Bart Hodge absented himself from class and lecture, but later that night, after all the members of the "flock" had departed from Merriwell's room, Bart came in. His face was flushed and feverish.
"I don't care what the other fellows think, Merry!" he said, dropping into a chair as if he felt that he had no right there. "But I do care what you think! I went away in a huff, saying to myself that I'd never come back until you sent for me, when I knew that you wouldn't send for me, and that I would come back. And here I am."
"How could I have sent for you, Bart?" Merry questioned. "I knew you would feel differently when you had time to think it all over, and I told the fellows so."
"I don't care for their opinions!" Bart snarled. "I'd never come back for any of them!"
"They are my friends!"
"I've been miserable ever since. I have felt like a cur as I've sneaked round town. You needn't try to stop me! You are the truest friend I ever had, and I've treated you like a dog. I know it, and I'm sorry for it."
"I am your friend, Bart, because I understand you, and appreciate you. The others would think as much of you as I do, if they understood you as well. We'll not talk any more about this matter, if you're willing, but just turn in for the night and say nothing about it."
"How can you overlook a thing like that?" Hodge asked.
"Because I knew all the time that your better nature condemned what you did, and that you would by and by yield to your better nature. The man who meets a powerful temptation and finally masters it is stronger really than one who never is tempted. I forgave you long ago, Bart, and would have told you so if you had come back. I was angry at the time, but I didn't remain angry."
"I've come back to tell you that I'll catch for you to-morrow—Saturday. I swore I'd never catch for Buck Badger, but I will. I'll catch for the Old Boy himself, if you want me to. I'm not ready to agree that he ought to be permitted to pitch, for I hate the very sight of him; but I have put that by, and will catch for you. It will be catching for you, you see, Merry, and not for him. I ought to have looked at it that way before, but I could not."
"I have got Jack Ready for catcher!"
Bart gasped, while his dark face seemed to get redder and hotter.
"Why, he can't catch!"
"Much better than you think. He is a pretty fair catcher."
"And if he falls down?"
"I'll put some one else in. I have two or three in mind, and have spoken to two of them."
Hodge seemed stunned.
"I'm willing to catch!" he said.
"You may, Bart, if I see that Ready can't do the work. If the game seems about to be lost I'll go into the pitcher's box and you behind the bat, and we'll pull the nine out of the hole! Eh?"
Hodge's eyes brightened strangely.
"We can do it, Merry! I'll be as steady as a clock. Only I'm sorry things went the way they did and that I showed how mean I can be. I only proved what my enemies say of me. It's too late now, but I'm ready to do what I can to make it right."
Merriwell came over and put a hand on Bart's shoulder.
"I understand you, Bart, and few do. I know that your friendship for me is true blue, and that your heart is where it should be, even if your head runs away with you. Now we'll get to bed. To-morrow we play ball, and I want to be in condition."
But Bart Hodge was not in condition to play ball, nor in condition for anything the next day. When morning came he had a high fever, and the doctor whom Merriwell summoned looked grave.
"He has lost sleep and been exposing himself and caught cold," he said. "It looks like a case of pneumonia. Better send him to the hospital."
"Will he be better off at the hospital than here, if there is some one here to take care of him?"
"No, I don't know that he will. And I was going to say that it is really too bad to move him in his condition."
"Then he will stay right here. I'll get the best nurse to be had, and look after him all I can myself!"
And Hodge, under the best of care, remained in his room, while Merriwell's nine, with Jack Ready as catcher and Badger as pitcher, went out to meet the team from Hartford that forenoon.
A big crowd of rooters had come over from Hartford to whoop things up for Abernathy's men. They were enthusiastic fellows, and they made a great deal of noise. Some of them were betting men, and they flourished their money with as much confidence as if the game were already won and they were certain of raking in their winnings.
But Yale had turned out a big crowd, too, for Merriwell was immensely popular, and, of course, the Yale and New Haven crowd would naturally be the larger on the home grounds.
"We'll have a warm time this forenoon!" Frank observed to Jack Ready.
"Torrid as the equator!" Ready answered.
"How is your nerve, old man?"
Ready dropped a finger to his pulse and seemed to be counting.
"Steady as a clock, Merry!"
"Keep it that way. There is Badger coming over for a talk with you. We'll begin as soon as we get a little warming up."
He looked at his watch and began to talk with Browning, while Ready and Badger drew aside to confer. Merriwell could see that Badger was a bit nervous when the game was called. There was a flush in his face and a glitter in his eyes that told of excitement, but this seemed to disappear as he took the clean new Spalding ball in his hands and entered the box.
In the grand stand Frank saw Inza, Elsie, and Winnie, and he lifted his hat to them again, though he had enjoyed a long talk with them not many minutes before. Winnie was smilingly happy. She waved her handkerchief to Badger, and the Kansan's white teeth showed in a grim smile of determination.
"If only you and Bodge were the hattery—I mean if only you and Hodge were the battery!" Rattleton groaned in Frank's ear.
"Don't worry, Rattles! Just do your duty on third!" Merry answered. "We are all right!"
Thus encouraged, Harry went away happy and confident. Browning was on first, with Diamond on second. Danny Griswold was short-stop; while Dismal had the right field, Bink Stubbs center, and Joe Gamp the left. The game opened with Merriwell's men in the field.
The Westerner surveyed the ground and his surroundings carefully. Then planted his toe on the rubber plate and shot in a "twister." It curved inward as it neared the batter, and cut the heart of the plate. The batter had been fooled and did not swing at it.
"One strike!" called the umpire.
The batter, who was looking out for an out curve next, swung at it, and fanned the air. The Yale men, and especially the sophomores, began to shout.
Badger thought it time to change to an out curve, and sent one in hot as a Mauser bullet. But the batter was looking for out curves. He reached for it. Crack!—away it sailed into the right field.
"Go, long legs!" was screamed at Dismal Jones, who sprinted for it with all his might.
The next man of the Hartfords at the bat was the pitcher, Pink Wilson, a fellow almost as tall and lank as Dismal Jones, with a hatchet face and a corkscrew nose. His admirers said he got that twisted nose from watching his own curves in delivering. He came up confident, thinking he understood the tricks of the Kansan pretty well, and that he would be easy. But almost before he knew it the umpire called "one strike."
"That ball must have passed this side of the plate," he declared. "It was an in, and I had to jump to get out of the way."
"Don't jump at shadows!" shouted a Yale sophomore. "That ball was all right."
The umpire promptly informed Wilson that he was talking too much with his mouth.
"I'll get him the next time!" thought the lank pitcher of the Hartfords. "He fooled me that time, but he can't do it again!"
But Badger did it again. Again the sophomores began to yell. Jack Ready tossed the ball back.
Badger began to look and to feel confident, a thing that Merriwell, who was closely watching him, did not like. This time the Westerner, after almost bending himself double, gave his arm an eccentric movement and shot in another curve. Wilson struck at it desperately, and fanned out.
