CHAPTER IX.

A Broken Record.

IT was a splendid day for the big race. There was not too much sun, for

a soft mist hung in the air, tempering the light. But it was bright

and comfortably warm, nevertheless. In a word, it was perfect spring

weather.

The grand stand, bleachers, and every other part of the immense grounds

where admission was charged were crowded with sight-seers. In the vast

acreage around the track set apart for automobiles, the machines were

parked several deep, and in all of them were groups of well-dressed

men and beautifully dressed women, who had come from all parts of the

country to see what could be done by motor cars that were the last word

in scientific achievement.

There was a record already of more than a hundred and two miles an hour

by an American car. Would this be beaten to-day? That was the question.

Or would it ever be equaled?

“That Columbiad may do it,” observed Colonel Frank Prentiss to a few

of his intimates, as he stood in the judges’ stand and looked over the

vast crowd that had gathered in the hope of seeing a smashed record.

“There is a possibility, that the Thunderbolt may touch it, too.”

“I’d like to see the Thunderbolt win,” remarked an elderly man, with

the indescribable air of wealth about him that can seldom be mistaken.

“It is an American car. The Columbiad is of foreign make, I believe?”

“Yes,” replied Lawrence K. Ranfelt, who had brought this gentleman into

the stand as a special favor. “It is driven by an American, however.

Victor Burnham. Ever heard of him?”

“Yes, I’ve heard of him,” replied the other dryly. “I guess I’ll get

down to my car. I can see the race from there comfortably. Come with

me. Ranfelt?”

“Yes. I believe I will,” replied Lawrence K., as he went down the

spiral staircase with the elderly gentleman. “My girl Helen is with a

party of friends in another car.”

The preliminaries of the big race were carried out rapidly and in

businesslike fashion.

The drivers and mechanicians had looked their machines over for the

last time, had given them little dashes over the track to make sure

that everything worked easily, and now were lining up across the wide

speedway to have their photographs taken _en masse_.

It was difficult to tell one from the other at a little distance. They

all looked like machinists in very soiled clothing, while the tight

caps, goggles in front, and the coat collars pulled up high, helped to

hide the fact that many of the contestants were extremely personable

young men, who, in their street clothing, were rather finicky about

their appearance.

Stanley Downs and Clay Varron stood side by side, and close by were

Victor Burnham, with his mechanician, Dan Saltus. Stanley and Burnham

did not look at each other, but Dan Saltus glanced rather curiously at

Clay Varron. Saltus had heard of Paul Wallman’s injury, and he rather

wondered what kind of mechanician Stanley would have with him in the

Thunderbolt.

“Get into your cars, gentlemen!” ordered the starter, as he waved to

the loud brass band to stop playing. “Ready!”

He gave a few directions to the drivers, as the eighteen cars in the

race were brought to a stop inside the line. He told them they were to

go once around the track, with a big car which stood a few yards in

front of them as a pacer. They were not to pass the pacer. When they

came around they could take a flying start for the real race as he

dropped his flag.

Away went the cars! Even the preliminary rush around the bowl was at

nearly a hundred miles an hour. As they came around again, the starter

shouted “Go!”—which could not be heard—and dropped his red flag.

The race was on!

A great roar arose from the fifty or sixty thousand people about the

track as the cars tore around the oval. Every car was at its best

just then, and the first lap of two miles was made at the rate of

ninety-five miles an hour, even by the last one.

The next two miles were covered at more than a hundred, and the drivers

warmed up, going higher and higher as each circuit of the great wooden

bowl was completed.

The cars were scattered by this time. The whole track was dotted with

them.

The Thunderbolt and Columbiad were in the ruck, neither conspicuously

in the forefront, nor far behind. Both Stanley Downs and Victor Burnham

were holding their cars in, contented to be safe for the present,

without trying for a lead.

Time would come when some of the contestants would drop out. There were

three hundred and fifty miles to go, altogether. Plenty of time for the

vicious struggle that must come when victory lay just among a few of

the survivors.

Stanley Downs, his goggles firmly adjusted and his eyes gazing straight

ahead, knew he had his car well under control. He could feel it leaping

forward in response to every light touch on the throttle, while it

obeyed the least turn of the wheel over which he could just see the

yellow-brown pine flooring ahead.

“She’s going all right, Stan?” shouted Varron in his ear.

“Perfectly!”

“I haven’t heard a sound from her that shouldn’t be there.”

“Nor I.”

“All right, Stan! Keep steady! You’ll make it!” reassured Clay Varron.

“Hello! That was Burnham!” he added, as a car swept close to them, so

that it seemed as if there had been a deliberate attempt at collision.

“The man must be crazy!”

Burnham had driven his long, snaky Columbiad so close that Stanley had

been obliged to swerve, giving his rival a hundred yards advantage, at

least, before the Thunderbolt could recover.

It was a reckless thing to do. If Stanley Downs had not been a splendid

driver, he might not have got out of the way in time. But Burnham had

figured on that. He knew Stanley was on the alert, and it was worth a

little risk to get that much ahead, he thought.

“You’ve got to make up that gap, Stan!” shouted Varron.

Stanley Downs did not trouble to answer. But he let in a little more

gas, and his machine jumped forward in response.

“Ah!” chuckled Varron. “That’ll do it. I don’t believe——What’s that?”

A soft crack had reached his ears. It was underneath the car!

Without a moment’s hesitation, Varron leaned far over the side of the

car, and seizing an iron handhold, he peered underneath.

As he pulled himself to his seat again, he shouted to Stanley Downs:

“Get down off the track. We’ll have to lose a minute or two! Not more!

Hurry!”

Stanley did not ask what was the matter until he had steered his car

to the inside of the track, in front of the judges’ stand. He had not

quite stopped when Varron was on the ground, a pair of pliers in his

hand.

Under the car he dived as it came to a standstill, and there was a

minute’s work with the pliers. Then he came out, leaped into his seat,

and shouted to Stanley: “Go—like the deuce!”

Up shot the Thunderbolt to the track again, and it was going as fast

as any of them, almost at once. It was not till the speedometer told

that once more they were doing a hundred miles an hour that Varron

volunteered any information as to what had been wrong.

“Connecting rod loosened,” he explained. “It had been done purposely,

for there was a nut wedged where it would prevent the thing being found

out at first. I never saw anything more infernally cunning. Somebody

got at the car while we were having our pictures taken. That’s the only

time it could have been done, for I’d looked her over just before that.

The connecting rod was all right then.”

“We’ll talk about that after the race,” said Stanley shortly.

The delay had given Burnham a start on the Thunderbolt of a whole

lap—two miles.

Stanley could not lessen the distance, try as he would. He decided,

after a dozen circuits of the oval, that he would not try any more just

then. He would content himself with not getting any farther behind.

So far it appeared as if the Thunderbolt and Columbiad were just about

equal in power and speed. It would be nip and tuck, even if they were

level.

The race kept on, and car after car dropped out, unable to stand the

grueling pace. When there were a hundred and fifty miles to go only

nine cars remained—just half the number that had started.

“We’ve gained one lap on Burnham,” shouted Varron to Stanley. “The

other cars are not in it for first place. Keep it up. We did a hundred

and three miles an hour for the last lap. That beat Burnham. Go ahead!

Go on!”

Varron was wild now. He saw that the Thunderbolt was slowly creeping up

on its rival. A little more and they would lap him again.

“It _must_ be done! The Thunderbolt _must_ win!”

He bellowed this through the roar of the car, and though the rushing

wind drove the words back into his throat, he still kept up his frantic

cries of encouragement to the cool, steady driver at his side.

Stanley Downs had been in many a contest before, on the football field,

at polo, and other sports. But never had he taken part in a battle as

exciting as this, and never had he been cooler.

He felt that the machine was working smoothly, that every part seemed

to be in perfect accord, and that he was slowly gaining on the rival

who had resolved to beat him at any cost.

Clay Varron had used his oil can at frequent intervals. Being a racing

car, the Thunderbolt could be replenished with oil from the seat in all

of its more important parts, and Clay had taken care there should be no

lack of lubricant.

Twenty, forty, a hundred miles had been covered, and Stanley Downs

lifted his machine almost even with the Columbiad. Another effort and

he would pass.

It was at this instant that Stanley caught a glimpse out of the corner

of his eye of the driver of the Columbiad, as the latter turned his

head slightly in the direction of his rival. Also, he saw that the

mechanician, Dan Saltus, was shouting something to Burnham, as he

raised his hand, apparently in remonstrance.

It was all so quick that afterward Stanley Downs did not know exactly

what he had seen in the Columbiad.

Just as Saltus shouted, there was a quick swerve of the Columbiad, and

it crowded toward the Thunderbolt.

It was the same trick that Burnham had played early in the race, and

which then might have resulted in the horrible death of the four men in

the two cars.

Stanley gripped his wheel tighter and tried to steer out of the way,

even although he knew it would lose for him two or three hundred

precious yards.

But he did not go quite far enough! The Columbiad bore down on him,

and the two raced along for a second or two, with only a few inches

separating them.

Then came the crash. By one of those curious combinations of

circumstances not uncommon in automobiling, it chanced that a rear

corner of the Thunderbolt clipped the other car just where it would

upset its gravity.

Bang! Smash!

The Columbiad was on its side, while Stanley, quickly recovering from

the jar, whirled on alone.

There was no time for Stanley to look at the wreck. He kept on with the

race. He must win, no matter who might be hurt. It is the cruel rule in

races of all kinds. Only those not in the actual contest can give time

to look after those who may have fallen in the struggle.

As they tore around on the next lap, keeping well clear of the wrecked

car, Varron saw men lifting Burnham and his mechanician away, and the

next time around the Columbiad had been turned over on its wheels by a

score of men and pushed out of the way.

It did not take long to cover the remaining distance. As Stanley Downs

rushed the Thunderbolt over the finish line, his number went up on the

board: “Number 5 wins!” Directly afterward the time was recorded also:

“103.10.”

This meant that the Thunderbolt had covered the three hundred and fifty

miles at an average speed of more than one hundred and three miles an

hour.

Stanley Downs had beaten the record!

It was some time before Stanley could get to a certain car parked in

the infield, in whom he had seen an elderly gentleman, to whom he

wanted very much to speak.

There were a number of formalities to be gone through. The man who had

won the Lawrence Cup could not be allowed to go away till he had been

addressed by the judges and had his photograph taken.

Then he had to go and change his clothes after a shower bath, and do

various other things to bring him back to his usual appearance.

It was all done at last, however, and he dashed for the car that had

been his aim all along since he had finished the race and had time to

look about him.

“Uncle!” he cried, as the elderly gentleman took his hand in a warm,

strong grip. “Somehow, I had a feeling that you’d come—especially when

I got no reply to my telegram. I’m very glad to see you.”

Richard Burwin was an unemotional man, as a rule. But there were tears

behind his glasses as he said brokenly:

“Stan, my boy, I knew all about it. I know more than you do. That

fellow Burnham was pretty slick, but not quite slick enough for the old

man. I had his measure from the first. However, he’s dead, so——”

“Dead?”

“Yes. He was smashed all to pieces. Crushed almost to a jelly.

Dreadful thing, of course. But he got it when he tried to crowd you

off the track—or kill you. I don’t believe he cared what he did. His

mechanician will get well they say.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” said Stanley earnestly.

“So am I,” came from Richard Burwin. “I am told he confessed, when they

carried him off the track, and when he thought he was dying, that he

had stolen a package of twenty thousand dollars from you when you were

at the track before you started for New York in your car.”

“Stole it?” cried Stanley, dazed.

“Yes. He changed it on you. Common trick among crooks, you know. The

old green-goods game! So you had only a bundle of worthless paper, with

a real bank note on the outside, in your car pocket. That’s what went

to the bottom of the lake. The money is safe, the fellow says. We’ll

get it back when we’ve seen him at the hospital, and got his formal

confession. Now, let’s get away from here. We’re going to take luncheon

with Ranfelt—an old friend of mine—Prentiss, and Miss Ranfelt——”

“Why, Mr. Downs, won’t you let me congratulate you?” broke in the

sweet voice of Helen Ranfelt. “I have been trying to do it all the

time you have been talking to Mr. Burwin.” Then, in a lower tone, that

only Stanley could hear: “You know how much this means to me. I am

horrified at Mr. Burnham’s death. But—wouldn’t it have been dreadful if

he had won the race?”

“Hello, Helen! How do you think you’d like to be a mechanician?” asked

Clay Varron, laughing, as he took his fair cousin’s hand. “It’s great

sport, I assure you.”

