THE END OF THE ROPE.
The theater was packed. Under no circumstances had Frank anticipated
such an audience on the opening night. He felt sure that the advertising
given him through the effort of his enemies to injure him had done much
to bring people out. Another thing had brought them there. Curiosity led
many of them to the theater. They remembered Merriwell's first
appearance in Puelbo and its outcome, and they had not forgotten how, in
a speech from the stage, he had vowed that he would bring the play back
there and give a successful performance. He had rewritten the piece, and
it had been played in Denver to an invited audience, every member of
which went away highly pleased. The Denver papers had pronounced in
favor of it.
Puelbo people admired pluck and determination. They could not help
feeling admiration for the dogged persistency of Frank Merriwell. And
they really hoped he would make good his promise to give a successful
performance.
Frank's first entrance was carefully worked up to in the play, and he
was astounded when he came laughing and singing onto the stage, to be
greeted by a perfect whirlwind of applause. Nor did the applause cease
till he had recognized it by bowing.
Then, as everything quieted down and the play was about to move on
again, there came a terrible cry that rang through the house:
"Fire!"
Frank understood in a twinkling that it was a false alarm, given for the
purpose of producing a stampede and raising the performance.
After that cry for a moment everybody sat as if turned to stone. It was
the calm before the panic.
Then Frank's voice rang out clear as a bell:
"There is no fire! Keep your seats!"
Some had sprung up, but his clear voice reached every part of the house,
and it checked the movement.
"Fire! fire!"
Shrill and piercing was the cry, in the voice of a woman.
"Arrest that woman!" cried Frank. "She is trying to ruin this
performance! She is the one who circulated a lying and malicious
circular charging me with the crime of murder. It was a part of a plot
to ruin me!"
Frank confessed afterward that he did not understand why the audience
remained without stampeding after that second alarm. It must have been
that there was a magic something in his voice and manner that convinced
them and held them. At any rate, there was no rush for the doors.
All at once there was a commotion in the first balcony, from which the
cries had come. Two policemen had seized a man and a woman, and the
arrested pair were taken from the theater.
Quiet was restored, and Frank made a few soothing remarks to the
audience, after which the play proceeded.
And now he had the sympathy of every person in the great audience. When
an actor has once fairly won the sympathy of his audience, he is almost
sure of success.
The first act went off beautifully. The storm and shipwreck at the close
of the act took with the spectators. There was hearty applause when the
curtain fell.
Frank had arranged that things should be rushed in making ready for the
second act. He wanted no long waits between acts, for long waits weary
the patience of the best audiences.
The second act seemed to go even better than the first, if such a thing
were possible. The singing of the "Yale Quartet" proved a great hit, and
they were obliged to respond to encore after encore. Cassie's dancing
and singing were well appreciated, and Frank, who was watching her,
decided that she could not have done better under any circumstances. He
did not know how hard she was working for success. He did not know that
she had actually prayed that she might do better than she had ever done
before in all her life.
The discomfiture of _Spike Dubad_ at the close of the second act was
relished by all.
At last the curtain rose on the third act, round which the whole plot of
the play revolved. Now, the interest of the audience was keyed up to the
right pitch, and the anxiety of the actors was intense.
The first scene went off all right, and then came the change to the
scene where the boat race was shown on the river. Everything worked
perfectly, and there was a tumult in that theater when the stage
suddenly grew dark, just as the Yale boat was seen to forge into the
lead.
And then, in a few moments, the distant sounds of cheering and the
screaming of steam whistles seemed to burst out close at hand, filling
the theater with an uproar of sound. Then up flashed the lights, and the
open boathouse was shown, with the river beyond. The boats flashed in at
the finish, the Yale cheer drowned everything else, and Frank Merriwell
was brought onto the stage in the arms of his college friends.
The curtain came down, but the audience was standing and cheering like
mad, as if it had just witnessed the success of its favorite in a real
college race. The curtain went up for the tableau again and again, but
that audience would not be satisfied till Frank Merriwell came out and
said something.
Frank came at last, and such an ovation as he received it brought a
happy mist to his eyes.
"There he is!" somebody cried. "He said he would come back here with his
play and do the trick!"
"Well, he has done it!" cried another. "And he is the real Frank
Merriwell, who has shown us the kind of never-say-die pluck that has
made Yale famous the world over. Three cheers for Frank Merriwell!"
They were given. Then all Frank could say was a few choking words:
"My friends, I thank you from the bottom of my heart! You cannot know
how much was depending on the success or failure of this play. Perhaps
all my future career depended on it. I vowed I would win----"
"And you have!" shouted a voice.
"It seems so. Again, I thank you. I am too happy to say more. Words are
idle now."
He retired.
* * * * *
Frank Merriwell had won with his play; "True Blue" was a success. In his
happiness he forgot his enemies, he forgot that two persons had been
arrested in the balcony. It was not till the next morning when he was
invited by a detective to come to the jail to see the prisoners that he
thought of them.
The detective accompanied him.
"I have been on this fellow's track for a long time," he explained.
"Spotted him in the theater last night, but was not going to arrest him
till the show was over. The woman with him created the disturbance, and
two policemen took them both in. I don't want her for anything, but I
shall take the man back to Chicago, to answer to the charge of forgery.
I shall hold him here for requisition papers."
The jail was reached, and first Frank took a look at the woman. He felt
that she would prove to be the mysterious woman of the veil, and he was
right. She looked up at him, and laughed.
"Good-morning, Mr. Merriwell," she said. "Pres and I have made things
rather warm for you, you must confess. I reckon we made a mistake last
night. We'd both been looking on the wine when it was red, or we'd not
attempted to stampede the audience."
"Why, it is the woman who claimed to be Havener's wife!" cried Frank.
"Here is the man," said the detective.
Frank turned to another cell.
He was face to face with Philip Scudder, his old-time enemy, who had
reached the end of his rope at last!
But, in the hour of victory, Frank gave little heed to those who had
made his path to this present success a hard and stormy one.
He was successful!
As a playwright and as an actor he had won the palm of victory, the
future seemed to promise all the rewards his energy and enterprise
deserved.
He had started out from college with the determination to win wealth and
fame. He had left the scenes of his early triumphs and first
misfortunes, with the firm purpose to return honored and enriched by his
own labors.
Now he was on the eve of accomplishing that purpose.
And as he looked into the future, the lines of will power and
determination that had always marked his handsome countenance grew
firmer, as he murmured:
"I will myself be 'True Blue!' Come what may, let my paths for the next
few months be as untoward as they ever have been, difficulties shall but
act as a spur to me in my purpose. For I shall be, soon, I hope, once
more a son of 'Old Eli.'"
THE END.
No. 41 of The Merriwell Series, entitled "Frank Merriwell's Prosperity,"
by Burt L. Standish, shows our hero as a successful playwright, and on a
fair way to fame and fortune.
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End of Project Gutenberg's Frank Merriwell's New Comedian, by Burt L. Standish