"He can't keep it up!" yelled a Hartford man, who had been wildly hunting for bets a short time before, and who felt the need of whistling to keep his courage up.
Barrows, the center-fielder, came to the bat next. He went after the very first one, and got it Crack! and away the ball flew again into the right field, while the Hartford lads opened up with great vigor.
It was a hit, for everybody saw that Dismal, even though he was doing his best, could not possibly get it. Barrows raced to first, while Tillinghast, the base-runner, took second, without trouble, but stumbled and fell, so that it was impossible for him to make another bag on the hit.
Badger next tried his highest speed, and the batter fanned, but Ready dropped and fumbled the ball, being unable to hold it, and came very near letting both runners advance, although he did get the sphere down to third in time to drive them back.
Watching closely, Frank had discovered that something about Badger's delivery bothered Ready. Badger himself saw this, and he tried a change of pace, but the batter caught it on the handle of his "wagon-tongue," and drove out a "scratch hit" that filled the bases.
Oleson, a Swede, almost as large as Browning, came up to the plate.
"And there were giants in those days," droned Jones, from his position in the field.
"How's that for the giant?" cried Oleson, as he slashed yet another down into Dismal's territory, bringing in the first score and causing the Hartford rooters to "open up."
Jones made a beautiful throw home, which sent Barrows scrambling back to third, which he reached barely in time to save himself, for Ready had lined it down to that bag in short order.
Frank was beginning to wonder if all the Hartford men were right-field hitters, or was there something in Badger's pitching that caused them to put the balls into that field? Unable to keep still, he walked down toward first, and Browning found an opportunity to say:
"We ought to have Hodge behind the bat. Badger can't use his speed, for Ready can't hold him. Are you going to let those fellows lose this game in the first inning, Merriwell? If you do, I'll kick myself for a week for being chump enough to get out here and swear for nothing."
"It's a handicap not to have Hodge," admitted Frank.
Browning felt like saying it was a handicap not to have Frank in the box, but, fancying he had said enough in that line, he kept still. Badger's face took on a hard look. He motioned for Ready to come down and advanced to meet him. A few words passed between them, while the Hartford "fans" guyed them.
This little talk seemed to bear good fruit, for the Westerner fooled the next batter with two drops, getting two strikes called. Then he tried "coaxers" till three balls were called on him, and again, with every runner taking all the "lead" he dared, the excitement was at a high pitch.
Frank feared for the result.
"Oh, for Hodge!" he thought. "I see now that our handicap means disaster unless the wind changes." Ready was crouching under the bat, nervous, but determined. Badger took his time, but put terrible speed into the next ball, which he sent over the inner corner of the plate. The batter struck at it, but missed clean.
Plunk! the ball struck in Ready's hand. Thud! it dropped to the ground. But the bases were filled, and the batter was out, for all that Jack had not held the ball. He recovered it so that there was no possibility for the man on third to get home.
Now two men were out, but the bags were filled, and a long, safe hit meant more scores for the visitors. Fleetwood, the Hartford third-baseman, took his turn at the stick. He was a good waiter, and he found just what he wanted, sending it safe over the short-stop, so that two more scores came in.
Badger was pale round the mouth when the next hitter stepped up to the plate. He did not spare Ready. Jack missed the first two balls, being unable to hold them, although he did not let them get past him. Both were strikes, and again Badger tried to "work" the batter, though he did not slacken his speed. Frank was anxious, for he expected to see the freshman catcher let one of those hot ones pass him. Nothing of the kind happened, and, after trying two balls, Buck used a sharp rise and struck the man out.
The college men on the bleachers rose up and howled, but Frank Merriwell was gloomy at heart, though his lips smiled.
"Badger is doing well," he told himself; "but Ready cannot hold him. I'm afraid the handicap is too great. Oh, for Bart Hodge just now!"
The first half of the first inning was over, but Hartford had made three runs.
Merriwell saw that Ready could not catch for Buck Badger. There was such an utter absence of anything like team-work that there seemed to be little hope that the game could be won by Merriwell's nine if the battery was not changed. Badger could pitch like a wonder at times, but he rattled Ready, who, as a rule, and in regard to other matters, was as steady as a clock. Ready simply could not do himself justice with Badger in the box. He felt it as well as Merriwell, but he doggedly continued, determined at all events to do his best. Ready was a fellow of infinite pluck, and usually a fellow of infinite confidence. He would have had confidence now, but there was not a thing to build his confidence on.
Merriwell's nine scored four times before it was forced again into the field. Frank sent Badger into the box again, after talking with him awhile.
"You rattle Ready, some way!" Frank told him. "Throw those in curves more, and work in your dropped balls when you can. They get your out curves."
Then, before playing again, he had a few words with Ready.
The first man at the bat got a hit, while the next man took first on balls. The next man at the bat knocked a fly into the hands of Danny Griswold, who was playing short-stop, and the base-runners came back to their places.
Then the men on bases tried to make a double steal, which was partially successful. The fellow on second reached third, but the runner behind him was cut off at second by a throw from Ready. Jack should have thrown to third, but he did not. He threw low to second, and Diamond got it on the bound, touching the runner as that individual was making a desperate slide.
Two men were out, and Frank hoped that Badger would keep the visitors from scoring. Buck might have done so, but somehow he "crossed signals" with Jack, the result being a passed ball that let in a score.
"I'm hot stuff," chirped Ready, as he found Frank back at the bench of the home team. "When I don't fail, I succeed."
"I see you do," answered Frank dryly. "You succeeded in letting in that run."
"Our wires got crossed. Badge gave me an in when I was looking for an out. If you'll put in a pitcher who can throw a curve, I'll surprise you."
"Does Badger rattle you?"
"Refuse me! I think I rattle him."
There was no time for further talk, and the game went on. Buck was nervous, and Frank pitied him, for he could see that the Westerner might do well with a good catcher behind the bat. Just then Merry did not know of a man to put in Ready's place, for he could see that the Westerner's great speed and queer delivery might be too much for any green catcher who was not used to him.
"Yes," muttered Frank, "the loss of Hodge is the handicap that will cause us to lose the game—if we lose it."
The next man got first on balls, and then the following batter lifted a high foul. Ready got under it, and the Hartfords were retired at last.
"We're done up, Merry," said Rattleton, as the men came in.
"Not yet, old man," declared Frank cheerfully. "I think I'll go behind the bat myself next inning."
"Don't do it!" exclaimed Harry. "I know you can play any old position, Merry, but your place is in the box. With you there, every man on the team will play like a streak. Won't you go in?"
"Badger——"
"Can see that he is bound to lose the game if this keeps on. He's got sense. He won't want to make such a bad record for himself."
"Ready will not be able to judge the double-shoot. I can't use that."
"You won't have to. You can win this game without it."
"I don't know."
"I do! Try it."
Frank was in doubt, and he permitted Badger to pitch one more inning. The Westerner worked hard, but it was plain he had lost confidence, and he was not at his best. Great beads of perspiration stood out on his face. Two men scored, despite him, and the visitors had the lead again.