“Clay, you’re splendid,” she answered. “If you hadn’t helped Mr. Downs

to win the cup, I never would have forgiven you.”

SOME NEW INVENTIONS

To convert an ordinary wash boiler into a washing machine, an inventor

has patented a metal cone, perforated at the top, so that jets of

boiling water are forced through clothing.

An electrical annunciator device, operated by push buttons on chairs

throughout a hall, is working successfully in Holland to auction eggs

without the usual noise and confusion of such sales.

Both the moistening and sealing of letters is done in a single

operation by a new office implement, in which a dampened roller passes

under the flaps, ahead of a larger one, that closes them.

To enable automobiles to pull themselves up hills or out of soft spots

in roads, a South Dakota inventor has patented a windlass which may be

attached to the rear hub of the car and operated by a motor.

A Seattle man has invented a device which keeps automobiles from

skidding on wet pavements. There is a receptacle under the rear seat

of the car in which sand is placed, and, by pressing a pedal on the

floor of the car, the sand is released and spread in front of the rear

wheels, giving instant traction.

A tin hood which fits over a rooster’s head and neck in such a way

as to prevent the fowl from heralding the dawn has been invented. A

rooster did too much early-morning crowing near a police station, and

one of the policemen devised the invention, which is said to work

perfectly, and without injuring the rooster.

A pump that not only pumps up an automobile tire within a few minutes,

but that keeps the tire at that pressure, regardless of large

punctures, is a new invention. The pump can be attached to the hub of

the wheel in less than a minute. It works on the rotary-pump principle,

each revolution of the wheel, while running the car, driving air into

the tire.

In putting up tall buildings, contractors have had a problem in boring

holes in steel beams wherein to place the rivets, those little bands

of steel that are vital to the erection of skyscrapers. By putting a

trained army of drillers at work, the contractor has been able to drill

correctly probably five hundred holes a day. A new machine, invented

by a Los Angeles man, has demonstrated that it can bore thirty perfect

holes in two and one-half minutes, requiring in the operation the

services of one man and a dynamo generating sixteen and one-half horse

power. This boring is done in a steel beam three inches thick. The gang

drill, as it is called, can also be used on iron pipes. It is said that

one man using the machine can do the work of ten, not only cheaper, but

more accurately.

Frank Merriwell, Jr. at Fardale

From the Leaves of Frank Merriwell’s Notebook.

SYNOPSIS OF PRECEDING CHAPTERS

CHIP MERRIWELL and his friends fall out with Kadir

Dhin, a Hindu student at Fardale, whom Colonel Gunn

brought from abroad. Chip trails him as he sneaks out

of the barracks at night, and thwarts an attempt to

abduct Rose Maitland, whose father, an English officer

from India, was murdered in France, from the home of

Colonel Gunn. The colonel tells Chip, in a veiled way,

that the man who murdered Rose’s father did it because

he and his daughter violated a religious sanctuary, and

that her father’s fate is planned for Rose. Chip and

his friends shadow Kadir Dhin, and look for mysterious

strangers, at Gunn’s request. On Christmas Eve Rose is

missing, and Clancy and Kess, unable to find Chip, go

to the railroad station, and see Bully Carson tip the

baggageman as a curious-looking trunk is put on the

train. Clan and Kess board the train, and the trunk is

put off at Carsonville, where they discover that it has

been occupied by the unconscious form of Chip.

CHAPTER VIII.

Bully Carson Explains.

THE shrewd eyes of Colonel Carson sparkled with a sly twinkle. He

sat before his deep-throated fireplace, in his home in Carsonville.

Into the room he had called his son Bully, to receive from him a full

account of the recent startling happenings, and the result of the

investigation which had followed.

Bully had come in prepared to put his part in the affair in the best

light possible. Yet he would speak to his father with more openness

than he would to any one else, for it was known that the elder Carson

had sown, in his youth, a pretty big crop of wild oats himself.

With that sly, humorous twinkle, Carson turned on his hopeful son. In a

way he was proud of Bully, though he raged at him daily.

“I hear ye got out of it, Bully, but it took some hard work and tall

lyin’. I’ve jest got home, but I’ve been hearin’ about it; I’d been

down to that investigation myself if I’d been here. Prob’ly some o’ the

things I’ve heard ain’t so. So ye can jest straighten me out about it.”

This was so much better than Bully had anticipated that the sour

expression passed from his coarse red face. Feeling more comfortable,

he stood up, with his broad back to the fire, and, taking out a cigar,

bit off the end of it and scratched a match.

“Well, ’twas the funniest and sing’larest thing that ever came down the

pike, dad, and for a while it looked ’s if they had me in bad. It was

Clancy and Kess that went gunnin’ for me, and come nigh bringin’ me

down. But I’ll git even with ’em for that, see!”

He lighted his cigar, and stood smoking.

“And me and Chip Merriwell are due to have some interestin’ times, too.

They’re all in together, and he has hit at me more than once.”

“Young Merriwell was in a box or trunk in the baggage car, unconscious

and about dead, when they put it off here, and you was charged with

havin’ that trunk or box put on the car. Of course you didn’t, and know

nothin’ about it. You’re a mighty big fool at times, Bully, but you’re

not so big a one as that; and there’d have been no sense in it.”

Bully’s face glowed to a dull and angry crimson, as he recalled the

grilling he had been put through by the police officers because of that

accusation.

“Me and that young Hindu, Kadir Dhin, was charged with doin’ it; and

they’d have fastened it on _him_ sure if Colonel Gunn hadn’t come to

his help; for, you see, it was Kadir Dhin’s Hindu trunk that they found

Merriwell in. It looked mighty bad for him a while, and looked bad for

me, too, jest because I had been with him not long before, and had

given the baggage man a quarter at the station for bringin’ down for

me a box of stuff from Dickey’s that it would have cost me a dollar to

send in the reg’lar way.

“There’s a whole big story back of it, dad,” Bully explained, “and

there were some things I didn’t know myself until Gunn made that

statement to the officers. Kadir Dhin had been treating me fine as

silk, and I was going around with him a lot. He had spendin’ money, and

he wasn’t afraid to blow it. It wasn’t my bizness to ask him how he

got it. Yet he came to Fardale, as you recklect, as a sort of charity

student. I thought he had mebby been gamblin’, and had been lucky.

“He was talkin’ ag’inst Merriwell, and plannin’ ways to do him, and I

liked that. And we did ‘do’ him, in the end, as I’ll tell you.

“It started when that girl was missin’ out of Gunn’s house, where she

has been stayin’. Old Gunn sent out an alarm about it, and telephoned

the constable. In a little while it seemed as if half the town was

searchin’ for her. Kadir Dhin and me had been trying to annoy Merriwell

that forenoon, when he was out sleighin’ with her, by follerin’ him

round in another sleigh.”

“You did that?” growled the elder Carson, with a sniff of displeasure,

as he pulled at his yellow-gray goatee. “’Twasn’t the act of a

gentleman, son.”

But Bully answered, with a careless laugh:

“Anyhow, ’twas fun. We was hopin’ to make him so mad that afterward

he would want to climb us, and so give us a chance to double on

him together and trim him good. Kadir Dhin had it in for him for

a knock-out blow Merry had given him, and I’ve got some things to

remember.

“Well, when she was missin’ that afternoon, and we saw Merriwell goin’

toward the lake lookin’ for her, we follered him again. When we got

down there, I turned back, because it was so cold; so I didn’t see what

happened, and there’s two stories about it.

“Kadir Dhin says he found the girl bewildered and wanderin’ about in

that timbered cove beyond the Pavilion, and was tryin’ to lead her

home, when Merriwell came on him and attacked him; the attack comin’ so

sudden, Kadir Dhin says, that he had no time to defend himself before

he was knocked stiff in the snow.

“I think that’s right, too,” said Bully. “For that’s the way he told it

to me, when he met me again, close by the corner, at Gunn’s. Merriwell

had brought the girl home, and was then in the house. Kadir Dhin had

follered. And, say, he was lookin’ wicked; a man lookin’ as he did then

would sure put a knife in a feller in the dark!

“As he begun to tell me about it, we walked on, over toward the

barracks. He was ravin’. There’s nobody much at the barracks now,

because nearly all the fellers have gone home for the holidays. And we

stood there, talkin’ it over, Kadir Dhin sayin’ he wished Merriwell

would come along, on his way to his room in the barracks; that he

wanted to meet him there, and settle with him.

“And just then we saw him comin’ from Gunn’s. Kadir Dhin put his hand

in his coat pocket, and I thought he was divin’ for a knife.

“‘None o’ that,’ I says to him; ‘there’s two of us’; and, if he had a

knife, he didn’t draw it. But he turned a funny yellow kind o’ white,

and I knew that something was coming. ‘Go at him fair,’ I says, ‘and

I’ll back you.’”

“Right out in public, too!” commented Colonel Carson; “shows how many

different kinds of idiot y’ aire, Bully!”

“It seemed quiet enough; nobody on the parade ground, and didn’t seem

to be anybody in the barracks. Anyhow, then was the time, if it was to

be done; and you’re to recklect that it wasn’t me, but the Hindu, that

planned it.

“‘I want to speak with you,’ said Kadir Dhin, when Merriwell came up;

‘I’m goin’ to settle with you right now!’ He didn’t strike out at him,

but slid his hand along, as if he was tryin’ to get Merriwell by the

throat. At that, Merriwell hit him and knocked him back against the

barracks wall. And then I came in.”

He stopped and drew in his breath heavily.

“When you fight your own battles, Bully, I don’t object; but when you

fight those of other people, and no coin coming in for it——”

“That’s all right, dad; but I’d owed Merriwell a licking a long time.”

“And you took that chance to pay it?”

“I guess he thinks I paid him; but for a while he prob’bly wasn’t in a

condition to appreciate it. We left him layin’ there in the snow. When

we had started off, we saw him crawl to his feet and stagger int’ the

buildin’.” Bully laughed gleefully. “He sure was lookin’ sick!”

“And this young Hindu went away with ye?”

“He went as far as the street corner beyond the parade ground. And

I didn’t see him again until we was both of us hauled up before the

officers, here, charged with puttin’ Merriwell in that trunk and tryin’

to kill him.”

“How did he git into that trunk?” the elder Carson demanded. “You said

it was Kadir Dhin’s!”

“Blessed if I know how he did git into it!” Bully declared. “Jest

between you and me, dad, it looks like Kadir Dhin went back there to

the barracks and mebby found him in a faint from that lickin’, and put

him in. But Kadir Dhin says he didn’t. Merriwell told the officers that

after he got to his room he fainted, and that when he came to he was

here in Carsonville, and he didn’t know, himself, how ’twas done. Kadir

Dhin told the officers that _he_ didn’t go back to the barracks at all,

after leaving me at the corner; but that after a while he went down to

the station, and when he saw the trunk there he looked at it, wonderin’

whose it was, as it looked so much like his, and had no marks on it.

“And it was right there,” said Bully, “when he wasn’t being believed,

and the thing would have been cinched on him, that Colonel Gunn came

popping in to his rescue, with the most amazing yarn ye ever listened

to.”

“I think I heard some o’ that; but you go over it, for mebby I didn’t

git it straight. Seems to me, Bully, you was mighty reckless all along,

and it’s a wonder to me y’ ain’t in the jail.”

He was looking at Bully closely; his brows were furrowed, and the

half-humorous light had faded out of his eyes. He was again pulling at

his yellow-gray goatee, this time nervously.

“Colonel Gunn said,” Bully explained, “that a Hindu soldier who had

killed the girl’s father in France was known to be somewhere around

here, and once before had tried to carry her off; and ’twas his belief

that this Hindu had got into the barracks.

“And then,” added Bully, “to bolster this, they brought on again the

hackman who had taken the trunk to the station. He had said that a

dark-faced feller, who was dressed in the Fardale cadet uniform, had

hired him to take the trunk to the station; and he had identified

Kadir Dhin as bein’ that feller. But now, when he heard what Gunn said

about it, he backed water, and admitted that though the dark-faced

feller looked like Kadir Dhin, it might not have been him; he couldn’t

identify Kadir Dhin as being the one, he said. Now, what d’ye think of

that?”

“Lied!” snorted Carson.

“But Kadir Dhin has told me himself that he knows nothin’ about it.”

“He lied, too!”

“Anyway, they let Kadir Dhin off, on account of what Colonel Gunn told

’em; and now officers are out lookin’ for the other Hindu.”

