A NEW CANDIDATE.
When the Fardale eleven and the scrub came out for practise the Monday
following the great game with Viewland, not a few were surprised to see
Hal Darrell show up on the field in football-togs.
"What’s this?" cried Teddy Smart, as he stared at Hal in his comical
way. "Art about to attend a wedding, or an afternoon tea? I see you are
elaborately attired for a society event of some sort."
Teddy couldn’t help being familiar if he tried, and his manner permitted
him to say things that must have caused resentment from any other plebe
at the academy.
Don Kent, like Darrell, was a yearling, and so might address him on
terms of equality.
"What are you going to do, Hal?" asked dark-eyed Don, coming up. "You
don’t mean to say that you’ve got the fever, and think of getting into
the game?"
"I’m going to try to get a chance to practise," said Hal. "Perhaps I
won’t be permitted to do that."
"Permitted!" exclaimed Captain Steve Nunn. "Why, Darrell, you know I
begged you to come out at the very beginning of the practise this year,
and you would not do it. I told you that I believed you could make the
team then."
"I know you did," admitted Hal; "but I did not want to try it then."
"It’s different now."
"What do you mean?"
"Why, circumstances are different. I’m not sure you can make the team."
"Oh, I see!" exclaimed Hal, with a touch of scorn. "You mean that you’ll
not be permitted to use your own judgment now about taking on another
good man if one shows up."
"That was not what I meant. I’ve never been permitted to use my own
judgment without consulting others in regard to players. You know that,
Darrell."
"Oh, I think there was a time that what you said went. You were really
captain of the team at first."
Steve flushed.
"Do you mean by your words that I am not really captain of the team
now?" he asked, touched.
"Well, I don’t want to say anything unpleasant, but you should hear some
of the talk here at the academy. You know football is being run
differently here this year than ever before."
"Differently and better!" exclaimed Steve stiffly. "Fardale has cut a
little ice in baseball before this, but we’ve never done much at
football, and all these other teams thought they were as good or better
than Fardale. This is the first year Fardale ever started off a winner
and kept it up. We owe this to the coaching we have received."
Darrell laughed.
"Why don’t you confess that you owe it to that remarkable left
half-back, who is robbing you of the honors?" he asked.
"You mean Merriwell—Dick Merriwell?"
"Of course. How could I mean any one else?"
"Who says he is robbing me of honors?"
"Oh—everybody, except a few particular friends of his."
"Well, it isn’t true, and no one has a right to say so. He plays the
game to win, as anybody should, and if it happens that he gets a few
more chances than other fellows——"
"Why, it’s all luck. That’s what I’ve said before now, but I find any
amount of fellows who rise up and howl at me and declare him a marvel. I
confess that he’s fairly good. I wouldn’t try to rob him of any credit
due him; but there are others, and it’s tiresome to hear the rabble
howling for him continually."
"Good gracious!" said Smart. "How utterly lacking in envy and jealousy
you are! It’s astonishing! Permit me to congratulate you! You deserve a
reward of merit in this great, envious, selfish world. I’d like to give
it to you—if I were big enough."
Jabez Lynch had been standing near, and now, with a sneer on his
unprepossessing face, he observed:
"You’re wasting your breath, Darrell. They’ll continue to howl for
Merriwell just the same."
Hal frowned at Jabez, turning his back on the fellow.
"I’m going to get into practise to-day, Captain Nunn," he said, "if I am
permitted to do so."
"It’s too late," declared Steve, who had been nettled by the words of
the other. "I wanted you out at first. Now the team is made up and you
can’t get a chance."
"Who ever heard of such a thing?" demanded Hal warmly. "No college team
is made up so a fellow can’t get a chance if he can play better than
some other man and he proves it. Why should this team be made up to the
exclusion of better outsiders? Why, when you say that, it’s the same as
telling the scrub that no man on it has any show of making the eleven.
That’s encouraging to the scrub! That will be likely to make the scrub
turn out and be battered up in practise—I hardly think! Wait a minute,
Captain Nunn. I’m pretty sure you don’t mean to say that there is no
show for me to make the eleven now in case I show that I am superior in
a certain position to some man now playing with the regular team, and in
case there is no other candidate who is superior to me? You don’t mean
that, do you?"
"Of course not," said Steve; "but——"
"That’s all. I thought you didn’t mean it. It’s all I want to know. I am
satisfied."
"I’m glad you’re satisfied," said Steve, walking away in anything but a
pleasant temper.
Immediately Jabez Lynch approached Hal.