"I believe I'll try it in the box," Frank mentally decided. "Perhaps I may hold Ready steady. It looks like the only show to win out."
When Merriwell finally went into the box, seeing that it must be done, Badger retired with as good grace as he could, though his dark face was flushed.
"There would be no trouble if it wasn't for Jack Ready!" he asserted. "I can pitch all right, but the pitcher isn't the whole battery!"
"Your delivery bothers him," Merriwell explained. "I believe that you two together are capable of good work, but it will take a lot more practise, and just now we haven't time for practise. You can pitch, Badger, and your best is excellent; but you are irregular. But you'll come round all right. I was talking with Dunstan Kirk about you awhile ago, and he agrees with me. He has been closely watching you all through the game."
"I know it," Badger growled. "I've known it only too well! It has helped to make my pitching wild at times. If he had stayed away, I think I could have done all right all the time. But you'll find that Ready will worry you. He'd worry anybody. The fellow simply can't catch."
"But he can!" Merriwell insisted. "We'll win this game yet!"
The change that came over Jack Ready's work shortly after Merriwell went into the pitcher's box was little short of marvelous. Frank seemed to know how to favor Ready's weak points. And this kept Ready's head steady for other work, so that he made not another wild throw to bases.
Merriwell's nine began to feel their courage rise. It put life into them just to see Frank in the box. Stolen bases on the part of the Hartfords stopped. The swiftness with which Merriwell struck out three batters made the spectators gasp.
From that on Ready was steady, and he and Frank worked together like a battery team of long experience. Frank Merriwell won, in spite of his handicap! And so the Yale rooters, and especially Merriwell's friends and admirers, who were a host in themselves, were roaring wild as they returned from the ball-ground. Merriwell joined Inza and Elsie, while Badger took a car with Winnie.
"I knew that everything was all right, as soon as you went into the box!" Inza declared. "But up to that minute I was nervous. I was wanting to shake you all the time for not taking Badger's place sooner."
"I felt sorry for Badger," said Elsie. "And I felt sorry for Winnie. She got as red as a beet when Badger left the box, but I know she didn't blame you, Frank. She saw just how it was, and she knew you ought to have gone in sooner, but of course she felt it."
"I was afraid Ready might begin to doubt his own abilities—though probably there is not any danger that he will ever do that! He was just what I expected of him, though, when I pitched. And if Badger and Bart were friends and could, or would, work together, they would make a good battery."
"You will have to coach Badger some," Inza suggested.
"Yes. The captain of the ball-team wants me to. He thinks there is good stuff in both of them, if it can only be properly developed."
The three got out at a transfer station, and waited for another car.
"Dere she comes!" yelled an excited youngster.
The "she" he referred to was not the expected car, but the head of a circus procession, which was parading the principal streets as an advertisement of the performances to be given in the big tents in the suburbs that afternoon and night.
Merriwell and the girls looked in the direction indicated. The crowd at the corner seemed to become thicker. People began to swarm out of the doorways and stream out into the middle of the street.
"And this is scholarly New Haven!" exclaimed Inza. "Wild over a circus parade!"
"We're not in the scholarly part of New Haven!" laughed Frank. "I confess that I like to see a circus parade myself!"
Inza showed evidences that she liked the same thing, for she craned her handsome neck and stood on tiptoe to catch the first glimpse. The nodding plumes on the heads of the horses drawing the gilded band-wagon came into view, and at the same moment the band began to crash forth its resonant music. Children danced and capered, heads were popped out of second-story windows, and the pushing crowd grew denser.
The band-wagon came slowly down the street in the bright spring sunshine, followed by the performers, mounted on well-groomed horses, some of which were beautifully mottled. There were other horses, many of them—a few drawing chariots, driven by Amazons. Then came the funny clown, in his little cart, with his jokes and grimaces for the children.
There was another band-wagon, as gorgeous as the first, at the head of the procession of wild-beast cages. Its music was more deafening than that of the other. The street-cars seemed to have stopped running, owing to the packed crowds, and Frank and his girl friends remained on the corner curiously watching the scene.
Suddenly a fractious horse jerked away from the man who had been standing at its head holding it, and whirling short about, half-overturned the wagon to which it was hitched and raced wildly down the street. People scattered in every direction, several being knocked down in the stampeding rush.
The horse climbed to the sidewalk, with wheels bumping the curbing, trying to get out of the way of some men who were seeking to stop it. Almost before they were aware of it, horse and wagon seemed fairly on top of Merriwell and the girls. Elsie gave a startled cry, and dashed across the street, where the people were falling back out of the way, with women pulling nervously and excitedly at their children.
A child fell headlong, and the horse seemed about to stamp it, when Frank, with a quick leap, picked it up from under the very feet of the runaway, and dropped it safely at its mother's side. Then a tremendous roar ascended. Turning, Frank saw that Inza and Elsie had disappeared. He did not at first know the cause of the roar.
The horse, veering again and wheeling sharply, had hurled the wagon against a cage in which was confined a full-grown tiger. This was an open cage—that is, the screening, wooden, outer shell had been removed, showing the big beast of the jungle, with its keeper in circus costume, seated in the center of the cage on a low stool.
Against the door of this cage the bounding wagon had struck heavily—so heavily that the lock was torn away or broken, and the cage door pulled open. The roar that went up was a roar of alarm and fright. And it increased in intensity when the striped beast, with nervously flicking tail, leaped past its keeper and into the street, where it crouched, not knowing what to do with its newly found freedom.
The street was in the wildest tumult. The horses drawing the cage had been brought to a stop by the driver. But another horse, frightened by the din and the runaway, broke loose just at that time, and came tearing along, with flaming eyes and distended nostrils, like a Malay running amuck.
Frank sprang toward the head of this horse, for the peril to the stampeding people seemed great. But the animal veered and passed by, dragging Merry a few yards by the shafts and hurling him to the ground.
The sight he beheld as he scrambled up was enough to stop the beating of his heart. Inza and Elsie had tried to again cross the street. Inza had been knocked down by the horse, and lay unconscious, while Elsie had been swept on in the crowd. More than that, the keeper of the tiger, who had courageously leaped after the terrible beast with his spearlike iron goad, hoping to be able to prod and cow it into subjection, had been knocked flat also by the horse, his iron goad flying out of his hand and into the street.
Though Frank was some distance away, he started toward the tiger, which had crouched and seemed about to spring on Inza. But before he could take a step, he saw Elsie run from the crowd toward Inza and the tiger. Her face was very white, but it was filled with the look of high courage which inspired her. She realized the peril of any attempt she could make to save Inza, and she boldly took the risk.
A hundred voices were screaming at the big brute, which crouched with undulating tail and open jaws; but not another person seemed to be moving toward Elsie to render her assistance, with the exception of Frank Merriwell.