“They won’t find him,” said Carson.

He glared at his son.

“Bully, I’ve tried to give ye some instructions, ye know. I’ve said to

you that a man is ginrally justified in takin’ a sportin’ chance on

‘most anything that promises good money, but that to be safe he’s allus

got to keep on the right side o’ the law.”

“Wasn’t I?” Bully roared. “I might ’a’ been fined for fightin’, but

what else? I didn’t have anything to do with that trunk bizness.”

“Who checked that trunk?”

“Nobody. That’s the funny part of it. The men at the station shoved

it into the car without noticin’, seein’ it there with other trunks,

and the baggageman didn’t notice; or, he says he didn’t, until Clancy

called it to his attention.

“Clancy and Kess thought they had heard some one groaning in the trunk,

and when it went into the car they went in, too; and then when they

heard the sound again, in the car, they raised a row, and the trunk was

put off here and opened.

“Now, there’s the case,” said Bully, breathing heavily. “Only, the

baggageman will get fired; for he was held here and questioned by the

officers, and when they drove him into a corner he had to admit that he

had received a quarter from me for carryin’ the box I brought down from

Dickey’s. I had told that, to save my own bacon, when it seemed they

was goin’ to prove that I had given him the money for transportin’ the

trunk; and he had to say that it was so, that it was only the box I had

paid for.”

“I reckon that baggageman lied about knowin’ no more than he said about

the trunk,” Carson observed. “Don’t you think he did, Bully?”

“I don’t know, dad.”

“Well, it’s mixin’. Where’s Merriwell?”

“He’s been sent home; he was all in, hardly able to tell his story. I

may git fined yet,” he added uneasily, “for toyin’ with him too rough

there at the barracks. But Clancy and Kess are still here and——”

“Keep away from ’em.”

“Dad, I won’t,” Bully declared; “not until I’ve finished with ’em.

And there’ll be some good money, as well as satisfaction, in linin’

up ag’inst ’em. It will be Kadir Dhin and the Duke and me and a lot

more, inside the barracks and out, that will be havin’ some interesting

sessions with Clancy, Merriwell, and company. Dad, you can count on

that. And the Duke—well, you know he has got money to burn, and I’ll

never refuse to help him burn it. He’s been talkin’ to me since this

examination, and he says that this whole thing can be used to put Chip

Merriwell on the run, and we can now down him.”

The twinkle came again into the eyes of the elder Carson. He admired

pluck, and had been a rough-and-tumble fighter in his youth.

“I can’t jest approve of the way two of you jumped onto Merriwell,”

he observed; “things like that tend to accumulate a reppytation for

cowardice, Bully. Reppytation is a thing to be considered. Basil, or

the Duke, as you call him, is a fool with money, and I can’t blame

ye much for wantin’ to git next. But be careful, Bully. A sportin’

proposition is one thing, but takin’ criminal chances is another. Allus

keep on the right side o’ the law, Bully; in the long run it pays

better.”

He tugged at his goatee again.

“But that cur’us trunk case is shore mixin’. Bully, I think more’n one

feller done some tall lyin’!”

CHAPTER IX.

Some Investigations.

WHEN Chip Merriwell returned to Fardale, he found himself against the

line-up of which Bully Carson had spoken to his father.

But he had received word of it before, Clancy had written to him about

it. And it was the first subject that Clan took up, when he met Chip at

the station on the latter’s return.

“I suppose Kess and I are to blame,” said Clan remorsefully, “just

because we weren’t satisfied with getting you out of that trunk, but

tried to unload on Kadir Dhin the crime of putting you there. But they

oughtn’t to hold that against _you_. Colonel Gunn oughtn’t, anyway.”

“Sure nodt,” agreed Kess, who was with him. “Vodt dhey ar-re saying

apoudt me ton’dt hurdt nopoty, but dhey ar-re making you oudt a willain

yoost like us.”

Chip laughed; Kess amused him. And he was feeling physically fit again,

which, of itself, makes for light-heartedness. He had been sent home

“all in”; now he was back, at the end of the Christmas holidays, ready

again to enter the old Fardale school and reassume the leadership of

the loyal fellows who were always his friends.

“We are all villains together, eh?” he commented.

“The sympathy stunt is being worked hard for Kadir Dhin,” Clan

reported. “You accused him of trying to kidnap Rose Maitland, and

flattened him out on the ice, and you repeated the accusation to

Colonel Gunn when you got her to Gunn’s house. On top of that, Kess and

I tried to make the officers down at Carsonville believe that Kadir

Dhin had found you in a faint in your room in the barracks, and had put

you in that trunk. I guess we went too fast in that, and there’s where

the trouble begins; we couldn’t make the officers believe Kadir Dhin

would put you in a trunk that could be so easily identified as his. So

when Gunn came down and strung his talk about the soldier Hindu, our

idea was canned, and Kadir Dhin was released, with an apology.

“And now Gunn is looking black at us, Rose Maitland is looking blacker,

and every enemy you ever had seems to have come to life, and is working

against you. Their leader seems to be Duke Basil, and I guess you know

what that means.”

Chip knew well enough.

The previous year, Anselm Basil, familiarly known as the Duke, had

come over with a number of fellows from Brightwood and entered Fardale,

having discovered that it was the better school. The Duke had been the

athletic leader at Brightwood, and had no notion of playing second

fiddle to any one even at Fardale.

Duke Basil was an original genius. Not because he was rich, and a

spendthrift, for many boys and young men are that; but because, with

all his assumptions and airs and extravagances, he had athletic ability

and brains of a high order, and had so many good qualities with the bad

ones.

That Chip and Basil should clash, was a thing not to be avoided. Basil

had declared to his friends that he intended to be the leader at

Fardale, and that there could be but one. He had not made his boasts

good. So the clash was renewed at the beginning of the present school

year, yet so far with no very creditable results or decided victories

to his account.

Now he believed he had found new leverage. In the first place, it

seemed that Colonel Gunn’s good opinion of Chip and his friends had

been alienated; which meant that the iron rules of the academy would be

made to bear hard on them; and could be worked to their disadvantage.

Kadir Dhin, the colonel’s protégé, had been made the implacable enemy

of Chip and his crowd. And Bully Carson, a foe not to be despised,

even though he was not in the academy, had all his old animosities

re-aroused.

Clancy and Kess tried to set these things forth, as they made their way

with Chip over the snowy roads from the station to the academy grounds,

having preferred walking to riding in the usual “hack,” that they might

talk matters over.

Chip Merriwell was thinking of how these things would influence his

relations with Rose Maitland, rather than viewing them from the

standpoint of his friends. He was hoping that Colonel Gunn’s adverse

opinions were not affecting her, even though she were a member of his

household, and Kadir Dhin had been her father’s friend and secretary.

There was always an unpleasant memory tucked in the back of Chip’s

mind, which he seldom cared to take out of its pigeonhole there and

consider. His first meeting with Rose Maitland could not have been more

inauspicious than it was. He had knocked Kadir Dhin down in the snowy

path on account of his treatment of Kess; and Rose Maitland, rushing

frantically to the side of the young Hindu, had called Chip a coward,

with such a sting in the word that Chip could still feel the burn of it

whenever he permitted himself to let it enter his mind.

As Chip and his friends turned into the path, beyond Mrs. Winfield’s

boarding house, that led to and through the parade ground, Kadir Dhin

was seen standing there, much as he had been on that previous occasion,

only that this time he was in conversation with Duke Basil.

“They are regular Siamese twins lately,” said Clancy, with a grin.

“They knew you were to arrive to-day, and have been wondering why you

didn’t ride up in the hack.”

“Uff he standts in my roadt, like vot he dit pefore——”

But Kadir Dhin was moving on toward the barracks before Kess finished

his sentence. The Duke had turned toward the village, moving to meet

them.

“Ah, there!” he cried, putting out his hand as Chip came up. “You’re

looking fine as silk again, old top. I didn’t expect it. That little

rest at home has done you a lot of good.”

For an instant Chip hesitated, then held out his hand; he would be as

gentlemanly as the Duke. Indeed, it was hard not to be friendly with

Duke Basil on all ordinary occasions. He had a smile and a bright way

with him. It was this that made him so formidable when he pitted his

strength against Chip; for this, quite as much as his money, enabled

him to gather and hold friends.

“I’m all right again,” said Chip, taking the measure of the fellow with

his eye. “You went home yourself, I think?”

“Sure. Had a fine time, too.”

He did not offer to shake hands with Kess and Clancy, whom he had seen

before that day; but he swung on along the path, after greeting Chip.

“He iss smile like a raddlesnake pefore idt pites der handt vot feedts

idt,” Kess observed. “Idt iss too badt apoudt dot veller. Aber a man

iss my enemy I vandt him to look like idt.”

They found that Kadir Dhin had gone on to his room.

Chip went to his, which he occupied with Clancy. But they were soon

drawn out of it by hearing Kess in a clatter of noisy words with the

young Hindu.

Villum’s capacity for blundering was notorious. He had seen that Kadir

Dhin’s door stood open, and had entered without apology, apparently to

notify the young Hindu that Chip Merriwell had returned, and to ask:

“Undt vot vill you do apoudt idt?”

Chip was not at all averse to invading the Hindu’s room, for he wanted

to get a look at the trunk in which he, unconscious, had been immured

on that journey which might readily have ended in his death. The noisy

words ceased when Chip and Clan came to the door.

“He iss say dot I am anodher,” Kess protested.

Chip and Clan stepped into the room, Chip with a smile which he hoped

would temporarily disarm Kadir Dhin’s enmity. He glanced over at

the queer, Hindu trunk or traveling chest, of itself an interesting

specimen of Oriental workmanship.

“So that was the thing I was in?” he commented, ignoring Kess’

complaint. “It seems that I ought to remember it, but I don’t.”

“You remember as much about it as I do, in spite of the charges of your

friends,” Kadir Dhin asserted.

There was a malevolent glare in his shiny black eyes.

Chip sat down in the nearest chair; he did not intend to be ruffled.

He had long since discovered that no one gains anything by turning his

quills out like a porcupine.

“I was in no position to make any claims about it; but I’ve wondered

about it hundreds of times. As I was found in that thing, somebody put

me there.”

“Perhaps you did it yourself,” said the young Hindu, with a sneer,

though his manner was guarded; “it’s as credible as that _I_ did it.”

Chip looked at him, when his attention was not directed toward the

queer trunk. He was hoping that if Kadir Dhin really knew anything

about that odd happening, by some slip, or by the expression of his

face, he might reveal it.

“What is it about that Hindu soldier?” he asked. “That is, what do

you know? I heard what Colonel Gunn said at that investigation, but I

wasn’t in a mental condition to take it all in. Did you know the man?”

Kadir Dhin stared at him, hesitated, and then answered:

“He was my uncle.”

“Do you think he is here?”

“I know nothing about that,” said Kadir Dhin. “Ask Colonel Gunn.”

“He says the man is here, and did that.”

“Then you know as much about it as I do,” asserted Kadir Dhin, with an

impatient wave of his hand.

“But do you believe it?”

“That is my business. If I say I don’t, you will then declare that I

must have put you in the trunk. You’d better talk to Colonel Gunn

about it. I don’t know anything.”

“You’re a Hindu?” said Clancy, butting in.

A flush of anger put color into the dark cheeks of Kadir Dhin.

“I have that honor,” he declared.

“Yet you speak English better than most Americans!”

“I was educated at the English school in Madras. If I was ignorant

of the language, could I have taken a place in this school? You talk

like a fool. Remember that I was Lieutenant Maitland’s secretary,

translating all his written orders to his Hindu soldiers into their

native dialects. I am doubtless a fool—for talking with you, but I am

not an ignoramus.”

He turned to Chip:

“If you have looked at that trunk long enough, and have asked all your

questions——”

“Fired!” cried Clancy. “Come on, Chip!”

“This German beer keg came in to insult me, and you followed to back

him up,” said the young Hindu.

“Not at all.” Chip insisted. “But we’re going. We’ll have no words. I

had a natural curiosity to see that trunk, that’s all. Thank you for

the permission. Good day!”

“Oh, we’ll meet again,” said Kadir Dhin. “There’s a settlement coming,

for the accusations you made against me, when you brought Miss Maitland

to Gunn’s. I’ve a good memory.”

