CHAPTER XIIMORGAN SETS THE BALL ROLLING.
“Seen yer friend goin’ away!” said Bill Higgins, catching hold of Starbright’s arm, the next morning. “I reckon’t you thumped him so that he’s goin’ to cut out. Anyway, he looked like a critter that had pulled his picket-pin and was stampedin’ from the range.”
“Oh, you mean Morgan?”
Starbright had been walking up the street from the station toward the college when overtaken by the cowboy.
“Yep! You give him sich a thumpin’ last night that I reckon he’s lit out. ’Feared you’d tell of it, and he hain’t the sand to face the laugh that the fellers will give him.”
Starbright also had been at the railway-station, though he had not been observed by Higgins.
“Didn’t know but there mought be an elopement, first off!” grinned Higgins. “Durn purty young woman come trippin’ ‘long at the same time he did, goin’ to take the same train, and he waltzed toward her and offered her his wing, er ruther I thought ’t he was goin’ to offer it to her. But dinged if she seen him at all! Mighty queer, too, for he was big enough. But she didn’t see him—didn’t notice him, when he tuck off his cap and scraped his foot across the floor like a nigger fiddler at a dance, per nuthin’, but jist sashayed right by him ’thout lookin’ at him, and hopped onto the car steps all by her lonesome! Say, ye don’t reckon she done that there fer a blind, and that they was really goin’ away together, do ye?”
Starbright had observed the same performance—had seen Rosalind Thornton come down to the station and cut Dade Morgan dead when he came forward to assist her to the platform of the car.
“No elopement!” said Dick. “I guess she wanted to cut his acquaintance.”
“Well, the manners of this hyer effete East goes ahead of me,” said Higgins. “Out on the ranches when ye want to cut an acquaintance ye do it with a knife. But I reckon I’ll ketch on bimeby. Had a notion hoppin’ on that there train myself, only it was goin’ the wrong way. I’d ‘a’ gone if’t hadn’t been fer Merriwell. Say! I tie to that feller! I never seen another like him. Hyer I come fer a day er two, and I’ve been hyer I don’t know how long, a-stayin’ jist on account of him. If them Yale perfessors would let a feller read their books with a lasso and write with a picket-pin, I’d enter the blamed old college myself, jist to stay with Merriwell. Never seen no sich man on this hyer earth. Treats every feller like a king! And ’t don’t make no difference to him whether a man stepped out of a bandbox er come straight off the ranges. All he asks is that a man shall be a man!”
Dick Starbright was quite as willing, ordinarily, to sing the praises of Frank Merriwell as any one, but just then his thoughts were too much engrossed with the departure of Dade Morgan and Rosalind Thornton from the city. He did not know that Dade was on his way to New London, with scheming brain filled with plans for the carrying out of the wishes of Dion Santenel, but he knew that Rosalind was on her way home after her prolonged visit in New Haven.
He made rather a poor companion for Bill Higgins, as he and the cowboy walked together up the street, almost forgetting Higgins’ chatter while thinking of all that had occurred since Rosalind came to New Haven on a visit to her aunt. He and Rosalind were confessed sweethearts then; now she had gone away, and he had not even said good-by to her.
It had been his intention to at least say “good-by” as she took the train, if a favorable opportunity came, but Morgan had loomed into the foreground at the wrong time, and the words had not been spoken. He had not even gone forward, and he did not believe that Rosalind had observed him as he stood in the crowd at the station.
“It’s just as well, no doubt!” he thought, with a little ache in his big, generous, manly young heart.
Yes, it was just as well. Rosalind had shown that she had a jealous, narrow, spiteful disposition, which was certain to bring trouble to any young man who really cared for her. But Starbright knew that she was, in spite of all this, a lovable girl in many other respects; and, though the dream he had cherished concerning himself and her was shattered and gone, and he felt that it was better so, he could not quite cure that ache in his heart—yet.
Starbright and Higgins separated on reaching Chapel Street. They met again in the gymnasium late in the afternoon, where Merriwell and some others were skimming round on roller-skates engaged in roller polo practise.
“Oh, he won’t accept the challenge!” Bertrand Defarge was sneering. “He never jumps at anything that isn’t dead sure.”
“Who ye talkin’ ’bout?” Higgins asked, for he saw that Defarge was looking toward Merriwell.
“Merriwell!” the French youth answered, not abashed by the presence of the cowboy, who was known to be a “Merriwell maniac.” Higgins’ hand went into his pocket and drew out a bulky wallet, from which he produced a roll of bills.
“Bet ye any amount you’re minded to name that he will!”
“Will what?” asked Starbright, stepping forward; whereat the Chickering set, who had been grouped round Defarge, drew back as if they feared his bulk or the weight of his fist.
“Durn if I know!” Higgins admitted. “But he seems to think that Merriwell’s afraid, and I’m backin’ the general proposition that Merriwell ain’t afeared of anything! So there’s yer money. Put up er shut up!”
“I don’t care to bet with a man who doesn’t know what he’s talking about!” sneered Defarge.
