ANTON MESCAL STRIKES.
Roland Packard had fancied he might be forced to destroy the original
oilskin envelope in removing the message from it, and for that reason
he had secured a duplicate. When he succeeded in getting the message
out without destroying the original envelope, he decided that the
best thing to do was to place the blank paper in that same envelope,
as the clean newness of the other might betray the trick. Then he was
seized by a desire to put the message in the other envelope and copy as
accurately as possible the writing upon it, which he did.
The villainous student chuckled gleefully as he thought how his brother
had been deceived.
“I have the message safe in my pocket,” he muttered, “while Oll is
taking the fake to Merriwell. But must I give up this genuine article
in order to get the five hundred from Mescal?”
He was not at all pleased by the thought. In fact, he quickly decided
not to give up the message, if he could help it. He set to thinking the
matter over, and it was not long before he had decided on his course of
action. He left the club-room and skulked away to his own room, taking
care to attract as little attention as possible.
The following morning Roland secured another oilskin envelope. Knowing
Oliver would be off to the exercises of the day, he sought his own room
and prepared the envelope there.
When he came out the seniors, in caps and gowns, were assembling at the
chapel, into which a crowd of visitors was flowing.
“Merriwell will be there in all his glory!” muttered Packard to
himself. “He will be the cynosure of all eyes. Oh, he’ll feel proud
and fine, but little he’ll dream that it is my hand that will send him
forth from Yale a pauper.”
The chapel was thronged with visitors when the exercises began, and
Packard was right in thinking that Merriwell would be the center of
attraction.
In the meantime Packard had sought Anton Mescal, whom he finally found
in a room at the Tontine. Mescal had a bottle of wine on the table at
his elbow, and was smoking a Spanish cigarette. His face was flushed
and his eyes gleamed wolfishly when Roland entered. He did not rise,
but regarded the student grimly.
“I’ve come,” said Packard, with an air of triumph.
“I see you have,” said Mescal coldly, showing his white teeth after the
manner of a wolf.
“You do not appear glad to see me.”
“But I am glad--very glad,” said the man from the West, in a very
singular way.
Packard paused, and a shiver ran over him. There was something deadly
in the atmosphere.
“Sit down,” invited Mescal, in that same awesome manner, making a
slight gesture toward a chair.
“I had a hard time getting the message,” began Packard awkwardly.
“Then you did get it?” asked Mescal.
“Yes. When I set out to do a thing, I have a way of doing it. But you
do not seem much pleased.”
“I am pleased--very pleased. Go on. How did you get it?”
“I went straight to Merriwell’s room in the tracks of the man you bade
me follow.”
“To Merriwell’s room?”
“Yes. I could not get a chance to tackle the fellow and secure the
message. You know the streets were full.”
“Yes.”
“If I had tackled him on the street I must have failed, and I would
have been lodged in the jug.”
“Possibly. Go on.”
The manner of the Westerner had not changed in the least, and Roland
felt that those daggerlike eyes were piercing him through and through.
“Merriwell’s room was packed with his friends, who were there to
congratulate him. I walked right in after the messenger.”
“Very bold of you!”
“The messenger took the message from his pocket and handed it over to
Merriwell.”
“And you?”
“I was near enough to spring forward and snatch it from Merriwell’s
hand.”
“But you did not?”
“I did! I snatched it and fled. I eluded the pursuers and got away
with it. Of course, they were searching for me last night, so I was
compelled to lay low. But I am here now.”
“And you have the message?”
“I have.”
Mescal rose to his feet, and the look on his face seemed to become more
dangerous than ever.
“Where is it?”
“Here,” said Packard, also rising.
From his pocket he took the fake envelope, which he held in his hand.
“Give me the five hundred dollars,” he demanded. “It is yours the
moment you pay me the money.”
Mescal stepped clear of the table, and by a sudden spring placed
himself between Packard and the door. He was like a panther in his
movements.
“What’s the matter with you?” asked Roland, in alarm. “What are you
doing? Don’t think for a moment that you can take the message from me
without paying the money.”
“You fool!” said Mescal, in a low tone. “You liar! You traitor!”
Packard saw there was trouble in the air. He wondered if in any manner
this man could have discovered his trick.
“What do you mean by calling me such names?” he blustered.
“I mean just what I have said; you are a fool, a liar, and a traitor.
You came here to deceive me!”
“To deceive you?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“With that thing!” said the man, pointing at the oilskin envelope. “It
does not contain the message!”
Packard was astounded, but he resolved to make a good bluff.
“What are you saying?” he exclaimed, pretending to be much astonished.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I know your game to beat me out of five hundred dollars! I
mean that I was watching you last night! I mean that I saw you when you
went to Merriwell and gave the message to him with your own hand!”
Roland gasped.
“Went to him--and gave him--the message?” he faltered. “Why, man, you
are----” Then he paused, uttering a little cry, as a sudden light broke
on him.
It was Oliver this fellow had watched! It was Oliver he had seen give
the fake envelope to Merriwell!
“You are mistaken,” he said swiftly, although he could not quite see
how he was going to make things clear. “I have a twin brother who looks
exactly like me. You saw him.”
For one moment Mescal seemed surprised, and then a dangerous laugh came
from his lips.
“And what was your twin brother doing with the message?” he demanded.
Roland choked and hesitated. That hesitation seemed to fan the man to a
burst of fury.
