A wild lot of sophomores and freshmen were celebrating the beginning of "secret-society week," by marching round the campus at night in lock-step style, singing rousing college songs. They danced in and out of the dormitories, wildly cheered every building they passed, while the classes bellowed forth their "Omega Lambda Chi."
Down by the fence by Durfee's, on the campus, in the gymnasium, at Traeger's and Morey's and Jackson's, and wherever Yale men congregated, almost the sole topic of conversation was of who would go to "Bones," "Keys," and "Wolf's Head."
The air of mystery surrounding membership in these senior societies, the honor which their membership confers, and the fact that but a few men, comparatively, out of any junior class can be elected to them, create an absorbing interest.
Skull and Bones, or "Bones," as it is popularly called, is the wealthiest and most respected. Then follows Scrolls and Keys, or "Keys," with Wolf's Head third in order of distinction. The names are taken from the society pins. Each of these societies has a handsome and costly club-house, whose secrets are no more to be arrived at than are those of the sphinx and the pyramids.
Conjectures as to what society would get the most prominent members of the junior class had engrossed a good deal of thought for several weeks. Each society takes in fifteen members, or forty-five in all, out of the two hundred and fifty or more men that usually compose the junior class. As every junior is anxious to become a member, the feverish interest with which the subject is regarded by the juniors may be imagined. This interest had gradually spread throughout the college. Now the subject suddenly leaped to such importance that it overshadowed the ball-game which Yale was to play against Princeton, and the coming boat-race at New London, in which the phenomenally popular Inza Burrage was to be the mascot of the Yale crew.
Class spirit, that wildly jovial night, seemed to melt the sophomores into a fraternizing, loving brotherhood, where discord was unknown, even though the class contained such opposite elements as Buck Badger, Jim Hooker, Donald Pike, Pink Pooler, the Chickering set, Porter, Cowles, Mullen, Benson, Billings, Webb, and others. Though these might join in class dances and marches, and howl themselves hoarse in honor of the sophomores and of Yale, some of them could no more unite in any true sense than oil and water.
The campus was brilliantly illuminated. Powerful calcium and electric lights bored holes through the darkness, turning night into day. All the windows of all the dormitories which face the campus were crowded with students and with women.
Three of these windows held Frank Merriwell's friends. Frank was there, with Inza, Elsie, and Winnie, together with Mrs. Hodge and Inza's invalid father, Bernard Burrage.
"As in life, the good and the evil mingle," sighed Dismal Jones, as his eyes fell on Jim Hooker and other honorable sophomores who were marching in close proximity to the Chickering set. "The wheat grows up with the tares, and the result is an everlasting bobbery."
"There will be tears in your wardrobe if you don't quit walking on me!" squeaked Bink Stubbs.
"Climb up on a chair," advised Danny, who had already taken his own advice, and was thus able to look down into the campus without stretching his neck until he was in danger of converting himself into a dromedary. "It's just great!"
"Can't be anything great for me that holds that Chickering crowd!" Browning grumbled.
"Isn't the campus beautiful!" was Inza's enthusiastic exclamation.
It was, indeed, beautiful, for the fresh, tender green of the elms was brought out with marvelous distinctness by the brilliant lights.
"They're kuk-kuk-kicking up an awful dud-dud-dud-dust!" stuttered Gamp, pushing forward for a better view.
"Dust assume to crowd in front of me, base varlet?" questioned Bruce. "I'll forgive you if you'll just take off your tall head and hold it under your arm!"
"I s'pose naow you think that's a joke!" said Gamp.
"It's more than a dust, fellows," said Merriwell. "There is a fight on!"
Certain of the sophomores had bunched together under one of the elms, and seemed to be struggling, as if in a contest.
"It looks as though they might be playing football," suggested Elsie.
Winnie Lee leaned anxiously out of the window, for in the center of that knot she had seen Buck Badger. She had eagerly searched for him in the procession, and had but found him when that indication of a wrangle came to disturb her.
The procession seemed to be breaking up and concentrating beneath and around the elm where that struggle was taking place. Far in front a number of students were bellowing their "Omega Lambda Chi," but the others had ceased to sing.
"See how great a matter a little fire kindleth!" said Dismal.
And Dismal was right. The beginning of that scramble was trivial enough. But the trouble which it kindled was destined to outlive the moment and seriously affect the life and fortunes of at least one of the participants. Jones was merely grumbling one of his proverbs, without dreaming how appropriate the words really were.
Donald Pike had been nagging and tormenting the Chickering set. He had bumped his toes against Ollie Lord's high-heeled shoes. In the lock-step walk he had put his hands crushingly on Tilton Hull's high choker collar. He had pitched against and torn Gene Skelding's flaring necktie. And he had even dared to knock off Julitan Ives' hat and disarrange his lovely bang.
At last, in his exuberance, he seized a handful of clammy soil that was almost the consistency of mud, and playfully tossed it at Lew Veazie. It missed Veazie, and, by an infortuitous fate, took Buck Badger smack in the eye. Badger, who had seen Pike's antics, clapped a hand to his eye with a grunt of pain and astonishment.
"You scoundrel!" he bellowed. Then he lunged at Pike, with a startling suddenness that took Donald quite off his guard and threw him headlong.
Badger believed that Pike had thrown the mud into his eye purposely. There had been bad feeling between them, and even worse, for some time, and the gap separating them seemed to be growing wider all the while. Each had said exasperating and belittling things of the other, and a wall of hate had been built up where once there had been a bond of strong friendship. The pain in Badger's eye was excruciating, and it rendered him for a little while absolutely reckless. Fortunately, it also rendered him incapable of inflicting on his former friend the punishment which his rage dictated.
For a short time affairs were exciting enough. Sophomores and freshmen deserted the procession and leaped for the elm where the crowd was quickly gathering. Badger threw himself on Pike, after the latter was down, and would have proceeded to pound his face, without doubt, but that his arms were caught and held.
It was all over within less than two minutes. Some of the Westerner's friends held him back and began to talk some sense into him, while Pike's friends drew him out and away.
"I reckon this isn't the end of it!" snarled Badger, flinging the words at Pike. "There will be a beautiful settlement of this, remember."
Then he hobbled blindly out of the crowd with some acquaintances, to have his smarting eye attended to, while the procession reformed, and the rollicking students began again to shout their "Omega Lambda Chi."
The "beautiful settlement" came at a late hour that night. Badger encountered Pike while the latter was on his way to his room. The Kansan's eye still pained him, and his rage was hot. As soon as he saw Pike he stepped across the walk and took him by the nose.
"That's the way I treat such skunks as you!" he hissed, flinging Pike from him after offering him that deadly insult. "I want to warn you to keep out of my way after this. If you don't, I'll treat you just as I would a rattler!"
"You mean you will kill me!" snarled Pike, rushing at the Kansan in a fit of blind rage.
But he was no match for Badger, who flung him off with surprising ease, and then held him at bay and at arm's length by a clutch on his throat.