He saw the girl pick up the iron goad. Then Elsie Bellwood leaped between the tiger and Inza. As she did so she lifted the goad. The tiger turned its attention from Inza to Elsie, and the latter struck at it, as if the goad were a spear.
Frank Merriwell heard the click of a revolver at his side. He saw a man shakily lifting it.
"Permit me!" he gasped, and plucked it from the man's hand.
The revolver went up, flashing for a moment in the sunshine. A quick, sharp report rang out. The bullet, sent with true and steady aim, by the hand of Frank Merriwell, ploughed through the tiger's brain, and the beast flattened out convulsively, and began to kick and writhe in its death agonies.
Hearing the report and seeing the animal fall, Elsie's uplifted hand fell, she swayed like a wind-blown vine, and dropped heavily down across the form of Inza Burrage.
The crack of the revolver and the fall of the tiger seemed to break the spell that had held and made cowards of the throng. A dozen men leaped toward the girls. But Merriwell reached them first. He lifted Elsie, who had merely fallen in a faint, as he saw; and, passing her to a student whom he recognized, he bent anxiously over Inza.
There was a bruise and a fleck of blood on the upper part of her face.
"Inza!" he said, lifting her tenderly and seeking to arouse her. "Are you much hurt, Inza?"
The words and tone seemed to call her back from the land of death. She moaned feebly, and tried to put up a hand. Half-lifting her in his arms, he looked around.
"Is there a surgeon here!" he called.
Elsie came back to consciousness with a shiver, and heard him call. Her face had been very white, but it became pale as death. The sight of Inza's bruised face and limp form upheld by Merriwell seemed to blur her brain again. She caught at the arm of the student who was holding her, and by a great effort kept her senses.
"Is she dead, Frank?" she whispered.
"No!" he answered. "I don't know how much she may be hurt, though."
The tiger had ceased to struggle, the crowds were writhing, a babel of sound that was confused and confusing filled the air. The circus procession had come to a halt, with the exception of the forward band, which was blaring away far down the street.
A doctor came out of the crowd. Other doctors proffered their services, for Inza was not the only one who had been knocked over by the rush of the horses. The injured tiger-keeper was picked up and bundled into an ambulance.
"Right across here!" said the doctor who had answered Merriwell's call. Then he led the way into an apothecary's.
"Nothing serious!" he announced, a minute later, when he had made his examination. "The young lady will be all right in a day or two."
He spoke of Inza, and both Merry and Elsie sent up fervent sighs of relief.
Coming softly into the room which Elsie Bellwood occupied, Inza Burrage saw Elsie in tears.
"What is it, dear?" Inza asked, going up and putting her arms about Elsie's neck.
Except for a telltale bit of courtplaster, Inza showed no sign of the dangerous and exciting experiences through which she had that day passed.
"Don't! don't!" Elsie pleaded, with a little shiver. "If you knew what was in my heart you wouldn't speak to me, Inza Burrage!"
"Why, dear? Why wouldn't I speak to you—you who have proved yourself the most heroic and courageous girl in all New Haven?"
"It wasn't courage half so much as it was fright. And if you knew the thoughts I had!"
Inza kissed her.
"What?"
Elsie turned on her a horrified face.
"Inza, when I saw you knocked down by that horse, the awful wish came into my heart that you might be killed. And even when I saw the tiger about to leap on you, I couldn't drive that thought away. I have been hating you in a way that I never thought I could hate anybody! You see, I began to fear that you were trying to come between me and Frank; and if you had been—killed—there—would—have—been—an—end—of—that!"
"But you rushed between me and the tiger. And you fought the beast with that goad. You, a girl, standing between me and such a terror as that! Frank has told me all about it—about how brave you were! It was beautiful!"
"When I felt how wicked my thoughts was, there came an awful revulsion of feeling; and then I rushed into the street, not caring if I was killed, if I could only save you. I felt that the sacrifice of my life, even, if it were necessary, was demanded to pay for those dreadful thoughts. I knew the danger, Inza, but that hideous thought made me brave."
"You are naturally brave, Elsie! I feel that I owe my life to you."
"And I wished you dead!" said Elsie self-reproachfully. "I can never forget it. Wished you dead when you were knocked down and when the tiger threatened you. Inza, it was something awful!"
"It was because you love Frank!"
"And you love Frank! You have confessed as much."
"Perhaps I do. I hardly know myself. But you have shown to-day that you are much more worthy of him than I am. Don't worry about any of those troubles any more."
She straightened up, with the look of a renouncing queen, while her dark eyes shone like stars.
"Elsie, I will go away from here if it is necessary. I will not disturb you and Frank."
"I take back all I said the other day!" Elsie quivered. "I retract every word. They were selfish, jealous, hateful words. They led me to murderous thoughts—for those thoughts about you to-day were really murderous. You shall not go away! Not unless I go away, too!"
"Then we can be friends, dear!" said Inza, laying a hand softly on the golden head. "That is what we will try to be, if you will, in spite of everything."
"Yes," Elsie assented, "though I am not worthy to be your friend."
"Then we will be friends, dear!"
"We are friends!" Elsie exclaimed impulsively, drawing the hand down and kissing it.
"Baw Jawve, it would be sport if a fellah could draw on a grouse on a Scotch moor, don't you 'now! It would be something great to knock such a bird into the heather. There really isn't any shooting in this country to be compared to that, don't you 'now!"
Willis Paulding drawled this in his affected style, and then swung the handsome English Greener hammerless to his shoulder and squinted down the barrels as if he fancied he heard the whirring of a moor cock's wings and felt the thrill of the sportsman tingling through his veins.
"What's the matter with partridge and woodcock shooting in New England? Or quail shooting in the West and South? Or duck shooting on the Southwest coast? Or prairie-chicken and grouse shooting in the far West and Rocky Mountains?" demanded Merriwell, who had arrived on the grounds of the gun club with Bart Hodge and was taking his gun out of its case.
Paulding flushed.
"If you had ever shot grouse across the big pond, you 'now, you wouldn't ask such a question, Merriwell!"
"I have shot grouse on the other side of the big pond, and it is fine sport, true enough. But there is just as fine shooting to be had in America. You make me tired. You want to act like an Englishman, Paulding, but it is an insult to the English, for your imitation is really disgraceful. A true Englishman is very much a man!"
"And Paulding is a mere thing!" snapped Hodge.
"He isn't worth noticing, don't you 'now!" sneered Paulding, moving away with the members of the Chickering set. "He is always slinging insulting things at me. It's mere jealousy, don't you 'now, that makes him act so. Baw Jawve, if I was as jealous as Merriwell, I'd go drown myself!"
"He is always slinging insults at us in the same way!" Ollie Lord breathlessly declared, looking as fierce as he could and lifting himself on his tiptoes to increase his fighting height.
"I wouldn't let the thing worry me," purred Rupert Chickering. "Merriwell is so spoiled by flattery that he is hardly responsible for what he says. I never like to hold harsh feeling against any one."
