THE SPY
However, Harry did not at once borrow The Duke’s red mustache and go
sleuthing. As curious as he was about Cotton, he was much too busy
these days to play detective, for, although he was pretty certain of
winning the cross-country race from Broadwood, Gerald wasn’t taking any
chances, and the way he and Andy Ryan kept the team on the go was a
caution.
The race was to be held, as usual, on the morning of the day of the
football game between the rivals, and over a course which might be
called neutral, lying as it did practically halfway between the two
schools. Broadwood Academy was situated some four miles from Yardley
on the other side of Greenburg and so far inland that at Yardley
they spoke of it humorously as a “freshwater college.” Broadwood was
slightly smaller than Yardley in point of enrollment, but for all of
that was an ideal rival, since she fought hard in every competition
and obligingly went down in defeat oftener than she triumphed. There
was no student now in Yardley who could recall a Broadwood victory on
the gridiron, although there had been some heart-breaking struggles and
alarmingly close scores. In baseball Broadwood was not so obliging,
although since John Payson’s advent at Yardley she had experienced
more defeats than victories. The rivalry between the two preparatory
institutions, both good ones, was healthy. Yardley fellows simulated
a contempt for the wearers of the Green that they really didn’t feel,
and Broadwood pretended similar sentiments toward the Blue. In reality,
however, each school entertained a deep-seated respect for the other.
While Yardley graduates were likely to go up to Yale to complete their
education, Broadwood traditions favored Princeton.
But while Broadwood usually excelled at hockey, garnered a full share
of the track and field honors, proved herself as good as her rival at
baseball, and accepted defeat on the gridiron only after the gamest
battles, she was weak at cross-country running and had been beaten each
of the few times that she had met Yardley. Gerald, who would have liked
to complete his hill-and-dale career and celebrate his year as captain
with a hard-fought victory, lamented Broadwood’s weakness this year.
“I wish we might give them a handicap,” he confided to Harry that
Saturday morning as they went back to the gymnasium after a two-mile
jaunt. It was the day of the Forest Hill game, and partly because it
seemed fair to let the cross-country runners witness the afternoon
contest and partly because it was advisable to accustom the team to
morning work, since the race was to be run in the forenoon, to-day’s
work had started at ten-thirty. Gerald seemed as fresh as when he had
started out, and save for the disks of red which had not yet faded
from his cheeks, one would never have suspected that he had led nine
others over approximately two miles of the hardest sort of going. Harry
Merrow, however, showed the pace. He had managed to finish fourth and
was rather proud of himself, although when Gerald had clapped him
on the back at the finish and congratulated him he had only smiled
depreciatingly.
“We might give them a quarter-mile start,” proposed Harry, with a
laugh, in response to Gerald’s remark. “But I don’t see why you’re so
anxious to get beaten, Gerald.”
“I’m not, but I’d like to have the race a really close one. As it is,
we’re just as likely as not to finish the first four men ahead of
them. I’m pretty certain we will if you run as well as you did to-day.”
“I ought to do three or four minutes better on the eighteenth,” said
Harry. “How far behind you was I to-day?”
“About six minutes. And I did as well within three minutes as I ever
did,” said Gerald.
Harry thought that over for a minute as they climbed the footpath that
affords a short cut to the gymnasium from the village road, and before
he had succeeded in figuring out what their relative positions would
probably be in the race Gerald introduced a change of subject.
“How do you think the campaign is going, Harry?” he asked.
“Campaign? Oh, you mean Kendall’s. Why, pretty well, I think. But I
hear that there’s a good deal of talk of making Crandall captain. He’s
pretty popular, you know. And a good player, too.”
“That so? I hadn’t heard it. Well, Howard’s a fine chap, and if our
candidate loses he ought to make a good captain. Have you heard talk of
any other fellows for captain?”
“No, I guess not. Fales would take it if he could get it. So would two
or three others. Pete Girard, for one.”
“He’d be a wonder,” laughed Gerald. “No, I guess it will be up to
either Howard Crandall or Kendall. You haven’t heard Kendall’s name
mentioned, have you?”
“For the captaincy? No, but I don’t hear much of the talk. But Kendall
has certainly made good so far, hasn’t he? I mean with the fellows.
They all seem to like him. If he’d get busy and pull off some brilliant
stunt this afternoon or next week, or win the Broadwood game with a
field-goal, I guess he could have the captaincy, eh?”
“I think so. Unfortunately, we can’t advise him to get off any
gallery plays. He wouldn’t if we did. Besides, a fellow can’t make
opportunities. All he can do is to grab them when they come. I hope,
though, that Kendall will put up a good game to-day. It’s time the
fellows began to consider him as a possibility. If they don’t we’ll
have to drop a hint pretty soon.”
“You’re a regular old politician,” laughed Harry.
“Say diplomat,” said Gerald. “It sounds more respectable.”
“Schemer is more like it,” responded Harry, as they entered the
gymnasium. “Something tells me that a shower is going to feel mighty
good.”
