HARRY SCENTS A MYSTERY
Life wasn’t all football, however. There was a lot of studying to
attend to. Kendall was taking five courses, in preparation for that
college he might never reach: Latin, Greek, mathematics, English and
German. These made up a total of twenty-two hours a week. French,
physics and chemistry he was leaving to his senior year. Luckily
Kendall had the valuable gift of application, and application might
also be called the royal road to results. Certainly an ounce of it
is better than a pound of labor. Kendall was doing well in all his
courses. He was fond of languages and learned easily, German, however,
presenting a rather more difficult road than Greek or Latin. It was
in mathematics that he had to work hardest. There are some who never
manage to get themselves in sympathy with that science, and Kendall
was one of these. Geometry was his bugbear that year. But, with the
scholarship beckoning, he worked as hard as he knew how and usually
secured creditable marks. Although he had only three hours of English,
that course required a good deal of outside reading; just now they
were digging at Milton, with Shakespeare looming ahead; and there
were weekly compositions to be written, and, of course, one never
quite got away from rhetoric. So Kendall had his hands full, and there
were times when it seemed to him that it would be the part of wisdom
to give up football and devote all his thought and time to digging
for that scholarship. He didn’t, however, although he became panicky
pretty often and assured himself discouragedly that he hadn’t the
ghost of a show of winning even a Sidney. The panicky moments became
more frequent as the Broadwood game drew near and as football made
greater and greater demands on his time and thought. (But when the
awards were made at the end of the term Kendall found that his fears
had been groundless, for he won the Gordon Scholarship after all. And
the pleasure he experienced in writing the news to his father more than
made up for all the labor he had gone through.)
Studying in his room in the evening wasn’t a very great success,
for, although the study hour was more or less strictly observed,
the gatherings there continued, and it was difficult to get the
mind settled on geometry or German, Latin or Greek when you had been
listening for an hour to a discussion of the afternoon’s practice.
Gerald, in his last year, had less to do than Kendall. He was taking
but four courses, found them easy and so had to study but little.
Kendall made use of the hours when he had no recitations to retire to
the library in Oxford, and most of his studying was done there.
And, aside from football, there were other athletic interests demanding
the attention of the school. The cross-country candidates were training
five days a week. The golf team was preparing for the match with
Broadwood. There was a Fall Handicap Tournament going on at the tennis
courts. Even the baseball diamonds were occupied in fair weather.
Boys who found no appeal in any of these pursuits took to the water,
and as long as the Winter held off the river was dotted with canoes
and skiffs, pair-oars and tubs. And yet, back of all this, one event
loomed fatefully, growing each day larger and more portentous. That
was the Big Game. All the athletic industries culminated with the
Broadwood contest; the eighteenth of November marked the end of the
Autumn season, and fellows had a way of making promises to themselves
like this: “After the Broadwood game I’ll buckle down and get caught
up with Latin”; or, “When the Broadwood game’s over I’ll have more
time for study.” There was a subconscious spirit of nervous unrest
pervading the school that grew as the days went by. After the eleven
had journeyed away and returned with the scalp of Porter Institute the
season settled into its final stride, and only two games intervened
before the great test.
Yardley found Porter easy, and rolled up twenty-four points against
her opponent, meanwhile denying Porter the consolation of a single
score. The school declared that the team had found itself and that
the rest was easy. More knowing ones, taking Porter’s weakness into
consideration, found cause for doubts and criticisms. Twice Yardley had
had the ball within Porter’s ten-yard line and had failed to score.
There had been four bad fumbles. The team was still weak on offense.
If Broadwood was to be beaten the Blue must improve vastly in the next
three weeks. Thus the knowing ones. What Coach Payson thought no one
knew.
In the meantime Gerald’s campaign went forward and bore results.
