wear a pair, and we’ll race. The
instructor told me yesterday that my exuberant English needed pruning.
He seemed to think that was what I came to Yale for. And that’s strange,
for I thought I came here to study football.”

He was examining the skies as he talked.

“I thought you came here to torment freshmen!” Bert mildly ventured.

“Well, yes, come to think of it, soph life would hardly be worth living
if it wasn’t for you freshies. But I’ll take pity on you and overlook
the wide difference in our stations and condescend to race with you on
skies this afternoon, or this morning, or any other old time. I’ve a
pair in my room. The fellow who took them up there thought they needed
pruning by the time he got them through the doorway, and stacked them up
against the wall.”

There are few more attractive winter sports than a run into the country
on Norwegian skies, especially if the snow is in good condition for the
sport, and there are hills for swift descent.

Ready and Dashleigh made a ski-ing trip that afternoon which yielded
sport, pleasure, and healthful exercise.

“I thought likely you had something up your sleeve when you challenged
me this morning,” Dashleigh chattered, as they were on their homeward
way. “I thought if you were with me, though, it would be hard for you to
duplicate any such trick as you sophs played on Starbright the other
day. Say, that was too bad, billing him as the ‘Giant of the Wheel,’
when he made his bicycle trip to Guilford!”

“A freshman has no right to presume to criticize a sophomore,” said
Ready.

But Ready was not like most of the sophomores. He was so different from
the other members of his class that, in spite of the fact that he was an
inveterate practical joker, so far as the freshmen were concerned, the
harassed freshmen liked him surprisingly well. In their eyes he stood
among the sophomores pretty much as Frank Merriwell stood among the
seniors, though the two were as unlike as is imaginable.

There was only one incident on the trip that seemed worthy of an
afterthought, and it was after-events that caused it to be remembered.
Not far from the suburbs, as they were ski-ing slowly in, being somewhat
tired, a slightly built young man, with a handsome face and dark eyes,
approached them and asked about the ice-hockey game which was to be
played on Lake Whitney soon.

“Oh, that’s the match Merriwell is getting up!” said Ready.

Then he gave the desired information, and the fellows on skies continued
on their way.

“Had a great time!” Bert declared, when he invaded the rooms and found
there his chum, Starbright. “Ought to have been along. Ready is a
corker!”

“No freshman tricks, then?”

“Not a trick!”

He threw himself down on the lounge.

“I’m to wind up the day by attending that ‘feed’ to-night at Mrs.
Whitlock’s on Whitney Avenue. I wish you’d received an invitation, for
we could go together.”

“You mean I’d go first, and an hour later you would come tagging along
behind.”

“Now, see here! Don’t throw that at me any more. I know I’m slow, but
the fault hasn’t always been mine. When I was late at Thurlow’s, it was
the fault of my watch. The confounded idiot who overhauled it for me
ruined it.”

“And that other time at Mrs. Throckmorton’s?”

Bert picked up his guitar and began to strum it. Finally he put it down.

“Confound you! Why do you look at me that way? If reasons were as plenty
as blackberries, I wouldn’t give you a single one. I know I’ve been late
a good many times, but it will not happen this evening.”

Dashleigh was fast earning for himself the reputation of being the
champion procrastinator of Yale; not because he desired to be slow, but
through laziness and his inability to tear himself away from the
particular enjoyment in hand. For this reason, whenever he began to
strum and sing, which was often, he was likely to forget there were such
things as lessons and classes. When talking to a group on the campus, he
was slow to tear himself away, if the subject of the conversation was
interesting. If he made a call which he enjoyed, he was almost sure to
prolong it beyond endurance. Yet he was withal so light-hearted and
jolly, so genuinely unselfish, and so pleasant a companion, that he was
universally liked.

“I’ll be on time this evening,” he said; then he put away the guitar and
dived into some books, suddenly remembering that there was a great
quantity of unlearned lore which it behooved him to stow in his brain
without delay if he did not want to be dropped or get an awfully low
rating.

Then he proceeded to forget all about the “feed” at Mrs. Whitlock’s, and
did not remember it again until nearly eight o’clock that evening. It is
probable he would not have recalled it then but for a remark made by
Jeffreys.

Jeffreys was a freshman, who, with other freshmen, had dropped into
Bert’s rooms for a jolly hour or so that evening, after Dick Starbright
had gone out. Jeffreys was “a jolly dog,” and so likewise was each of
his companions, and Bert was having such a good time that the minutes
and the hours slipped by almost unnoticed.

“They’ll have a bang-up time at Whitlock’s!” Jeffreys casually remarked.

Dashleigh fairly jumped out of his chair.

“Gee!”

“Who stuck a pin into you?” Jeffreys asked.

“Why, I’m billed for that entertainment to-night—myself and the
mandolin!”

“Well, if that’s so, old man, you’d better get a move on!” Jeffreys
assured.

But Bert was not listening to him. He had thrown aside the instrument
and was dragging out a dress suit.

“If you will excuse me!” he panted. “Forgot all about that affair. By
Jove! what will they think of me? And I told Starbright I’d be on hand
to-night on time or break something. Well, there, I’ve kept my word; for
I’ve broken that button!”

Then Bert began to “pitch himself into his clothes” in a hurried manner,
talking all the time and bemoaning the fate that made him so forgetful.
When he was dressed in what he considered a proper manner, he had his
friends “look him over” to see that he was all there; bade them a hasty
good night, and, with mandolin-case in hand, went out of the room like a
shot.

Finding no carriage in waiting on Chapel Street, or the neighborhood, he
hurried on and was soon in a car. Suddenly it occurred to him that he
was somewhat hazy as to the street-number. He thought he had written it
down and had put it in his pocket, and began to search for it, until he
remembered that he had just made a change of clothing.

“It was surely 113,” he reflected. “Yes, that was it.”

So he alighted from the car in the neighborhood of what he supposed was
the right number, and, after a search, approached a house which he had
figured out must be 113. To his amazement, it was wrapped in darkness.
Not a light gleamed in it. To make sure that the house was 113, he
entered the yard, and, climbing up the steps, struck a match and looked
at the number. It was 113.

“Could it have been 131?” he asked himself, and set out hastily for that
number.

Having reached it, he stood on the street and listened. There were
lights in the house, but no sounds of merriment, such as he fancied
befitted such a gathering as he expected to find.

“I’ll bet my next month’s allowance this isn’t the place!” he groaned;
then climbed the steps and timidly pulled the bell.

After a little wait the door was opened by a servant, and in answer to
his inquiry he was told that Mr. Remy lived there, not Mrs. Whitlock.

“No, I can’t tell you where the Whitlocks live,” was the answer to his
next question. “Perhaps they can tell you at the store on the corner.”

Dashleigh began to feel desperately uncomfortable. Nevertheless, he
sprinted with his mandolin across to the store on the corner.

“Which Whitlock?” asked the proprietor, somewhat gruffly.

“Whitlock, of Whitney Avenue.”

“Well, there are a lot of Whitlocks on Whitney Avenue.”

Seeing a New Haven directory, Bert pulled it down and began feverishly
to consult its pages. He stood aghast. There surely were a “lot” of
Whitlocks on Whitney Avenue. He tried to recall the first name of his
hostess.

“Marcus, Marcellene, what in the deuce was it? Seems to me it began with
an M!”

But there were no Whitlocks on the avenue whose first names began with
M. He looked for 113, 131, 213, and 231, and everything else he could
find with the combinations of the figures 1 and 3. When he had done this
he consulted his watch. The time was eight-thirty, and the dinner was to
be given at eight.

“I’m up against it!” he groaned, while the perspiration began to pour
out on his face. “Mrs. Whitlock told me personally that she wanted me to
be there, and it doesn’t help the matter to think that she wanted the
mandolin worse than she did me. They depended on me chiefly for their
music, and here am I and the mandolin lost in the deserts of New Haven,
with not an oasis in sight.”

Then he attacked the directory again, emerging from its pages more
confused than ever. He even began to think that perhaps Mrs. Marcellene
Whitlock did not live on Whitney, but on some other thorough-fare, which
he had somehow got inexplicably mixed with that of the well-known
avenue.

“I’ll begin to think soon that perhaps the name wasn’t Whitlock, and
that mine isn’t Dashleigh!”

He slammed down the directory and hurried into the street.

Fortunately, he found a cab there.

“Take me to all the Whitlocks on Whitney Avenue,” he begged. “And be
quick about it.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                              CHAPTER XIX

                          WHAT DASHLEIGH SAW.


The cab-driver stared.

“Well, it’s this way, you see,” Bert tarried to explain. “I’m overdue at
some Mrs. Whitlock’s—Mrs. Marcellene Whitlock’s, I think—for dinner this
evening. Big feed and all that, you understand. I was to have been there
at eight sharp, and it’s now hurrying along toward nine. I don’t know
where they live—forgot the number—and can’t find it in the directory.
The best way, I suppose, is to take them in turn and chase the right one
down in that way. Slow process, but I don’t know anything better.”

The driver grinned.

“P’r’aps ’twasn’t Whitlock!” he ventured. “I heard that there was to be
a big dinner at Mrs. Warlock’s, on Whitney Avenue, this evening.”

“Warlock? Well, that may be the name. Hanged if I know! Drive me to Mrs.
Warlock’s, as fast as you can.”

He tumbled himself and his mandolin into the vehicle, and the driver
springing to the box, they were soon rattling away.

There was a “party” at Mrs. Warlock’s; Bert could not doubt that, for
when he jumped out in front of the house he heard the unmistakable
sounds of merriment and music.

“Wait a minute!” he asked of the driver, and darted up the steps.

In answer to his rather nervous ring, a white-aproned servant appeared.

“Yes, we have a party here to-night,” was the answer to his question.

Bert felt so much better that he was about to pass into the house, when
the driver called to him:

“Forgot something, didn’t you?”

Bert reddened again; and, dropping his mandolin on the steps, rushed
down to the street and paid for the use of the cab. Then he tore up the
steps again, and, hurrying past the wondering servant, left his coat and
hat and mandolin in the hall, and, without further questions, strode
into what he took to be the dining-room.

He stopped on the threshold in amazement. Some couples were on the floor
dancing. But they were all strangers to him. Not a face there had he
ever seen before. The hostess came forward with a gracious smile.

“I guess I have made a mistake,” Bert stammered. “I am due at a
dinner-party at Mrs. Whitlock’s.”

“This is Mrs. Warlock’s.”

“Yes, yes, I know; but I—I——”

He was retreating, covered with confusion.

“I beg your pardon!” he managed to stammer, then dived for the outer
air, picking up his hat, coat, and mandolin as he ran.

The cab was a third of a block away, but it stopped in answer to the
bellowing hail which he gave as he jumped down the steps, and turned
round and drove back.

“Wasn’t the place!” said Bert, in some confusion, as he met the cab.
“We’ll have to make another try. It was a Whitney—no, I mean a Whitlock
where the party is that I am trying to reach. That was Warlock’s.”

“I told you it was Warlock’s.”

“I know you did. Take me to a Whitney Avenue of Whitlocks, I mean to a
Whitlock’s of Whitney Avenue.”

He looked at his watch again and saw that the hour was nearly nine.

“Heavens! I won’t dare to tell Dick of this!” he thought, as he again
stowed himself in the cab.

The driver took Bert to the first Whitlock’s of that avenue, and it was
not the place.

“Go right ahead,” Bert commanded, as he descended from his fruitless
search. “We’ve got to find that old number, if it’s in New Haven. I’m
going to swear off on accepting invitations for myself and the mandolin
after this.”

The cab tore away again, finally stopping in front of a house which Bert
felt sure could not be the place.

“Yes, it must be,” he thought, “for there goes Amos Belton, of the
juniors.”

A dark-complexioned man, who looked young and springy as he mounted the
steps, had drawn Bert’s attention.

“Just wait a minute till I know that I’m right,” Bert begged of the
driver, for he had learned caution. “I’ll be down in a minute, whether
it’s right or wrong!”

Then he made a dash for the house that he hoped was Mrs. Marcellene
Whitlock’s.

The young man whom he took to be Amos Belton disappeared in the
building; and Bert, following closely after him, gave the bell a tug.

It was evidently out of repair, for no ring could be heard. Time was too
precious to wait long in uncertainty, and when no one appeared in answer
to his rap, he pushed open the door and looked in.

He saw a light in a room at the farther end of a long hall; and,
thinking to gain information, if nothing else, Bert put down his
mandolin and advanced toward the illumination. As he walked along the
carpeted hall, his feet making little noise, he reached a point which
enabled him to see a large part of the interior of the room.

He stopped in bewildered surprise. In the room was one whom at first
sight he took to be Inza Burrage. In a bewildering way there came to him
a memory of some talk he had heard that Amos Belton, the junior, was
madly in love with Miss Burrage. Then it occurred to him that this must
be Mrs. Whitlock’s, and that Inza was one of the guests. Perhaps
Merriwell was there?

He was about to advance and speak, when the person whom he took to be
Inza turned round from the mirror, and he had a good look at the face.
It was surprisingly like Inza’s, so much so that at first he was sure it
was Inza; but he saw a moment later that, while the face looked so much
like that of Miss Burrage, there was a distinct difference. It was as if
some girl had tried to “make up” to look like Inza.

Then his bewilderment increased, for it came to him that the face on
which he was looking was that of the young man who had inquired of him
and Ready in the suburbs that afternoon when the hockey-match was to be
held.

“It can’t be, though!” Bert gasped, beginning to feel that he must be
dreaming. “Perhaps this is the fellow’s sister. Yes, that must be it.”

He had unintentionally made a noise, whereupon the girl—if it was a
girl—turned, saw him in the hall, and, immediately drawing back,
disappeared.

A moment later he heard voices; then all was still.

“I guess I’ve lost my head completely this evening!” thought the
astounded freshman. “Anyway, this isn’t Mrs. Whitlock’s; and, as no one
has hurried to give me the glad hand, I’ll get out as quickly as I can.”

His watch told him that it was after nine when he again reached the
street, where he found the cabman patiently awaiting his return.

“Wrong place again?” questioned cabbie.

“Yes. Make another try!”

Again the cab containing Bert and his mandolin rattled away.

“I’ll be arrested soon as a lunatic or dangerous person!” he groaned.
“Makes me want to go home and manufacture some lie that will let me out
of the thing easily. I might say that I had a touch of fever or
something. Well, I’m in a pretty pickle! And who in thunder could that
have been? That couldn’t have been Inza, and it couldn’t have been the
fellow that Ready and I saw this afternoon. I shall have to tell Ready
about that.”

Two other houses which the driver said were occupied by Whitlocks were
visited. At the last of these unhappy Bert secured a clue.

“Perhaps you are looking for the people who moved into 141,” suggested
the lady of the house. “I think that’s the name—Whitlock, and as I came
by there this evening I heard sounds which indicated that they were
having some kind of a party.”

“Just moved in?” Bert gasped. “Then that’s it. That’s the reason I
couldn’t find the name in the directory.”

Then he made another dive for the cab, asking himself why folks who had
just moved into a new neighborhood didn’t say so on their cards, or in
some other manner notify people.

“No. 141,” he said to the jehu. “We’ll try that; and, if we don’t dig up
the right place this time, we’ll give it up as a bad job.”

But it was the right place; and, although he was “desperately late,” as
he admitted, he was graciously received. After he had feasted as well as
could be expected at that late hour, he found that there was still an
hour or more in which he and his mandolin would be very welcome.

When Bert reached his room that night he found Dick Starbright just
turning in, and he hastily told his chum his story, for he had decided
that he must ask him what he thought of the counterpart of Inza Burrage
he had beheld in that house on Whitney Avenue.

“I knew you’d be late,” said Starbright. “You always are.”

“But I wouldn’t have been if I hadn’t forgotten the number,” Bert
insisted. “But I don’t want a sermon; I want to know what you think
about that young woman who looked so much like Inza Burrage that at
first I could have sworn it was she?”

Dick sat down and deliberately looked his chum over.

“You haven’t been drinking?”

“Honor bright, not a thing, except a glass of wine at Mrs. Whitlock’s.
But I hadn’t even smelled the wine when I saw that girl.”

“I shouldn’t think anything about it if it hadn’t been for Amos Belton,”
declared the big freshman. “His presence there makes the thing a mystery
to me, though, of course, there is no mystery in it. Perhaps he called
on some young lady there who remarkably resembles Inza Burrage. You say
yourself it was not Inza Burrage, but only looked like her.”

“That doesn’t explain anything.”

“No, perhaps not. But, as you know, it’s been reported that he is wildly
in love with Inza. She doesn’t care anything for him, of course, for
she’s crazy about Merriwell.”

“Lucky dog, too!” nodded Bert.

“Yes, that’s what I think myself. Well, now, does it strike you as
possible that Belton, being unable to get any encouragement from Inza,
may have turned to this girl, who looks so much like her? Seems to me
there may be your explanation.”

“But what made them disappear so strangely when she discovered me?”

“You scared her, probably,” grinned Dick. “Perhaps she took you for a
burglar. I’ve an idea that you looked rather wild-eyed about that time.
You were excited, and, no doubt, your face showed it. Seeing a man
standing in the hall, which she supposed unoccupied, she was naturally
frightened. Any girl would have been.”

“But what became of Belton?”

“Well, now, ask me something easy. How do I know?”

Dashleigh sat down in a chair. He was not satisfied.

“I heard the other day that Belton is soon to quit Yale,” Dick
volunteered.

“That doesn’t explain anything!”

“Who said it did? I merely made the remark. He has fallen so low in his
exams that he can go no farther. Seems to me that was what I heard.
Either that or money matters forces him out of Yale. But probably it
isn’t money matters, for he could find something to do to keep himself
up.”

“Yes, if he was willing to work like a horse and live like a hermit.
That’s about the only way for a fellow to go through Yale, or any other
college, without money.”

“And wasn’t it Horace Greeley who said that if a man is to succeed in
anything he must live like a hermit and work like a horse? Anyway, he
said something like that.”

“Belton is from the South, isn’t he?” Dashleigh asked. “Scarcely
probable he’d work like a horse to get through college.”

“From Washington, I think. Do you know, that fellow looks almost like a
negro to me. I don’t wonder that Inza Burrage has never given him any
encouragement.”

“I believe you’re getting struck in that direction yourself,” Dashleigh
laughed.

Starbright flushed and looked uncomfortable.

“You’re off! But there aren’t many nicer girls than Inza.”

When Dashleigh fell asleep, his dreams placed him in a cab, in which,
throughout the remainder of the night, he pursued Mrs. Whitlock, of
Whitney Avenue, with the relentlessness of a detective, suddenly to find
her standing before him in the person of his instructor in mathematics,
who naively assured him that what he had really been searching for was
the elusive.

“Get up!” came in the voice of Dick Starbright. “You’re flouncing there
like a fish.”

“Is it morning?” Bert asked, suddenly rousing.

“Yes, and a beautiful day. A better one for that hockey-match this
afternoon couldn’t have been made to order!”

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                               CHAPTER XX

                       FRANK MERRIWELL’S DILEMMA.


When Starbright and Dashleigh appeared on the campus they were greeted
with a sensation. Dion Santenel was no longer a prisoner. He had escaped
from the jail the previous evening.

Merriwell, Browning, and Hodge were talking about it over by the senior
fence; and though the mass of the students had no knowledge that Dade
Morgan was in any way connected with the man who had been placed in jail
by Merriwell, the escape of the prisoner was being discussed by little
knots of Yale men gathered here and there.

“Will it interfere with the hockey-match this afternoon?” Bert asked.

“I don’t see why it should,” was the answer of the student of whom Bert
had inquired.

“On account of Merriwell.”

“Oh, yes; I forgot that you’re one of the fellows who think the sun
can’t rise of mornings unless Frank Merriwell pries it up with a lever.
That hockey-match can be played without Merriwell!”

“You’re joining the Chickering set!” said Bert.

“Oh, no! Only I happen not to be insane over Merriwell!”

There were others who asked themselves and their acquaintances that
question, but all conjecture was set at rest by an announcement from
Frank that the game would be played.

When Frank returned to his room he found Dade Morgan awaiting him in the
corridor.

“I thought I’d like to have a few words with you,” said Morgan.

Frank showed him into his apartments.

“I didn’t know how you might feel?” Morgan queried.

“I don’t know that I understand you?”

“About the hockey-match.”

“It is to be played this afternoon on Lake Whitney. The ice is being
cleared of the snow now for the game.”

“Yes, I knew that. But I wanted to know if you’d be willing for me to
play. I’m down as one of the opposition players, you know, and after
what has happened I didn’t know how you might feel. I’d like to play in
that match, but——”

Morgan’s manner was subdued and almost penitent.

“I have had no thought of objecting to your playing in that match,
Morgan. I’ve been wondering, though, how much you know about that escape
of Santenel.”

“No more than you do,” Morgan declared. “I was afraid you might think I
had a hand in that, though you’ll see that I couldn’t.”