"I've a notion to choke the breath out of you!" said Badger. "Don't tempt me too far, or I might forget myself and do it. You know that I've got a red-hot, cantankerous temper when I get started. Now go! Git! If you don't, I'll lift you with my shoe. And keep out of my way, unless you want trouble!"
He pushed Pike from him with stinging scorn.
"I'll go!" said Pike. "But I'll pay you for to-night's work! See if I don't! You'll find out that there are more ways of fighting than with fists. You may wish that you had killed me, before you get through with it!"
"What does the scoundrel mean by that?" the Westerner questioned, staring at Pike as the latter hurried away. "I reckon he is mean enough to do anything. Well, he had better have a care!"
He was soon destined to feel the effects of Pike's threat in a manner more crushing than any knock-down, physical blow which Pike could have delivered.
The next evening, which was Tuesday evening, while the societies were hilariously enjoying their annual calcium-light procession, Donald Pike took a car and hastened to the home of the Honorable Fairfax Lee. He had tarried in the campus long enough to be sure that Winnie Lee was again enjoying the processional festivities from one of the dormitory windows.
"Nobody will know whether I am in that procession or not," he muttered, as he started toward Lee's. "And if they do know, what is the difference? I'm under no obligation to be there, and I can say that I had a headache, or anything else I want to, if I choose to take the trouble to account for my absence."
To Pike's great satisfaction, he found Fairfax Lee at home; and when he told the servant that he had an important communication to make, he was invited into the waiting-room, and finally was ushered into the presence of Mr. Lee.
The facing of Mr. Lee in this manner, even though he could claim disinterested motives, rather phased even the blunted spirit of Donald Pike. If he had dared to, he would have committed his story to writing, and so brought it to Lee's attention. But things that are written often have an unpleasant way of reappearing, to the discomfiture and undoing of the writer, and Pike's caution warned him against such risks. Words merely spoken, he assured himself, can be denied, if that becomes afterward necessary. Written words, undestroyed, cannot be so easily escaped.
"Anything I can do for you?" Mr. Lee queried, when Pike hesitated. "You have a communication, I believe?"
Donald pulled himself together, and the opening sentences of what he intended to say came back to him. He had thought these out with care, and they seemed very fine and even humanitarian.
"I want you to know at the outset, Mr. Lee, that in coming to you with the information I bear I am wholly disinterested. But the truth is due you. No one else seems to have had the courage to tell you, and I shall."
Fairfax Lee began to look interested.
"You are very kind," he said, "and I thank you in advance for your favor."
This was so auspicious a beginning that Pike's courage rose.
"I want to have a frank talk with you about a certain young Yale man—Mr. Buck Badger. You must have noticed that he is very devoted in his attentions to your daughter?"
There was no reply to this, though Pike halted, in the expectation that there would be one.
"I am well acquainted with Badger. In fact, until very recently, he was my roommate, and we were good friends. Perhaps when I tell you that he is not a fit man to associate with your daughter, you may think I am led by the fact that Badger and I are not now the friends we were once. But it is not so. We are not friends simply because his baseness became so apparent to me that I could no longer associate with him.
"I have thought this thing over for a good while, Mr. Lee, and as an honorable man, I did not think I ought to remain silent and see things go on as they are. You love your daughter, Mr. Lee?"
This last was rather an effective shot, for Fairfax Lee loved Winnie devotedly.
"All this is very unpleasant, Mr. Pike, but I am ready to hear what you have to say. I am free to confess that you rather surprise me."
"Your daughter is an admirable young lady, Mr. Lee. And though I cannot say that she and I are more than the merest acquaintances, I thought it a shame that matters should go on as they are without a word from me to you, to let you see what your daughter is walking into. Or what she would walk into, if she should ever be so unfortunate as to marry Buck Badger!"
Donald Pike had at last contrived to get into his tones and manner a sympathetic element that, while it was veriest hypocricy, was very effective.
"My daughter is not married to Mr. Badger yet!" said Lee, somewhat bluntly, a frown on his usually pleasant face, for his position was far from agreeable.
"And I hope she may never be."
"You fail to specify," Lee reminded. "You make only vague charges."
"There are many things," said Pike, coming to the point now with great boldness, "but I shall name only one. Buck Badger is a drunkard."
Fairfax Lee seemed astonished, and the frown on his face deepened.
"He is the worst type of drunkard. Not a man who drinks steadily, but one of those who indulge now and then in crazy, drunken debauches. For weeks, even months, he may not touch a drop of liquor. Then he will go on a spree. You can verify this, I am sure, by inquiries carefully made among the students. More than once he has been known to be on a drunk. He was drunk when he went aboard the excursion steamer,Crested Foam, when she was burned in the bay."
"What?"
"It is true, Mr. Lee, every word of it. Your daughter and a good many others think he was drugged by the boat-keeper, Barney Lynn, and lured on the steamer for the purpose of robbery. But when he met Lynn he was already raving blind drunk, and Lynn merely took advantage of his helpless condition. You can know that this is true if you will call or send a man to the saloon of Joe Connelly. He went to Connelly's that night—or rather, the evening before—filled himself up on the vilest decoctions, and went out from there as drunk as a fool. He has been there before many times. Connelly knows him well."
All this was so circumstantial that Fairfax Lee was alarmed and moved. He knew that Connelly's was one of the worst dens of the city, and he felt sure that unless there was something in the story Pike would not give names in this way. He resolved to learn the whole truth about the matter.
"If what you say is true, Buck Badger is not fit to associate with any girl," he asserted.
"Especially not with a girl as innocent and unsuspecting as your daughter, Mr. Lee. I have seen that for a good while, and it has been a fight with my conscience to keep from coming here with this story. I couldn't delay it longer. I trust you see that I can have no hope of gain, and nothing but right motives in bringing you this story—which you will find fully substantiated by a course of inquiry."
Fairfax Lee was flushed and silent.
"All of Badger's friends, or most of them, I am sure, know that he was drunk, and not drugged, when he went aboard theCrested Foam. Some of them might admit this knowledge."
"You are a sophomore?"
"Yes."
"And Mr. Badger is?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you were recently his friend and roommate?"
"Yes."
"I have your card, which I will put by for reference. I presume, if I call on you, you will be willing to repeat anywhere what you have said to me here?"
This was unexpected, and Pike hesitated.
"I don't care to get myself into trouble with Badger. He is of the bulldog, pugilistic type, and the first thing he would do would be to assault me like the bully he is. I have given you the warning. You can get all the proof you want. Probably you would never have heard of this until too late, if I had not voluntarily brought you the story."
"You are right," Lee admitted. "Perhaps that would be asking too much."
"I have struck the blow, Badger," Donald Pike muttered, as he left the handsome home of the Lees. "You will find it more of a knock-down, I fancy, than if I had hit you between the eyes with my fist. Nobody ever walks roughshod over Don Pike and gets off without suffering for it. You will hear something drop pretty soon."