"It’s silly of you to waste your time in the attempt," said the fellow,
with curling lip.
Hal surveyed him from his head to his feet, without speaking.
"Oh, you ought to know it’s silly!" said Jabez. "If you can play fast
football, so much the worse. Merriwell doesn’t like you. I happen to
know why, and——"
"You know too much!" said Hal meaningly. "It would be better if you did
not take such an interest in other persons’ affairs."
"Don’t throw it into me like that!" snapped Lynch. "I’m your friend."
"Not if I know it!"
"You may need me some time."
"I hope I’ll never come to that."
"Oh, you do? What’s the matter with you, anyhow? I thought something
must be the matter with you, else you’d never try to make the team with
Dick Merriwell playing on it. He hates you, and a word from him will
keep you off the team. His brother runs the eleven, and all Dick has to
do is to speak the word—he gets things just as he wants them. Do you
fancy he’s going to give you a chance to play with him? You must have
bats in your belfry!"
Darrell turned sharply on Lynch.
"I don’t like you or your style of talk!" he exclaimed. "Go away! I
don’t want any one to see you talking to me. They might think I’d come
to being friendly with you, and that’s enough to queer anybody at this
school."
Lynch literally turned purple with rage.
"Oh, you’re very high and lofty now!" he said. "There was a time when
you were willing to be friends."
"That was before you had advertised yourself to be a thoroughbred
rascal."
"You even had some ideas about going in with me to down Merriwell."
"But not in a sneaking way."
Jabez came close to Darrell.
"You’ll need my aid again some time!" he hissed. "You’re a tame sort of
chap at best, and Merriwell will make sport of you—he’ll kick you and
laugh in your face. It’ll be good enough for you, too! I shall enjoy
seeing him do it!"
Then Darrell knocked Jabez down.
Now, Jabez Lynch was something of a fighter, and he was ready to pitch
into Hal Darrell then and there when he quickly arose; but, knowing that
a fight in that place meant a stay in the guard-house for both of them,
several cadets sprang between them at once.
"Let me at him!" snarled Lynch, his ugly face contorted with rage.
"Let him come!" flared Darrell, ready enough for the encounter.
"Don’t be fools, both of you!" growled big Bob Singleton. "This is no
place for a scrap. Fight it out away from the academy grounds. If
Lieutenant Swift saw you he’d take satisfaction in going for you."
"That’s right," said others. "There’s plenty of time to fight, but don’t
do it here."
"Anywhere he likes," said Darrell.
"Chadwick’s pasture," suggested Lynch.
"Agreed," said Hal.
"To-night."
"Yes."
"If you’re not there——"
"Don’t worry."
"There’s no moon," said somebody.
"Somebody bring a few bicycle lamps," suggested Darrell. "We’ll manage
to get along."
Then he turned and walked away.
Uric Scudder had been a witness, and he improved the first opportunity
to whisper in the ear of the panting, anger-shaken Jabez:
"Well, you are getting it in the neck! Lost all your own money and all
you could borrow betting against Fardale last week, and now nobody wants
anything to do with you. You turned up your nose at me, did you? Well,
I’m thought just about as much of around here now as you are."
"Get away from me—get away!" grated Lynch. "I’m in an ugly temper now."
"He! he! he!" snickered Uric, rubbing his chin with satisfaction. "I
don’t wonder. I’d as lief be called Chickens and Hen Fruit as to be in
your shoes. You went back on me, and now you’re getting paid for it.
Why, even the fellows who do not like Dick Merriwell won’t have anything
to do with you."
"Will you get away from me!"
"Oh, yes! I don’t want to fight with you. Hal Darrell will attend to
your case. Bet you anything you like he does you up inside of fifteen
minutes."
It seemed that Lynch would hit the taunting plebe, but Scudder, laughing
in a most provoking manner, edged away.
Jabez was beginning to feel himself truly something of an outcast, and,
in an unreasoning way, he blamed it all on Dick Merriwell. A year
before, during the football season, he had been popular as one of the
Fardale team; but now Merriwell was playing in his old position, and he,
having refused to take any other, was off the team entirely. And all his
efforts to injure Dick had miscarried wofully, to his unspeakable
disgust. Besides that, not even when Dick was unable to fill his place
on the team had Jabez been asked to come back and play there for a
single game, which had made him unspeakably angry and revengeful.