"I'd like to pull the wetch'eth nothe!" lisped Lew Veazie, looking quite as fierce as Ollie Lord. "It would therve him wight if I thould walk up to him thome day and thimply pull hith nothe!"
"But he might pull yours!" Julian Ives warned. "That wouldn't be pleasant, you know."
Julian Ives, in the perfumed sanctity of Chickering's rooms, often looked lovingly at himself and his wonderful bang in the long mirror and dreamed the heroic things he would like to do and the revenges he would like to carry out, but his actual courage had been at a very low ebb ever since his humiliating experience as a member of the Eskemo dog-team driven by the cowboy, Bill Higgins. He was likely to remember that a long while.
"They're not worth talking about—none of Merriwell's crowd!" snarled Gene Skelding, as if anxious to change the drift of the unpleasant conversation, for he had been given cause to fear and hate Merriwell and his friends quite as much as any other individual who claimed the companionship and friendship of the immaculate Rupert. "Let me see your gun, Willis!"
He took the Greener, snapped it open to see if it was loaded, then winked at Chickering.
The members of the Yale Gun Club were rapidly coming on the ground, together with a number of noted New Haven shots and others interested in trap shooting. Browning and Rattleton appeared, and Diamond, Dismal, and several others of Merry's set were seen approaching.
"I thought Bart Hodge was sick?" said Tilton Hull. "But I see he is out again."
"When I heard he wath thick I hoped he would never get well. He ith a howwid cwecher! Whenever I go near him he thnapth at me like a bulldog."
"As if you were a bulldog?" queried Skelding, who at times seemed to delight in teasing certain members of this delectable set.
"The idea!" exclaimed Ollie Lord indignantly, putting a hand caressingly on Veazie's shoulder. "A bulldog! If Veazie is anything, he is like the cunning little dog I had once. It was the darlingest little poodle! and I simply loved it!"
"Just fawncy!" sniffed Willis Paulding.
But Lew Veazie seemed pleased. He put up a hand to touch the caressing arm.
"You're another, Ollie!" he beamed. "I always did like poodles!"
"A pair of poodles!" said Skelding, and again winked meaningly at Rupert, who snatched the cap from the head of Julian Ives and flung it into the air. Skelding took a snap-shot at it as it fell.
"If that cap is damaged," said Ives, smoothing his precious bang which the brisk breeze began to flirt about, "I'll make you fellows pay for it. That's flat!"
But Julian's alarm was premature. Not a shot had touched it.
The members of the Chickering set continued the delightful sport of snatching hats and caps from each other's heads and shooting at them with Paulding's fine English gun; but the only damage done was by the falls the articles received, for not a shot touched any of them.
"Of course, fellahs, a moor cock doesn't fly that way," Willis drawlingly explained, in extenuation of the poor shooting. "He doesn't go right up and down, you 'now. He has wings, don't you 'now, and flies straight away, like a shot. I could hit a grouse without any trouble, but this kind of shooting! The best shot in England would be bothered with it."
"We'll have a try at the clay pigeons and blackbirds soon," Chickering comfortingly promised.
"But, gwathious, I've twied them, and they're harder to hit than thethe are! I could do better if I could only keep my eyeth open, but the minute I begin to pull the twigger my eyeth go shut, and I can't help it."
They had turned round and were retracing their way toward Merriwell and his friends without noticing it. Suddenly Lew Veazie jumped straight up into the air, clapped a hand smartly against one of his legs, and began to dance a hornpipe. At almost the same moment a shot was fired by some one.
"Thay, fellowth, I'm thyot!" he gasped, turning deathly pale. "Honeth, thith ithn't a joke! I'm thyot! Ow! It burnth like fire!"
"Where?" Ollie anxiously asked, staring at the dancing youth, and looking quickly about to make sure that no loaded gun was pointed in his direction. The others looked about, too.
"This reckless shooting ought to be forbidden!" declared Skelding, regardless of the fact that the shooting he and his friends had been doing was of the most reckless character. Veazie dropped down on the ground, and began to pull up one leg of his trousers.
"It stwuck me wight here!" he gasped. "I think it must have gone thwough my leg. I can feel the blood twickling down."
Ollie went down on his knees and began to help him, and together they soon had the injured spot revealed to their anxious eyes. They beheld a reddish place, with a center like a pin jab, but not a drop of blood.
"It was a spent shot!" said Rupert wisely. "It came from a distance. But it was a very reckless thing to do to fire at all in this direction."
"Let me take a look at it!" said Julian Ives, crowding forward and stooping to inspect it. As he did so, he straightened up with a little screech, and clapped a hand to his hips.
"Wow!" he howled, dancing round as Veazie had done. "I'm shot, too! Fellows, this is awful! I believe I'm killed! Who is doing this?"
"Thuch weckleth thyoothing I never thaw!" groaned Veazie, though he was much relieved to discover that he had not received a deadly hurt. "Thomebody mutht be awwested for thith. I thouldn't be thurpwithed if it ith one of Merriwell's fwiendth!"
"Wow!" howled Julian, falling to the ground, and writhing about in his agony. "I'm dead! I never had anything hurt me so! Wow-ow-ow!"
Ollie Lord clapped a hand to his head and executed a quickstep. He pulled off his cap and rubbed furiously, expecting to feel the blood come away on his fingers, for he also fancied he had been shot.
"Goodness!" he gasped. "Whoever is shooting this way ought to be jailed. We will all be killed in five minutes. That tore a hole in my scalp, sure!"
Rupert Chickering, who was beginning to look grave and anxious, next jumped up into the air, forgetting his dignity; while Willis Paulding sat down with a suddenness that jarred the ground, and began to declaim in a quick, nervous way and without the slightest imitation of an English accent.
Then Lew Veazie, who had been rubbing his injured leg and looking surprisedly and dubiously about, leaped to his feet with another howl and went dancing off from his friends.
"Felloth, it ith hornets!" he shrieked, beginning to fight and slap with his cap and his hands. "Ow! wow! They're thtinging me to death! Help me, thomebody!"
"Hornets!" shrieked Ollie Lord, leaping up and following his chum. "Fellows, the air is full of them!"
Tilton Hull began to dig fiercely at his high collar.
"There is one down my neck!" he screeched.
He recklessly tore the collar away and began to dig with his nails in a wild search for the thing that had stung him, and which he fancied he felt boring its way still farther down his back. Julian Ives took his hand from his hip and slapped it against his breast, where a red-hot lance seemed to have been driven with torturing suddenness. Then he began to tear away his beautiful necktie and to recklessly rumple his gorgeous shirt front.
"This is awful!" he exclaimed. "Where are the things coming from? The air is full of them! Wow! Another struck me in the arm!"
Lew Veazie was rolling over and over. Their outcries attracted the attention of Merriwell and his friends, and also the attention of a number of others who had come upon the grounds.