And so, chuckling, he took his way to the street-car line, and returned to the campus and the Yale jollification.
The Kansan had accompanied Winnie Lee home that evening, as usual. The hour was late, and he did not enter the house, but kissed her good-night at the gate.
"Good-night and pleasant dreams, sweetheart!" he said as he turned to go.
His heart was light, for he and Winnie had enjoyed a long and loving talk on the way home, and throughout the evening there had been no untoward incident to mar his pleasure. He had noticed Donald Pike's absence, and had been glad of it, but he merely supposed Pike kept away because of the row of the previous evening. If there are such things as premonitions of coming trouble, certainly they did not distress Badger that night. Winnie was also in a happy frame of mind as she tripped lightly up the steps and entered the house.
Inza and Elsie had returned some time before. As she had expected, they had retired to their rooms. She was surprised, however, to find her father waiting for her in the sitting-room, which was brightly lighted. As she came into the room, she saw something ominous in his face. She thought she was to be lectured for remaining out so late.
"Sit down, Winnie," he said. "I want to have a talk with you."
His voice was even more ominous than his face. She came and sat down by his side, when she had removed her hat. He put his hand on her head and drew her toward him.
"Did Mr. Badger come home with you, Winnie?" he asked, and his voice was slightly tremulous.
"Yes, father. I know I stayed a little late, but it was so hard to get away while so much was going on. I don't know when I have had so pleasant an evening. And besides, it was hard for Buck to get away, and we had arranged for him to come home with me. The festivities had not ended when we left."
"Buck Badger must never come home with you again!" he said, with a firmness and suddenness that took all the color out of her cheeks, and seemed to take all the breath out of her body. She sat still, as if frozen by the statement, while a scared look filled her eyes. Then she partly roused herself.
"What—why do you say that?"
"I have learned that he is not fit to associate with you—is not fit to associate with any girl!"
"What have you heard, father?" she demanded, in a trembling voice. "I know that whatever it is, it isn't true, for Buck is fit to associate with any girl!"
She half-expected him to refer to the fracas of the evening before in the campus.
"If there is one thing on which I am determined, it is that my daughter shall never marry a drunkard!"
"Buck isn't a drunkard!"
"He was drunk when he was taken aboard theCrested Foamby that boatman, Barney Lynn."
"No, father!"
"You think not, of course. You think he was drugged."
"He was drugged. Lynn drugged him. He was not drunk, and he had not been drinking. Who has been telling you such things? I am sure it cannot be any one who has any honor."
"It was some one who felt it to be his duty to warn me of the fact that my daughter is in danger of marrying a drunkard. I thank him for it."
"But, father, you would not take the unsupported word of any one, would you? I know that Buck has touched liquor at times, just as nearly all the college men do, but he is not a drunkard, and he is not even a drinking man. And he is now strictly temperate. He told me so himself, that he has taken a pledge with himself never to touch anything of the kind again. And Mr. Merriwell—you know that Mr. Merriwell wouldn't befriend and favor him as he is doing now if Buck were a drunkard."
"But I know, Winnie, dear!" Lee firmly, yet kindly, insisted.
"And I know, father! Barney Lynn confessed to me that he drugged Buck; but he said nothing about Buck being intoxicated, which he would have done, wouldn't he, if Buck had really been intoxicated when he met Lynn?"
The girl was quick and alert. She understood that some desperate attempt to separate her from the man she loved had been made, and she did not intend that it should succeed without an effort against it on her part.
"Who told you this—lie, father?"
"I wish it was a lie!" Lee groaned.
"It is!"
"I have just come from Connelly's saloon, down in one of the worst parts of the city. I was told to go there and I would find the evidence I wanted. I went; and I have just returned. Badger was at Connelly's the night before theCrested Foamexcursion. It is an all-night resort—though it professes, I believe, to close at midnight. Badger left there at about two or three o'clock, blindly intoxicated. He was simply reeling drunk. He must have gone from there to the wharf, and there he fell into the hands of Barney Lynn, who drugged him for his money. This is true, Winnie. There isn't the slightest doubt about it. I wish it were all a terrible mistake, but it isn't. And that was not the first time that Badges had reeled out of Connelly's far into the night, drunk. He is given to just such drunken debauches."
Winnie Lee's heart seemed to have turned to lead in her bosom. She was cold from head to feet, except that in her cheeks bright spots burned. Her father looked at her with anguished eyes. He noted the pallor and the hectic spots.
"Winnie, I can't let you throw yourself away on such a fellow as Buck Badger! You must put him out of your thoughts. He is unworthy of you. I thought he was an honorable young man, and now I find I was mistaken. I shall make further inquiries, but those I have made to-night are enough to condemn him. You must not see him again, and you must have nothing further to do with him. I want you to tell him just what I have said—or I shall tell him myself, and give him a piece of my mind in the bargain."
Winnie knew that she was trembling as with an ague, but she tried to hold her emotions in check that she might fight for herself and for Buck. Everything was at stake now, she felt, for she loved Badger with an absorbing love.
"You have simply been deceived, father," she insisted. "I know it. Like many Yale men, Buck has been a little wild at times. He knows it and acknowledges it But as for that night and that excursion, that isn't true, I don't care who told you. Buck has a good many enemies, and some of them have come to you with this story. Tell me who told you, in the first place."
"It wouldn't be right just now for me to give his name. And it is not needed. Connelly admitted that Badger had been there often, and had gone from there drunk the night before the steamer excursion. He remembered it, because the story of the fire and of Lynn's death, and the drugging of Badger, was in the papers, and he could not forget the time. I wish it wasn't true, Winnie; but it is true. It will be hard, perhaps, for you to give him up, but better that than for him to make you unhappy, as he is sure to do."
"Hard!" she mentally cried. "It will kill me!"
He looked at her pathetically, yet with decision and firmness.
"Make up your mind that he is unworthy. I will bring you more proofs, if necessary. But I, first of all, lay on you my commands. You must not see him again, except to tell him that he cannot call again, and that you cannot be anything to each other hereafter but the merest acquaintances."
Man of affairs and of the world as he was, Fairfax Lee had not yet learned that love cannot be made to come and go at will. If the little god is blind, he is also stubborn, and has a way of his own.
"I can't, father!" Winnie begged. "You must not ask it of me."
"What? You would not continue to go with him, knowing what I have told you? You would not permit a drunkard to pay you attentions, or a man who is in the habit of going on wild debauches?"
"No. But Buck is not that kind of a man. You have simply been deceived."
"I have given my orders," said Lee, with a sternness he seldom used in speaking to Winnie. "I expect that they will be obeyed. It is useless to argue the matter. Buck Badger must not come into this house. I will write him a note to that effect, myself. You shall not see him again! I shall tell him in plain words just what I have learned, and that this house and your company are forbidden to him."
