Dick rapped sharply on the door of Chester Arlington's room. There was a
stir within, a pause, and then----
"Come in," called a voice.
Dick entered.
Chester had risen and was standing at attention. When he saw Dick he
looked surprised and disgusted.
"I thought it an inspector," he growled sullenly, a frown coming to his
haughty face, then he flung himself loungingly upon a comfortable chair,
drew forth a cigarette-case, took out a paper-covered cigarette, and
rolled it between his fingers.
There was smoke in the room.
"If I were an inspector," thought Dick, who had closed the door behind
him, "I see where you would get pulled over the coals."
"What in thunder do you want here?" asked Arlington sneeringly, as he
struck a match and lighted his cigarette.
He was not a little surprised by Dick's boldness in entering that room,
and yet he suspected what had brought his unwelcome visitor.
"I have a little business to transact with you, Arlington," said
Merriwell, with a quiet, determined manner that irritated Chester still
further.
"Well, I don't care to have dealings of any sort with you," declared
Arlington, "and I will inform you at once that you are not wanted here.
This is my room, and you had better get out."
Dick did not show any inclination to mind this indirect command.
"You may be sure, Arlington," he returned, "that I am not dealing with
you from choice. Circumstances have made it necessary."
"Well, I refuse to have anything at all to do with you, so get out!"
Instead of obeying, Dick came a little nearer.
"You'll not refuse," he asserted.
"Oh, yes, I will!"
"Oh, no, you won't!"
"I'd like to know why not?"
"Because you dare not."
"Dare not?"
"Exactly. If you refuse, you will be called before the faculty to-morrow
morning to answer to several grave charges."
It seemed that Chester turned a trifle pale, but he snapped his fingers,
stained yellow by cigarettes.
"A threat!" he exclaimed. "But I do not mind your threats, fellow!"
"You will mind this one, for it will be mighty unhealthy for you."
"You're a bully!" cried Arlington, springing up. "But you can't bully me
in my own room! There's the door!"
He pointed with his finger, but Dick did not look; instead, he kept his
dark eyes fixed on those of his enemy, and there was something in that
steady look that held Chester in check.
"When I am through," he said, in the same manner of quiet assurance, "I
shall lose no time in getting out by that door."
"I won't disgrace myself by getting into a row with you," sneered the
other.
"You have disgraced yourself enough already. I advise you to go slow."
"I want no advice from you!"
"In your heart you know well enough one reason why I am here."
"Really, I haven't the least idea," said Arlington, as he again sat
down, a bored expression driving the look of anger from his face.
Dick, however, knew Chester was not bored, knew he was shamming, knew he
was nervous and apprehensive.
"It will not take me long to tell you why I am here. For one thing, I
want you to resign immediately from the athletic committee."
Chester laughed,
"You--you want me to! Well, what you want is nothing to me. What you
want and what I'll do are two entirely different things."
"You will resign," declared Dick, with positive assurance.
"Not much!"
"You will resign."
"Why? Because you order it? Because you want to run the football-team,
the committee, and everything connected with Fardale athletics? Well,
you'll find that you can't have everything your own way!"
"If you do not resign," said Dick, "I shall immediately take steps to
compel you to do so."
"You compel me?"
"I shall."
"Why, you crazy idiot! You conceited duffer! You swell-headed----"
"That will do!" came sternly from Dick's lips. "I know you would like to
provoke me into attacking you here, in order that you might claim I came
to your room and assaulted you. I shall not touch you in this room, but
if you continue your insulting epithets I shall call you to account
elsewhere the first opportunity that presents."
"Bully! But you can't frighten me. My father is D. Roscoe Arlington,
and----"
"That is something you have told everybody in this school a dozen times,
or more; but I should fancy you ought to see by this time that it fails
to make an impression."
Dick spoke like one who felt himself entire master of the situation, and
that was one thing that infuriated Arlington, although he could not help
being impressed by it. It was this air of perfect assurance of his
position that marked Dick as one different from most lads and gave him
influence and power to a degree. He was also magnetic, and those who
learned to admire him as a friend grew soon to swear by him in
everything and believe he could not make a mistake.
