CHARGE AND CONFESSION.
Among themselves the Fardale boys confessed that the rain had come just
in time to save them from defeat. Of course, many of them were confident
they would have won out had it held off until nine innings were played.
But had it delayed until the close of the fifth inning the score would
have been five to two in favor of Fairport.
“Talk about luck!” growled Don Roberts, as he accompanied Merriwell to
the hotel after the rain had ceased. “You fellows certainly had it in
that shower. Why, we had the game clinched!”
“You had a five-inning game clinched,” confessed Dick. “You certainly
worked hard, Roberts, old man, to play five innings before the rain
fell.”
“But, between you and me,” said Don, taking Dick’s arm, “we gained a lap
on you through the bad playing of one man on your team. You know whom I
mean.”
“I don’t put it onto any one man,” retorted the Fardale captain. “The
simple truth is that I was not pitching my game to-day.”
Roberts laughed.
“Our fellows were hitting well, Merriwell; but your shortstop made
several bad breaks. The only thing he did during the game was to get
that first two-bagger. And he spoiled it by trying to make three bases.
I don’t know how it looked to you, but, by George! it actually seemed to
me that he was trying to throw you fellows down.”
Dick shook his head.
“Darrell isn’t that kind of a chap,” he asserted. “He has always been
loyal to Fardale, and there is no reason why he should wish to see us
defeated.”
“All right,” said Roberts. “You know best.”
“I had to put him into the game to fill a gap. Our regular shortstop,
Gardner, was taken ill.”
“Well, take my advice, don’t fill any more gaps with Darrell. When are
we going to play this game off? Of course, we will have to do it some
time. We’re confident we can beat you this year, and we don’t want to
let the chance slip.”
“Why, I don’t know,” answered Dick. “Our dates are pretty well filled.”
“Then you had better make a date,” grinned Don. “Of course, if you’re
afraid——”
“You know better!” retorted Dick quickly. “Let me run over the schedule.
Let’s see!”
Then Dick mentioned the games Fardale had to play, and Roberts confessed
that for the rest of the season the cadets had their time pretty well
taken up.
“We might play you Wednesday,” said Merriwell.
“Next Wednesday?”
“Yes.”
“But we have a game for Wednesday. It is not very important, but we have
it arranged. We play a country team from Charlesford.”
“I am afraid that’s the only time we can meet you. If you’re so very
anxious to play us, isn’t it possible for you to cancel this engagement
with Charlesford?”
“Of course, we can do that,” admitted Roberts. “It won’t be much of a
game, anyhow, for those fellows are not in our class. We made a date
with them simply to fill in.”
“Then it looks like an easy matter to cut it out. What do you say,
Roberts?”
“I will cut it out, Merriwell, if you fellows will come here Wednesday.”
“How about expenses?”
“We will give you the same guarantee as to-day.”
Dick shook his head.
“It won’t do, old man. This rain cut our guarantee in two. According to
arrangements made, we can’t afford the expense. If you’re so anxious to
play us, you will have to give us a regular guarantee under any
circumstances, rain or no rain. We will do this by you if you will come
to Fardale.”
“By Jing, Merriwell! we can’t do it! We can’t afford it. We’re running
behind now. I am worrying about our bills. You see we had to give rain
checks to-day because the game was not finished.”
“Well, if you can’t pay us what we want to come Wednesday, why don’t you
accept my offer and take a like amount to come to Fardale? You know you
will be treated right there.”
“But the umpire——”
“Bring your umpire, if you want to,” said Dick. “This chap we had to-day
was all right. We’re satisfied with him. We will pay his bills, too. It
shan’t cost you a cent to bring him.”
Roberts clapped Dick on the shoulder.
“That’s generous, Merriwell!” he exclaimed.
“That’s a good, square offer! I think we’ll do it. I will try to let you
know before you leave. You can’t get a train for an hour. I will see
Hoffmore, our manager, and talk it over with him.”
“Do,” urged Dick.
At the hotel the Fardale boys spent the time while waiting for the train
in talking over the game.