"What are those idiots up to?" grumbled Hodge, who had no patience with the antics of the Chickering set. "They've been making fools of themselves ever since they came out here. Awhile ago, they were recklessly burning powder and hurling shot all round. Now they act as if they were crazy."
"Must be playing some sort of game of circus!" guessed Browning. "They're tumbling about like acrobats—or fools!"
"And howling like wild Indians!" said Danny. "I think they are playing a Wild West."
"They ought to have Bill Higgins here, then, to make the show complete," Merriwell remarked, with a smile. "But seriously, I don't believe they're playing anything. Those yells sound real."
"Help!" howled Willis Paulding, forgetting his drawl, "We're being stung to death!"
Willis was down on the ground, soiling his beautiful trousers and digging furiously at his head.
"Hornets!" shrieked Ollie Lord, kicking about not far from Paulding.
"Wow!" screeched Lew Veazie, bobbing up and down like a cork in water when a fish is nibbling at the bait.
"Take 'em off!" begged Julian Ives, neglecting his lovely bang and scratching with great energy at the places where he had been stung.
"We're in a nest of hornets, or bees, or something!" exclaimed Rupert Chickering, becoming decidedly belligerent in his efforts to rid himself of the stinging creatures.
"Are you going to stand there and see us killed?" Skelding demanded. "I tell you, we are being stung!"
"Glad to know it!" declared Bart. "You need it. It's hopeless, though, to expect that the hornets will sting any sense into your crowd."
Merriwell started toward the screeching, dancing, jigging, fighting youths, quickening his steps into a run, and his friends followed at his heels. As he did so he heard the loud and discordant jangle of a cowbell furiously shaken.
A man, a woman, and a boy had come in sight, appearing from behind the seats allotted to spectators. Evidently they had emerged but a minute before from a strip of timber that cut off the view of a farmhouse that was on the right of the gun club grounds and some distance away. They were running as fast as they could, and were shouting something as they came on. The boy, a lanky chap of fourteen or fifteen, was vigorously shaking the bell. The man carried a large pail, and the woman swung a roll of dirty cloth.
"Hold on! hold on!" the man howled. "Jest handle 'em gently, can't ye?"
The Chickering set, as well as Merriwell's friends, heard him.
"Oh, yes! we'll handle 'em gently!" snarled Skelding, slapping at one of the stinging things and crushing it with his hand. He saw then that it was a bee. He jerked his hand away and stuck his fingers into his mouth. Then jumped up and began again to hop around.
"It run its stinger into my finger an inch!" he growled.
"Hold on! hold on!" the old man was howling.
"I'm holding on!' cried Rupert, smashing away at a handful of bees which seemed to be settling down on him all at once.
"You're killing 'em!" screeched the old woman.
"Yes, we're killing 'em!" Skelding answered, flailing away as if he had gone crazy. "I'd like to kill a million in a minute! I can't kill them fast enough! I'd like to welt 'em with a club and smash a regiment at a blow!"
Lew Veazie threw himself on the ground, drew his hat down over his head, and began to kick and shriek.
"You're jest a tantalizin' 'em!" panted the farmer. Merriwell stopped and laughed. The whole thing was too ridiculously funny for him to do otherwise.
"They're swarmin'!" shouted the boy, rattling away with the bell as if his life depended on it.
"Yes, I see they are!" howled Julian Ives. "They're swarming all over me!"
"Don't hurt 'em!" the farmer begged. He was only a few feet away, and panting on, almost breathless.
"Don't kill 'em!" whined the old woman. "They're my bees!"
Her words reached Lew Veazie. For a moment the kicking legs were stilled, though the hat was not withdrawn.
"Take 'em away then, pleathe!" he begged, from under the hat. "I don't want to hurt your beethe, but they're hurting me! Take 'em away, pleathe!"
The boy stopped his jangling bell.
"They are honey bees!" he said. Then added, as if he feared this might not be clear to the intellects of city-bred youths: "They make honey!"
"I'll tantalize them!" Skelding fiercely exclaimed, striking at the bees that were hovering round his head. "I'll treat 'em gently! Oh, yes! I'll pick them off very tenderly and put them in your lap, old lady! I don't think! Keep your old bees at home!"
"But they're swarming!" the old farmer exclaimed. "They're going out to hunt a new hive. We've been follerin' 'em."
Then Lew Veazie began to bellow again, more frantically than ever. A large crowd was gathering, men hurrying from all directions, Merriwell and his friends had arrived on the scene.
"Ow-wow!" Veazie shrieked. "They're worthe than ever!"
For a few seconds he had not been troubled except by the stings previously given, which pained intensely. Merriwell looked down and saw a big bunch of bees gathering along the top of Veazie's collar at the back.
"They're killing me!" Veazie screeched, rubbing a hand into this mass and leaping to his feet.
But the pile grew. The bees seemed to drop by scores right out of the air upon him. He started to run. The old woman began to shriek, and the boy commenced again to jangle the bell.
"You've got the queen!" howled the old man. "Jest keep still a minute! You have got the queen!"
"Is this a card-game?" drawled Browning.
"Lew Veazie is the little joker this time!" droned Dismal.
"That's because he is so sweet!" declared Bink. "Don't you know the boy said these are honey bees? They're going to carry Veazie away and turn him into honey and the honey comb."
"If you talk that way I'll have to swear off on honey!" exclaimed Browning, with a wry face.
"Hold on! Jest hold on!" the farmer was begging.
Veazie started to run, and the farmer reached out a hand for the purpose of detaining him.
"They ain't stingin' you!" he insisted. "Jest keep your hands down and keep still an' they won't do a thing to you!"
"Oh, they won't do a thing to him!" howled Danny.
Veazie dropped flat to the ground.
"Jest hold on!" begged the farmer. "Jest hold on! They're lightin' round the queen!"
Then he dipped his big hand into the pail and began to ladle out the water and drench the bees with it, while the old woman flailed with the roll of cloth to keep them away from her, and the farmer's boy, dancing up and down in his excitement, jangled the bell like an alarm clock.
"Jest hold on!" the farmer urged, as Veazie showed signs of rolling over. "I'll git my fingers on that there queen in a minute, and then I'll have 'em. I wouldn't lost this swarm fer five dollars. Jest hold on a minute!"
"Veazie's queen!" some one sang out from the heart of the surging, talking, sensation-loving throng. "I always knew you were attractive, Veazie, but I didn't know females rushed at you in that warm way. Yes, jest hold on a little, Veazie. We don't have a circus like this every day, and we want to get the worth of our money."
Ollie Lord, Chickering, Hull, Skelding, and the others seemed to have been almost deserted by the bees, that were now swarming down upon the hapless lisper, drawn there by the fact that the queen had found lodgment somewhere on Veazie's neck.
Under the influence of the farmer's commands, Veazie ceased to kick and strike, and lay like a gasping fish while the man deluged him with water.
"Thay, I'm dwoning!" he gasped at last. "Thith ith worthe than being thtung!"
But, in truth, the deluge of cold water took away something of the fiery pain of the stings.