"But, father——"
"We will not talk any more about it. You are stubborn to-night. You will think better of it in the morning. No one—no one, Winnie, loves you as I do! I have given you every advantage. You shall not throw yourself away on any one."
He got up, as if to end the interview.
The room and its belongings seemed swinging wildly round in a crazy dance before the eyes of Winnie Lee. She grasped at her chair for support. She seemed unable to lift herself. In her heart there was only one cry—one wild cry: "Buck! Buck! Buck!"
By a great effort, she at last arose from her chair. Her father saw the marblelike pallor of her face, and, touched by this sign of distress, he came over, put his arms about her and kissed her. Her cheek, against which he pressed his lips, seemed cold as ice.
"Don't be foolish, dear!" he pleaded. "You shouldn't grieve over a man who is so manifestly unworthy of you. You know that I love you, and that I haven't said these things to give you pain, but because it is my duty as your father. Now, good night, dear."
"Good night!" she said, as if in a dream, and blindly walked toward the door.
In her room, she threw herself across her bed.
"Oh, what shall I do?" she moaned. "Buck! Buck! Buck! Who has told such terrible lies on you, dear?"
And so she lay there, moaning out a grief that was too great for tears.
The next afternoon the Westerner received this note, which was delivered at his room by a boy, who went away before Badger had a chance to question him:
"Mr. Buck Badger: Certain facts have come to my knowledge which show that you are not the man I supposed you to be. I find that you are not only a drinking man, but that you often become grossly intoxicated, and that you were so when lured aboard theCrested Foamby Barney Lynn. Under these circumstances, you cannot expect that I will longer permit your attentions to my daughter. I ask you, therefore, not to try to see her again, and not again to call at my house, where you are most unwelcome. If there is any spark of manhood or gentlemanliness left in you, you will respect my wishes and commands in this matter. Yours,"Fairfax Lee."
"Mr. Buck Badger: Certain facts have come to my knowledge which show that you are not the man I supposed you to be. I find that you are not only a drinking man, but that you often become grossly intoxicated, and that you were so when lured aboard theCrested Foamby Barney Lynn. Under these circumstances, you cannot expect that I will longer permit your attentions to my daughter. I ask you, therefore, not to try to see her again, and not again to call at my house, where you are most unwelcome. If there is any spark of manhood or gentlemanliness left in you, you will respect my wishes and commands in this matter. Yours,
"Fairfax Lee."
The Kansan stared at the paper as if he could not believe his eyes, while a flush of hot displeasure crept into his dark face.
"Who has been telling him that?" he growled, jamming the note down on his table, and then picking it up to read again. "I'll break the neck of the man that did that. 'Not try to see her again?' Well, I don't think! I allow I shall see her every chance I get, and whenever I choose, and I'd like to tell Lee so. Why, what——"
He got up from the table and began to walk back and forth like a caged tiger. He was sure that some enemy had struck at him in this way. Suddenly he halted, and the pupils of his eyes contracted.
"Ah!" he snarled. "I reckon that was the work of Don Pike. He said he'd strike me in a way that would be worse than if he hit me with his fist, and this is what he meant! Well, I'll settle with you, Pike, for that, and don't you ever forget it! You won't forget, either, I allow, when I'm through with you. That's whatever!"
He crumpled up the note, hastily stuck it into a pocket, jammed his hat on his head, and left his room hurriedly, locking the door. He did not stop in the campus. It was filled with Yale fellows, and the fence in front of Durfee Hall was crowded. He saw here and there men whom he knew well, and who nodded to him. He hardly took time to return the greetings.
"What's the matter with Badger now?" rumbled Browning. "He is charging along like a blind bull at a fence."
"Why do you ever notice what the fellow does at all?" Bart Hodge grumbled.
"Well, even cranks are interesting," said Dismal Jones, also looking curiously after Badger.
"Curiosities likewise," remarked Danny Griswold, puffing at his cigarette. "And since our dear Merry has just about adopted this wild bull from the plain, my interest in him as a curiosity has increased."
"As a guess, I should say he is hunting somebody to fight," said Diamond.
"Then he will be accommodated in mighty short order," Browning prophesied. "I never yet saw a fellow go after trouble and return without finding what he sought. Mr. Badger is not the only fellow who goes pawing round with his hair standing and blood in his eye."
"Speaking from experience, Browning?" mildly inquired Bink Stubbs, scratching a match to light a cigarette. "You have gone in search of trouble a few times, to my knowledge."
"And you're searching for it now!" grunted Browning, giving the little fellow a warning look.
All unaware of the fact that his rapid transit across the campus had occasioned unusual comment, Badger hurried on, and finally entered a car which took him to the office of Fairfax Lee.
"Is Mr. Lee in?" he asked of the clerk in the outer room.
"Yes."
"Will you give him my card, please, and tell him I should like to see him a few minutes?"
The clerk took the card and disappeared. He was back immediately.
"Mr. Lee says that he cannot see you, sir!"
"Did he say that he is engaged?"
"No, sir. He does not care to see you!"
The Westerner's dark face burned, and he bit his lip to keep the hot words from rushing out in a torrent. He stood for a moment, hesitating. But a door separated him, he believed, from Mr. Lee. He was almost ready to push open that door and confront Lee and demand an explanation of the letter forbidding him to see Winnie again. But he got the better of himself, and walked out of the office.
"If he thinks he can bluff me out, or freeze me out, he don't know me!" he grated, as he turned away. "I shall see Winnie as often as I can. Hanged if I don't go up there right now!"
With the Kansan, to think was to act. And in a few minutes he was in another car speeding toward the home of the Lees.
"If I don't get to see her, perhaps I can find out something about this mess from Inza or Elsie. They may be able to clear away the mystery. I allow I never was in so horrible a snarl in my life. But I'll punch Pike's head for this, and don't you forget it! That's whatever!"
But the Westerner met quite as chilling a reception at Lee's home as at the office. The servant who met him at the door had received her instructions.
"You are not to be admitted to the house," she said sharply.
"Is Miss Lee in?" he persisted.
"No."
"Is that true, or is it one of the society lies which declares that a lady is out when she is in?" he bluntly demanded.
To this there was no answer. The servant began to close the door. Badger stopped this by taking hold of the knob.
"What do you want?" asked the girl, who was somewhat frightened by the Westerner's violent manner.
"I want to see Miss Winnie Lee."
"She is not at home."
"Then I want to see Miss Inza Burrage."
"She is not in."
"Then I should like to see Miss Elsie Bellwood."
"She is not in."
Badger suddenly changed his tactics. Bluster would not do, he saw. He put his hand into a pocket and drew out a five-dollar note, which he held up alluringly.
"If you will take a note for me to Miss Lee, I will give you this five dollars."
The servant shook her head and again tried to close the door.
"If you will take a note to either Miss Burrage or Miss Bellwood, I will give you the five dollars."
Once more the servant sought to close the door.
