CHAPTER XXVI.BOUND FOR FARDALE.
“Well, Abe,” said Captain Wiley, as the train on which they were traveling approached Fardale, “it strikes my acute perception that we must be drawing near our goal. This gang of salubrious young bloods in the car are evidently going to Fardale. However, by their appearance to my optical vision and from the conversation that is trickling from their lips, and tickling the tympanum of my ears, I am led to infer that they are members of a baseball team, together with a number of enthusiastic rooters. It strikes me that there will be a little baseball doing in Fardale this afternoon, on which occasion we will take in the sport, my boy—we will take in the sport. There will be but one drawback. Little Walter will have to sit still and see others perambulate over the diamond and swat the ball on the trade-mark.”
“Fardale!” exclaimed the hunchback, his eyes glowing. “I have heard so much about it! And Dick is there!”
“Yes, beyond question we shall encounter Richard Merriwell at Fardale. It will be a surprise to him, Abe. I know that he will palpitate with joy when he beholds our beaming countenances.”
“And Frank is coming soon?”
“As soon as he can. He said it was possible he might arrive almost as soon as we did. I have in asecret chamber of my cranium a conviction that Frank Merriwell himself will soon again be seen upon the baseball field. Abe, he is a wiz! He is the greatest pitcher this grand and glorious country has ever produced. When he sends the sphere whirling through the atmosphere and causes it to cut curious capers, the batter who faces him invariably hits nothing solider than the empty ozone.”
“Frank has been kind to me,” murmured Abe. “But I did fear I might never see him again when those men seized me and carried me away in Kansas City.”
“There was where Little Walter got in his fine work. I trailed them to their lair and then sicked Merry on them. It was a fine piece of business he did. There was but one fizzle to the affair. The gent named Jarvis, who was at the bottom of the infamous plot, managed to escape. Either he or one of his tools in the house turned off the lights. In the darkness he shot Bill; but when the lights flared again luminously, he had vanished like a spook into thin air. With the assistance of Bial Keene, Frank is doing his best to again get track of Mr. Jarvis and to learn why you were kidnapped. He will do it, too, my boy; mark that!”
“It’s so different here in this part of the country,” said the hunchback, as he gazed from the car window at the flying landscape. “It doesn’t seem like the country I know. There are such fine houses and such big towns! I am afraid in the cities, cap’n. There are so many, many people. I didn’t think there could be half so many people in the whole world.”
“And I don’t think you have seen half the peoplethere are in this little old world,” said Wiley with a smile.
In the car with them the youthful members of the baseball team joked, and laughed, and sang. Just ahead of them sat two young chaps, who were earnestly discussing baseball; and now Wiley became interested in their conversation.
“If we win to-day,” said one, “it will be the first time Fardale has been defeated this season by a school team.”
“Oh, we are going to trim them to-day, Andy!” confidently asserted the other. “It’s all settled.”
“You think it is all settled, Paul,” said Andy. “But the game is not so easily settled with Dick Merriwell against us.”
“My dear fellow,” chuckled Paul, “we have everything on our side this day. Even the umpire will be with us; but keep it quiet—keep it quiet!”
Wiley pricked up his ears and listened more intently.
“How do you know the umpire will be with us?”
“That’s all right. Nort Madison is out for Fardale’s scalp on this occasion, and he has left no stone unturned to accomplish the trick. We even know Merriwell’s system of signals from the box.”
“Do you mean to tell me that Madison has things fixed with the umpire?”
“Oh, Nort is too clever to fix things himself; but he has arranged it all right. If that old game is close toward the end, we will get the favors, and don’t you forget it!”
“Merriwell’s signals?”
“Why, he has had it fixed so every member of his team knows the kind of a ball he will pitch from his movements, or from the position he assumes. For instance, if he intends to throw that nasty combination ball of his, he gives a hitch at his trousers with both hands. When he is going to throw a drop, just before toeing the slab he stands for a moment with his feet both planted squarely together. When he lifts both hands above his head with the ball hidden in them, he is going to throw an outcurve. For an inshoot he settles on his right foot with a little jerking movement. And so on.”
“How did Madison find out all those signals?”
“That’s all right, my boy. Merriwell has a great many friends at Fardale Academy, but he likewise has an enemy or two. His enemies would dearly love to see him batted out of the box.”
“One of his enemies gave away those signals, eh?”
“That’s about the size of it.”
Wiley settled back in his seat. The look on his face was one of deep disgust.
“Is that the way they play baseball in these parts?” he muttered. “I have done a few questionable things myself in my abbreviated span of life, but a chap who will give away the signals of his own team ought to be presented with a nice, beautiful coat of tar and feathers.”
