SIGNIFICANT MOVEMENTS.
The appearance of Frank on the ground soon attracted attention. Of late
there had been much talk about Merriwell and there was not a college man
interested in football who had not expressed an opinion concerning his
ability or his withdrawal from the sport.
Early in the season Walter Gordan had made a try for the eleven, but had
soon been turned down. Sport Harris could not have been induced to play
football, but he took much interest in the team, as he wished to know
how to place his "dough" on the great games.
Harris and Gordon were watching the men at practice, but the latter saw
Merriwell as soon as he entered the park.
"Well, hang me!" he muttered, staring.
"What's the matter?" asked Sport.
"Look there--with Halliday!"
"Yes, I see--why, it's Merriwell!"
"Sure."
"What's he out here for?"
"Don't ask me!"
"Thought he was out of it. Hasn't seemed to take any interest in the
eleven this season."
"Perhaps he thinks he's stayed away till it is so late he'll not be
asked to come on the team. He couldn't keep away any longer."
"Well, he's needed on the eleven, and that is a fact. He has disgusted
his friends by pulling out of the game."
Gordan laughed.
"He seems to think he can retire on the laurels he has won."
"Well, he never made a bigger mistake in his life," said Harris. "Yale
doesn't have any use for shirks. If he thinks he can retire because he
made a great run in the Princeton game last fall, he is mistaken."
"He is retiring on his reputation as a globe-trotter," sneered Walter.
"You know he has been all over the world. I expect to hear any day that
he has discovered the North Pole during some of his extensive travels,
but has forgotten to say anything about it."
"You think he hasn't traveled as much as has been reported?"
"Oh, he may have been over the pond, but that's nothing. Willis Paulding
has been over several times, and so have a score of fellows I know. But
the yarns about shooting panthers in South America, gorillas in Africa,
and other fierce and terrible beasts in other countries are altogether
too steep to go down my throat."
"How about the trophies he has to show for it?"
"Bah! His uncle left him money to burn, and he has a way of squeezing
any amount of it out of his guardian, Prof. Scotch. If he calls for a
thousand dollars, he gets it right away. With money like that I could
buy a lot of old weapons, queer pottery, fake idols, brass lamps, skins
of wild animals, and so forth, and make a big bluff that I had gathered
them all over the world. I don't say much about him, but, between you
and I, that fellow makes me awfully weary."
Harris grinned a bit.
"Can't get over it, can you?" he said.
"Can't get over what?"
"The fact that he beat you out at both baseball and football last year.
He got onto the 'Varsity nine and the eleven. You tried for both, and
got onto neither."
"Oh, I don't care about those things," protested Gordan. "It was by
chance that he got onto the nine, and you know it. If Yale hadn't been
hard up for pitchers, he would not have been given a trial."
"That's all right, but you had the same opportunity and you got left."
"Oh, well, rub it in!" snapped Gordan. "Merriwell has beat you at a few
things, or the stories they tell are lies."
It was Harris' turn to get red in the face.
"Who has been telling anything? Has Merriwell been blowing around?"
"I don't know about that, but it is said that your Harvard friend,
Harlow, proved to be a card sharp--and you introduced him to a lot of
fellows here. Merriwell got into a game and caught him cheating. If the
stories are straight, Merriwell could have made it hot for you. He let
up on you."
"Lies!" snarled Harris, his face growing dark, while he pulled away at
his short mustache. "It must be Merriwell has been telling these things.
Oh, I'd like to punch his head!"
"Yes, but you don't dare try it any more than I do," grinned Gordan.
"You know he can lick you and not half try."
"Oh, he's a fighter, and I don't pretend to be that; but he may find me
dangerous. I have been keeping still for some time, but I'm simply
waiting, that's all."
"The fellows say he was dead easy with Hartwick, but that Evan would not
let up on Merriwell."
"Well, Hartwick was forced to leave college, anyway, and I'd like to
make Frank Merriwell do the same thing."
