"I'll die-it, if one of 'em hits me!" Dismal solemnly asserted.
"Look out!" a student warningly yelled. "The man is coming, too!"
Everybody beneath the limb fell back out of the way, pushing against those behind, many being hurled down and trodden on. Then Donald Pike, sprawled out like one of the cats, came sailing down out of the tree. His teeth were fairly chattering. He believed that Badger was right at his heels, with hands reached out to seize him. Fortunately, he was not injured by the desperate leap.
"Fruit!" was yelled by a dozen voices, and the throng pressed together again to lay hold on him.
But Don Pike's terror gave him the strength of a giant. He hurled aside those who sought to detain him, and leaped through the crowd and away. The next instant the Kansan dropped out of the tree, swinging for a moment by one of the drooping branches, to break the force of the fall, and alighting on the ground with ease and lightness.
"Fruit!"
The Westerner could not escape, for the students had closed in again, and he was literally ringed in.
"Fruit! fruit!" was yelled on all sides.
Twenty men threw themselves on the Kansan. He tried to hurl them off, and did succeed in flinging some of them aside. This enabled him to gain his feet.
"Let go!" he snarled.
"Fruit! fruit!" was being chorused.
Again the hands and arms closed on him.
"Let me go, I say! I want to overtake that fellow!"
Only a few near him understood his words. The majority thought he was merely showing a vigorous protest against the threatened loss of his shirt-tab, and they had no sympathy with anything of that kind, for they had suffered the same humiliation, and were naturally determined to inflict the same thing on every student they could lay their hands on.
"Let go!" Badger shrieked, white with wrath, lunging with his hard right fist.
It struck a student in the face and hurled him crashingly backward. But the next moment the fist and arm were caught and held.
Then began a fierce struggle for the mastery. Time and again the Westerner, whose strength was great, hurled off the men who sought to hold him down. Twice he got on his feet, merely to be tripped and thrown again. Not until he was almost beaten and choked into insensibility were his assailants able to rip open his vest.
Ordinarily, Badger wore a soft silk shirt which had no tab, but on this night he had on a white shirt, whose tab was amputated by a dexterous thrust as soon as the vest was pulled open. Then he was permitted to rise to his feet, reeling, sick, blind with rage and humiliation and a sense of baffled hate.
But his chief thought still was of Donald Pike.
"Which way did he go?" he panted, as soon as he could get his breath.
"Well, your High-Muchness, the cats scattered and the man made himself scarce!" was the scoffing answer, given by the student who had felt the terrible force of Badger's fist. "Perhaps there is another man up in the elm who can tell you!"
Badger did not wait for further nagging, and, as no hands were now extended to oppose him, he made as hasty an exit as he could from the midst of the shouting, laughing, howling throng.
"Heavens!" he thought. "I hope that neither Inza, nor Elsie, nor any of my friends, saw that from the dormitory windows!"
Even in the midst of his rage against Pike, Badger was cut to the quick by this thought, for he was filled with a foolish pride.
"I'll thump Pike a few extra for that!" he snarled, as he got out of the crowd. His pulse was at fever-heat, and his face as hot as flame. He did not feel the bruises and blows which had been showered on him.
"I reckon I'll not get close to him again for a week!" he grumbled. "Why couldn't those ruffians attend to their own affairs and let me attend to mine? I allow that it was none of their business whatever! This is my trail, and I wasn't interfering none with their range. Confound the luck! But when I do meet him I'll make him pay for it!"
But the Westerner was mistaken in one portion of his surmise. He met Pike, or rather ran against him, at the first building he turned.
Donald had ventured back to see what had happened to his pursuer, and was looking at the shouting tumult in the campus, and did not observe Badger, who came along the walk close to the wall. The Kansan recognized Pike first, and leaped at him with a snarl like that of an enraged panther, and as he leaped he struck a blinding blow.
It knocked Donald backward, but it did not fall fairly enough to inflict serious injury. The next moment Badger was on him, and had him by the throat.
"By heavens! I've a notion to kill you right here!" he hissed, his fingers closing on Pike's throat.
"Don't!" Pike pleaded, gasping out the appeal.
"You told Fairfax Lee that I was drunk when I went on theCrested Foam. You scoundrel! You ruffian! You sneaking coyote!"
His fingers tightened with every exclamation.
"Don't kill me!" Pike begged wheezingly. "I'll go to him and take it all back!"
"Then you did tell him? I allow I ought to kick you clean out of your hide, you onery varmint!"
There was no answer, and Donald Pike, apparently ceasing to breathe, fell back as limp as a rag.
A bit of reason began to glimmer into the brain of the Westerner. Though he had asserted that he would almost kill Pike, he did not really intend to do anything of the kind. He merely meant to inflict a punishment which should be in a measure commensurate with the wrong which Pike had committed against him. But the Kansan's great rage, combined with his humiliating experience in the campus, which had still further inflamed him, had driven him to more than ordinary recklessness. He had been fairly insane. The fire began to go out of Badger's eyes when Pike did not stir and seemed not to breathe.
"I reckon I squeezed a bit too hard!" Badger muttered, regarding the unconscious youth with some degree of anxiety. "Well, I was wild enough to choke his heart out!"
He stooped over Pike and saw the livid finger-marks on the throat. Still Pike did not stir, and the Westerner's anxiety correspondingly grew. He put a hand on Pike's left breast, and failed to locate the heart-beats. At last, after an alarming interval, Pike gasped, to Badger's intense relief.
"I allow I'd better let it go at this," he reflected. "I don't want to kill the skunk, though if any man whatever deserved to be murdered, he does. But I don't want anything of that kind against me. As Merry has told me, I've got an awful temper when it gets started. I shall have to watch myself against that, same as against red-eye!"
Pike gasped again, and then his breathing came at increasingly frequent intervals. The students were wildly howling in and around the campus, but Badger scarcely heard them. He was thinking only of Pike.
"This may keep him in his room a few days," he muttered.
"If it does no more than that, I don't care. He deserved that much. But he's got to keep clear of me, or I can't be responsible for the consequences. I'll tell him so as soon as he comes to himself and knows what has happened."
Buck Badger stared at a letter in a familiar handwriting which had come to his room in the afternoon mail. He had delivered to Donald Pike that threatening talk the night before, when Pike came back to the land of sentient things after that awful choking.
The infliction of this punishment on Pike, and the feeling that Winnie would stand by him in spite of everything, had so satisfied the Westerner that he had been in an uncommonly comfortable frame of mind, in spite of the fact that the powerful opposition of Fairfax Lee was yet to be overcome. With Winnie true, and time and youth in their favor, there seemed no good reason why he should be in the dumps.
