TREACHEROUS URIC.
Of course, all Fardale Academy soon knew what had happened to Uric
Scudder, the story being repeated and told in various forms, and it
seemed that the entire academy fell to laughing over it. It appeared to
be the universal opinion that the fellow had met his just deserts, and
no one seemed to express sympathy.
Thus it came about that the nickname of "Eggs" was applied to Uric from
all sides. Dick Merriwell’s appellation stuck.
Scudder was filled with mortification and fury. Whenever he appeared on
the grounds where the boys were gathered to chat during intermission he
was gravely addressed as "Eggs." If he objected to that, perhaps he was
called "Chickens," or "Cluck-cluck," or something equally as irritating.
As he hurried past one group a boy commenced to cackle like a hen, while
another crowed in imitation of a rooster.
"Merriwell is to blame for it!" he panted, after repeated experiences of
the sort. "And I have to room with him!"
With his heart filled with fury and his face flushed with shame, Uric
hurried to his room. A sentry in the corridor, pacing slowly up and
down, clucked like a setting hen.
Scudder fairly tore into his room. There sat Dick Merriwell, studying,
by the window. Without a word, Uric caught up a chair and swung it over
his head in a fury of passion uncontrolled, intending to strike Dick
unawares.
The chair was caught and twisted from his grasp. At the same time he
received a blow under the ear that sent him against the wall with a
bang.
"Don’t try that kind of a game here!" exclaimed the harsh voice of Hugh
Douglass, whom Uric had not observed, but who had been dusting the room,
it being his week as room orderly.
Douglass was not a handsome chap, and he looked uglier than ever just
now, as he glared at Scudder.
Dick Merriwell had turned like a flash and was looking on.
"What’s the matter, Douglass?" he asked.
"This fellow was going to hit you with a chair," answered Hugh. "He just
came in and caught up a chair quick as a flash, but I don’t think he saw
me."
"Why should he hit me?" said Dick.
"You know why!" panted Scudder. "You are to blame for it all! You’ve
done everything you could to humiliate me since coming here! Now, you
have all the fellows calling me Eggs! You are the one, Merriwell!"
A flash of scorn came to Dick’s dark eyes.
"That is the way you reason, Scudder. You do not pause to consider that
you brought it on yourself. I know a few things about you that I have
never told. I know that within a week after entering this academy you
were playing the sneak and the traitor to your class. You were carrying
tales to the yearlings."
"It’s a lie!"
"If you were worth it, I’d make you swallow that! You know it is true. I
know it! I know you met Singleton and several others of the yearlings in
the Wolf’s Den within a week after entering school, and there plotted to
do me up. The result of that plot was a little fight in Chadwick’s
pasture one night, and you had to meet me first. If, at the time, I had
known as much as I do now, I’d have used you rougher than I did."
Scudder could not deny the accusation, and he inwardly confessed that
Merriwell seemed to have a way of finding out every move made and every
word spoken against him.
"That old sneak of an Indian told you!" he snapped. "Somebody ought to
shoot him!"
Dick smiled grimly.
"He’s a bad chap to fool with, Scudder, as you and your sort have
already discovered. Better let him alone. In fact, in the future, you
had better mind your own business and let me alone. You will be better
off, for I shall get mad pretty soon, and when I get mad I may hurt you.
Let him alone, Douglass. He won’t do anything. I doubt if he would have
had courage enough to strike me with the chair when I wasn’t looking."
And Dick Merriwell coolly sat down and resumed study.
"Better take heed," said Douglass. "Because if he doesn’t soak you by
and by, I shall. You ought to be fired out of Fardale."
"That’s what you’re all working for!" flung back Uric. "But you won’t
succeed in getting me out."
"You’ll succeed in getting yourself out if you keep on," declared Hugh,
resuming his work of putting the room in order.
All this simply served to make Scudder more malicious than ever. While
he feared Dick Merriwell, he continued to seek to devise some means of
hurting the popular young plebe, for Dick was becoming popular.
It was Dick’s work on the football-field that was fast making him
popular, something Scudder well understood. If Merriwell could keep at
it as he had begun, he would make such a record at football as few of
his years ever accomplish.
