Frank Merriwell's party was scarcely installed in the Blue Ridge Hotel
when two visitors were announced. They proved to be a delegation from
the Lake Lily Athletic Club.
"We heard of your arrival only a little while ago, and we came straight
up," said one, speaking to Merriwell, who had risen from his piazza
chair to greet them. "My name is Septimus Colson--Sep for short--and
this is my friend, Philip Tetlow."
"I am very glad to meet you, Mr. Colson--and you, Mr. Tetlow," answered
Merriwell, who then proceeded to introduce himself and his friends to
the callers.
Colson and Tetlow were sunburned youths of seventeen or
eighteen--keen-looking, intelligent fellows, attired in outing suits.
"You'll excuse us for the call," begged Colson, "but you see it's this
way: We've got those cottages down there, with the flag flying over
them, and hardly anybody in them. The cottages aren't much to brag of in
the way of looks, but they are comfortable."
"And you want us to help you occupy them?" laughed Merriwell.
"Yes, and help us do up the Blue Mountain fellows!"
Barney Mulloy and Harry Rattleton hitched their chairs nearer.
"Do you be afther m'anin' thim chumps in the woods up on the mountain?"
asked Barney. "Begorra! av yez say yis to thot, Oi'm wid yez."
"I mean the fellows of the Blue Mountain Athletic Club," said Colson. "A
week ago they sent us challenges, which we accepted, but which we must
back down from unless your party is willing to join in and aid us. You
see, we had sixteen boys in the camp at that time. Now we have only
five. The others, who came from the same town down by the coast, had to
leave because of sickness in their homes."
"How many boys are in the Blue Mountain Club?" inquired Jack Diamond.
"Well, there are fourteen besides Ward Hammond, who is their leader.
They are already crowing over us in a way we don't like, because they
think we can't meet them."
"Are they summer visitors?" asked Rattleton.
"Some of them are. The others belong here in the village. Hammond was
brought up here, and his father owns a good deal of land in these
mountains. He hasn't a very good name, though, and is not well liked.
I've been told that he's related by blood to some of these fighting
mountaineers, but I don't know how true that is. When you meet him, you
will notice that he has the tall, lank appearance of a mountaineer."
"We've met him!" grunted Browning.
"About challenges. What is their character?" questioned Merriwell.
"The arrangements were for an archery shoot, day after to-morrow, with a
swimming match on the lake the next day, and that to be followed by a
mountain-climbing contest."
Colson looked hopefully at Merriwell and his companions.
"You must not say 'no' to our invitation," he insisted. "You'll find it
much pleasanter in our cottages down by the lake than in this hotel, and
we need you! We want you to join our club. It is perfectly legitimate,
for we're allowed to recruit from anywhere. As I said, a number of the
Blue Mountain boys--more than half of them, I think--do not have their
homes in Glendale."
"What do you say, fellows?" questioned Merriwell, turning toward his
companions.
"Av it's thim chumps upon the hill!" exclaimed Barney Mulloy.
Merriwell nodded.
"I think I'd like that, by thutter!" declared Ephraim Gallup.
"You pets my poots, dot voult pe a bicnic!" asserted Hans Dunnerwust,
the jolly-looking Dutch boy.
The others assented, each after his own peculiar manner.
"When do you want us to come down?" asked Frank.
"Right now, this minute, if you will!" cried Colson's companion, who had
hitherto maintained a grave silence. "It's lonesome as a graveyard down
there. And you'll want to do some practicing! Can you handle the bow and
arrow?"
Philip Tetlow's face lighted up with such fine enthusiasm, and his
delight was so manifest, that Frank could hardly restrain a laugh.
"We must see the landlord of the hotel first," said Merriwell, "for we
have already registered here, and he may interpose objections to our
summary leave-taking. But you may count on it that we will be with you
without much delay."
Two hours later, Merriwell and the entire Yale Combine were snugly
installed in the cottages of the Lake Lily Athletic Club.
"I'm afraid I'm going to have another one of those infernal chills,"
grumbled Browning, as, with a blanket drawn over him, he reclined in a
hammock and looked across the water toward the village. "I guess I shall
never get that Arkansas malaria out of my system, though I've taken
enough quinine to start a drug store."