One of the silent but interested spectators of the game had been Chester
Arlington. For once, at least, Chet made himself conspicuous by his
retirement. As Dick reached the hotel, however, Arlington stepped out
and came face to face with him on the steps.
To the surprise of the Fardale captain Chester said:
“See here, Merriwell, I suppose you’re onto this business to-day? You
must have your eyes opened by this time?”
“What do you mean?” asked Dick, unable to repress his surprise.
“Why, it was plain enough to everybody,” declared Chet. “That game was
thrown away, or would have been thrown away if it had been played out.
You have an idea that I am the only fellow in the school who has ever
done anything to injure you. But this very day the fellow you had
playing at short did his best to throw you down. I mean Darrell. He
wanted to see you beaten.”
“Stop, Arlington!” exclaimed Dick sharply. “You’re not the fellow to
make such a charge against any one.”
“It’s the truth,” declared Chet. “Don’t you believe it? Why, you ought
to see it’s the truth! You’re not blind!”
“Better not let Darrell hear you,” warned Dick.
“You refuse to believe?”
“Yes, I refuse to believe any clean, upright fellow like Hal Darrell
would stoop to such a trick. There is no reason in the world why he
should do it. What was his object? What could he gain by it? Don’t talk
to me like that, Arlington! Better keep your mouth shut!”
Chester stared at Dick a moment, then exclaimed:
“You do believe it! I can see you believe it! You just don’t want to
acknowledge it! You refuse to acknowledge anything bad about Darrell!”
“Get away from me, Arlington!” commanded the dark-eyed lad. “Don’t come
to me with any of your accusations! As I just told you, you are not the
chap to accuse any one. I wish to hear no more from you.”
With which Dick passed Chester and entered the hotel.
Now it happened Hal Darrell was sitting at an open window directly
above, and he had heard every word that passed between the two boys
beneath. At first his face turned pale, and he trembled with rage at
Arlington’s charge against him. When Merriwell refused to believe, and
defended him vigorously, his face softened and the look of anger turned
to one of shame. He drew back a little in order that he might not be
seen, yet listened until Dick entered the hotel, leaving Chester on the
steps.
Springing to his feet, Hal paced the floor, his hands clinched and his
appearance one of intense excitement.
“Arlington was right!” he muttered. “I did try to do it! Merriwell
refuses to believe it of me. I ought to be kicked! No matter what he has
said about me, I had no right to seek revenge in such a manner. I was an
idiot! No matter what he has said—how do I know he ever said it? I can’t
prove it. I can’t go to him and ask him. I’d like to get away from every
one! I am ashamed to look any of the fellows in the face!”
He had changed his clothes, and at the first opportunity he sought to
slip out of the hotel, thinking that he would wander off and stay by
himself until the time came to take the train. At the outer door he
suddenly paused, for on the steps was Chester Arlington, talking to
Doris, Zona, and Bessie.
“There wasn’t any luck about it,” laughed Chet. “With proper support
Merriwell would have won the game hands down.”
“With proper support!” cried Bessie Dale. “Didn’t he get proper
support?”
“Not by a good deal!” retorted Arlington. “One fellow on our team tried
to give the game away, and he succeeded pretty well, too. You know him.
Miss Templeton—you know him very well. I don’t have to call any names.”
“I don’t want you to call any names!” flashed Doris. “I don’t want to
listen to any of your insinuations, sir!”
“Oh, that’s all right,” chuckled Chet. “But I fancy you know enough
about baseball so you can see through it, when you think it over. Just
take my advice and think it over. Whose bad playing gave Fairport
several runs? Who might have won that game with a hit, and didn’t try to
hit the ball?”
Instantly Darrell stepped out, his face livid with rage.
“I presume you mean me, Arlington?” he grated. “Why don’t you make your
talk to me? Come out here where we are alone and repeat it!”
Instantly Doris seized his arm.
“No, no, Hal!” she exclaimed. “You shall not fight with him!”
“There’s no way out of it!” declared Hal fiercely. “I’ve got to thrash
him!”
“Not now! Not here, Hal! Please come with me! Please walk with me!”
She clung fast to his arm.