So Uric desired to injure Dick somehow in the way of football. Fardale
was to play Hudsonville at Fardale the following Saturday, and on Friday
morning Jack Glennon, of the Hudsonville team, received the following
letter:
"MR. JACK GLENNON.
"DEAR SIR: If you will meet me in Fardale at half-past nine o’clock
Saturday morning, I will tell you how to defeat the Fardale Academy
team. I have particular reasons for wishing Fardale to lose, and I
believe you are the one who can fix it so that Hudsonville will surely
win if you follow my tip. By Saturday I expect to know all about the
new plays Fardale is learning in secret practise. You can reach
Fardale on the nine A. M. train, and I will be at the post-office at
half-past nine. I know you by sight, and will speak to you. I will not
sign my name to this, as it might fall into hands for which it is not
intended. Be sure to meet me in Fardale as directed."
Now, Glennon was the big center-rush of the Hudsonville team, and his
record was none too clean. His playing the previous season had caused
vigorous protests from many of the teams encountered by Hudsonville, and
Scudder had picked him out as a fellow who would do pretty nearly
anything to win a game, hence the letter.
Glennon quickly decided to meet the writer in Fardale and find out what
it all meant. Therefore, he reached the academy town ahead of the
Hudsonville team on Saturday, and hung about the post-office. But
nine-thirty came and passed, and Glennon began to think the whole
business was a hoax.
"I’ve been fooled!" he muttered, in disgust. "Bet a dollar some of the
Fardale gang are around laughing at me this minute."
A boy in uniform passed him and walked to the delivery-window, at the
same time looking sharply around. Glennon was going out when the
uniformed lad touched his arm, saying in a low tone:
"I wrote that letter. Follow me."
It was Uric Scudder.
When they were outside Glennon started to walk along beside Uric, but in
a low tone the latter quickly said:
"Better not let people see us together. Lots of these townies take in
the matches. Somebody might have something to say. Just chase me up till
it’s safe for us to chin. I’ll give you the tip."
Scudder walked away in a careless manner, and Glennon followed at a
little distance. In this manner they left the main street of the village
and proceeded toward The Harbor, which was the poorer part of the town.
Scudder knew there was little danger that any one from the academy would
see them there. Coming to an old lumber-yard, he stopped and waited for
the follower to come up.
Glennon sauntered up, a grin on his face.
"What is this deal, anyhow?" he demanded. "What kind of a game are you
putting up on me?"
"No game at all," said Uric quickly. "Come round here behind this pile
of lumber."
"Now, if you’re up to tricks——" began the chap from Hudsonville.
"Forget it. Come on. Somebody might happen along the road."
Prepared for anything, Glennon followed. When they were behind the
lumber-pile Uric said:
"We can sit down here and talk it over. Haven’t much time, for I must
get back to the academy in short order."
They sat down, and the traitor produced cigarettes, which he offered to
the other, who refused them, with a curl of his thick lips.
"I’m in training," said Glennon.
"Oh, what’s the odds!" from Uric. "All this business about training is
mostly rot. Lots of fellows in training smoke on the sly."
"The more fools they!" declared the Hudsonville chap.
"It isn’t your conscience that keeps you from smoking?"
"No; it’s my sense. A man who smokes cigarettes right along has no
business trying to play football. Now, what did you mean by the letter
you sent me, if you sent it?"
"I sent it, all right, and I meant just what I said."
"You promised to tell me how we could defeat Fardale in the game this
afternoon."
"Yes."
"Well, I confess that you aroused my curiosity, and I got a notion to
hear what you had to tell. But I can’t see why you should wish to give
anything away, for you’re a Fardale man."
"And a chap I hate worse than poison is on that team," said Uric,
rubbing his narrow chin with his fingers. "I am ready to do anything to
down him."