“Mine is quite as good,” Chip retorted, with a sudden scowl. “I

couldn’t have been tossed into that trunk like a bag of meal if you and

Bully Carson hadn’t doubled on me and pounded me senseless. Recollect

that there will be other debts to pay, when you begin to pay off yours.”

Clan and Kess followed him, grumbling.

“Why didn’t you punch his head for that?” Clan demanded.

“You forget, Clan. I didn’t go there to quarrel, in the first place.

Then, we’re in the barracks. And, you’ve said yourself, that Colonel

Gunn would be pleased to get me in chancery. I’ve got to be careful.”

However, though he knew that Colonel Gunn was explosive and crotchety,

Chip was not ready to accept the notion that the colonel would not

treat him fairly in any situation.

So it was not because he wanted to test the colonel’s feelings that

Chip went over to Gunn’s house that afternoon; he wanted to see

Rose Maitland. The last time he had seen her she was bewildered and

hysterical.

That had passed off entirely; she came in to meet him bright-eyed and

smiling. Yet Chip thought she looked pale, and that her smile hid a

feeling of anxiety. She soon admitted that she stood in deathly fear of

the Hindu, who was still the man of mystery to Chip.

“I was feeling so safe, you know,” she said in her frank way; “the

constable had given Colonel Gunn such assurances. I had been going

about with confidence. So I thought I needed no one to guard me while

I went out on the ice a little while. And down there everything was

so quiet and peaceful that I really went farther than I meant to go;

I skated on and on until I was down by the boathouse. I supposed the

place was unoccupied.”

“We’ve stored our ice yacht and snowshoes and skis and things like that

in it,” said Chip.

“But no one has been staying there regularly?”

“No.”

“That’s what I thought. Yet the Fardale students go in and out of

there, as I knew. So when I heard some one call to me from the

boathouse I thought at first it was you, and then thought it must be

Kadir Dhin; and, as I didn’t understand just what was said, but got

the impression that you—I mean Kadir Dhin—was hurt and needed help, I

ran up to the door on my skates.

“I knew that it wasn’t you—I mean Kadir Dhin—when it was too late; I

was blinded by a cloth that struck me in the face as I opened the door;

it fell over my head as if it would smother me; and it was filled with

the odor of a powerful drug. While I fought to get my head out of the

cloth, the drug overcame me.”

She was trembling; the color had left her cheeks.

“Before I became so dizzy and bewildered,” she added. “I heard the man

speak, and I recognized his voice as that of Gunga Singh, the Hindu

soldier who murdered my father. The odor of the drug I had encountered

before, in India. A man was once murdered there, and that drug was

used; I was with father when he made an investigation of the murder.”

“You didn’t see the man at all, then?” said Chip.

“No.”

“You couldn’t have been mistaken about him?”

“I know what you mean,” she said; “but I recognized his voice.”

“I found you wandering around in that cove beyond the pavilion.”

“I don’t know how I got there; by which I mean I have no remembrance of

it. Of course, Gunga Singh took me there. Kadir Dhin frightened him,

and he fled through the trees. Kadir Dhin was trying to guide me home.

They say you accused him, and attacked him. I’m sorry. Kadir Dhin was

my father’s friend, and is mine. Colonel Gunn knows that.”

Chip did not know what to say: he did not like to declare he was

unconvinced.

“Kadir Dhin had come down to the lake and had gone in that direction;

I thought he was not trying to lead you home. I didn’t see the other

man.”

“You do think that of Kadir Dhin now?” she urged.

“I have no right to, if you are sure I am wrong.”

“I’m sure you are.”

“I was excited when I brought you home. When I rushed on him, Kadir

Dhin tried to shoot me; or I thought he meant to. So when Colonel Gunn

came, asking questions, I said that, and accused Kadir Dhin. I saw that

what I said offended Colonel Gunn.”

“Then, you had trouble with Kadir Dhin at the barracks. I’m sorry you

were so quick, and did him a serious wrong. It’s too bad. I wish you

could be friends. Don’t you think you were too quick?”

Chip saw that Kadir Dhin had been telling lies here.

“At the barracks I did no more than defend myself; that is, I tried. I

didn’t succeed very well.”

“You again attacked Kadir Dhin there?”

“No, he attacked me. And he had Bully Carson with him. You don’t know

Carson, but he’s a big fellow, and a bruiser.”

“Kadir Dhin says you attacked him there, and then that Carson rushed

in and knocked you down. Oh, dear, I dislike to talk about it; it’s

horrible! You were too quick.”

“In one thing I was too quick,” said Chip. “I was too quick in going on

to the barracks. I ought to have gone back to the lake. I didn’t see

this Hindu, Gunga Singh. But then was my chance to follow his tracks

into and through the woods there, and see what became of him. I’d like

to get on the track of him now, and will watch out for him. How was he

dressed?”

“Kadir Dhin says he wore a Fardale uniform.”

“So? That’s odd. A Fardale uniform. But I recall that it was reported

that some one, thought to have been a burglar, had stolen clothing out

of the barracks.”

“Kadir Dhin fears Gunga Singh as much as I do; he is watching for him,

and will have him apprehended if he can. He and Colonel Gunn have been

laying some plans about it. I wish you would apologize to Kadir Dhin.

He is sensitive, and is very much hurt.”

Having pieced into the story of the affair the scraps with which he had

not been familiar, Chip soon took his leave.

His meeting with Rose Maitland had not made him as happy as he had

anticipated.

CHAPTER X.

Reckless Villum.

“WHILE you were away,” Clan was saying to Chip, later, “I was tempted

to put over a dictograph scheme that would have been great. I met a

fellow down at the station who was agent for the things. If I could

have put one in the Duke’s room, with concealed wires running from it

to this, we could have got at the bottom of the rascal’s planning. But

I’d have had to bribe more than one person, and then the problem of

getting the wires across bothered me. So I passed it up.”

Chip laughed.

“So it was the bother of the wires, and not any feeling that the thing

wouldn’t be quite a square play; but I thought the great mechanical

head you developed while running that garage down in Phoenix was equal

to anything.”

Kess was twisting in his chair, and his blue eyes were glistening.

“Dot ticktograft hears vot you say dhere, unt rebeadts idt here?”

“Something like that, Villum; it’s a sort of secret telephone.”

“Uh-huh! I standt under idt; unt idt vouldt haf been greadt.”

No conscientious scruples, nor even the fear of discovery, would have

kept Villum from putting the scheme over, if he could have done it. He

would have had wires running not only to the Duke’s room, but to Kadir

Dhin’s, and to the room of every other fellow he suspected at present

of being engaged in scheming against them.

“Vale, idt iss inderesdting,” he said, as he got lazily out of his

chair; “but I can’t t’ink apowet idt now. I haf got to gedt me some

more ackvainted mit Chulius Cæsar.”

Yet he was still thinking about it as he went to his room to tackle his

Latin and follow the wanderings and battles of Cæsar.

That night, having been out in the village, as he was passing Dickey’s

place, on his way to the barracks, the hour for closing the barracks

being at hand, Kess ran into a dog fight. A pair of Airedales, one of

them being Dickey’s, opened a furious combat right in front of him.

Villum jumped back out of the way.

“Yiminy!” he said. “Almosdt I hadt a toe bit off.”

Out of Dickey’s poured a miscellaneous crowd, Dickey in the midst with

a pail of water, which he threw over the fighting dogs in the hope that

it would separate them.

When maddened Airedales come together, such gentle measures are

pretty sure to fail. Dickey was soon convinced that his dog was being

murdered. So he got the other dog by the hind legs and the tail and

began to yell to the squirming and clamoring mob of spectators to help

him separate the animals by pulling them apart.

In the background to which Kess had retreated he was unobserved, but

not unobservant. He saw in the crowd Bully Carson, Duke Basil, Kadir

Dhin, and—to his great surprise—Robert Realf. Some other young fellows,

wearing the Fardale uniform, were cadets whose homes were in the

village, and who, by living at home, gained greater freedom for their

evenings.

Bully Carson could be expected to be at Dickey’s, if in the village.

Birds of his plumage congregated there naturally. But that Kadir Dhin

should be there was most unexpected.

Dickey’s was a place that Colonel Gunn cordially hated, and Zenas Gale

watched with zealous and suspicious eyes. Ostensibly it was a cigar and

periodical store, dealing also in a small way in students’ supplies,

such as writing material, and even secondhand books. This was a cover

to sales of liquor and unlimited poker playing. Students liked to

gather there, even those who had no relish for liquor or gaming, on

account of the freedom of the atmosphere. Yet visits to the place put

one under suspicion and threatened the displeasure of Gunn and the

Fardale faculty.

Gunn had often spoken to the Fardale boys on the subject, and he had

been heard to say that whenever the opportunity came he would “put

Dickey through.” Gale, the constable, was of the same mind. But the

opportunity never came. For Dickey was the slickest cake of soap in

Fardale.

So Villum Kess was amazed to see Gunn’s protégé, Kadir Dhin, in the

crowd that swarmed out of Dickey’s when the dog fight began.

“Budt idt iss der ticktograft obbordunity vot I am nodt oxbecting,”

thought Villum.

Not a soul remained in Dickey’s; it had emptied into the street, and

every person there was too busy trying to separate the dogs, or in

telling others how it could be done, to observe or to think of anything

else. Dickey was himself yelling orders like a village fire chief.

So Villum edged along the wall, and, reaching the steps, he passed

within, then looked back to see if he had been observed. Sure that he

had not, he made his way hurriedly to a door at the rear, which he

found unlocked, and entered the back room famous in Fardale annals as

the scene of strenuous poker games, smokefests, and drinking bouts.

There was a back door, but it was locked, and some rooms above, to be

reached by a stairway. Also, there were heavily blinded windows. In the

middle of the room stood a table with a green cloth top, with chairs

about it, and above it a swinging electric light that had a turndown

attachment. Along the walls were more chairs, with plush lounges, and

at the farther end a couple of low cots, whereon, it was said, Dickey

stowed students and others who had swallowed too much of his strong

liquor and were not able to go on to the barracks or to their homes.

The strong drink Dickey was reported to furnish was not kept here—there

was always danger of a raid; Kess had heard it was kept buried in the

cellar, but this may not have been so.

As his blue eyes roved round on the interior of the room, Villum moved

toward the cots at the farther end.

“I vouldt yoost as lief been hung for sdealing a big sheeb as a liddle

lamb; so I go me der whole hog,” he was muttering. “Uff I am foundt,

der ticktograft vill be proke, unt no more can be saidt.”

With a last look around, Villum dropped to the floor, and, with

squirming jerks, stowed his rotund body under one of the cots.

Something else under there squirmed. Villum’s hands were thrust into

the face of a man.

“Awk!” Villum exploded, unable, in his surprise, to suppress the sound;

and he clawed backward like a turtle, trying to get out.

But the dog fight had been ended, and Dickey and his friends were

streaming into the front room. Villum did not realize that he might

have joined them there in that time of confusion without attracting

undue attention, until it was too late to try it. He was temporarily

paralyzed by his discovery of the man under the cot. Before he

recovered, some of the fellows were entering the back room, and were

sitting down in the chairs by the table.

“I am sure in a fixings,” thought Villum, perspiring with the terror of

the thought.

The man under the cot had moved over as close to the wall as he could

get, but Villum still felt the touch of him; his imagination supplying

details, he pictured a knife in the man’s hands; and, coming on top of

that, like a flash, was the thought:

“Idt iss der Hindu murterer, I pet you!”

That made Villum’s flesh creep, and nearly popped him from under the

cot. He moved over, shivering. But he did not leave his shelter. He

would have fared badly if he had; so in the end he preferred to stick

to the frying pan rather than to flop out into the fire.

Besides, Villum had slipped into the room and shoved under that cot for

the purpose of playing dictograph, and he was stubborn enough to want

to stick to his purpose.

A number of guesses as to who the man was, and why he was there,

followed Villum’s surmise that he was the Hindu murderer; any one of

them was bad enough, if true.

The man might be a common burglar, who had found a chance to hide

there, and later meant to connect with Dickey’s safe; if so, he was no

doubt armed with an automatic, which he would use, if cornered. This

seemed a very reasonable solution.

But Villum never hunted for reasonable solutions, when others could be

had; so the one which appealed to his mind most was that the man under

the cot with him was not only the Hindu murderer, but that this cot and

room were his usual and customary hiding places; which indicated that

Dickey knew he was there, and received pay for sheltering him.

Kess and his friends had wondered where the Hindu could keep himself

so that he would be safe and out of sight while he matured his plans.