Half an hour later, when they rounded the front of Oxford, the Golf
Team was just setting off for Broadwood, after an early dinner, in a
three-seated carriage. George Kirk waved to them and then spoke to the
driver, and the carriage stopped. Kirk leaned out and called to Gerald.
“Say, Gerald, do something for me? Find The Duke; he’s at the
telephone, I think, and tell him never mind about New York; I’ll call
up this evening.”
“Never mind about New York, you’ll call up this evening. All right,
George; I’ll tell him. Good luck! Go to it and eat ’em alive!”
Kirk nodded and waved, and the carriage went on down the drive.
“I suppose,” mused Harry as he followed Gerald back to Oxford, “that
Kirk is just as much excited about his old golf match as you and I will
be about the race two weeks from now. Funny, isn’t it?”
“Funny?” repeated Gerald as he ran up the steps. “Why?”
“Oh, funny to think it matters who wins a golf match!”
“It’s evident you’re not a golfer,” laughed Gerald. “I’ll bet that if
George’s outfit gets licked this afternoon he will be like a bear with
a sore head! There’s The Duke in the booth.”
The long-distance booth was halfway down the main corridor of Oxford,
and, although it was rather dim, they could descry a figure behind the
glass. It was dinner hour and Oxford was otherwise quite deserted.
Gerald walked down the corridor, Harry sauntering behind.
“Hi, Duke! Kirk says never mind about New York!” shouted Gerald.
The Duke looked very angry and red-faced behind the window as Gerald
drew near, and was gesticulating wildly. He was also saying things, but
what they were Gerald was still too far away to hear.
“The Duke’s having a fit, Harry,” he announced interestedly. “Come and
watch him.”
“... Door ... lemme out....”
“What’s he saying?” asked Harry grinning as he realized The Duke’s
dilemma. Gerald shook his head.
“Can’t understand him. Can you? Seems quite worked up about something,
though.”
“Lemme out! Don’t be a fool! Can’t you see this blamed door’s stuck?”
And The Duke mouthed and grimaced behind the glass.
Gerald and Harry, maintaining a respectful distance, viewed him
gravely.
“Can’t get his number, I suppose,” said Harry sympathetically.
“Maybe he’s got hold of a live wire somehow. Anything wrong, Duke?”
“You open this door, Gerald! I’m suffocating in here!”
“He wants you to open the door,” explained Harry brightly. “But do you
think you’d better? He looks a bit dangerous, doesn’t he?”
“Y-yes,” responded Gerald doubtfully. “Perhaps we’d better have help in
case he gets――――”
But there was such a rattling of the door, such an assault on the side
of the booth that Gerald’s words were drowned. “I do hope he’s hung
up the receiver so that the operator can’t hear him,” said Harry. “It
might give the school a bad name.”
Gerald, at last taking pity on the prisoner, turned the door knob and
The Duke stumbled out, angry of countenance and incoherent of speech.
“Wish you’d get yourself locked up in that blamed thing,” he sputtered,
“and see how you like it! It’s ninety-eight in there, and you can’t
breathe! Why didn’t you open that door before? Wanted to be smart, I
suppose?”
“What’s the matter with the door?” asked Harry.
“It’s crazy, I guess. You can’t open it from inside to save your life.
It ought to be fixed.”
“Oh, I guess you didn’t go at it right,” said Harry soothingly. “Let me
try it.”
So Harry stepped into the booth and closed the door behind him, The
Duke’s expression of wrath changing slowly to a wicked grin. Harry
turned the knob inside and pushed. The door remained firm. Then he
tried again and with no better success. The Duke was thoroughly
enjoying himself now, applauding and encouraging. Gerald observed
smilingly. At last Harry gave it up.
“Can’t be did,” he announced from within in a smothered voice. “Open
her up, Gerald.”
Gerald looked inquiringly at The Duke and The Duke gazed questioningly
at Gerald. “Strange,” observed the latter, “that you can’t hear what he
says. Perhaps if he put his mouth to the keyhole――――”
“There isn’t any,” said The Duke.
“That’s so.” Gerald shook his head sadly. “I don’t see what he can do
then.”
Harry threatened them behind the glass. “You open that door, you silly
chumps! I want my dinner.”
“Did you get that?” asked The Duke.
Gerald shook his head. “Only a faint murmur. These sound-proof booths
are wonderful, aren’t they?”
“Marvelous! Who’d ever suppose that a person could be as near as that
and not be heard?”
Harry was now doing his best to kick a hole through the wooden
paneling, his expression an interesting mixture of amusement and
annoyance.
“Listen!” said The Duke. “I think I hear a tapping!”
“He is probably trying to signal to us, the way they do in the mines,
you know, when they’re imprisoned.”
“I know. They let food down to them through pipes somehow, don’t they?
I wonder if we could get his dinner to him anyway? We might telephone
it, perhaps.”
“If you don’t open this door,” announced Harry desperately, “I’ll break
the glass and you fellows will have to pay for it. Fair warning!”
“I hear a little better now,” said The Duke. “Perhaps he wants to come
out, Gerald!”
“I wonder! How stupid of us! I’ll bet that’s it, Duke. Suppose we open
the door and see.”