Rattleton cast a look of mock anxiety at the rather flimsy walls.
"I say, Browning, when you get to shaking right good, as you did that
other time, you'll have your cot put out under the trees, won't you?
Just for the safety of the rest of us, you know."
"No, I won't!" Browning growled. "If I bring the house down on myself,
like old Samson, it will delight me to bury all the rest of you in the
ruins."
"Say, fellows," cried the irrepressible Rattleton, "why is Browning like
a member of a certain well-known religious organization?"
"Oh, go chase yourself out of here!" begged Bruce. "I'm already sick,
and your weak jokes make me sicker."
"It's because he's a Shaker."
Browning groaned and turned his face toward the wall.
"Won't some one kindly kill that idiot for me?" he pleaded.
Frank Merriwell came into the room, holding a handsome lancewood bow and
a sheaf of arrows.
"If we are going to meet Ward Hammond and his Blue Mountain boys day
after to-morrow," he said, surveying the lounging group, "it strikes me
that it would be well for the new members of Lake Lily Athletic Club to
get in a little archery practice."
To this there was a general assent, and the entire party prepared to
leave the room, with the exception of Bruce Browning, who shivered and
drew the blanket closer about him as they got up to go.
Out by the lake there was a level stretch of greensward. Here a target
had been set up, and the members of the club had practiced at archery.
Both the new and the old members of the Lake Lily Athletic Club
practiced with the bow so faithfully in the limited time given them that
when they climbed to the archery ground on the wooded crest of Blue
Mountain they felt that they would be able to give Ward Hammond and his
friends a hard contest, if nothing more, though Hammond had been heard
publicly to declare that the Lilywhites' new members would add nothing
to the strength of the club.
The spot was an ideal one, and commanded a view of the lake and the
town. A glade, covered with short grass, opened on the side toward the
village, being flanked by wooded slopes. Near at hand were the cottages
of the Blue Mountain Club. They were handsomer and more expensive than
those of the other club, but not more comfortable. Across one corner of
the glade, and dipping down into the dark woods, ran the path on which
Merriwell's bicycle had collided with and crushed the violin.
Ward Hammond and his companions were already on the ground, and Hammond
was looking at his watch as Merriwell's party came up.
"I didn't know but you fellows had backed out," he declared, with a
sneer, snapping the gold case together and dropping the watch into his
pocket.
Jack Diamond flushed and pulled out his own timepiece.
"We've ten minutes to spare, if my watch is right!" he asserted.
"Of course your watch is right!" was the suggestive retort.
"I hope you don't mean to insinuate that I turned my watch back for any
reason," said Diamond, gulping down his growing anger.
"You ought to know that I wouldn't insinuate such a thing against any
member of the Lilywhites?" Hammond sarcastically purred, but in softer
tones.
Frank Merriwell was stringing his bow and glancing off toward the
target. It was a thirty-pound lancewood bow, with horn notches at the
tips, a handsome bow, and a good one, as he had reason to know.
The target was set at a supposed distance of sixty yards from the
archers. It was a flat, circular pad of twisted straw, four feet in
diameter, and it was faced with cloth, on which was painted a central
yellow disk, called the gold. Around this disk was drawn a band of red,
and next to it a band of blue, then one of black, and finally one of
white.
"I suppose you understand how the scores are to be counted?" inquired
Hammond, glad to change the subject, for he did not like the look that
had come into Diamond's dark face. "A hit in the gold counts nine, in
the red seven, in the blue five, in the black three, and in the white
one."
"And if you miss the gol darned thing altogether?" drawled the boy from
Vermont.
"You'll likely lose an arrow somewhere down there in the woods," Hammond
laughed.
Craig Carter, a sinewy lad of about seventeen, Hammond's most intimate
friend and admirer, stepped forward with drawn bow and placed himself in
readiness to shoot, as his name came first on the list.
"We're not ready yet," objected Merriwell, noting the action and again
glancing toward the target. "The distance hasn't been measured."
"We measured it before you came," said Hammond, with an uneasy look.