"Wish you might. It would give some of the rest of us a show."
"If he's played on the eleven this fall, I should have been forced to
put my money on Yale. Now we've got a weak team, and I have put up
something on Harvard as soon as this. I am getting all the bets I can
before it is generally known that Yale is weak."
"What if Merriwell should be taken on?"
"There is no danger of it, and he couldn't play the whole game, anyway.
As full-back, however, he would have strengthened Yale's weakest point.
It is remarkable, but we haven't a man besides Merriwell this season who
is fully qualified to play the position."
"What's the matter with the new man?"
"Marline?"
"Yes."
"He's a grand-stand player. All he cares about is to do something pretty
to win the admiration of the ladies. He will work for Marline, and not
for the team. Mark what I say. The team was weak enough when it went
against the Indians, but it is weaker still with Halliday at quarter and
Marline at full. Harvard is better than she was last season, when we
beat her by a fluke, and she will walk right over our team. Put your
money on Harvard, Gordan, and you will win everything."
"Hello!" exclaimed Walter, suddenly. "What's up now?"
"Cook is talking with Merriwell, that's all."
"That means something."
"Get out! Cook is coach, but he isn't running the team."
"I tell you it means something! See--Cook calls Forrest. Now the captain
of the eleven is coming over. See that! They are talking together. I
tell you that means something, Harris!"
Gordan was excited, and he seemed to impart his excitement to his
companion. With the greatest eagerness they watched the little group.
Perhaps the trio spent ten minutes talking, and then there was a move
that added to the excitement of Gordan and Harris.
"What's Merriwell going to do?" asked Sport, catching his breath.
"Do!" exclaimed Walter, in deep disgust. "Can't you see? He's going to
practice!"
"Practice? Great Scott! That means----"
"That means that he is sure to play on the eleven!"
Gordan and Harris were not the only ones interested in Merriwell's
movements.
Tom Thornton, who had once been an enemy to Frank, and was now very
friendly toward Rob Marline, the new man, who was expected to play
full-back, was watching Cook, Forrest and Merriwell.
In catching a ball, Marline ran past Thornton, who asked:
"What's up over there, Rob? Why are those fellows talking with their
heads together?"
"I don't know," was the answer. "Maybe Merriwell wants to get onto the
eleven."
"If he wants to, he'll do it."
"He can't. Positions all taken."
"Somebody'll be fired."
"'Twon't be me."
"Don't be so sure of that," thought Tom, but he did not speak the words
aloud.
After a little Merriwell was seen preparing to practice. Halliday was at
it already. Happening to be near Ben, Thornton heard him observe to a
player:
"I've done the job for Yale this time. Got Merriwell back. They will
have to thank me for that."
"Got him back?" said the other. "Why, how is that? Where will he play?"
"Full-back, of course."
"But Marline."
"Marline will be given a chance to rest."
Thornton nodded.
"Knew it!" he muttered. "Rob is a good fellow, and this isn't a square
deal. He won't be given a show. Merriwell is all right as a player, but
he has no right to refuse to play and then come on after things are
fixed and knock some other chap out. I'll tell Rob."
So, at the first opportunity, Thornton told Marline what he had heard
Halliday say.
Marline was from South Carolina, and he was proud as Lucifer. In fact,
his manner of always speaking of South Carolina as the "one" State in
the Union was often little short of exasperating. He was haughty and
overbearing, proud of his birth, inclined to boast, and utterly blind to
his own shortcomings.
No one questioned Marline's courage. He came from a family noted for
courage and daring. His great-grandfather was a patriot officer of
Revolutionary times, and his father had won a commission in the
Confederate Army in the War of the Rebellion. The blood of fighters and
heroes ran in Marline's veins.
For all that, there was no one at Yale who could make himself more
offensive than the boy from South Carolina. He had a way of sneering at
everybody and everything outside his native State, and when he set out
to call anybody down, the most withering and biting sarcasm flowed from
his tongue.
