STUDENTS' RACKETS.
Inza Burrage came back to New Haven with Miss Gale. Frank discovered she
was there by seeing her on the street. He started to join her and speak,
but she entered a store, and he lost her.
That evening he started out to call on her, resolved to have a talk with
her and come to a complete understanding, if she would see him.
He knew where Miss Gale was stopping, and he made his way to the house
by a roundabout course, thinking over what he would say in case Inza
consented to see him.
As he approached the house he saw some one ascending the steps. The
person going up the steps carried a cane.
Frank halted abruptly.
"Marline!" he whispered.
It was his rival.
Rob rang the bell and was admitted to the house.
Frank turned about and walked swiftly away.
"That settles it!" he grated. "I don't want to see her now, for I am
sure she was playing double with me. She is stuck on Rob Marline. It's
all right! it's all right! I'll have to take Diamond's advice. Marline
shall have all the satisfaction he desires."
On his way back to his room he met Browning, Diamond, Rattleton and
several other fellows, who were starting out for a jolly time. They were
singing, "Here's to Good Old Yale," and he immediately joined in with
them, his beautiful baritone adding to the melody which floated out on
the crisp evening air.
"Hurrah!" cried Rattleton. "It's Merry! Come on, old man, and we'll have
some sport."
To the surprise of all, Merriwell joined them, without asking where they
were going. He seemed ready enough for any kind of sport, and his
laughter rang the loudest and merriest of them all. He was overflowing
with jokes and witty sayings, so that the boys began to say to each
other that he was like the Frank Merriwell of old.
They made the rounds of the "places." Nearly all of them drank beer,
but, although Frank seemed in a reckless mood, not a drop of beer or
liquor touched his lips. He seemed to enjoy the sport as much as any of
them, and still he remained sober.
In fact, Frank was a leader in wild pranks that night. Before the
evening was over, the boys got two policemen after them, and were forced
to run to escape arrest.
Rattleton was somewhat slower than the others in starting, and he soon
found one of the policemen was close upon him.
"Stop!" cried the officer.
"Go to thunder!" flung back Harry.
"Stop, I tell yer!"
"Save your wind! You can't catch me in a thousand years."
"Can't?"
Whiz--something flew through the air. It struck Harry between the
shoulders, knocking him forward on his hands and knees.
Then the officer pounced upon him, picking up his stick, which he had
flung at the boy.
"Oh, I've got yer!" grated the policeman. "I'll teach yer to be tearin'
down an' shiftin' round people's signs! I saw yer when yer pulled down
the sign in front of the Chinese laundry, and the charge'll be larceny.
We're goin' to fix some of you frisky students."
The police had been sore ever since their ineffectual attempt to get
upon the campus and arrest the students who were parading with the horns
captured from the band. Word had gone the rounds among the students that
the "cops" were watching for an opportunity to retaliate. Evidently this
policeman fancied his opportunity had come.
Larceny! Harry realized the full meaning of the charge, and he knew it
would go hard with him if he were convicted. Thoughts of making a
desperate effort to slip out of his coat, and leave it in the officer's
clutch, flashed through his head; but the blow of the club had knocked
the wind out of him, and, just then, he did not have the strength to
make the effort.
Where were the others? Had they all escaped? Had they abandoned him?
"Git up!" ordered the policeman, releasing his grip on Harry a bit, in
order to change his hold.
Swish! thump! bump!
A dark body came out of the shadows and struck the policeman with the
force of a catapult.
The officer was hurled through the air, his hold on Harry being broken.
He struck the stone paving heavily.
A hand fastened on Rattleton's collar, a strong arm jerked him to his
feet, a familiar voice hissed in his ear:
"Run!"
It was Merriwell! Harry's heart leaped as he realized that. Frank had
not deserted him. Frank never deserted a friend.
Rattleton was somewhat dazed, but Merriwell's hand directed him, and
away they sped. They heard the policeman behind them, heard him shout
breathlessly for them to stop, but they had no thought of obeying.
Into a narrow space between two buildings plunged Frank, telling Harry
to follow. Merriwell came to a gate, but he seemed to see it, for all of
the intense darkness.
"Over here!" he called to Harry.
They heard the policeman plunge in behind them. Over the gate they
scrambled, not daring to pause long enough to find the way it was
fastened. Out into a back yard they dashed, hearing the officer run into
the gate and grunt as he was flung backward.
There was a high fence around the yard, and it seemed that they might be
in a trap.
Frank felt for a clothesline and found it. He seemed to see in the dark.
"Over the fence, Harry--over the fence!" he whispered.
"Come on!"
"In a moment."
"What are you doing?"
"Lowering this line, so it will just catch Mr. Officer under the chin.
Get over the fence."
Rattleton obeyed. He found a place where he could scramble to the top of
the fence, and there he sat, calling to Frank:
"Come on--hurry!"
The policeman came out into the yard. It seemed that Merriwell had been
waiting for him. Frank started to run, and the officer started after
him.
"I have yer now!" grated the policeman.
Frank led him directly toward the clothesline. Just before the line was
reached, Frank seemed to stumble and nearly fall. He did it in order to
duck under the line.
A triumphant exclamation broke from the officer. It was cut short by
another sort of exclamation.