Kendall made friends. Nowadays to walk from his room in Clarke to
a recitation room in Oxford entailed more greetings than last year
he would have been called on to accord in a month. He was really
surprised to find how many fellows he knew well enough to stop and talk
to, how many others demanded recognition, a word, a nod or a wave of
the hand. Of course, among the younger boys he was a hero second only
to Captain Merriwell himself, and the Preparatory Class youth who won
a word from Kendall hurried off to tell the rest of the inhabitants of
Merle of the talk he had had with Burtis, describing just how Kendall
had looked and just what he had said, and, I’m afraid, enlarging
a little on the incident. But that’s a weakness not confined to
Preparatory Class boys. Had you asked some of Kendall’s fellow members
of the team why they had taken a liking to him it is probable that they
would each have said about the same thing――had they deigned to answer
such a question at all! “Burtis?” they would have said. “Oh, I don’t
know. He’s a good sort, don’t you think? Awfully quiet, of course, but
has a lot of horse sense. Doesn’t butt in, either. Not much on the
handsome, but sort of nice looking, too, somehow. Doesn’t have much to
say about what he has done or is going to do or can do; just goes ahead
and does it. Awfully square sort, I’d say. Besides, he certainly can
play football!”
Gerald was pretty busy nowadays with the Cross-Country Team. He was
captain of it and about the best performer. And so Kendall saw less
of him than during the first of the term. But they usually spent the
evenings together. Harry Merrow, also a member of the Cross-Country
squad, was very likely to turn up at Number 28 after supper, and
Kendall had grown to like him very much. There had been another jaunt
on _The Dart_ since the day they had been lost in the fog, but the
second voyage had been an affair without incident. Kendall had not
yet become a proficient swimmer, principally because he had had but
three lessons in the art. It was very hard to find time for anything
just now. But he had managed thirty strokes on the last occasion and
had swallowed only about three quarts of the Wissining River. Gerald
and Harry had assured him that he had done excellently, and Kendall
promised himself that when Spring came he would complete his education.
Another fairly frequent visitor to Number 28 was The Duke. The Duke had
a way of knocking subduedly and entering on tiptoe, throwing fearful
glances behind him and subsiding into a chair with a long sigh of
relief.
“Ha!” he would whisper hoarsely. “Again I have thrown him off the
track! Ah, the peace and quiet of this refuse!” (Perhaps it isn’t
necessary to explain that in The Duke’s language “refuse” meant
“refuge.”) He always pretended that Cotton was dogging his footsteps
and that it was only by extraordinary stealth and cunning that he could
escape his roommate. Once or twice it happened that Cotton followed him
later, and on those occasions The Duke would throw up his hands, roll
his eyes, and spend the rest of the time of his visit sitting silent
and staring at Cotton as though hypnotized.
Cotton still insisted that he had been badly used by coach and captain
and still predicted utter annihilation for the forces of Yardley.
Gerald’s wager soon became known of and occasioned a lot of merriment.
The Duke pretended to be――or perhaps really was――much concerned. “My
word, Gerald, suppose we really did get licked! Have you paused to
consider the fate you have――er――invited? Think of having Cotton on your
hands every hour for a week or ten days! Breakfast, luncheon, dinner,
Gerald! No time off for recitations! Oh, woe is you!”
Some of the other fellows, too, tried to alarm Gerald, declaring that
they wouldn’t be a bit surprised if Broadwood won this year. Then they
drew graphic word pictures of Gerald towing Charles Cotton around New
York in Christmas recess. “Whatever you do, Gerald,” begged Bert
Simms, “don’t take him to the Eden Musee! When you went out you’d get
arrested for attempting to steal one of the wax figures!”
From all of which it will be seen that Mr. Cotton had unfortunately
not ingratiated himself to any extent with the habitués of Number 28.
One evening about midway between the Porter and Forest Hill games the
room was pretty well filled. Merriwell and Simms and Girard, of the
football element, were present, and George Kirk, captain of the golf
team, had dropped in. These, with Gerald and Kendall, pretty well taxed
the seating accommodations. Naturally the three subjects uppermost were
football, cross-country running, and golf. Kirk had been bewailing
the loss to the golf team of Ned Tooker, last year’s captain and star
player, and had expressed himself as very doubtful of the outcome of
the match to be played at Broadwood the following Saturday.
“Burtis, I thought you were going to play golf this year,” said Kirk.
“I am, I think, after the Broadwood game,” answered Kendall. “I like it
first-rate, Kirk, but there isn’t much time for it now, you know.”
“I suppose not. Maybe you’ll get in shape to play with us in the Spring
matches, though. It’s the hardest thing to get fellows to take an
interest in golf here!”
