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FRANK MERRIWELL'S CHUMS
by
BURT L. STANDISH
Author of
"Frank Merriwell's School Days," "Frank Merriwell's Foes," etc.
[Frontispiece: "All eyes were now fixed on Frank."]
Philadelphia:
David Mckay, Publisher,
604-8 South Washington Square.
Copyright, 1896 and 1902
By Street & Smith
Frank Merriwell's Chums
CONTENTS.
I Frank Asks Questions
II A Ghastly Subject
III An Irresistible Temptation
IV A Game of Bluff
V Frank's Revelation
VI The Plot
VII Spreading the Snare
VIII The Haunted Room
IX In the Meshes
X Downward
XI Trusting and True
XII The Snare is Broken
XIII The "Centipede" Joke
XIV Lively Times
XV Warned
XVI Paul Rains
XVII The Bully's Match
XVIII Rains' Challenge
XIX Jumping
XX Bascomb's Mistake
XXI The Rival Professors
XXII A Lively Call
XXIII Skating for Honors
XXIV Skating for Life
XXV The Sinister Stranger
XXVI The Mystery of the Ring
XXVII Attacked on the Road
XXVIII The Marks on the Black Stone
XXIX Bart Makes a Pledge
XXX Frank and the Professor
XXXI Snell Talks
XXXII Snell's Hatred
XXXIII Playing the Shadow
XXXIV The Ring Disappears
XXXV More Danger
XXXVI The Secret of the Ring
XXXVII "Baby"
XXXVIII Sport With a Plebe
XXXIX An Open Insult
XL For the Under Dog
XLI Birds of a Feather
XLII The Challenge
XLIII Doughty Duelist
XLIV A Comedy Duel
XLV Another Kind of a Fight
XLVI Result of the Contest
XLVII Alive!
XLVIII Baby's Heroism--Conclusion
FRANK MERRIWELL'S CHUMS.
CHAPTER I.
FRANK ASKS QUESTIONS.
September was again at hand, and the cadets at Fardale Military Academy
had broken camp, and returned to barracks.
For all of past differences, which had been finally settled between
them--for all that they had once been bitter enemies, and were by
disposition and development as radically opposite as the positive and
negative points of a magnetic needle, Frank Merriwell and Bartley Hodge
had chosen to room together.
There was to be no more "herding" in fours, and so Barney Mulloy, the
Irish lad, and Hans Dunnerwust, the Dutch boy, were assigned to another
room.
Like Hodge, Barney and Hans were Frank Merriwell's stanch friends and
admirers. They were ready to do anything for the jolly young plebe,
who had become popular at the academy, and thus won both friends and
foes among the older cadets.
Barney was shrewd and ready-witted, while Hans, for all of his speech
and his blundering ways, was much brighter than he appeared.
Still being plebes, Merriwell and Hodge had been assigned to the
"cock-loft" of the third division, which meant the top floor on the
north side of the barracks--the sunless side.
The other sides, and the lower floors, with the exception of the first,
were reserved for the older cadets.
Their room contained two alcoves, or bedrooms, at the end opposite the
door. These alcoves were made by a simple partition that separated one
side from the other, but left the bedrooms open to the rest of the room.
Against the walls in the alcoves stood two light iron bedsteads, with a
single mattress on each, carefully folded back during the day, and made
up only after tattoo.
The rest of the bedding was carefully and systematically piled on the
mattresses.
In the partitions were rows of iron hooks, on which their clothing must
be placed in regular order, overcoats to the front, then rubber coats,
uniform coats, jackets, trousers, and underclothing following, with a
bag for soiled clothing at the rear.
On the broad wooden bar that ran across the front of these alcoves,
near the ceiling, the names of the cadets who occupied the bedrooms
were posted, so inspecting officers could tell at a glance who occupied
the beds.
At the front of the partition the washstand was placed, with the bucket
of water, dipper, and washbowl, which must always be kept in a certain
order, with the washbowl inverted, and the soapdish on top of it.
Rifles were kept in the rack, barrels to the front, with dress hats on
the shelf, and a mirror in the middle of the mantelshelf.
Accoutrements and forage saps were hung on certain hooks, and clothing
and other things allowable and necessary were always to be kept in an
unvarying order on a set of open-faced shelves.
The broom and slop-bucket were to be deposited behind the door, the
chairs against the table, when not in use, and the table against the
wall opposite the fireplace.
At the foot of each bed the shoes were placed in a line, neatly dusted,
with toes to the front.
It was required that the room should be constantly kept in perfect
order, and Merriwell and Hodge were called on to take turns, week and
week about, at being orderly, and the name of the one responsible for
the appearance of the room was placed on the orderly board, hung to the
front of the alcove partition.