Kess’ one wild guess, and until now he could make no other, was that

the Hindu hid in Kadir Dhin’s Oriental trunk. He thought he saw now

that this guess was wrong.

“Aber I hear all vot iss saidt, unt am kilt as I am getting oudt uff

here mit idt—ach, dot vill be awvul!” Villum said to himself, as if

groaning mentally. “Yedt anodder fighdt mighdt come petween dhis Hindu

unt der vellers in der room, unt vunce again I couldt gedt me by. So I

vill vaidt, pecause I musdt, unt vill seen vot I hear.”

It was a long and trying wait that followed, and it seemed much longer

than it was. Soon all chance of gaining the barracks before they were

closed for the night had passed; but, then, Villum had counted on not

being able to return to the barracks.

Under the cot, pressed close against the wall, the man waited as

silently as Villum. And, however much or little he understood of the

meaning of Villum’s action, he must have considered that he found

himself in a most singular position.

CHAPTER XI.

Kess as a “Dictograph.”

THE pasty-faced youth who took a seat on the table and sat swinging his

legs while he fished out of his pocket a gold-mounted cigarette case,

angrily resented the imputation of Bully Carson.

“Aw, cut it out!” he snarled nastily. “My sister is too nice a girl to

have comments made about her by a low bruiser like you!”

Bully Carson’s face flamed as red as his necktie; the veins on his

forehead started, his hands closed into maullike fists, and he stepped

forward; yet instantly he checked himself, and rattled out a wheezing

laugh. He could not afford to offend this young fellow.

“Forget it!” he said in a tone of hoarse apology. “I didn’t mean

nothin’, and, of course, I knew it wasn’t so even when I said it; I was

only in a manner suggestin’ what others may think.”

Robert Realf stared at him repellently.

“Since you forgot yourself, and said that, I’ll simply explain that my

sister is visiting with Nellie Stanley, at Mrs. Winfield’s, just as she

did last winter. You know that Bob Stanley is a student in the academy

here, and is her brother, and both Nellie and my sister are friends of

Mrs. Winfield. Besides, _I’m_ down here with her. We’ve got money to

travel ’round with, and go where we like, when we want to; more money

than _you_ will ever see, Carson, though you cheat and steal for a

hundred years.”

“Forget it!” said Carson, though the blood was in his face. “I didn’t

mean anything at all, as I told you. Of course, I was too fresh.”

Then he mumbled something about having had a drink too much, which was

the cause of it.

Kess was so interested that he almost forgot the sinister touch of the

man behind him; for Carson’s intimation had been that Rhoda Realf was

at Fardale in the hope that she was here to get to see Chip Merriwell.

Kess knew all about the rather furious love affair between Chip and

Rhoda, which had begun down in Santa Fe, when her wealthy father

was down there looking at mining claims, and Chip was assisting his

Uncle Dick, who was the mine investigator. It had been transferred to

Fardale, when Chip was there for a Christmas vacation and Rhoda was at

Mrs. Winfield’s with Nellie Stanley over the Christmas holidays.

The Realfs lived in Cambridge, and Kess recalled that once, at least,

Chip had gone there, presumably to see Rhoda. And now apparently just

because another girl had come on the scene, that pleasant affair was

ended. Or was it ended? Kess did not know.

“Nodt for me idt vouldt nodt,” he thought; “I haf more _stay_-bility.

Budt uff gourse, vhen I fall in lofe mit dot girl vhich she iss really

a poy——”

Though the flare of a quarrel was over, the talk was still going on,

and he laid his ear to the floor to give close heed to it.

“Carson iss back down so kvick dhere vill be no fighdt; he knows he

musdt be nice to gedt money oudt uff dot veller. So now vot iss nexdt?”

Robert Realf was with that coterie, Kess believed, for the reason that

on his previous visit to Fardale he had been an out-and-out and violent

enemy to Chip Merriwell.

The conversation at first was rambling. There was so much smoking that

soon the air was heavy and dense; now and then there was a clinking of

glasses. Dickey entered occasionally, but did not tarry; though it was

late, he had to be out in front, presiding over his cigar counter.

It was so apparent that these fellows had gathered solely for the sake

of conviviality and the tang of adventure which was a part of these

forbidden visits to Dickey’s that Kess was disappointed. He seemed to

be wasting his time and taking a risk for nothing; and the touch of

that man against the wall behind him, with the belief that he was the

Hindu murderer, armed and deadly, was not soothing. Villum wanted to

scramble forth and announce loudly that the Hindu was there, and was

afraid to do it.

He became interested again when the talk dealt with affairs at the

Fardale school. These things could not be touched without bringing in

Chip and his friends. Kess glowed with indignation as he listened.

“Oh, Chip is merely showing a sample of the Merriwell jealousy,” said

the Duke. “Until Kadir Dhin came, he was Gunn’s pet, and it hurts him

to lose that place.”

“That’s the whole history of the Merriwells at Fardale,” said another.

“They’ve got to run things. When they can’t use a man, they try to

break him. Their friends are idiots like Clancy and Kess, who are

always willing to praise everything they do. I’m sick of it.”

Kess began to breathe so heavily that he was in danger of being heard,

when, by pressing his face hard against the floor, he tried to see the

face of the speaker.

“Idt’s yoost Avery. He ton’dt coundt.”

Bronson Avery was notorious as the Duke’s echo. He, too, had come

from Brightwood the year before, with the Duke; hence, with the older

students they were hardly considered true Fardale men.

The miscellaneous gabble, filled with envious little stabs at fellows

they did not like, brought in Chip Merriwell inevitably, and led slowly

up to a discussion of means to get even with Chip, or block and thwart

him. The real bitterness of the speakers came forth. They were wild to

take Chip down and desperate as to the means to be adopted.

“It seems to me, donchuknow,” drawled the Duke, “that we can easily go

farther; by which I mean, things have turned out so that we can drive

him from Fardale.”

“Uh-huh! So dot _you_ can be der headt uff der adledtic pitzness,”

Villum grumbled so recklessly in his anger that if there had not been

a good deal of moving about and noise in the room he would have been

heard. “You skink, dot iss alvays vot you t’ink uff since you haf gome

here!”

“Colonel Gunn,” said the Duke, “is beginning to get Merriwell’s right

measure. He sees that Merriwell is trying to ruin Kadir Dhin, simply

because Kadir Dhin refused to be walked on by that crowd. The whole

thing started, you remember, when Kess insultingly shouldered into

Kadir Dhin, and our friend here resented it and tried to teach the

Dutchman that he couldn’t carry off a thing like that. And Chip, you

know, backing his chum, proceeded to knock Kadir Dhin down right there.

It’s the Merriwell way, don’t you know. Now he’s trying to ruin Kadir

Dhin.”

“That’s right,” Carson said. “I’ve had experience, even though I ain’t

in Fardale. I went to jail once through Chip’s blabbin’, and if he

could ’a’ done it he’d ’a’ sent me to the penitentiary. Of course, I’ve

got to keep on the right side o’ the law, but I’d like to hit him hard.”

“You came back at him rather handsomely, donchuknow,” said the Duke,

with an air of pleasing condescension; “but the way it ended it only

gave him a chance to make the claim that our friend Kadir Dhin is

standing in with this mysterious Hindu, who is said to be round here,

and who is cutting up such queer pranks, donchuknow, that it’s hard

work to believe in them.”

“He’s been saying something _new_ about me?” Kadir Dhin said, flaming.

“He says, I’m told, that this Hindu—if the rascal really exists, and is

your uncle, I beg your pardon!—he says the Hindu couldn’t have got hold

of a Fardale uniform if _you_ hadn’t assisted him; and that he couldn’t

have pulled off that trunk trick, either, without your aid.”

The tense look that had come to the face of Kadir Dhin softened, and he

relaxed his strained attitude and dropped back into his chair. For an

instant it seemed an explosion would come; but all he said, in a weak

voice, was:

“Oh, well, let him talk! The more he talks against me the more he will

hurt himself with Colonel Gunn. It’s known everywhere that the barracks

have been burglarized and uniforms stolen.”

“By careful work we can create a prejudice against him among the

students who do not like his high-and-mighty ways, donchuknow,” the

Duke urged, “and among those who will be inclined to sympathize with

Kadir Dhin. We can also put through some scheme to blacken him so in

the eyes of Colonel Gunn that he will be thrown out of Fardale.”

“That’s right,” said Avery. “Gunn is sore on him on account of what has

happened to Kadir Dhin, remember, and that feeling can be increased.”

“What is this plan?” growled Carson. “Put it on exhibition!”

The Duke laughed softly. He could be very pleasant, when he dropped his

stilted manners and his air of superiority.

“A thought has just come to me”—it had been in his mind all day—“that

if you want to make sure that Chip Merriwell goes out of Fardale, it

can be worked by Kadir Dhin. He is quite a hypnotist——”

“I do very little at it—know very little about it,” Kadir Dhin hastily

corrected.

The Duke laughed again and lifted his eyebrows in disbelief.

“Gunn told me that this uncle of yours who slew Miss Maitland’s father

in France was a wonderful hypnotist. And more than once you have given

little exhibitions to amuse the fellows, showing that you have that

power to a certain degree.”

“I’m a mere amateur,” said Kadir Dhin.

“But you could put this over, donchuknow. I’m sure. And it would be a

deathblow to Merriwell. Get him into conversation in some quiet place

and so get hypnotic control of him. This should be in the evening. Then

stain his face to the hue of yours, and send him sneaking into Colonel

Gunn’s under instructions to try to kidnap Rose Maitland. Hypnotized,

he would obey you, and he would not remember that you had ever even

spoken to him about it. Colonel Gunn could be posted, tipped off to the

fact, that Merriwell was to make this effort, and that it was for the

purpose of damaging you, Kadir Dhin; he could be made to think that

Merriwell, so disguised, was putting a fake attempt over against the

girl, and intended to be seen, so that _you_ would be accused of it.

“Suppose that Colonel Gunn caught Chip Merriwell trying to do a thing

like that? What?”

“Wow!” rumbled Carson.

“He would last at Fardale just as long as a snowball in August. It

could be made to appear that these other efforts against the young lady

had been made by Merriwell to ruin the reputation of Kadir Dhin. Some

scheme, eh?”

But Kadir Dhin did not rise to it.

“I’m only an amateur,” he said; “I couldn’t do it.”

“Well, I didn’t know,” said the Duke smoothly. “But you can see how it

would finish Merriwell. His excuses that he didn’t know what he was

doing wouldn’t go, if Gunn were primed in advance to expect him.”

“Why don’t you get up a plan to beat him to pieces?” said Carson,

expressing the bruiser in him. “Fix it so’s the blame’ll be on him; and

then when he makes the crack you’ve planned for, sail in and jest put

him to sleep. Then you’ve got your excuse ready, and what can be done

about it? He was the aggressor.”

“Same old Carson,” commented the Duke, “always seeing blood. But that

wouldn’t get him out of Fardale.”

“You see,” said Avery, trying to back the Duke. “Just putting him down

for a few days or so wouldn’t do; he’d get over it and come back, and

still be cock of the walk here; that’s what the Duke means.”

“I’ll say what I mean, Avery,” the Duke snapped. “I didn’t mean that.

We simply want to get rid of the Merriwell influence at Fardale.”

Avery collapsed.

“I understand,” he said; “I beg your pardon!”

Kess hardly heard Carson’s words, he was thinking so intensely of the

queer plan which the Duke had unfolded for Kadir Dhin.

“Uh-huh! Dot vos saidt for two ears more; der two ears uff der Hindu

who iss pehindt me! Der Duke iss schmardt. He iss know der Hindu is

in here. Idt vill gif dot Hindu—ouch, his knees iss now digging in

my back!—idt vill gif him der itea uff idt. So he vill hypnotize my

friendt Chip, unt all der resdt uff idt vill habben. I see I got to

fighdt somepoty sooner; I got to fighdt dot Hindu who iss behint me

to-night, and cabture him, unt stob der whole pitzness before idt

sdarts. I am glad I haf came, unt I am vishing dot I tidn’t.”

“Another plan that has just come to me,” said the Duke, though he had

thought it out earlier, “is to queer Merriwell with Gunn by getting him

intoxicated. Two or three times the fellow has either been jagged or

drugged—he claimed he was drugged; and if this is worked right, Gunn

can be made to believe that he was drinking at those other times.