But the letter at which he now gazed with starting eyes and anguished face! It was from Winnie herself, and what it said was enough to make the Kansan's brain reel:
"Mr. Buck Badger: Father knows that we met last night, and he is much displeased, as he has a right to be. I am very sorry I said to you the things I did, for we can never be anything more to each other. I have had time to think more clearly since I saw you, and this is my decision. It will do no good to talk it over, for this is final. Therefore, if you are a gentleman, you will not try to see me again. I return to you by express your ring and the things you have given me."Winnie Lee."
"Mr. Buck Badger: Father knows that we met last night, and he is much displeased, as he has a right to be. I am very sorry I said to you the things I did, for we can never be anything more to each other. I have had time to think more clearly since I saw you, and this is my decision. It will do no good to talk it over, for this is final. Therefore, if you are a gentleman, you will not try to see me again. I return to you by express your ring and the things you have given me.
"Winnie Lee."
"I can't understand it!" he gasped, as he recalled her words of the evening before. "Yet she wrote it. There isn't any doubt whatever of that. I wish there were, but I know that handwriting too well."
He read it over again and again, as if searching out some other meaning. It seemed so impossible. Yet there it was. He got up and began to pace round the room, stopping almost every time he passed the table to take another look at the letter.
"Thrown over!" he groaned. "And after all we've been to each other! I allow she couldn't stand up against her father. How in thunder did he find out that we met last night? Some onery, spying Piute of a servant, I reckon. Well, I seem to be rounded up now, and Winnie's given me the branding-iron with her own white hand."
He mopped the sweat from his face.
"I won't accept it! That's whatever! She says that if I'm a gentleman, I'll not try to see her again. Glad I ain't a gentleman! Glad I'm a man—and I allow a man is a good deal bigger than a gentleman! I s'pose a gentleman would sit down and twiddle his fingers, and do nothing. Well, I ain't built that way! Not on your life! I'm going to see her again, whether she wants to see me or not. I'll see her, if I have to fight my way into that house! That's whatever!"
He gave his breast a thump, as if he fancied he was striking at an enemy. His face was red and his neck veins stood out like cords. His heavy shoulders were thrown back, and his broad white teeth gleamed in a determined fashion.
"I'll find out just why she changed her mind so suddenly. Of course, it was her father's work. He has kept her under his thumb so long that she has come to the conclusion that she has to mind him in this, too! He thinks I'm not good enough for her, I allow! Well, I ain't—no man on earth is good enough for her—but I'm just as good as Fairfax Lee, any day in the week! Hanged if I don't tell him so, too!
"Yes, I'll walk into his office, if I have to knock over that clerk to do it, and I'll tell him what I think of him, if I'm arrested for it next minute. In this beastly East, instead of meeting a man and fighting him, the first thing a fellow thinks of, if he has a word with another, is to call in the police. But I'm not afraid of the New Haven police!"
Badger's heart seethed like a volcano.
"See her! Well, I reckon! I'll see her if I die for it! I'll see her, even if she refuses to speak to me! I'm going to find out what's at the bottom of this!"
While the Westerner was thus storming, an expressman came with the little package containing the ring and the trinkets which Badger had given to Winnie. It contained no note, but the address was in Winnie's handwriting.
Badger tore the package open almost before the expressman was out of the room. A lump came into his throat as he looked at the ring. He remembered so distinctly the time he gave it to her and all the words then said. It seemed impossible that she had returned it now in this curt manner.
"I'll ask her to take it back!" he muttered. He dropped the ring into a pocket of the suit he was wearing, that he might be sure to have it with him when he met her—for that he would meet her in some way or other he was firmly resolved.
"Her father has driven her into this. It's not her wish, I know. But she is so good and dutiful that she may stick by this decision, to please him. I allow that there is where the trouble is going to come. But I won't give her up! Not unless she tells me positively with her own lips that everything is ended."
Badger now did something which he would never have dreamed of doing a short time before. Even the thought of it would have been greeted with scorn. He carefully put the letter in an inner pocket, put away the trinkets which Winnie had returned, and set out to find Frank Merriwell. The act did not even strike him as incongruous.
"Inza and Elsie will do anything for Merriwell! He can go in and out of Lee's house as he wants to. I allow he will be glad to help me in this thing, if he can. The trail looks to be so confoundedly tangled that a bit of help in ciphering it out will be mighty welcome just now!"
He scowled as he crossed the campus and remembered the unpleasant experience of the previous night. The tree in front of Durfee still bore a large quantity of "fruit." The tab of Badger's shirt was there.
"Come over here and pick out your property!" shouted a student who was standing in a group near the tree.
Badger strode on without a word, for he was in no humor for pleasantries.
"Fruit!" squealed Danny Griswold.
"Where are you going, my pretty maid?" Bink Stubbs sang from his perch on the fence.
"Going to hunt up those cats," said the Westerner, with sarcastic scorn. "I hear their kittens squawling for them!"
Danny fell over against Bink.
"A joke from Badger!" he murmured. "Somebody fan me!"
"I'll fan you!" grunted Bink, who was not pleased with the Kansan's retort, pushing Danny roughly from him.
"Do!" begged Danny. "That took my breath. What will happen next?"
Badger swung on at a swift, nervous pace, and mounted to Frank's room.
"Come in!" Frank sung out, as the Kansan's knuckles hammered on the door.
He was rather surprised to see Badger at that hour. But he put away the book he had been studying, and pushed out a chair.
"Take a seat!" he invited.
"I reckon you'll think it's mighty funny that I should come to you for advice and help?"
"Why, no! It's a way my friends have. And they know that I am always ready to do whatever I can for them."
"Well, it's about Winnie!" said Badger bluntly. Whereupon, in a few words, he told his story.
"That rather stumps me, Badger," Frank admitted. "I think, though, that the straight way is the best. If you're willing, I will see Lee in your behalf. I shall have to admit to him that you were intoxicated at that time, but I'll try to make him see that you are pretty straight goods, for all of that. Perhaps a few words from one who knows you will be helpful."
"If you will, Merry, I can't ever thank you enough. It will be about as big a favor, I allow, as one man ever did for another, and I sha'n't forget it."
Merriwell looked at his watch.
"I can't go to his office this afternoon, but I'll see him at his house to-night. I may be late getting there, but I'll try to time it to be there when he gets home from his club."
Badger went away as if walking on air. He could hardly think of anything else throughout the remainder of the day, and night found him in the vicinity of the Lee home, even though he had a feeling that Merriwell would prefer he should keep away from there until the result of the promised interview was known.
"I wish Merry would hurry," he thought, as he finally advanced to the fence, drawn there by his intense desire to be near to Winnie. "I'll speak to him before he goes in, and ask him to come right out as soon as possible with the news."
As he stood thus by the fence, a light step sounded, and, looking over, he recognized in the dim light the form of Winnie Lee. He was by her side at a bound.
"You must not stand by that note!" he pleadingly began. "I allow that you will see, when you think of it, that it isn't right by me!"
He did not attempt to touch her or stoop toward her. She had, in writing that letter, forbidden familiarities. Their relations toward each other were unchanged. He remembered the ring in his pocket.
