SEEN AGAIN.
For two days Frank scanned all the newspapers for an account of the
finding of the body of an unknown man somewhere on the line of the
N. Y., N. H. & H. R. R., but he looked in vain.
"Well, that is remarkable!" Merriwell decided. "I can't understand it.
If that fellow escaped, it is a miracle. And if he escaped, I believe I
shall hear from him again," he finished.
The spring term was drawing to a close. But two more events were to
transpire before the coming of the long summer vacation. There was the
final ball game with Harvard, and then the great intercollegiate
athletic tournament at Madison Square Garden in New York--the latter
affair to be the great college event of the year.
Frank was entered for several of the contests in New York, but his hand,
although improving, would not be in condition to allow him to play ball
again that season.
As for the coming vacation, his plans were not perfected as yet. Some of
his friends were going to Bar Harbor, some contemplated spending the
summer quietly at home, some were going abroad for a flying trip, and
many had expressed themselves as quite undecided as to the manner in
which they would pass the summer months.
Frank had boldly proposed a bicycle journey across the continent, but
all his friends, with the exception of Diamond, had considered the
proposition a joke.
Diamond grew enthusiastic over it, urging Merriwell to carry out the
plan, even though but two of them should make the jaunt.
Frank's plan embraced a party of at least four--possibly more. What made
Rattleton believe that Merriwell was joking was that Frank had soberly
asked Bruce Browning, the reputedly laziest man at Yale, to make one of
the party.
Bruce came near fainting with horror at the mere mention of such a
thing.
"My dear Merriwell!" he gasped, "is it possible that you take me for a
candidate for a lunatic asylum? Do you think that I am on the verge of
lapsing into complete idiocy? Or are you simply trying to have a little
sport at my expense?"
"Nothing of the sort, my dear fellow, I assure you," said Frank. "I am
in sober earnest about getting up a party to make the trip across the
continent, and I think it would be a fine thing for you if you were to
make one of the company."
Bruce was reclining on a couch in Merriwell's room at the time, lazily
puffing away at a cigarette. He languidly reached out his hand and felt
for Frank's wrist.
"Permit me to examine your pulse, old fellow," he murmured. "If you are
not trying to work some kind of a horse on me you must be in a bad way.
Ah!" he said, knowingly, with his thumb and finger on Frank's wrist, "I
thought so! Pulse irregular--flutters like an old rag in the wind--flesh
hot and dry, eye changing and unsteady, dryness in your throat and
general vacancy in your stomach. What you need is a tonic--and you need
it bad. You should take whiskey, it may be the only thing that will save
you from an utter breaking up of the nervous system or premature death.
The premature death will happen if you try to jolly me any more. I shall
carry a gun with me constantly hereafter, and it will not cost too much
of an effort to point it in your direction and pull the trigger."
Frank laughed.
"I know you are almost too lazy to draw your breath," he said, "and I
also know that the best thing that could happen to you would be just
such an expedition as I have proposed. However, I suppose it is useless
to waste my breath talking to you, and so I will drop it."
But for all of Browning's refusal to be one of the party, Frank did not
give up the project of a trip across the continent from ocean to ocean
during the summer vacation.
But almost immediately other matters occupied his attention.
One night he was spending an evening in town with a jolly party of
students. The others were drinking beer and ale, while Merriwell took
nothing but ginger ale or bottled soda.
As they were leaving Traeger's, Frank caught a glimpse of the face of a
man who seemed to be waiting for them to come out.
For one moment Merriwell stopped as if turned to stone, and then, with
a hoarse shout of recognition, he leaped after the man, who had slipped
away.
The others followed Frank, and they soon pursued him around a corner,
where they found him standing still and staring about in a disappointed
manner.
"What is it, old man?" asked Paul Hamilton. "Why did you give that whoop
and then chase yourself around here in such a lively fashion?"
"It was not myself I chased," declared Frank. "It was quite another
party, I assure you; but he has given me the slip, for I can see nothing
of him."
"Who was it?"
"The man who tried to bribe me to throw the last ball game to Harvard!"
"That fellow?" exclaimed all the lads, excitedly. "Are you sure?"
"Dead sure," asserted Frank, confidently. "I saw his face fairly in the
light in front of Traeger's when we came out."
"Then he was not killed in the leap from the train!" cried Diamond. "How
did he escape?"
"Ask me something easy!" exclaimed Frank. "I never expected to look on
that man's face again, unless I looked on it as a corpse."
"Confound him!" exploded Harry Rattleton. "I'd like to hake his break--I
mean break his head! What does he want around here?"
Frank was silent. There was a grim look on his face, and it was plain
that he had been not a little disturbed by the sight of the mysterious
stranger.
The boys turned toward college, discussing the queer actions of the
unknown as they walked along. One or two of them fully believed the man
must be a lunatic.
That night, as Frank and Harry were preparing for bed, the former
declared:
"That strange man is about as large a mystery as I ever ran across. He
is beginning to be a decided nuisance."
"What do you make of him, anyway?"
"That he is a Westerner, or wishes to be thought such. His language
betrays that. And he is the last man I could dream would be staking
enough money on a game of college baseball to be able to offer a bribe
of two thousand dollars to make sure that the game would result in his
favor."
"By Jove!" cried Rattleton; "if any other fellow but yourself had told
me that a stranger had made them such an offer and had forked over
one-half cash in advance I should have considered him a looming
byer--no, a blooming liar!"
"And you would not be to blame for thinking so. To me it seems like a
dream, but I know it actually happened."
"Well, what is he hanging around New Haven for?"
"I'll give it up, unless he hopes to get at Heffiner or Dad Hicks, one
of whom must pitch the game at Springfield."
"He'll get used rough if he pushes his dirty dough at either Heffiner or
Hicks!" cried Rattleton.
"I think so," nodded Frank. "I believe they are loyal to dear old Yale,
and nothing can buy their honor."
"Most Yale men are. There may be one or two sneaks who would sell out,
as there are black sheep in every flock. I don't believe Flemming would
be above such a trick."
"Oh, I don't know! I do not wish to think that bad of Flemming. I know
he is my enemy, and I believe he hates me so he would do almost
anything to injure me but I do not wish to think that a fellow like him
even would stoop to such a dastardly trick as to betray old Yale."
"You always think every fellow is white till you are convinced to the
contrary beyond the shadow of a doubt."
"I had rather believe all men honest and deceive myself in that manner
than to suspect everybody and thus think that one honest man was a
rogue."
Harry regarded Frank in a queer manner, slowly shaking his head, but
saying nothing more. For all that they had been friends and roommates
for a year and a half, Rattleton was forced to confess to himself that
there still remained many things about Merriwell that he could not
understand.
That Frank was shrewd Harry knew, and yet Merriwell sometimes seemed to
deliberately deceive himself by thinking that certain fellows were
honest when he should have known better. It seemed the hardest thing in
the world for Frank to be convinced that any fellow was thoroughly bad,
even though that person might be an enemy who had endeavored in
numerous ways to do him an injury.
"Merriwell seems to come out all right in everything," thought
Rattleton; "but it would not be the luck of any other fellow who dared
take the chances he does."