Dick turned like a flash. He saw a slender, dark-faced youth, who had
stepped from behind the curtains and thrown the knife. He also saw that
Chester Arlington had made a spring and clutched the arm of this youth,
thus causing the knife to fly a trifle wild.
That quick move by Arlington had saved Dick. This Merriwell instantly
understood.
"You crazy fellow!" Chester panted, giving Bunol a backward fling. "Do
you want to ruin us both? What are you trying to do?"
"I keel him!" snarled the Spanish youth, his dark eyes glaring
murderously. "I keel him!"
"That would ruin us! You ought to know that!"
Then Arlington turned to Dick.
"You can thank me," he said, "that you did not get that knife between
your shoulders."
"That's a nice, murderous whelp you have there!" said Dick, without a
tremor in his voice. "I think he's altogether too devilish for this
school, and I'll have to report this piece of business. A fellow who
throws a knife at another fellow's back will be fired out of Fardale in
a hurry."
"Hold on, Merriwell!" exclaimed Arlington. "Don't forget that I saved
you!"
"For your own sake," returned Dick instantly.
"For my own sake?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because you know the trouble you would get into. Because you were
afraid of that. Not from any love of me."
"Did you help me out of the fire from love of me?"
"No."
Arlington forced a laugh.
"I knew you did not. Then we are quits. The score is evened up."
"But that does not let your fine friend Bunol out. He is a treacherous
snake, and----"
"Yah!" snarled the Spanish boy, starting to advance toward Dick. "I make
you take it back!"
Again Arlington grasped him.
"Keep still!" he commanded. "You are no match for him, so keep away."
"He have you in bad feex," said Bunol. "I feex him! You wait! You see!"
The eyes of the young Spaniard gleamed with a light that would have made
a nervous fellow uneasy.
Dick jerked the knife from the door, turned about with it in his hand,
and strode back at Miguel Bunol.
The young Spaniard cried out in excitement, thinking Merriwell meant to
attack and stab him. He made a spring for a corner, where stood a pair
of Indian clubs, and one of these he picked up as a weapon. He chattered
something in Spanish as he faced about again, but Dick had paused by the
table, and was talking to Chester.
"It will be a good thing for you, Arlington," Merriwell was saying, "if
this snake in the grass has to leave Fardale. If he remains, he will
some day get you into a bad scrape, mark what I say."
Chester flung back his head with a haughty pose.
"You have had things your own way since coming to this room, Merriwell,"
he said. "But you cannot deny that I saved your life, for that knife
would have struck you fairly had I not grasped Miguel's arm. If you
report this matter, it will bring about an investigation, which may mean
no end of trouble for me, resulting in my expulsion, as well as Bunol's.
Of course, I have no way of preventing you from doing as you like, but I
advise you to think it over before you carry it too far. And now, before
there is further trouble, get out. Leave that knife here on the table."
"No; I'll take the knife as a trophy."
"The knife belongs to me!" cried Bunol.
"No; it belongs to me," declared Dick, as he slipped it into his pocket.
"As parting advice to you, Arlington, take care that your snaky friend
does not carry a knife, unless you wish him to land you in prison by
murdering somebody when you are not around."
Dick walked out, without once looking back. His manner was perfectly
fearless.
When the door closed behind Merriwell, Bunol uttered a little
exclamation of disappointment, dropping the Indian club to the floor. He
sat down heavily on a chair.
"You fool!" said Chester scornfully. "Do you want to get us both hanged?
If that knife had struck him----"
"He would be dead now!"
"And we would be in a fine scrape! Merriwell is right; you must stop
carrying a knife."
"I--I stop? I--I no carry knife?"
"Well, if you do, I'll have to cut clear of you."
Bunol seemed thunderstruck.
"You--you do that? You cut clear of me? Why, you bring me here! You pay
my way here! You say I must come to school at Fardale."
"Because I found you handy before we came here. But now you are becoming
a trouble to me. I am beginning to think I'd be better off without you."
