CHAPTER V.BAFFLED.
Defarge crouched behind some rocks and bushes which grew near the top of a high ridge of ground. Some distance below him, running parallel with the ridge, was the road along which he knew the baseball men must come on their way back to town. It was rather dark down there, but the crouching youth could see the road when he lifted his head and peered down.
In his hands Defarge had a large, jagged rock; in his heart was a design so dark that he dared not meditate upon it.
Although it was cold, he felt perspiration starting out upon his face, which he mopped with his handkerchief. He told himself that he was justified in doing anything in his power to down Frank Merriwell, for had not Merry once brought about his disgrace and nearly caused his expulsion from college?
He did not pause to consider that it was through Frank’s generosity alone that he still remained at Yale. Had he reasoned calmly he must have known that any other man might have exposed him fully and compelled him to leave.
Hark! They were coming! He heard the beat of running feet far along the frozen road. It was likelythat Merriwell would be among the very first, for of old Frank had often led the squad on the return trip to the gym.
The crouching lad quivered in every limb.
“He disgraced me before them all!” he panted. “He made me the laughing-stock of the college! No man can do that to a Defarge and escape! I’ve waited a long time, but I’m going to fix him now!”
He gripped the jagged rock with feverish intensity and peered along the darkening road. The sound of running feet came nearer.
“Hello, Merriwell!”
Some one of the runners was hailing Frank.
“Hello!” sounded still clearer in the unmistakable voice of the captain of the nine.
“Take the Blake road.”
“All right.”
“Merriwell is leading, as usual!” panted Defarge. “Here he comes!”
A dark figure was coming swiftly down the dusky road. With the stone in both hands, Defarge crouched and watched, every muscle taut, every nerve quivering.
“He’s some rods ahead of the next man,” he thought. “He’s played right into my hands.”
The figure was plainly that of Merriwell. Defarge straightened a little and lifted the stone. In a moment the unconscious young athlete would be directly beneath the revengeful scoundrel on the ridge.
“Now!” Defarge panted the word as he swung thestone over his head with both hands, and hurled it with murderous aim straight at the head of Merriwell.
There was a thud, and he saw Frank go down and lay outstretched upon the ground.
“I’ve done it! I’ve done it!”
With that awful thought filling his heart, the wretch crouched behind the bushes and ran quickly back along the ridge, passing over it and disappearing.
Hidden from view, he ran as swiftly as he could back along the course of the road down which the baseball men had come. Pretty soon the ridge sunk and he was in a piece of thin timber, through which he pressed till he came to the road itself.
He halted amid some trees to let several men pass, and then he sprang out into the road and started along in the same direction as if he had been in the procession all the time.
“Now let any one prove that I did it!” he laughed to himself. “I took nobody into my confidence, and there is no proof against me. It’s a job well done.”
As he approached the spot he was not surprised to find the men ahead of him had stopped and were gathered in a group.
“They’ll take him in on a stretcher,” thought Defarge.
He came up, breathing heavily, as if he had been running all the while.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, as he approached. “Anybody hurt?”
“Hello, Defarge,” said one of the men. “You’ve made good time to-day. You’re usually a tail-ender.”
“Anybody hurt?” persisted Bertrand, coming up and stopping. “What hashappenedhappened?”
“Oh, nothing much,” was the answer. “Merriwell’s got a nasty fall, that’s all.”
“That is not all!” declared a voice that caused Defarge’s heart to stand still, for it was that of Frank Merriwell himself. “My fall was nothing, but I’d like to know where this huge stone came from, for I know it whizzed past my head just as I tripped and went down.”
Beneath his breath Defarge muttered an oath.
Frank was absolutely unharmed, for, being in perfect condition, the shock of the fall over a stone which he had not seen in the road affected him to no perceptible extent.
Indeed, when a man is in the best physical condition, ordinary falls, that seem to jar and severely injure the untrained, are not noticed at all. Sometimes a man may, in perfect condition, receive shocks and sustain falls which naturally would break the bones of the unprepared and still escape without any apparent harm.
Thus it is that exercise, physical training, and muscle-building prepare those who follow faithfully the upbuilding of the body for all the hardships they may have to encounter in life.
“The survival of the fittest” is a law of nature that has been in full sway since the dawn of creation, andmodern conditions have simply seemed to emphasize its unyielding rigidness.
A weakling might have been severely, even fatally, injured by the fall that had not harmed Merriwell at all.
Sometimes men die from the effects of shocks which trained athletes would have withstood without great distress.
Thousands of weak-backed, narrow-chested, scrawny-necked men are swiftly wearing away their lives in offices and stores and other places of business when, had they known and respected the laws of health, they might be strong, and robust, and healthy.