“Some one got a file to him, and he cut through the bars,” said Frank,
watching Dade closely. “He escaped early last evening. No one seems to
know how he secured the file, and some of the prison officials affect to
believe that he had it concealed about him when he was put in jail. Any
way, he is out. If he’ll steer clear of New Haven and let me and my
father alone hereafter, I shall not care much. You don’t know anything
about it?”

“Not a thing.”

“You’ve asked me about the hockey-match. I’ll say this: It won’t be
healthy for you to attempt any underhanded work in that game. I shall
discover it if you do.”

Morgan began a protest.

“Ever since I’ve known that you and Santenel were connected, I’ve been
in a dilemma,” Frank went on. “You understand what I mean.”

“I’ve cut loose from all that, Merriwell. I don’t expect you to believe
me until you’ve had the proof. But I’ve cut loose from work of the kind
you complain against.”

“If you had any hand in helping Santenel to escape, I shall discover it
by and by. I’m talking plain to you, Morgan. It’s not my style to beat
around the bush in a matter like this. You have tried your best to
injure me here at Yale. I haven’t forgotten it, and I’m not likely to. I
have, as I told you, proofs enough to force you out of Yale. Perhaps I
shall use them. If I find that you had a hand in that escape, I shall
certainly use them.”

“Just give me time to show you that I’m all right,” Dade begged. “I’m
going to play fair hereafter. By that I don’t mean that I’ve any notion
of joining your flock.”

“No one joins that who isn’t invited.”

Dade flushed.

“What I meant was that I can’t expect to become your warm friend and
supporter right off. I shall retain the privilege of kicking against
things you do, and of working against you in an honorable manner. But I
have cut loose from everything else. I’ll prove it in time; and as for
that game this afternoon, I’ll promise you that you won’t have a man on
your team who will fight harder to win.”

“You’re a star in athletics, Morgan. For that reason alone I have put
you on various teams. But I have never trusted you, and I do not trust
you now. So you may look out, for I shall be watching you.”

Dade was rather pale as he went down from Vanderbilt. He realized that
he had never been in quite so close and ticklish a place. One false step
might hurl him out of Yale in disgrace.

“You bet I’ll play fair this afternoon,” he thought. “It stands me in
hand to play fair just now, and I’m the boy to do it when it’s
necessary. But I wonder how Santenel got out and what’s become of him?
He’ll hang round New Haven, no doubt.”

So strong was this feeling on Dade that he almost expected to see
Santenel crouching over the fire in the grate when he returned to his
room, but the hypnotist was not there.

Hodge passed Morgan on the stairs as the latter was descending, and
entered Frank’s room with a displeased look.

“I wouldn’t trust that fellow an inch!” he growled.

“I’m not trusting him,” said Frank. “I’m merely watching him.”

“Of course. I’ve protested so much that you’re not likely to listen to
anything I say,” Hodge grumbled. “But I wouldn’t even permit the
scoundrel to come into these rooms. He’d do anything. When I come in
here and know that he has just left you I find myself looking round in
search of an infernal machine or something of the kind. That fellow has
no more honor than a rattlesnake.”

“I’m not trusting him,” Frank repeated quietly.

“Yet you will let him play on that opposition team this afternoon. You
haven’t said so to me, but I know that you will do it, simply because he
is a good player.”

“I have no right to say who shall be on the other team. Then, I’ve
another reason, Bart,” Frank explained. “I can watch him better while he
is there than if he were somewhere else. I am sure he will not try to do
anything risky, for he knows that he dare not. I’ve told him just how
the land lays, and, understanding that, he will hold himself in. I shall
take steps which I hope will bring about the recapture of Santenel. Dirk
is working on the case. The police officials feel chagrined, and they
will do all they can.”

“And of course you’ll let Morgan remain in Yale?” said Bart, with
curling lips.

“I don’t know. I’m in a dilemma about it. You see, it is this way:
Morgan is such a capable fellow that if he could be brought round right,
he would make a man worthy of Yale. With, possibly, the exception of
Starbright, he is the most promising freshman here. If I’m lenient with
him, it may bring him to realize just how he stands. He may turn short
about and make a man of himself. While, on the other hand, if I should
brand him with the disgrace of an expulsion from the college, he might
go headlong to the bad. That’s what makes me hesitate. I’d like to give
him a chance to become something more than a brilliant villain.”

“Well, he will never be anything else.”

Hodge had been quite mild in his protest against Morgan, but he said
this last very positively. When he was gone Merriwell sat for a long
time thinking. Usually he could not agree with Hodge in such matters;
but he was not sure that in this instance Hodge was not right.

“I’ll give Morgan a chance, any way!” was his conclusion. “I’ll let him
play in that match, and I’ll watch him.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                              CHAPTER XXI

                              OLD FRIENDS.


A large crowd hastened out to Lake Whitney that afternoon to witness the
match between the two Yale sevens.

The snowfall had spoiled the ice for skating, but a space sufficiently
large for an ice-hockey match had been cleared of the snow, revealing a
surface to please the eye of the most critical hockey-player.

Not only was Yale well represented, but a number of New Haven people
added their presence to the crowd, being anxious to see the playing,
chiefly because Merriwell was on one of the teams.

Frank Merriwell and Inza Burrage drove out. They had been much together
recently, but Inza was to leave New Haven that night for an indefinite
absence.

As Frank descended from the carriage and assisted Inza to alight, a
sleigh, the only one there, came up with the horse at a dead run. Out of
the sleigh proceeded a roar, and tumbling out after the roar fell Bink
Stubbs and Danny Griswold.

“Whoop!” squealed Danny, making a dive for Merriwell.

“Wow!” squeaked Bink, diving after his chum.

Ready puffed out his cheeks and leaped toward them with the “glad hand.”
Dozens of others appeared to forget all about ice-hockey and gravitated
toward the two little fellows, who were now hopping up and down,
chattering out their delight and shaking hands with every one who came
forward.

“We were afraid we wouldn’t be in time,” Danny explained. “Bink came up
with me on the train this afternoon——”

“Don’t believe him, gentlemen!” Bink begged. “He came up with me. Why,
you don’t suppose I’d be caught dead chasing that thing around, do you?
If he hadn’t come up with me——”

“You mean if you hadn’t come up with me!”

“If you hadn’t come up with each other?” Merriwell put in.

“Why, we wouldn’t be here, of course. Say, Ready, heard the last joke on
Danny?”

Bink turned to his old friend.

“I never expect to hear the last,” Ready averred.

“It’s fortunate that Ready knows what a liar you are!” Danny said.

“We were coming by the gym when Danny saw a man buying some lunch out of
that old lunch-cart stationed there, ‘Say,’ he whispered, and he took
hold of my arm as solemnly as an astronomer announcing the discovery of
a new comet, ‘I’ve discovered something! I know what they mean now when
they talk about dinner à la carte.’ And, gentlemen, if you’ll believe
me, the ignoramus meant it.”

“When it comes to lying, you’re like the moon,” Danny declared. “Nothing
on earth can touch you.”

“Oh, yes, I’m a warm baby, but not so warm as you were the other evening
when you were singing ‘A Hot Time.’”

“Rats! I never sing it.”

“Don’t you remember when those boys heated that old watch and laid it
nicely down on the pavement, and you picked it up, thinking you’d struck
a find?”

“Well, I didn’t sing ‘A Hot Time.’ I simply remarked that all the hot
springs were not in Arkansas. Now, you slanderer, I’ll make it cool for
you!”

He grabbed an armful of snow and dashed it into Bink’s face.

“‘And I’ll follow suit,’ as the Jew said when he began to chase the
stolen clothing down the street.”

They were at it, and for a little while there was a whirling mass of
snow, arms, and legs, with a head bobbing out now and then. Ready stood
by and serenely whooped his encouragement.

“It seems good to have the little idiots back again,” Jack remarked to
Merriwell.

“Idiots?”

“That’s my pet name for them. Yale has seemed lonesome, somehow, without
them.”

The pair of snow images into which Bink and Danny were transformed had
ceased fighting and were again joking. Danny came over to Inza and again
shook her hand.

“Bink is staying in New York now, you know. You haven’t any idea of how
foolish and sentimental he has become. Why, he’s actually fallen in love
with an heiress down there. The other day he went to the father of his
honeysuckle and asked the old gent for the hand of his daughter.”

“Of course he instantly consented,” was Inza’s smiling comment.

“Well, he wasn’t in a hurry, and I don’t think he’ll give his consent
now. He told Bink that before he answered his question he’d like to know
a little more about him, and asked him what was his station. And will
you believe it, the idiot said that he usually got off at Hyde Park!”

“You’ll get off the earth in a little while!” Bink squeaked, catching
the last words.

“We’ll have to get into the hockey-match,” said Frank, looking at his
watch. “We’re nearly an hour late.”

The teams were taking their places on the ice amid the hand-clappings of
their supporters. They were merely individual teams, one led by
Merriwell, the other by Beckwith, the big guard of the football eleven.
The names and the positions occupied were as follows:

            MERRIWELL’S.    POSITION.       BECKWITH’S.
            Browning.       Goal.           Beckwith.
            Carson.         Point.          Harlan.
            Dashleigh.      Cover-point.    Bingham.
            Starbright.     Forward.        Ned Silver.
            Ready.          Forward.        Roll Packard.
            Hodge.          Forward.        Defarge.
            Merriwell.      Forward.        Morgan.

“I’d like to play that game,” cried Danny, waving his short arms
encouragingly.

“You’d hoodoo the whole thing,” was Bink’s uncharitable answer.

“Hood-doo it?” Ready mildly asked, as he struck at an imaginary puck.

“They’re doing it!” Bink shrieked. “See that drive! Oh, Sally!”

The puck had been “faced” in the center of the field between the sticks
of Merriwell and Morgan, the referee had uttered the word “Play!” and
Morgan scooped the puck back to one of his men with a dexterous movement
that caused Bink to yell.

The smile appeared on Dade’s face. Since his last severe defeat by
Merriwell he had almost forgotten the winning smile that he sought
always to wear; but it came back now.

“Oh, say, that fellow’s a wonder! Did you see that?” Bink demanded.

“I see that you’re a fool!” Danny snarled. “Just wait till Merriwell
gets into gear. I think he could have prevented that.”

“Oh, that’s the way with you fellows, always!” sneered Gene Skelding,
who chanced to be standing by. “Whenever Merriwell wins, it’s an
indication that he’s the greatest player in the world; and when he loses
it is because he is so generous that he does not wish to hurt the
feelings of an opponent by defeating him.”

The little fellows turned on Skelding with flashing eyes.

“Oh, don’t fight!” Inza smilingly begged. “You’ll miss some interesting
playing while you’re at it.”

“It’s a good thing you interfered,” said Bink, speaking to her a moment
after. “We’d have eaten the fellow up.”

“I knew it, and so I interfered. I was like the little boy who ate up
the piece of pie belonging to his little brother.”

She smiled sweetly. Bink stared.

“How was that?”

“I took the weaker one’s part.”

Bink fell over gurgling in the snow, and Danny gave him a kick to “drive
some sense into him,” as he said.

“You’re missing it all,” Inza urged.

“And we came down from New York on purpose to see this great and
glorious game!”

Bink would have tackled Danny, but the cheering of the spectators warned
him that he was indeed losing some good playing.

Beckwith’s forwards had the puck and were forcing it toward Merriwell’s
goal. Silver pushed it to Packard and Packard to Defarge, and the latter
drove it toward Merriwell’s flags.

“Stop it! Stop it!” Danny yelled.

“Oh, he’s doing it!” shrieked Bink. “That’s right, Browning, old boy!
Drive it back!”

Browning was a capital goal-keeper. He not only blocked Defarge’s play,
but he sent the puck skipping back along the ice toward the goal of the
opposing team.

There were yells of “off-side,” from the spectators as the members of
the opposing teams came together, but the play went on.

Silver tried to carom the puck against a board at the side of the
natural rink, and so shoot it toward Merriwell’s goal, Merriwell being
in front of him; but Merriwell’s stick caught it, deviated it, and sent
it between the goal-posts of his opponents.

The puck was again faced in the center of the field between the sticks
of Morgan and Merriwell. Dade had secured it before, and he was alertly
watchful for this advantage again.

Morgan was a handsome fellow, and as he and Frank stood in position for
the beginning of the play their pose was worthy of the genius of a
sculptor. There was a silence, broken by the “Play!” of the referee.

Morgan scooped at the puck as he had done before, but to his surprise he
found his quickest movement too slow. The puck was moved by Merriwell’s
stick and shot across the ice.

Packard stopped it and sent it flying back, where it was caught by the
stick of Jack Ready, who dribbled it forward, skating easily and
gracefully; then, seeing it was in danger of being taken from him, he
managed to pass it to Merriwell. Starbright was in a better position
than Merriwell to receive it, but to have sent it to Starbright would
have put Merriwell off-side, and Ready believed that Merriwell could
handle it better than any one else.

The result justified his judgment, for Merriwell promptly drove the puck
between Beckwith’s goal-posts, and another score was added to his side.

“Second blood for Merriwell!” shrieked Bink, throwing up his cap and
catching it on his head. “I’m betting my little wad on Merriwell!”

“’Rah for Merriwell!” Danny squealed.

The play was on again, and Merriwell’s team was working for another
drive. Frank had selected and disposed his men to the best advantage, as
was shown by their playing. But it was quickly seen that Beckwith had
been equally clever, and that he had in his team some of the very best
hockey timber in the college. Morgan was a veritable wonder on skates.

Though Starbright on a previous occasion had beaten Morgan in a race on
skates, thus proving himself the faster skater, he was not as nimble and
sinuous as Morgan, who seemed to have the twisting powers of an eel and
the quickness of a wildcat.

And Morgan was playing for all that was in him. He was playing fair,
too, for he knew that Merriwell was watching him. He had greatly feared
that Frank would object to his continuance on Beckwith’s team. Now he
was setting himself to do two things: To prove his superiority as a
hockey-player and thus endeavor to recover whatever ground he had lost
in the estimation of the freshmen, and to show Merriwell that he had
entered on a course of square dealing.

Morgan was the real leader of the Beckwith team, even though Beckwith
had made up the team and was nominally its captain. Every one soon saw
this, even Beckwith himself. But Beckwith was a big, generous fellow,
who did not care where the honor went so long as his team made a good
showing, and possibly managed to win the game.

Now, getting possession of the puck, Morgan, assisted by the other
forwards, pushed it down the ice, and, in spite of the exertions of
Merriwell’s men, shot it safely for goal.

The play was renewed, and within two minutes this was repeated.

“Hold ’em! Hold ’em!” Bink and Danny were bellowing to Bruce. “Oh, thou
lazy giant, hold ’em!”

The fight was on again, with the puck once more going toward Merriwell’s
goal. Some enthusiastic Morganites began to bellow:

                   “Morgan, Morgan, you are true!
                    You’re an honor to the Blue!
                       Make a dive
                       And let her drive,
                    We will pin our faith to you.

                   “On your team is Silver, white,
                    And old Beck, so golden bright
                       Bingham true,
                       And Harlan, too!
                    Hold ’em down, and make ’em fight.

                   “Defarge, Packard, paste away!
                    If the Merrys get too gay,
                       You’ve the team,
                       To make them dream!
                    You can show them how to play.”

The playing became so brilliant that the most sated Yale man was
awakened to active interest, and soon found himself yelling like mad for
the side he favored.

Morgan secured the puck.

Biff!

It flew toward Merriwell’s goal, but Browning, the goal-keeper, cleverly
stopped it. Merriwell’s stick caught it up and it went sailing toward
the opposite end of the ice. The forwards tried to get it as it whizzed
past them. The cover-point and cover tried to stop it. But it did not
get between the goal-posts, for Beckwith was there—Beckwith, who as a
goal-keeper was a match for any goal-keeper in Yale, not excepting big
Bruce Browning.

The puck skipped to the middle of the cleared space, and another fight
took place for its possession.

Suddenly Morgan was declared off-side in a play, and the puck was taken
back to the center of the rink, where it was faced again for a renewal
of the game.

The off-side play had been unintentional on Morgan’s part, due to
excitement; but his dark face flamed, nevertheless, for he had lost an
advantage, and he fancied that Merriwell would believe he had been
trying trickery. Then the game again raged.

Again Merriwell drove the puck toward Beckwith’s goal; but it was
stopped by Ned Silver, who, in trying to send it back, made a quick play
which merely skipped the puck off the cleared ice. There was a little
delay while it was brought on; then the fight for a goal recommenced.

The puck came once more beneath Merriwell’s stick.

“Now, drive it!” yelled Bink, who, with Danny, had been hopping about
through it all in the greatest excitement.

“Drive it!” squealed Danny.

Merriwell drove it straight as an arrow between the goal-posts of his
opponents; and the score became three for the Merriwells, with two for
Beckwith’s men.

“That’s right!” Bink piped. “If you’ll just obey the orders of your
uncle, you’ll always do the right thing!”

When the play was resumed Beckwith’s team began again their tactics of
rushing the puck headlong, and with volcanic energy, toward Merriwell’s
goal. They came near making a goal in less than a minute, too; for
Dashleigh, who had been doing excellent work, slipped in, making a quick
turn to drive, and, falling headlong on the ice, left the puck uncovered
for a moment. Defarge skated in with lightning speed, and, taking the
puck, drove and dribbled it toward Merriwell’s goal.

He tried to send it through between the goal-posts, but Starbright
blocked it, and sent it flying back.

“Hooray!” yelled Bink, for he thought Starbright had made a goal.

But Beckwith had stopped the play; and Morgan now drove the puck between
the Merriwell flags, and the score was tied.

The whistle of the timekeeper sounded. The first half of the game had
come to an end.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                              CHAPTER XXII

                               HOT WORK.


Bink and Danny locked arms at the conclusion of the first half of the
game and walked up and down like crowing bantam roosters, bellowing
college songs, in which the name of Merriwell figured largely.

“What are you bawling about?” Defarge demanded. “Your favorites haven’t
won the game. You’ve heard of the fools who ‘hollered’ before they were
out of the woods?”

“Oh, go use some salt!” Danny flung back at him.

“What in the dickens did you mean by that?” Bink asked, when an
opportunity offered. “Use some salt!”

“I meant for him to get off the ice,” Danny chuckled. “Salt or ashes,
either one. I simply happened to think of salt first.”

Then the two marched on, singing:

                “Oh, our Merry is the lad, boys!
                   Rally round him true!
                   Beating the battle-drum of Eli.
                 He’s the best that Yale has had, boys,
                   Rally round him, do!
                   You’ll never see another at Old Eli.

                    “Oh, Merry forever,
                      Hurrah, boys! hurrah!
                    Oh, Merry forever,
                      The king without a flaw!
                 We’ll sing his praises true, boys,
                   For the honor of the Blue!
                   For Merriwell, the glory of Old Eli!”

The teams again went on the cleared space, the puck was faced, and the
referee sharply called “Play!”

Again, as in the beginning, Morgan secured the first scoop of the puck.
He sent it toward Merriwell’s goal-posts and the Beckwith team again
tried to rush it on.

Browning was in place, blocked it with his feet, and skipped it off to
one side. But it was in position for another drive at Merriwell’s goal
in a surprisingly short time. Starbright tried to get it, but Packard
drove it past him, making a perilous lunge that came near pitching him
on the ice. But Hodge’s stick caught the puck, cracked heavily against
it, and the two teams rushing after it, the fight for its possession
raged at the other end of the surface.

Then Merriwell secured the puck, shooting it back to Ready, who
boastingly claimed that he was always “Ready” for anything. Jack proved
his worthiness of the name and drove the bit of rubber between
Beckwith’s flags.

Morgan was determined to win the game from Merriwell, and when he and
Frank again faced each other with the puck between their sticks,
awaiting the word of the referee, this determination was increased by
the fact that Merriwell’s team was now one goal ahead.

But in spite of his determination, Merriwell’s stick was the first to
move the puck. But he could not drive it for goal. It went down to
Bingham, the opposing cover-point, who whirled it back. Then Hodge’s
stick cracked against it, and it skipped once more toward Beckwith’s
goal-line. Harlan stopped it here, and an exciting scrimmage occurred.

Out of the welter it flew back toward Merriwell’s goal, against the
stick of Harlan, who began to dribble it down the ice. Fearing to lose
it, he sent it back to Bingham, who shot it to one side to Ned Silver,
who drove it, amid cries of “off-side,” for Merriwell’s goal.

Carson and Browning both tried to stop it, but they failed. Another goal
was added to Beckwith’s side, and the score stood four to four.

“Oh, this isn’t easy work!” squealed Bink. “This is the kind of playing
that turns a fellow’s heart into a force-pump!”

“Hang it! I’d hate to have Merry beaten after all our howling,” Danny
grumbled.

“You base skeptic!” said Inza, turning on him. “Doubters have no place
in Merriwell’s camp!”