"Just hold on!" cried the farmer again.
Then he thrust a thumb and finger down into the writhing wet mass of bees, drew out the queen, which by its size and shape he readily distinguished from the others, and began to rake the bees into the new, empty pail.
When he had the most of them in, the old woman threw the cloth over them. The farmer was now down on his knees, and the bees that were still on Veazie he began to pick off and pop into the pail as if they were grains of gold.
"I've got 'em!" he triumphantly declared. "This is my fu'st swarm this spring. I thought the blamed things was goin' to git away, but I've got 'em. Giner'ly they light on a tree when they're swarmin', or on somethin' green!"
"That's why they struck Veazie!" some one shouted from the crowd.
"Can I get up?" Veazie gasped. "I'm wetter than the thea!"
"Yes, young man, an' I'm 'bliged to ye. The rest of 'em will find their way to the queen, I guess. When these bees makes honey, if you'll come over I'll give you a hunk."
Lew Veazie was a sorry sight when he got up from the ground. The water had converted the soil into mud, which plastered him now from head to foot. And here and there on his face and hands were red spots made by the bee stings.
Gene Skelding was flailing at some bees that did not seem to have discovered that the queen was captured and their rightful domicile was the farmer's pail. There were other bees also at liberty, and one of them, angered no doubt by the turn of events, popped a stinger into the cuticle of Bink Stubbs.
"Scatt!" shrieked Bink. "Get away from here, or I'll murder you!"
Browning moved back, for a bee seemed to be making a desperate effort to single him out as a victim. Then he stuck his pipe into his mouth, quickly fished out some tobacco, and crammed the bowl full, and lighted it.
"Smoke 'em off!" he said. "That's a good way to fight bees."
"And tobacco smoke keeps away other female critters!" laughed Danny, trying rather vainly to imitate the peculiar quality in the farmer's speech. "That's the reason you have never been popular with the fair. Now there is Veazie——"
"What about cigarettes?" drawled Browning, making a fog round his head. "Don't let the kettle call the pot Blackie! The most disgusting thing ever created is a smoker of cigarettes!"
"Yah!" growled Danny, taking out a cigarette. "Lend me a match, old man."
And Browning lent him a match. Bink was rubbing earnestly at the stung spot.
"I'll never see honey again without thinking of this."
"Which honey do you mean?" asked Danny. "I heard you calling a chambermaid Honey the other evening. You must have thought her sweet!"
"And I heard one of them calling you a fool the other evening. She must have thought you an idiot."
"Thomebody get me a cab!" begged Veazie, rubbing his stings and ruefully regarding himself. "Thay, fellowth, thith ith awful! I'm a thight! Get a cab, thomebody, and take me home. I'm thick!"
"No cab here," said Skelding, who was also anxious to get away from the joking and guying crowd. "But I see a carriage over there. Yes, two of them."
"Get a cawiage—anything!" moaned Veazie. "Take me to the hothpital, take me to a laundwy, take me to a bath—anywhere, quick!"
The exodus of Veazie and his friends was followed by the return of Merriwell and his comrades to the traps. Hodge had not been long out of a sick-bed, and looked thin and weak. He walked with Merriwell. The other members of the flock had forgiven him for the rancorous and sulky spirit which had made him refuse to catch in the ball-game against Hartford, in which Buck Badger had pitched, but they had not forgotten it. They were courteous, but they were not cordial, and Hodge felt it.
Buck Badger came upon the ground, but without a gun. He was alone, too, and he kept away from Merriwell's crowd. He had not learned to like Merriwell's friends, any of them, and he detested Hodge.
Having taken his gun from its case, Merriwell put it together, and opened a box of loaded shells, which he placed on the ground. The gun was a beautiful twelve-gage hammerless, of late design and American manufacture, bored for trap shooting. Hodge's gun was so nearly like it that they could scarcely be told apart.
Morton Agnew and Donald Pike came on the grounds before the shooting began. Merriwell observed that Badger affected not to notice them, but the Westerner was plainly annoyed.
"Perhaps you would like to shoot!" said Merriwell, going over to Badger with his gun. "I can let you have the use of my gun. Hodge has one just like it, and all our other fellows have good guns. So, if you'd like to shoot! It's all right, and as good as they make them."
The Kansan was plainly pleased.
"And I can let you have shells."
"I'll take the gun, Merriwell," he said, balancing it in his hands and looking it over. "But I can't let you furnish shells, when I can buy all I want right here on the grounds. And there is no reason why you can't shoot with it, too."
"None at all, old man, only I thought likely you wouldn't want to mix in with our crowd. I can shoot Bart's gun."
Badger flushed and his face darkened. He was on the point of saying something bitter against Hodge.
"I didn't intend to shoot when I came out," he said, choking down the angry utterance, "or I should have brought a gun. In fact, I didn't start for this place at all. But I'm here now, and I reckon my fingers would never get done itching if I couldn't get to pull a trigger. I used to shoot some on the ranch, you know, and I hope I haven't lost anything whatever of the knack. If I should beat your score now?"
"You're welcome to."
"Of course I'm more used to a revolver and rifle than to a shotgun, but I allow I know a kink or two about trap shooting, just the same."
The rattle and click of guns being put together, the snapping of locks, and the chatter, made pleasant music for gun lovers, as Frank returned to his friends.
"You didn't let him have your gun?" growled Hodge.
"Yes; I will shoot with yours."
"You're welcome to, of course; but I shouldn't have done it."
"Here goes to kill the first bird!" cried Danny, ambling out with a repeating shotgun in his hands.
"If you don't hit it first time, you can just sheep on kooting—I mean keep on shooting!" jollied Rattleton.
"I wish there was a bee round here to sting him!" sighed Bink, as Danny faced the trap. "I'm so sore from laughing that I know I can't hit anything."
"You couldn't hit anything, anyway!" said Bruce, putting some shells into his gun.
"I can hit you!" Bink growled, lunging at him.
"I meant anything small!" said Bruce, brushing aside Bink's blow as if it had been a fly. "Shoo! Don't bother me, or I may get one of these shells stuck."
A trap was sprung, and Danny blazed away.
"Missed!" said Dismal.
"And Danny is our crack shot!" moaned Bink. "The papers will say to-night that our shooting was like a lot of schoolgirls."
"How?" asked Merriwell.
"All misses! Yah! Watch me smash one of those blackbirds into dust."
Bink went forward with much seeming confidence—and missed, too.
"Of course I didn't want to take away all the courage of you fellows by hitting the first bird," he blandly explained. "But I could have done it."
The conditions for shooting were fair, for the wind was not so strong as it had been earlier in the day. Several shots were made, together with a number of hits. Then Buck Badger's name was called, and he went up to the line with Merriwell's gun. One of the boys who was manipulating the traps sprung the middle one, and the bird shot swiftly off to the right. It was a rather difficult target, but Badger knocked the clay bird into dust.
"A good shot!" some one called from the crowd.
