CHAPTER XIII.TREACHEROUS URIC.
Of course, all Fardale Academy soon knew what had happened to Uric Scudder, the story being repeated and told in various forms, and it seemed that the entire academy fell to laughing over it. It appeared to be the universal opinion that the fellow had met his just deserts, and no one seemed to express sympathy.
Thus it came about that the nickname of "Eggs" was applied to Uric from all sides. Dick Merriwell’s appellation stuck.
Scudder was filled with mortification and fury. Whenever he appeared on the grounds where the boys were gathered to chat during intermission he was gravely addressed as "Eggs." If he objected to that, perhaps he was called "Chickens," or "Cluck-cluck," or something equally as irritating. As he hurried past one group a boy commenced to cackle like a hen, while another crowed in imitation of a rooster.
"Merriwell is to blame for it!" he panted, after repeated experiences of the sort. "And I have to room with him!"
With his heart filled with fury and his face flushed with shame, Uric hurried to his room. A sentry inthe corridor, pacing slowly up and down, clucked like a setting hen.
Scudder fairly tore into his room. There sat Dick Merriwell, studying, by the window. Without a word, Uric caught up a chair and swung it over his head in a fury of passion uncontrolled, intending to strike Dick unawares.
The chair was caught and twisted from his grasp. At the same time he received a blow under the ear that sent him against the wall with a bang.
"Don’t try that kind of a game here!" exclaimed the harsh voice of Hugh Douglass, whom Uric had not observed, but who had been dusting the room, it being his week as room orderly.
Douglass was not a handsome chap, and he looked uglier than ever just now, as he glared at Scudder.
Dick Merriwell had turned like a flash and was looking on.
"What’s the matter, Douglass?" he asked.
"This fellow was going to hit you with a chair," answered Hugh. "He just came in and caught up a chair quick as a flash, but I don’t think he saw me."
"Why should he hit me?" said Dick.
"You know why!" panted Scudder. "You are to blame for it all! You’ve done everything you could to humiliate me since coming here! Now, you have all the fellows calling me Eggs! You are the one, Merriwell!"
A flash of scorn came to Dick’s dark eyes.
"That is the way you reason, Scudder. You do not pause to consider that you brought it on yourself. I know a few things about you that I have never told. I know that within a week after entering this academy you were playing the sneak and the traitor to your class. You were carrying tales to the yearlings."
"It’s a lie!"
"If you were worth it, I’d make you swallow that! You know it is true. I know it! I know you met Singleton and several others of the yearlings in the Wolf’s Den within a week after entering school, and there plotted to do me up. The result of that plot was a little fight in Chadwick’s pasture one night, and you had to meet me first. If, at the time, I had known as much as I do now, I’d have used you rougher than I did."
Scudder could not deny the accusation, and he inwardly confessed that Merriwell seemed to have a way of finding out every move made and every word spoken against him.
"That old sneak of an Indian told you!" he snapped. "Somebody ought to shoot him!"
Dick smiled grimly.
"He’s a bad chap to fool with, Scudder, as you and your sort have already discovered. Better let him alone. In fact, in the future, you had better mind your own business and let me alone. You will bebetter off, for I shall get mad pretty soon, and when I get mad I may hurt you. Let him alone, Douglass. He won’t do anything. I doubt if he would have had courage enough to strike me with the chair when I wasn’t looking."
And Dick Merriwell coolly sat down and resumed study.
"Better take heed," said Douglass. "Because if he doesn’t soak you by and by, I shall. You ought to be fired out of Fardale."
"That’s what you’re all working for!" flung back Uric. "But you won’t succeed in getting me out."
"You’ll succeed in getting yourself out if you keep on," declared Hugh, resuming his work of putting the room in order.
All this simply served to make Scudder more malicious than ever. While he feared Dick Merriwell, he continued to seek to devise some means of hurting the popular young plebe, for Dick was becoming popular.
It was Dick’s work on the football-field that was fast making him popular, something Scudder well understood. If Merriwell could keep at it as he had begun, he would make such a record at football as few of his years ever accomplish.