"I have my orders, Mr. Badger. I cannot afford to lose my place for five dollars or fifty dollars. And I wouldn't do what you ask, anyway. If you do not let me close the door, I shall call for help."
"All right!" said Badger gruffly, releasing the door. "But I will see those young ladies, just the same."
To accomplish this he remained in the vicinity of the house until long after nightfall. But he was wholly unrewarded for his vigil, and at last, distressed, humiliated, and angry, he took a car for the college grounds, raging like a lion against Donald Pike. Even an enemy of Badger must have pitied him that night.
The campus was filled with Yale men and their friends, and there were excitement and sport, fun and laughter, music and merriment galore. But Badger could enjoy none of it. He had no thought for anything but Winnie Lee and the treatment he had received from her father. He wondered if she were at home, and was half of the opinion that Lee had spirited her out of the city. His disappointment in not seeing either Elsie or Inza was bitter, for somehow he felt that if he could see them they would be willing to help him.
With this feeling, he now began to look for Merriwell and his friends, but they were not to be found. He went to Merry's room, and then from room to room, even venturing finally to knock on Hodge's door. Later he learned that Hodge and Merry had called at the home of Fairfax Lee, after he had given over his vigil, and had been cordially admitted, and had accompanied Inza and Elsie to a banquet, which was attended by the whole Merriwell set.
The Westerner was more successful in his search for Merriwell the next day, though he did not get a chance to speak to Frank until the afternoon.
Badger was looking haggard and distressed as he came up to Merry. They were in the campus, and Yale's famous "slapping" ceremony was soon to begin. The campus was filling with men, and the members of the junior class were out in full force, for out of that junior class, by the "slapping" process, forty-five men were to be selected as members of "Bones," "Keys," and Wolf's Head.
"I looked everywhere for you last night," said Badger; and Frank told him of the banquet.
"Let's go somewhere where we can talk," the Westerner invited, not relishing the throngs. "The air in here chokes me."
Merry took him by the arm, and they pushed out of the crowd.
"Now, what it is?" Frank asked.
Badger could have made a long story of it, but he cut it down to narrow limits, acquainting Merriwell, in as few words as possible, with the trouble that had come upon him. Frank looked grave.
"This is serious, Badger," he said, not caring to conceal from the Kansan his true feelings concerning it. "But I'm ready to help you in any way I can."
"My fool jealousy was at the bottom of the whole thing!" Badger admitted. "Just because I was jealous of Hodge, I went on that drunk and let Barney Lynn fool me into going aboard the boat and in drugging me. Jealousy and whisky. That's what did it."
"I think you are right there."
"But, of course, Don Pike is the fellow that peached. And I'll smash his face for it! I allow that everything would have gone on as smooth as silk but for that."
"Now, what are you going to do?"
"Hanged if I know, Merriwell! I'll be driven to something desperate, soon. Tell me what the girls said about it."
"I don't think they knew anything about it. They reported that Winnie had been sick in her room, and the doctor had instructed that they were not to see her or disturb her."
"Is she in the house, then?"
"I can't tell. She may be, and she may not be. One thing is sure, Buck. Her father is not going to let you see her again. And that makes me think it possible he has spirited her out of the city. If she is in the house, the pretense that she is sick cannot be kept up long."
"I don't know about that," said the Kansan dubiously. "I allow that likely she is sick. The thing has almost sent me to bed, and the effect on her might be as bad."
"Worse, probably."
"If she is sick in that house, I'm going to see her, if I have to fight my way in."
"And be arrested. No, that's not the way, Badger. I'll see Elsie and Inza this evening, and we'll find out something definite."
"You have helped me before in this matter, Merry!" the Kansan gratefully exclaimed.
"And am ready to do so again. I feel more certain now than I did then that Winnie is not in danger of throwing herself away on you. Pardon me for speaking so plainly."
"Oh, it's all right!" the Westerner admitted, though his face colored. "I used to be a dog when I boozed round, and that's what Fairfax Lee has against me now, of course. He thinks I am the same. But I've sworn off on the stuff, and you know it."
"I'll have a talk with the girls, and well see then how the land lays, and what can be done."
"It will be a favor—the biggest favor, I reckon, that any man ever received."
A number of voices were shooting Merriwell's name in the campus.
"You'll have to go, I allow," said the Westerner, gripping Merriwell's hand. "But the first news you get send it to me. Don't stop for expense, or anything else. Send it along—cab, telephone, telegraph, special messenger, or a dozen, if there's danger one may not reach me—anything, just so you whoop the news to me. I'll be walking barefooted on cactus spines every minute from now until you make some kind of a report."
Merriwell returned to the campus, where Yale tradition was gathering the members of the junior class back of the fence, near Durfee Hall.
The ceremony of "slapping" is peculiar in many respects. No official announcement is made of the fact that this formal and queer manner of announcing elections to the senior societies is enacted. No announcement of the coming event is given to the public. The members of the junior class are not notified by any one that they are expected to appear on that spot by the fence at a certain time to be ready to be "slapped," if they have been lucky enough to be chosen for membership in the great senior societies. Nevertheless, the entire junior class, with half the college, and hundreds of spectators from the city, gather there on the third Thursday afternoon in May, between the hours of four and six o'clock, and witness or participate in the spectacle.
"Slates" had been made up weeks before, and shrewd guesses given as to who would be chosen to this society and to that, though it was all mere guesswork. Nearly every one had agreed, however, that Merriwell would go to "Bones," as the leading society is called, and that "Bones" would be glad to get him, and would be receiving an honor as well as conferring one. Buck Badger, restless as a wolf, stood back and gloomily watched this gathering, and heard the buzz of talk and conjecture without really comprehending a word. Often he was not aware that he saw the things that were transpiring directly under his eyes.
But at length he aroused himself. Elsie and Inza had suddenly come within the range of his vision, and the sight of them stirred him out of his moody trance. He moved in their direction, but before he could come up with them, to his great disappointment, the pushing crowd swallowed them. Then he went in search of Merriwell, whom he found without trouble, for Merriwell was with the expectant juniors.
"Which way did they go?" Frank asked.
"Toward that building—I mean in that direction. But I lost them in the crowd."
"I thought they might come down this afternoon! Winnie wasn't with them?"
"No."
Frank was about to start away to find the girls, if he could, and question them in the interest of Badger and Winnie, but at that moment he was approached by Jack Diamond, one of the seniors.
Diamond walked up to Merriwell with all the dignity of the Great Mogul of Kuddyhuddy, and gave him a resounding slap on the back. Diamond belonged to "Bones," and the slap was a notification that the society had chosen Merriwell.
"I can't go now, Badger," said Frank, a bit regretfully.
Then he left the campus for his room, as each man slapped is expected to do, followed by Diamond, where he was notified formally of his election and told to appear for initiation at the society hall on Friday evening.
Of what that initiation consists no one not a member ever knows, and no member will ever tell. Its mysteries are more impenetrable than Free Masonry.