“I know Merriwell! That’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout and what my money’s talkin’ ’bout! Put up er shut up!”
“Oh, come away!” begged Chickering, the professed peacemaker, tugging at Defarge’s sleeve. “We don’t care to bet about this thing, you know.”
“Put up er shut up!” bellowed Higgins; but Defarge and the Chickering set moved away.
“He shut up!” Higgins observed, grimly tucking the money back. “That’s what I intended. I dunno a durn thing what he was talkin’ ’bout, but I don’t ’low nobody to slander Merry.”
They soon discovered what Defarge had been talking about. A challenge by wire had been received by Merriwell’s polo-team from the polo-team at New London, asking Frank to set a date for a game, but insisting that the game should be played in New London. This was of interest to Starbright, for he was a member of the polo-team which Frank had organized and was training.
Defarge came back after a while, and this time he had a roll of bills which he had obtained from Dade Morgan. Roland Packard and Don Pike also appeared on the scene with goodly sums of money, which they were willing to wager that Merriwell’s team would not dare to accept the challenge of the New London men.
“Why do you want to bet against Yale?” Rupert Chickering hypocritically protested, when Gene Skelding also appeared, clothed with funds and renewed confidence. “Loyalty to Old Eli, you know!”
“Rot!” said Skelding. “It isn’t a question of Yale and Old Eli. Merriwell has organized a team of his individual friends. They represent nothing but Merriwell’s swelled head. They are trying to make themselves and every one else believe that they can wipe up the earth with everything in the polo line. We intend to prick the bubble. We’re going to show that they won’t dare to meet any team that can play.”
“You’re sure of the New London team?”
“Yes; but it isn’t the regular New London team. It’s a private team, just as Merriwell’s is; but it holds some crack players. They are willing to meet Merriwell. If he was at the head of a regular Yale team he could refuse by saying that he would only meet college teams. But as it is, he won’t have a leg to stand on if he refuses. We’re going to make him play or take water.”
That night Hodge met Merriwell in a troubled mood. He was a member of Frank’s team, and the bets that were being freely offered more than irritated him, and he did not hesitate to say so.
“You’ll have to meet them, Merry, just to take the wind out of these gas balloons!” he argued. “They say that you won’t accept the challenge, and that if you should you would insist on playing the match here. Those New London fellows demanded that we should go over there because they say they wouldn’t have a fair show in a New Haven rink.”
“I don’t know that I shall pay any attention to the challenge. Whoever heard of those fellows before, anyway?”
Dick Starbright talked the matter over with Bert Dashleigh that night in the seclusion of their room. Dashleigh sat in an easy chair, toying with his mandolin, which he now and then thumped when the conversation lagged. There was a rap on the door, and when it was opened Ready came in.
“Going into the thing?” he queried, squatting on the arm of a chair.
Dashleigh had risen, and now put down his mandolin. Though Ready had hazed and annoyed him in common with other freshmen, he had great respect for him.
“Camp down!” Ready requested, then repeated his question.
“Into what thing?” Dick asked, wondering if Ready was setting another sophomore trap for him and his friend.
“Oh! Then the news hasn’t floated hitherward? I’m to be congratulated. Thanks! I think I’ll shake hands with myself.”
Which he did, very solemnly.
“Chance for a fortune!” he said, winking owlishly. “Merriwell’s polo-team, of which you and I are the most important members”—bowing toward Starbright—“has been challenged by a little upstart-team from hinky-dinky New London. Now, I’d like to go to New London. Acquainted with a young lady over there, you know. I should like to wear my beautiful polo-suit and show her that I am a Pole. Merriwell won’t go. At least, he says he won’t. Now, we’re getting up a sort of combination jack-pot. Every Merriwell enemy is walking around the streets of this great and glorious city with his pockets turned inside out and his hands bulging with great rolls of green-backs, saying that Merriwell won’t go. So we’re collecting a fund for the needy, which is going to say that Merriwell will go, and that his team will knock the tar out of the boasters at New London. I was sure you’d want to get into the game; hence trotted my feet hitherward. Subscriptions to this fund unlimited; repayment guaranteed with one hundred per cent. interest immediately after the New London match.”
Then, seeing that Starbright hesitated, he continued, as if the information was all that was needed:
“Bill Higgins heads the subscription-list with fifty dollars, which he says he already owes for board, but which he is willing to stack up on Merriwell. Bart Hodge goes Higgins ten better. Browning has roused himself long enough and sufficiently to stop smoking and draw a check for a pretty little sum. Yours truly, the undersigned, is into it so deep that I’ll have to shave myself for the next five years or grow Pfeffer whiskers if we lose. And there are likewise others and some more. So, I thought——”
He took out a square of legal cap, on which the signatures of various students appeared, with figures set opposite their names. This he tossed to Starbright.
Dashleigh was going down into his pockets.
“Oh, I’m always strapped!” he grunted. “I’m spending my allowance faster than it comes to me. But if Starbright will lend me twenty-five, I’ll wager it.”