The clothesline caught him under the chin. It snapped his head backward
and his heels forward. He went down flat on his back with a terrible
thump, and there he lay.
With a triumphant laugh, Frank shinned up the fence and perched on the
top beside Rattleton.
The officer was sitting up. He had seen more stars and fireworks than it
had ever been his fortune to behold before.
"Ta, ta, old chappie!" tauntingly called Merriwell. "We'll see you some
other evening."
"Stop--stop right where you are!" ordered the policeman, in a bewildered
way, looking around for the speaker. "You can't get away. It's no use
for you to try."
"You're twisted, old man," laughed Frank. "Good-night, and pleasant
dreams! We certainly had you on a string to-night. Ha! ha! ha!"
Then the boys dropped down from the fence into the next yard, made their
way to the street, and hastened toward Morey's.
"Christopher? what a racket!" laughed Rattleton. "Why, I haven't been in
anything like this since I was a freshman."
"It's good for a fellow once in a while," said Frank. "It stirs up his
blood."
"But I was in a hard place when you came to my rescue, Merry. The cop
had me pinched, and he said the charge would be larceny. I thought I was
in for it."
"I wasn't going to leave anybody to be locked up."
"You never do, Merry; you always stick. It does me good to see you out
on a time like this, for you have not been like yourself in weeks. Now
you seem like the old Frank Merriwell."
They reached Morey's safely. Entering, they discovered nearly all the
others of their party there ahead of them.
And Rob Marline was there, drinking whiskey.
As soon as Frank and Harry appeared, the others of the party surrounded
them, asking about their adventures.
Bruce Browning was wiping the perspiration from his flushed face, while
he growled:
"Haven't done anything like that for a long time. It was awful! Wouldn't
done it then if it hadn't been to escape arrest. Caesar's ghost! think of
being arrested."
"I was arrested!" said Rattleton.
"What?" cried the others. "Come again!"
"A cop pinched me."
"No? How did you get away?"
"Merriwell came to my rescue. He didn't desert me, if the rest of you
did. He saw the cop nail me, and he sent his buttons flying by running
into him. That gave me a chance to skip. I tell you, it took nerve to
tackle a cop like that."
Rob Marline laughed sarcastically, but did not say anything. Rattleton
flushed with anger, but Merriwell did not seem to notice it.
Harry went on with his story, telling of their adventures, and the party
shouted with laughter when he related the clothesline incident.
The fellows were gathering about Merriwell, and Marline found that he
was being deserted, which added to his bitterness. He saw the boys
listening to the story of Merriwell's attack on the officer and the
trick with the clothesline, and the soul of the boy from the South was
filled with bitterness.
"He's cutting ice with the gang again," thought Marline. "That must be
stopped."
But how could he stop it? He thought of calling to those who had been
with him before Merriwell came in, and asking them to have another
drink. Then it seemed that he would humiliate himself by doing so, for
he would cause everybody to notice how he had been abandoned. So he
ordered another drink for himself, and drank it sullenly.
Every time the boys laughed Marline grated his teeth. Things had not
gone right with him that night, and he was in an ugly mood. He had
called to see Inza Burrage, and had attempted to make himself "solid"
with her. In the course of his conversation he had made some disparaging
remark about Frank Merriwell.
That remark was like a spark of fire in a keg of powder. In a moment
Inza flared up and exploded. She told him Frank Merriwell was a
gentleman. She told him Frank Merriwell was too much of a man of honor
to malign an enemy behind his back. She showed deep scorn and contempt,
and Marline left the house crestfallen and raging with anger.
He had been touched on a tender spot. To have any one insinuate that
Frank Merriwell was more honorable than he, was like stabbing him to the
heart.
The whiskey made Marline desperate. Little did he know that the boy he
hated was in a most reckless mood. Had he known it, he would not have
cared. There was not a drop of cowardly blood in Marline's body. He
longed for an encounter with Merriwell.
At length, when he could stand it no longer, he arose to his feet. Some
one was complimenting Merriwell on his nerve. Marline had not tasted the
last glass of whiskey brought him. He took it in his hand, made two
steps toward Frank, and flung the stuff full into Merry's face!
"If Mr. Merriwell has so much nerve, let him resent that!" rang out the
hoarse voice of the boy from South Carolina. "We'll see how much nerve
he has!"
Frank took out a handkerchief and slowly wiped the liquid from his face.
He was very pale, and his eyes gleamed with a glare that his best
friends had never seen in them before. But he laughed, and those who
knew him best shuddered at that laugh.
"Mr. Marline," he said, his voice calm and modulated, "will you be kind
enough to name your friend?"
Marline looked around. Sport Harris was at his side in a moment.
"I'll serve you!" Sport eagerly whispered.
Marline felt that almost any one was preferable to Harris, but he saw
the others had drawn away. Harris seemed to be the only one with nerve
enough to stand by him. He felt forced to accept Sport.
"Mr. Harris is my man," he said.
Frank bowed gracefully.
"Mr. Diamond will wait on him."
A gleam of exultation came into Marline's face, for he felt that he had
driven Merriwell to the wall at last.
Frank and Jack immediately withdrew from Morey's, and, later, the
Virginian sought Harris in his room.
Frank awaited Diamond's return. He came back in about an hour
"To-morrow, at sunrise," he said.