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FRANK MERRIWELL'S CHAMPIONS
OR
All in the Game
BY
BURT L. STANDISH
Author of the famous _Merriwell Stories_.
STREET & SMITH CORPORATION
PUBLISHERS
79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York
Copyright, 1904
By STREET & SMITH
Frank Merriwell's Champions
All rights reserved, including that of translation into
foreign languages, including the Scandinavian.
Contents
CHAPTER I--FRANK AND HIS FRIENDS
CHAPTER II--THE LAKE LILY ATHLETIC CLUB
CHAPTER III--SHOOTING AT THE DISK OF GOLD
CHAPTER IV--BRUCE BROWNING'S ADVENTURE
CHAPTER V--HAMMOND'S PLOT
CHAPTER VI--NELL RETURNS A KINDNESS
CHAPTER VII--BY THE WATERS OF LAKE LILY
CHAPTER VIII--A FAIR GUIDE
CHAPTER IX--THE VALIANT DUTCH BOY
CHAPTER X--NELL'S LETTER
CHAPTER XI--A TRAITOR AND A SPY
CHAPTER XII--HARLOW'S DISCOMFITURE
CHAPTER XIII--AGAINST ODDS
CHAPTER XIV--FRANK AND ELSIE
CHAPTER XV--A BOXING MATCH
CHAPTER XVI--THE CLUB MEETING
CHAPTER XVII--THE EIGHT-OAR SHELL
CHAPTER XVIII--THE RACE
CHAPTER XIX--A RESCUE ON THE ROAD
CHAPTER XX--AT SPRINGBROOK FARM
CHAPTER XXI--TWO ENCOUNTERS
CHAPTER XXII--HANS USES THE HOSE
CHAPTER XXIII--CHOICE OF PONIES
CHAPTER XXIV--THE FIRST GO
CHAPTER XXV--THE END OF THE GAME
CHAPTER XXVI--BEFORE THE HUNT
CHAPTER XXVII--THE HUNT
CHAPTER XXVIII--A CHANGE OF SCENE
CHAPTER XXIX--FRANK MEETS DEFEAT
CHAPTER XXX--FRANK EXPRESSES HIS OPINION
CHAPTER XXXI--THE FIRST BLOW
CHAPTER XXXII--A SURPRISE PARTY
CHAPTER XXXIII--A GIRL'S REMORSE
CHAPTER XXXIV--A FIGHT AGAINST ODDS
CHAPTER XXXV--MERRIWELL'S CLOSE CALL
CHAPTER XXXVI--AN EXPLOSION COMING
CHAPTER XXXVII--THE LAST BLOW--CONCLUSION
Frank Merriwell's Champions
CHAPTER I--FRANK AND HIS FRIENDS
Ping! pang! crash!
Frank Merriwell, making a sharp turn in a narrow mountain path, felt his
bicycle strike something which gave under his weight with a snapping,
musical sound, and almost precipitated him over the handle bars of his
machine.
Bart Hodge, who was close behind, checked himself with difficulty, and
sang out:
"What's wrong, Frank?"
"Smashed a music box, I guess," answered Frank, leaping down and coming
back.
In single file behind Frank Merriwell and his chum, Bart Hodge, came the
other members of the bicycle party--fat and lazy Bruce Browning; the
gallant Virginian, Jack Diamond; merry-hearted Harry Rattleton; the
Yankee youth, Ephraim Gallup; the Dutch boy, Hans Dunnerwust; the lad
with Irish blood in his veins and a brogue to boot, Barney Mulloy, and
Toots, the colored boy, who when at home worked around the Merriwell
homestead.
In the previous volumes of this series we have related how Frank and his
Yale chums started out from college for a tour on wheels to San
Francisco. This great journey was safely accomplished, and now the boys
were on their way to the East once more. They had journeyed in various
ways through California, Texas, Missouri, Kentucky and other States, and
had now reached the mountain region in the southwestern part of
Virginia. They had left the railroad at the entrance to the valley, and
were now journeying by a little-used path to the pretty little summer
resort of Glendale, situated by the side of a lake near the top of the
Blue Ridge range.
A view of Glendale and the lake, which was known as Lake Lily, had been
given them a minute before, at the top of a rise, as they were about to
plunge into the bit of woodland, where the path made its short turn and
brought to Merriwell the accident just mentioned.
The attractiveness of the view was not lessened to Frank Merriwell and
his friends by the rustic cottages stretching along the shores of the
lake and the flag that floated above them, proclaiming the place the
summer camp of the Lake Lily Athletic Club.
"It's a violin," Frank regretfully announced, picking up the instrument
that had been crushed by his wheel and holding it for the others to see.
"I don't----"
His words were checked by a movement in the bushes, and a youth of
nineteen or twenty pushed himself into view. He wore an outing suit of
blue flannel, and a white straw hat that well became him rested on his
abundant brown hair. He was tall and straight as a pine, with a dark
face that might have been pleasant in repose, but was now distorted by
anger.