Lynch had not fancied that Darrell, a yearling, would rebuff him, a
first-class man, for usually yearlings looked up in reverence and awe to
the first class. Besides that, Jabez had imagined that Hal’s openly
expressed dislike for young Merriwell would form a bond of sympathy
between them, and he had counted much on this in his advances toward the
other.
But Darrell was a peculiar fellow. Although he hated Dick, he was not
ready to join hands with any one like Lynch, for all the way through he
was loyal to Fardale, and he knew Lynch was not. Originally he had
sympathized with Jabez, thinking him misused; but the course the fellow
had taken had thoroughly disgusted Hal, and his satisfaction was great
when he learned that Jabez had lost heavily betting against Fardale.
Jabez was incapable of understanding a fellow like Darrell, just as he
was incapable of understanding Dick Merriwell. With him it was anything
in order to obtain revenge on an enemy, and, to accomplish his vengeful
ends, he would have willingly sacrificed the Fardale football-team and
rejoiced to see it go down in defeat before its antagonists.
Both Lynch and Darrell were selfish and egotistical, but there the
likeness between them ended, for the former was unscrupulous and without
honor, while the latter intended to be square, and honorable, and just,
although he sometimes failed.
But both Jabez and Hal fully believed that Dick Merriwell would not
hesitate to resort to anything to prevent them from getting on, and it
is probable that Darrell hated Dick as intensely as did Lynch. But Hal
had another reason for disliking Dick. He was truly smitten by the
charms of Doris Templeton, and, until the appearance of young Merriwell,
he had seemed to have a clear field. Knowing that it was the wish of
their parents, he had fancied that some day Doris would become his wife,
although, of course, that day was regarded as quite remote.
Then Dick Merriwell had appeared on the scene, and it did not take Hal
long to discover that Doris was smitten by more than a mere fancy for
the dark-eyed youth whom she had first seen standing silent as a statue
and looking straight at her in Farmer Snodd’s picnic grove. He could not
forget that, on that very day, Doris had suspected him of treacherously
striking Dick down in the grove, an act of which Lynch, not he, was
guilty.
That had hurt him, and he often thought how her blue eyes had flashed as
she pointed at him, crying: "You did it, Hal Darrell!" He could not
forget that dramatic scene, and it made him hate Dick all the more.
For a time he had fancied that Dick was getting the best of him in
relation to Doris; but of late something very strange had happened.
Young Merriwell had seemed to shun the blue-eyed girl in a singular
manner.
Doris had observed this, and she felt it keenly. She did not know the
cause, for Zona Desmond had not revealed to her that she had made Dick
acquainted with the fact that Hal had a claim on Doris, young though
they both were.
So the fair-haired girl was forced to believe that Dick Merriwell was
fickle and a flirt, for, truly, he had looked into her face in a manner
that seemed to betray untold admiration, and he had hinted at great and
sudden regard for her.
Hard as it was, she tried to seal her lips and not let even her best
friend know how Dick’s conduct troubled her. But what girl of her age
could keep such a secret? One day, in a confidential mood, she told Zona
everything.
"I like him awfully much, Zona," she said. "And I thought at first that
he liked me—a little. But now he takes pains to avoid me, and I never
see anything of him any more. Why is it? What have I done?"
Zona caught her in her arms, crying:
"Doris, you’re just the sweetest girl in the whole world, and Dick
Merriwell is a—a—a chump—there!—not to see it! I couldn’t help the
slang."
"If he had cared more for you," said Doris, "I might understand it. I
mean if he had tried to see you sometimes. For I know you are far
handsomer and more fascinating than I. But it doesn’t seem to be that."
Zona winced a little. She was in the habit of bringing fellows to her
feet in a queenly way, and she dismissed them in the same queenly
fashion after getting them there; but somehow all her arts had failed on
Dick Merriwell, and it had angered her, although she kept the fact
concealed.
She knew well enough why it was that Dick had suddenly cooled toward
Doris, for she had taken special pains to show him that he was breaking
in between Doris and Hal when he had no right to do so; but she did not
know and could not understand why she had failed to win his regard to
herself.
"Don’t talk like that, dear!" she exclaimed. "I’m not handsomer and more
fascinating than you. You only think so. You’re so modest, Doris!"
Then she kissed her friend, but neither of them was happy. Zona felt
that somehow she was guilty of doing something underhand, although she
tried to justify the act by saying it was better for Dick to understand
at the very start before he really came to care a great deal for Doris.
This day the girls had come out to witness the football practise. As Hal
Darrell walked away from the vicinity of Lynch he saw them standing at
the far side of the field, near the seats, and he started across to
them.