“Fool!” he hissed, crouching. “You have tried to deceive the wrong man!
Had you known me better you would not have done so! In my body flows
the blood of the Spaniard, and I never forgive an injury! You betrayed
me, and I will settle with you as we settle such scores in the West!”
Out flashed a slender dagger in his hand. Roland uttered a cry of fear
as Mescal leaped upon him. The student tried to defend himself, but
Mescal’s blade rose and fell.
“You devil!” gasped Packard. “You have stabbed me.”
Then, as Roland sank to his knees, Mescal broke away, flung the
blood-stained dagger on the floor, and bounded to the door. One
backward look he took as he disappeared, seeing the bleeding youth upon
the floor.
Then he fled from the hotel and from New Haven.
Packard was not fatally wounded. The dagger had pierced the muscle of
his arm, and the point had penetrated his side as far as a rib. The
wound in the arm was the most painful, and the other was not dangerous.
In the hospital Roland was skilfully treated, but he persistently
refused to tell how or by whom he had been wounded.
Nor would he stay in the hospital when he found that his wound was not
at all dangerous if properly cared for. He came out that afternoon and
returned to the college.
He found the afternoon exercises on the campus taking place. The place
was like an open arena, with temporary seats rising in tiers all round
it. Those seats were packed with human beings, spectators and friends
of the students. Already the classes had marched in, led by the band,
and assembled on the benches in the middle of the arena, where they now
sat sedately smoking long clay pipes and wearing caps and gowns. They
were listening to the historians of the class, who were reading the
class histories.
Packard looked on, feeling that something was occurring in which he had
no part and no interest. His arm was in a sling, and this last enemy of
Merriwell at Yale looked a forlorn and wretched figure.
The histories read by the different historians had been full of hits
upon the various members of the class. As a man’s name was called his
companions lifted him upon their shoulders, while his history was given
to the strained ears of the gathering. He was compelled to submit
gracefully, but some of those sharp hits caused the victims to look
like fresh-boiled lobsters.
The historian was reading when Packard reached a spot where he could
see and hear. Bruce Browning was held aloft upon the shoulders of his
fellows. When it was finished, Browning was lowered, and up came Bart
Hodge as his name was mentioned.
“Merriwell’s friends!” muttered Packard bitterly. “Everybody seems to
be Merriwell’s friend to-day. I’m the only one of the whole howling
pack who has remained his enemy. He has conquered them all, but I’ll
conquer him!”
Then Hodge was lowered. There was a stir. The name of Merriwell came
from the lips of the historian. Instantly something remarkable took
place. Merry was lifted and held aloft, but every man on these benches
rose to his feet. It was a tribute to Frank, and the great crowd of
watching spectators caught the feeling. Up rose that mass of men and
women and youths and girls in one great surge, standing for the moment
to do honor to the most famous college man in the world. It was a
spectacle never forgotten at Yale.
Then those students who were not holding Frank aloft sat down, and the
spectators followed their example.
The historian, his voice ringing out clear and strong, delivered a
blood-stirring eulogy on Merriwell.
“Bah!” muttered Packard, and, sick at heart, he slunk away, unwilling
to listen to those words of adulation for one he hated with undying
intensity.
Late that afternoon, when the exercises were all over, Oliver Packard
found Roland in the room they had occupied together. Oliver was
surprised when he saw his brother’s arm in a sling, and he asked what
had happened.
“None of your business!” answered Roland surlily.
“You are hurt?” exclaimed Oliver, forgetting that he had vowed he would
take no further interest in his wayward brother. “What is it, Roll!
Won’t you tell me how badly you are hurt?”
“Go to the devil!” snarled Roland.
Oliver sat down, a look of sadness on his face. For some time he sat in
silence; but he spoke at last.
“Where were you while the exercises were taking place to-day?” he asked.
“That’s my business,” said Roland.
“You should have been there. If you had, it’s possible your arm
would not be in a sling now. Roland, I have returned the message to
Merriwell, and I feel that he will take no action against you. I did
not ask him not to do so, for I have been forced to ask him so many
times before that I was ashamed.”
“Then I owe you no thanks.”
“No; but you do owe him something. Is the last spark of honor and the
last particle of justice driven from your heart? Can’t you see where
you have placed yourself by your conduct toward this man, who to-day
has been honored as no Yale man ever before was honored?”
“Honored by fools!” growled Roland.
“Honored by the wisest men in college! Honored by every one! If you had
seen every person in that great crowd on the campus rise when his name
was spoken by the historian----”
“I did see it, and then I got away.”
“Then you were there? But you were not in your place.”
“If I had been, they would have seen that one college man did not rise
when Merriwell’s name was called.”
“And you would have brought on yourself the scorn of every one. Can’t
you see that by his generosity, his fine character, and manliness, he
has risen far above you?”
“No! I see that he has a trick of fooling everybody but me. He can
make his enemies forget that they were once enemies, but I am not like
the others. I want to tell you something, Oll. You think Merriwell has
triumphed, but you are wrong. I am the one who has triumphed, though no
one save myself knows it. Some time Merriwell shall know, and then he
will realize that one of his enemies was more than a match for him.”
“What do you mean?” asked Oliver, amazed. “Are you crazy?”
“Never mind what I mean, but I speak the truth. I have triumphed, and
Merriwell is my victim. I’ll talk no more about it, so you may as well
close your face.”
And Oliver could get nothing further from his brother.