Arlington stood with his hands in his pockets, regarding Darrell with a
sneering smile. He seemed cool and indifferent.
Doris continued to urge Hal to accompany her, and he finally consented.
“Why should you pay any attention to him?” she asked, as they walked
down the street side by side. “No one will believe him.”
“It’s not that,” retorted Hal. “No fellow can stand for such talk about
him. Of course, I couldn’t hit him then, with you three girls present,
but I’ll get at him.”
“No one will believe it,” persisted Doris. “Let him go ahead and tell it
as much as he likes. It can’t hurt you.”
“He told Merriwell something a short time ago. I heard him.”
“But Dick won’t take any stock in it. Dick knows you too well, Hal. He
knows you were out of practice. He knows Arlington told an untruth.”
Hal shook his head.
“Doris!” he suddenly and fiercely declared, “the worst part of it is
that Arlington told the truth! I am ashamed of myself! I never did such
a thing before. You will despise me now, but I can’t help it. I did try
to throw that game!”
She shrank from him, and he saw her face pale.
“That’s right,” he said. “Hate me! Despise me! I deserve it! I don’t
suppose you will ever speak to me again?”
“Hal, how could you?” she murmured in distress. “No one else could have
made me believe it! I was full of doubts and fears, but I decided it
could not be possible.”
“Then even you suspected me? If you did, Doris, certainly all the rest
of the fellows must. They will think me a fine sort of chap now! They
will put me in the class with Chet Arlington! Any boy who will go back
on his school team is a mighty cheap sort of a duffer! Are you going
back to the hotel?”
“Not now, Hal,” she gently answered, as she took his arm. “I am going to
walk with you. You must tell me just why you did it.”
For some time they walked in silence along the street, coming at length
to the outskirts of the village, where they paused opposite an old gate,
upon which they leaned. Everything was fresh and green after the shower,
and the sweet breath of spring was in the balmy air.
“You know you can trust me, Hal,” said Doris. “And I know you didn’t
seek to betray your own team without cause.”
“But I can’t tell you the reason,” he protested. “It’s better that I
should not tell you. It will simply annoy you and hurt your feelings.”
“Instead of that, Hal, I feel confident that it would justify you in
some degree in my eyes. How could it annoy me?”
“Because you are concerned.”
“I?” she exclaimed in surprise.
“Yes.”
“How is that possible? Now, you must tell me. I will never be contented
until you do.”
Suddenly he turned and faced her, and in his eyes she saw the old-time
look of admiration, which he could not conceal.
“Doris, it would have been better for us had we never known Dick
Merriwell. You liked me before you met him.”
Quickly her hand fell on his arm.
“I liked you then, Hal, and I like you still.”
“But you are changed.”
“I don’t think so. You can’t seem to understand me, Hal. Frankly I
confess to you that I admire Dick, but I like you none the less.”
“Then why have you treated me in such a——”
“Hal, haven’t you any pride of your own? Certainly you have! Do you
fancy your father and my father patching up a match between us, just as
if we were creatures of wood and stone, and had no minds of our own?
That’s what I resented. If that had never happened——”
“And just because of that you are going to treat me as if you detested
me?”
“That is something I have never done. Far from detesting you, Hal—far
from disliking you in the least, I have never liked you better than
now.”
His face flushed and the eager light in his eyes grew.
“Do you mean it, Doris?” he whispered, bending nearer.
“I mean it, Hal.”
“Then he lied—he lied!” cried Darrell. “You never said it!”
“Never said what?”
“You haven’t heard the gossip at the academy. I didn’t mean for you to
hear it. They say this Merriwell boasted of cutting me out with you.
They said he told his friends you were glad to be rid of me—you were
tired of me. He told them you said so yourself. It was a lie, Doris?”
Her face was a trifle pale now, but she restrained herself and demanded:
“So that was the reason for your doing as you did to-day, Hal? Was that
all the reason?”