They will stand up to their tasks as long as the candle of life flickers and flares in their wrecked bodies, but one by one they will lie down and die long before there is any need of it, had they paid the slightest attention to the demands of nature.
Frank Merriwell had not been born strong and healthy. His mother was an invalid, and he had inherited a weak body. But, fortunately, he had been given brains with which to think and reason. And he had used those brains! That was the best part of it.
Having found that others had acquired health by exercise and by obeying the laws of nature, he had made a resolve to do the same. He was stubborn, and, having made such a resolve, he kept at the work day after day, week after week, year after year.
What a glorious reward was his! From a weakboy he had become a strong, supple, superb youth, a typical young American of the very highest class, and all by his own efforts! Was not the reward sufficient for the effort?
It had not always been by chance, as on this occasion, that his enemies had failed to wreak upon him the injuries they sought to inflict. Had he been weak they must have succeeded many times. But one by one they had fallen before him, and he remained triumphant and unharmed.
“The fellow bears a charmed life,” thought Bertrand Defarge. “It’s no use—he can’t be harmed!”
Once more he felt for his handkerchief to wipe from his face the beads of cold perspiration that started forth; but the handkerchief was not in the pocket where he fancied he had thrust it.
“Where could the stone have come from?” Bert Dashleigh was asking. “You don’t suppose——”
“Hello, Defarge!” exclaimed one of a little bunch of men that came up. “How the dickens did you get ahead of us? We thought you behind with the tail-enders.”
“What’s the matter here?” asked another, and, to Bertrand’s relief, they all pressed forward to learn what had happened.
That saved Defarge from answering an unpleasant question and explaining how he came to be ahead of those men.
But Bart Hodge had heard the question and had noted that no answer was given.
When the men started on again, Bart was at Merry’s side. He soon found an opportunity to say, using a guarded tone:
“You still have some enemies, Frank—or an enemy, at least.”
“Then you think——”
“Of course! Somebody tried to knock your brains out with that stone.”
“I don’t like to think that,” declared Frank. “And yet——”
“You can’t help it. Your enemies have been chirping mighty soft of late, but it was because they didn’t dare sing louder. They are not all dead, or converted. Where is Morgan?”
“Somewhere on the road. You know I have that fellow’s pledge.”
“Which doesn’t amount to shucks!”
“But his uncle is dead, and there is no further reason why he should try to injure me.”
“Don’t fool yourself! He’s ambitious and proud. He wants to pitch this spring, and it is his way to long to be cock of the walk at anything he tries. He knows he can’t be that with you on the team.”
“But he could not have possibly done the trick; he did not throw that stone.”
“I don’t say he did.”
“Then what——”
“He is a fellow to use accomplices.”
Frank shook his head.
“I know all about your hatred for Morgan,” hesaid, “and I confess the justness of it; but something tells me the fellow did not do this trick, or know anything about it. In fact, even though he may not love me, I do not believe he will make any further attempts to harm me. While Santenel lived he held Morgan under his hypnotic influence and made him do some very nasty things. But Santenel is dead.”
“Well, Morgan still lives, and you’ll see that you will have your troubles just as long as he remains in college.”
Frank knew how useless it was to try to reason Bart out of a conviction so firmly implanted in his mind, and so he made no further effort.
Along the hard road they sped, their lungs filled with fresh air, their entire bodies tingling with the intoxication of perfect health.
Ahead of them gleamed the city’s lights. On either side lights shone from the windows of houses.
They strung out on Whalley Avenue, for now they were permitted to speed up some as the end of the run drew near. At last they came to Elm Street and the gym.
There the men were given cold showers, and rubbed down with rough towels, till their bodies glowed like furnaces.
When they left the gym they felt “like fighting cocks,” for all of what they had done and gone through.
Frank and Bart left the gym together.
“Are you going to your room, Hodge?” asked Merry.
“Not now,” was the answer.
“Well, come up to mine. I’ve got to work hard to-night, but we can have a little chat of a few minutes before I get down to grinding.”
“I’ve got to go somewhere else. I’ll see you to-morrow, Merry. So-long.”
Frank wondered as Bart swung away. He would have wondered still more had he observed where Hodge went and what he did.
Direct to a certain store the dark-eyed lad proceeded, and there he purchased a lantern, which he had filled with oil and prepared for lighting. With this lantern he struck out at a brisk walk, avoiding the vicinity of the college buildings.
More than half an hour later Bart was searching along the ridge of high land near where Merriwell had fallen on the road. The lighted lantern aided him in his search behind the mass of evergreen bushes.
He came to a place that interested him very much, for there was every indication that some one had been there ahead of him.
Then he uttered a low cry of satisfaction, and suddenly snatched something from the ground.
It was a handkerchief!