Back of the door was another board, on which each was required to post
his hours of recitation, and to account for his absence from the room
at any inspection.
In fact, a rigid effort was made at Fardale to imitate in every
possible way the regulations and requirements enforced at West Point,
and it was the boast that the school was, in almost every particular,
identical with our great Military Academy.
Of course, it was impossible to enforce the rules as rigidly as they
are at the Point, for the cadets at Fardale were, as a class, far
younger, and the disgrace of expulsion or failure in any way was not to
be compared with that attending unfortunates at the school where youths
are graduated into actual service as officers of the United States army.
Many of the cadets at Fardale had been sent there by parents who could
not handle them at home, and who had hoped the discipline they would
receive at a military school would serve to tone down their wildness.
Thus it will be seen that many harum-scarum fellows got into the
school, and that they could not readily be compelled to conform to the
rules and requirements.
For all that Frank Merriwell was a jolly, fun-loving fellow, he was
naturally orderly and neat, so that it seemed very little effort for
him to do his part in keeping the room in order.
On the other hand, Bartley Hodge was naturally careless, and he had a
persistent way of displacing things that annoyed Frank, although the
latter said little about it at first.
Whenever the inspecting officer found anything wrong about the room, he
simply glanced at the orderly board, and down went the demerit against
the lad whose name was posted there. It made no difference who had
left a chair out of place, hung a coat where it should not be, or
failed to invert the washbowl, the room orderly had to assume the
responsibility.
Now, it was the last thing in the world that Hodge could wish to injure
Merriwell, but three times in Frank's first week as room orderly he was
reported for things he could not help, and for which Bart was entirely
responsible.
Merriwell had risen to the first section in recitation at the very
start, while Hodge, who had been placed in the third, was soon
relegated to the second.
Frank was trying to curb his almost unbounded inclination for mischief,
and he was studying assiduously.
On the other hand, while Hodge did not seem at all mischievous by
nature, he detested study, and he was inclined to spend the time when
he should have been "digging," in reading some story, or in idly
yawning and wishing the time away.
One day, after having taken his third demerit on his roommate's
account, the inspector having detected tobacco smoke in the room, Frank
said:
"Why don't you swear off on cigarettes, Bart? They don't do a fellow
any good, and they are pretty sure to get him into trouble here at the
academy."
Hodge was in anything but a pleasant frame of mind, and he instantly
retorted:
"I know what you mean. You are orderly, and I ought to have spoken up
and told the inspector I had been smoking. I didn't know what it was
he put down, but I'll go and confess my crime now."
He sprang up petulantly, but Frank's hand dropped on his arm, and
Merriwell quietly said:
"Don't go off angry, old man. You know I don't want you to do anything
of the sort. I will take my medicine when I am orderly, and I know you
will do the same when it comes your turn."
"Well, I didn't know----" began Bart, in a somewhat sulky manner.
"You ought to know pretty well by this time. I am not much given to
kicking or growling, but I do want to have a sober talk with you, and I
hope you will not fire up at anything I say."
"All right; go ahead," said Hodge, throwing himself wearily into a
chair, and thrusting his hands deep into his pockets. "I'll listen to
your sermon."
"It isn't to be a sermon. You should know I am not the kind of a
fellow to preach."
"That's so. Don't mind me. Drive ahead."
"First, I want to ask how it is you happened to let yourself be put
back in recitations?"
"Oh, Old Gunn just put me back--that's all."
"But you are fully as good a scholar as I am, and you could have gone
ahead into the first section if you had braced up."
"Perhaps so."
"I know it. You do not study."
"What's the use of boning all the time! I wasn't cut out for it."
"That's the only way to get ahead here."
"I don't care much about getting ahead. All I want is to pull through
and graduate. Then I can go to college if I wish. These fellows who
get the idea that they must dig, dig, dig here, just as they say they
do at West Point, give me a pain. What is there to dig for? We're not
working for commissions in the army."
"From your point of view, you put up a very good argument," admitted
Frank; "but there's another side. It surely must be some satisfaction
to graduate well up in your class, if not at the head. And then, the
more a fellow learns here, the easier he will find the work after
entering college."
"Work? Pshaw! There are not many fellows in colleges who are
compelled to bone. I hate work! I thought you were the kind of a
fellow who liked a little fun?"
"Well, you know I am. Haven't I always been in for sport?"
"But you're getting to be a regular plodder. You don't do a thing
lately to keep your blood circulating."
"I am afraid you do too much that is contrary to rules, old man. For
instance, where is it that you go so often nights, and stay till near
morning?"
"I go out for a little sport," replied Bart, with a grim smile.