Marline was smart intellectually, but whimsical and set in his notions
and beliefs. Once let him express an opinion and he would not confess
himself in the wrong even when absolute proof lay before him. Instead,
he was pretty sure to want to fight the fellow who offered the proof.
As an orator the youth from South Carolina had no superior in college.
He was strong in argument, and it was through him that Yale had
succeeded in wresting from Harvard the honors in the annual debate.
With the professors he stood unusually well, as he was regarded as a
brilliant scholar, and he had never been known to take part in any of
the students' carousals.
Marline's face grew dark as he listened to Halliday.
"They can't drop me without playing me at all," he said, harshly.
"Can't! Guess you don't know Walt Forrest. He wouldn't hesitate a second
if he thought he could improve the team. He doesn't allow his feelings
to interfere at all with the discharge of what he thinks is his duty."
"If they try to kick me out, there'll be a hot time, sah!" flashed the
boy from South Carolina. "I'll show somebody that I'm not to be used
like I am a dog!"
"Don't blame you," nodded Tom. "It is a dirty trick."
Marline was rattled. Three times he tried to catch a punted ball, and
three times he dropped it, something remarkable for him to do--something
that made the boys stare at him in surprise.
In the meantime, Merriwell was on the gridiron, and he was taking all
kinds of twisters with his old-time confidence and skill. Three balls
were in use, and, after a time, it happened that, in running under two
of them sent into the air at the same time, Marline and Merriwell
collided.
Frank struck Rob in such a manner that he was thrown to the ground, but
he flopped over, sat up, and took the ball that belonged to him,
laughing in a good-natured way.
Marline paid no attention to the ball he had started after, but stood
looking down at Frank, his face utterly bloodless and his eyes gleaming.
"Sah," he said, after a few seconds, as Frank was getting up--"sah, you
ran into me!"
"Believe I did, old man," laughed Merriwell. "No harm done, I hope.
Didn't upset you, and you did me. I'm all right."
"But you ran into me, sah!"
"Couldn't help it, you know," declared Frank, with unfailing good
nature. "Accidents will happen."
"Accidents, sah, may often be avoided."
"It is difficult to avoid them on the gridiron."
"You may apologize, sah."
Marline was standing there, his arms folded, his dark eyes looking
daggers at Merriwell. His pose was graceful, and he really looked
handsome, for all of his arrogant bearing.
Frank whistled his surprise.
"Apologize?" he said, slowly. "Do you really mean that?"
"I certainly do, sah."
When Rob Marline addressed anybody as "sah" in that manner it was a
warning. The word was one seldom used by him since coming to Yale. To a
great extent he had adopted the manners of the North, and had suppressed
any little peculiarities of speech that might indicate his Southern
blood. Now, however, he felt that he was a South Carolinian, and the
dignified and haughty "sah" of the South suited his mood.
Frank paused a moment, looking straight into the eyes of the hot-blooded
youth who had demanded an apology. He seemed in doubt, but quickly made
up his mind.
"I never heard of an apology on the football field," he said; "but, as
you seem to think me to blame for this little accident, I ask your
pardon. I trust that is satisfactory."
To this Marline made no answer, but with a contemptuous movement of his
body, turned about and stepped away.
A few of the players near at hand had seen and heard everything. All
were astonished. To them it seemed that Marline had cowed Merriwell, and
a feeling of disdain for the latter mingled with their astonishment.
"That beats the band!" said one to another. "Is this the same Merriwell
we have thought such a lion?"
"It's plain," said the other, "that the fellows who have been claiming
he really has less nerve than is generally supposed were right. He is
afraid of Marline--I can see that. Marline comes from a fighting family,
and he would challenge Merriwell to meet him in a genuine duel.
Merriwell can scrap, but he has no relish for swords or pistols. He has
been cowed by the fellow from South Carolina."