WHO WON THE FIGHT?
How and when Mason and Hodge disappeared from the field Ready never
knew; but disappear they did, and Jack went about wildly seeking to
learn in which direction they had departed.
“Oh, lud! oh, lud!” he moaned. “I wouldn’t miss the circus for two
dollars in real money!”
“What circus?” asked Frank Merriwell.
“Why, the mill,” said Jack.
“What do you mean by the mill?”
“The scrap.”
“Hey? A scrap? Who----”
“Hodge and Mason.”
Merriwell grasped Ready by the arm, demanded to know all about it,
and Jack told him what had happened.
“It must be stopped!” exclaimed Frank, who fancied he saw no end of
trouble on the nine arising from such an encounter. “We must find
out which way they have gone.”
But though they tried to do so, they did not learn until it was
almost dark that the two young men had been seen walking swiftly
toward Edgewood Park.
Neither of the enemies was found. When they returned to college
Hodge was not in his room. Some time later he had arrived, but his
door was locked and no one gained admittance.
All the following day Hodge and Mason kept to their rooms. Of
course, Frank gained admission, although both fellows were reported
“ill.”
Mason was wearing a beefsteak poultice over both eyes, while Hodge
was making liberal applications of witch-hazel and arnica and soap
liniment.
Mason would not say a word about the fight. Nor would Hodge.
When Merry tried to draw Mason out he closed up like a clam. Hodge
did the same. Neither man would speak of the other.
Of course, it was known by this time that there had been some kind
of an encounter between these two, and the students generally were
interested to learn how it had resulted.
Finding Merriwell had obtained admission to Bart’s room, Jack Ready
sought it. His second knock on Hodge’s door caused Bart to turn the
key in the lock.
“Important, dear boy,” declared Jack, as he rushed right in.
“Refuse me! Awfully dark here. Why don’t you run up your curtain?”
Ready was about to lift the curtain when Hodge harshly growled for
him to let it alone.
“Refuse me!” exclaimed Jack again. “Are you ill?”
“Bad headache,” said Bart. “What in thunder do you want? You’re
enough to make a well man sick!”
“Thanks, awfully,” chirped Ready. “I don’t mind if I do sit down.”
He took a chair. “Now, what I wanted to see you about is this: You
and I agree on one point--Mason is N. G. on the nine. He lacks
sand.”
“Who said so?” demanded Hodge.
“Why, I though somebody told me you said so.”
“Think again.”
“Well, he is not the man we want for center field.”
“Are you managing the nine?”
“No, but----”
“Then you’d better dry up and let other people run it.”
“Ye gods!” gasped Ready. “I fail to understand you. Anyhow, you
cheated me out of my just dues. I was to see that scrap. I suppose
you licked him?”
Hodge did not answer.
“I say I suppose you thrashed the cad?” repeated Jack.
Still Bart was silent.
“But,” Ready continued, “I didn’t think you’d shut yourself up and
go into mourning over it. Was it a hard job?”
“If you have anything you wish to see me about, come to the point.
If you haven’t, get out. You make my headache worse.”
“My! my! how touchy you are!” murmured Jack. “You need some spring
bitters.”
“You’re an ass!” snapped Bart.
“Thanks!” smiled Jack. “So am I. There are lots of us to keep you
company. Where did you fight?”
“Will you go?”
“By me soul!” cried Ready; “I have a suspicion that you did not
fight at all! You have shut yourself in your room to avoid meeting
him. You are afraid of him, Hodge.”
But even this did not lead Bart to assert that the fight had taken
place.
“It is insinuated around the campus,” lied Ready, “that Mason
thrashed you. Will you give me authority, as a particular friend,
to contradict the report?”
“I will give you authority to mind your own business.”
“Great gash!” whooped Jack. “You don’t mean to confess that he did
thrash you?”
Bart opened the door.
“You get out,” he said fiercely, “or I’ll throw you out!”
“La! la!” said Ready. “Isn’t it too bad? Just to think that a cad
like him should thrash a man like you! Oh, luddy me! how could it
be!”
Bart strode over to Jack, whom he seized by the collar.
“There’s the door!” he growled.
“Nothing remarkable about it that I can see,” said Ready. “Just a
plain, ordinary door.”
Bart yanked him over to it.
“But a first-rate door to go out of,” he said, as he ejected Jack.
“Come round again--when you’re invited.”
Slam!--the door closed in Ready’s face, and the key turned in the
lock.
“Isn’t it sad!” sobbed the queer fellow to himself. “Just to think
that a good man like Hodge should be thrashed by a fellow like
Mason! Oh, me! oh, my!”
Then he sought Mason’s room, but Hock would not admit him at all.
Late that evening Mason escaped from his room and visited the
little store of a man who “decorated black eyes.” There Hock had
his eyes painted in a most artistic manner, and the next morning he
did not wash his face when he rose from his bed, though he took a
cold sponge bath and brushed and combed his hair.
In some manner Hodge had managed to hide traces of the conflict,
and the two students put up a great bluff. This simply served to
make every one all the more anxious to learn the particulars of the
fight.
“It must have been a corker,” said Ready. “I feel that I have
missed one of the greatest events of the century.”
Ready knew something about Bart’s fighting-abilities, and, for all
of the talk he had made to Hodge, something convinced him that
Hodge had come out the victor. Never, however, could he induce
Hodge to confirm this belief.
After a time it became apparent to all that the two men must have
agreed to say nothing about the result of the encounter, no matter
what it was. Without doubt this agreement had been made before the
engagement began.
Who whipped? That question remained unanswered to the end of time,
for, true to any agreement they may have made, neither youth would
speak of it. They would not even acknowledge that there had been a
fight.
But Mason played center field in the next ball-game. Only one
chance was given him, and he accepted it prettily. His batting
was good, as he got two clean singles. He ran bases well, but did
nothing sensational.
All this proved neither one thing nor the other, for the game
was regarded as sure for Yale from the start, the team pitted
against the blue being from one of the minor colleges. In a game
of that sort the weak man may show up well, as he has plenty of
confidence. Against a strong team the weak man may lose his courage
and go all to pieces, believing defeat is almost certain.
Merriwell, however, was well satisfied with Mason’s work. He found
an opportunity to quietly tell the Southerner so, and Hock’s eyes
showed that he appreciated this.
“Thank you, sah,” he said. “I did as well as I could. But I ought
to have had another hit. I tried to drop the ball behind second,
but made a misjudgment, so the baseman got it.”
“I noticed,” said Merry, “that you were trying to place all your
hits. That’s the way to do. Men who simply try to hit the ball out
any old place never make as good batters as place-hitters.”
“But sometimes,” said Hock, with a bit of a smile, “I find I’m up
against a pitcher that I’m right glad to hit out to any old place.
Pitchers are not all alike.”
Frank laughed.
“That’s quite true; but a bunting-team can make the slickest
pitcher work hard. The trouble with most teams is that they never
practise bunting. I’ve seen a game won off a clever pitcher after
the seventh inning by a team turning to on finding they could not
hit the ball out and going to bunting man after man as they came
up. It rattled the pitcher and broke the luck of his side.”
Hodge made no further protests against Mason. He knew it was
quite useless to do so as long as Merry had decided to keep the
Southerner in defiance to popular clamor.
But still, deep in his heart, Bart continued to think Frank had
made a mistake in judgment.