TO THE AID OF DADE MORGAN.
Jack Ready and the sophomores had rushed to Guilford by train with their
band, after Starbright’s departure from New Haven, and had easily beaten
him there, with plenty of time to spare. They returned by train, feeling
supremely joyous over their success.
Dick, however, in accordance with the terms of the wager, was forced to
wheel back to New Haven over the route he had come, again stared at and
questioned by the curious people along the road.
The leaden clouds thickened and darkened, portending a northeaster; but,
with the wind for a large part of the trip at his back, Dick sped
swiftly along, approaching New Haven well ahead of time.
On the outskirts of the city he came upon a sight that stirred his
blood. Dade Morgan, who had been out on a wheel accompanying Rosalind
Thornton, found himself confronted by a rough-looking man whose brutal
face was somewhat familiar to him, and who planted himself in the center
of the street as if to intercept him.
Dade was not particularly afraid of the man, but rather scorned him.
“Out of the way!” Dade roughly commanded.
He rang his bell furiously. Rosalind paled.
Seeing that the man did not mean to step aside, and having no desire for
an altercation with him in Rosalind’s presence, Dade veered his wheel to
pass. The man leaped at him, thrust a foot out in front of the wheel,
stopping it, and Dade was thrown heavily over the handle-bars.
Rosalind, who was close at his side, was also thrown to the ground,
though she saved herself from injury and skilfully alighted on her feet.
When Starbright saw this he set his pedals in still swifter motion, all
his chivalrous instincts aroused.
Dade scrambled up; but the man struck him a heavy blow which knocked him
backward.
“Dis is me time I git even wid you fer dat insult. See!” the ruffian
growled. “Ye insulted me t’other night, when ye hadn’t no call. Now I
pays ye back!”
Rosalind gave a scream of fright. Starbright, swinging forward like a
whirlwind, saw Dade dodge the next blow and grapple with the ruffian and
saw them begin a furious fight.
Dade, who was a good, hard fighter, had been weakened by his fall, so
that it was evident at a glance that he was no match for his burly
adversary. He struck savagely, however, and managed to release himself
from the man’s grip.
The tough now struck at him, using a big doorkey as brass knuckles, with
the amiable intention of cutting open the face of the “college dude.”
Morgan evaded this and landed a blow, but the fellow tripped him and
kicked him heavily as he fell.
Rosalind, screaming for help, ran to one side of the road. Dade jumped
to his feet again, and, managing to fasten on the tough, the two went
down together.
Then the whirring wheel stopped beside the struggling couple; and, as
the rough pulled loose and tried to strike Dade in the face with the
heavy brass key, a blow from Starbright’s big fist sent him reeling.
“Anodder college dude!” growled the ruffian, wheeling about. “Ye’ll
wish’t ye’d kep’ out o’ this!”
His hand went to his hip-pocket, but he found no weapon. Then he
gathered himself and made a spring at the newcomer. As a result, he ran
his face into the big fist on the end of a long, straight, stiffened
left arm. At the other end of the arm were something like two hundred
pounds of hard-trained muscle and over six feet of young manhood.
A feeling of jarring surprise penetrated to the evil brain. It was not
often that he ran against anything quite like that. He paused a moment
to stare his surprise; and Dick saw that he was a big, brawny fellow,
with heavy jaw, small head and piggish, wicked eyes, the type so often
found in the lowest slums of great cities, but seldom seen in New Haven.
The effect of that blow rendered the man cautious.
“Dis ain’t your cut in, young feller!” he snarled.
Then, thinking to take Dick by surprise, he struck out suddenly, with
the force of a piledriver. But his maul-like fist did not connect with
Dick’s face, and the force of the blow almost threw him to the ground.
Crack! Dick’s hard right fist sounded like the smack of a board striking
a house. The fellow reeled, but recovered. His head was like iron.
“W’en I gits me fingers onto ye, ye’ll wilt! See!”
He dodged Dick’s next blow and rushed in with the ferocity of a bulldog.
Dick stepped lightly aside; and the hard, white fist pounding the
ruffian on the jaw threw him senseless to the ground.
Dade Morgan, having regained his strength somewhat, was on the point of
coming to Dick’s assistance, but drew back when he saw the man senseless
on the ground.
“That was handsome of you, Starbright!” he acknowledged. “I’ll try not
to forget it.”
Rosalind tried to stammer her thanks, but the presence of the ruffian,
even though he was insensible for the moment, made her wildly anxious to
escape from the vicinity. Some people were approaching, those in the
lead seeming to be of the same type as the fellow knocked out.
Before their arrival the man was stirring into consciousness, making
Rosalind more than ever wildly anxious to proceed. So she and Dade
remounted and wheeled away.
“Perhaps the fellow is your friend,” said Starbright, speaking to the
man who arrived first. “If he is, look after him. He interfered with
that young lady and her escort, and got what he deserved!”
Then he, too, rode on into the city.
Having reported his return, Dick put away his wheel, and, feeling
tremendously hungry, went to a restaurant and had something to eat. It
was not until long after nightfall that he went to his rooms. The
sophomores had returned to New Haven by rail long before.