“No; he said more. He said that he was tired of you. That you couldn’t
hold a candle to June Arlington, and he wished to be rid of you. When I
heard it I would have fought him, but the one who told me pledged me to
secrecy. I have betrayed the secret now to you. I was looking for some
excuse to pick up trouble with Merriwell—something that would not
involve you. I was ready to do anything to quarrel with him without
bringing you into trouble. I fancied he would be furious with me to-day
and would take me out of the game. I didn’t believe he would leave me in
long enough, after seeing me play as I did, to let me lose the game.
That would have given me the excuse I sought.”
After a moment’s silence Doris said:
“Hal, I believe you made a serious mistake. Who told you that?”
“I can’t tell.”
“Can’t you tell me?”
“No, not even you, Doris, for I gave my promise I would never breathe
the person’s name.”
“Why should you believe such things of Dick Merriwell? You ought to see
it is not like him.”
“But you, Doris—don’t you fancy some of these things may be true?”
She turned her head away in order that he might not read the truth in
her face. She did not tell him that she had heard the same things, and
had been placed in such an embarrassing position that it was impossible
for her to learn the truth without sacrificing her pride. She did not
confess that her own mind had been filled with doubts and misgivings.
“We should not believe them, Hal, until we know beyond dispute that they
are true.”
“If they are—if they are, I will kill Dick Merriwell!” panted Darrell.
She well understood his passionate and revengeful disposition, and felt
that he might be led hastily into something he would ever after regret
in case he afterward found that the gossip of the school had no real
foundation of truth in it. She believed it her duty to prevent him from
any rash action and to hold him in check.
“Hal,” she said, “you must promise me you will have no trouble with
Dick—for my sake. I am not blind. I can see through some things. If I
have treated you shabbily, it was because of my pride. Let’s forget it.
Let’s let things be as they were long ago before we came to Fardale.”
“Do you mean it?” he cried eagerly.
“I mean it, Hal. We will be friends, just as we were of old. If there is
a shadow of truth in this gossiping talk, which I don’t wish to believe,
Dick Merriwell will soon see that he has made a mistake in thinking I
care—I will not speak to him. Promise me—promise me you will not
quarrel!”
“I promise, Doris,” he said earnestly. “We must walk back now, for we
cannot miss our train.”
When they arrived at the station, however, it was nearly train time, and
the Fardale boys were there, while the Fairport lads had come down to
see them off. There was a great crowd on the platform.
“Oh, here you are, Doris!” exclaimed Zona Desmond, as with Bessie Dale
she hastened to meet her friend. “We have been worrying about you.”
“No need of worrying about me,” laughed Doris. “Hal can take care of me;
can’t you, Hal?”
“I think I can,” he declared. And the light in his eyes and the look on
his face made such a change in him that Zona was astonished. Not only
was she astonished, but suddenly she grew worried; and, at the first
opportunity, while Doris was speaking with Bessie, she drew Hal a little
to one side and whispered anxiously:
“What have you been telling her? I hope you didn’t breathe a word of
what I told you. If you did she will never forgive me.”
“Don’t worry,” he retorted. “Whatever I have said, I have not mentioned
your name.”
“You mustn’t,” said Zona. “If you do I will never tell you anything else
as long as I live, Hal Darrell!”
“It is all right,” he again assured her. “Here comes the train.”
The train drew up at the station, and the Fardale crowd boarded the
cars, while the Fairport boys merrily bade them “so-long!”
“We will see you again Wednesday, Merriwell!” cried Don Roberts. “We
will finish the game then.”
“And we will give you the handsome trimming you so narrowly missed
to-day!” asserted Jack Ware.
“Anticipation is sometimes more satisfactory than realization!”
laughingly retorted Dick. “Look out that you are not disappointed
Wednesday!”
As the train pulled out the Fairport boys gave a lusty cheer, which was
answered from the open windows of the cars.
“Well, by juj-juj-juj-jingoes!” said Chip Jolliby. “I am
gug-gug-gug-glad of one thing: We’re not going home
bub-bub-bub-bub-beaten.”
“But we did come within a hair of it,” said Barron Black. “If we had not
lost Gardner——”
“’Ush, there is Darrell!” cautioned Bradley.