"Buck! you silly fellow! Don't you know that I didn't mean to cast you off?"
"But the note?" he gasped. "It was in your handwriting? And the ring? You sent back the ring!"
"Yes, I wrote the letter because father commanded me to write it, and I sent back the ring for the same reason. You ought to have known that!"
The change in his feelings was so great and sudden that he could hardly repress a shout.
"I reckon I'm the biggest idiot unhung!" he confessed, as he took her in his arms. "But when I saw that the writing was yours, I fancied your father had by threats, or in some way, induced you to change your mind, and that you really thought, in duty to him, you ought not to see me any more. Say, I'm too happy to think! I'm——"
"You are just a silly fellow!"
"You never shot straighter! I'm a roaring idiot!"
He kissed her and held her face toward the light in a rather vain effort to see its outline.
"I've been crazier since I got that note than any locoed cowboy that ever tore up the ranges. I've simply been wild!"
"I am very sorry, Buck. Yet I think I must have suffered as much. Last night father obtained from me a confession that I had met you in the grounds here. He asked me if I had met you, and my confused looks made my denials useless. Then he ordered me to write that note and to send back the ring. He mailed them himself. And he made me promise that I wouldn't meet you again. But when I made it, I realized that I couldn't keep it."
"You're an angel!"
"I never heard that angels were disobedient."
"Some of them."
"And they were punished for it. Oh, Buck, I hope we will never regret this—that there will be no punishment for this!"
"There won't be!" he grimly declared.
"Father is gone," she said. "Out of the city!"
"And I wanted Merry to see him here this evening," in a tone of regret, "Merry is to have a talk with him and try to get him to see that I am not such a soaking Piute as I've been painted!"
"I'm sorry, too, Buck—though I was glad."
"Glad?"
"I intended to ask you into the house. Is it very wrong?"
"I don't think so!" he whispered, joy and triumph in his voice. "Where you lead I will follow. By and by I hope we will walk abreast."
When Buck and Winnie walked into the house, they walked into a trap, though the laying of a trap for them was not contemplated by Mr. Lee.
Encountering none of the servants, Winnie conducted Badger into the parlor.
"Merriwell will be here soon, I allow."
"We're not afraid of Merriwell!"
"Only thinking that you and I want to have this meeting all to ourselves. Then the servant that shows Merriwell up, if one does, may see us, and I calculate that I ain't hankering to meet up with any of your servants on this trip. None whatever!"
But Winnie was not disturbed.
"Father is going over to Hartford to-night on business," she laughed, laying aside the scarf and jacket. "I heard him say to the cook that he wouldn't return before to-morrow."
There was a certain exultant defiance in Badger's bearing that made him, in spite of his bulky, heavy shoulders and modern clothing, somewhat resemble some ancient knight ready to do battle for his "ladye fair." Winnie Lee observed it, and was pleased. The Westerner's devotion was so true that she felt rather proud of it And, indeed, Badger, in spite of his many faults, failings, and weaknesses, had some admirable traits of character.
All at once Winnie heard footsteps approaching the door of the parlor. She thought the steps were those of a servant, and blamed herself for not closing the door. Then a familiar form appeared in the doorway, and her cheeks grew white. Buck Badger looked up at the same moment, and his dark face flushed.
Fairfax Lee had changed his mind about going to Hartford! He had returned home, let himself into the house, and walked up-stairs. Seeing the light in the parlor, he had approached the door.
He was as much astonished as the lovers. For a moment not a word was spoken. Winnie seemed about to swoon, and Badger put a hand on her shoulder, as if to support her. Then Mr. Lee broke the silence, and stepped into the room.
"What is the meaning of this disobedience?" he sternly demanded, speaking to Winnie.
She staggered to her feet, trembling before him. Badger sprang up, erect and defiant.
"I thought you promised me that you would never meet him again?"
She did not answer.
He turned with flashing eyes on the Westerner.
"And I forbade you the house, sir!"
Badger wanted to take him by the throat.
"See here, Mr. Lee!" he said, in a voice that demanded a hearing. "I know you told me that I wasn't welcome in this house, and I reckon I know full well that I am not welcome. But that's no sign that I am going to stay out of it, as long as it shelters your daughter!"
"Winnie, you will go to your room!"
He advanced toward her, and she drew away from Badger. But she did not go toward the door. Her father stepped to her side.
"There is the door!" Lee commanded, addressing the Kansan.
"I see it," said Badger. "You don't need to show it to me!"
"Will you go out of it? Will you leave this house?" Fairfax Lee was panting with rage. "Get out of this room!" he cried.
Badger straightened his thick shoulders, and his broad, white teeth gleamed unpleasantly.
"Mr. Lee, you are Winnie's father, and because of that I shall pay no attention to your insults; but I tell you now, that you may understand it, that I love your daughter and intend to marry her!"
"By heavens, you never shall!"
"It may be a long trail, Mr. Lee, but there will be a home-coming at the end of it. I shall see her as often as I can, and I shall write to her when I can, and I shall marry her! I have promised to, and I'll do it!"
"Never speak to my daughter again!" Mr. Lee thundered, pointing Badger to the door.
"Good night, Winnie," said the Kansan, as he passed out. "There will be better days by and by."
Then he fairly reeled down the stairway, sick and giddy and almost gasping, yet shaking with rage against Fairfax Lee.
Badger waited in the vicinity of the house in a fever of impatience until Merriwell appeared. Though a more inauspicious time, seemingly, could not have been found, he had strong confidence in Frank's ability to aid him. It was a feeling which was invariably produced in the hearts of all.
He met Merriwell at some distance from the Lee residence, and drew him away for a talk, in which he acquainted him with what had taken place. Then Frank went on into the house, and the Westerner recommenced his vigil.
The interview which shortly followed between Frank and Mr. Lee was of an interesting and important character. Fortunately, Fairfax Lee had a very high opinion of Frank Merriwell. Otherwise he would not have heard him at all in behalf of Badger. Even as it was, he at first listened with nervous impatience, unwilling to believe that anything could be presented in the Westerner's behalf.
Merriwell went over the whole ground with great candor and frankness. He admitted that Badger was intoxicated when lured aboard theCrested Foam. But he asserted his belief that the Kansan was all right at heart. He laid stress also on the fact, which was now clearly understood by Fairfax Lee, that Winnie loved the Kansan; and he insisted that the latter had no real taste for liquor, but was driven into his debauch by a fit of jealousy.
"I will think over this," Lee promised. "As you say, I have no desire to be unjust; still less do I wish to be harsh beyond what is necessary. I once thought well of Badger. I can't say more now. His actions have seemed to me very low and very dishonorable."
The long interview ended with this. But Merriwell, not realizing that Badger was still waiting for him in wild anxiety, made a call on Inza and Elsie, which was so pleasant that it was much more protracted than he had intended it should be, and the hour grew late.