“Gone out nagging signs!” was the scrawl left for him on the table by
Dashleigh.
Dashleigh had not heard of what had befallen his chum on the trip to
Guilford, for the joke had been kept from the freshmen. The sophomores
had feared Starbright would learn of it through his freshmen friends;
and, besides the sophomores had other plans in store for making it
interesting for the men of the lower class.
After changing his clothing, Dick went out to give instructions for the
“dinner” he meant to give to Ready and other sophomores that night. When
he returned he encountered Dashleigh as the latter was about to ascend
to their apartments.
“What have you got tucked under your coat?” Dick asked.
“Sh!” Bert warned. “It’s a sign.”
“Nagging,” or stealing, signboards is, for some inexplicable reason, one
of the standard forms of amusement for freshmen. No one can tell just
where the fun comes in, unless it is found in imagining the stormy anger
of the storekeepers and others when they find their signs gone.
“Had a great time!” Dashleigh panted, as he and his chum hurried
up-stairs. “Never had more fun in my life. Ready was with us. Say, that
fellow is a corker!”
“What time did he get back?”
“Back where?”
“New Haven.”
“I didn’t know he was out of town. Anyway, he didn’t say anything about
it. We nagged a lot of signs this evening. Ready went along to put us
onto the thing right, you see. I hardly thought he’d favor freshmen that
way, but he was just as jolly about it; said he’d been a freshman not
long ago himself, and that he hadn’t forgot it.”
“What kind of a sign did you get?” Dick asked dryly.
He had cause to fear the “friendliness” of Jack Ready for unsuspecting
freshmen.
“The dandiest in the lot. It’s a new blacksmith’s sign, or a
blacksmith’s new sign, and it has a picture of a horse on it that is a
real work of art.”
They had arrived at their rooms, and Dashleigh carefully unbuttoned his
overcoat and took from under it the sign. He stared at himself and the
sign in comical amazement.
The sign had been freshly painted, and his clothing was coated with the
paint. In addition, he had slapped the picture of the horse up against
his dark new coat as he tucked the outer coat over it, and the
impression of the horse had been transferred to the coat. Starbright
could not help laughing.
“Seems to me it is literally a horse on you! That is more of Ready’s
work.”
“Why——”
Dashleigh looked from the paint to the red face of his friend.
“Jack Ready?” he gasped. “Say, did Jack put up a job on me?”
“He certainly did, and he put up another on me this afternoon.”
Dashleigh daintily put down the sign, stripped off his overcoat, and sat
flat down in a chair.
“Well, say, when I meet that fellow I’ll kill him! Don’t you suppose
there was a mistake?”
“Biggest kind of one!”
“What?”
“When we let ourselves forget that Jack Ready is a sophomore and we are
only freshmen.”
Dashleigh looked ruefully at his clothing and at the fresh red paint of
the sign. Then the humor of the situation came to him, and he smiled,
though the smile was somewhat ghastly.
“I’m an idiot!”
“Of course you are. We’re a pair of idiots!”
“What did he do to you?”
“Tell me about the sign first.”
“Well, you see, I’ve been wanting to go out nagging for several nights.
Jack heard of it, and he told me that he could give me some pointers. So
I spoke to some other fellows.”
“All freshmen?”
“Yep.”
“So I thought.”
“And Ready piloted us to-night. He showed me this beautiful sign in
front of the blacksmith’s, and told me that it had been up there only a
short time, and it would be a lovely one to nag.”
“It had been up there only a short time!”
“Confound him! I see it had. I thought it felt damp as I pulled it off
the hooks, but we had a few drops of rain this evening, and I supposed
that was the reason. Then I clapped the thing under my coat and fled
hitherward. And there the thing is. And my beautifulest suit is ruined.
Well, when I meet him I’ll kill him!”
“It will give a good job to some coat-cleaner. Better tackle the thing
yourself, while the paint is fresh. There is some benzine over on the
shelf.”
Then, while Bert Dashleigh tried to remove the paint from his clothing,
Starbright told of his race to Guilford and of the advertisements and
greeting given to the “Giant of the Wheel.”
“Say, we’ll have to murder that villain!” Dashleigh whispered. “I feel
to-night fit for treason, stratagem, and spoil.”
Nevertheless, after laboring with the suit and benzine for an hour, he
hung the sign against the wall, went out again, and, meeting Ready,
greeted him with great cheerfulness.
“Thanks for the sign!” he murmured. “I’ve hung it on our wall, and
intend to have it framed as a memento of our adventure.”
Ready grinned.
“That blacksmith will be tearing mad in the morning. His sign hadn’t
been hanging there long.”
“Confound you! Don’t I know it hadn’t? That blacksmith never saw that
sign in his life, and he never will!”
“It had a beautiful steed on it!” Ready purred.
“A sort of transfer picture! I transferred it to my coat!”
Then they adjourned to Traeger’s and buried the hatchet, after which
Ready betook himself to the dinner which Starbright was giving to the
sophomores.
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