“You could work that trick, Bully, if you’d undertake it, donchuknow;

and you could pay off some of those grudges. Hire a couple of fellows,

you know the kind, to take Merriwell down to the Pavilion; hand them a

bottle of liquor, and tell them they’ll be well paid for forcing him to

drink it. When he’s good and soused let Gunn know about it and see him

in that fix. Eh, Carson?”

Carson’s eyes began to shine.

“I’d as soon do it myself as not,” he boasted. “S’pose he claimed

afterward that I made him drink it, would anybody believe him?”

The Duke smiled indulgently.

“You’re rather in the heavyweight class, I admit; but could you do it

alone? Merriwell is some scrapper. If you try it, you’d better have

some competent help handy. The best plan is to send others to do it,

and keep out of sight yourself.”

But nothing seemed to materialize. The Duke had as many plans as he

had fingers; but always there was something, usually a question of the

risk, which kept them from full acceptance.

“I guess there isn’t any one here with nerve enough to go up against

Merriwell,” he said. “I’ll have to undertake something myself.”

“Oh, you foxy gran’pa!” Kess was thinking. “You know dot you ar-re

delling der veller under here mit me all der t’ings vot he could do.

Unt I haf now got to cabture him, pefore he can. Vhen idt cames, idt

vill be anodder tog fighdt, I pet you!”

CHAPTER XII.

A Lively Adventure.

KESS’ “tog fighdt” wasn’t up to his expectations, either in its manner

or in its finish.

An interminable time passed before anything occurred, and then Villum

had to start it. The room was vacated, the lights were out, and it was

deathly cold. Dickey had put up his shutters, locked his doors, and had

gone home. The time was wearing on toward morning, and still the man

behind Kess under the cot lay there, with no more movement than if he

had died or had been turned to stone.

Villum crawled out at last, in desperation. He had long been expecting

a knife in his back or a revolver shot.

“Yoost der same I know you, uff you ton’dt sbeak idt,” he announced.

“I haf got a rewolver vot iss full uff bullets to idts neck, unt uff

you shoodt me I vill shoodt you likevise undil you ar-re deadt. So, you

come oudt uff idt kvick!”

When the man did not come out, nor move, nor speak, Villum solemnly

scratched a match on his trousers and flung it, flaming, under the cot,

at the imminent risk of setting the cot and the house on fire.

The instant dying out of the match was followed by an earthquake; the

light cot rose violently in air, and, whirling over, it fell on Villum,

bringing him to the floor in a smother of bed clothing.

While he struggled to throw off the bed coverings and mattress, Villum

heard the man unbar and fling aside a shutter and smash a window; they

were resounding crashes, and the breaking of the window was accompanied

by a tinkling fall of glass.

Villum had rammed one foot through the wire mesh of the bed springs,

and felt like a wolf in a trap; but he scrambled toward the window,

where he now saw the starlight and the man climbing up to escape;

Villum was dragging the bed springs with him, and the greater part of

the coverings of the cot.

“No you ton’dt escabe me!” he cried, and made a sweeping reach with his

hands.

Though he was thrown down by the dragging weight of the bed springs, he

clutched the man by the coat tails, and when, in his desperation, the

man flung himself through to the ground, one of the tails of his coat

remained in Villum’s hands.

Compelled to free his foot before he could do more, Villum began a

furious fight with the bed springs; and by this he was so delayed that,

when he, too, was ready to scramble out through the broken window the

man was a hundred yards off, running through the darkness of the night.

But Kess picked himself up pluckily after his tumble and started in hot

pursuit; and, forgetting that explanations would be demanded and would

be awkward to give, he began at the same time to bellow for help.

As he thus plunged along in wild chase, Villum saw another figure

appear beyond the street corner; there was a loud demand on the fleeing

man to halt.

“Stop right where ye be; I’m the constable! Stop, I tell yeou!”

The man whirled about and lifted his hand; there was a pistol report

and a flash of fire.

It was the constable who stopped, though the bullet had not touched

him; and the man went on, running faster than ever.

The sight of the constable and that revolver play put the thought of

discretion into Villum’s wild head; he swung about as the man made off

and sprinted for the cover of the darkness by Dickey’s.

Gale, the constable, stood hesitating. Here were two escaping burglars,

as he supposed, both armed and in a shooting mood. While the constable

hesitated, Kess got the house between himself and Gale and flung wildly

ahead for the protecting darkness beyond.

Villum ran down the length of the parade ground, then veered toward the

lake. Reflecting that he was making telltale tracks, he turned off to

the beaten road, along which he continued his flight. He ran until he

could run no longer.

“Yiminy!” he panted, when he stopped. “I am deadt! Vunce in der house

I am so coldt I am freezing, undt now I am so mooch uff a varmness

dot I vandt to lay down unt valler in der snow. Budt dot vouldt be

to gommidt susancide mit rheumonia. I got to keeb going until I feel

petter.”

Villum kept going until he reached the boathouse. Crawling under its

lee, and making sure no one was around, he struck another match and

took a look at the coat tail he had appropriated.

“Der goat dail uff a Fardale feller,” he said. “Idt iss prove dot he

vos der Hindu murterer. Idt iss easy to seen vhy he ditn’t vant der

gonstable to watch him. Sure! Kadir Dhin is subblying him mit his

clodings.”

About daylight Kess made his way into the village, where he sought

shelter with a German friend, to whom he made suitable, though false,

explanations. There he had breakfast, after he had had a few winks

of sleep. As the German did not mention the break at Dickey’s, Kess

concluded it had not yet been noised around.

Villum found not much difficulty in smuggling himself, without

attracting attention, into the Fardale buildings when the proper time

came. He made his way up to Chip’s room.

He burst in on Chip and Clancy, waving the tail of the coat as if it

were a banner of victory.

“Yoost seen dot!” he said. “I haf peen having adwentures. Fairst idt

iss a tog fighdt, unt afdher idt der ticktograft, unt anodder fighdt

vhen der bed sbrings holdt me by der foodt undt I am sdopping der Hindu

murterer from gedding oudt uff der vinder, unt——”

“Help! Help!” Chip shouted. “Take a long breath and start over again.

What has happened?”

“I haf!” Kess exploded, waving the coat tail.

Breathless, he dropped into a chair.

“Idt iss der mix-oop mit der Hindu unt der pedt springs unt

eferyt’ing, vhile I am blaying der ticktograft at Dickey’s. Yoost you

lisden vhile I exblanadtion idt; but der Hindu he got avay.”

It was a funny story, as Kess told it; a serious one, too, though the

theory that the man who had been under the cot was the Hindu murderer

seemed incredible.

“Who sdole der clodings oudt uff der parracks?” Villum demanded, in an

argumentative tone.

“We don’t know,” said Clan, who was looking at the piece of cloth

Villum had brought in.

“You ton’dt t’ink dot vos a Fardale veller vot I pulled dot tail

feadther oudt uff?” said Villum.

“N-o. Yet, we can’t say it wasn’t.”

“You undt Chip haf been susbicioning Kadir Dhin. Budt he vas in der

room dalking mit der odder vellers vhile der man iss behint me by der

vall under der cot. You exblanadtion me vot iss der meanness.”

“We shan’t know much until we know more,” said Clan.

“Vell, vot do you t’ink uff dhem odder t’ings?” Villum demanded,

addressing Chip. “Uff you ar-re to be hypnotized by Kadir Dhin, unt

made a indoxicadtion by Carson, unt all der resdt uff idt, you petter

be geddting readty to meedt it, heh? Vot? Oddervise, vot goot do I do

by running dot riskiness uff blaying der ticktograft?”

CHAPTER XIII.

Rose and Rhoda.

THAT burglars had broken into Dickey’s, but had been frightened away

by the constable, was the story that got over town. Gale was heard

bragging of how courageously he had acted in scaring them off, and how

one of the burglars, hard pressed, had shot at him.

Chip Merriwell and his friends kept their own counsel. As the days

passed, they watched for the Hindu and watched Kadir Dhin. If the

fussy and important constable were to be believed, other burglarious

attempts had been forestalled by him, and he was as busy as a man with

five hands.

The normal routine of the academy was for a time outwardly unbroken.

Study and lectures, winter sports, work and play in the gymnasium, went

on as usual, under the rather rigid semimilitary discipline which Gunn

and the faculty enforced.

But it could be seen that the Duke and his friends were hard at work

lining up against Chip Merriwell every man they could. The apparent

result was small. Chip had a host of friends who were disposed to stand

by him loyally. And of that closer and more intimate band consisting

of such fellows as Clan and Kess, Jelliby and others, that they would

stand by Chip through thick and thin on any and every occasion, was, of

course, known to every one.

Some hockey matches on the cleared ice of the lake were exciting enough

to thrill the whole school and bring a mob of spectators out from the

village. Twice Chip led scrub teams against the regular Fardale team,

once going to victory and another time to defeat.

That Rhoda Realf and her brother were at Fardale Chip knew from Kess’

report; and it was not long before he met them. Chilled a bit by Rose

Maitland’s championship of Kadir Dhin, Chip was in a mood to be moved

again by the beauty and charm of the younger and slighter girl.

Yet, having a good memory, Chip could not forget even while he was out

on the lake in the full swing of enjoyment, skating with Rhoda Realf,

that whatever break there had ever been between them had been produced

solely because he could not endure the insufferable qualities of

Rhoda’s brother.

But when Chip went over to Gunn’s for a talk with Rose Maitland on the

subject which was constantly in her mind—her fears of the Hindu who

had slain her father and who was believed by herself and Gunn to be in

concealment at Fardale—the feeling again mastered him which had swayed

him when he first saw her.

“I could wish you were an American,” he said, as he talked and jested

with her; “and I don’t say that because I hold any feeling whatever

against the English. Now I have offended? I’m sure I didn’t intend it,

and beg your pardon.”

She had flushed; but a slight heightening of the color in her cheeks

made her only the more charming.

“It’s no offense,” she said. “You see, how can it be, when I am half

American. I didn’t know but Colonel Gunn had told you. My mother was

an American, from Baltimore. That is why I was so willing to come to

America. And I mean to visit Baltimore as soon as I can.”

From this agreeable topic, the talk switched to the Hindu and Kadir

Dhin, a change inevitable, as that had been Chip’s reason, or excuse,

for making this call.

“Colonel Gunn is sure that Gunga Singh, the man who slew my father, is

still here, and that he is committing these burglaries,” she reported.

“Colonel Gunn believes he has found refuge with some of the low

foreigners in the mill sections, and is burglarizing that he may have

money to pay for concealment. He says, too, that Dickey would keep him,

would keep any scoundrel, for money. I feel as if I were sitting on a

volcano. I don’t go out any more.”

Then she spoke again of Kadir Dhin, declaring that it was too had the

young Hindu’s career at Fardale had been shadowed as it was.

She added:

“It has come to Colonel Gunn, and he resents it, that you have been

hinting that perhaps Kadir Dhin isn’t so innocent as he seems—that he

has been helping Gunga Singh.”

Chip had more than hinted that to his friends—but only to his friends;

and he had believed it. He thought he had reasons for believing it.

“Somebody must be a mind reader,” he said.

“You didn’t say it?”

“I said it to Clancy and Kess and perhaps one or two more.”

“So it wouldn’t need mind reading to get out. You have wronged Kadir

Dhin. I wish you would apologize to him. You haven’t apologized to him?”

“No—not yet,” said Chip. “I may, in time.”

Chip parried this subject off as well as he could. He was again too

much in love with this girl to want anything like disagreement to come

between them. Yet he was in no mood to apologize to the young Hindu.

His belief was growing that Kadir Dhin was tricky; that he was imposing

on the confidence of Colonel Gunn and Rose Maitland. He wanted proof of

it, and meant to try to get it. So how could he go to Kadir Dhin and

say to the young Hindu that he thought he had wronged and was wronging

him? It had to be parried off. It was a dangerous subject.

There were ever so many pleasanter things to talk about, and Chip

contrived to bring them forward; so that when he took his leave, it was

with a sense of having had a pleasant time and of having made a good

impression.

“I wonder if I am fickle-minded?” he thought, as he walked away,

his mind turning to Rhoda Realf. “No, I don’t think I am. I like

Rhoda—she’s fine; but Rose Maitland——”

Then he thought of Kadir Dhin.

“I can’t get it out of my nut that he is playing a double game. Of

course, if he isn’t, and I see that he isn’t, I’ll apologize to him,

and do it freely; though I’m afraid I can never like him.”

CHAPTER XIV.

When the Plot Went Wrong.