In the meantime, other things were hurrying events to a climax. Fairfax Lee had hastened home that night in fear of his life. Bill Gaston, once a useful political worker, who had been driven insane by his failure to secure an appointment he craved, and who the day before had been locked up for threatening Lee's life, had escaped and was at large. That the man was crazy there could be no doubt, and that he would shoot Lee on sight seemed just as certain.
Buck Badger, wandering like a restless spirit in the vicinity of the house, saw a man leap the fence and sneak toward a rear entrance. The man's general appearance and crouching attitude were like those of the crazed office-seeker whom Buck had once seen threatening Lee in that very place.
"After Lee again!" was Badger's conclusion. "I reckon I'd better camp on his trail. He said he would kill Lee, and that must be what he is up to!"
Thereupon, Badger also leaped the fence and slipped through the shadows in the direction taken by the man he supposed to be Gaston.
"Eh! what does that mean?"
Badger stopped stock-still. He saw several men beneath a window, which they had forced open. One man was being helped through.
"Can't be a band of assassins, I allow? More likely a lot of burglars trying to crack the crib."
The Westerner was right in his guess. These were not friends of Bill Gaston bent on assassination, but housebreakers, whose cupidity had been aroused by the fact, which had chanced to come to their knowledge, that a diamond brooch worth ten thousand dollars had recently been taken from the Lee residence. A crib which held such valuables seemed to them a good one to rip open, and they had obtained information that Fairfax Lee was expected to be away from home that night. They had found that most of the servants were out, too, and because of this it appeared safer to make the raid at an early hour, before the servants returned.
Badger stood in indecision in the shadows, wondering what course he ought to pursue. Before he could make up his mind, the first burglar had disappeared, and a second was being helped through the window. Two of the burglars—there were four or five of them, as Badger could see—were to wait outside, while their pals on the inside made their search for valuables.
Suddenly there came a cry for help from within the house, followed by the sounds of a struggle. Fairfax Lee, unable to sleep and wandering as restlessly about within the house as the Westerner had upon the outside, had come unexpectedly upon the first burglar at the upper landing of the rear stairway. The burglar looked so marvelously like the crazy office-hunter, Bill Gaston, that Lee believed him to be Gaston, and that Gaston had invaded the house for purposes of assassination.
Though Lee had dreaded a meeting with Gaston, and would have gone far out of his way to avoid anything of the kind, he was by no means a coward. He expected a shot from Gaston's pistol, and to prevent this, he hurled himself on the burglar with a suddenness and boldness that took the latter by surprise.
The cry for help did not come from the lips of Fairfax Lee, but from those of the burglar. Badger, however, fancied that the call had come from Lee. Without waiting to consider the danger, or to ask himself how he was to account for his presence in the grounds and in the house, Buck Badger ran toward the open window.
As he did so, he saw two of the other burglars leap through. They were going to the assistance of their pal. Then a shot sounded.
Badger crossed the intervening distance at a sprinting pace, and found himself suddenly confronted by the burglar who was still on guard at the window. A pistol gleamed in the dim light. Badger knocked it aside, struck the man a blow that would have felled an ox, and went through the window with a flying leap that took him to the foot of the stairway.
He saw the two burglars on the stairs near the top. One held a dark-lantern and the other a heavy jimmy. Above, the sounds of the fight continued, and the burglar attacked by Lee was still bawling for help.
Fairfax Lee felt that he was fighting for his life, and he still believed that he was fighting Bill Gaston. He did not hear the burglars on the stairs. He was trying to get the supposed Bill Gaston by the throat and choke him into subjection. The burglar's shot, fired almost pointblank at Lee, had done him no injury, and now the weapon was on the floor.
"Help!" bellowed the burglar.
He got his throat free, but he could not throw off those clutching hands. Visions of striped clothing and prison officials loomed before him, for he had once done time. His anxious ears heard what Lee did not—the calls of the ruffians who were hurrying to his assistance—and he fought like a tiger.
Buck Badger went up the stairway in quick leaps. If the burglars heard him, they must have fancied he was the guard left at the window, for they did not look round. But before the Kansan could reach the upper landing, the three scoundrels were on Lee.
"Clip him on der head!" one of them growled. "Don't use yer barker—too much noise! Hit him wid der jimmy. All der cops in New Haven will be in dis crib in a minute!"
Fairfax Lee was still putting up a stiff fight, and the jimmy flashed in the air. Before it could descend, Buck Badger flung himself into the midst of them, with the impetuous leap of a mountain-lion. The man with the uplifted jimmy went down before a blow from the Kansan's fist, and the other was hurled aside. The burglar that Lee had been fighting tore himself loose and turned toward Badger and the stairway. Then the Westerner heard the ominous click of a revolver. These burglars, like all of their craft, were ready to do murder if it seemed necessary.
Lee tripped the burglar with the revolver, and the shot went into the floor. The other burglar was coming up the stairway with tremendous leaps. The house seemed to be arousing. Badger heard a woman scream.
"Kill him!" was panted by one of the villains.
Then the jimmy descended, and though the Westerner tried to knock the blow aside, his arm was beaten down, and the jimmy fell on his head with crushing force. Badger's head seemed to split open under that blow, and a blur of blood and mistiness followed. He felt himself reeling and sinking, with his feet slipping on the stairway, toward which he had fallen. Then he dropped like an ox in the shambles.
But before complete unconsciousness came, he heard the shout of a well-known voice—the voice of Frank Merriwell!
Merriwell came upon the scene from a corridor, having been drawn by the calls and the pistol-shots, and with marvelous quickness and certainty grasped the whole intent of what he beheld.
Fairfax Lee struck aside the revolver that was pointed at Frank, and again began to call for help. The next instant Merriwell was in the thick of the fight. Though no man could have understood his peril more perfectly, there was at that moment in Merriwell's heart a wild thrill of joy. He laughed as he struck at the nearest ruffian—a laugh that sounded strangely out of place.
The blow fell with crushing force, and the ruffian tumbled backward against the wall. Before Merriwell could turn, two of the other three ruffians were on his back. One had drawn a knife and the other had the jimmy. The remaining burglar was on the stairs, and was lifting a revolver. Merriwell lunged toward him, and the man, instead of firing, lost his footing, and went tumbling down the steps.
Inasmuch as he had a revolver, he seemed the most dangerous, and Frank leaped after him, dragging with him the scoundrels who were trying to strike him from behind. But the terrible fall knocked the breath out of the burglar, and he slid helplessly on down the stairway, letting the revolver go bumping and clattering to the floor below. Merriwell wheeled with lightning quickness to meet the man with the threatening jimmy.
Badger seemed to be slipping down the stairway, also. Then Frank saw him lift himself and try to stagger to his feet. Without taking further note of this, Merriwell promptly closed with the other burglar on the stairs.