“I don’t care if he hears me!” said Black. “He came as near doing us up
to-day as possible, and I don’t believe he wanted us to win.”
“’E’ll fight hif ’e ’ears you,” said the cockney youth.
“He is too interested in Doris Templeton to hear anything,” asserted
Barron. “See how he is laughing and talking with her. Why, I haven’t
seen him that way for months! He has been sullen, and sour, and grouchy
all the time. What’s come over him so suddenly?”
“Fellers!” piped Obediah Tubbs, rising and waving his fat hands in the
air, “I perpose a little music; let’s sing—let’s all sing! Let’s sing
some classic air by some great composer!”
Up popped Ted Smart, who had been remarkably quiet.
“What composer is most noted of modern times?” he propounded.
“Give it up,” said some one. “What composer is the most noted?”
“Chloroform!” cried Ted, and promptly sat down.
“Somebody ought to give him a medal, by Jim!” squeaked the fat boy. “Why
does your mouth make me think of a tavern door? Give it up? He! he!
Because it’s always open.”
“That’s funny!” sneered Ted. “That’s dreadful funny, but you will have
to write it out for us. Wait until you have had a square meal. Why isn’t
it best to write on an empty stomach?”
“You tell,” invited Tubbs. “You’re so all-fired bright, go ahead and
tell why it isn’t best to write on an empty stomach.”
“Because there is plenty of paper to write on,” said Ted serenely.
“Hello, Darrell!” called Dick, “what is the best land for girls?”
“America,” answered Darrell promptly. “The girls of America beat the
world. You couldn’t tell of a better land for them.”
“Oh, yes, I can,” was the reply.
“Name it.”
“Lapland.”
There was a little burst of applause and laughter. When it subsided
Billy Bradley gravely asked:
“’Ow his that? Hi never ’eard there were prettier girls in Lapland than
hanywhere else.”
This caused another shout of laughter, and Billy scratched his head in a
puzzled manner, trying to discover the cause of the merriment.
Ted Smart looked sad and disgusted.
“See here, Dick Merriwell, you ought to be put in jail for that! That’s
stealing! I own the copyright on that conundrum! But I bet you can’t
tell the difference between a jeweler and a jailer.”
“One sells watches and the other watches cells,” answered Dick,
laughing. “Give us something new.”
“Confound you!” snapped Ted. “If I had a gun I’d use it on you! But,
speaking of guns, what does a seventy-four-gun ship and her crew weigh
with all on board?”
“What’s the answer?” laughed Dick. “What does she weigh?”
“She weighs anchor,” smiled Ted, satisfied at last.
“Great Cæsar!” exclaimed Jolliby. “These are coming fuf-fuf-fuf-fast!”
Immediately Smart bobbed up again.
“Speaking of Cæsar,” he said, “what proof have we that he was acquainted
with the Irish?”
“Hacquainted with the Hirish!” said Bradley. “’Ow was ’e? ’E couldn’t
’ave been!”
“History proves it,” asserted Ted.
“Hi don’t believe hit,” declared Billy. “What’s there in ’istory that
proves Cæsar was hacquainted with the Hirish?”
“Why,” grinned Smart, “after he crossed the Rhine, didn’t he come back
to bridge it?”
“What ’as that got to do with hit?” snorted the Cockney youth.
“Why, don’t you see, Sir William, he came back to Bridget.”
Again Billy was puzzled and confused. The fact that the boys were
laughing simply added to his bewilderment.
“Hi’d like to see one hof your blooming Hamerican jokes that ever had a
point to it!” he shouted. “Now, hif you want to get something really
funny you hought to read _Punch_, don’t y’ ’now.”
“I always read a copy just before attending a funeral!” said Smart. “It
makes me cry! It makes me sad for a whole day!”
Some one started a song, and the boys took it up. Earl Gardner was the
only fellow on the train who did not seem to be enjoying himself. Earl
was still ill, and he showed it plainly.
Suddenly, without the least warning, there came a jarring sensation and
a succession of crashes. The cars bumped and rocked, and then the entire
train left the track and plunged down a low embankment.
It had been derailed!