A CHALLENGE.
How long the mining magnate from Gold Hill had been enjoying the
performance on the veranda, the boys did not know. He had caught Clancy
red-handed, however, trying to drive the mercury out of the top of the
thermometer.
“It beats all,” laughed Clancy, “what a fellow can make people do just
by fooling with a thermometer.”
“The power of suggestion is tremendous,” said the colonel, “if rightly
handled. It is so in everything, my lads. Start a train of suggestions
properly and, if they lead in the right direction, you can mold nearly
any one to your will. But that isn’t what I came over here to talk
about.”
The colonel had climbed the veranda steps while talking, and he now
shook hands warmly with Merry and his chums. Ballard pushed out a chair
for him, and he lowered himself into it with a genial smile, while his
eyes roved from one to another of the glowing young faces in front of
him.
In some things Colonel Hawtrey was a stern old martinet. The better part
of his life had been spent in the military service of his country, and
this may have developed the relentless side of his nature. He had a will
of iron, backed by a judgment that was apt to make a mountain of errors
out of a molehill of mere mistakes.
He was a lover of sports, however, and was the backbone and mainstay of
the Gold Hill Athletic Club. He believed that, quite apart from physical
prowess, the right spirit in athletics developed inevitably all a
youth’s manly qualities. And he had no patience with any one in whom
manliness and personal integrity were lacking in the slightest degree.
That something of an unusual nature had brought the colonel from Gold
Hill that afternoon Merriwell was positive. And that it might prove as
interesting as it was unusual was evident from the colonel’s manner.
“What’s in the wind, colonel?” queried Ballard curiously. “Clancy, here,
is feeling like a castaway on a two-by-four island. If he can’t have a
little healthy excitement before long, his pranks will probably get us
all into trouble.”
“I’ve got everybody in a sweat around this hotel,” said Clancy; “that
is,” he added, “with the kind assistance of Chip and Pink.”
“We’re all in it,” acknowledged Merry. “But what sort of a proposition
have you got, colonel?”
“Darrel suggested the idea last night,” returned the colonel, “and it
struck me as being a pretty good one. How long before you’re going to
leave this part of the country, Merriwell?”
“As soon as the professor and Mrs. Boorland get the money for that mine.
The check has to come from the East.”
“Do you think you’d have time to match an Ophir nine against a team from
Gold Hill? This would be a very pleasant diversion, it seems to me, and
I know it would be highly enjoyed by all the fans in both towns.”
“Bully!” exclaimed Clancy, all enthusiasm on the instant.
“Now you are shouting, colonel!” seconded Ballard, with equal zest.
“Fine idea, colonel!” said Merriwell. “All the big teams go South for
their spring practice, and here in southern Arizona we’ll be getting
ahead of them by two or three months.”
“Back at Farnham Hall,” went on the red-headed chap, enthusing more and
more as the idea took firmer hold of him, “they’re thinking of skates,
and toboggans, and ice hockey, and here we’re planning to go out on a
diamond and bang the horsehide through the balmy air. Chip,” and he
turned to his chum, “if that letter came from the East before the game,
I guess we could delay our start for the North long enough to take a
fall out of the Gold Hillers, couldn’t we?”
“Sure,” Merry heartily agreed. “I suppose this game would be pulled off
in a few days, colonel?”
“Why, yes,” was the answer, “just as soon as you can pick up a nine. We
had thought of playing next Saturday, on the theory, you understand,
that we’d have to hurry matters if we succeeded in getting a game with
you before you left. If you can stay longer, make it a week from next
Saturday, if that suits you better, or any other day that tallies with
your convenience.”
“This is Wednesday,” Frank mused, “and that would leave only two days
for getting a team together and practicing a little in case we play on
the last day of this week. But we’d better make it next Saturday,” he
added.
“Good!” exclaimed the colonel. “You’ve run up a long score of athletic
victories since you’ve been in Ophir, Merriwell, and I give you fair
warning that Gold Hill is going to do its best to give you a parting
shot you’ll long remember.”
“Of course,” said Merry, “if Gold Hill didn’t work hard to win, the game
wouldn’t be worth while.”
“We’ll have the advantage of you, unless the Ophir Athletic Club can
give you all the players you need who are up to snuff. Our boys will
come direct from our own club, and they have been playing ball ever
since that football game a few weeks ago. Bleeker, and the rest of those
who had gone into camp in the gulch, got back to Gold Hill several days
ago, and they have been gingering up on the diamond ever since.”