"Oh, that’s it. Well, Fardale has been pretty lucky this year. She never
started off so strong before. In fact, we’ve reckoned Fardale as easy
meat in the past; but I’m willing to acknowledge that she worried us a
little by downing Rivermouth. If it hadn’t been for that, no attention
would have been paid to your letter. We beat Rivermouth to open the
season, but it was by a fluke. If it hadn’t been for that fluke, they
would have held us for a tie game. They’ve got a fierce old team this
season, and everybody our way expected they would wipe up the earth with
you chaps. When you beat them we had fits. Now, if you can give us a tip
that will make it easy for us to walk over Fardale, I shall be much
obliged. Does that pay the bill, or are you looking for dough?"
"I want no dough. All I want is for you to rub it into Fardale hard. The
fellow I hate was the fellow who beat Rivermouth, and he’ll beat you
to-day if you don’t take my tip. His brother is coaching the team,
and——"
"So that’s it!" exclaimed Glennon. "You’re talking about Dick
Merriwell?"
"You’ve heard of him?"
"I guess yes! We knew there was something doing when we heard Frank
Merriwell was coaching Fardale. Then came the stories of the doings of
this Dick Merriwell. He must be a holy terror."
Scudder turned almost green.
"Now, wouldn’t it kill you to death to have a fellow like him get a
reputation!" he snarled. "He’d never made the team this year if Frank
Merriwell hadn’t been coach."
"But he can play the game, can’t he?"
"He has devilish luck—or something," said Scudder. "I never saw anything
like it. He gets all the chances."
"You said something about new plays Fardale has been learning in secret
practise. Now, if you can tell me what those plays are, it will make us
wise, and we’ll be ready for them."
"I’m sorry," confessed Uric; "but I haven’t been able to find out much
about them. I thought I’d get onto them, all right, but I’ve had hard
luck."
"Then you don’t know what they are?" asked Glennon, in disappointment.
"No."
"Well, what are you going to tell me?" growled the displeased
Hudsonville chap. "What’s all the guff you gave me in the letter?"
"I’m going to tell you how to win the game," said Uric positively, "even
though I can’t tell you the plays, as I hoped to do."
"Go ahead."
"There’s just one way to do it."
"That is?"
"Play Merriwell to a finish early in the game. They say you’re pretty
good at putting men out of the game when they prove too troublesome."
"Well, I have done such a thing," admitted Glennon, with a grin that was
far from pleasant.
"Do it again! Put your whole team onto the trick. Aim right at Merriwell
from the start. Break his legs, collar-bone, neck, any old thing; but be
sure to put him out of the game for good. I’d be happy if you could fix
him so that he’d never play football again."
"You must hate him some!"
"Why shouldn’t I? But you don’t know my reasons. You may think me a
pretty mean fellow to turn against my own team this way," said Uric
sadly, "but that is because you know nothing of my reasons. I never
harmed this chap Merriwell, but he has done everything in his power to
disgrace me and drive me out of the school. He has abused me, lied about
me, and everything else from the very start. Oh, he’s the meanest chap
on two legs! They say that Frank Merriwell is a pretty decent fellow,
but it’s certain his brother is not much like him. Of course, Frank
Merriwell stands up for his brother, because he is his brother. But Dick
Merriwell will do anything mean or low to hurt a chap he hates. I’m not
going to tell you all he has done to me, because——"
"No need of it," cut in the other. "I didn’t come here to hear about
your personal troubles. But is this tip the only pointer you can give
me?"
"It’s enough—if you follow it. Do up Dick Merriwell, and you’ll surely
win the game. Fail to do him up, and he’ll find a way to beat you, even
if you have a lead up to pretty near the last of it. Mark what I say;
he’ll find a way to beat you, and he will be the one to do the trick.
Just promise me that you’ll put him out in short order, and I’ll have
some courage to see the game. If you won’t promise that, I’ll hardly
care to watch it, for I know what he’ll do."
"Well, don’t you worry," said Glennon, in a significant way. "We’ll be
pretty sure to put anybody who is dangerous out of business. If you
really want to see Fardale beaten as bad as you pretend, just be sure to
watch the game this afternoon. That’s all I have to say."
"All right," nodded Scudder, with satisfaction, rising to his feet.
"I’ll be on hand. And I’ll look for you to knock Merriwell out inside of
ten minutes after the game begins. Of course, you know how to do the
trick without being disqualified."
"Leave that to me," said Glennon, also rising.