The young Spaniard showed still further amazement.
"You mean I had better go 'way?" he asked.
"I think you had," answered Chester, plainly making an effort to summon
the courage to say so. "I have been thinking about it for some time. You
are not much interested in this school, and there is no particular
reason why you should stay here."
"And you I think is great friend to me!" returned Bunol wonderingly.
"Well, I have been a friend to you, haven't I?"
"You seem so."
"Seem so! Why, you have lived off me for more than a year! It was a snap
for you."
"But now," said Miguel, "the snap he end, eh? Now you shake me off, eh?
Now you say go, I go, eh? You have done with me? What for?"
"Because you are so hot-headed that you will get me into trouble here."
"Bah! No! Because you 'fraid Dick Merriwell! That it! I know! First you
come here you think you walk over him. Ha! You try it. Ha! You find it
no work. Then you mean to beat him some way. You try it. It no work. Ha!
You find he very much smart. He no 'fraid anything. When you try, try,
try, you begin to get 'fraid of him an' you----"
"That's a lie, Bunol!" exclaimed Chester harshly. "I am not afraid of
anything. But I know now that Merriwell cannot be defeated by ordinary
means. I acknowledge it. I remain his enemy, just the same. I shall
defeat him in the end. I shall triumph. But I must begin differently. I
must work in more subtle ways. Thus far, for the most part, I have tried
to down him by main force. Now I have decided that I must use my
brain--I must resort to strategy. From this day my fight against him
shall be strategical. He may not even think me his enemy. He may fancy
me defeated. He may even imagine me something of a friend. All the while
I shall be working silently against him. When the time comes for me to
strike the crushing blow I shall strike it. But not until I have
triumphed shall I let him know that it was my hand that pulled him down.
This is something new for an Arlington. We meet our enemies openly and
defeat them. But I have found this enemy too strongly intrenched.
"As I have decided on such a course, I have also concluded that I shall
be better off without you here. Therefore, Bunol, I think you had better
make arrangements to leave Fardale. I will give you a hundred dollars,
and you may go where you choose."
The Spaniard walked excitedly up and down the floor. Of a sudden he
stopped beyond the table, across which he glared at Chester, who had
lighted a fresh cigarette.
"I shall not go!" he exclaimed.
"So?" said Chester, lifting his eyebrows. "You will remain here?"
"I remain."
"Indeed! How will you get along?"
"Get 'long? Why, jest same."
"You may have some trouble to pay your way."
"But you----"
Arlington snapped his yellow fingers.
"It's all off," he declared. "I'm done."
"What? You mean you no help me some more?"
"You guessed it the first time."
Arlington pretended the utmost coolness, whether he felt it or not. He
inhaled a great whiff of smoke and breathed it out as he spoke. When he
had finished he stifled a yawn with his hand.
Bunol was dazed, for this had come upon him suddenly and unexpectedly,
and he was unprepared. He had not dreamed Arlington would think of
throwing him over.
"So that is it?" he said, after a time. "You think you throw me over!
You think you have done with me! Ha! I got a thing to say 'bout that!"
"You had better not be foolish, Bunol--better not make me any trouble.
You're too much of a load for me to carry."
"Too much load?"
"That's what I said. It was all right before I bucked up against
Merriwell, but fighting him has cost me a pretty penny, and I'm in a bad
hole. I dropped my last dollar and all I could rake on those Uniontown
chumps. Thought they were dead sure to win, and gave the money to
Kennedy to bet. I'm strapped, Bunol."
"But you get more easy."
"Not so easy. I've been working the old lady pretty hard of late, and
she's about ready to make a kick. I've even got money off sis."
"You offer me one hundred dollars to go 'way."
Chester glanced at his hand, on which sparkled a handsome diamond.
"I'll have to stick this stone up for the sum," he said. "You see just
where I'm at, Miguel. I'm bumping on the rocks. You can't blame me. If I
had not been beaten at every turn by Merriwell I'd be 'way ahead now."