“Everyone wants to play football in the Fall and baseball in Spring,”
said Gerald. “You can’t get them to think of anything else, barring
track sports. We’ve had a dickens of a time this year getting enough
fellows together to make up the Cross-Country Team.”
“I thought you had lots of candidates,” said Charles Merriwell, a
good-looking, dark-haired fellow of nineteen. “Anyhow, you’re going to
win, aren’t you?”
“Oh, I suppose we’ll win all right enough, but if we do it will be
because Broadwood’s weak this year. Our team doesn’t begin to compare
with last season’s.”
“That’s what they all say,” scoffed big Girard, the center. “You hear
that every year. Nothing ever compares with what we had last year. It’s
rot!”
“Not always,” replied Bert Simms. “Our team isn’t as good as last
year’s, and you know it, Pete.”
“What’s the matter with it?”
“Too light, for one thing. Broadwood’s got the heaviest team she ever
put on the field. Bet you she’ll outweigh us four pounds to a man.”
“Oh, piffle! Look at O’Brien, their center; he’s a mite!”
“Well, he’s the only mite they’ve got, Pete. As for the back-field,
they’re tons heavier than we are.”
“Then we’ll make up for it by getting the jump on ’em,” said Girard.
“Weight isn’t everything.”
“Nice of _you_ to say so,” murmured Simms, causing chuckles of
amusement from the others. Girard reached out with a big foot and,
hooking it around a leg of Simms’ chair, brought that youth to the
floor.
“Bert’s right, though,” declared Merriwell, when order had been
restored, “and we’ll find when Payson shows his new plays that we’re in
for a kicking game, with most of our gains on wide runs. You’ll be busy
that day, Burtis.”
At that moment there was a rap at the door and The Duke entered, hands
in pockets, whistling, his eyes roaming the ceiling, elaborately
careless. He had an old felt hat on the back of his head, his coat was
tightly buttoned and the collar was turned up, and a false mustache,
fiercely red, hovered uncertainly under his nose. A burst of laughter
greeted him. Once inside the room, however, his demeanor changed.
Turning swiftly, he threw himself against the door and, as it crashed
shut, quickly turned the key and leaned there breathing heavily, his
eyes darting about with a haunted and terrified glare.
“What is it?” asked Merriwell. “Sherlock Holmes?”
“Old Sleuth,” suggested Gerald. “How did you cut your lip, Duke?”
Without replying The Duke leaned down and pressed an ear against
the keyhole. Then, apparently satisfied, he unlocked the door and
dramatically removed hat and mustache.
“Aha!” he exclaimed hoarsely; “foiled again!”
“Bet you he will be along inside five minutes,” laughed Gerald. “Sit on
the bed, Duke, and try to look like a pillow. Maybe he won’t recognize
you.”
The Duke followed the first part of the suggestion, but refused to
disguise himself as a pillow, even when Simms suggested that that
shouldn’t be a difficult stunt for anyone as feather-brained as The
Duke.
“Don’t trifle with me,” hissed The Duke. “I’m a der-esperate man!”
“Where’d you get the red mustache?” asked Girard. “Let’s see it.”
“Bought in the village,” replied The Duke as he tossed it over. “It
makes a perfect disguise, doesn’t it? I’m going to wear it to history
recitation to-morrow so Collins won’t know me and won’t ask for my
digest, which I have forgotten to prepare.”
“I stump you to,” said Simms. “If you will――――” But the rest was lost
in the laughter caused by Girard’s appearance with the mustache on.
After that they all had to try it, and just as it finally got around to
Kendall there was another knock on the door.
“Ha!” muttered The Duke. “’Tis he! I am discovered! But I shall sell my
life dearly!”
There was a moment of silence as the door swung slowly open, and then,
as Cotton walked in with fine dignity, a howl of laughter went up. Only
The Duke remained grave. Holding a pillow in front of him, he gazed
fiercely over the top of it, muttering and hissing. Cotton paused in
surprise. Simms was rolling on the bed in convulsions and Girard was
sprawled back in his chair, holding his sides. Cotton viewed the scene
at first with bewilderment and then with distaste. A flush crept into
his cheeks as he closed the door behind him.
