ONE BLOW IS PARRIED.
Foote was fairly well satisfied with the result of his plot so far as it
had gone. But, as a matter of fact, Dick Merriwell, by his determination
to do what was right, no matter what it cost him, had defeated one, and
the most important, of the junior’s objects. He had wanted to be able to
prove that Dick, rather than risk the defeat of the baseball nine, had
failed to reveal knowledge that he had obtained of cheating in an
examination. And Dick had made this impossible. There were other things,
too, unknown to Foote, that would have worried him a good deal had he
been aware of them.
Dick had not gone to the dean immediately upon his return to New Haven.
He had gone to his own room first to think the matter over. And, the
more he thought, the more unlikely it seemed to him that his suspicions
were correct. He felt that he had not really given Taylor a chance to
explain. He had told the senior catcher nothing of his suspicions, and
Sam might, as a result, have felt justified in refusing to answer
certain questions that he would otherwise have replied to without
hesitation. So he had sent for Taylor and told him the whole story.
Taylor took the paper Dick had found, and then, after examining it
closely, had laughed.
“This is a fake, Mr. Merriwell,” he said. “And, what’s more, I think my
paper will show that I couldn’t have used this. If I’d had this with me,
I could have passed a perfect examination, and, as a matter of fact,
I’ll be lucky if I get through at all. That’s one thing. Another is that
this is not in my writing. Look here.”
He wrote his name hastily a dozen times on a piece of paper, and Dick,
comparing the writing with that on the crib, saw that Taylor was right.
“Look here!” cried Taylor suddenly. He was a shrewd, clever fellow,
really, and his mind had been hard at work. “There are a whole lot of
people here who don’t like me any more. Men I used to go with that I’ve
dropped since that business that Harding got me to go into. Don’t you
think it’s possible that they’ve planted this evidence against me?”
“It’s certainly possible,” said Dick thoughtfully. “Suppose we go over
together and see the dean? He ought to be at his house by this time.”
Taylor agreed, readily enough. But the dean was not at home. They were
told that some extra work had compelled him to stay late at his office,
to which place they hastened.
The dean heard their curious story with interest. Then, smiling, he
picked up a letter.
“Practically these same facts,” he said, “with the additional
information that they were known to Mr. Merriwell, came to me in this
letter. Ordinarily, I would not have received this letter until the
morning. I am not usually here at the time of the postman’s last
afternoon delivery. To-day I happened to stay late. There is a distinct
intimation in this letter that Mr. Merriwell willfully suppressed the
facts.”
They all stared at one another.
“It looks pretty plain to me, gentlemen,” said the dean. “Some one is
trying to kill two birds with one stone—hurt Taylor and Gray and make
trouble for Mr. Merriwell here. Don’t you see?”
Dick saw, and he was furious. Moreover, he began to put two and two
together. He remembered what Tempest had told him after Parker’s visit
to his room, and it began to be apparent to him that Parker or some
friends of his had renewed the fight; choosing, however, to strike
through Taylor and Gray rather than through Jim Phillips, as they had
done before.
“I think it will be well to let these people think they have succeeded,
Mr. Merriwell,” said the dean, “for the time, at least. If we show that
we know what they are doing, they will be on their guard. As it is,
however, they have accomplished very little, and you may be sure that
they are planning something much more likely to give you concern than
this. I will announce that an investigation is to be made of this
examination, and see what happens. Then, if they show their hands, you
will be in a position to defeat them completely. It is never well merely
to scotch a snake—it should be killed.”
Dick agreed with the dean. And, as he and Taylor went off together, he
apologized to the senior for having suspected him.
“I don’t see how you could very well help it,” said the catcher. “That
doesn’t worry me at all. But I’d like mighty well to know who’s after
me, and what the idea is. I know there are men who don’t like me, but I
never supposed they’d go as far as this. By the way, the papers I left
in my room were letters—from a girl.”
Dick felt that he need no longer keep his promise of secrecy to Parker.
Parker had already violated the terms he had agreed to when the promise
was made, and so he told Taylor the whole story of the registered
letter, and of Parker’s recent visit to his room.