“DEAR me! Dear me!” said Colonel Gunn, twisting his glasses about on

his nose, as he stared in astonishment at the crumpled note which had

been brought to him by the servant girl.

The colonel had arrived at home late, having remained at the academy

looking over some examination papers.

This is what his eyes rested on, and why he exclaimed and stared:

COLONEL GUNN: The scandalous doings of some

of your students is the limit. They drink and gamble

right under your nose, and you don’t know it. If you

want proof, go down to the Pavilion right now. You will

find Chip Merriwell there, intoxicated, so much so that

he can’t get back to the barracks. There has been a

drinking bout down there, which has lasted ever since

Fardale let out its students for the day. When the

others left the Pavilion, they had to leave Merriwell

there because he couldn’t walk. You ought to know about

this.

A FARDALE WELL-WISHER.

Colonel Gunn did not like anonymous communications. But here was

something he could not overlook. It called for attention and action.

He rang for the servant.

“Mary,” he said, his voice hoarse and shaky, “will you—er—be kind

enough to inform me where you—ahum—got this singular note which you

brought me?”

“At the dure,” said Mary; “a b’y brought it. He said it was fer you,

and I’m sure yere name was on it.”

“My name was on it—very true. Ahem—you did not recognize the boy?”

“I niver saw his face befure.”

“Ahum—thank you. Mary. If you will help me on with my greatcoat,

I—ahum——”

Mary helped him get into his overcoat; and, with his cane in hand,

Colonel Gunn sallied forth. The unpleasant note was in his pocket.

“A—er—a distressing thing,” he was thinking. “Until recently I have

thought so well of young Merriwell! I fear he will never be the man

his father was. Dear me, the pranks that fellow used to cut here; he,

too, was quite wild! Nevertheless, there was a saving grace in him;

a—er—thoughtfulness. I was younger then, too; and my dear father, Zenas

Gunn, of blessed memory—yes, the older Merriwell annoyed him a great

deal.”

The night was falling, and the early lights of the village were

shining. There were no lights to-night on the lake, unless carried by

some skater, and Gunn’s way lay in that direction, along the lake to

the Pavilion.

The colonel reflected that he ought to have company, and was on the

point of turning aside and telephoning for the constable; but was

deterred by the thought that he ought not to expose a student in that

way, even though the student deserved exposure.

“By going alone I may be able to prevent a scandal. Yet—er—of course,

Mr. Merriwell will have to leave the academy; I—ahum—see no other way.

I shall write to his father a full explanation; tell him that recently

there has—er—been a great change in his son; I shall have to speak of

this violent animosity against the youth, Kadir Dhin, who came here as

a foreigner and stranger, under—er—my protection. Such base calumnies

as Kadir Dhin assures me young Merriwell has heaped on him—there is

even an element of insanity in it! Is the whole world going mad?”

The worthy head of Fardale grew warm with indignation as he stumped

along, prodding the snow angrily with his walking stick.

“As for Gunga Singh, Kadir Dhin thinks that the money I have been

furnishing him for the purpose of hiring men to hunt down that

Hindu murderer will soon bring results. I—ahum—I hope so; I hope

so! It is growing very expensive. If results are not attained soon

I shall—ahum—be compelled to desist in making further advances. A

terrible state of affairs! And the—er—constable makes no progress.”

His mind turned back to Chip Merriwell.

“A drinking bout of Fardale students down at the Pavilion, and Mr.

Merriwell left there in so beastly a state of intoxication that he

cannot even walk. Dreadful!”

A merry jingling of sleigh bells reached him, as he approached the

lake, in the road which turned there and passed along the lakeside

toward the Pavilion; the sleigh was coming up behind him, and it seemed

that Gunn would be run down by the horses.

He gave a skipping jump which must have surprised him and landed in the

snow at the side of the road.

“Ahum! Dear me! How very reckless! A lot of hoodlums from the village,

no doubt; and very probably intoxicated. What is the—er—world coming

to?”

Then the colonel discovered that the sleigh was filled with young

fellows who were, nearly all of them, in the Fardale uniform. They had

been laughing; but they drew up beside him and fell silent with respect.

This show of deference pleased him; he was especially gratified when he

saw their hands go up in the military salute.

“Are you going far, Colonel Gunn?” he was asked, with politeness.

“Ahum! Er—that is to say——”

They were leaping out of the sleigh, surrounding him.

“We are out for a drive down the road here; beautiful night, isn’t it?

If you’re going far, we offer you a seat in with us. The sleighing is

delightful. It will honor us.”

Colonel Gunn was flattered and flustered.

“I was—er——”

“Then, right in! Here is a good seat. We’re going to drive down by the

Pavilion, and beyond; and then back to Fardale by the other road. It

will be a lovely ride.”

They had him by the arms, still trying to be courteous, though in

reality they had literally taken possession of him; and before the

colonel could say whether he wished to go in the sleigh or did not wish

to, he was in it, sinking back in the seat.

“Er—er——Ahaw—ahum! This is aw——I have lost my stick in the snow there,

I believe.”

It was rescued and passed up to him.

The young fellows were climbing in beside and behind him; and to keep

him from wanting to get out, the driver quietly touched up the horses

and sent them dancing along, jingling their bells.

“Ahaw—ahum! I—er——”

Gunn looked around him.

In the faint light, he recognized his companions; he saw Bronson Avery

clearly, for Bronson sat beside him, and had been one of the politest.

Behind him he heard familiar voices. He was displeased on discovering

one of the voices to be Bully Carson’s; he detested and suspected

Carson.

“I shall have to speak to these boys about Carson,” he thought, as he

tried to get a grip on his scattered faculties.

“Ahum!” he coughed, and touched the driver on the arm. “I shall—er—be

obliged if you will put me off in the road near the—er—the Pavilion.

From there I shall—er—walk back. This is—er—very pleasant, but on a

night like this—so glorious—I prefer to walk; so if you, er——”

“Oh, we’ll put you off at the Pavilion,” was the significant statement

with which he was reassured.

But when the road by the ice was reached, the fellows in the sleigh

with Gunn were given a surprise that was as great as Gunn’s.

Chip Merriwell, skating on the ice there with Clan and Kess and some

others, had stopped at the edge of the ice, curious to see the sleigh

go by; not dreaming who its occupants were.

Chip was recognized by the fellows in the sleigh, and by the driver,

who gave a little ejaculation of amazement and drew hard on the reins,

bringing the horses to a stop.

“Merriwell!” he said, gasping the name.

Gunn, electrified, craned his neck; and Chip, thinking himself

addressed, stepped into the road, walking on his skates toward the

sleigh.

“It is—er—it is Mr. Merriwell!” Gunn exploded. “This—er—this is you,

Mr. Merriwell?”

Chip saluted; and Clan and the others, coming up behind him, repeated

the action.

“Yes, sir,” said Chip.

“But you—er—were—that is to say can it——”

“Yes, sir?”

Colonel Gunn tumbled out of the sleigh—almost fell out—in his

amazement. He hooked his glasses on his nose and stared at Chip. He saw

that Chip was steady-limbed, clear-eyed, and sober.

“Hello!” one of the fellows exclaimed suddenly, with a startled

emphasis that drew attention. “What’s that mean? The Pavilion’s on

fire!”

A flame had flashed from a window in the lakeside building some

distance down the road, and by the light of it two men were seen

running away over the snow.

CHAPTER XV.

Cowardice and Heroism.

THE two men who sat at the table in the front room overlooking the

icy lake were as sinister a pair as Bully Carson could have picked up

anywhere, and they were not disposed to heed the young fellow who lay

bound on the floor by the door.

“Le’s carry him upstairs, Bill, and shet him in that back room, where

he can’t make himself heard by anybody passin’ ’long the road; we

either got to do that or gag him.”

“But—see here! You’re making an awful mistake, donchuknow! I’m not the

fellow you were told to get, donchuknow. This is a hideous mistake,

fellows.”

It was the Duke who was making this piteous appeal.

But he had little hope that it would be heeded, since up to this time

he had not been listened to and had been given such shameful treatment;

moreover, there was small hope that he would be rescued soon by his

friends. The Pavilion had been chosen by him because he knew it was far

down the lake and isolated.

It was a lakeside place of entertainment, unoccupied in the winter as a

rule. The previous winter the Duke had hired it, and it was understood

he had some sort of occupancy claim on it this winter.

The men were still disposed to be rough with him.

“We’ve heard all we want out of you,” he was told; “so, shet up! You

was pointed out to us plain.”

“By Bully Carson?”

“No matter about that. Here, Bill; we’ll put him upstairs. Either that,

or we got to gag him.”

They took him upstairs and locked him in the little room, just as he

was. Then they went back to the lower room, with its table, its pack of

cards, and the bottle of whisky that was on it.

That whisky had been furnished by Bully Carson; and their prisoner,

according to Carson’s directions, was to be drugged with it; but they

liked the taste and smell of the liquor too well to waste it in that

way; they meant to drink it themselves.

Sitting down at the table again, they sampled the contents of the

bottle and applied themselves to the cards; the day was at its close,

and they fancied themselves in the greatest security for an hour or

more.

Acting up to Bully Carson’s instructions, they had waylaid the Fardale

cadet as he came swinging up the lake on his skates, not long before.

They thought they knew him; Carson had pointed him out to them, so they

were sure there was no mistake, even when he declared there was.

They had made their mistake naturally. The Duke had been standing close

by Chip Merriwell, on a street corner, when Carson had indicated the

latter; they had simply looked at the wrong man when Carson was talking.

They knew what was expected of them. When they had forced intoxication

on their prisoner, they were to depart, and leave him in the Pavilion,

to be seen there by Colonel Gunn and any others who chanced to be with

the colonel.

They found the cards interesting, and the liquor more so. They had not

intended to light the lamp they found on the table; but decided to do

so when their caution became less active. They couldn’t see to play

without a light, and stakes were then on the table.

How long they played they did not know, but they went very speedily to

the bottom of the liquor bottle. They began to quarrel, each accusing

the other of cheating. Drawing a knife, one lunged at the other with

it, across the table; the other rose and flung back to avoid the blow.

The table was overturned with a crash, and the lamp went to the floor;

it shattered, and the kerosene caught from the burning wick. In a

moment the room was filled with flames.

Stunned for an instant by what threatened, they made a feeble attempt

to fight out the fire; then they threw open the door, and, running out

into the road, they fled.

In the room into which he had been flung, the Duke had been trying

to get the cords off his wrists; he was in a vile temper. He piled

anathemas on Bully Carson and on the men downstairs. If Carson had not

been a fool, and chosen fools for this work, this mistake could not

have been made. He had planned it and given Carson the money to carry

it out, and this was the result. He had come skating down the lake,

wondering how near he could be to the Pavilion and be safe when the

trick was pulled off; and the ruffians had seized him, instead of the

one chosen, who was Chip Merriwell.

The treatment he was receiving was meant for Chip.

What made his fate more bitter was his belief that there had been a

clever turning against him of the tables; he thought the ruffians had

been tampered with by Chip after Carson had hired them, and that this

was done deliberately by them, for pay. So he heaped his curses on Chip

as well as on Carson and the two stupid fools.

Then came the fire, and the terror it conveyed to the occupant of the

upper room.

He heard the quarreling below, then the crashing of the overturned

table and the yells of the men when they tried to stay the fire. He

heard them throw the door open and run away like the cowards they were,

forgetful of him and of his fate.

The Duke screamed with fear when he heard them go.

For a moment the terror of his situation almost overcame him; he felt

sick and faint, his heart pounded up until it seemed almost in his

throat; a panicky fear clouded his mind.

This passed. There was some courageous fiber in the Duke. He had

been spoiled in his training; he was always made to think he was

finer and better than any one else, was always petted and flattered,

and constantly treated by servants and even friends as if he were a

superior being. If there had not been some good stuff in the Duke, he

would have been far worse than he was at present.

As soon as he could control his jumping nerves, the Duke tried again to

get free of the cords that held his wrists; but he could not do it. He

could not break the cords, and struggling only drew the knots tighter.

Rolling over against the door, he drew up his legs and began to dash

his heels against the panels, trying to break through.

The fire was roaring so that he could hear it plainly when he was not

making too much noise, and the smoke that had begun to creep through

the rooms reached him.

“Help!” he screamed, as he hammered with his heels against the door.

“Help! Help!”

That some one passing in the road well out beyond might hear him, was

his hope. He was beginning to hope, too, that the fire would be seen in

the village in time for fire fighters to get out to it before it had

made a finish of him.