“I ain’t ‘doubtin’ him,’ as the old country woman said when told that
her husband was having an awful fight with a bear. ‘I ain’t doubtin’ him
a mite; but I’m kinder oneasy!’”

Morgan was fighting now with great coolness, but with a sort of
fierceness under it all that was wonderful to see. He was marvelously
skilful. He was as quick as lightning, and as he was able to skate fast
or slow, he was not easily thrown off his feet by the body-checking,
blocking, and interference of an opponent.

He could dodge and twist as cleverly as Merriwell himself, and he could
stop with a suddenness that was startling. Nearly every other player had
at some time during the game been thrown from his feet, some receiving
jarring falls, but nothing apparently could overthrow Dade Morgan.

In the next two minutes of play Beckwith’s men secured another goal
through the fine work of Morgan, making the score five in their favor to
four for the Merriwells.

Then how the friends of Morgan yelled! Bink and Danny tried to lift a
song of encouragement for Merriwell’s men, but it was drowned in the
roar that went up for Morgan.

Dade’s face was darkly flushed, his eyes were shining brightly and the
smile had deepened. He began to see the possibility of defeating
Merriwell’s men. If he could do that, he felt that it would reinstate
him in the good graces of all his former friends, and perhaps give him
the unquestioned leadership of the freshmen. That would, he fancied,
humiliate both Starbright and Merriwell.

The game had begun nearly an hour late, and the short day was rapidly
drawing to a close. But none of the players, none of the spectators,
noticed this, so great was their interest and excitement. The spectators
had come out expecting a good game, but not prepared for such bulldog
and wildcat style of hockey-fighting. It was worth going miles to
witness.

Again the play was on, with the groups round the cleared space crowding
as close up as they were permitted, and all howling for their favorites
and vociferously applauding.

Now and then through the uproar could be heard the shrill squeals of
Bink and Danny as they piped for Merriwell.

After a fierce struggle Merriwell secured the puck in the open and made
a rush of the entire length of the rink, dodging three opponents and
scoring a beautiful goal, tieing the score, which was now five to five.

In the next play Beckwith’s men forced the puck to the flags of their
opponents and made a desperate effort to get another goal. But they
failed to get by Browning. Time after time his wonderful lifting and
stopping sent the puck from his goal.

Then Beckwith’s men made another effort, and sent the puck between the
flags with a high shot which was instantly protested. It had been made
by Ned Silver, and no one thought that Silver had tried to cheat; but
the rules provided that no player should raise his stick above his
shoulder, and Silver had done that.

The goal was not counted; and with the match still a tie, the fight for
goals was renewed.

Silver might have been ruled off the ice, but, the referee believing no
infraction of the rules had been intended, this was not done.

Merriwell now began to push the work toward the other end of the rink,
twice sending the puck for goal, but each time the disk was stopped by
Beckwith, whose agility was remarkable for a man of his size. Beckwith
was a great football-player, and he showed that he was equally good as a
goal-keeper in a hockey-match.

The position of goal-keeper is a hard one, and often thankless. Though
Beckwith frequently gained possession of the puck he was never given
time or room to pass it down the rink, but was forced to shoot it off to
one side, thus preventing another try-for-goal until the rubber could be
worked back into favorable position.

Finally Merriwell found the opening he was seeking and drove the puck
between the goal-posts, and the score became six for his team to five
for Beckwith’s.

“Fellows, we can beat them!” Morgan urged, before the beginning of the
next play. “We’ll do it.”

The response was all that he wished, so far as effort went. But
Merriwell seemed now to have struck the winning streak. The puck went
toward Beckwith’s side, and then farther along by clever lifting and
dribbling.

The musical ring of the skates and the sinewy movements of the skaters
were inspiring. Bink and Danny lost their heads completely and yelled
and squeaked until they were hoarse.

Every inch of the way was hotly contested, and the puck skipping back
and forth, the excited spectators could hardly tell for a time in which
direction it was really progressing.

Several times there were cries of “off-side,” but Frank saw that his men
were doing no off-side play, and the infractions of the rule by other
players seemed inconsequential. Once, however, he saw a skater—it was
Roland Packard—advance the puck with his skate. Merriwell would have
protested against this if the puck had not been checked and sent on
toward Beckwith’s goal. The officials did not see the trick of Packard.

Starbright secured the puck and was about to drive it for goal, when it
was “biffed” away by Morgan’s stick. Morgan shot it to Silver, who
attempted to send it farther along.

Then Ready secured it and started with it down the rink, dribbling it
just ahead of him. He tried to “lift” it over the heads of the
cover-point and others, but it was stopped, and came whizzing back
again.

Dashleigh obtained it and sent it bang against Beckwith’s shins, and
Beckwith shot it to one side.

After some more quick work it came into Merriwell’s possession. Morgan
skated in with the speed of lightning to prevent Frank’s play; but,
swift as he was, he was too slow. Frank’s stick pushed the puck with a
quick flirt past Morgan and between the posts, and another goal had been
added.

The score was seven to five when the timekeeper’s whistle blew.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                             CHAPTER XXIII

                         THE ABDUCTION OF INZA.


As if it were an echo of that whistle, a scream came from the lips of
Inza Burrage. Having grown tired, she had seated herself in the sleigh
which had brought out Danny and Bink.

Merriwell turned and beheld an astounding sight. A man he believed to be
Amos Belton, the junior whom rumor said had fallen wildly in love with
Inza, was driving rapidly down the road in the sleigh, holding Inza to
his side in a clutch she could not cast off. He had thrown something
over her head, and this smothered her further screams, and also rendered
her helpless in his hands.

The spectators, who but a moment before had been wildly cheering the
playing of the hockey-teams, stood as if frozen with astonishment. While
they hesitated, out of their midst leaped Merriwell, running on his
skates.

For the first time he observed the extreme lateness of the hour. The
delays caused by falls and the protest of Silver’s play had wonderfully
lengthened out the playing time. The sun had set and night was fast
coming on.

Bink and Danny were aghast.

“Our team!” Danny squalled. “Did you ever?”

As they were not aware of Belton’s infatuation for Inza, they had
nothing on which to build a theory.

Merriwell’s leap for the nearest vehicle set the whole crowd in motion.
Starbright and Dashleigh sprang toward a horse. Dashleigh’s mind was in
a whirl, as it went back to what he had seen in that house on Whitney
Avenue while he was searching for the “party” given by Mrs. Whitlock. He
could not help feeling that what he had beheld there was in some way
connected with what was now happening. Yet he could not see the
connection. The girl seen in that house was not Inza Burrage. He knew
that, though she had looked so much like her.

“I don’t know what to think!” he stammered to Starbright.

“You can see what Belton is doing!”

“Yes, but——”

“Hello!” cried Starbright in dismay. “The harness is cut!”

Merriwell made the same discovery concerning the horse to which he had
run. The harness had been slashed with a sharp knife, which had cut
through the leather in several places, rendering it useless.

Merriwell darted to the next horse. The harness of that horse was also
severed. He saw beyond this horse a sleigh which had recently been
driven up, as was evidenced by the fact that the horse seemed blown.
This animal was unblanketed, and all those brought to the lake earlier
in the afternoon had been heavily blanketed to protect them from the
wind and cold.

“The fellow came out in that sleigh!” he thought.

Seeing that the harness was intact, he sprang toward the vehicle, at the
same time glancing down the road where the sleigh holding Inza and her
abductor was vanishing.

Hodge and Browning had jumped toward carriages with the intention of
taking the first they came to and joining in the chase, but the
harnesses were so cut and slashed that they could not be used.

Merriwell leaped into the sleigh and turned the horse toward the road.
Then he reached over, took the whip, and gave the animal a cut. It
started down the road at a speedy gait.

Frank’s mind was in as much of a whirl as Dashleigh’s. He did not know
what Dashleigh had seen on Whitney Avenue, but he had heard of the
infatuation of Amos Belton for Inza. He had learned, too, that Belton
had dropped behind in his studies and was likely to be forced out of
Yale on that account. The report which had reached him accounted for
Belton’s low grade on the theory that the junior’s mind was so taken up
by thoughts of Inza that he could not study.

But Merriwell had never dreamed that Belton would do what he now seemed
to be doing, and the only theory on which he could build for a possible
solution was that the junior had suddenly become insane.

Filled by this fear, Merriwell gave the horse another cut, and sent it
down the road at a racing gallop.

With the horse going at top speed, Merriwell gave a moment to the
removal of his skates; then again took up the whip.

Back by the lake students were engaged in frantic efforts to tie and
splice the cut harnesses, while most of the great crowd was streaming on
foot down the road. In the midst of these ran Danny and Bink, whose
shrill voices Merriwell could hear amid the din.

Then Starbright loomed out of the crowd, mounted bareback on a horse
which he had cut loose from a buggy. But he was far in the rear of
Frank, and his chances of aiding Inza seemed poor indeed.

The sleigh containing Inza and the miscreant who had seized her was
flying along straight for New Haven, a good distance in advance of
Merriwell.

Suddenly Frank noticed that his horse was losing speed and beginning to
limp. He applied the whip, rendered heartless in his treatment of the
animal by the fear that possessed him.

But the limping increased and the speed became slower. A half-dozen
times the horse stumbled and almost fell. Then it stopped, doggedly
refusing to make another effort. It was dead lame.

Frank realized now why this horse had been left and the other taken.
Probably Inza’s abductor had not meant to take the other horse as he
drove out, but his own horse falling lame, he had seized the one driven
by Bink and Danny. Fortunately for his plans, Inza was seated in that
sleigh, making the work easier for him.

Seeing that it was useless to depend further on this animal, Frank
sprang out of the sleigh.

He would have continued the chase on foot, but glancing back, he saw
Starbright coming on the horse cut loose from the buggy. Behind
Starbright, at varying distances, streamed the students and the
spectators.

“Let me have your horse!” Merriwell commanded, as Starbright came up,
for Dick seemed about to ride by.

Starbright reined in with a jerk and slipped to the ground.

“You’re lighter than I am,” he said, “and can get more speed out of the
beast. Take him and welcome. You must get Inza out of the clutches of
that rascal. He must be crazy!”

Frank vaulted to the back of the big black and was away. The horse was
fleeter than the other at his best, and Frank’s hopes began to rise. Yet
so much time had been already lost that it began to look impossible for
him to overtake the sleigh before it reached the tangle of city streets,
if it could be done at all.

“Crazy as a loon!” was Frank’s thought as he tore along, a terrible
dread at his heart. “It’s singular that he drives straight toward the
city!”

The lights were beginning to glow in the streets when Frank, still a
considerable distance behind, saw the sleigh turn down a side avenue and
disappear behind some buildings.

He had ridden his horse at such high speed that he had greatly decreased
the distance separating him from the sleigh. Riding hard for the avenue
down which the sleigh and its occupant had vanished, Frank saw them
again at the crossing of another street.

Then the houses shut them from sight, and when he again beheld the
sleigh it was returning to the principal street. When he reached that
street, however, it had again vanished.

“It is singular that Inza doesn’t cry out and attract attention.”

His heart was chilled by the answering thought:

“No doubt she is unconscious. The villain has choked or smothered her.
She is not a girl to faint easily otherwise. He must be crazy. This
zigzagging back and forth shows it.”

Frank seemed to be chasing a will-o’-the-wisp. At one moment he would
see the sleigh, then the driver would send it down some side street,
after which it would appear again, to repeat this maneuver.

Observing a policeman at a corner, Frank leaped from his horse, called
the bluecoat’s attention to the sleigh; then, leaving the horse to be
cared for by other hands, he dived into the nearest cab and instructed
the driver to follow the sleigh, and on no account to let it get away
from him.

“He’ll be a good one if he slips me!” was the driver’s assertion, which
he began to make good by sending the cab forward at a swinging pace.

Frank, looking from the cab door, beheld the sleigh again. It had
reentered a street running parallel with Chapel and was flying on.

“I never saw anything quite so queer,” was Frank’s conclusion. “If the
man isn’t crazy, it looks as if he wants me to follow him.”

“There it goes!” called cabby. “Shall I just follow it, or try to catch
it?”

“Try to catch it!”

“Ga-ed up!”

The whip cracked, and the hackney stretched out at a gallop.

It was a strange chase through the New Haven streets—a chase that began
to draw attention. The sleigh was keeping to the less-frequented
thorough-fares, apparently for the double reason of attracting less
notice and of getting better, and therefore faster, sleighing. On Chapel
Street the wear of travel and traffic had well-nigh dissipated the snow.

The darkness of fast-gathering night had deepened, but the streets were
fairly well lighted, and the cabman found no great difficulty in keeping
the sleigh in view, though he could not overtake it.

Frank’s alarm increased. There were no indications that Inza was calling
to any one for help, and this strange silence could mean nothing to him
but that she was unconscious and unable to call.

More and more he was convinced that Amos Belton had suddenly become a
raving maniac. He had always been considered somewhat peculiar. He was
dark and taciturn, making few friendships and seeking none.

The fact that he had some time before fallen wildly in love with Inza
Burrage was a matter of common report. Belton had not taken pains to
conceal his passion, and on more than one occasion he had annoyed the
girl by thrusting himself into her company.

“Overtake the sleigh!” Frank called to the driver. “I will pay you well
for it.”

The command was easy to give, but not easy to carry out. The driver had
been doing his best.

Now and then people ran out of their stores or gathered in groups on the
corners as pursued and pursuer tore by. Not another policeman had Frank
seen, and no one made an attempt to stop the sleigh, which was now
approaching the waterside and the wharves.

The ride across the city had been made in an incredibly short time, in
spite of the zigzagging character of the route.

Frank kept the cab door open most of the time, ready to spring out if
there was any advantage thus to be gained. The part of the city they
were now in was not as well lighted nor as thickly populated as that
they were leaving.

Again the sleigh took a side street and Frank obtained a look at the
occupants. The man was sitting bolt upright, holding the reins, and the
girl was apparently leaning against his shoulder. Her long silence had
greatly increased Frank’s alarm and anxiety. Inza would not remain in so
passive a state unless she were unconscious.

The cab flew round the corner, taking the side street with the wheels
tipping. Again the sleigh shifted its course, going straight toward one
of the wharves. The driver was evidently familiar with the streets and
locality.

“He has some desperate plan in his crazy mind,” was Frank’s conclusion,
“and he has studied the thing out in advance with all the cunning of
insanity. But he will not be able to go much farther in this direction.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                              CHAPTER XXIV

                         THE FATE OF SANTENEL.


There was no light on the long wharf down which the sleigh was driven.

“We’ve got him now!” said the driver, twisting round on his seat and
speaking to Frank, who was again looking out of the cab door.

“Unless he goes into the water!” was Frank’s startled thought. “A
lunatic may be expected to do anything.”

He saw the sleigh reach the end of the wharf and come to a stop at the
side of the wharf building, then beheld the driver alight.

A scream came as the driver roughly pulled the muffled figure out after
him.

Frank leaned half out of the cab, ready to jump to the ground. The
cabman gave the horse an extra cut when he heard the scream, and the cab
tore along like mad.

But the man who had been in the sleigh was quick of movement. He dragged
the reeling figure toward the water.

Then for the first time Frank saw a large steam-launch tied up at the
wharf. Toward this the man hurried. The place was so dark that Frank
could not see the faces of those he was pursuing, and when the cab
reached the spot occupied by the sleigh the cabman drew in, fearing to
risk his horse farther.

Frank sprang out like a flash and pursued the man on foot, leaping
across the wharf with reckless bounds.

“Stop!” he called. “Stop, you villain!”

Again that scream came to urge him on; and, turning the corner of the
low building, he saw the man roughly bundle his half-inanimate burden
into the steam-launch. The man tumbled in also, and both instantly
disappeared.

It looked clear to Frank that Amos Belton had previously placed the
launch there to aid him in his crazy scheme. Without a moment’s
hesitation, he sprang from the wharf to the launch. The summer awning
had been removed, and the little deck was like that of a small yacht.

A door, seeming to lead into a companionway or cabin, was open before
him, and into this Frank pushed, sure that Inza and her abductor had
vanished through it.

He found himself in total darkness, except for the light that came in
through the door. Outside on the wharf he heard the trample of horses’
feet and the voice of the cabman shouting some question after him.

Not taking time to strike a match, Frank pushed straight ahead, feeling
out before him with his hands. In a moment he came against a wall, which
seemed to bar his farther progress in that direction.

“Inza!” he called. “Inza!”

There was no answer. He heard the voice of the cabman again, then felt a
footfall jar the launch. Apparently the cabman had leaped to the deck.
The next instant Frank found himself in total darkness.

To his astonishment, he also heard the exhaust of a steam-pipe, and felt
the launch tremble as it began to get under way.

He stood stock-still, with wildly beating heart. Apparently the crazy
student had made him a prisoner and was putting the launch in motion,
with the intention of running it out of the harbor.

“Well, he can’t hold me in here!” was Frank’s fierce declaration. “And I
can’t risk any delay in getting out.”

He again shouted Inza’s name, and heard only the exhaust of the pipe.

“That was not the cabman who leaped on deck,” was his conclusion. “It
was Belton, who came round there to shut me in. I hope the cabman will
lose no time in giving the alarm!”

Realizing that he was quivering with excitement, and that he needed a
cool mind now if ever, Frank stood still in the darkness, gathering
together the tangled thread of conjecture and evidence.

Then he coolly took a match from his pocket, struck it, and looked about
the room. It was very small, with a door leading toward the stern of the
launch.

“Perhaps Inza is beyond that door!” was his thought as the match flamed
up and then burned out.

He stepped to the door, rapped heavily on it, and called Inza’s name. As
before, there was no answer. The launch seemed to be tearing through the
water at a rapid rate, presumably moving down the harbor.

Frank struck another match, took a good look at the door, and kicked on
it heavily. It sprung inward with quivering timbers, but withstood the
assault. Again and again he kicked on the door, throwing himself also
against it with his shoulders. He was becoming desperate now, for his
prison walls were stronger than he had at first supposed.

No better results came from an attack on the other door; and, returning
to the one he had first tried to force, he flung himself at it with so
mighty a leap and so irresistible an impetus that it yielded.

The door flew from its hinges, and he was flung out into another dark
little room—flung with such heavy force that he was almost stunned.

Before he could get up, he was set upon in the darkness by a man, who
seemed to rise up beside him. Presumably he had been waiting to attack
him if the door yielded.

Believing that he had come in contact with Belton, Frank struck heavily
at the man in the gloom, thinking the best way to fight the supposed
maniac was to knock him out at once and render him incapable of further
mischief. The man dodged the blow and struck back with an enraged snarl,
exclaiming:

“If you go out of this boat it will be to drown!”

For a moment Frank felt weak and dazed. The blow had not reached him,
yet he fairly reeled against the wall.

He was not fighting Amos Belton, but Dion Santenel!

Could the man who looked so much like Amos Belton be Santenel, the
hypnotist? The thing seemed impossible, yet Merriwell believed it true.

Another conviction came to him. Santenel had not abducted Inza for the
purpose of carrying her away or harming her, but to draw him into this
trap, knowing that he would follow Inza to whatever point she might be
taken.

“You again, Santenel!” Frank hissed, lunging at the dimly seen form of
his enemy.

“So you know me?” screamed Santenel. “You triumphed the other day; it is
my turn now!”

The struggle that followed was fierce in the extreme. Santenel’s catlike
eyes seemed able to penetrate the gloom. Raging like a madman, he
bounded to and fro, striking with the quickness of a rattlesnake. Twice
his fist found Frank’s face, each time Santenel dodging back and ducking
in the darkness in time to escape a counter-blow.

The launch was speeding through the water.

“Where is Inza?” Frank demanded, as he leaped in between these blows.
“Tell me, you scoundrel, or I’ll choke the life out of you!”

Santenel’s laugh was almost maniacal.

“Food for fishes!” he cried. “What you will be mighty soon!”

Then the hypnotist, again ducking and dodging, renewed the fight with a
vindictiveness which Merriwell had never seen equaled.

Notwithstanding that the gloom seemed to favor Santenel, Frank at length
succeeded in landing a blow that knocked the hypnotist against the wall.
He went against it with a thud, dropped downward as if falling in a limp
heap, then straightened half up and pitched toward a door which opened
to the little deck.

Before Frank could take advantage of his successful blow Santenel had
drawn his thin body through this door and was scrambling out of the
place.

Frank lunged and caught the man by the coat as he gained the deck. But
the hypnotist slipped out of the garment, leaving it in Frank’s hands.

Merriwell sprang after him, intending to catch him and force him to tell
what had become of Inza. He did not believe that Inza had fallen or been
thrown overboard, in spite of Santenel’s horrible declaration that she
had become “food for fishes.”

Santenel tried to dive into and through the other door, the one Frank
had first entered, but it stuck fast or was locked. Before the hypnotist
could get it open Frank was again on him. and the struggle that had
raged below deck was again renewed.