“He came to get that confession, of course,” said Dick. “I was inclined
to distrust him, though I hate to seem to be hard on a man who is
sincerely sorry for what he has done, no matter how serious his offense
may seem to be.”
“I don’t think there’s much danger of your being unjust to any one, Mr.
Merriwell,” said Sam. “I’ve got good reason myself to know that. You
certainly gave me more than a fair chance to straighten myself out.”
“And I’ve had no reason to regret it,” said Dick, laying his hand on the
senior’s shoulder with a friendly gesture. “You had some wrong ideas—all
you needed was a chance to see for yourself that you had been mistaken.”
Foote had caused the warning as to the history examination to be sent to
the dean, but he had not made the mistake of sending it himself.
Instead, he had worked through a new member of the faculty, an
instructor named Gordon, an old friend of his, to whom he had gone with
much seeming hesitation and told what he said he knew. Gordon, a
thoroughly honest and well-meaning young man, had readily promised not
to divulge the name of his informant, and had immediately made a written
report to the dean. But, even though he felt that his own tracks were
well covered, Foote was sorry that he had not waited to give Dick
Merriwell a chance to act. The very foundation of his whole plan
depended upon Dick’s falling into the trap by keeping silence about the
affair.
Dick Merriwell had not done it. Thoroughly selfish himself, Foote could
not understand a man like Merriwell, who, if he saw that a thing was
right, would do it, no matter how his own wishes and desires might be
affected. He had known that Dick was set upon the success of the
baseball team; it had not seemed possible to him that he would willingly
sacrifice the chance of that success if it could only be attained by
doing something that was wrong and dishonorable. So Foote was nervous.
He thought that Merriwell must have been warned of his plan in some
manner, and have thought of a way to defeat it.
He told this much to Parker, but Parker had more sense, in a way, than
Foote. Parker was not at bottom vicious. He was ambitious, and terribly
disappointed by his failure to be chosen as captain of the football
team. Because he thought Dick Merriwell was responsible for his defeat,
he hated the universal coach, and he wanted to be revenged upon him.
“I don’t know about all this, Foote,” he said. “You don’t want to run
away with the idea that Merriwell would only have gone to the dean
because he got on to your little game. He might have done it because it
was the right thing to do. He’s inclined to be that way, you know. He
could have shown me up before the whole college if he’d wanted to, and
made it impossible for me to stay here; and I don’t see why he didn’t.”
“He had some good reasons, you can depend on that,” scoffed Foote. “You
can’t make me believe that Merriwell’s as good as he tries to make out.
I know his kind. He’s like all the rest of us—trying to do the best he
can for himself. If he took a chance of breaking up his team, he had
some mighty good reason for doing it. I’m afraid of him now. We’ve got
to work out some new way of beating him. I guess it can be done, too.
One thing’s sure: Taylor will be able to disprove that charge. I’ve got
to work out some other way of keeping those two, or one of them, anyhow,
out of that game.”
That was the night before the game, and the night before commencement,
too. Professor Canfield’s examination had been postponed on account of
his illness; for all other examinations were over, and the marks posted.
The papers were to be corrected hurriedly on the morning of Commencement
Day, but Canfield had been the more ready to wait thus until the last
minute because he was a professor who paid little attention to
examination papers. He judged men by their work during the terms, and he
had decided some time before that every man in this particular class had
done well enough to pass the course. Therefore, he had privately assured
the dean that no man would fail. But Foote didn’t know that.
He turned to Parker finally with a look of determination in his eye. It
was very late, and the whole town seemed to be asleep. They were near
Dwight Hall.
“I’ve got to get inside there for a while, Parker,” said Foote. “You
stick around out here, and if you see any one coming in—which there
isn’t one chance in a million you will—give the old whistle. I’ll hear
you and make myself scarce.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Parker, suddenly going white.
“Just make sure that we’ll win out on this,” said Foote. “We may not be
able to get Merriwell—this time—but we’ll get one of his pet seniors,
anyhow. And he won’t be able to find out about this stunt.”
He took a bunch of keys from his pocket, and, to Parker’s surprise, had
no difficulty in gaining admittance to Dwight Hall, where the
examination in history had been held. Foote believed in being thorough,
if nothing else. He was inside for half an hour, and when he came out,
seemed to be delighted.
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