Shortly after nightfall, Badger started again for the residence of Fairfax Lee. He had no definite plans, but rather blindly hoped something might turn up to favor him. He confessed to himself that he was "all gone to pieces," but he had no desire to go into some liquor den and load up with bad whisky, as he was once accustomed to do when trouble or disappointment struck him.
"It was red-eye that got me into this, I reckon, and I'll let the stuff alone hereafter. I've promised to, and I will, no matter what comes. That's whatever!"
And when Buck Badger put his foot down he usually put it down hard.
"I'd feel better if I could only meet Don Pike and swell up his eyes for him," he continued to growl. "But the coward has sloped."
It did, indeed, seem that Pike was making an effort to keep out of the way of the Westerner. The very sight of the Lee home quickened Badger's heart-beats. He felt that he would give anything to know if Winnie was in the house, or had been spirited away.
"Like enough, her father has locked her in her room! But there ain't any keys whatever that are made strong enough to keep me from seeing her. I'll do it sooner or later."
Fortune favored the Westerner—fortune and his sweetheart, Winnie Lee. Winnie was as wildly anxious to see Buck as he was to see her. She had been locked in her room for stubbornness in refusing to promise never to see Badger again, and the other girls had been told that she was ill and could not be seen. They knew better now, for Winnie had finally bribed and coaxed one of the servants to tell them the truth. They had not known it long, but long enough for Inza—indignant as she was brave, and brave as she was indignant—to send to Winnie a note, signed by herself and Elsie, assuring the unhappy girl of their sympathy and firm friendship. And that note was wrapped round a door-key which fitted Winnie's door, which the servant was bribed to carry.
So it came about that shortly after nightfall Winnie let herself out of her room, and creeping down some familiar halls and stairways, emerged into the grounds surrounding the house. Then she turned toward the street. She did not know what she meant to do, only she had a feeling that Buck was somewhere in the vicinity trying to find an opportunity to speak to her. She had felt sure that he would not abandon the attempt to communicate with her. She had on her jacket, with a scarf thrown over her head. She felt that she would not be easily recognized.
She stopped as she drew near the corner which gave a view down the street. There was a stir beyond the wall. The next instant a form came flying over the fence.
"Winnie!"
"Buck!"
It was Badger!
"I have been crazy to see you!" he whispered, clasping her tightly in his arms. "I knew it wasn't your fault that I did not get to see you. Have they had you locked up?"
"Yes," she answered, fervently returning the kiss. "I just got out of the room. Somehow, I felt that you were down here, and I slipped down as soon as I could."
"I knew you were true as steel," he fervently declared. "Nothing whatever could ever have made me believe otherwise."
"Did father write to you?"
"Yes. He told me never to come here again, and that I must not try to see you. I came to the house, and the servant said you were not in, and would not admit me even when I asked for Elsie and Inza. I have had an awful time."
"I have nearly died!" she confessed. "Oh, it has simply been terrible! I thought once I was going crazy. Father does not understand how he has tortured me, or he would not do it, I know. He cannot realize what it means. He simply thinks I am still a child, and that I ought to submit to him in this matter, as I have always done in all other things."
"You are old enough now to have a mind of your own, I allow!"
"And he has heard such awful stories about you, Buck. Just terrible things."
That deep rage against Donald Pike struggled again in the heart of the Kansan.
"I think I know who told him. What were the things, anyway?"
He said this with a great dread, for he already knew.
"Oh, I knew you were not guilty, Buck! Never fancy for a moment that I thought you guilty. I told him you were innocent. I knew that it couldn't be true that you were"—she sobbed—"drunk when you went aboard theCrested Foam."
Badger winced as if stabbed. The dying boat-keeper, Barney Lynn, confessed to drugging Badger, but did not tell Winnie that Badger was drunk at the time. The Westerner knew this, and had been, as he had admitted to Merriwell, just coward enough to be glad that Lynn did not tell Winnie the whole truth. Now, as the sweat of a great inward struggle came out on his face, he wished he had been courageous enough to inform her of the real facts, instead of sheltering himself behind that palatial confession of the boat-keeper. It was a virtual falsehood that was coming home to him in a most unpleasant manner.
"I have stood up for you, Buck, against everything that father could say," Winnie artlessly and innocently continued. "When he insisted that you were drunk at the time, I told him I knew it was not so; and I have stood by it. He thinks he has discovered proofs from a saloon-keeper named Connelly, who keeps a vile resort somewhere down in the worst part of New Haven. Connelly says you were intoxicated at his house that night. But I told father that the same fellow who gave him the information against you in the first place must have hired Connelly to say that. A man who will sell liquor will lie, you know, Buck!"
Badger was violently trembling, but Winnie, in the ecstatic joy of meeting him, did not notice it. There was a tempest in the Kansan's soul. Winnie's sweet and trusting faith in him filled him with an anguishing shame. Could he tell her now that he was drunk that night—that all the things said against him by Connelly and that unknown informant were true? Would she not turn against him if he did? Would she not despise him? Would not her love be obliterated? Badger felt as if the ground were reeling under his feet.
Once he was about to give away to the evil impulses that were fighting against him. But he did not. At last, as she chattered on, so strongly asserting her faith in his innocence, he caught her convulsively to him.
"Winnie!" he gasped, and his voice was so hoarse and unnatural that she was startled. "My God! Winnie, don't say those things! I know that when I confess the truth to you you will feel that I am the biggest scoundrel that ever walked. But I must tell you. I was a coward and a fool, I reckon, for not telling you before. But I just couldn't, Winnie! But those things are true! I was drunk that night—I was at Connelly's—I was——"
Her form seemed to grow rigid in his arms.
"I must tell you the truth now, if it kills me!" he continued, almost gasping out the words. "And if you cast me off, I believe it will kill me! But it seems to me that I'd rather die than to have you think me innocent when I am guilty. I could never stand it in the world. I'm a dog, I allow! I'm not fit to associate with you whatever—not in the least! Your father is right about that. I see it now, though I didn't before. But, Winnie, I love you, and I love you! That is all I can say. I allow I haven't a right to say that now, but I must say it. You won't cast me off for this? You will give me another show? Before God, I haven't touched the stuff since that night! Not a drop! And I'll never touch it again!"
"Buck," she whispered, at last, "I wish you had told me that at the very first."
"And you wouldn't have spoken to me again?"
"Yes, Buck, I should have spoken to you again. I should have been very sorry, Buck. I should have grieved over it, as I do now. But I should have loved you just the same, Buck."
"Then you do love me? You do not intend to tell me to go and never speak to you again?"
"Don't you understand a girl's heart any better than that, Buck? She never casts a man off for such things, if she truly loves him—though, perhaps, she ought to! Love isn't a thing of the head, but of the heart. I love you, Buck, and I am very sorry!"
He held her as if he meant never to let her go, and she submitted to his crushing caress.