“Tell me what you have done with her!” Frank hissed, getting Santenel by
the throat and pushing his head backward. The fiend tried to wriggle
away. Failing in this, he struggled to trip his assailant, in which
effort he threw himself from his feet, and, falling with his head
against the deck, was knocked into temporary insensibility.

Seeing that he was unconscious, Frank glanced about for a rope with
which to tie him. Finding none, he retraced his way across the little
deck toward the stern of the launch.

A hasty glance at the lights of the city showed that the launch, no
doubt with wheel tied, was steaming straight out toward the channel.
Already it was far from the wharf it had so recently left.

“Inza!” Frank began to call, as he kicked about with his feet for a
rope. “Inza! Inza!”

There was no answer. A horrible fear weighted him down. He wanted to
begin an immediate search for her, but he dared not until Santenel was
safely secured; for the desperate hypnotist was capable of doing
anything as soon as he recovered.

When no answer came to his cries, Frank was about to strike a match and
descend into the interior of the launch and make a search, regardless of
Santenel. But at this moment the man recovered consciousness and began
an effort to get on his feet.

Frank rushed toward him.

“Stop!” he shouted, for he fancied he saw Santenel drawing a weapon.

For reply, the villain hurled a heavy iron bolt at him. Seeing this had
missed, for Frank rushed straight on, the hypnotist, with his mind
apparently muddled by his fall, gave a shriek, climbed to his feet and
leaped over the rail into the water.

Frank stood still.

“Retribution!” he muttered. “Food for fishes! It is the hand of outraged
justice, and it has fallen at last!”

For one brief moment he saw the dark face tossed to the top of a wave;
then it disappeared. The launch plowed on through the water.

“The last of Santenel!” was Frank’s hoarse exclamation.

In spite of his fears concerning Inza, he stood staring at the spot
where the man’s head had vanished, though the darkness hid everything in
that direction now.

Then the memory of Inza dragged at his heart-strings and pulled him away
from the launch’s side.

“Inza! Inza!” he called again and again.

There was no response. The sweat came out on his face and his limbs
trembled.

“Heavens! Can it be possible the man spoke true?”

He groped his way into the vessel in search of a lamp. Then, remembering
that the launch was steaming out toward the bay, he stopped this hunt,
made his way to the tiny engine, slowed it down and turned the boat
about with a whirl of the wheel.

Having done this, with a lantern he had discovered he resumed his search
for Inza. But she was not to be found. What he had thought two cabins
proved to be a tiny cabin and a bunk-room. These seemed to be the only
rooms or semblance of rooms in the vessel.

Sick at heart, with that awful fear stunning his brain, Frank now took
charge of the launch and sent it back toward the wharf, but guiding it
so that it would pass over or near the spot where Santenel had thrown
himself into the water.

The gloom on the water was so great that he could see nothing but the
waves, which were black and oily. There was no sign of Santenel.

Then, with his fears for Inza driving him almost frantic, Frank began to
zigzag the launch so as to cover a greater area of surface. There seemed
a bare possibility, if Inza had fallen overboard or been thrown
overboard, that she might have caught hold of something and sustained
herself in the water.

“She couldn’t hold on long, though!” he groaned. “The villain told the
truth! She is dead!”

He grew cold at the thought, his heart seeming to turn to ice. But a
little while before, Inza, handsome, spirited, joyous, had been
applauding the playing of the hockey-teams on the lake. Now, as he
believed, she had passed suddenly from the land of the living.

“And her murderer has gone with her. Yes; he was her murderer, even if
he did not throw her overboard.”

Frank sat as if frozen, his eyes staring almost blankly at the lights on
the wharf toward which the launch was now moving. He heard nothing of
the voices rising on the wharf.

As he drew nearer he became conscious that Bink and Danny were dancing
about in the glow of a lantern, howling and exclaiming. Usually the
little fellows amused him. Now he felt that he did not want to see them
or hear them. Their seeming levity jarred on him.

As in a dream, Frank guided the launch up to the wharf. He scarcely
observed the group of friends who had gathered there, nor the cab and
cabman in the background. Nor did he notice the questions and
exclamations that were being shouted at him.

But as the launch grated against the wharf he pulled himself together by
a great effort and looked with wild eyes at the crowd.

The blood which had seemed to be congealed round his heart rushed back
in a hot wave.

Inza Burrage stood in the forefront of the crowd, alive, well, unharmed!

The last plot of Dion Santenel had been extremely desperate—such a plot
as the brains of a madman alone could devise.

Bert Dashleigh had come near revealing it when he blundered into that
house on Whitney Avenue and beheld the youth disguised as a girl and
made up to look like Inza.

Santenel had carried Inza in the sleigh from Lake Whitney into the city;
but, having choked her into insensibility, he dropped her out in an
alley, at which point the youth dressed to resemble her took her place
in the sleigh. It had been Santenel, disguised as Amos Belton, and this
youth whom Merriwell chased through the city streets.

Without doubt the disguised youth concealed himself somewhere in the
darkness of the old buildings on the wharf.

Santenel’s plot was no doubt murderous, inspired by feelings of baffled
hate and a desire for revenge.

Three days afterward a body identified as his floated to the wharf where
the launch had laid, and was found there by a boatman.

                  *       *       *       *       *

“I have decided not to try to force Dade Morgan out of Yale,” said
Frank, talking over the situation afterward with Bart Hodge. “I have
been in a dilemma about it. The fellow is almost a genius in some lines.
He might go headlong to the bad if I should move against him, while a
little leniency and kindness may let him see where he stands and turn
him in the right direction. With Santenel dead, I see no reason why he
should attempt anything further against me.”

“I guess you are right,” Hodge admitted. “There seems to be no reason
why he should strike at you again. But it’s awfully hard for a
rattlesnake to forget that it is a rattlesnake.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                              CHAPTER XXV

                            IN FRANK’S ROOM.


“I say, Merriwell,” cried Jack Ready, strolling into Frank’s room, his
hat set rakishly over one ear and his hands thrust into his trousers
pockets, “do you know what they call a young black cat in England?”

“Why, I’ve been in England,” said Frank, rising from his open trunk,
which he was packing, “but I don’t believe I can tell what they call a
young black cat over there.”

“Why,” chuckled the visitor, with great satisfaction, “they call her
‘kitty, kitty,’ just the same as we do on this side of the water. Oh,
Merry, you’re a good thing!”

Frank laughed heartily, Ready’s jovial mood being contagious.

“You’re steadily growing sharper and sharper, old man,” said Merry.
“You’re becoming dangerous to fool with of late.”

“Oh, yes,” nodded Jack, striking a pose, with one hand thrust into the
opening of his vest. “The mantle of Bink Stubbs hath descended upon me
and I am ‘it.’ I am making enemies in a merry way with my persiflage.
Sprung that on two other fellows this morning. One told me it was so old
it had whiskers, while the other got his back up and wanted to t’ump me
in my mild, blue eye. This being a practical joker is getting to be a
great responsibility, and I feel the strain. I am glad vacation is at
hand, as it will serve to give me a short breathing-spell. Packing your
paper collars and pajamas? Leave to-morrow, I suppose? Whither do you
fly?”

“Yes, I leave in the morning,” nodded Frank. “Got to run down to New
York to attend to some business concerning my play, ‘True Blue.’”

“Which way after that?”

“Well, Starbright has invited me to visit him.”

“I’m another. Going to accept?”

“I may.”

“Then, by all the eternal gods of Olympus! I’m going to try to get round
there myself. You hear me chirp! You catch the silvery cadence of my
voice!”

“He invited you?”

“Did he? Why, he fell on my neck and wept like a brother at thoughts of
parting. We mingled our weeps, and we spilled brine enough to start
another ocean. It was sad, and touching, and sloppy. He said, ‘Ready,
old man, I hate to leave you—alive.’ I said, ‘Starbright, my baby,
you’re the only freshman for whom I entertain the slightest feeling of
affection, and I’ve always felt for you—with a brickbat.’ It was a
strange, weird spectacle—a soph and a freshie weeping in each other’s
arms. Any minute I expected he would toss me down and jump on me, but he
did nothing of the kind, and it has dawned on me that the fellow really
likes me and really meant it when he invited me to run over and visit
him with the rest of the gang during the holidays.”

“Did you accept?”

“Not on the spot; but now—now I know you are going—I may. Who’s going?”

“Well, I understand Browning is one—and Hodge.”

“Browning’s all right, but Hodge—well, he’s a good fighter when that is
necessary, but he doesn’t add much jolliness to a gathering. A joke
always seems to rub him the wrong way.”

There came a sound of many feet and voices outside, the door was flung
open, and Bruce Browning came in, followed by Bart Hodge, Dick
Starbright, Bert Dashleigh, and Greg Carker. Bruce made straight for a
comfortable couch, on which he dropped, brought forth a clay pipe and
began to fill it. The others greeted Merriwell, Hodge saying:

“Thought we’d come up, Frank, just to get the crowd together for a
little while before we separate for the holidays. You don’t mind?”

“Fellows, I’m delighted to have you come in just like this,” declared
Frank. “Make yourselves at home, every man of you.”

“That’s right,” said Ready, “if you can’t find chairs, sit right down on
the carpet; it won’t hurt it much. What’s that thing you’re filling,
Browning—a clay pipe? Ye gods and little fishes! How have the mighty
fallen! I didn’t think you’d come down to that! How did it happen?”

“Well,” grunted Bruce, getting into a comfortable position, as he
lighted the pipe, “you see even a clay pipe has its advantages.”

“What are they?”

“Why, if you let one fall on the pavement or a hard floor, you don’t
have to bother to pick it up,” exclaimed the laziest man in Yale,
causing a laugh at his expense.

“That surely is a bad case of ennui,” said Carker reprovingly.

“What’s that?” yawned Browning. “How do you define ennui?”

“I can define it,” declared Ready, at once. “It’s when you’re tired of
doing nothing and too lazy to do something.”

“That’s what’s ailed Bruce ever since the football season closed,”
nodded Frank. “I had begun to fancy that Bruce had reformed—that he’d
put laziness behind him forever. Why, he trained like a slave, and he
worked like a fiend to reduce flesh. He was in the very pink of
condition the day he went onto the field in the Harvard game. Looked
healthy and handsome.”

“Thanks,” rumbled the lazy giant. “Bow to the gentleman for me, please,
Ready. It’s too much of a job for me to rise. I know I was a perfect
Apollo, but the task of being an Apollo was too great a strain. I had to
throw it up.”

“But not till we had downed Harvard beautifully,” said Starbright, his
fair, handsome face glowing. “Oh, they thought they had us! They came
mighty near it in the first half, and——”

“Gave me heart-disease,” put in Dashleigh. “I’ll never get over it.
Sometimes I wake up nights now, yelling, ‘Three yards more and
Harvard’ll have a touch-down! Hold ’em, boys—hold ’em!’”

“That was Bart’s constant cry,” said Browning. “He begged us separately
and collectively to hold ’em, but the only thing that saved the day was
Merry’s appearance on the field at the close of the game. They had us
going all right in that half, and they’d have scored in another minute.”

“But you made a gallant fight,” said Frank, his eyes flashing—“a fight
to be remembered always. I am proud of every man on the team.”

“Yah!” muttered Hodge sourly. “Are you proud of that dog Morgan? I don’t
believe it!”

“In a certain way, I am proud of him,” asserted Merry positively.

“But you were ready to wring his everlasting neck a short time ago. You
announced your intention of kicking him out of Yale.”

“And you could have done it, all right,” put in Carker. “He heard the
rumbling of the approaching earthquake, and he——”

“Oh, choke that earthquake business!” cut in Ready. “Don’t use the
expression; reserve it for your socialistic lectures.”

“Fellows,” said Frank, “I admit that I was ready and resolved to crush
Dade Morgan a short time ago.”

“But you have not crushed him,” spoke Hodge. “Why was it? Tell us. We
want to know.”

“I cannot explain everything, for it will take too much time if I do;
but I will say this much, I discovered that Morgan was not wholly
responsible for his actions toward me. Another will than his own
controlled and directed him. This may seem too remarkable to be true,
but it is a fact. The one who controlled him hated me with a hatred that
only death could terminate. If Morgan rebelled, this monster put on the
screws and forced his tool to perform his work. Mind you, I do not claim
that Dade Morgan naturally would be perfect or even a fine fellow; but
he was led to the very verge of murder by the wretch who impelled him to
his acts. Morgan in his right mind and being his own master would never
have gone that far.”

“Perhaps not,” muttered Hodge; “but I believe he’d do anything.”

“I think,” Merry pursued, “that there came a time when Morgan was
anxious to cease troubling me. I have thought the whole matter over, and
I have decided that I know when that time arrived. Then it was that the
monster behind him put on the screws and forced him forward against his
will.”

“And if you do not wind Morgan up,” said Dashleigh, “may not this same
monster continue his dirty work?”

Frank shook his head, with a strange, grim smile of satisfaction.

“Neither Morgan nor myself will be troubled by him any more,” he
declared. “That man is dead.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                              CHAPTER XXVI

                            WHAT ELSIE SAID.


“Say, old fellow,” said Ready, edging up to Browning, “lend me fifty,
will you?”

“Fifty what?” grunted Bruce.

“Why, fifty dollars. I——”

“Quit your joking.”

“I’m not joking. I need the money. I’m broke.”

“My dear boy,” said Browning, “you’re not broke; you’re cracked. Lend
you fifty dollars! I see myself!”

“I am desperate,” asserted Jack wildly. “There is no telling what a man
will do when he needs money.”

“That’s so,” admitted Bruce. “Look at all the fellows who get married.”

“Ah!” sighed Dashleigh, “you know they say love is blind.”

“But as a rule,” put in Carker dolefully, “marriage is an eye-opener.”

“I,” laughed Starbright, who was sprawling on a Morris chair, “shall
refuse to be mercenary when it comes to marriage, I shall marry for
beauty.”

“My dear boy,” said Frank, “the fellow who marries for beauty is usually
the victim of——”

“A skin game,” interrupted Ready. “The dollars are good enough for me.”

“Speaking about dollars,” said Bart, “do any of you believe that old
story about George Washington throwing a dollar across the Potomac
River?”

“Why, of course,” nodded Merry immediately. “It’s a very likely story.”

“I fail to see it in that light. He couldn’t do it.”

“Why not? Washington was a powerful man, and, besides, a dollar would go
twice as far in those days as it will now.”

Ready gasped and dropped with a crash upon a chair.

“Fan me!” he said faintly. “Merriwell takes his place at the head of the
class. I think I’ll have to touch him for the cold cash.”

“Why is it,” questioned Carker, “that people always speak of money as
cold cash?”

“I suppose,” said Merry, laughing softly, “it’s because so many human
beings have a way of freezing to it.”

“What—again?” howled Ready, popping bolt upright and staring at Frank.
“How do you dare, sir! In my presence, too! I am the only one who has a
right to do such things. But, really and truly, I’ve got to borrow some
spondulicks before I leave for vacation. Got a bill from my tailor. He
wrote on the bottom: ‘Dear sir, if you pay the enclosed bill, you will
oblige me; if you don’t, I shall oblige you.’ Now, wouldn’t that bump
you!”

“Don’t talk of tailors!” grumbled Browning. “You’ve got a regular
hand-me-down suit on.”

“Bah!” retorted Jack instantly. “That suit of yours reminds me of an
unripe watermelon.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s so different. One isn’t fit to cut, and the other isn’t
cut to fit. Refuse me! Wouldn’t let me have a small loan, eh? Well, you
shall repent in sackcloth and ashes. Yea, verily!”

Carker began whistling mournfully to himself.

“Listen to that,” murmured Frank, nudging Ready. “I wonder if he
whistles to himself when he’s alone.”

“Prithee I cannot tell,” answered Jack. “I’ve never been with him when
he was alone.”

“Fellows,” said Starbright soberly, “I know a scheme whereby we can all
make money.”

“Unwind it to us!” cried Ready.

“Let’s hear it,” urged Hodge.

“We’re listening,” said Dashleigh.

“Go on,” urged Browning.

“It’s simple,” assured Dick, still with perfect gravity. “All we have to
do is perfume our paper money.”

“Hey?” said Carker, who had stopped whistling.

“What?” grunted Browning, ceasing to puff at his pipe.

“What are you giving us?” muttered Hodge.

“That’s right,” declared the fair-haired freshman. “You see by perfuming
our paper money we can add a scent to every dollar.”

Frank laughed again, while Ready thumped himself behind the ear with his
clenched fist.

“Another rival!” he groaned. “This is driving me to suicide. And still I
need that money.”

“Why, my dear boy,” smiled Frank, “I heard that you won some money from
Skelding last night.”

“Oh, no!” Jack hastened to deny. “No money; I merely won a few bets from
him.”

There came a rap on the door.

“Come in,” called Merry.

But every fellow in that room, Browning included, sprang to his feet
when the door opened and they saw Inza Burrage and her father just
outside.

“Perhaps we’re intruding?” suggested Mr. Burrage apologetically.

“Oh, no!” exclaimed Merry. “Come right in!”

He sprang forward and greeted Inza warmly with outstretched hand. She
never before had looked so stunning and dashing. At least, Frank thought
so.

“We thought we’d come round and call a moment before you left, Frank,”
she said, in her well-modulated, musical voice. “You go——”

“To-morrow. I was packing my trunk when the fellows strolled in. I’m
glad you came, Inza.”

He drew her into the room, and the boys bowed, greeting with enthusiasm
the former mascot of the crew. She spoke to them all, but it seemed that
even a little more color mounted to her flushed cheeks when Starbright,
the handsome giant freshman, bowed low before her.

And keen eyes might have seen that Dick was not quite at ease, though he
made a desperate effort to appear thus.

Mr. Burrage shook hands with the boys, having a pleasant word for each
one, but the arrival of Inza put an end to their free-and-easy badinage
and joking. They gathered about her in an admiring circle, listening to
every word she uttered, each feeling in his heart that she was a most
bewilderingly handsome and adorable young lady. In her presence, even
Carker forgot to be pessimistic and melancholy, and not once did he
speak of the “rumble of the approaching earthquake.”

But Starbright hung on her words in a breathless way, and his heart
leaped when she turned toward him with one of her dazzling smiles, or
spoke to him directly, and he felt that he was being robbed of his just
due, if for a little time she gave him no special attention.

Dick Starbright knew that Frank and Inza were fast friends, he knew they
were almost sweethearts, he knew Inza would not be there but for Merry;
yet since the day he first saw this dark-eyed, black-haired radiant
queen of a girl something he could not hold in check had been growing in
his breast—growing, growing, growing. He sought to tell himself that it
was no more than mere admiration for an unusually handsome young lady,
and he sought to believe that he could readily and easily forget her;
but she crept into his dreams with her stately grace, her dark,
bewildering eyes, her laugh that thrilled the blood, her mouth that
seemed made for kisses.

And now, sitting in Merriwell’s room, with Inza near, his blood throbbed
in his big, strong body with all the full flood of healthy, robust
youth.

“Why shouldn’t I win her for my own?” he mentally cried.

Then he looked at Frank Merriwell, and he believed he had found his
answer. Contrasting himself with Frank, he seemed very immature, despite
his size, and there was something of greenness about him that must count
against him. How dared he think for a single moment that he, the raw
youth, could win from this clever and experienced young man of the
world! He was crushed and abashed.

Coming out of his trance, Dick found Frank was telling Inza of some
photographs he had taken. She wished to see them, and he said they were
in an adjoining room. She rose at once, and they passed beyond some
portières.

Though he still could hear her voice through the open door, it seemed to
Dick Starbright that something went out of the sunshine, leaving it dull
and somber, and there was a strange sensation like a pain in his heart.

Frank and Inza chatted over the pictures, which consisted of a group of
the Yale football-team, with Merry the central figure, and a number of
snap shots of the team in practise and at play. The smell of Browning’s
pipe pervaded the rooms, and Merry threw open a door leading into the
hall, which gave a draft.

“I suppose you are glad the holidays have come?” said Inza.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “You see, it is different with me than with
other fellows. They have homes, and fathers, and mothers, and brothers,
and sisters to which they go. Their fathers and mothers are waiting to
greet them with affection, while their brothers and sisters will regard
them with admiration and pride. They are going to pleasant firesides,
Christmas trees and merry times. I have no home, no mother, sisters, or
brothers. True, I have a father, but he is worn and old and strange to
me, for I’ve never seen much of him. But I love him, just the same. Poor
old man! He has suffered much, and now, with no enemy to harass him
further, I trust he may have peace and happiness.”

Inza was touched by Merry’s words. For the first time, it seemed, she
fully realized his unfortunate position in the world.

“I’m sorry, Frank,” she said, looking into his eyes. “But your play has
given you money so that you might purchase a home of your own, and your
father has a fortune. He could buy a mansion.”

“He might,” admitted Merry; “but he cannot get over the feeling that the
ghost of his enemy may rise to haunt him as of old, and he is the most
restless person I ever saw. Were he a younger man, I’m sure nothing
could keep him from traveling constantly. Even now, I worry for fear he
may take a freakish notion to strike out suddenly for parts unknown.”