"Shoot him, Bill!" the fellow cried, to his pal above.
But that worthy, believing that "he who fights and runs away may live to fight another day," was making tracks for the nearest window, intending to leap to the ground.
The burglar who had closed with Frank, endeavored to trip him, with the result that he was himself shot over Frank's head, and went to the bottom of the stairs at a flying leap, bowling over his pals, who were trying to get on their feet and pull themselves together. Merriwell caught the stairway rail, down which he slid almost as quickly. His hand closed on the revolver which had fallen to the floor; and, with it cocked and leveled, he wheeled, facing the men, who, swearing horribly, were again trying to gain their feet.
"Surrender!" he sharply called.
The answer was an oath.
"Surrender, or by the gods of war I'll drop you one and all right where you are! Up with your paws!"
They knew he meant it, and there was no escape. The next moment the three burglars at the foot of the stairs put up their hands in token of submission.
Badger sat in his room. His bandaged head ached painfully, but in his heart there was a glow of pleasure. The surgeon had told him that he would be all right in a day or two, and he had just received a note from Winnie Lee.
"Dear Buck," it read, "I have had a long talk with father. He says that both you and Merriwell fought like heroes, and that your prompt appearance on the scene no doubt saved his life. In spite of this, though, he is not willing that I shall receive calls from you. But I can see that his opposition is not nearly so strong as it was, and I have hopes that it will soon disappear altogether. Father says that the burglars which Merriwell captured will no doubt be sent to State's prison. Thank Frank for me for his great favor in speaking to father for you, as he did—for I can see that father's change toward you is due more to Frank's talk than to your fight, brave as that was. I will meet you as often as I can, Buck, and I will send you a note every day. And we will be true to each other always, in spite of father's opposition. Your sweetheart,Winnie."
"There never was any girl truer!" muttered the Kansan, as he read and reread the note. "That's whatever! She is true as steel! But," he continued, "how can I thank Merriwell for his part in the affair? He pulled me through, all right, and there's no mistaking that fact."
Hardly had he uttered these words, than a knock came at the door. "Come in," said Buck—and in walked Frank himself!
"Well, I'm glad to see you," said Buck, "and that's whatever! I want to know how I can thank you for what you've done for me in this affair, in going to Winnie's father in the way you did."
A gleam came into Frank's eyes as he sat there, and a smile played on his lips.
"My dear fellow," he said finally, "I don't want any reward from you or any one else for what I do, by way of helping them out. I do the best I can in that respect—the same as you or anyone else would do—and that's reward enough for me—a clear conscience! Thanks, all the same, Buck."
So sunshine follows storm!
It was a jolly party aboard theMerry Seas, as she bowled along on her way from New Haven to New York. It was composed of Frank Merriwell and a number of his intimate friends; and wherever Frank and his friends were, Dull Care usually hid his agued face and gave place to smiling Pleasure.
"That grumbling old boatman at the New Haven wharf was a liar!" groaned Dismal Jones, as if it were a grief that he had not found the boatman's unpleasant prognostications true.
"What did he say?" asked Danny Griswold, who had been prancing the deck like a diminutive admiral, stopping now and blowing a cloud of cigarette smoke from his nostrils.
"He said that a smoker of cigarettes is always a measly runt!" grunted Bruce Browning, from the big chair in which he had ensconced himself almost as soon as he came aboard, and which he had hardly left since.
"You're another!" said Danny. "He didn't say anything of the kind."
"He was a poet," said Dismal, "and he threw his comment into rime. I was taken in by him, I suppose, because he seemed to be half-way quoting Scripture:
"'The Pharisees were hypocrites,And theMerry Seasis a ship o' fits!'"
"'The Pharisees were hypocrites,And theMerry Seasis a ship o' fits!'"
"A ship o' fits? Nothing eccentric about this steamer, so far as I can see!"
"Except Danny Griswold!" exclaimed Bink Stubbs. "He is enough to give anything fits."
"Something your tailor is never able to give you!" Danny retorted.
"Sit down!" growled Browning. "You are shutting out the view!"
"What view?" Danny demanded.
"The view of the steamer's funnel. I'd rather look at that. It can smoke and keep still—and you can't."
Inza and Elsie came along, accompanied by Merriwell and Bart Hodge. Winnie Lee, who was at present under her father's displeasure for her persistence in continuing to encourage Buck Badger, was not aboard, but Amy May was a member of the party. At the moment, she was conversing gaily with Bernard Burrage, Inza's semi-invalid father, on the forward-deck.
"We're going to have a fog!" said Merriwell, speaking to Bruce and those near. "I have been hoping it would hold off until we reach New York, but it isn't going to."
"I'd rather be in a ship that has fits now and then, than to be stuck in a fog-bank!" Bink declared. "I guess that New Haven boatman was a prophet, after all."
TheMerry Seaswas a steamer running on a somewhat irregular schedule to New Haven and New London, and back to the great metropolis by the sea route along the ocean side of Long Island, touching at one or two Long Island points.
Merriwell's friends had decided on a steamer voyage to New York and back as a change from the usual work and athletics at Yale. Not that they were tired of either. But nothing of signal importance was on the program to detain them in New Haven, and they were away, therefore, for this short trip by boat.
The ordinary Sound route between New Haven and New York was familiar ground to every member of the party, and something new was desired. Hence they had taken theMerry Seas, which had steamed to New London, and out to sea between Block Island and Montauk Point, and had then laid her course down the Long Island coast for New York harbor.
Inza laughed at Bink's lugubrious declaration. Gamp was laughing, too.
"If we get stuck in a fog, we can have Joe Gamp yell a few times for us. That will do for a fog-horn."
"Then theMerry Seaswill have fits, sure enough!" said Bink.
Gamp looked serious.
"Well, honest, now, that dud-dud-don't sus-sound so funny to mum-me as it dud-does to you. Owned a cuc-cuc-carf once, that was pup-prancing raound in the med-der pup-pup-pasture, and I gug-got so tickled that I just sus-set daown and hollered. Goshfry! you wouldn't believe it, bub-bub-but that cuc-carf fell over dead's a stun wall!"
"Gave it heart-disease, of course!" Bink gravely observed. "Not to be wondered at."
"I'm just tut-tut-telling this story as a warning tut-to you!" Joe solemnly observed. "The hoss dud-dud-doctor said that the pup-poor thing's head was weak. Sus-so when we get into a fuf-fog and I begug-gin to holler, bub-bub-better pup-put cotton into your ears, Binky!"
Stubbs fell back into Danny's arms.
"Ar-r-r-r!" he gurgled. "I've got 'em now. Fits!"
"I'll give you fits, if you don't stop tumbling over against me!" Danny howled, giving Bink a push that landed him in Browning's lap. Everybody laughed, and Merriwell and his companions walked on round the steamer's rail.
"It hurts me to think that I must separate soon from all those jolly fellows!" Merry observed, in a saddened voice. "But commencement is rushing this way at railroad speed, and most of them will go out of Yale then forever."