"You did that!" he cried, facing Merriwell. "That is my violin, and you
have crushed and ruined it. What business had you coming up this path,
anyhow? This is a private path!"
"If this is your violin, I must confess that I seem to have damaged it
pretty badly," returned Merriwell, retaining his composure, in spite of
the biting tone in which he was addressed. "As to the path being a
private one, I am not so sure of that. At any rate, I did not run into
your violin on purpose. It occurs to me that a path such as this,
whether it is public or private, is not a place where one expects to
come on musical instruments, and that you are somewhat to blame for
placing it there. However, I assure you I am----"
"You will pay for the violin, and a good round sum, too!" asserted the
youth, doubling up his fists and advancing toward Frank, who stood
beside his wheel, holding the broken instrument. "This woodland belongs
to my father, and no one has a right to come up the path except members
of our club. If you hadn't been trespassing, you wouldn't have run into
the violin!"
"I was going to assure you of my regret at having damaged the
instrument, and of course I am willing to do whatever is right to make
good your loss," Merriwell continued, smiling lightly and deceptively.
"But I still insist that a place like this is no spot for you or any one
else to leave a violin. I presume you speak of the athletic club down by
the lake?"
The youth's face showed scorn now, as well as anger.
"Those Lilywhites? Not on your life I don't! I was speaking of the Blue
Mountain Athletic Club. Our cottages are right back here among the
trees. You can see them from that bend. As for the violin, I was playing
it a while ago, and jumped and left it here when one of the boys called
me, expecting to come back in a minute----"
Again there was a movement in the bushes, with the sound of hurrying
feet, and a voice shouted:
"Hello, Hammond! What's the matter out there?"
Then half a dozen boys, attired like the owner of the violin, hurried
into view.
Merriwell's friends crowded closer to him when they saw this array of
force, and Rattleton was heard to mutter something about Frank's
punching the violinist's head.
"I don't think there is any need of a quarrel here," declared Jack
Diamond, pushing forward. "Here, you fellows! I've been bragging all day
to Merriwell and my other friends about the big-heartedness of the
people of Virginia. I'm a Virginian myself, and I believed what I said.
I hope you won't insist on doing anything that will make me want to eat
my words!"
The statement was not without effect.
"He must pay me for the violin!" growled Hammond. "I can't afford to
have an instrument like that smashed into kindling, and just let it go
at that. As for this land, it is my father's, and very few people
besides members of our club go along the path."
"Then the path is not wholly private?" queried Frank. "I am glad to know
that."
"And he as good as said he was to blame for leaving the thing where he
did!" exclaimed Harry Rattleton. "I don't think he is entitled to a
cent."
"Come, come!" begged Diamond, again assuming the part of peacemaker,
though he was raging inwardly at the belligerent Virginia boys. "We
expect to stop a few days in Glendale, and we can't afford to be
anything but your friends, you know. What is the violin worth?"
"A hundred dollars!" Hammond announced, though in reality the instrument
had cost him only twenty. "I doubt if I could get another as good for
double that sum."
"I don't want to quarrel with you," said Merriwell, "and I won't, unless
I'm driven to it. I'm willing to settle this thing in one way, and in
one way only. We will pick three disinterested persons who know
something about violins. Let them set a value on the instrument. You
stand half the loss for carelessly leaving it in a path which, by your
admission, is not wholly private, and I will stand the other half for
what I did."
"Thot's talk, Merry, me b'y!" shouted Barney Mulloy, who was itching for
a "scrap" with these campers.
Hammond gave Barney a quick glance of hate.
"I'll do nothing of the kind," he asserted, turning again to Frank. "You
pay me a hundred dollars, or I'll have it out of your hide!"
"Oh, you will, will you?" said Merriwell, facing him, and laughing
lightly. "Jump right in, whenever you are ready to begin!"
One of Hammond's followers, seeing that, in spite of the lightness of
his manner, Frank Merriwell meant to fight, caught Hammond by the
shoulders and drew him back.
"Let me at him!" cried Hammond, becoming furious in an instant, and
making a seeming attempt to break away from his friend. "Let me go, I
tell you! I'll pound the face off him!"
"Let him go, as he is so anxious!" laughed Merriwell. "I'm willing he
shall begin the pounding at once."
At this, another of Hammond's friends took hold of him, not liking the
looks of Merriwell's backers, and the two began to force the enraged lad
through the screen of bushes in the direction of the invisible camp.
"Here is his violin," said Merriwell, tossing it after them. "I am sorry
I ran into it, and am willing to do whatever is fair. When he is in the
same frame of mind, let him come down to the hotel at the village, and
we will try to talk the thing over amicably. I will be his friend, if he
will let me; or his enemy, if he prefers it that way!"