As if in answer to his calls, he soon heard the jingling approach of a

sleigh, and from the sound of the bells he could tell that the horses

were galloping.

The fire had reached the stairway which led to the room where the Duke

lay; he could see, under the door, the fiery licking of red tongues

of flame, as gusts of air drove the flames higher; and now the smoke,

getting into his room more and more, was troublesome, and threatened

soon to be suffocating.

He was yelling himself hoarse, bawling for help to the occupants of the

sleigh. When he heard them shouting to each other outside in the snow,

his screams to attract their attention became screeches.

He had been heard; he could soon tell that.

At the same time it was being said that no one could get up to the

second floor; there were no ladders to be had, and the stairs were on

fire.

Some one jingled away in the sleigh, going to the village to get

ladders; the others, it seemed, were waiting for the ladders, or for

the coming of the Fardale fire department.

The Duke knew that before the slow-moving local fire department could

get there, or the sleigh return with ladders, he would be beyond the

need of aid.

“Help!” he screamed.

His feet, flailing, could not shatter the stout panels of the door.

A little later, when the hot breath of the fire seemed trying to reach

through the door to him, he heard a voice. It was followed by a crash

that drove the door inward.

Chip Merriwell, head and shoulders wrapped round with a sleigh robe

soaked in melted snow, groped into the room; he had come through the

fire-filled stairway with it round him; he had dared the fury of the

flames to reach and help the Duke, when Carson and Avery, and all the

Duke’s own followers, refused the risk, claiming that whoever tried it

would be burned to death. The stairs were like a furnace.

“There’s the hall yet,” Chip gasped. “Here!”

“My feet and hands are tied!” the Duke shouted.

Chip got his knife out and cut the cords.

“Here!” he panted. “Can you walk? I’ll help you. Pull your coat up

around your head. The hall here is free yet, and we can reach one of

the windows.”

“It’s Merriwell!” said the Duke, bewildered.

He had been thinking Chip had sent him there, and he wondered about

this; yet it was dull wonder, and a very active thankfulness. No one

rejects the hand that is stretched out to save.

He did not need Chip’s aid; he even scrambled ahead, along the hall,

driven by fear; and he was at one of the windows, smashing it, when

Chip came up. He was about to throw himself out through the window.

“No!” said Chip. “We can take time; we’re safe now, unless the house

falls. The fire is following, but we’re well ahead of it here. I’ve got

the driving lines from the sleigh for ropes.”

He pushed the Duke through, after passing a length of the leather reins

around the Duke’s body, under his arms, and hung to the loops he had

set, while the Duke slid downward to the ground.

Securing the lines to the support of a wall bracket, Chip Merriwell

followed and dropped; but the sleigh robe and his clothing smoked from

the heat.

“Burned much, Chip?” some one was asking, as he reeled into the arms

that were stretched out to assist him.

“No,” he gasped; “I—I think not; I think I’m all right!”

“Well, it sure was close; you didn’t have much time! The old Pavilion

is going.”

Ten minutes later it was a flaming tinder box, with a tornadolike roar

as the fire drove skyward, and a glare that reddened the snow for great

distances around.

To be continued in the next issue of WIDE-AWAKE

MAGAZINE, out January 25th.

Trooper Stewart, Substitute

BY H. E. Williamson

SYNOPSIS OF PRECEDING CHAPTERS.

AFTER a seventeen-hour ride in pursuit of Jim Cowley,

a crook, who has cheated a settler named Ballard, “Big

Ben” Stewart, of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police,

arrives at his home, where he finds his father, Dugald

Stewart, and his younger brother, Denis. After resting,

Ben takes up the pursuit, but is wounded and returns

home. Denis dons his brother’s uniform and takes up

Cowley’s trail. The “substitute trooper” meets with

various exciting adventures, and is eventually made a

prisoner by Cowley and Smoking Duck, a Cree Indian.

Stewart is removed to Cowley’s camp, where he is left

in charge of Smoking Duck. He succeeds in making his

escape, and, without weapons, he continues his flight.

He meets Napoleon McShayne, a French Canadian, in whose

company Stewart encounters Bray, a fur trader, who

is on his way to Cowley’s camp on Hay Lake. From the

trader Stewart learns that Cowley has been purchasing

an unusually large amount of corn. Stewart orders Bray

to return to Fort Vermilion. A plan is arranged with

McShayne to secure Stewart’s canoe and rifle, which had

been left on the river bank when Stewart was captured.

The trooper swims the river, and while he stands drying

himself and clothing over a fire, two canoes appear on

the river, which prove to be occupied by Ballard and

his friends, all of whom are in search of Cowley. The

settlers have made up their minds to deal with Cowley

in their own way, without the interference of the law.

During the night Stewart escapes from Ballard’s camp,

and makes his way to the point where he is to meet

Napoleon McShayne.

CHAPTER XII.

Tightening Up.

CLOSE beside his tiny signal fire, Denis waited there in the night.

As he watched, he remembered one thing to which he had given little

thought.

This was that Cowley was going to the foot of the lakes some time that

same night to meet Bray. Presumably Cowley would not start until an

hour or so before dawn. But what would happen when he reached the foot

of the lake?

“He’ll take Ballard’s camp fire for that of Bray,” mused Denis,

frowning. “When he gets close up, he’ll discover his mistake and put

for home. Then I’ll be there to nab him—if nothing happens. Well, no

use gathering trouble till the time comes.”

Perhaps half an hour later, Denis sighted a dark blur on the lake, and

heard a low hail. He flung a few scraps of birch bark on the fire,

allowed them to blaze up until he himself was fully revealed; then he

stamped out the fire and scattered it.

Waiting at the edge of the shore, he presently saw two craft come

gliding in. The first was Napoleon’s dugout, with Napoleon himself

wielding his clumsy paddle. Towing after this was the light canoe

which Denis had left at the head of the lake on his unfortunate attempt

to arrest Cowley.

“B’jou’!” came the half-breed’s voice. “I got heem. What you do dat man

Bray, huh?”

“I took care of him, all right,” said Denis, smiling. “He’s gone back

to Fort Vermilion, and you’ll find your camp waiting as you left it.

When you’re at the fort, go in to Bray’s store and he’ll settle with

you for whatever grub he used.”

The ’breed grunted deep satisfaction at this information. Denis pulled

in the canoe. To his delight, he found his duffel bag, blankets, and

the rifle exactly as he had left them.

“Mebbeso you make for pay?” suggested Napoleon diffidently.

Denis reflected.

“The man Bray sent you to find—the man named Cowley—has a camp halfway

up this shore,” he returned. “I’m going to arrest him. Also a ’breed

named Petwanisip. Cowley has some fine pelts up there, and you can have

your pick. Want to come along?”

This did not strike Napoleon’s fancy.

“Mebbeso I come back. I’m want for sleep now,” he said, which was

a lie, since he had probably slept all the preceding afternoon,

after reaching the head of the lake. “Huh? Mebbeso I come back dere

to-morrow.”

Denis chuckled.

“There’s a bunch of four white men down at the foot of the lake,” he

rejoined. “They have rifles, and they’ll be up here to-morrow——”

That was enough for Napoleon, who grunted deep:

“Mebbeso I go ’way quick, whatever. Got um pain in belly. Want for

sleep. Mebbeso I come back, mebbeso not. Whatcheer!”

He edged his dugout toward the lake shadows. Denis laughed, glad to be

rid of the fellow, who would be of no use in a fight.

“Run along, then, ’Poleon. You come back to-morrow afternoon, and the

coast will be clear, I think. Then I’ll pay you—and pay you pretty

well, too. Don’t come later than that, but come then sure. Sure?”

“Huh! Sure!” was the answer. Napoleon would keep his word also—to the

police.

Denis watched the dark, slim shape of the dugout float out into the

night and disappear into a speck under the starlight. Then he turned to

his own canoe, and, with a feeling of deep relief, knelt once more on

his blankets and took up his paddle, the rifle ready to hand. Ballard’s

canoe he left on the bank.

To land at Cowley’s Creek about dawn would be time enough for his

purposes. He could let Cowley go to the foot of the lake—probably to

return faster than he had gone. In the meantime he could arrest Smoking

Duck and make an investigation.

That was an important point—the investigation. Besides the original

charge against Cowley, and that of resisting arrest, the police must

know what the man was doing here, how he had gained possession of so

much fur, and just what kind of an illegal game was forward. It might

be that he was simply dealing out whisky without a permit, which was

in itself a grave offense in a land where the vanishing Indians are

protected by laws of iron against such men as Cowley.

With ten miles to travel against a steadily increasing headwind, and

three hours in which to cover it, Denis fell into a steady, even stroke

that he could keep up for days on end if need were. Keeping close

to shore, he worked his way gradually along up the lake, noticing a

perceptible increase in the wind as the night wore onward.

When the stars began to dim and die, and the grayness of dawn slowly

lifted the darkness, Denis ran to the beach and landed. It was vital

that he make no mistake now, and he must be sure of his ground before

going ahead.

For half an hour he lay on the bank, watching and waiting. Then an

exclamation of satisfaction broke from him. Through the lifting gray

dawn light he could discern the hills a half mile farther along the

shore, where Cowley’s camp was located. Sweeping the waters of the

lake with his eyes, he then caught a moving speck halfway across, in

line between the hills and the foot of the lake, and moving toward the

latter.

Cowley was well on his way down the lake!

“Looks as though things were breaking my way at last,” thought Denis,

as he scrambled down the steep bank to his canoe. “Now I think that

I’ll have a little surprise for Mr. Smoking Duck before he gets through

his breakfast.”

Save for the cartridges which The Pigeon had expended, the Winchester

rifle had a full magazine. Certain of this, Denis pumped in a fresh

cartridge, knelt in the canoe, placed the rifle in front of him, and

shoved out.

Now he paddled swiftly, putting all his strength into the work. In

a short fifteen minutes he found himself lying outside the almost

concealed creek entrance. Into this he headed, scanning the bushes and

trees ahead for any sign of Smoking Duck.

No danger threatened, however. Without sighting a moving thing, he

reached the log landing, jumped out, and lifted his canoe from the

water. Then, rifle in hand, he stepped out on the trail to the shack.

Five minutes later, he was standing at the edge of the clearing, eying

that odd cluster of buildings. From the chimney of the shack itself no

smoke ascended, but from what seemed to be the lean-to just behind, a

thin trail of wispy smoke was winding into the sky.

“That must be the ‘fire’ to which Cowley referred,” thought Denis,

frowning. “If Smoking Duck isn’t asleep, he’s probably around there in

back.”

Hesitating no longer, he went across the clearing at a run, half

expecting a rifle shot from the silent shack front. None came. Reaching

the door of the shack, he peered inside and found the place empty, but

from the back came the regular strokes of an ax!

Slipping around the side wall of the shack, to the right, Denis passed

the lean-to which held the baled peltries. At the corner he paused,

cocking his rifle, then stepped out around the end.

A dozen feet away stood Petwanisip, leaning on an ax; even that cocking

of the rifle had attracted the half-breed’s attention. Denis covered

the man instantly.

“Hands up, Smoking Duck!”

Smoking Duck stared as if at an apparition. Then he cast a wild glance

around, and Denis saw a rifle leaning against the wall. But it was

three yards distant, and not even the desperate half-breed dared risk

it. His hands rose slowly.

Each lean-to adjoined the other, here at the back. To the left of the

rifle was a low doorway, near which Smoking Duck had been throwing the

wood as he had cut it. Denis observed that this was firewood.

“Go to the left of that door, stand with your face to the wall, and

stick your hands out behind your back!” commanded Denis.

There was a snap to his voice that spelled earnestness. His brown face

convulsed with helpless rage, the half-breed did as Denis had ordered.

Advancing to the man, Denis stuck his rifle in Petwanisip’s back.

“Be mighty careful, now—this gun is cocked!”

With one hand he unlaced his moccasins, knotted the lacing, and drew

it about the swarthy wrists. Then he set down his rifle, and in a few

seconds had knotted the buckskin thongs stoutly. Smoking Duck was

trapped beyond escape.

“Walk around to the front of the cabin.”

Driven by that relentless rifle, the sullen half-breed led the way

around the shack to the door. Denis ordered him on inside, and so to

the same little room where he himself had been confined. Removing the

fellow’s knife, he locked him in the inner room.

“Things are certainly coming fine for me!” he reflected, as from

Cowley’s stores he replaced his moccasin lacing. “Now we’ll begin our

investigations—and I’d better start right here.”