“It’s a cinch, then, that your team will have a big advantage. I can use
a few from the Ophir Club; Clancy, Ballard, and I will play, and then
we’ll have to go hunting for the rest of our material. It will be quite
a job to get the team together and pound it into any sort of shape in
two days; but--well,” and Merry smiled, “there’s a spice about doing
things on short notice, colonel, and it rather appeals to me. We----”
At this moment, Pophagan, palm-leaf fan in one hand and a handkerchief
in the other, came slowly out on the veranda. He appeared surprised to
find those on the veranda paying so little attention to the weather.
“Howdy, kunnel,” said he. “Ain’t you feelin’ the heat none?”
“I’m very comfortable, thank you, Pophagan,” the colonel answered, with
a sly wink at the boys.
“Don’t mean to say you haven’t looked at the thermometer?”
“What’s the use? I don’t look to a thermometer for information as to
whether I’m comfortable or not.”
“No? Well, all of Ophir gits its temperature right from this here
weather machine o’ mine. I want to tell you, Colonel Hawtrey, that we’re
havin’ a spell o’ weather right this minute that ain’t been equaled
since ninety-six. Whoosh! Jest take a look at that mercury and see how
high she is.”
“You look, Pophagan,” laughed the colonel, “and report.”
The proprietor of the hotel lurched over to the thermometer and recoiled
from it in amazement.
“Jumpin’ sand hills!” he exclaimed. “I’ll be dad-burned if this don’t
beat all get-out. What d’ye think?” and he whirled on Colonel Hawtrey
with popping eyes. “That there thermometer has gone down more’n
thirty-five degrees in half an hour. Blamed remarkable, that’s what I
call it. Dern nigh gives me a chill.”
Pophagan threw away the fan and put his handkerchief in his pocket.
“Reckon I better go and tell the perfesser an’ the chink afore they
catch their death o’ cold tryin’ to be comfortable.”
With that he vanished through the hotel door. Colonel Hawtrey cast an
amused glance after the lank, retreating form.
“It would be hard for a person to believe that a thing like that could
happen,” he remarked, “unless he witnessed it with his own eyes. The
whole affair is absurd on the face of it, and yet there is no doubt of
the genuineness of Pophagan’s sentiments. Well, well! That is carrying
suggestion to an extreme.”
“I wonder,” said Ballard, a little pensively, “if he’s trying to turn
the joke on us?”
“Not on your life,” answered Clancy. “If that thermometer registered
zero, when the temperature was really where it is now, Pop would put on
his ear muffs and his fur-lined overcoat.”
“That’s the trouble with a good many of us,” said the colonel. “Often
we’re not ruled by common sense, but by a very foolish habit.”
There were several things connected with this incident of the
thermometer which Merriwell was to remember later; and the most of them
had, for a basis, the few comments made by Colonel Hawtrey.
“It’s definitely settled, then,” went on the colonel, “that the ball
game is to be played next Saturday?”
“Yes,” Merriwell answered. “We’ll have to do a little hustling to get
our nine together, but I think we can make it.”
“You know pretty well where you’re to get your material?”
“I’ve been going over that in my mind, colonel, and I think I have every
position filled.”
“You’ll pitch, of course?”
“Sure thing,” put in Clancy promptly. “We couldn’t get along without
Chip in the pitcher’s box.”
“You’re our stumblingblock, Merriwell,” the colonel laughed. “Gold Hill
is full of rumors regarding your wonderful ability as a pitcher. I don’t
suppose we have any one who can hold a candle to you, and we’ll have to
make up what we lack by good work on other parts of the diamond.”
“Who will be the battery for Gold Hill?”
“Darrel and Bleeker. Darrel was always our star pitcher, and perhaps it
was a good thing for our boys that he fractured his left arm some time
ago instead of his right.”
Hawtrey frowned as he remembered the events connected with the
fracturing of that left arm of Ellis Darrel’s.
“What sort of a catcher is Bleek?” Merry asked, more by way of getting
the colonel’s mind off a disturbing train of reflections than for the
purpose of acquiring any useful information.
“He’s good anywhere,” was the answer, “and particularly good behind the
bat.” The colonel got up. “We’ll be here Saturday afternoon,” he added,
“and you can count upon facing a team that will make the affair
interesting to you.”
With a friendly nod he passed down the steps and made his way up the
street.
“This gives us something to take up our time, anyway,” remarked Clancy,
with a good deal of satisfaction.
“We’re up against a hard proposition,” said Ballard, looking very much
concerned. “Chip, it will never do for us to leave Arizona with a defeat
behind us.”
“I don’t think we’re going to,” Merry answered. “You can bet your last
copper, though, that we’re not going to have a walk-away. Let’s figure
out the make-up, fellows. Pink, take a pencil and paper and put Jode
Lenning’s name at the head of the list.”
Ballard and Clancy straightened suddenly in their chairs and gave
Merriwell a startled look.