"It is only fair that it should be measured in our presence," continued
Frank. "Errors can happen, you know, and as the rules call for sixty
yards and we have been practicing for that we don't want to run any
risks by shooting at any other distance."
No one knew better than Ward Hammond how essential it is in archery
shooting to know the exact distance that is to be shot over.
Hammond's uneasiness seemed to communicate itself to other members of
the Blue Mountain Athletic Club.
"Get the tape measure," Hammond commanded, addressing Craig Carter.
Carter gave his bow and arrows to another member of the club and hurried
into one of the cottages. From this cottage he was seen to rush into
another and then another, and came back in a few moments with the
announcement that the distance would have to be stepped, as somehow the
tape measure had been mislaid and he could not find it.
Harry Rattleton promptly drew a tape measure from one of his pockets.
"You will find that this is as true as a die," he asserted, smilingly
passing it to Hammond. "Stretch it across the ground there, and I'll
help you do the measuring, if you're willing."
"Certainly," said Hammond, critically eying the tape. "You will do as
well as any one."
Rattleton took one end of the line and ran with it out toward the
target, and Hammond put the other on the ground. Rattleton marked the
point, and Hammond moved up to it.
"The distance is five yards too short," Rattleton announced, when the
measurement had been made.
"This line is not right," declared Hammond, white with inward rage.
"Send to the village and get another, then," said Merriwell. "A dozen if
you like. Or take another look for your own."
"Of course we'll set the target where you say it ought to be," fumed
Hammond, who had hoped to take a mean advantage, which had been
prevented by the true eye of Frank Merriwell.
What made the discovery so bitter to Hammond was the knowledge that he
had injured the chances of himself and his friends in the contest, for
they had done nearly all of their practicing at the false distance. His
attempted cheating had recoiled on his own head.
Craig Carter again took his bow and stepped forward to shoot. He held
himself easily and gracefully and drew the arrow to the head with a
steady hand.
Whir-r-r--thud!
The shaft, in its whirring course through the air, arose higher than the
top of the target, but dropped lower just before it hit, and struck in
the pad of twisted straw with a dull thud.
"Five--in the blue!" called the marker, coming out from behind the tree
where he had screened himself, and drawing the arrow from the target.
"Heavens! Can't I do better than that?" Carter growled.
Sep Colson had the lists of the members of the two clubs, and he called
Jack Diamond's name next.
Diamond stepped forward confidently and let his arrow fly.
"In the blue--five!" announced the marker.
"Well, it's a tie, anyway!" said Diamond, with a disappointed laugh.
"By chaowder, it ain't so derned easy to hit that air thing as it might
be!" drawled Gallup. "I think I'd stand a heap sight better show to
strike gold with a shovel an' pick in Alasky."
Dan Matlock, one of the boys of the Blue Mountain Club, came next, and
then Hans Dunnerwust's name was called.
"Shoost you vatch me!" cried the roly-poly Dutch boy, as he advanced and
spat on his hands before taking up the bow. "I pet you your life I
preaks der recort."
There was a howl of derision at this from the Blue Mountain boys, and
even the Dutch boy's friends joined in the laugh.
"Vell, you may laugh at dot uf you don't vant to," he exclaimed, "put
maype you don't laugh on der oder side your mouts uf pime-py. Ged avay
oudt! I vas goin' to shoot der arrow oudt mit dot golt, py shimminy, und
don'd you vorgid me!"
He drew the bow slowly up to his face, shut one eye and squinted along
the arrow. Then he put the bow down, with a triumphant laugh.
"Who vas id say to me avhile ago dot dis pow veigh dirty pounds, yet
alretty? Vy, id can lift me like id vos an infant."
"Go on and shoot," said Merriwell. "The bow doesn't weigh thirty pounds.
It takes a thirty-pound pull to bend it. That's why it is called a
thirty-pound bow."
"So, dot vos id, eh?" queried Dunnerwust, looking the bow over
curiously. "Id dakes dirty pounds to bent me! Vell, here I vos go ag'in.
Look oudt eferypoty."
His fingers slipped from the arrow and the bowstring twanged
prematurely.
This was followed by a howl from Toots, who dropped to the ground and
began to roll over as if in great agony.