"We'll not get blue about it until we have to," said Elsie, though the thought had saddened her more than once.
"Just see how the fog is coming down!" Inza observed.
"Hello!" cried Hodge, "another vessel!"
A steamer hove into view through the thickening mist. The boats began to sound their whistles.
"A sort of Flying Dutchman!" remarked Merriwell, and, indeed, the passing steamer did seem more a phantasm of the fog than a real vessel carrying living, breathing people. TheMerry Seassounded her whistle at frequent intervals as she pushed on into the fog, and for some time after the steamer had vanished her hoarse whistle could also be heard.
"Hello!" cried Browning, who had been lazily looking over some late New York papers.
The tone and the change in his manner told that he had come on a startling piece of news.
"What is it?" Diamond asked.
"Maybe only the same name!" said Browning, and then read this paragraph from the telegraphic columns:
"A young Irishman named Barney Mulloy was attacked and killed by hoboes near Sea Cove, on the coast not far from Sandy Hook, yesterday morning. The object of the tramps was doubtless robbery, as Mulloy is known to have had a considerable sum of money on his person."
"A young Irishman named Barney Mulloy was attacked and killed by hoboes near Sea Cove, on the coast not far from Sandy Hook, yesterday morning. The object of the tramps was doubtless robbery, as Mulloy is known to have had a considerable sum of money on his person."
Browning looked up questioningly.
"Likely another fellow, though!" he said.
"By Jove! I'm afraid not!" exclaimed Frank, who had hastily taken the paper from Bruce, and was staring in consternation at the fateful item.
"There may be a hundred Barney Mulloys!" said Rattleton.
Frank shook his head.
"I had a letter from him a few days ago, and he was then stopping at Sea Cove. He was making money, too!"
Merriwell felt stunned. Barney Mulloy had been one of his dearest friends, faithful and honest, kind-hearted and true, jolly and hopeful. Through all of his hilarious experiences at Fardale, Frank had not a stancher adherent. And now Barney was dead, slain by a lot of miserable tramps! Tears of honest grief and indignation came into Frank's eyes.
"Barney Mulloy dead?" exclaimed Inza, coming up at that moment and hearing the news.
"What?" cried Elsie.
"Report in theHerald," Frank answered. "Killed yesterday by hoboes, somewhere below Sandy Hook."
Bad news spreads as if by magic. In a little while the other members of the party, having read the story for themselves or heard of it from others, gathered round Merriwell.
"Well, he was an honest boy," said Hodge, a noticeable tremor in his voice.
"A better-hearted lad never lived!" Merriwell asserted.
Frank's mind went back to Fardale, and, grieved as he was, he could again hear the yells of Barney Mulloy and Hans Dunnerwust, when they crawled into bed with the lobsters, which they thought were centipedes. It had been one of the funniest incidents of the Fardale days, for both thought they were poisoned by the bites of the creatures, and that they would surely die. The whole thing had been a practical joke, in which Frank had played a prominent part. And now Barney, the mischievous, the loyal, the reckless, was dead!
"I can hardly believe it!" Merry declared. "It doesn't seem possible. But there is one thing! I shall spend some money in having those hoboes hunted down and punished for their crime."
"I wish I could have happened along there about the time they jumped on him!" growled Hodge, and the light in his dark face showed that he would have done his best to make it hot for the hoboes if he could have put his hands on them. "Barney had the right kind of stuff in him."
This depressing bit of news took all the merriment and life out of the little party. And, as the steamer wallowed on through the increasing fog, the world seemed suddenly to have become wrapped in gloom.
"Wish we'd stayed in New Haven!" grunted Browning. "I'll have to smoke faster to keep warm, or go below."
"And I wish we were in New York," said Bink. "There is something there to warm up the blood."
Danny looked at him.
"Drinks? Likely the captain has a private bottle tucked away somewhere that he will give you a nip out of."
"Life, I mean. Pulsing streets, swarms of people, theaters, hand-organs——"
"Oh, yes, a monkey is usually lost away from a hand-organ!"
"I suppose that is why you always seem so lonesome! When Merry is sad, we all are—grumpy! New York would help to lift us out of the dumps."
"So thick you might cut it with a knife!"
Captain Darien, who had walked forward and joined the group of Merriwell's friends, looked off into the wall of gloom as he said this. TheMerry Seaswas mournfully blowing her whistle, and others were continually heard. The steamer was nearing New York harbor.
"Will you try to run in, captain?" Frank asked.
"Oh I think we can make it. I don't like to anchor out here all night. I have a pretty good idea of just where we are."
"The fog may lift before night."
The captain looked at his watch, and saw that it indicated nearly three o'clock.
"I'm afraid not. And likely it will be no better in the morning. I shall try to go in."
A fog-siren somewhere on the invisible shore was sending out its unearthly blasts. Then a whistle seemed to cut the gloom right ahead, and a big black shape loomed through the murk. TheMerry Seassounded her warning, and the helm was jammed hard a-starboard. Another shriek came from the phantom that had seemed to rise right out of the sea. With that shriek, she also swung off.
"I thought we were in for a collision!" said Frank, breathing more freely. "It will be a squeak as it is."
Elsie had nervously clutched him by the arm. All were moving back from the dangerous vicinity toward the other rail.
"A tug!" said Bart, who was standing near Merriwell.
The tug, which was a large one, seemed now fairly on top of them. In size, it was as large or larger than theMerry Seas. A collision of the two vessels would be a serious thing.
"We're going to strike, or scrape!" Frank warned, taking Inza and Elsie each by an arm. "Brace for it!"
Orders were being given, and the whistles were hoarsely blowing. Both vessels were still falling off. Some one on the tug bellowed frantically through a big trumpet.
"What was that?" Inza asked.
"Tows!" said Frank. "Something about tows!"
The tug and the steamer did not strike, though they grazed each other so closely that a collision seemed unavoidable. Then there was more bellowing through trumpets and more whistling, and Frank felt theMerry Seastremble under him as her engines were reversed. He knew not what to expect.
Crash!
The big tug,Gladiator, had a string of heavily laden barges in tow. Into one of these barges, in spite of every effort to prevent it, the bow of theMerry Seascrashed with terrible force. It was as if a horse should rush headlong against a stone wall.
The shock was terrific. Merriwell heard a sound of smashing timbers and snapping iron. He was pitched violently from his feet as the bow of theMerry Seaswas forced downward by the collision. He felt himself flying through the air. Then he struck the water, and went down, down, down!
But Frank did not lose consciousness. And as he came to the surface, he supported himself by a gentle motion of his hands and feet, and tried to look about. He knew how great was his peril. But his thoughts were not wholly of himself. He thought of Inza and Elsie, of Hodge and his other friends. What had befallen them? Had they, too, been hurled into the sea by that awful shock? If so, there could be little doubt that some of them, if not all, would be drowned.