“Hello,” he said stiffly, “what’s the joke, you fellows?”
Kendall was the first to recover. “Oh, just some of Wellington’s
nonsense,” he replied hastily. “Sit down, Cotton.”
“Y-yes,” gurgled Gerald, “s-sit down somewhere if you can find room.
Sit on the bed there next to The Duke.”
The Duke lowered the pillow, his gaze fixed on Cotton with fearful
intensity. Then, as the latter passed around the table to reach the
bed, The Duke seized the false mustache from Kendall, clapped it to his
face and confronted Cotton superbly.
“Aha, James Mortimer!” he drawled, stroking one end of the brilliant
mustache. “So we meet again, do we? What have you done with the
che-ild?”
Cotton, who had suspected himself to be in some way the subject of the
laughter that had greeted him, was restored to equanimity. He joined in
the laughter that followed and made himself comfortable on the bed.
“Where’d you get that thing?” he asked. “Let’s see how I’d look in it,
Duke.”
“Heaven forfend!” replied The Duke vehemently as he thrust it into his
pocket. “It wouldn’t become you, Charles, it really wouldn’t.”
Cotton smiled in the manner of one humoring a child or harmless lunatic
and turned to Merriwell. “How’s the team getting on?” he asked.
“Fair, thanks,” replied the captain without enthusiasm.
“Going to win on Saturday?”
“Hope to.”
“You’ll have to brace up your line, then. I was reading to-day that
Forest Hill has a wonderful attack this year.”
“What sort of an attack?” asked The Duke interestedly. “Not mumps, I
hope.”
“She’s got most of her last year’s team, hasn’t she?” asked Kendall
hurriedly.
“Blessed if I know,” answered Merriwell. “I guess Payson isn’t much
worried about it, though. I do hope we’ll trim Nordham, though,
fellows.”
“Oh, we’ll run away with her this year,” asserted Girard.
There was another knock on the door.
“Well, we’re some popular to-night,” said Gerald. “Come in!”
It was Harry Merrow. “Hello, everybody,” he greeted. “What is this? A
mass meeting?” Just then his gaze fell on Cotton and his eyes narrowed
suddenly, and for some time after he had perched himself beside Gerald
on the latter’s bed he continued to observe Cotton curiously across
the room. The conversation went on for a minute or two. Then Harry
whispered to Gerald, and the latter broke in with:
“Cotton, I believe you haven’t met Merrow. He’s in your class, by the
way. Sorry; I thought you knew each other.”
Harry reached over Girard’s head and shook hands with Cotton.
“Glad to know you,” he said. “We’ve met before, though, haven’t we?”
“I don’t think so,” replied Cotton. “I’ve only been here this Fall.”
“I mean before that,” said Harry. “Your face seems very familiar.”
“How about his manner?” asked The Duke innocently. Cotton flushed as he
took his seat again.
“That’s an old joke,” he said contemptuously.
“How dear to my heart are the jokes of my childhood,” chanted The Duke.
“When fond recollection presents them to view!”
Harry, looking polite and incredulous, sat down again, but every now
and then he shot a puzzled glance at Cotton. The latter, however,
appeared to have forgotten Harry’s existence after the introduction and
steadily kept his eyes away from that youth. Soon after, Merriwell and
Girard took their departure, followed later by Kirk and Simms. Cotton
stayed on until at last The Duke, giving Gerald a look of despair, said
good night. Cotton left with him, and as soon as the door was shut
Harry broke out:
“I’d give a thousand dollars to know where I’ve seen that fellow!” he
declared.
“That’s a lot of money,” yawned Gerald.
“Not if you say it quick. But honest, fellows, that chap bothers me.
I know I’ve met him before and talked with him, but I can’t imagine
where it could have been. You remember, Gerald, that day at practice I
told you he looked familiar? Well, I was right. There’s――there’s some
mystery about Cotton.”
“Oh, he probably looks like someone else,” said Gerald soothingly.
“Although, to be strictly truthful, Harry, I never saw anyone who
looked just like him!”
“He knew to-night that I recognized him,” mused Harry, “and he wouldn’t
look at me once. Well!” He moved toward the door. “I mean to find out.
Good night, fellows!”