“Are you sure his mind is just right?”

“I think it is—now. A short time ago I was not so sure; but never again
will he fall beneath the spell of Brandon Drood. Drood is dead, and his
wicked career is ended.”

“He was a dreadful man!” exclaimed Inza. “Think how he tried to bury
your poor father alive! He should have been punished for his awful
crimes.”

“I am willing to leave his soul in the hands of One who doeth all things
well,” came solemnly from Merry’s lips.

“Where do you expect to spend the most of your vacation?”

“Starbright has invited me to visit him in his home, and I think I shall
go there. Then I am to meet father in New York. Several of the fellows
are going to visit Starbright.”

“Isn’t he a splendid fellow!” exclaimed the dark-eyed girl
enthusiastically. “He is so big and grand! It was magnificent to see him
tear through the enemy’s line in the football-game. And he’s handsome,
too!”

“Here! here!” cried Merry reprovingly. “This will never do! Why, I
believe you are interested in him, Inza!”

His heart was smitten by a pang of jealousy, for he was like other
fellows in this respect, and no one is flawless. She laughed when she
saw him looking at her almost accusingly.

“I am,” she boldly declared. “Why shouldn’t I be? He is your friend, and
you have told me what a great, big-hearted chap he is. You want me to
like all of your friends, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes; but there are different ways of liking a fellow, Inza.”

“I like him as I might a big, handsome brother.”

“Oh, well! that will do. I can’t object to that.”

“Do you think,” she said teasingly, “that you could object under any
circumstances? If I really and truly fell in love with him, could you
object?”

She had him cornered, and he knew it.

“Oh, I don’t suppose I’d have a right to object!” he laughed, though
that pang of jealousy still gnawed at his heart.

“Surely not!” Inza exclaimed. “According to your own tell, Dick is one
of the finest fellows in the world, and were he to take a fancy to me,
you ought to be glad and happy. It would be your duty to help it along.”

He felt that she was teasing him, but still it was a tender spot, and it
made him squirm a bit.

“Inza,” he said sincerely, “once I did my best to keep you from marrying
a man your father had selected for you, but a man you told me you did
not love.”

“For which,” she admitted, “I owe you much. I can see now that it would
have been a fatal folly.”

“I felt that way about it, dear girl, and that was why I did my best to
keep you from taking the false step. Had I known you really and truly
loved him, I should have remained silent. In this case it is different,
for Starbright is worthy of a fine girl; but he is young yet—even
younger than you, Inza.”

“Not much younger. A year cannot make much difference.”

“No, not much. If I knew Starbright loved you and you cared for him more
than any one else, whatever I might feel in my heart, I would do my best
to bring you together, and would say, ‘Bless you, my children.’”

She laughed in her merry way.

“I believe it, Frank,” she said. “But I was jollying, that’s all. There
is no danger that Starbright will ever care for me that way, and perhaps
I’d not care for him if he did. I am waiting to be one of the
bridesmaids when you are married to Elsie. I shall live and die an old
maid.”

She made this final declaration in the most solemn manner possible. They
were standing by a window, now, looking out upon the bare elms and the
ground lightly covered with snow, which had fallen the previous night.

“I’ll wager something you do not!” he exclaimed, leaning over her
shoulder.

“What will you wager?”

“A kiss,” he breathed softly. “And, as I know I’ll win, I’ll take it
now.”

“Oh, no! don’t be so hasty, sir! I’m not willing to confess that I shall
lose the wager.”

“But still,” he pleaded, “for old times, Inza. You remember the far-away
days at Fardale? You remember the night we leaned on the gate before
your home, with the moon hidden for a moment behind a cloud? You
remember what happened then, Inza?”

She grew strangely pale, and then the blood rushed to her cheeks in a
burning flood.

“I’ll never forget, Frank!” she whispered, a tremor running over her.
“Never!”

Memory took her back to that sweet summer evening of her girlhood days.
It seemed that she could see the peaceful, moonlighted village street
and could feel the touch of the fragrant breeze that fanned her cheek.
Then Frank was a handsome cadet at the little military academy, and she
had loved him with all the depth of her impulsive girlish heart. He had
kissed her over the gate in that masterful, undeniable way of his, and a
million times since then she had thought of the joy of that moment.

But years had wrought a change in them both. Between them had risen a
pretty, sweet-faced, golden-haired girl. That girl was Inza’s dearest
friend, and sometimes her heart had cried out in rebellion against
Elsie, who had caused Frank’s thoughts to stray from her.

“Those were happy days,” said Frank gently.

“Yes,” came faintly from her lips; “happier than I have ever known
since.”

She felt his arm slip across her shoulders, and, for a moment, she
permitted it to remain there, little dreaming that she had again come
between Frank and Elsie.

Outside the door that opened into the hall—the door that Merry opened to
permit fresh air to sweep through the room—stood a blue-eyed girl,
rooted to the floor, gazing in upon them, her heart throbbing madly and
painfully in her breast. It was Elsie, who had mounted the stairs, and
she saw Frank bending over Inza, heard the murmur of their voices,
beheld him put his arm around Inza’s waist—then turned and fled
noiselessly down the stairs, not pausing until she had reached the
street; and everything that had looked so bright but a moment before
suddenly seemed to change.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                             CHAPTER XXVII

                        ELSIE’S STRANGE FLIGHT.


Buck Badger and his wife, former Winnie Lee, were in New Haven, having
come on to visit Winnie’s relatives during the holidays. Coming up the
stairs in Vanderbilt Hall, they saw through the open doorway Frank and
Inza talking by the window. At that moment, Frank turned, saw them,
uttered an exclamation of surprise and pleasure, and sprang forward with
outstretched hands.

“Buck!” he cried. “Is it possible? And Winnie! Excuse me—Mrs. Badger.”

“But Winnie still, Frank,” laughed the handsome young wife, her face
suffused with color.

Frank had Badger by the hand, while Winnie and Inza rushed into each
other’s arms.

“Well, if this isn’t great!” cried Merriwell.

“That’s whatever!” came from the lips of Badger, who quivered through
all his sturdy frame.

“Talk about surprises! I’m overjoyed to see you!”

“And I,” said the young rancher, “am just roaring glad to grip the hand
of the best friend I ever had in all my life! I can’t say more,
Merriwell; but I mean that—I mean it! You were my best friend. I’ve had
time to think the old days here at Yale all over and over a hundred
times, and I allow I’ve come to see things in their right light. I was
an onery coyote, but you were my friend, and you kept me from going to
the dogs. You gave me Winnie,” he whispered, “the best and truest little
wife a man ever had! I can never repay you for that, Frank!”

“Don’t talk about paying for anything,” said Merriwell. “I am paid a
thousand times for anything I did for you by seeing your happiness, old
man. But I think you’re giving me credit for doing altogether too much.
I don’t know that I ever did much of anything for you.”

“Yes, you did!” insisted the Kansan, with intense earnestness. “Nobody
ever did so much for me besides you. You made a man of me! You might
have kicked me into the gutter and turned me into a dog, but you held
out your hand and pulled me up to the top of the heap, even after I’d
done you more than one onery, mean turn. That’s whatever! Nobody but a
white man all the way through would have done as you did, partner. You
might have had me expelled from Yale in disgrace, and that would have
turned my old man against me; but, instead of that, forgetting all the
bad things I’d tried to do to you, you helped me get started on the
right trail. I was pretty weak in those times, Merriwell; I know it now.
I thought I was strong, but I was right ready to go wrong. A little push
from you would have sent me wrong. And you helped me win Winnie! That
was the greatest thing you ever did for anybody, partner!”

In that moment Frank Merriwell was rewarded for all he had endured at
the hands of this repentant young man, who had once been his enemy, and
his heart was filled with thankfulness because he had never permitted
his resentment and desire for revenge to get the best of him and induce
him to push Badger down.

With this thought came another. He had been lenient toward Dade Morgan
just when he might have destroyed the fellow at a single stroke. It had
seemed like weakness, after all Morgan had tried to do to him; but now
Merry was happy in the knowledge that he had given Morgan another
opportunity and had not thrust him down.

“I’ve learned one thing,” said Badger, who seemed determined to reveal
to Frank all that his heart had taught him since the happy day of his
union with Winnie. “It’s the coward who tries to kill his enemies; the
brave, strong man turns his enemies into friends. That’s whatever!”

In the meantime, in ways peculiar to budding young womanhood, Inza and
Winnie were expressing their delight over the meeting.

“I didn’t know we should find you here, but we were speaking of you,”
said Winnie. “You are handsomer than ever, Inza.”

“And you, Winnie,” said the dark-haired girl, gazing at her friend with
love and admiration, “why, you’re simply wonderful.”

“Oh, it’s the West and the air out there!” laughed Buck’s wife, in
blushing confusion.

“Well, I think I’ll have to try that air.”

“You don’t need it, Inza; you’re handsome anywhere, and you require no
air tonic. But how does it happen you are here. Why, just before we
reached the steps, Elsie said it would be just lovely to find you in New
Haven.”

“Elsie?”

“Yes.”

“Why, is Elsie——? Where is she?”

“Yes,” cried Frank, who had noted Winnie’s word. “Where is Elsie?”

“She was with us,” explained Badger. “Winnie and I paused a moment on
the steps to look around, while she ran up-stairs ahead.”

Frank and Inza looked at each other in amazement.

“She’s not here,” said Merry breathlessly.

“No,” said Winnie. “She came back quickly, meeting us just as we were
entering. I don’t know what ailed her, but she was very pale and said
she was ill.”

“Never saw such a change come over anybody in a minute,” declared Buck.
“I don’t understand it now. Why, a little while before she was all life
and happiness, and her cheeks were like two sun-kissed peaches, and
she——”

“That will do, sir!” cried Winnie, frowning. “You may talk like that
about me, but not about other young ladies. Don’t forget that you are a
married man.”

Then Buck and Winnie laughed, but neither Frank nor Inza joined them.

“It’s very strange,” said Frank slowly.

“She seemed trembling, too,” explained Winnie. “I asked her what was the
matter, and she said she was ill.”

“Quickest fit of sickness I ever saw strike anybody,” muttered Badger.

“I urged her to come up to your rooms,” Winnie went on; “but she said
she couldn’t climb the stairs.”

“I’d brought her right up in my arms, if it hadn’t been for the looks of
the thing,” asserted Buck.

“She said she must have some air,” Winnie continued. “We wanted to stay
with her, but she wouldn’t hear to it. Said it would attract attention.
Said she’d walk about down there.”

Again Frank and Inza glanced at each other, and then both of them
glanced toward the door, which remained open. From the point where they
had stood by the window the head of the stairway could be seen. The same
thought came to each of them.

“Frank,” said the dark-eyed girl, “go right down and find Elsie. Bring
her up here at once.”

“I’ll do it!” he exclaimed, springing through the doorway, without
pausing to take a hat.

Down the stairs he bounded, out into the court he rushed; and there,
bareheaded and eager, he looked around for Elsie.

She was not to be seen. From the court he rushed out through the gate to
the campus, where the light fall of snow had been trodden by hundreds of
feet.

A little group of fellows lingered by the fence, some with the collars
of their coats turned up, some with their hands thrust deep into their
pockets, some with overcoats buttoned about them. Their heads were close
together, and they were talking earnestly about some topic of deep
interest. A few students were hurrying across the campus, their
appearance seeming to indicate that they were making haste to reach
their rooms and pack up that they might get away for the holidays. But
nowhere could Merry see a thing of Elsie.

“Where the dickens could she have gone?” he muttered. “I wonder if she
saw us from the stairs!”

He was seized by a feeling of guilt and a sensation of wrong-doing.
Something told him the time had come when he must choose between Inza
and Elsie, and that he could not longer entertain more than friendly
relations with both of the girls. The thought that Elsie had seen him
with Inza by the window, and had fled, her heart throbbing with pain,
made him desperate and wretched.

“I must find her!” he muttered hoarsely. “Not even for the memory of old
times should I have permitted what happened to-day! Elsie! Elsie!”

He seized by the arm a hurrying student and asked if he had seen
anything of a young lady without escort. No such person had been seen by
the one questioned. Then Merry went straight to the group by the fence.
Yes, one of them had seen Badger and the two girls go over to
Vanderbilt, and then, a few moments later, had seen one of the girls
hurry away alone.

“Which way did she go?” asked Frank, repressing his eagerness so that he
attracted no particular attention by his manner. Being told, he hurried
over to the street. A few cabs and trucks were there. In a moment Merry
had learned that such a girl as he described was seen taking a cab a few
minutes before.

“She’s gone!” he huskily muttered, as he turned back. “I must find out
where she is stopping, and I’ll call on her without delay. The time has
come for me to choose and make my choice known. I’ll do it!”

When he again entered his rooms, he found Inza had taken Buck and Winnie
into the study, where all were chatting with Frank’s friends who had
gathered there.

Merry lost little time in drawing Buck aside and asking where Elsie was
stopping, explaining that he had not found her.

Buck did not know, nor did Winnie, who told how she had corresponded
with Elsie, who had been in New York, thus informing her when she would
arrive in New Haven. Elsie had called soon after their arrival, and the
trio had set out for a visit to Merry.

“But she is coming to my house to dinner this evening,” Winnie
explained. “You may see her then, for I want you to be there, Frank.
You’ll come?”

Of course Merry accepted the invitation. Winnie added that it was to be
a little party of college friends, and that Inza would likewise be
present.

Frank glanced toward the dark-haired girl, discovering that she was
engaged in earnest conversation with Starbright, the big fellow standing
in an attitude of absorbed attention, while his blue eyes devoured her
with an expression of intense admiration in their honest depths. Winnie
noted Frank’s look, and she pinched his arm, whispering:

“That looks very, very bad—for you. She told me he is your friend, and I
invited him to dinner to-night. If you’re still sweet on Inza you want
to be careful that your friend Richard Starbright doesn’t cut in and
take her away from you. He is just the sort of fellow a dark-eyed girl
like Inza is liable to get struck on.”

Again that strange pang of jealousy smote through Frank Merriwell’s
heart, but he calmly said:

“I do not believe Inza could find a finer fellow in the whole wide
world.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                             CHAPTER XXVIII

                            A DINNER-PARTY.


That evening a jolly party gathered at the home of Fairfax Lee, Winnie’s
father. Browning, Hodge, Starbright, Dashleigh, and Merriwell were
there. Winnie and Inza, together with two girl friends, sought to
entertain them. But one person was missing; and in vain they waited for
Elsie Bellwood, who did not come.

Frank tried to conceal the agitated state of his feelings as best he
could, and he succeeded so well that the others enjoyed themselves. Not
till dinner-time came and passed and it was impossible to wait longer
did Merry give up hope of Elsie’s arrival. At last he whispered to
Winnie, telling her that it was useless to wait longer, and they went
down to the dining-room, which was beautifully decorated with flowers
and college flags and trophies.

Badger sat at the head of the table, and his beautiful little wife
smiled at him from the foot. Inza was placed between Frank and Dick
Starbright, Winnie having slyly whispered to Merry that he would have a
fair chance to hold his own against the big freshman.

Winnie’s girl friends fell to Browning and Dashleigh. Bert was the soul
of ease and politeness, but big, lumbering Bruce was restless and
awkward, although he did his best to be entertaining.

Bart Hodge, alone, did not seem to enter fully and heartily into the
spirit of the occasion, though it was evident that he did his best to
make Badger and Winnie feel that all old animosities had been buried and
forgotten.

In course of time the little party grew very merry, chatting of things
that interested them, from football, baseball, rowing, and kindred
sports, to ranch life and the glorious freedom of the plains and
mountains. Badger was supremely happy. He seemed to radiate good nature.

“Look here, Hodge!” he exclaimed, suddenly shaking his finger at Bart,
“be careful down there! That’s my wife! You and I have tried to lift
each other’s scalps before this, but I’m willing to bury the hatchet if
you don’t flirt too hard with Mrs. Badger.”

Hodge started a little, but Buck broke into a hearty laugh, and Bart
smiled a little.

“Don’t mind him,” said Winnie. “I suppose you’ll marry, Mr. Hodge, when
the golden opportunity offers, won’t you?”

“Well,” answered Bart deliberately, “that will depend on how much gold
there is in the opportunity.”

“Oh, you mercenary wretch!” Winnie gasped, while Frank stared, wondering
to hear Hodge crack a joke.

Browning was heard saying to the girl at his side:

“I wonder why it is that the most beautiful girls are the stupid ones?”

“Sir!” she exclaimed, giving him a cutting look; “am I to understand
that you desire to cast reflections on my mental capacity?”

“Oh, no!” gasped the big fellow, wishing to put himself right in her
eyes; “I think you are one of the brightest girls I ever met.”

Then, realizing he had said the wrong thing, and could never straighten
it out, he hemmed and hawed and nearly exploded in consternation and
confusion, causing the entire party to break into a shout of laughter.
As the merriment subsided, the jolly girl exclaimed:

“You flatter me, sir! After all, though, beauty is but skin-deep.”

“Just so,” gurgled Bruce, “but just think what a host of girls there are
who haven’t it half that deep.”

“That lets you out, Browning,” said Merry. “You were in so deep that I
thought you’d go under sure.”

“The trouble with me,” explained the lazy giant, “is that I’m bothered
with sleepless nights, and I sometimes talk in my sleep daytimes. Now,
what is a good thing for sleeplessness?”

“A shotgun,” replied Badger.

“Shotgun?”

“Yes. I was troubled that way till I shot five or six cats. Now I am
completely cured.”

“What troubles me more than anything else,” put in Dashleigh, “is
thoughts of the coming exams. It’s a constant horror to me.”

“Do the questions bother you?” asked Badger.

“Oh, no!” declared Bert. “The questions are quite clear. It’s the
answers that bother me.”

They could not restrain their laughter, for Dashleigh had said this in a
most mirth-provoking manner.

So, with joking and laughter, the feast progressed; but for Frank the
one person who would have made the occasion a perfect one was absent;
and, although he tried to conceal the fact, his thoughts were turning to
Elsie. At length Inza spoke of her.

“Why do you suppose she is not here, Frank?” she asked, in a low tone,
under cover of the chatter of conversation. “I do not understand it.”

“I’m afraid,” confessed Frank, “that she has been hurt or offended by
something.”

“How?” whispered the dark-eyed girl. “I don’t understand——”

“You know she ran up-stairs ahead of Buck and Winnie.”

“Yes.”

“And one of the doors to my rooms was open.”

“Yes.”

“We were in that room, looking at some pictures by the window.”

“And she saw us; that may be true,” said Inza. “She is a sensitive
little soul. Frank, you must find her—you must bring her to me. She is
somewhere in New Haven. Find her to-night. Just because we happened to
be speaking of the past, which is gone forever, is no reason why we
should make Elsie unhappy. I’ll give her cause for happiness, Frank.
Bring her to me.”

“I will!” he exclaimed, with suppressed earnestness. “I’ll make my
excuses and leave as soon as dinner is over.”

Badger was on his feet, making a speech in his blunt, straightforward
way. He extolled Yale and Frank Merriwell. He spoke of the grand
victories of the eleven under command of Merry. Then he told how much he
owed to the friendship and influence of Merriwell, till, at last, Frank
laughingly entreated him to stop.

“Well, I’ll stop,” said Buck, “but I want everybody here to drink with
me to the health of Frank Merriwell, the squarest, whitest, manliest man
that ever lived!”

The glasses had been filled with punch, and they all rose to drink the
toast. Frank bowed his thanks, feeling his face grow warm, despite the
fact that he had seen much of the world and been greeted with applause
and admiration in many places.

“My friends,” he said, “nothing could touch me more than such a tribute
of esteem from a Yale man, one who has been an open and honorable foe in
the past and is now just as enthusiastic in his friendship toward me.
From the lips of any other man the compliment could not mean as much.”

“When Buck says a thing he means it,” declared Winnie, with a look of
admiration toward her husband.

Then Merry made a brief speech, in which he referred to the days of toil
and struggle and ambition at college—happy days, now nearly over for
him.

“One of the greatest and proudest achievements,” he asserted, “something
I prize above all things, is the fact that I have made here at Yale so
many stanch, true friends.”

When dinner was over, they returned to the parlor, where Dashleigh tuned
up his mandolin, and there were music and singing and a good time
generally. Winnie sat down to the piano, and the others gathered round.
The old college songs were sung one after another, Starbright joining in
with his magnificent bass voice.

Frank had excused himself to Winnie, telling her why he was going to
leave, and, in the midst of the singing, he went out quietly with Buck,
who helped him on with his coat in the hall, gave him a hearty
hand-clasp, and wished him luck in his search for Elsie.

As he was about to leave, Merry glanced back on the happy party in the
parlor. He saw Starbright bending over Inza to look through some music,
saw her smile up at him when he said something in a low tone; and, with
this picture in his mind, he went out into the frosty December night.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                              CHAPTER XXIX

                        FRANK MERRIWELL’S HEART.