He shouted for assistance, and heard a hoarse whistle not far away. He could see nothing, for the fog was as impenetrable as a blanket He began to swim toward the sound. He could not tell whether the whistle was that of the tug or theMerry Seasor of some other vessel. Again he sent up a call for help. The water was cold and his clothing heavy. He was thinking of trying to get out of his shoes and outer coat, when he heard a human cry not far away.
"Help! help!" some one called.
"Help! help!" Frank shouted.
But instead of swimming on, he turned in the direction of the cry. It indicated a human being in distress and peril, and he felt that he might be able to save a life.
"Help!" came the cry again.
The voice was so choked and thick, and there was such a rush of water in his ears that Merry could not tell much about it, yet it seemed familiar. It was near at hand, too; and, sending back an answering call, Frank swam straight toward it.
"Help!" was shouted, right at hand now, for the voice seemed to be drifting toward him.
"Where are you?"
For answer, Merriwell received a heavy blow on the head and breast from a piece of timber. He went under with a cry, his head ringing and his senses reeling.
The next thing he knew, he was stretched out on some sort of raft, and some one was holding him there by sheer force. His feet and legs were trailing through the water. The whistle of the steamer or tug sounded again, but farther away.
"Is that you, Merry? How are you feeling?"
It was a familiar voice, though thick and husky—the voice of Bart Hodge.
It steadied Merriwell's reeling brain. He took hold of the boards and sought to draw himself still higher on them.
"That you, Hodge?"
"Yes. I thought that was you, Merry. How are you?"
"Soaked. But I guess I am all right. Something hit me on the head and shoulders, and I went under. I was swimming this way. Heard somebody call."
"I called, and you were struck by this drift. I heard you, and felt the shock when you struck. I reached out and got hold of you—and here you are?"
"Yes, here—and where is that?"
"In the Atlantic, somewhere off New York. I doubt if the captain knew."
"What became of the rest of the crowd?"
"Don't know. That collision threw me clean over the rail. I fell near these boards. I don't know but they came from the barge. When I came up, I bumped against them, and then hung on and began to call for help."
There was a moment of silence. Both were listening. Whistles could be heard here and there. Off to the left somewhere they fancied they heard a voice calling, but whether it came from the deck of a vessel or from some unfortunate in the water they could not determine. Near and far the whistles of steamers and tugs were hoarsely bellowing.
"With so many vessels around, we ought to be picked up soon," said Hodge.
"We would be, if any one could see anything. But a boat would have to run right over us to find us. Hark! wasn't that rowlocks?"
Again they listened. The sound of oars was certainly heard.
Clug-clank, clug-clank, clug-clank.
"Let us call together," said Merry. "Now! As loud as you can."
Both shouted with all their might. For an instant they fancied the boat was coming toward them, and they shouted again. But it was almost impossible to determine the direction of sound. They could not themselves be sure of the direction of the boat. The "clug-clank" grew fainter and fainter.
"We're bound to be picked up soon," Merriwell cheerily declared. "We must be right in the track of vessels. We'd be picked up right away if it wasn't for this beastly fog."
Hodge was silent.
"What do you suppose has become of the others? They were right with us, you know, when we went over!"
"I'm afraid to think about it," said Frank, with a shudder, which was not caused by the chill of the water.
"I can't help thinking about it!"
"Nor I. But I'm hoping we were the only ones that went overboard. We must try to believe that, Bart, until we cannot believe it any longer."
Hodge was silent.
"And as for ourselves!"
"Oh, I wasn't thinking of ourselves," said Bart. "We can hang on here a good while, I think. I suppose we're being carried out to sea, though!"
"Not much doubt of that, I guess. But we've pulled through worse scrapes together, Bart!"
"That's right, Merry! And we'll pull through this. Are you up high enough on the boards? Let me help you! You can't be feeling very strong after that blow."
Merriwell drew himself higher out of the water, and found that the heavy board supported his weight.
"If only the fog would clear now! I hear a whistle away off there."
"Do you suppose theMerry Seaswas sunk?" Hodge asked.
"I sha'n't think so until I have to. I think the barge got much the worst of it. The steamer seemed to cut it right in two."
"Perhaps we can get up higher on these boards."
"I've been thinking of that myself," Hodge answered.
The two friends had locked hands across the narrow space that separated them. Now, by Merriwell first helping Bart and then Bart returning the favor, they managed to get up higher out of the water, and were gratified to find that the boards were sufficiently buoyant to sustain them.
For fifteen or twenty minutes they had thus drifted on, talking and conjecturing, listening at intervals, and now and then sending up a loud call. The fog-siren on the shore was still screeching, and the whistles of vessels were now and then heard. But about them was that impenetrable gray wall of fog.
Having secured an easier position, Frank fumbled with his chilled fingers for his watch, which he finally drew out. It was wet, of course, but, to his surprise, was still merrily ticking away. By holding it near his eyes the time could be told.
"About half an hour, I judge, since the collision."
"No more than that? Seems to me it has been a half a day."
Again there was silence.
"I should think a vessel would anchor, instead of trying to go on in such a fog as this!" Bart snarled.
The memory of the disaster was beginning to make him bitter against the captain.
"They do, usually. The captain thought he could make his way in, that is all!"
"And I'm afraid some of our friends have gone to the bottom as a result of it. We seem in a good way to investigate Davy Jones' locker ourselves!"
"I'm going to believe that our friends are all right. It can't be possible that both the tug and the steamer sank. The tug wasn't really in the collision, you know. She would be able to take off every one from the steamer, no doubt, even if the steamer was so injured that she could not float. The thing I most fear is that some of them may have been hurled overboard, just as we were, and were not lucky enough to find anything to sustain them. But I shall not believe anything of the kind as long as I can hope that it isn't so."
But for Merriwell, Hodge would have been very despondent, especially as the long hours of the afternoon began to wear on and no boat came near them, and their frequent cries seemed to remain unheard; but Frank's hopefulness and cheerful optimism were not without good effect on the mind of his friend, and they were even able at times to talk with some degree of mental comfort.
Frank was sure that they were steadily drifting out to sea. He believed, from the change in the apparent direction of the fog-siren, that they were moving down the coast toward Sandy Hook. But they were evidently floating farther out to sea, for the sounds of the siren were fainter and farther away.
"I believe the fog is going to lighten."
Merriwell lifted himself and strained his eyes through the gloom. A suggestion of a breeze had fanned him.
"If the wind gets up, the fog may be driven away," he said.
"And the wind will kick up a sea!" suggested Bart.
"But if the fog lifts, we will probably be seen by some vessel!"
There could be no doubt that a gentle breeze was beginning to blow.
"Sure enough, the fog is thinning!" Bart cried joyfully. "But I don't hear any more whistles."
"Hark! there one sounded."
"Miles away!"