“If they know those signs they will be able to beat Fardale to-day, won’t they?” anxiously whispered Abe.
“Not on your tintype!” retorted the sailor. “LittleWalter will lose no precious moments in putting Richard Merriwell wise on what’s doing.”
The two lads in front of them continued their conversation.
“Merriwell has always had enemies in this school, hasn’t he?” said Andy.
“The same as any fellow who is unusually successful,” nodded Paul. “But he has one now who is more powerful and determined than his former enemies.”
“Do you mean Chester Arlington?”
“That’s his name.”
“Arlington!” whispered Wiley. “Jot it down in your memory, Abe. He is the crooked duck we have to keep our optics on.”
Ahead of them, at a little distance, a flush youngster was offering to give odds that Franklin would defeat Fardale that day.
“You must have money to burn, Tommy,” laughed a friend.
“I have,” declared the one called Tommy, as he flourished a small roll of bills. “I will bet two to one we beat Fardale for fair!”
Immediately Wiley popped up.
“Tom, I will provide you with a match, as long as you have legal tender to combusticate. I have a few germ-infested dollars which I am willing to risk on the result of this baseball game.”
Tom seemed surprised.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Me! I am nobody but a rover of the briny deep. I am a sailor, and to me baseball is an unknown quantity. I never saw a game in my life, but I am willingto take any kind of a bet—almost—when the odds are two to one. So, Tommy, my dear, pick out the honorable gent who will hold the stakes and stick up as much cash as you like. I will cover it with half as much, and my bet goes that Fardale beats you to a crisp to-day.”
Wiley’s words and manner seemed to amuse the boys in the car, for they laughed uproariously and urged Tom to get after the money.
Tommy was not really anxious to bet, but thus encouraged by his comrades, he placed his money in the hands of his companion.
“Now make good!” he cried, nodding at Wiley. “I don’t believe you have ten dollars in your clothes.”
“It’s plain you are of a skeptical disposition,” said the sailor. “However, I will soon alleviate your skepticism.”
Saying which, he plunged a hand into his pocket, and drew forth a wad of bills.
“How much have you ventured, Tom?” he asked.
“Thirty dollars,” boldly retorted Tom.
“Only thirty? Dear me! I was looking for a hundred or so from you. Why, fifteen dollars doesn’t begin to make a hole in my pile. Here it is, and just gaze on this package I have remaining. Now, my sporty young gentlemen, if there are others among you who wish to help along the good cause by similar bets, I will be delighted to take everything offered as long as my money lasts. Smoke up, youngsters—smoke up!”
He stood laughing at them in a manner that was most provoking.
“Is it possible?” he exclaimed. “Can it be that the betting is all over and I am to win only a measly thirty plunks! It is a shame! I had fancied you fellows had more nerve. Can’t you scrape up a few coppers among you?”
Thus challenged, the boys felt their pride assailed, and straightway they began forming a pool. By doing this they raised nearly fifty dollars, which was placed in the hands of the stakeholder, and Wiley put up an amount equal to half of it.
“This is assuredly a snap!” he declared. “To-morrow I will celebrate on my winnings. I will open a bottle of sarsaparilla and buy a pint of peanuts.”
“You must be a dead-game sport!” sneered one of the boys. “Where do you hail from?”
“I hailed, rained, or snowed from any old place. Of late I have been out into the wild and untrammeled West, hobnobbing with cowboys, redskins, and rattlesnakes. Indeed, I acquired a habit of sleeping with two or three rattlesnakes in my bed every night. That’s a handy habit to have, for it gives a chap an excuse to absorb whisky. It was a dull and uneventful day that passed without my being bitten two or three times by a rattlesnake. I am a temperance man by principle and it became extremely worrisome to me to be compelled to thus often fill my system with alcohol. I was troubled with the fear that I might acquire the habit, and outside a rattlesnake country no person has ever seen me under the influence of liquor. Down in dear old Camden, Maine, I am worthy chief of the Good Templars.”
By this time every one in the car seemed interestedin Wiley, and soon he was relating some of his marvelous yarns, to which they listened with amusement and wonder. He kept this up until the train whistled for Fardale.
“Here we are, cap’n!” excitedly whispered Abe, seizing his sleeve and pulling him down into the seat. “We’re almost there!”
As the train drew up at the station they looked out and saw on the platform a great crowd of cadets, who promptly began to cheer. The Franklin boys piled off in a hurry and were received with demonstrations of enthusiasm.
In the midst of this excitement Wiley and Little Abe were unnoticed.