So Uric desired to injure Dick somehow in the way of football. Fardale was to play Hudsonville at Fardale the following Saturday, and on Friday morningJack Glennon, of the Hudsonville team, received the following letter:
"Mr. Jack Glennon."Dear Sir: If you will meet me in Fardale at half-past nine o’clock Saturday morning, I will tell you how to defeat the Fardale Academy team. I have particular reasons for wishing Fardale to lose, and I believe you are the one who can fix it so that Hudsonville will surely win if you follow my tip. By Saturday I expect to know all about the new plays Fardale is learning in secret practise. You can reach Fardale on the nine A. M. train, and I will be at the post-office at half-past nine. I know you by sight, and will speak to you. I will not sign my name to this, as it might fall into hands for which it is not intended. Be sure to meet me in Fardale as directed."
"Mr. Jack Glennon.
"Dear Sir: If you will meet me in Fardale at half-past nine o’clock Saturday morning, I will tell you how to defeat the Fardale Academy team. I have particular reasons for wishing Fardale to lose, and I believe you are the one who can fix it so that Hudsonville will surely win if you follow my tip. By Saturday I expect to know all about the new plays Fardale is learning in secret practise. You can reach Fardale on the nine A. M. train, and I will be at the post-office at half-past nine. I know you by sight, and will speak to you. I will not sign my name to this, as it might fall into hands for which it is not intended. Be sure to meet me in Fardale as directed."
Now, Glennon was the big center-rush of the Hudsonville team, and his record was none too clean. His playing the previous season had caused vigorous protests from many of the teams encountered by Hudsonville, and Scudder had picked him out as a fellow who would do pretty nearly anything to win a game, hence the letter.
Glennon quickly decided to meet the writer in Fardale and find out what it all meant. Therefore, he reached the academy town ahead of the Hudsonville team on Saturday, and hung about the post-office. But nine-thirty came and passed, and Glennon began to think the whole business was a hoax.
"I’ve been fooled!" he muttered, in disgust. "Bet a dollar some of the Fardale gang are around laughing at me this minute."
A boy in uniform passed him and walked to the delivery-window, at the same time looking sharply around. Glennon was going out when the uniformed lad touched his arm, saying in a low tone:
"I wrote that letter. Follow me."
It was Uric Scudder.
When they were outside Glennon started to walk along beside Uric, but in a low tone the latter quickly said:
"Better not let people see us together. Lots of these townies take in the matches. Somebody might have something to say. Just chase me up till it’s safe for us to chin. I’ll give you the tip."
Scudder walked away in a careless manner, and Glennon followed at a little distance. In this manner they left the main street of the village and proceeded toward The Harbor, which was the poorer part of the town. Scudder knew there was little danger that any one from the academy would see them there. Coming to an old lumber-yard, he stopped and waited for the follower to come up.
Glennon sauntered up, a grin on his face.
"What is this deal, anyhow?" he demanded. "What kind of a game are you putting up on me?"
"No game at all," said Uric quickly. "Come round here behind this pile of lumber."
"Now, if you’re up to tricks——" began the chap from Hudsonville.
"Forget it. Come on. Somebody might happen along the road."
Prepared for anything, Glennon followed. When they were behind the lumber-pile Uric said:
"We can sit down here and talk it over. Haven’t much time, for I must get back to the academy in short order."
They sat down, and the traitor produced cigarettes, which he offered to the other, who refused them, with a curl of his thick lips.
"I’m in training," said Glennon.
"Oh, what’s the odds!" from Uric. "All this business about training is mostly rot. Lots of fellows in training smoke on the sly."
"The more fools they!" declared the Hudsonville chap.
"It isn’t your conscience that keeps you from smoking?"
"No; it’s my sense. A man who smokes cigarettes right along has no business trying to play football. Now, what did you mean by the letter you sent me, if you sent it?"
"I sent it, all right, and I meant just what I said."
"You promised to tell me how we could defeat Fardale in the game this afternoon."
"Yes."
"Well, I confess that you aroused my curiosity, and I got a notion to hear what you had to tell. But I can’t see why you should wish to give anything away, for you’re a Fardale man."
"And a chap I hate worse than poison is on that team," said Uric, rubbing his narrow chin with his fingers. "I am ready to do anything to down him."