"You are true—true—true as steel!" he exultantly cried.
"Be careful, or you will be heard, dear! We are right by the house, remember."
"Is your father in?"
"No, but he may return at any time. It would be terrible if he should discover us here."
"What are we to do?" he asked.
"Oh, I don't know. I haven't had time to think. What you have confessed has so upset me that I seem to know nothing else. I can't think of anything else. You see, Buck, I can't tell father any more that you were not—drunk that night!"
The hated word seemed to choke her.
"No!"
"And what shall I say to him?"
"I reckon that is entirely too much for me."
"But I will stand up for you all I can!"
"I allow that you are an angel!" he enthusiastically declared.
"You have a low conception of angels. I can't imagine one meeting a man in this surreptitious fashion. Really, Buck, when you come to think of it, it is almost as bad as—as—what you did at Connelly's, you know!"
"Not on your life, it isn't! It's the thing I knew you would do—and there isn't any truer or better girl whatever on this earth!"
"I am glad you think so, Buck."
The Westerner was trembling as much now with delight and pleasure as he had before been trembling with apprehension. The fear that Winnie would cast him off when she knew the truth about theCrested Foamaffair, that had so distressed him, had given place to a deep satisfaction.
"It would be dreadful if father should discover us here. I am really getting scared!" she continued.
"I reckon that there isn't any other place whatever where we can go?" he anxiously asked.
"No. But we can stand and talk here a little while. Then I shall have to hurry back into the house before my absence is noticed. One of the servants I can trust to help me, but, I am afraid, not the others."
"And Elsie and Inza?"
"Yes, of course, all they can. They have just heard about the trouble I have been having. They thought I was sick. I don't know what they can do."
"Carry notes," Badger suggested.
"Yes. Oh, they will do what they can! They sent me a key that fits the door of my room. And they are coming up to see me to-night and to-morrow, they said in their note, in spite of the prohibition. But, of course, they will have to be careful. Father is very set when he makes up his mind to do anything, and he is very stern at times, though he loves me. He thinks he is doing the thing that he ought to do, and that he is really keeping me from throwing myself away——"
"On a drunkard!" said the Westerner bitterly.
"But you don't drink now, Buck! And you never were a drunkard!"
"Perhaps I oughtn't to blame him any whatever!" he grumbled.
"His intentions are good, but it is going to make it hard for us, for, of course, I do not mean to give you up, if he keeps on ordering me to do so from now until the day of——"
"Our marriage!"
She laughed.
"I was going to say the day of my death!"
"I allow that the day of our marriage sounds a good deal better."
"I think it does myself," she admitted, and the Kansan took this as an excuse to kiss her again.
"We'll pull out of this snarl in some way," he hopefully declared. "I don't know just how, but we'll plan something."
"Oh, I'm afraid of father!" and she shivered.
"I don't see just how we are to get round the old man's objections myself at this moment, but something may come our way. If we can continue to meet, I reckon we can plan something."
"We can meet to-morrow evening right here."
"Good. That's all right."
"And many more nights, if we are not discovered. I'll be as nice to father as I can, and perhaps he will not dream I am such a disobedient thing, after all. But I do hate to deceive him! I never did before in my life, and it strikes me as something awful. He doesn't dream that I would do such a thing."
"I think he does, or he wouldn't have locked you in. If he had trusted you, there would have been no need of that."
"True," she admitted.
"And I shall be a living lie, just as you were, Buck, when you made me think I knew all about thatCrested Foamaffair. So you see I am not much better than you were, if any. But you will never deceive me about anything again, will you, Buck?"
"Never!" the Kansan asserted.
"And if you should find out who told father?"
"I'll punch his head."
"And get into more trouble? You mustn't!"
"I know who it was. Don Pike did that, I'm certain, and if I don't pay him for it, I allow it will be because I don't get a chance."
"Don't get into more trouble!" she begged.
"There won't be any trouble—for me!"
Her fear of discovery was so great that she would not remain out long, but crept back into the house and up to her room. Badger, however, lingered, staring up at the house and vainly endeavoring to think of some plan which would enable them to overcome the violent objections of Mr. Lee.
"I allow I am in a hole," he grumbled. "But as long as Winnie has no notion of throwing me over, I shall not let any coyote weakness get the better of me! Not on your life!"
He was about to leap the fence and make his way back to the campus, when he saw a man sneak into the yard and drop down behind some shrubbery not far from the front door. He could not make out the man's face and form because of the darkness.
"Mighty queer, that is!" thought the Westerner, staring at the spot where the man had disappeared. "He don't act as if he intended to try to rustle the ranch. I reckon I'll wait a bit."
Badger had not long to wait. Fairfax Lee came down the walk from the street scarcely a minute later.
"If this wasn't New Haven, in the great and cultivated East, I should say the fellow is laying for Lee with a gun, or a lariat!"
As Lee came down the path, the man appeared from behind the shrubbery, as if he had just returned from a visit to one of the side doors, and placed himself in front of the politician. Lee stopped in a hesitating way, and it was clear to Badger that he was afraid of this intruder.
"What are you doing here?" Lee demanded. The man advanced a step, with a threatening whine.
"You wouldn't see me at your office, and I have come here, Lee. When are you going to get me that appointment?"
Lee was one of New Haven's prominent politicians.
"I have told you that I can't do anything for you, Gaston!" he declared.
"But you said before the election that you'd git me a job!"
"I said nothing of the kind!"
"That's a lie!" the man addressed as Gaston fiercely asserted. "You wouldn't see me at the office, so I've come here, and I want justice done. You have been turning me away every day. I was right so long as I could hustle votes for you, and now I'm dirt!"
"You are simply a lunatic."
"And you mean to put me in an asylum?" the man hissed.
"That is the appointment I'll get for you, Gaston, if you trouble me."
"I'll kill you!" Gaston snarled, drawing a knife. "That's what I have made up my mind to do to you!"
"Stand aside, sir, and let me pass!" Lee commanded, though his voice was shaky. "I shall have you arrested if you——"
For reply, the man leaped at Lee with a snarl like that of an enraged dog.
"Loony as a locoed cowboy!" thought Badger. He was on the point of rushing to Lee's assistance. But there was no need. Lee, who was light on his feet, avoided the rush and ran for a side door, through which he escaped into the house, leaving Gaston to rave and mutter, and at last retreat into the street and hurry away.
Not until the man had disappeared did the Westerner leave the grounds. Then he leaped the fence, and hurried back to the campus. Here a large number of students were rollicking in the somewhat wild and reckless student fashion, to their own great delight and the amusement of hundreds of spectators.
Under an elm in front of Durfee some students were gathering "fruit." They began by collecting it from members of the Chickering set. Of all the men in the college, the Chickering set were the most unpopular with their fellow students. Their silliness and superciliousness were so unbounded as to be disgusting to all sensible men. From the immaculate Rupert, with his patent-leather shoes and shining tile, down to the cowardly little lisper, Lew Veazie, they were alike detested. Hence it came about that when Rupert Chickering appeared under the famous "fruit" tree wearing a more than ordinarily gorgeous shirt, the cry of "Fruit!" was immediately raised.