Frank’s quest for Elsie was vain, but he found she had been stopping at
one of the hotels. Her name was on the register. When he asked for her,
however, he was informed that she had left that day. The clerk could not
tell him whither she had gone, save that her trunk had been taken to the
railway-station. But this was enough to make him feel certain she had
left New Haven.

There was a pain in Frank’s heart when he turned toward his rooms in
Vanderbilt. Quite alone, he paused by the fence. There were lights all
about him in the windows of the college buildings. A few were dark and
unlighted, but it was the gleam of the lighted ones that gave him a
feeling of sadness and desolation. He knew many of the students had
started for their homes that night, while to-morrow there would be a
grand exodus. Going home! The thought thrilled the vibrating chords of
his heart. He had no home to which he could go.

The sky was thickly studded with stars, gazing down upon him like a
million gleaming eyes. He leaned on the fence and gazed up at them, and
he fancied they gave him their sympathy.

“Elsie!” he murmured; “where are you? Why did you leave me without a
word?”

Many, many times, he had lingered there at the fence, with stanch, true
friends about him. It was there he had discussed football, baseball,
sports of all kinds, and talked over the gossip of the college. Now he
was alone!

Finally he turned toward Vanderbilt and climbed the stairs to his room.
This was his only home, but now it seemed lonely and deserted.

He lighted the gas in his study and stood there looking around. It was a
pleasant room, yet the time was approaching when it would know him no
more. The walls were adorned with pictures, flags, photographs, and the
many curios he had gathered in his wanderings about the world. His desk
was standing open, the pigeonholes stuffed with the various things which
were of value to him alone. There were papers and letters upon it.
Before it stood the office chair, with an easy rocker close at hand.

In a window alcove was a long, easy seat, piled with cushions. Over the
window in big white letters was the word, “Yale.” Magic word, dear to
the heart of every loyal lover of Old Eli! Near the window was the
well-filled bookcase, containing many well-thumbed volumes. Through the
portières he could look into the adjoining room and see the square table
on which lay the photographs he had inspected in company with Inza.

Frank sat down in the rocker and fell to thinking of many things, but
his mind would always revert to Elsie and her strange and hurried flight
from New Haven.

“The time has come!” he finally exclaimed. “This is my last year at
college, and soon I must go out into the world for myself. I must choose
between Elsie and Inza. Perhaps I have done wrong not to choose before,
but the friendship of both girls has been very dear to me.”

He paced the room, his mind filled with thoughts of both the charming
girls. He saw before him Elsie’s sweet, smiling face, crowned with
golden curls, he felt the touch of her soft, sympathetic hand, heard the
music of her voice, and his heart yearned for her. Then came
Inza—dark-eyed, dark-haired, dashing, handsome, self-possessed, and
magnetic. He felt the spell of her powerful influence, and it seemed
that she was trying to crowd gentle, modest Elsie out of his heart.

Then he remembered her as he had last seen her, smiling up into the face
of Dick Starbright. He shrugged his broad shoulders and continued to
pace the room. There was a knock on the door, and a messenger-boy stood
outside.

“Been here twice before, sir,” said the boy. “Lady said I must give the
letter to yer to-night, sure.”

Frank took it and gave the boy a quarter. Then, having closed the door,
as the messenger had said there would be no reply, he hastened to tear
open the envelope. His fingers trembled a little and his heart pounded
violently in his throat. He saw his name written on the envelope.

“From Elsie!” he murmured hoarsely. The message was brief, and this is
what he read:

    “DEAR FRANK: I know you will think it strange that I changed my
    mind so suddenly about seeing you, and have left New Haven. I
    meant to come to you and tell you that in the future we were to
    be nothing but friends, but my heart failed me at the last
    moment. Not because I changed my mind on that point, but because
    I knew it would be very unpleasant for us both. I have been
    contemplating this for some time, as I have a very good reason
    for it. I know you do not care to claim me as anything more than
    a friend, if such a tie would be obnoxious to me. Good-by,
    Frank! I wish you all the happiness you deserve, and that is all
    the world can give you. I shall write to Inza.

                                                             ELSIE.”

He stood and stared at the writing for a long time, now and then lifting
a hand to brush back his hair. Fie read it over and over, seeking to
discover a hidden meaning in the words. Finally he crushed the sheet of
paper in one hand and flung it from him.

“It is her choice!” he exclaimed. “I would not force her to care for me
against her will—I could not if I would! I believe I understand what is
back of this. She has met some one else for whom she cares more than for
me. She speaks of a closer tie than mere friendship between us being
obnoxious to her, and there is no other explanation. All right, Elsie! I
suppose it is as it should be. You wish me happiness! I’ll have it—with
Inza!”

His mind was made up in that moment. Elsie was thrust from his mental
vision, and Inza, radiant and beautiful, rose like a queen before him.

“Inza!” he murmured. “Perhaps it is best. You—you were the sweetheart of
my boyhood days. Fate must have intended you for me.”

Up and down the room he strode, his breast heaving, his cheeks flushed.

“Starbright,” he laughed, “you’ll have to stand aside, old fellow! I
can’t have you take her from me! You know, and I hardly think you’ll
object. I’ll find her at your home, and, during these merry holidays,
I’ll win her promise to be mine forever.”

He fancied the struggle was over, and he flung open his window to admit
the cold night air. It fanned his hot forehead, and he drank it in with
long, deep breaths. Leaning on the window-sill, he looked out upon the
campus, where a solitary student walked hastily along, the frosty ground
seeming to creak and complain beneath his feet.

Then he turned back into the room, closing the window. A moment he stood
looking down at Elsie’s crumpled note. Suddenly a quiver ran over him,
and he stooped, picked up the paper, smoothed it out, and thrust it into
a pocket near his heart.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                              CHAPTER XXX

                        DICK STARBRIGHT’S HOME.


On the southeastern shore of Seneca Lake, not many miles from the little
village of Burdett, stood the handsome home of the Starbrights. Old
Captain Starbright had purchased this splendid country place, intending
to settle down there some time, far from sight and sound of the grim and
restless ocean, to spend the latter part of his life in peace and
quietude. But his dream of peaceful old age in the bosom of his family
had never been realized, for he died in the cabin of his vessel far from
his native land. Gossip said he drank himself to death.

However, he had made a comfortable fortune, and the home he left to his
widow and children was an ideal one. He had enlarged and remodeled the
old country house till it was regarded by the neighbors as a veritable
palace. He had spent large sums on the surrounding grounds, and his
landscape gardening was the wonder and awe of the plain people of that
section of the country. Not a few of them declared he was determined to
bankrupt himself by his foolish extravagance in these matters; but the
result of his labors was pleasing to the eye, to say the least.

The homestead was situated on a hill that sloped gently westward to the
shore of the lake, where the captain built a handsome boat-house. From
Watkins, on the south, to Geneva, on the north, Seneca Lake is fifty
miles long, and there is plenty of yachting to be had, for which purpose
the old mariner purchased a handsome sloop, and Dick had been taught to
handle her with the skill of a veteran.

There were rowboats and canoes, and both Dick and his younger brother,
Phil, had built up the muscles of their arms and backs pulling at the
oar and paddle. But now the lake was frozen over from end to end by the
week of cold weather before the holidays, and sailing and boating could
not be enjoyed. There was plenty of skating, however, and Phil had an
ice-boat, which he had constructed with his own hands.

Dick’s mother was a handsome, kind-faced lady, refined and sad in her
manner, although her face could light up with a smile that was like a
golden sunburst. She was very proud of her two boys, and of big, manly
Dick in particular. He was so much like her husband as she had known him
in his younger days. Yes, Dick was like him in many respects, yet she
could see that he was finer-grained, for the old sailor had been
somewhat blunt and bluff in his ways.

No wonder Dick was finer-grained, for it were impossible for him to be
otherwise with such a mother. Her influence had been over him always,
and she was to him the type of perfect womanhood. She liked to think of
him as like her husband in his youthful days, and yet that thought
brought to her sometimes one great fear.

Captain Starbright had been beset by one great weakness—his love for
strong drink. All his life he had fought against it, but it had
conquered him at last and cut short his days. The one great fear that
haunted Dick’s mother was that some time her elder son might fall
beneath the ban of intemperance; but from the time little Dick knelt at
her knee to lisp his bedtime prayers she had sought to instil in his
mind a loathing and repulsion for the demon of strong drink.

Phil Starbright regarded his brother as just about “the proper thing” in
every way. Phil was slenderer and more like his mother, and Dick seemed
to him a marvel of strength, courage, and energy. At school there had
never been a fellow who could whip Dick, and whenever Phil was in
trouble Dick could easily and readily be summoned to help him out.

Phil, also, was fitting for Yale. At Andover he had read with breathless
interest the accounts of the Yale football-games in which Dick had taken
part; and his pride swelled and grew when report after report told of
the marvelous playing of the young freshman giant who was known as the
protégé of Frank Merriwell.

Frank Merriwell! Phil had heard of him many times before Dick went to
Yale; he had talked of him to Dick, and he had longed to see the most
famous college man in the country. When Dick wrote to Phil, telling of
his meeting with Merriwell and how kind Merriwell had been to him, the
younger brother felt like turning somersaults and yelling with joy.

And then, just before the holidays, Phil received a letter, in which
Dick said he had invited Merriwell and a number of his friends to spend
a portion of the vacation at the Starbright home, which invitation had
been accepted. Phil came near having a fit. At last he would see Frank
Merriwell! The day that he had dreamed of was coming!

With a bounding, eager heart the Andover lad packed up and started for
home, for he could get off a day sooner than Dick, and he wished to have
everything ready to receive his brother’s guests in the proper manner.

Thus it came about that Merry, Browning, Ready, and Dashleigh were
warmly welcomed at the fine old country place on Seneca Lake. And Phil’s
heart ceased to beat for a moment when Frank Merriwell pressed his hand
and said he was glad to know Dick’s brother.

Mrs. Starbright was so happy that the sad look had fled from her face,
and she quickly made them all feel quite at home.

“You must blame Dick for bringing such a crowd along, Mrs. Starbright,”
said Merry. “He would make us come.”

“And I am very, very glad he did,” she earnestly declared, in a way that
left no doubt of her sincerity. “He has written me about all of you,
particularly of you, Mr. Merriwell. I think I’ve hardly ever received a
letter from him in which he has not made some reference to you. You were
very kind to him, and I have much to thank you for.”

“And I,” said Ready, “I have been very kind to him, also. He will tell
you how I have entertained him as a sophomore should entertain a
freshman. Oh, I have labored with him many a night.”

“Thank you, too,” she said, “for helping him nights with his studies. I
am sure I appreciate it, Mr. Ready.”

“With his studies!” gasped Jack, taking care she did not hear. “Oh, my!
Wouldn’t that kill you! Think of a sophomore helping a freshman with his
studies! I’ve helped him do a jolly turn at Billie’s; I’ve marched him
about the campus in his pajamas, and I’ve trained him through the
streets with his left trousers leg rolled to the knee and a broom on his
shoulder for a gun; but helped him with his studies—oh, Laura!”

“But these are not all, mother,” laughed Dick. “There are more coming.
To-morrow two young ladies and two gentlemen will arrive. One of the
gentlemen is the father of one of the young ladies, while the other
gentleman is the husband of the other young lady. The old house will be
filled, and we won’t do a thing!”

“I think we’ll be able to find room for everybody,” she said. “The
holidays are to be very happy for me, I’m sure.”

“I hope she’s provided plenty of fodder for the herd,” whispered Ready
to Browning. “I’m hollow as—as your head.”

“Now, don’t try to get funny at my expense,” warned the big senior. “I’m
hungry myself, and I don’t feel like being made a fool of.”

“It would be hard to improve on what nature did for you in that
respect,” murmured the irrepressible sophomore.

The boys were shown up to large, pleasant rooms, which had been prepared
for them. Frank and Bruce were given a room together, but there were two
old-fashioned beds in it, and it opened into another and smaller room
that was designated for Ready.

“Thank goodness!” said Jack, when he found he was to have a room by
himself. “I’ll not have to sleep in the same apartment with Browning. If
I did, by the gods of Olympus! I’d get a clothes-pin and place it
straddle of his nose to keep him from snoring. His snore is one of the
most frightful things I ever encountered. Yea, verily! I know, for I’ve
listened to it in the stilly hours of many an awful night, and it has
filled me with despair and an intense desire to do murder.”

“Oh, shut up and get into your own quarters!” growled Bruce. “Your mouth
must be tired. It’s been going yawp! yawp! yawp! ever since we left New
Haven. You’re the worst case of talk-and-say-nothing I ever knew.”

“Refuse me!” chirped Ready, bowing low. “I happened to be built that
way. It soothes my nerves to work my jaw.”

“But it tears up the nerves of everybody within hearing,” declared
Bruce.

“Well, here we are, fellows,” said Frank cheerfully. “Starbright has a
splendid home and a beautiful mother. I’m glad I came.”

“Wait till I get down to the supper-table and I’ll tell you better
whether I’m glad or not,” said Jack. “I wonder if they’ve really got
enough for us to eat. Even a railroad sandwich would have no terrors for
me now.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                              CHAPTER XXXI

                           A BILLIARD-MATCH.


Winnie and Inza, with Buck and Mr. Burrage, arrived the following day
and found an enthusiastic lot of young men there at the Starbright
homestead. Frank was the first to meet Inza, and he gave her hand a warm
pressure, while telling her how glad he was that she had come.

“We’ll have a glorious time here,” he declared. “The finest old place in
all New York! A billiard-room, a bowling-alley, a regular gymnasium—oh,
but old Captain Starbright knew how to lay out his money to make an
ideal home! And Dick’s mother—one of the gentlest mothers in the world.
She’ll make you welcome, you may be sure.”

She did; she took the girls to her heart and said those things which
only a woman like her would know how to say to make them feel how glad
she was to see them. In a moment they were at their ease.

She shook hands with Buck and Mr. Burrage. Something she said to the
young Westerner, giving Winnie a glance, brought the color to Buck’s
face and made him throw back his shoulders and look very proud.

Browning, with his hunger abated, smoking a pipe, was comfortable and at
his ease; but not even the sating of Ready’s hunger had toned him down.
He was the same happy-go-lucky, talkative, joking chap.

“The happy family has assembled at last,” he proclaimed. “We’re all
here, Mrs. Starbright, and now we’ll proceed to eat you out of house and
home. Oh, we’ll have a good time reducing you to poverty! My! my! but
I’m glad I came. Badger, you should have seen the old-fashioned plum
pudding we had for supper last night. It was a peach! But I only got
about half of it before Browning annihilated the other half.”

“Huah!” grunted Bruce. “Don’t try so hard to be funny.”

“Oh,” said Dashleigh, “some of Ready’s jokes last night were really and
truly funny. They would have made a donkey laugh. Why, I actually
laughed till I cried.”

Then Bert grew furiously red when everybody shouted, nor did his
confusion abate when afterward Ready seriously addressed him as “The
Donkey.”

Mrs. Starbright took charge of the girls. Mr. Burrage was very weary and
retired to his room for a brief rest. After washing his face and hands
and brushing his clothes, Buck was ready to be shown about the place,
and Dick took charge of him.

That afternoon Dick challenged Frank to a game of billiards, and the
party assembled in the billiard-room to witness the match.

“Oh, Richard, my boy, you are up against the real thing now,” chirped
Ready. “Going to play a hundred points, eight-inch balk? He’ll beat you
fifty points, or I’ll eat my hat! But you should see me play! I’m the
bird at that game. Why, I’ve often run two points without stopping.”

“I’ll tell you what,” laughed Starbright, his eyes flashing, “let’s play
for something to make it interesting. Will you do it?”

“Well, say a thousand dollars,” suggested Ready carelessly. “I’ll offer
that sum as a purse. It’s a mere nothing to me.”

“I do not mean that we are to bet on the game,” explained Dick. “But if
there were a prize of some sort——”

He paused and looked at Inza.

“Can’t you suggest something?” he asked.

She smiled back at him, and then, roguishly, she said:

“Oh, I might suggest something—if it would be worth struggling for.”

“Name it!” cried Frank and Dick in a breath.

“To-morrow we are to have a sleighing-party.”

“Yes.”

“Well, I will go in the sleigh of the one who wins this match. What do
you say to that?”

There was a brief pause, then both fellows cried:

“Done!”

“Oh, say!” cried Ready; “let me into this! With such a prize in view, I
can wipe you both off the map! Give me a cue.”

“Your cue is to keep quiet,” rumbled Browning, who was seated in a big,
easy chair, placidly looking on.

The balk-lines were freshly drawn, Frank was given his choice of cues,
and then the contestants prepared to “string” for the start.

“Frank,” murmured Dick, “I’m going to beat you if it is in me. You will
have to play your best. I give you fair warning.”

“All right,” Merry nodded. “It is a battle to the finish.”

They sent the ivories rolling down the table to rebound from the lower
cushion and come gently back, side by side. All waited anxiously for the
balls to stop. They rolled up to the head cushion, against which they
lodged and “froze.”

“Tie,” declared Bruce. “You’ll have to try it over.”

They did so, and on the second trial Dick obtained a slight advantage,
which gave him the lead. Frank was wondering just how skilful his
antagonist would prove to be, and he watched closely the manner in which
Starbright made his first shots.

Dick studied the positions of the balls a moment, and then made a
skilful draw that brought them together in a group. Immediately, Merry
understood that he had no easy task before him. He saw on Dick’s face a
look of resolution and determination, and he knew the big freshman would
play as if for his very life.

“He means to win the privilege of having Inza in his sleigh—if he can,”
thought Frank. “That’s plain enough. A careless stroke or the least let
up on my part may mean defeat.”

He knew now that he must be on his mettle to the very finish. Glancing
toward Inza, he saw her dark eyes fastened on Dick, and she was watching
the play with breathless interest that seemed anxiety.

“Is it possible she wishes him to win?” Frank asked himself. “It almost
seems so. If I thought it, he should win, even were I able to defeat
him.”

But his heart rebelled against the thought, and again he resolved to
play the match at his best.

Having the balls together, Starbright proceeded to nurse them in a
skilful manner, running thirteen points, and then missing an easy massé.

“Oh!” exclaimed Inza, with a catch of her breath. “You stopped at
thirteen! That’s an unlucky number.”

Then, in a moment, she laughed merrily, warning Frank to take care to
make as many as thirteen.

Merry started in. Fortunately, the ivories lay well for him, and he ran
off point after point with care and still with swiftness till he had
made thirty-one. Then he missed on an effort to gather them in a corner.

“That is thirteen turned round,” he laughed; “but it may be just as
unlucky.”

“I’d rather take my chances on it,” declared Dick.

Starbright seemed to have the balls in a good position, and again he
began playing with care—too much care, perhaps, for he missed with his
third shot.

“Oh!” again came from Inza’s lips. “I don’t believe you’re even going to
make it interesting.”

“I’m afraid not,” admitted Dick, with a tone of the utmost regret. “But
you may be sure I shall do my best.”

Frank ran seventeen more points before missing, making him forty-eight
in all, while Dick had only fifteen.

There was a look of grim determination on Dick’s face as he began again.

“Get into the game and make a touch-down,” urged Ready. “What are we
paying our money for! With such a prize in view, I could run a
hundred—feet. Oh, you should see me dally with the ivories! It is a
sight to make the gods weep.”

Dick took pains. He studied his shots, and got the balls across the line
at one corner and worked them there with great skill, beginning to pile
up point after point. His playing brought applause, Merry giving it as
readily and honestly as the others.

Ten—twenty points he ran without a break. It was a grand exhibition of
skill. Inza was watching with intense earnestness, and again Merry
fancied she might be anxious for Dick to win. Then, at a critical point,
came a miscue, and Dick’s run came to an end with him just three points
behind Frank.

“You gave me a shock, then,” confessed Merry, as he made ready to play.
“You had ’em going, and I didn’t know that you were ever going to stop.”

“It was my opportunity,” declared Starbright regretfully. “If I had not
made that miscue!”

“That’s the way in this world,” philosophized Ready. “Just as we have
the balls rolling our way and everything looks bright and radiant, we
slip a cog and fall down with a slam. It’s sad and disgusting, but
true—alas!”

“Will somebody be good enough to smother him,” mumbled Browning. “Makes
me think of Dismal Jones.”

“Ha! ha!” laughed Jack, with his old flippant air. “Refuse me! Let’s be
merry. Why does a chicken cross the road? Don’t hit me! My fingers are
crossed.”

Frank had seen enough to know now that Starbright was a brilliant
billiard-player, and more than ever he was determined to do his level
best. Nevertheless, Merry was somewhat rusty, and thus it happened that
he missed his fifth shot.

“Now’s your chance, Dick!” exclaimed Dashleigh, who was acting as
marker. “You can get the lead right here.”

The shot was a very hard one.

“You can’t make that, Starbright,” asserted Browning. “I don’t believe
it can be made.”