Starbright passed him the paper.
“Why, you’re bound to lose!”
Ready winked another owlish wink of wisdom.
“Milord, why sayest thou so?”
“Because, as you say yourself, Merriwell has declared that he won’t accept the challenge.”
Ready rose, reseated himself, wiggled the fingers of his right hand from the armhole of his vest, and winked again.
“What makes you so confident?” Dick demanded, while Bert was looking over the list.
“I have been commanded to tell it not in Gath, to publish it not in the streets of Askelon, yclept New Haven; but in these rooms——”
He arose, walked solemnly about as if peering for a possible eavesdropper, peeped under the lounge and under some chairs, and came back.
“Put all you can beg, borrow, or steal on this proposition. It’s a dead sure thing. The bet isn’t that our team will win the game, but that our team will play. We’re going to clean out the boasters that have been tantalizingly shoving their money under our noses—clean them out so slick that they won’t have enough to take them home for the Christmas holidays. Why do I know?”
He looked around again, lowered his voice and funneled his hands.
“I know, because Charles Conrad Merriwell has himself bet a little roll with a New London man that Frank will accept the challenge and will beat the New London challengers!”
Both Starbright and Dashleigh stared. The thing was unbelievable.
“Are you sure?” Dick asked.
“Sure! The fellow came to the New Haven House to-night, made the offer in the presence of a dozen men, shook the cold cash under Charles Merriwell’s nose, and Merriwell, like the true sporting man and gentleman that he is, promptly covered the money.”
“Oh, say! let me have a hundred, somebody!” Dashleigh begged.
“The New London man was a fool to offer such a wager!”
“I think so myself; and a ‘fool and his money’ are likely to be soon parted. But the idea is out, somehow, that Frank is afraid to accept the challenge and will not accept it under any consideration. They say he values his reputation as a successful leader of athletic-teams more than he does his father’s money; that five thousand dollars is nothing to Charles Merriwell, and a defeat of his polo-team, made up as it is of his close friends, would be everything to Frank. So, the fools are silly enough to think Frank won’t play, and that they’ve got a cinch.”
“You’re sure, then, that Frank will accept?”
“Why, of course he’ll accept! If I didn’t know him so well I’d think he was holding off this way on purpose to get big bets out of the proposition. He will accept the challenge to please his father. Nothing else would make him do it, probably; but that will.”
“Say! somebody lend me two hundred dollars!” Dashleigh begged. “If I thought my folks would do it, I’d telegraph them to forward me two or three months’ allowance in advance. But they wouldn’t. You’re going to put up money on the game, too?”
“Sure!”
Jack Ready did not go away from the rooms of the chums empty-handed; and not long after, when all arrangements had been made and other sources laid under contribution, Bertrand Defarge, Don Pike, Roland Packard, Gene Skelding, the members of the Chickering set, and many others who had been flashing their “rolls” under the nose of every friend of Frank Merriwell, found their offered bets covered, and were bantered to lay wagers on the game.
It was a night of excitement, for in all the places of resort for students, and in many other places as well, the challenge of the New London men and the probable action of Frank Merriwell, together with the bets that were being offered and made, were almost the sole topics of conversation.
Dade Morgan went to his rooms smiling and elated. He had worked out the plan given to him by Dion Santenel.
To his surprise he found Santenel sitting before the grate, awaiting his coming.
These mysterious appearances and disappearances of the man he obeyed, loved, and feared were often quite puzzling to Morgan. Time and again he had walked into his rooms, after carefully unlocking the door, and found sitting there the strange man of mystery; and often, after leaving the man there, he returned in a very few moments to find Santenel gone for an absence of a week or more. Santenel’s abiding-place seemed to be as changing and unsubstantial as that of the Wandering Jew; and where he stayed while in New Haven Dade had never yet been able to learn.
“Waiting for your report,” said Santenel. “I heard a few things myself, but I thought it unwise to appear too publicly.”
“Everything has gone on swimmingly!” was Dade’s jubilant preface. “Things worked right from the start. I found two men at New London who played right into my hands. One of them I knew before, and that made the thing easy for me. He had done dirty work for me before, and he’s all right. They had been talking of organizing a polo-team out of some fellows who had been rejected or expelled from the other team, and they organized it on the spot, and wired their challenge.”
Then he gleefully told of the bets that had been made, dwelling especially on the bet which Charles Conrad Merriwell had made with one of Dade’s tools from New London.
“The challenge will be accepted, and the game will be played,” was Santenel’s satisfied comment. “I’ll see that Charles Conrad Merriwell stays in New Haven that day and meets me. You must have the game early in the afternoon—Saturday afternoon. Not a night game! I want plenty of time to do my work. Have the New London men stand to that.”
He rubbed his fingers joyously, and, sinking into the chair, stared into the grate with his burning eyes.
“Merriwell will accept the challenge!” he declared, as he rose to go.
He was a true prophet. Frank accepted the New London challenge the next morning.