“Silly asses!” grunted Harry as he emerged, warm and disgusted.
“It makes an awful difference who the joke is on, doesn’t it, dearie?”
asked The Duke sweetly.
“Somebody ought to tell someone about that,” said Harry, “and have it
fixed.”
“And someone had better get into commons before someone loses someone’s
dinner,” replied The Duke. “You fellows been in?”
“No, we were on the way when Kirk asked us to find you and give you a
message.”
“He was in a rush and asked me to call up his folks in New York and say
he’d telephone this evening. Couldn’t get the house, though. Central
said they didn’t answer. I wonder if he knew about that door!”
“I don’t think so,” laughed Gerald as they ran up the steps of Whitson.
“He didn’t look to be in a very――very flippant mood.”
After dinner the three boys went up to Gerald’s room and loafed until
it was time to go to the game. They reached the field early, but found
the grand stand already nearly filled. Forest Hill School had sent over
nearly a half hundred rooters and these had taken possession of one
end of the stand and were already tuning up for the afternoon’s vocal
performance. A good many folks had come over from Greenburg and, of
course, Yardley had turned out to a man. The crowds was still streaming
on to the field when the Forest Hill team trotted past the corner of
the stand and crossed the gridiron to throw off blankets along the
further side-line. Gerald, Harry and The Duke were idling by the ropes
on the Yardley side when “Perky” Davis, the football manager, stopped.
Davis was a thin, light-haired youth with an habitual expression of
care and concern. Just now he seemed more worried than ever, and the
creases on his forehead were many and deep.
“Look who’s here, Gerald,” he said in a low voice.
Gerald’s gaze followed the manager’s toward the grand stand.
“Who, Perky?” he asked.
“Gibson, of Broadwood; the fellow who substitutes at guard. See him?
The big chap with the light gray overcoat and the derby hat, sitting
next to the Forest Hill crowd. He’s here to spy on us. Probably thinks
we won’t recognize him. I wish he’d choke. We were going to use four or
five new plays to-day, too. I’ll have to tell Payson.”
“I remember him,” said The Duke. “He’s got his nerve, hasn’t he? I
think he sees us looking at him.”
“Let him,” muttered Davis. “It’s just like Broadwood to send spies over
here.”
“Seen any more?” asked Gerald.
Davis shook his head, searching the throng suspiciously. “Not yet.
Maybe he’s the only one. They wouldn’t send more than one, I guess.
He isn’t much of a player, but they say he’s a mighty clever chap at
sizing up things.”
“Well, I suppose they have a right to do it if they want to,” said
Gerald. “And we can’t very well put him out, can we?”
“No, but he won’t learn much, because when I tell Payson he will shut
down on any new stuff. It’s too bad, though, because we need to try out
those plays.”
At that moment the Yardley team came on and the Yardley cheerers
started into action. “We’d better find some seats or there won’t be
any,” suggested Harry.
“Wait a minute,” said Gerald. Davis had hurried away and was speaking
to the coach. When he turned back Gerald hailed him.
“What did Payson say, Perky?”
“Asked me if I was certain, and I said I was. Then he nodded and called
Charlie and Bert. I guess they’re making over the programme.”
At a little distance Payson, Merriwell and Simms were in consultation.
The rest of the team had taken the field and the footballs were already
flying through the air.
“Someone ought to kick him out,” said Harry, fixing the Broadwood youth
with hostile regard.
“We might kidnap him,” suggested The Duke dreamily. “Anyone got a
gunny-sack handy? We could tie him up in it and drop him into the
Bosphorus――I mean the Wissining.”
“What we should have done,” said Davis, “is to have sent someone to
watch Broadwood play Nordham to-day. If it’s fair for them it’s fair
for us.”
“It’s extremely low-bridge,” replied The Duke disapprovingly. “Quite
reprehensible, whatever that may be. Also, fellows, if anything should
happen to him he’d have only himself to thank.”
“What’s going to happen to him?” asked Gerald, eyeing The Duke with
suspicion. The Duke only smiled carelessly.
“Why ask me? I don’t say anything is going to happen. I only say if
anything should happen――――”
“Oh,” murmured Davis disappointedly, “I thought perhaps you had a plan
to get rid of him.”
The Duke viewed him reprovingly. “Perky, if you want anyone put out of
the way you must do it yourself. I refuse to stain my hands with the
life blood of even a Broadwood fellow. I’m that particular!”
“Well, I hope he enjoys himself,” muttered the manager. “He won’t learn
much, anyway.” He nodded and hurried off, drawing his note-book and
pencil into sight. The Duke quietly beckoned Gerald and Harry toward
the entrance. Outside the three stood for several minutes with their
heads together. When they ambled carelessly back their countenances
were as innocent of guile as the faces of three babies. Only there was
a suspicious twinkle in The Duke’s eyes.
The grand stand being filled, the three found a space on the grass
near the rope and watched the two teams take their positions. It was a
clear, nippy Fall day, with a brisk northwest breeze quartering across
the field and streamers of white clouds scudding by overhead. Forest
Hill had won the toss and chosen the north goal. The whistle blew and
Fales kicked off.