"It was a good shot!" Merriwell commented.
Dismal Jones followed Badger, and knocked down the straightaway bird which was sprung from the right-hand trap.
"Now the earth will fall!" squeaked Bink, for Browning's name was called, and Bruce got up lazily from the ground and walked slowly into position. Bruce disliked a light gun, and carried a heavy ten-gage, notwithstanding the fact that trap-shooting rules required the users of such guns to shoot from a longer distance. He believed that the heavier weight and heavier load more than offset this.
Danny stuck his fingers into his ears as Bruce stood ready to fire the "cannon." Then there was a thunderous report, as the clay bird flew through the air, and was knocked to pieces by the impact of the shot.
"Was it an earthquake?" asked Bink, falling back on the ground. "He'll be wanting to shoot a Krupp gun next!"
"Watch me this time!" said Danny, as he stepped into position. "It's easier for me to do difficult things. If those traps would only throw out a dozen birds at once, I'd show you some nice work!"
"Yes, you might get one out of the whole flock," said Diamond. "If it was a very dense flock, you might get two."
Ten rounds had been fired, and two birds were to be thrown now at the same time at unknown angles.
"Ready?" asked the boy.
"Pull!" commanded Danny, throwing up his gun.
The birds flew, but Danny did not shoot.
"I thought one was going to jump out of the right-hand trap," he grinned, "and it didn't."
"Give him another chance," said Dismal. "He oughtn't to be forgiven for anything, but we'll forgive him."
"Spit on your hands!" some one yelled.
Danny put down his gun, very deliberately spat on his hands, then took up his gun again.
"Pull!" he commanded.
Two birds flew—one from the right-hand trap and one from the middle trap. Bang! bang! Danny fired at both, but the birds sailed on and descended in the grass.
"These shells aren't any good!" he asserted, looking wonderingly into the powder-stained barrels of the gun. "Or else this gun isn't choked right for trap shooting. I held on both of those birds."
"You mean you aren't choked right for trap shooting," said Bink, as Danny came back.
"I'll choke you!" Danny cried, hurling himself on Stubbs and gripping him by the throat.
"Stop it!" commanded Bruce, as they struggled on the grass. "If you don't, we'll fire you out of the crowd."
Jack Diamond did the best shooting this time, cleanly killing both birds. Merriwell and others struck both birds, but Diamond made the cleanest kill. Danny ambled out again with his repeater, and this time brought down a bird.
"Talk about easy things!" he spouted, thrusting out his chest as he pranced back.
"That's right!" howled Bink. "You're the easiest thing on the planet. That bird was broken and all ready to fall to pieces when it left the trap. I paid the boy to fix it for you."
"You're another!" Danny declared. "I hit that bird fair and square. See if you can do better."
"I'm going to hit both!" Bink declared, and for a wonder he did.
"Take me home to mommer!" squealed Danny.
"Talk about shooting!" exclaimed Bink, sticking his hat on the back of his head. "What's the matter with that, eh?"
"Oh, you're a wonder!" exclaimed Danny. "Accidents are bound to happen sometimes, you know."
Browning made clean misses, and Diamond got only one bird. The shooting of most of the others was not of the best.
"I suppose there isn't any way to clip the wings of those things?" grumbled Dismal, who had missed. "They get up and get away so fast that I can't pull on them half the time. I could hit my bird if I could find it. But when I point my gun at it and pull the trigger, it isn't there."
"Pull ahead of it," Merriwell advised.
"Yes, you must use ahead work," said Bink. "If you have a head, that is what it's for. That's the way I did, and you saw the result. I can get 'em every time now."
As the shooting continued, it was seen that Badger was doing good work, though nothing at all phenomenal. He stepped into position with an air of confidence, fired quickly, and then stepped back. But he kept away from Merriwell's crowd, mingling with others from Yale whom he knew.
Hodge's score and the Westerner's were nearly alike. Hodge saw it and squirmed. Then Merriwell, who had made only one miss, scored two "goose eggs," and Badger climbed up to him.
"I don't like that," Bart grumbled. "You're not doing your best, Merry. Badger may beat you."
Merriwell was cleaning out and cooling his gun—Bart's gun—which both were using, and which had grown hot and foul from rapid firing. The first round of twenty shots was nearing its close. Only four more shots were to be fired in it, at two pairs of birds. Badger had to his credit thirteen hits and three misses, and Merriwell the same.
"If you should miss one of the four and Badger should hit them all you would be beaten!" Bart urged uneasily. "And I don't want you to be beaten by him. I'm afraid you are going to tie. I want you to beat him. I can't stand it to have him crowing round."
Merriwell smiled placidly.
"Don't steam so, Hodge. It just heats you up, and makes you unhappy. If Buck Badger should beat me, I don't see that it would make a great difference. I haven't been shooting for a record this afternoon."
"All right," said Hodge. "However good your intentions may be, that fellow will never give you honest credit for them."
The shooting had recommenced, and Hodge walked back to the crowd, plainly disgruntled.
Merriwell clutched a handful of shells and went over to Badger.
"Try these, Buck!" he said. "They're a good deal better than those you've been using. I had them loaded very carefully under my own supervision for this kind of work, and you'll find them very fine. They're just suited to that gun, too. You have really been shooting at a disadvantage to-day."
A smile came to the dark face of the Westerner—a stern, determined sort of smile.
"Better not give them to me, perhaps, Merry. I'm going to beat you if I can. We're tied now. If you miss, I shall get you. Better not give me any advantages."
"You can't beat me!" said Frank, looking straight into the eyes of the Kansan.
"Do you mean that you haven't been trying to shoot? I've been watching you, and I allow you have been doing your level best."
"You haven't watched closely, then. I threw away two shots awhile ago. I could hardly miss them when I tried. But I'm not anxious to beat any one to-day. I didn't come out here to make a record."
Badger flushed.
"All right. Throw away another shot and I'll beat you."
"I'll not throw away another, and you can't beat me, though you may tie me."
He was smiling and good-humored, and the Kansan tried to be.
Badger took the next two straight, and Merriwell did the same.
"I'm afraid he is going to tie you!" grumbled Hodge.
"What's the score?" asked Rattleton, roused to the fact that Badger and Merriwell were now really shooting against each other.
"Toodness, a guy—I mean, goodness, a tie! Don't let him beat you, anyway, Merry!"
"That comes from being too good-natured," growled Hodge. "He wouldn't be anywhere near you, if you'd tried."
Twice again both brought down their birds. Only a pair was left now to each. Every member of the gun club present, together with those who, like Badger, were being permitted to shoot through the favor of members, and all the spectators, as well, knew now that Badger and Merriwell had finally pitted themselves against each other in a friendly shooting contest, with the chances in favor of a tie.
Hodge was hardly able to breathe, and Harry Rattleton was fidgeting uneasily. The spectators craned their necks as Badger, whose trial came first, walked into position with an air of easy confidence, that dark, determined smile disfiguring his face.