"I am not going to be dictated to by you! Put that in your pipe and
smoke it! You can't order me about. I was elected to the committee to
fill the place made vacant by the resignation of Warwick, and on that
committee I'll stay."
"You will not be on that committee to-morrow night. I give you your
choice, you may resign or be fired off. But you had better resign, for
you may be fired out of the school if you are fired off the committee."
"Bah!"
"The charges that will be preferred against you on the committee are
certain to leak out, and a call before the faculty must follow."
"What are you talking about, anyhow? What charges will be preferred?"
"You will be accused of having dealings with Fred Kennedy, a gambler, of
giving him money to bet against Fardale, and of being a gambler
yourself. Thus you, one of the athletic committee, therefore deeply
interested in the success of the football-team, are plainly a traitor
working against your own school."
"That's fine!" sneered Chester. "It's easy to make such a charge, but
how are you going to prove it?"
"I have proof enough."
"What proof?"
"You were heard in Murphy's saloon at The Harbor dealing with Kennedy."
"By whom?"
"Myself."
"Ha, ha!" laughed Chester. "And do you think that proof enough? I think
my word is as good as yours."
"I was not the only one there. Brad Buckhart was with me outside the
window, which was broken, and he heard your talk."
"Anybody knows he would lie for you."
"Joe Savage saw you in that room, where he went to have some dealings
with you. He was attacked, struck with a bottle, and seriously injured.
He will appear against you."
"He'd better not!" grated Arlington fiercely. "If he does, he'll go out
of Fardale, too!"
"He'll appear, though. You failed to keep your promise to him, and
so----"
"What promise?"
"Your promise to give up his I O U's, won from him at the poker-table."
"So that's his story, eh? Ha, ha! Do you fancy he'll be fool enough to
get up before the committee and tell that he gambled with me? Why, he'd
be in trouble at once! Gambling is not allowed here. And he doesn't want
his mother to know that he played for money."
"You're right about that, but you have driven him to the limit. The worm
has turned. Arlington, I am holding him in check now. But for me he
would have gone to Professor Gunn with the whole story."
"I don't believe it!"
"Believe it or not, as you like."
"Why should you hold him in check--you? You are my enemy, and I am
yours. You'd not do such a thing for me."
"No."
"Then----"
"For your sister."
"My sister! Confound you! how dare you speak of her! She is nothing to
you!"
"She is a splendid girl, and it is a shame she has such a scoundrel for
a brother."
Chester leaped up, seizing a paper-weight from the table, and swung it
backward to hurl it at Dick.
"You won't throw it," said Merriwell, with the utmost coolness, making
no move to dodge or to protect himself, but looking his enemy straight
in the eyes.
Chester was quivering with excitement, and his lips were drawn back from
his handsome white teeth.
"Blazes take you, Merriwell!" panted Chester. "Some time I'll kill you!"
"Perhaps you may try it. It would be like you. Put down that
paper-weight."
Dick was watching his enemy so closely that he did not see the slight
movement of some curtains which hid an alcove, did not see them slightly
parted, and did not observe a pair of beady black eyes that peered out
at him. Some one besides Arlington and Merriwell was in that room and
had been there all the time.
Chester hesitated, but Dick's dark eyes seemed to have some magnetic
power over him, for he suddenly lowered his hand and tossed the
paper-weight with a thud upon the table.
"Better not mention my sister further," he said huskily, shrugging his
shoulders. "You touch me on a sore spot. I can't bear to think of her
having anything at all to do with you--even speaking to you."
"You asked me a question, and I answered it truthfully. You are her
brother, and she worries over you. It would hurt her to have you
expelled from Fardale."
"Expelled?"
"That is just what will happen to you if I cease to hold Joe Savage in
check. That is what is almost certain to happen to you if I go before
the athletic committee and tell what I know."
"Hang you! You are bound to get me off that committee. You tried to keep
me from getting on it."
"I should have done so, but I did not. That was where I made a mistake.
But I had promised your mother not to interfere with your ambitions, and
I----"
"Bah! What did you care about such a promise to my mother?"
"My friends urged me to work against you and keep you from getting on
the committee. I know you are a fellow who does not hesitate to break a
promise, and so you cannot understand why I should desire to keep the
promise I foolishly gave your mother. I refused to interfere in any way.