"Wait till the fog rises. Perhaps there are others."
Anxiously they watched the gray wall. The wind died away, and once or twice it seemed that the fog was growing denser, instead of lightening. But by and by the sunlight seemed to permeate it. It appeared to become thinner. Then, like a great curtain uplifted, it for a little while swung upward from the face of the heaving sea. All around were the green rollers, rising and falling with an oily swell.
Hodge uttered an exclamation of gratification.
"Look!"
Merriwell looked in the direction indicated. Not a fourth of a mile away a dingy fishing-sloop was bobbing along, with her dirty mainsail and jib set, yet seeming to catch no breeze. Both Merry and Hodge forgot their discomfort, forgot their chilled and benumbed condition, and, lifting themselves as high as they could, shouted for assistance.
There must have been some breeze in the dingy sails, for the vessel was moving athwart the line of their progress, and they were being carried along by the tide.
"Shout again!" said Merriwell, and again they lifted their voices together.
In another direction a steamer could be seen, but those on the steamer evidently did not see the sufferers on the raft.
"I don't believe there is a soul on the sloop!" Bart declared, in a despairing way.
"Well, if she keeps on her course, we'll get so near that perhaps we can swim to her and climb on board."
But Bart was wrong. Hardly had he made the declaration, when a man appeared on deck, accompanied by a shaggy dog.
Merriwell and Hodge renewed their cries to attract his attention. But the man gave them absolutely no heed. Once they fancied that the dog turned his nose in their direction.
"He don't want to see us," Bart growled. "We are near enough for him to hear! I——"
His sentence was interrupted by a young lady who rushed suddenly on deck from the "cuddy" or cabin. A scream issued from her lips as she appeared, and immediately a second man came into view, from whom she seemed to be fleeing.
"My God! Inza Burrage!"
Merriwell fairly shouted the words.
Inza did not see the raft and her friends. She appeared to see only the shaggy-bearded fellow, who now stood grimly looking at her.
"She's going to jump overboard!" cried Hodge, so excited that he almost fell off the raft.
Merriwell shouted with all his might. Inza turned and saw the raft. She uttered another piercing cry, stretched out her hands, and seemed again about to leap into the sea.
Instead of heeding the cry sent up by Merriwell, Inza's pursuer leaped at her to prevent her from jumping over the rail; and, then, bearing her in his strong arms, deliberately carried her back into the cuddy.
Merriwell and Hodge shouted, yelled, screamed. The one man on the deck paid not the slightest attention to their cries.
"He refuses to hear us!" said Hodge.
The other man appeared, and they called again. One of the men went to the tiller, and the course of the sloop was changed.
"They are going to pretend that they did not see us," Frank exclaimed.
"Hold to the raft, Hodge! Stay by it!"
"What are you going to do?" Hodge demanded.
"I'm going to swim to that sloop!"
"Stay with the raft," Merriwell again commanded.
"But I want to go with you! You will need help!"
"Perhaps I may have to return to the raft. I can't find it if you leave it."
"We can get on that vessel. And perhaps, if you go alone, you will be killed."
Merriwell was as anxious and almost as much excited, but he kept his head.
"Don't you see that the sloop is moving on the new tack. She may be going faster than I can swim. Stay on the raft!"
As he gave this last command, he slipped out of his heavy, soaked outer coat, quickly removed his shoes, and, pushing these articles to Hodge, let himself into the sea, and began to swim toward the dingy fishing-sloop. Hodge did not again shout, for he saw that Merriwell's plan was to swim to the sloop, climb aboard of it, and by a sudden attack overwhelm the men.
"He's crazy!" Hodge grated. "They will see him, and they will simply knock him back into the sea. They act as if they were lunatics—or drunk! Why don't they look this way?"
It was indeed singular, but neither of the men seemed to have noticed the raft or heard the cries that came from it. Merriwell was a splendid swimmer, and in spite of his chilled condition and his hampering clothing, he moved through the water almost like a fish.
"Of course I couldn't have kept up with him!" Bart grumbled. "But I could have done my best. He can't overpower both of those men alone."
He held tightly to the shoes and the coat, and looked longingly after the swimmer, turning his eyes often to the sloop, that now, under the influence of a light breeze, was going along in a surprising fashion.
"And how did Inza come to be aboard of that sloop?"
Bart had not time to think of this before, but now the answer came quickly enough. Inza's clothing had clung to her, as she rushed on the deck, showing that her skirts were weighted with water. No doubt, she, too, had been hurled into the sea by the collision of the steamer with the barge, and this fishing-boat had in some manner picked her up.
"It's very queer, though, the way that fellow acted! She was afraid of him. But she is below, and he is now on deck. Likely enough he has her shut up in the cabin."
He beheld Merriwell lift himself slightly out of the water and send out a ringing call. But the men on deck did not stir. And the sloop sailed on.
"The scoundrels!" Bart hissed, through his white teeth. "I should like to knock their heads together. They refuse to hear him. They are carrying Inza away, and they do not intend that any one shall come aboard. And this within the very shadows of New York City!"
The sloop heeled over under the breeze and increased her speed. Merriwell was palpably losing ground. Bart heard him call again and again, with the same result, and then Bart also lifted his voice.
The result was the same. The sloop moved straight on. At last he saw Merriwell turn about and swim again toward the raft, when it became evident that he could not overtake the sloop.
"That is enough to kill Merry!" he thought sympathizingly. "And Inza saw us, too! I wonder what she thinks?"
Slowly and with seeming weariness Merriwell came back toward the raft. Bart lifted himself as high as he could to mark the spot where the raft lay tossing. When lifted on the crest of a wave, Merriwell came plainly in sight; but when either Frank or the raft slipped down the glassy surface of those big, green rollers, he seemed to sink into the sea.
"I'm afraid he is going to have a hard pull! He must be tired out."
He shook his fist at the sloop. It was growing smaller and smaller. A haze was again creeping over the sea.
"My God! What if the fog should settle down again and keep Merry from finding the raft?"
Bart shuddered at the thought. But Merriwell was so strong a swimmer that Bart's hopes rose again almost immediately. There were indications that the fog was once more descending, but Merriwell was now swimming straight toward the raft with a bold, firm stroke, and with considerable speed.
"Right here, old man!" Bart encouragingly called.
"I'm coming!" Merriwell shouted, and his tones did not show exhausting fatigue.
Then he swam up to the raft, and Bart helped him to climb upon it.
"What was the matter with those scoundrels?"
"Deaf!"
"What?"
"Deaf as posts, both of them!" Merriwell explained, resting on the boards and panting from his exertions. "They didn't look this way simply because they didn't hear us. I'm sure of that, from the way they acted. I began to think so when I told you to hang to the raft. I believed that if I could overtake the sloop, and could climb aboard and make myself known, or knock them down, as my intention was, I could then release Inza and sail the sloop over here and get you. But I couldn't swim fast enough."