"Oh, that’s it. Well, Fardale has been pretty lucky this year. She never started off so strong before. In fact, we’ve reckoned Fardale as easy meat in the past; but I’m willing to acknowledge that she worried us a little by downing Rivermouth. If it hadn’t been for that, no attention would have been paid to your letter. We beat Rivermouth to open the season, but it was by a fluke. If it hadn’t been for that fluke, they would have held us for a tie game. They’ve got a fierce old team this season, and everybody our way expected they would wipe up the earth with you chaps. When you beat them we had fits. Now, if you can give us a tip that will make it easy for us to walk over Fardale, I shall be much obliged. Does that pay the bill, or are you looking for dough?"
"I want no dough. All I want is for you to rub it into Fardale hard. The fellow I hate was the fellow who beat Rivermouth, and he’ll beat you to-day ifyou don’t take my tip. His brother is coaching the team, and——"
"So that’s it!" exclaimed Glennon. "You’re talking about Dick Merriwell?"
"You’ve heard of him?"
"I guess yes! We knew there was something doing when we heard Frank Merriwell was coaching Fardale. Then came the stories of the doings of this Dick Merriwell. He must be a holy terror."
Scudder turned almost green.
"Now, wouldn’t it kill you to death to have a fellow like him get a reputation!" he snarled. "He’d never made the team this year if Frank Merriwell hadn’t been coach."
"But he can play the game, can’t he?"
"He has devilish luck—or something," said Scudder. "I never saw anything like it. He gets all the chances."
"You said something about new plays Fardale has been learning in secret practise. Now, if you can tell me what those plays are, it will make us wise, and we’ll be ready for them."
"I’m sorry," confessed Uric; "but I haven’t been able to find out much about them. I thought I’d get onto them, all right, but I’ve had hard luck."
"Then you don’t know what they are?" asked Glennon, in disappointment.
"No."
"Well, what are you going to tell me?" growled the displeased Hudsonville chap. "What’s all the guff you gave me in the letter?"
"I’m going to tell you how to win the game," said Uric positively, "even though I can’t tell you the plays, as I hoped to do."
"Go ahead."
"There’s just one way to do it."
"That is?"
"Play Merriwell to a finish early in the game. They say you’re pretty good at putting men out of the game when they prove too troublesome."
"Well, I have done such a thing," admitted Glennon, with a grin that was far from pleasant.
"Do it again! Put your whole team onto the trick. Aim right at Merriwell from the start. Break his legs, collar-bone, neck, any old thing; but be sure to put him out of the game for good. I’d be happy if you could fix him so that he’d never play football again."
"You must hate him some!"
"Why shouldn’t I? But you don’t know my reasons. You may think me a pretty mean fellow to turn against my own team this way," said Uric sadly, "but that is because you know nothing of my reasons. I never harmed this chap Merriwell, but he has done everything in his power to disgrace me and drive meout of the school. He has abused me, lied about me, and everything else from the very start. Oh, he’s the meanest chap on two legs! They say that Frank Merriwell is a pretty decent fellow, but it’s certain his brother is not much like him. Of course, Frank Merriwell stands up for his brother, because he is his brother. But Dick Merriwell will do anything mean or low to hurt a chap he hates. I’m not going to tell you all he has done to me, because——"
"No need of it," cut in the other. "I didn’t come here to hear about your personal troubles. But is this tip the only pointer you can give me?"
"It’s enough—if you follow it. Do up Dick Merriwell, and you’ll surely win the game. Fail to do him up, and he’ll find a way to beat you, even if you have a lead up to pretty near the last of it. Mark what I say; he’ll find a way to beat you, and he will be the one to do the trick. Just promise me that you’ll put him out in short order, and I’ll have some courage to see the game. If you won’t promise that, I’ll hardly care to watch it, for I know what he’ll do."
"Well, don’t you worry," said Glennon, in a significant way. "We’ll be pretty sure to put anybody who is dangerous out of business. If you really want to see Fardale beaten as bad as you pretend, just be sure to watch the game this afternoon. That’s all I have to say."
"All right," nodded Scudder, with satisfaction, risingto his feet. "I’ll be on hand. And I’ll look for you to knock Merriwell out inside of ten minutes after the game begins. Of course, you know how to do the trick without being disqualified."
"Leave that to me," said Glennon, also rising.