A DANGEROUS ALLIANCE.
There was a good deal of excitement at Yale over the sudden withdrawal
of Wesley Parker, who had seemed likely to be the next football captain,
from the list of candidates. Parker gave no explanation of his
withdrawal, but simply announced that he would be unable to accept,
should he be elected, and, as a result, Jackson, the second baseman of
the baseball team, was chosen.
Parker, a junior, had been extremely popular in a certain circle in
Yale. Many of his friends, who had expected great things from his
captaincy, were bitterly disappointed by his withdrawal. They had looked
for free tickets to the game, and one or two of them had expected him to
help them to win positions on the team and thus gain the coveted Yale
“Y,” which, unaided by some influence, they could not hope for.
It was one of these disappointed ones, a member of Parker’s own class,
named Foote, who was the first to venture to speak to the big guard on
the subject.
“I say, Wesley,” he said, “why aren’t you going to take the captaincy?
You had a cinch to beat Jackson. That delay was only a game of
Merriwell’s. They couldn’t have stopped you. Danby might have voted for
Jackson, if he could have come on for the election, because he thinks
this chap Merriwell is all right, but you would have had votes enough,
and the chances are Danby couldn’t get here.”
Parker scowled at his friend.
“I don’t know that I have to explain everything I do to you,” he said
savagely. “I changed my mind about taking the captaincy. I’m not sure
that I want to play, anyhow. The way things are here, with this
Merriwell as universal coach, there’s no special honor about being
captain of a Yale team any more.”
Paul Foote, an undersized, ill-favored youth, who was smoking cigarettes
at a great rate, lighting one as fast as he finished the one before it,
whistled.
“So it’s Merriwell, is it?” he said, with an unpleasant smile, that
didn’t make him look at all good-natured. “Funny how he bluffs all you
big men out! First Taylor and Gray—now you. And even old Steve Carter.
Steve used to be a good fellow. He trained with our crowd, and he was
all primed to run for the baseball captaincy. Now he stays home nights
and does his lessons, and he acts as if he thought Dick Merriwell was a
little tin god on wheels. I thought better of you, though, Wes; honest,
I did.”
Parker got up and wandered morosely about the room.
“If you think I’m scared of this fellow, Foote,” he said, “you’re jolly
well mistaken. I’m going to take him out some time and give him the
worst licking he ever had. But he’s got the whole college with him.
What’s the use of fighting him? No matter what I said, he’d have most of
the fellows with him, and I’d be powerless against that sort of thing.
You know that as well as I do.”
“That’s the trouble with you big, beefy fellows,” said Foote
disgustedly. “You haven’t any brains. That’s the reason I haven’t any
use for you athletes—or most of you. I wouldn’t go across the street to
get a ‘Y’ myself. But my dad thinks it’s a great thing. He rowed on the
crew here twenty-five years ago, and he’s promised me a trip to Europe
after I graduate and an increase of a thousand in my allowance if I get
my ‘Y’ next fall. That’s the only reason I’ve gone in for football.”
“Well,” said Parker, with a little satisfaction in being able to insult
this weakling, “you’ve got about as much chance of getting a ‘Y’ here as
I have of being president of the Y. M. C. A. So you can make up your
mind to go without that extra money and go to work as soon as you
graduate.”
“That’s why I want you to do Merriwell up,” said Foote cheerfully. “It
can be done, you know. Make him look ridiculous. Get the whole college
laughing at him. Hit at him through his pets. Then you’ll draw his
teeth. And you can’t lick him in a fight, anyhow. He’s too good for
you—unless you wear knuckle dusters or something like that.
Strategy—that’s what you need to beat him. And you couldn’t think up a
scheme in a thousand years.”
Parker was furious. But he had an idea that Foote was right. He had
tried his hand in a battle of wits with the universal coach, and had
been pretty badly beaten. Therefore, he was not anxious to repeat the
experiment unless he was sure of success.
“You’re talking pretty big, Foote,” he said, but in a softer tone. “Have
_you_ got any ideas for doing him up that way? I’d be willing to help
you get that ‘Y’ if you could get rid of Merriwell.”
“I haven’t been talking just for exercise,” said Foote, with a sneer. “I
knew you’d have to come to me if you wanted to get anywhere. There’s
only one way to beat this fellow—that’s to fight him without letting him
know that you’re doing it. The thing he’s got nearest to his heart right
now is to beat Harvard in this series, and it’s a tough job, even if
Yale has won the first game. He’s planning to use Gray and Taylor in the
game here on Commencement Day, and then come back with Phillips on the
last day, if Yale happens to lose here. I don’t believe Phillips is good
for the extra game here, and, if Gray can’t pitch, it will be a sure
thing for Harvard. See?”
“Yes, but Gray will pitch,” said Parker. “And if he doesn’t, what
difference will it make?”
“Suppose Gray didn’t pitch,” said Foote, grinning evilly. “Suppose it
was discovered that he couldn’t graduate? Suppose the discovery was made
by Merriwell himself, and he felt that he had to tell the dean what he
had found out? Wouldn’t that rather put him and the whole team on the
blink?”
“Go ahead,” said Parker. “Talk common sense. I can’t make out what
you’re driving at now at all.”
“Well, suppose Merriwell didn’t tell the dean what he knew,” said Foote.
“But suppose some one else did—just in time to spoil Gray’s chance of
pitching and getting his degree. Then, can’t you see? It would mean
Merriwell’s finish. And you can be sure that that’s just what would
happen. This Merriwell talks mighty big, but he’s no better than any one
else, and if he finds out something that would spoil his plans, he’ll
keep mighty quiet about it, just as any one else would.”
“I begin to get you now,” said Parker. “But this is going to take a lot
of doing, my boy. I’ve been up against this chap Merriwell, and you’ve
got to get up pretty early in the morning to get down to breakfast ahead
of him. Have you got this little plan all worked out yet?”
“Not quite,” admitted Foote, “but I’m getting there. Gray and Taylor
haven’t got as many admirers as you might expect. They dropped a lot of
their old friends early this year, you know, and some of them haven’t
liked it. Not so much men in college as some fellows in New Haven they
used to run around with. And the faculty isn’t any too sure of them
either. I happen to know that they were both on the ragged edge at the
last exams. They just got through, and there are some professors who
said then that neither of them had more than an outside chance of
getting through the final exams.”
“What’s the game?” asked Parker. “Are they going to try to do some
cribbing?”
“I don’t say they will, mind you,” said Foote, with a wink. “But I’m
going to keep my eyes open. And it may be I’ll see something that I’ll
feel it my duty to report in the quarters where it will do the most
good, you know. Will you go in on this with me? You’ll have to do what I
say, and not ask too many questions, you know. When you don’t know
what’s doing, you won’t be lying when you say so, remember.”
“I’m with you,” said Parker, with an oath. “I’d do a good deal to get
even with Merriwell. And I’d rather show him up as a hypocrite than
anything else I can think of, too.”
“Well, stick to me,” said Foote, “and you may have your wish.”
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