"I keel him! You stop me! I know he make it trouble for you--for me."
"Killing doesn't go, Miguel. You're too hot-headed for this place. Come,
old man, there is no reason why we should fuss about this matter. The
time has come for us to split, and that is all there is to do."
But Miguel Bunol knew which side his bread was buttered on, and he did
not fancy giving up a good thing like Arlington.
"I go," he said.
"Good!" nodded Chester.
"For one thousan' dollars," added Miguel.
Chester had elevated his feet to the top of the table. Now he let them
drop to the floor with a thud, flung the cigarette aside, and sat up.
"You go----" he began.
Then he paused, with his lips curling, finally adding:
"----to the devil!"
"I stay right here," said the Spaniard, with unconscious wit.
"As you choose," said Chester; "but you'll stay on your own account, and
not one dollar more will you ever get from me."
Suddenly Bunol became cool.
"That is so, eh?" he asked.
"It is."
"Ha! You think it. You change your mind. I make you change your mind."
"You--you make me?" The idea that Bunol could make him do anything was
amusing to Arlington.
"I make you," reiterated the Spaniard.
"That's a joke! Why, you poor fool, how will you go about it? What way
have you to make me do anything?"
"Plenty way. You say 'no'? Ha! How you like it if I tell few thing 'bout
you?"
"Tell--tell what?"
"How you do some thing since you come here. Ha! How you do your best to
beat Deek Merriwell. How you try to have football-team beat, so Deek
Merriwell he is beat. How you want him scratch with the poison ring, so
his arm it swell, and so he can play no more at the football. Oh, I can
tell!"
"But you'll get yourself into a worse scrape than I, for you have been
the one to do most of the work against Merriwell. I shall swear that you
lie."
"I tell your seester! I tell your mother!"
"They'll not believe you. My word will stand better than yours. You'll
simply get yourself into trouble."
"I prove some thing."
"You can't; I've taken care of that. I have thought all along that the
time would come when we would have to split. Of course, I had no
intention of supporting you the rest of your natural life."
Arlington was defying his former companion and tool, but no one knew
better than he how dangerous Miguel Bunol was, and he was keenly on the
alert for anything.
"I never be thrown over like this!" asserted the Spaniard. "I ruin you."
"You will ruin yourself, that is all."
"You say that. Ha! How we come to be friends in first place? I tell
that! I will!"
"You wouldn't dare!" exclaimed Chester, turning pale.
"You think that? You wait--you see! I tell how you have boy you hate,
how you pay me to push him off bridge, how he sink, he drown! Ha!"
"But I didn't mean for him to drown!" explained Chester.
"He drown," said Bunol grimly.
"I meant to give him a ducking and a scare."
"He drown!" again came from the lips of the Spaniard.
"I did everything I could to save him. I stripped off and plunged in. I
tried to pull him out."
"All the same, he drown. Then you say nothing. You no tell how it
happen. You say think he fell in. You try to get him out. Somebody say
you hero. Miguel Bunol say nothing."
"It wasn't best that you did! You didn't fancy going to prison for
murder in the second degree. That's what would have happened to you."
"We get great friend. Now you want me no more, you throw me down. Go
'head! I throw you down! I tell all!"
"But it will put you in just as bad a hole."
"What do I care? I get even with you! Which hurt most--I go to jail, or
you go to jail? You son of great man. All my relation dead 'cept mother.
No can tell where she is now."
Arlington rose, thrust his hands deep into his trousers pockets, and
began to pace up and down.
Bunol watched him with those beady eyes, and an expression of triumph
came to his face. He knew that he had conquered, and he was right. At
last, Chester turned, came back to the table, and said:
"We can't afford to quarrel now, I think I was too hasty. We'll stick
together. I may need you some more."
"I stick to you all right," said the Spaniard, with keenest
satisfaction. "Don't you be 'fraid."