“Oh, there is a way to make any shot on the table,” Frank asserted.

But Dick was not so sure of succeeding in this case. He took great
pains, and succeeded. It was a handsome shot, and Merriwell gave a cry
of admiration and approval.

“That reminds me of my playing,” murmured Ready. “It is so different,
you know.”

Inza gave Dick a smile of admiring approval, which did not escape
Frank’s keen eyes. But the balls remained separated, and Starbright’s
success and the applause that had greeted the feat seemed to rattle the
big freshman, so that he missed the very next shot.

“I must get them together and hold them,” thought Frank. “No fancy
playing in this. The fellow might run forty or fifty any minute, and
that would be my Waterloo.”

However, his effort to bring the balls together caused him to miss the
very first attempt, and left the ivories for Starbright, everything
being favorable.

Thinking of the prize for which they were contending had made Dick
nervous, despite the fact that he had always fancied his nerves were
like iron. The glances he had received from Inza had added to his
nervousness, so that he discovered his hand was shaking a trifle.

Immediately he braced up, not wishing any one to discover that he was in
that condition. He was deliberate in his movements, though inwardly
eager and in haste.

The first shot attempted was made by a rank scratch, although he made no
sign that he had not tried for it in that manner. Instead of rattling
him more, the shock of getting the point after he thought he had missed
it served to steady his nerves. He looked toward Inza as he came round
the table. Their eyes met, and he fancied she was urging him to do his
best.

“I will!” he resolved. “I am going to win! I’ll beat Frank Merriwell at
something!”

Dick’s brother was looking on with breathless interest, being more
excited than the big college man, if possible. He longed for Dick to
come off victor, yet fancied such a thing could not happen, with Frank
Merriwell for an opponent.

That look from Inza aided in giving Starbright courage. He swung into
the work with remarkable skill, making another beautiful run, reeling
off point after point.

Phil Starbright could scarcely keep still. He wanted to dance and shout
when Dick passed Frank and took the lead. Browning looked on in amazed
silence, while Ready gasped:

“What’s this? what’s this? I fear me much the result is to be a
surprise. Be still, my fluttering heart, be still!”

“I believe Mr. Starbright is going to beat Frank!” whispered Winnie to
Buck.

“None whatever!” returned the Westerner. “Don’t get that idea into your
head, girl. I’ve seen Frank Merriwell before, and he’s never beaten till
the game is ended. He has nerves, while the big fellow is unsteady and
liable to go into the air any minute. You hear me!”

Starbright ran eighteen points, which gave him a lead of twelve.

“Now, Merry, old man,” urged Buck, “get into gear and do your pretty
work. We know you’re a bit out of practise, but just show us how you can
play at any old game when you have to play.”

Not a word did Frank say, though he smiled faintly at Badger. He began
by making three difficult shots, the third one bunching the balls. Then
he played in splendid form till he had added nineteen to the three,
making a run of twenty-two, which turned the tables on Starbright,
leaving Merry ten in the lead.

Dick missed his first effort, and Frank was given the balls again. He
sought to get them together for a run, and the attempt caused him to
fail to count with his second shot.

“You want only eleven to tie, Dick!” palpitated Phil. “You can get ’em.
I’ve known you to run thirty.”

Once more Starbright tried to steady his nerves and play with the
coolness that was a feature of Merriwell’s work. Somehow that coolness
made the big fellow feel sure that under ordinary circumstances Frank
would completely outrank him at billiards. But the prize lured
Starbright to do his best. That Christmas sleigh-ride with Inza was
something worth working for.

Click, click, click—the big freshman tapped off the points, Dashleigh
counting the buttons as he slid them along the wire. One, two, three,
four, five, six, seven—ha! at last the ivories rolled hard and lay in an
extremely difficult position.

Pausing to study the shot, Dick heard Badger whisper to Winnie that he
must surely miss.

“I won’t miss!” he mentally cried.

Then, with his utmost skill and nerve, he played a cushion-carom shot
and counted.

“Good!” exclaimed Frank, promptly leading the applause.

Dick wiped the perspiration from his face. Not even the strain and
thrill and excitement of a football-game could set his nerves on edge
like this.

Inza’s laugh caused him to thrill with pleasure.

“She’s glad I made it!” he told himself. “Now I know I’m going to win!”

Having succeeded at that critical point, Dick soon brought the balls
together, astonishing himself by his skill in this respect. Never before
had he made so many hard shots with absolute confidence, and the
witnesses of his work were breathless with suspense.

“He is going to win!” breathed Winnie, clutching Buck’s arm.

“Don’t you believe it!” returned the Westerner stiffly. “Frank won’t let
him win.”

Ten points, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five—no, he failed on the
twenty-fifth.

“Eighty-eight points to Merry’s seventy-five,” announced Dashleigh.
“You’re just thirteen ahead, Dick.”

“Thirteen?” exclaimed the freshman, with a start of annoyance.

“The fatal number again!” exclaimed Inza, but she laughed.

“Here’s where you have to do it, if you’re going to do it at all,
Merry,” said Browning. “Twelve more points lets Starbright out, and
you’ll ride with me to-morrow, instead of with Inza.”

Frank needed twenty-five, and he started in to make them, but the balls
persisted in running hard, despite his greatest care. Time after time he
came near missing, but not till he had scored ninety-four buttons in all
did he fail to count.

“Hard luck!” growled Browning.

“Now, Dick!” cried Phil; “this is your chance, and you must do the
trick.”

Starbright did not dare to glance toward Inza again; but, fancying she
was watching him and wishing for his success, he began the task of
trying to run out.

The first shot was a close shave, the cue-ball barely brushing one of
the object balls. Indeed, Browning fancied Dick had missed, but Frank
promptly declared he had plainly seen the shot, and it was a fair count.
Dick thanked him and proceeded with the play. However, he was extremely
anxious and excited, and his anxiety increased as he passed ninety,
crept up to ninety-five and then found himself drawing close onto the
end of the string.

The silence was intense. Indeed, it was so great that it began to
oppress Dick, and he longed for the spectators to talk, laugh, or do
something. He was tingling from his head to his heels.

Ninety-six, ninety-seven, ninety-eight—only two points to make.

“I told you!” whispered Winnie to Buck, in disappointment. “He has
beaten Frank!”

“Not yet!” returned the unshaken Kansan. “If he beats Merry, he’ll be
the first galoot to do the trick in a long time. He won’t!”

Ninety-nine!

One point more to be made!

“Nobody can beat Frank Merriwell!” huskily whispered Buck to his wife.
“He’ll miss this shot, and Merry will win.”

The silence was so great that Starbright heard Badger’s words just as he
was on the point of trying to score the final button. He was struck with
the conviction that he must miss—that it would be a marvel for him to
defeat Frank Merriwell.

He missed!

“Well,” said Merriwell quietly, as deep breaths were heard on every
side, “you made a handsome try for it, and that was a case of hard luck.
I’ve got to make six, and I may slip up on doing that.”

Starbright’s failure at the critical point left him shaking all over.
His last faint hope was that Merry might fail, but Frank played with
care, precision, and coolness, and slowly but surely scored the six
points he needed, winning the match.

“Miss Burrage,” cried Frank, “remember your promise.”

Her merry laugh rang out.

“I’ll not forget it,” she said; “but there was a time when I thought I’d
surely ride with Dick.”

That laugh cut Starbright, for it seemed full of satisfaction and
relief.

“I guess it’s all right!” he thought. “She wanted to ride with him all
the time, and she thought he’d beat me more than he did. She is glad I
lost!”

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                             CHAPTER XXXII

                                BOWLING.


A merry Christmas it was there at Starbright’s. The sleighing-party was
enjoyed by all who took part, and never had Inza seemed merrier and
brighter than on that occasion. She laughed, and sang, and joked; but
Frank observed that she was not in the least sentimental, and she took
pains to turn the conversation into another channel when it approached a
dangerous point. She seemed to enjoy talking of Dick, his home, and his
beautiful mother. Somehow these thoughts did not please Merry, but he
betrayed nothing of the sort, and he spoke words of highest enthusiasm
about Starbright.

The dinner-party that night was one never to be forgotten. The table was
decorated with flowers and evergreens, the lights were softened and
shaded, and Jack Ready declared the turkey was a “feast for the woozy
old gods.”

Ready came out with a new batch of jokes, some of them fresh and some
“wearing whiskers.” Merriwell made a happy speech, and Browning ate till
his ravenous hunger was completely satisfied.

Then there was singing and music and a good time generally. There was no
Christmas tree, but the surprise came in the form of a table-load of
presents found in a room to which all were finally invited by Mrs.
Starbright. Everybody had been remembered, and all declared they
received just what they wanted more than anything else in the world,
which probably was an exaggeration in many instances.

On entering the room, Frank had observed a bit of mistletoe suspended
from the chandelier. At last, Inza innocently paused directly beneath
it, and, in a moment, Merry had her in his arms, claiming the privilege
of a kiss.

But Dick had been equally observant, and he was on hand at the same
instant. Quick as a flash, she held them both off, laughing merrily.

The others shouted and told her she could not escape paying the forfeit.

“But what am I to do?” she asked, blushing crimson. “Both these rude
chaps seized me at the same moment, and both claim they were first.”

“Oh, but I’m slow!” exclaimed Ready. “Why didn’t I have my eyes open and
get into that? It was ever thus! I’m getting to be a retired number.”

“I don’t see but you’ll have to surrender to both, Inza,” laughed
Winnie.

“Oh, I can’t do that,” she protested. “They must settle it between them
somehow. Till they do, let both keep their distance.”

Then she skipped away from them, leaving them standing there, face to
face. Dick looked straight into Frank’s eyes, smiling a bit, but there
was a challenge in his aspect and look. More than ever Merry realized
that this big, fair-haired youth was a rival at whom it were folly to
scoff.

“How shall we settle it?” asked Merriwell pleasantly. “I’ll let you name
the manner, Dick.”

“Another game of billiards,” suggested Ready. “That’s the trick! Ah! it
takes me to solve these little difficulties. I’m a handy chap to have
round.”

“No,” said Starbright. “I have another way.”

“Name it,” urged Merry.

“We’ll bowl a string of candlepins. The one who makes the highest score
wins the privilege given by the mistletoe.”

“Done!”

Winnie clapped her hands and Inza laughed.

“To the bowling-alley!” cried Ready, with a flourish. “I’ll be pin-boy,
and every little candle shall be on its post to a fraction of an inch.
Forward the Light Brigade! Charge for the pins!”

So down to the alley in the basement of the house they went. The lights
were turned on by Phil, and soon everything was ready for this second
match between Frank and Dick.

The entire house was heated by steam, and the spectators could look on
in comfort. The alley was regulation length, well built, well kept, and
handsomely polished.

It fell to Frank to lead off. He examined the balls, finding them all of
a size and in fine condition.

“I am going to beat you at this, Merry,” asserted Dick. “I know you are
too much for me at billiards, but I’m better at this business.”

“That being the case,” smiled Merry, “I must take care to begin strong
and hold out. Here goes.”

He sent the first ball skimming down the alley, and it cracked into the
pins, striking them fairly in the center and splitting them, taking out
three, which left four standing on one side and three on the other.

“Oh, Laura!” exclaimed Ready, from his position beside the pins. “This
doesn’t look much like a strong start. Seven soldiers will be good work
for that break.”

“Look out for that hole, Frank,” warned Browning. “Keep away from it.”

Merry obeyed the injunction to the letter, and he swept off the group of
four pins with his second ball, leaving three standing.

“That’s clever,” nodded Dick. “Let’s see if you can clean them up.”

With moderate speed, Frank sent down a curve for the little line of
pins, but he barely missed the head one, clipping off the last two.

“Nine for Merriwell in his first box,” announced Dashleigh, who had been
selected to keep the score.

Ready set the pins up with care, while Starbright prepared for his first
effort. He stood on the left side of the runway, took a slow start, and
sent a swift ball into the bunch of pins, striking them on the quarter
and tearing them up as if they had been hit by a cyclone. Only the head
pin was left standing.

“Refuse me!” gasped Ready. “It’s dangerous down here. Oh, but that was a
soaker! Methinks I smell a spare.”

He was right, for Dick drove the second ball straight and true at the
single pin, which went flying against the padded end of the alley with a
sodden thump.

“Spare in the first box for Starbright!” cried Dashleigh, in great
delight. “It’s your turn now, Dick! He did you at billiards, but this is
different.”

“This is only the beginning,” smiled Dick. “I’m not liable to keep that
work up right along.”

“I should hope not!” exclaimed Frank.

Frank came up for the second box, trying a wide curve, which missed the
head pin and swept down one side of the bunch. His second ball was sent
straight down the middle of the alley, but it took a slight shoot just
before hitting the pins and left two standing, one on the center and one
on the corner.

“Spares are scarce on this side,” he smiled, apparently not a bit
disturbed.

“Hard luck!” growled Browning.

“No,” said Merry, “poor bowling.”

Instead of trying to get just one of the two pins left, he used a curve
to the right for a billiard-shot, hoping to make them both, but the head
pin was missed by a fraction of an inch, and neither fell.

“Eight pins,” cried Dashleigh. “Seventeen in all.”

“Starbright is bound to have a big start,” said Badger. “In this kind of
a game, every pin counts.”

“Don’t forget this first ball counts on your spare, Dick,” warned
Dashleigh.

Dick did not forget. He whistled the ball down the alley, struck the
pins prettily, and tore down six of them.

“That gives him sixteen in his first box,” said Bert. “And he has a
splendid chance for another spare.”

Dick took the chance, too, for he got into the pins finely, cleaning the
alley, which caused the spectators to utter cries of applause.

“This is hot!” muttered Frank. “You seem to be keeping it up, old man.”

“He’s making me lots of work,” observed Ready, as he deftly stood the
fallen pins on the spot.

Frank changed his position on the alley, but again he split the pins,
leaving two standing, one on each corner.

“No spare there!” cried Dashleigh.

“No poor bowling in that,” growled Bruce. “It should have been a
strike.”

Frank clipped off the two remaining pins with two straight balls, which
gave him ten in his third box, making twenty-seven in all.

Starbright got into the bunch again, but secured only five on his spare,
which left the pins in a difficult position. He did well in raking down
nine with three balls; but his lead on Frank was great, the second spare
having given him thirty-one in the second box, and on even rolls with
Merry he had forty.

“Up against the real thing now,” chirped Ready. “This Starbright has
played the game before, my friends. You’re buncoed, Merriwell.”

On his next roll Frank was able to make but nine pins, obtaining a total
of thirty-six, while Starbright cleaned the alley, which gave him a lead
of fourteen pins.

Merry had been trying different kinds of balls and different positions
on the alley, seeking to discover just where he could do his best work.
Now he opened with a cross-ball, which struck the bunch on the quarter
and swept them down clatteringly. A shout went up, for it was seen that
but one pin remained standing, and that one was tottering and swaying.

“Go down, you scoundrel!” roared Browning.

But it refused to obey the command, settling into position.

“Robbery!” declared Starbright. “You should have had it, Frank. All the
same”—with a quick glance at Inza—“I’m very glad you didn’t get it.”

Merry made no complaint, but sent the next ball true as a bullet from a
gun, clipping down the pin and making a spare.

“Here’s where you gain,” said Browning.

But Starbright seemed on his mettle, and he proceeded to duplicate
Merry’s performance, making a particularly difficult spare.

“He refuses to let me overtake him!” exclaimed Frank.

“Gentlemen,” cried Ready, “have you no pity for a poor working boy?
Please leave a few standing once in a while!”

Frank had decided that the cross-ball was the one to use, and now he
made ready to get all he could on his spare. There was a hush as he
picked up the first ball and sent it spinning anglewise down the alley.

Crash—clatter!

“Seven pins!” shouted Ready.

“Good work!” muttered Browning.

But the remaining pins were left in such a way that it seemed impossible
to get them all with a single ball. Frank studied them a moment and did
his best, but his best left one standing. This one he removed with the
third ball.

“Fifty-three on your half,” said Dashleigh. “Sixty-three in your sixth
box.”

Starbright struck the head pin too full, which cut out four, leaving
standing two wings of three pins each.

“Four pins with his spare ball,” said Bert. “Sixty-four on his half.
That’s all right.”

“But Frank gained three pins there,” murmured Inza.

“Frank will win,” asserted Badger, speaking so low that Dick could not
hear. “I tell you he can’t be beaten! That’s whatever!”

“But he has a hard task before him,” whispered Winnie. “Mr. Starbright
is a wonderful bowler.”

Dick took pains and smashed down one of the standing wings with his
second ball. His third, however, left a pin standing, and Frank had
gained another.

In the sixth box Starbright had seventy-three, with Merriwell just ten
pins behind him.

By this time Frank had the range of the alley, and now he sent a
strike-ball tearing into the pins, mowing them all down in a twinkling.

“I knew it!” said Browning, with intense satisfaction.

“Oh, mercy!” whooped Ready. “Did you ever in your life! Wasn’t that a
bird!”

“Here is where he gets right into it,” said Buck to Winnie. “I knew he
would.”

But Starbright was not shaken in the least, and he came near duplicating
Merry’s feat, for, with his first ball, he smashed down every pin but
one.

“Now, that was genuine hard luck!” exclaimed Frank sincerely. “That ball
was just as good as mine, but the pins did not happen to fall just
right.”

Dick looked grim and determined, and he went for the single pin, getting
it easily, which gave him a spare.

“You may get as many with your spare as he does with his strike,” said
Dashleigh, encouragingly.

“But I’d rather have the strike,” confessed Dick.

Frank cut only two pins out of the bunch with his first ball, and it
began to look bad for him; but he placed the second ball perfectly,
sweeping off all the remaining pins but one, which gave him a score of
nineteen in his seventh box, the total being eighty-two. He knocked down
the last pin with his third ball, which added ten more for his eighth
box.

Strangely enough, Starbright did precisely the same thing with all three
balls, getting only two on his spare, which left Merriwell but three
points behind in the seventh and eighth boxes.

“This is too close for comfort, Dick,” palpitated Dashleigh. “You have
let him come right up on you. You must hold your lead in the last two
boxes.”

Frank was in fine fettle. He had a “good eye,” and his hand was steady,
while his aim was perfect. Again he put a ball into the heart of the
bunch, striking the head pin on the quarter, and again he cleaned the
alley.

“Wow!” whooped Ready, dancing about. “Wouldn’t I cut a cake of ice in
this game! My! My! I don’t know a thing about bowling!”

“It’s the first time in all your life that you ever told the truth,”
flung back Browning.

“Frank will win!” murmured Inza, and somehow Winnie fancied that she
seemed disappointed.

Starbright did not smile now. His strong, handsome face looked grim and
resolute. He sent a straight, true ball shooting down the alley, and,
like a flash, every pin was swept off clean. Then what a shout went up!
Both had made a strike in the ninth!

Dashleigh leaped to his feet and danced with joy, while Phil wished to
hug his big brother.

“He’ll keep his lead now!” declared Bert to Phil. “Don’t you fear about
that!”

Merry was not smiling. He knew that overconfidence might prove a great
mistake, and yet he was determined to win if possible. However, his
first ball slipped from his fingers and barely knocked down a single pin
on the corner.

Dashleigh wanted to whoop again, while Browning felt like thumping
somebody. Only Buck Badger remained perfectly unshaken in his belief
that Merriwell could not fail to win.

Frank was deliberate in his movements, and he placed the next ball to a
fraction of an inch. The result was the complete collapse of the pins
and a spare for him in his last box!

Dashleigh’s heart went into his boots, while Phil Starbright simply sat
down on a bench, gasping.

“Twenty in the ninth; one hundred and twelve total,” said Bert huskily.
“I’m afraid that does the trick!”

The pins were up, and Starbright prepared for the last effort. His first
ball brought everybody to his or her toes, for it went straight and true
into the proper place, and down crashed nine pins.

“Hooray!” yelled Phil, leaping up. “He’s going to do the same thing!
He’ll get a spare, too!”

But now Starbright found himself shaking a bit. In this respect he
lacked Merriwell’s nerve, for Frank was always the coolest and steadiest
when the critical moment came.

“I must do it!” thought Dick, but in his heart there was a faint fear
that he might fail. He sent the ball straight toward the pin, and
several cried:

“He’s got it!”

But the ball curved the least bit, brushed the pin, caused it to move
off the spot at least half an inch, but left it standing.

Dashleigh collapsed and seemed disheartened until he made a sudden
discovery.

“Hold on!” he shouted. “Merriwell has but one ball left! He should have
rolled that one off before Dick. There is a bare chance left if Dick
gets that last pin.”

“I fail to see it,” grunted Browning.

“Why, it’s plain enough,” declared Bert. “Frank has one hundred and
twelve in his ninth box, hasn’t he?”

“Sure.”

“And he’s made ten with two balls.”

“Right.”

“That ten goes into the last box, together with what he gets on the next
ball.”

“Correct.”