Seeing that, many of the fellows who would have voted against you had I
used my influence declined to vote at all. Some even voted for you,
thinking it might be well to have a plebe on the committee. I was one
who counted the votes. I could have prevented you from winning then
without making a move. I did not suppose you would find a way to sway
the whole committee if you got on, and I thought it might deepen your
interest in the welfare of the team if you got on. I cannot understand a
fellow who will let his personal feelings lead him into working for or
even desiring the defeat of his school team in order to humiliate an
enemy."
"Oh, you're such a wonderfully upright and honest fellow!" sneered
Arlington. "You make me sick!"
"I shall not waste further words with you. I want your promise before I
leave this room to resign from the committee, or I shall expose you."
Arlington felt that he was cornered, but he hated to give in to the lad
he detested.
"All right!" he finally exclaimed. "I'll resign."
"Then that point is settled."
"But don't think for a minute that you are done with me! I am still your
enemy, and you will find Chester Arlington relentless! I have power,
too. The Arlingtons refuse to be beaten, and you can't beat me."
"That's all right. If you resign, you'll be wise. But I have one thing
more to demand."
Chester gasped.
"Something else? Confound you! that's too much! You have driven me just
as fast as you can!"
"I want the I O U's you hold against Savage," said Dick, in the same
self-possessed, confident manner.
"You want them? Ha, ha!"
"Yes; you will give them to me."
"If I do----"
"Don't be too hasty. What do you expect to do with them?"
"I won them. He owes me almost fifty dollars."
"Which he cannot pay."
"That's not my fault. He'll have to pay, or----"
"You wish revenge against Savage. It won't work. I am satisfied that you
won from him crookedly."
"He thinks he's pretty slick with cards," said Chester; "but he got
bitten, that's all."
Dick knew Joe Savage had not been above winning money in questionable
ways at one time, but Savage had reformed, and he seemed sincere, so
that Merriwell was satisfied that he had been led into gambling again,
not that he had chosen it of his own inclination.
Arlington's words were a practical confession that he had "skinned"
Savage, and Dick had no further hesitation about carrying out his
original plan.
"You agreed to give up those I O U's if Savage would withdraw as a
candidate for the athletic committee and ask that all votes cast for him
be thrown for you on the next balloting."
"Well?" said Chester defiantly, "what of it?"
"You failed to keep your agreement with him."
"Well, you're taking a lot of interest in this fellow who went against
what he knew was your desire in that meeting! What are you after? Are
you working to get him in your power? That's it! You have no right to
demand those I O U's, and I shall not give them up to you."
"Then you will be summoned before the faculty to-morrow."
Arlington was desperate. It was difficult for him to control the rage he
felt.
"So you'll ruin Savage here just to get a blow at me!" he cried harshly.
"That shows how much of a friend you are to him!"
"I am doing this with the full knowledge and consent of Joe Savage."
"Then he's a fool!"
"Call him that to his face when he recovers from the treacherous blow he
received."
"Oh, I'd willingly do it! I have no fear of him--nor of you!"
But Chester was beginning to fear Merriwell, as well as hate him. Why
was it Dick always accomplished anything he set about doing?
Dick turned toward the door.
"If you choose to sacrifice yourself for those worthless bits of paper,"
he said, "go ahead. I have told you what I shall do, and you know I
never fail to keep my word."
He was going, and Arlington wavered. It was the bitterness of gall to
surrender, but he felt that it was better than the disgrace of
expulsion.
"Hold on!" he said. "I don't want the old papers, anyhow! Here!" He took
some slips from his pocket. "Here they are. Take them. I meant to give
them to Savage."
Dick stepped back quietly, with no expression of satisfaction or
triumph, and took the slips from Chester's hand. Quietly he ran them
over, glancing at each one. Arlington longed intensely to strike him,
but experience had taught him that he had better not do so.
"These are right," nodded Dick, coolly putting the slips into his
pocket.
Again he turned and walked toward the door. Just as he put out his hand
to open the door, something whizzed past his head. Thud!--it struck the
door and stuck there, quivering. It was a knife!