Rupert uttered an exclamation of dismay and turned to run. He had heard that cry before. But he only hastened what he sought to evade. A foot outstretched for the purpose tripped him, and brought him sprawling to the ground. Before he could rise, one of the laughing students was upon him.
"See here!" he exclaimed, "I'll have you know that I will not submit to any such outrage! I know you, and I shall report you to the faculty!"
He tried to fight off the youth who held him, but a dozen other men rushed to this youth's assistance. Then a wild-eyed fellow produced a shining pocket-knife and slowly and exasperatingly opened its sharpest blade.
"Help!" Rupert squawked.
The knife was flourished in the air, and the tag on the lower end of Rupert's shirt-bosom was deftly amputated.
"Fruit!" was again shouted, and a dash was made for Gene Skelding, who, as usual, wore a rainbow shirt that outshone Joseph's "coat of many colors."
"Help!" Skelding howled.
But a score of hands outstretched to grasp him, and he, too, went down, screeching lustily. Another knife flashed and another shirt-tag was neatly severed.
Lew Veazie, who had been with Rupert and Gene, started to run, deeming discretion the better part of valor. But he took only a step when he, too, went down. And again an amputating knife did its work. As soon as a shirt-tag was cut off, the amputator, flourishing it on the blade of his knife, like an Indian flaunting a scalp-lock, made a dash for the elm, where it was pinned up as a trophy.
Then it was found that a "taste" for shirt-tags had been created by this exciting bit of experience, and other men, who had been loudly laughing and cheering over the discomfiture of Chickering and his inane friends, found themselves suddenly on the ground, with wicked-looking knives flashing before their eyes, and their shirts being mutilated by the pressure of keen knife-blades.
In the midst of this "fun," Buck Badger arrived on the campus from his stolen interview with Winnie Lee. Though his face wore a perplexed expression, it had lost its gloom. There might be trouble for him in the future, but Winnie's words had for the present driven the blackest of the shadows out of his heart. The desire uppermost in his mind just then was to meet and whip Donald Pike. He had sworn to himself that he would do that the first thing, and he meant to keep the oath.
Nevertheless, reaching the elms of the campus at this exciting moment, he was willing to cease temporarily his search for Pike and view the fruit-gathering. It would be rare sport, provided, of course, that his own shirt was not forced to yield "fruit."
To prevent this, and that he might see better, he grasped a low-hanging limb and swung up into one of the elms.
"Fruit!" was being shouted everywhere, and the indications were that scores of trophies would adorn the old elm the next morning, if some stop was not put to the thing by the college authorities, which was not likely. "Society week" is expected to be noisy, and things are winked at which on ordinary occasions would bring reprimands.
Another person had invaded the branches of the elm but a minute before the ascent of the Westerner. That other person was Donald Pike, who looked down now on the man he felt instinctively to be his mortal foe with a little shiver of dread. More than once Pike had regretted making that revelation to Fairfax Lee, for the chances that discovery would come and that Badger would fiercely summon him to answer, seemed very great, when he gave himself time to reflect. And he feared Badger.
All might have gone well on this evening with Pike, however, if his fear of discovery had not made him try to climb farther up the tree. The Kansan heard the low scraping sound, in spite of the din in the campus, and glanced upward, and when he did so he saw and recognized the man he was looking for. A calcium-light was sending its rays through the higher branches, and Pike's white, scared face was as plainly revealed to Badger as if the two were facing each other in a lighted room.
The hate which Badger had been nursing swelled to the point of bursting. He forgot the search for "fruit," in which he had been interested, seeing only the enemy whom he had sworn to whip as soon as they met.
As yet they had not met; but Badger, blinded by his intense anger, decided that the meeting should come without delay, even if the place was a tree-top; and he began to climb up the trunk and boughs of the tree toward Donald. Pike looked about in a despairing way. The distance to the ground seemed dishearteningly great. His first impulse, therefore, was to climb still higher, and this he began to do.
But, recollecting the tenacity of Badger's purpose in whatever the Kansan was engaged, he felt sure that he would be pursued into the very top of the tree and shaken to the ground. Therefore, he hastily crawled out over a horizontal limb, whose drooping ends dipped toward the earth. If driven to the worst, he felt that he could drop from one of those drooping ends without serious injury.
With a howl of rage, Badger climbed on after the frightened youth, and pursued him out on the horizontal limb.
But there were to be other actors in this little overhead drama. A couple of cats, chancing to be in the campus when the students invaded it, had run up this identical elm, and had crouched in wild-eyed fear on that same bough, watching the wild orgies of the students. They had probably been there for a considerable period, not daring to descend while that howling, dancing mob held the grounds. Perhaps they even fancied that those yells and ear-splitting squeals were directed against them. They must have thought so when Don Pike crawled out on the limb toward them, followed by Buck Badger.
The cats looked about, meowing anxiously. There was no other bough near which they could gain by a leap. And as Pike, looking back and gasping with fright, crawled straight on toward them, the cat that was farthest out on the end of the limb launched itself through the air in a desperate leap for the ground.
There was no cleared space in which it could alight, and it struck Bink Stubbs on the top of the head, jamming his hat down over his eyes and hurling him backward.
"Dog my cuc-cuc-cuc-cats!" stuttered Joe Gamp, looking up in open-mouthed wonder.
"The sky is raining cats!" whooped Danny.
"Somebody amputate its tail!" yelled a student.
"Cut off its shirt-tab!" shouted another.
Bink and Danny, Gamp and all the others of Merriwell's friends who chanced to be grouped there, had already suffered the amputation of their shirt-tabs, and having no further fear on that point, were hilariously anxious that not a shirt-tab should be worn by a Yale man that night. The "fruit" on the tree at Durfee was increasing in quantity and variety at a prodigious rate.
"A dollar apiece for its ears!" some one else screeched.
But the cat was too agile for the hands that were reached out to stop its flight. It whisked under the legs of the students and was out and away like a shot.
"Been up there watching the performance!" some one sung out.
"Gug-gug-goshfry! There's a man up there!" Joe Gamp howled, as his eyes fell on Donald Pike. "It will be raining mum-mum-men, as well as cuc-cuc-cuc-cats, next thing! Ahaw! ahaw! ahaw!"
As his lips flew open to their widest extent to emit this roar, the other cat sailed downward out of the tree and struck him squarely in the mouth. He tumbled backward with a roar, which, however, was not at all hilarious, and began to dig sputteringly at his tongue and lips, which were liberally coated with cat hair.
"More cats!" said Dismal. "I'd as soon have the frogs of Egypt, as to have the trees showering down cats."
"How do you like cat diet, Gamp?" screeched Bink, who did not relish the way he had been laughed at.