“What if he gets only one? He’ll have one hundred and twenty-three. Dick
has that already. If Dick gets that pin, Merriwell must have two to tie
and three to win. It often happens that a man doesn’t get but one or two
on one ball. Get that pin, Dick!”

Dick got it, making his total score one hundred and twenty-four.

“That’s enough to win any bowling-match,” muttered Phil.

“Any but this one,” said Badger. “You’ll see that Merriwell is a hard
man to beat. I found it out some months ago.”

Frank now took up his last ball and sent it at the pins which Ready had
placed on the spots. It struck them, sent them whirling and crashing,
and left but a single pin standing.

“That does it,” admitted Dashleigh, at last. “He makes one hundred and
thirty-one.”

This is the score kept by Bert:

                                 MERRIWELL. STARBRIGHT.

                     9    9        1          16   16

                     8   17        2          15   31

                    10   27        3           9   40

                     9   36        4          10   50

                    17   53        5          14   64

                    10   63        6           9   73

                    19   82        7          12   85

                    10   92        8          10   95

                    20  112        9          19  114

                    19  131       10          10  124

                         ——                        ——

                                  Total 131 Total 124

Frank had won the privilege he sought to claim beneath the mistletoe.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                             CHAPTER XXXIII

                          DEFEAT AND SUCCESS.


Indoor sports were not the only kind enjoyed at Starbright’s. There was
skating on the lake, and Phil took them out for a spin over the ice on
his ice-boat. The day after Christmas, however, an accident happened
that made the girls afraid of the ice.

It is a well-known fact that, even in the coldest weather, any large
body of water that is frozen over has weak or open spots in the ice;
“breathing-holes” they are sometimes called.

In this respect Seneca Lake was like other lakes, and so it chanced
that, skating together, with hands clasped, Inza and Winnie struck one
of those places. Before they could turn about, the ice broke beneath
their feet and they found themselves struggling in the chilling water.

Several of the fellows were skating near-by, and they were startled and
horrified by the shriek that came from the girls as they broke through.
In a moment, every youth was dashing toward the spot.

Starbright was nearest. His heart sprang into his throat, for he
realized the terrible peril of the girls, knowing they were liable to
clasp each other about their necks and go down immediately.

Frank was only a short distance behind Dick, but Starbright reached the
spot first. As he came up, he saw Inza’s head disappear beneath the
surface, and straight into the water he plunged, clutching at her in the
wild hope that he might be successful.

Fortunately, Dick was able to grasp Inza before she sank beyond his
reach, and he dragged her back to the surface. Then the others came up.

Badger was there almost as soon as Frank, and they pulled Winnie out on
to the solid ice. Immediately Merry turned his attention to Inza.

“Take her!” Starbright chattered. “Get her out quick, Merriwell! I
thought she was gone!”

“Guess she would have been if you hadn’t plunged in after her as you
did,” said Frank.

The ice was solid close to the dangerous spot, so there was little
trouble in drawing Inza out, after which Starbright was helped from the
water.

Then the girls, wrapped in the coats which the boys stripped off and
threw about them, were hurried away to the house, where they were
doctored and given warm drinks and placed in bed.

Some hours later, when the boys were all together again, Winnie and Inza
appeared and thanked their rescuers. Frank observed that Inza first went
straight to Dick, giving him her hand.

“I thought I was gone,” she said. “I was stunned when I went into the
water, and I couldn’t seem to do a thing to help myself, though I knew I
was sinking. Then I felt a strong hand grasp me, and you pulled me back
to the surface. I know I owe my life to you!”

Dick’s face was crimson, and his heart thrilled as she gave his fingers
a warm pressure, looking straight into his blue eyes.

“We all did what we could,” he stammered. “Frank was on hand to pull you
out.”

“But Starbright was the only one who really saved you,” said Merry, with
perfect generosity. “There can be no doubt of that.”

After a little time, he slipped away unobserved and retired to his room,
in the solitude of which he sat a long time, pondering over the things
that had happened since his arrival at the home of the Starbrights. Once
more in his heart throbbed the pain of loneliness that had seized him in
his room the night he received the brief message from Elsie.

“I will delay no longer,” he finally murmured. “I’ll seek Inza, and come
to an understanding with her.”

Then he went down-stairs, having first looked into the billiard-room,
where Ready and Dashleigh were indulging in a game. In the library
Browning was stretched on a Morris chair, reading a book. Through the
house Frank searched, but he found nothing of Inza till, at last, he
heard the crash of falling pins in the basement.

“They are bowling,” he said, and descended the stairs.

Dick and Inza were there. He had been instructing her in bowling, and
neither of them heard Frank, who paused on the stairs.

“It was just too bad he beat you!” Inza was saying. “I don’t believe he
could do it again.”

“I don’t know about that,” laughed the big fellow. “But I don’t think I
ever wanted to win anything more in all my life than I did that string
of candlepins.”

“Did you?” she murmured, idly marking on the score-board.

“I did!” he declared, getting close to her and watching her write. “And
I’ve felt ever since that I was robbed of something.”

“Perhaps,” she murmured—“perhaps somebody else wished you to win.”

“You?” he breathed, all atremble—“did you wish that—Inza?”

“Perhaps so.”

“I didn’t know—I thought you might want Frank to beat me. What are you
writing—my name?”

“Yes—and mine.”

Having written her own name beneath Dick’s, she began to strike out such
letters as she could find in both names. He watched her with interest.

“Let’s see,” he said, “how it is done? You take the letters that are
left, and how do you say it?”

“Love, hate, marriage; love, hate, marriage,” she explained.

“There are seven letters left in my name,” he declared. “It’s love for
me, and never anything in this world came truer!”

His voice betrayed his emotion.

“There are four letters left in my name,” said Inza, her face turned
from him.

“Love again!” exclaimed Dick softly. “Love for both of us! Inza—is
it—can it be—true?”

“Didn’t I say I was sorry Frank defeated you at candlepins?” she
murmured.

“By Heaven!” he hoarsely exclaimed; “he has not defeated me after all.
And I’ll not be robbed of the privilege the mistletoe gave me!”

Then he caught her in his strong arms and kissed her.


                                THE END.


    No. 67 of the MERRIWELL SERIES, entitled “Frank Merriwell’s
    Search,” by Burt L. Standish, has a thrilling tale of the sea
    and many exciting adventures in which Frank acts like the hero
    he is and proves once more that he is without fear where duty is
    concerned.



------------------------------------------------------------------------


                         WESTERN STORIES ABOUT

                              BUFFALO BILL

                          Price Fifteen Cents

                 Red-blooded Adventure Stories for Men

                                -------
                                -------


There is no more romantic character in American history than William F.
Cody, or as he was internationally known, Buffalo Bill. He, with Colonel
Prentiss Ingraham, Wild Bill Hickok, General Custer, and a few other
adventurous spirits, laid the foundation of our great West.

There is no more brilliant page in American history than the winning of
the West. Never did pioneers live more thrilling lives, so rife with
adventure and brave deeds as the old scouts and plainsmen. Foremost
among these stands the imposing figure of Buffalo Bill.

All of the books in this list are intensely interesting. They were
written by the close friend and companion of Buffalo Bill—Colonel
Prentiss Ingraham. They depict actual adventures which this pair of
hard-hitting comrades experienced, while the story of these adventures
is interwoven with fiction; historically the books are correct.

                      _ALL TITLES ALWAYS IN PRINT_

       ---------------------------------------------------------
       ---------------------------------------------------------


      1—Buffalo Bill, the Border King By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
      2—Buffalo Bill’s Raid By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
      3—Buffalo Bill’s Bravery By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
      4—Buffalo Bill’s Trump Card By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
      5—Buffalo Bill’s Pledge By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
      6—Buffalo Bill’s Vengeance By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
      7—Buffalo Bill’s Iron Grip By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
      8—Buffalo Bill’s Capture By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
      9—Buffalo Bill’s Danger Line By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     10—Buffalo Bill’s Comrades By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     11—Buffalo Bill’s Reckoning By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     12—Buffalo Bill’s Warning By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     13—Buffalo Bill at Bay By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     14—Buffalo Bill’s Buckskin Pards By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     15—Buffalo Bill’s Brand By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     16—Buffalo Bill’s Honor By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     17—Buffalo Bill’s Phantom Hunt By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     18—Buffalo Bill’s Fight With Fire By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     19—Buffalo Bill’s Danite Trail By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     20—Buffalo Bill’s Ranch Riders By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     21—Buffalo Bill’s Death Trail By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     22—Buffalo Bill’s Trackers By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     23—Buffalo Bill’s Mid-air Flight By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     24—Buffalo Bill, Ambassador By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     25—Buffalo Bill’s Air Voyage By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     26—Buffalo Bill’s Secret Mission By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     27—Buffalo Bill’s Long Trail By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     28—Buffalo Bill Against Odds By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     29—Buffalo Bill’s Hot Chase By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     30—Buffalo Bill’s Redskin Ally By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     31—Buffalo Bill’s Treasure Trove By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     32—Buffalo Bill’s Hidden Foes By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     33—Buffalo Bill’s Crack Shot By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     34—Buffalo Bill’s Close Call By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     35—Buffalo Bill’s Double Surprise By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     36—Buffalo Bill’s Ambush By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     37—Buffalo Bill’s Outlaw Hunt By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     38—Buffalo Bill’s Border Duel By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     39—Buffalo Bill’s Bid for Fame By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     40—Buffalo Bill’s Triumph By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     41—Buffalo Bill’s Spy Trailer By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     42—Buffalo Bill’s Death Call By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     43—Buffalo Bill’s Body Guard By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     44—Buffalo Bill’s Still Hunt By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     45—Buffalo Bill and the Doomed Dozen By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     46—Buffalo Bill’s Prairie Scout By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     47—Buffalo Bill’s Traitor Guide By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     48—Buffalo Bill’s Bonanza By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     49—Buffalo Bill’s Swoop By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     50—Buffalo Bill and the Gold King By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     51—Buffalo Bill, Deadshot By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     52—Buffalo Bill’s Buckskin Bravos By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     53—Buffalo Bill’s Big Four By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     54—Buffalo Bill’s One-armed Pard By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     55—Buffalo Bill’s Race for Life By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     56—Buffalo Bill’s Return By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     57—Buffalo Bill’s Conquest By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     58—Buffalo Bill to the Rescue By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     59—Buffalo Bill’s Beautiful Foe By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     60—Buffalo Bill’s Perilous Task By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     61—Buffalo Bill’s Queer Find By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     62—Buffalo Bill’s Blind Lead By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     63—Buffalo Bill’s Resolution By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     64—Buffalo Bill, the Avenger By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     65—Buffalo Bill’s Pledged Pard By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     66—Buffalo Bill’s Weird Warning By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     67—Buffalo Bill’s Wild Ride By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     68—Buffalo Bill’s Redskin Stampede By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     69—Buffalo Bill’s Mine Mystery By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     70—Buffalo Bill’s Gold Hunt By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     71—Buffalo Bill’s Daring Dash By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     72—Buffalo Bill on Hand By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     73—Buffalo Bill’s Alliance By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     74—Buffalo Bill’s Relentless Foe By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     75—Buffalo Bill’s Midnight Ride By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     76—Buffalo Bill’s Chivalry By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     77—Buffalo Bill’s Girl Pard By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     78—Buffalo Bill’s Private War By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     79—Buffalo Bill’s Diamond Mine By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     80—Buffalo Bill’s Big Contract By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     81—Buffalo Bill’s Woman Foe By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     82—Buffalo Bill’s Ruse By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     83—Buffalo Bill’s Pursuit By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     84—Buffalo Bill’s Hidden Gold By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     85—Buffalo Bill in Mid-air By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     86—Buffalo Bill’s Queer Mission By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     87—Buffalo Bill’s Verdict By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     88—Buffalo Bill’s Ordeal By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     89—Buffalo Bill’s Camp Fires By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     90—Buffalo Bill’s Iron Nerve By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     91—Buffalo Bill’s Rival By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     92—Buffalo Bill’s Lone Hand By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     93—Buffalo Bill’s Sacrifice By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     94—Buffalo Bill’s Thunderbolt By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     95—Buffalo Bill’s Black Fortune By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     96—Buffalo Bill’s Wild Work By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     97—Buffalo Bill’s Yellow Trail By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     98—Buffalo Bill’s Treasure Train By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
     99—Buffalo Bill’s Bowie Duel By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    100—Buffalo Bill’s Mystery Man By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    101—Buffalo Bill’s Bold Play By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    102—Buffalo Bill: Peacemaker By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    103—Buffalo Bill’s Big Surprise By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    104—Buffalo Bill’s Barricade By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    105—Buffalo Bill’s Test By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    106—Buffalo Bill’s Powwow By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    107—Buffalo Bill’s Stern Justice By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    108—Buffalo Bill’s Mysterious Friend By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    109—Buffalo Bill and the Boomers By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    110—Buffalo Bill’s Panther Fight By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    111—Buffalo Bill and the Overland Mail By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    112—Buffalo Bill on the Deadwood Trail By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    113—Buffalo Bill in Apache Land By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    114—Buffalo Bill’s Blindfold Duel By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    115—Buffalo Bill and the Lone Camper By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    116—Buffalo Bill’s Merry War By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    117—Buffalo Bill’s Star Play By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    118—Buffalo Bill’s War Cry By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    119—Buffalo Bill on Black Panther’s Trail By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    120—Buffalo Bill’s Slim Chance By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    121—Buffalo Bill Besieged By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    122—Buffalo Bill’s Bandit Round-up By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    123—Buffalo Bill’s Surprise Party By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    124—Buffalo Bill’s Lightning Raid By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    125—Buffalo Bill in Mexico By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    126—Buffalo Bill’s Traitor Foe By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    127—Buffalo Bill’s Tireless Chase By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    128—Buffalo Bill’s Boy Bugler By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    129—Buffalo Bill’s Sure Guess By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    130—Buffalo Bill’s Record Jump By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    131—Buffalo Bill in the Land of Dread By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    132—Buffalo Bill’s Tangled Clue By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    133—Buffalo Bill’s Wolf Skin By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    134—Buffalo Bill’s Twice Four Puzzle By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    135—Buffalo Bill and the Devil Bird By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    136—Buffalo Bill and the Indian’s Mascot By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    137—Buffalo Bill Entrapped By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    138—Buffalo Bill’s Totem Trail By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    139—Buffalo Bill at Fort Challis By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    140—Buffalo Bill’s Determination By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    141—Buffalo Bill’s Battle Axe By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    142—Buffalo Bill’s Game with Fate By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    143—Buffalo Bill’s Comanche Raid By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    144—Buffalo Bill’s Aerial Island By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    145—Buffalo Bill’s Lucky Shot By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    146—Buffalo Bill’s Sioux Friends By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    147—Buffalo Bill’s Supreme Test By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    148—Buffalo Bill’s Boldest Strike By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    149—Buffalo Bill and the Red Hand By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    150—Buffalo Bill’s Dance with Death By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    151—Buffalo Bill’s Running Fight By Col. Prentiss Ingraham

In order that there may be no confusion, we desire to say that the books
listed below will be issued during the respective months in New York
City and vicinity. They may not reach the readers at a distance
promptly, on account of delays in transportation.


                   To Be Published in January, 1923.

    152—Buffalo Bill in Harness By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    153—Buffalo Bill Corralled By Col. Prentiss Ingraham

                   To Be Published in February, 1923.

    154—Buffalo Bill’s Waif of the West By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    155—Buffalo Bill’s Wizard Pard By Col. Prentiss Ingraham

                    To Be Published in March, 1923.

    156—Buffalo Bill and Hawkeye By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    157—Buffalo Bill and Grizzly Dan By Col. Prentiss Ingraham

                    To Be Published in April, 1923.

    158—Buffalo Bill’s Ghost Play By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    159—Buffalo Bill’s Lost Prisoner By Col. Prentiss Ingraham

                     To Be Published in May, 1923.

    160—Buffalo Bill and The Klan of Kau By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    161—Buffalo Bill’s Crow Scouts By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    162—Buffalo Bill’s Lassoed Spectre By Col. Prentiss Ingraham

                     To Be Published in June, 1923.

    163—Buffalo Bill and the Wanderers By Col. Prentiss Ingraham
    164—Buffalo Bill and the White Queen By Col. Prentiss Ingraham

------------------------------------------------------------------------


                       BOOKS THAT NEVER GROW OLD

                              ALGER SERIES

                    Clean Adventure Stories for Boys

                          Price, Fifteen Cents

                   _The Most Complete List Published_

                                -------
                                -------

The following list does not contain all the books that Horatio Alger
wrote, but it contains most of them, and certainly the best.

Horatio Alger is to boys what Charles Dickens is to grown-ups. His work
is just as popular to-day as it was years ago. The books have a quality,
the value of which is beyond computation.

There are legions of boys of foreign parents who are being helped along
the road to true Americanism by reading these books which are so
peculiarly American in tone that the reader cannot fail to absorb some
of the spirit of fair play and clean living which is so
characteristically American.

In this list are included certain books by Edward Stratemeyer upon whose
shoulders the cloak of Horatio Alger has fallen. They are books of the
Alger type, and to a very large extent vie with Mr. Alger’s books in
interest and wholesomeness.

                      _ALL TITLES ALWAYS IN PRINT_

       ---------------------------------------------------------
       ---------------------------------------------------------

     1—Driven From Home                            By Horatio Alger, Jr.
     2—A Cousin’s Conspiracy                       By Horatio Alger, Jr.
     3—Ned Newton                                  By Horatio Alger, Jr.
     4—Andy Gordon                                 By Horatio Alger, Jr.
     5—Tony, the Tramp                             By Horatio Alger, Jr.
     6—The Five Hundred Dollar Check               By Horatio Alger, Jr.
     7—Helping Himself                             By Horatio Alger, Jr.
     8—Making His Way                              By Horatio Alger, Jr.
     9—Try and Trust                               By Horatio Alger, Jr.
    10—Only an Irish Boy                          By Horatio Alger, Jr.
    11—Jed, the Poorhouse Boy                     By Horatio Alger, Jr.
    12—Chester Rand                               By Horatio Alger, Jr.
    13—Grit, the Young Boatman of Pine Point      By Horatio Alger, Jr.
    14—Joe’s Luck                                 By Horatio Alger, Jr.
    15—From Farm Boy to Senator                   By Horatio Alger, Jr.
    16—The Young Outlaw                           By Horatio Alger, Jr.
    17—Jack’s Ward                                By Horatio Alger, Jr.
    18—Dean Dunham                                By Horatio Alger, Jr.
    19—In a New World                             By Horatio Alger, Jr.
    20—Both Sides of the Continent                By Horatio Alger, Jr.
    21—The Store Boy                              By Horatio Alger, Jr.
    22—Brave and Bold                             By Horatio Alger, Jr.
    23—A New York Boy                             By Horatio Alger, Jr.
    24—Bob Burton                                 By Horatio Alger, Jr.
    25—The Young Adventurer                       By Horatio Alger, Jr.
    26—Julius, the Street Boy                     By Horatio Alger, Jr.
    27—Adrift in New York                         By Horatio Alger, Jr.
    28—Tom Brace                                  By Horatio Alger, Jr.
    29—Struggling Upward                          By Horatio Alger, Jr
    30—The Adventures of a New York Telegraph Boy By Horatio Alger, Jr.
    31—Tom Tracy                                  By Horatio Alger, Jr.
    32—The Young Acrobat                          By Horatio Alger, Jr.
    33—Bound to Rise                              By Horatio Alger, Jr.
    34—Hector’s Inheritance                       By Horatio Alger, Jr.
    35—Do and Dare                                By Horatio Alger, Jr.
    36—The Tin Box                                By Horatio Alger, Jr.
    37—Tom, the Bootblack                         By Horatio Alger, Jr.
    38—Risen from the Ranks                       By Horatio Alger, Jr.
    39—Shifting for Himself                       By Horatio Alger, Jr.
    40—Wait and Hope                              By Horatio Alger, Jr.
    41—Sam’s Chance                               By Horatio Alger, Jr.
    42—Striving for Fortune                       By Horatio Alger, Jr.
    43—Phil, the Fiddler                          By Horatio Alger, Jr.
    44—Slow and Sure                              By Horatio Alger, Jr.
    45—Walter Sherwood’s Probation                By Horatio Alger, Jr.
    46—The Trials and Triumphs of Mark Mason      By Horatio Alger, Jr.

------------------------------------------------------------------------


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                          _Adventure Stories_
                          _Detective Stories_
                          _Western Stories_
                          _Love Stories_
                          _Sea Stories_

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All classes of fiction are to be found among the Street & Smith novels.
Our line contains reading matter for every one, irrespective of age or
preference.

The person who has only a moderate sum to spend on reading matter will
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 ● Transcriber’s Notes:
    ○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
    ○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
    ○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
      when a predominant form was found in this book.
    ○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).







End of Project Gutenberg's Frank Merriwell's Setback, by Burt L. Standish