Bart Hodge had missed Merry from the throng of rollicking seniors. A little while before Frank had been in the midst of the sport; now he was gone. For a while Hodge continued to take part in the top-spinning, but his heart was not in it. He looked around and saw that he was not the only one who found it impossible to drag back his boyhood in such a manner. He saw that there were others who were taking part in the top-spinning simply because it was a privilege of seniors at this time. Some there were who laughed and joked and were merry, but, strangely enough, it seemed to Bart that these did not realize how sad a thing it was to lose their boyhood. So Hodge drifted away by himself, giving himself up to thoughts that were both pleasant and otherwise.
Bart’s boyhood had not been the pleasantest imaginable. His father was a careless, self-indulgent man, and he had given little thought to the manner in which Bart was coming up. Bart had been given almost everything he desired, and, thus pampered, it was not strange that he came to be regarded as a “spoiled child.” If he fretted for anything, he was given that which he desired in order to pacify him. Finding thathe could win his own way with a pout and a whine, he pouted and whined more and more.
His mother saw with some alarm what was happening, but it was useless for her to try to reason with his father. “Oh, give the boy what he wants, and keep him still!” was the way Bart’s father settled it. His mother, knowing the real disposition of his father, feared for the future, and her fears were justified.
As Bart grew older, his demands became harder to satisfy, but he had a way of making life miserable for everybody around if he did not get his way. More and more he annoyed his father. “The boy must go away to school,” Mr. Hodge had decided at last. His mother would have kept him home a little longer, but his father had decreed.
Bart, however, had no fancy for going away to school. He swore he would not stay, and he did not. In less than two weeks he was sent home, expelled.
Then Mr. Hodge was furious. “We’ll see about this, sir!” he said. “An ordinary boarding-school is not strict enough. You shall attend a military school.”
“I won’t!” said Bart.
But he did—for a month. Then he came home again. The principal said he was incorrigible.
“We’ll see!” said Mr. Hodge, and his face was black as a storm-cloud. “I’ll give you one more chance, young man. This is the last one! If you are expelledagain—well, you need not come back here! You may shift for yourself!”
Bart knew he meant just that, but even then he did not care. He had such a bad disposition that he longed to be expelled in order to “spite” his father. “I’d like to show him that he can’t force me into anything!” muttered Bart.
And so, when he was packed off to Fardale, he went with bitterness in his heart. During the journey he regarded with satisfaction the possibility that he would soon be expelled from this school. He pictured himself as turned from his own home, set adrift an outcast. He pictured himself as a reckless youngster, going to sea, perhaps. He would see many strange lands, lead a wild life, be shipwrecked, make a fortune in some far country, come home and treat his bent and aged father with kindness and magnanimity, caring for him in his declining years. He would be able to say: “Well, father, you see I bear no grudge, even if you did treat me in a shabby manner when I was a boy. I’ve made myself what I am, no thanks to you. It’s all right; but I can’t quite forget.”
But this fancy did not give him so much satisfaction as another that came to him. In this he saw himself wandering homeless over the world, living a wretched life, drinking, associating with bad men, sinking lower and lower. At last, having fallen to the depths, he might drag himself back home. He wouldbe met by a stern father, who still rebuffed him. On his knees he would beg for one chance. When he was refused, he’d go out and break into a bank or something. Then, as he stood in the dock to receive sentence for his crime, he would turn to his father, point an accusing finger at the cowering man, and cry out, in a terrible voice: “You are responsible for it all! My sins are on your head!”
Having such thoughts as these, Bart was in a rebellious mood that day when he stepped off the train at Fardale station. His first act had been to kick a poodle dog that came within reach of his foot. That kick had led him into trouble with a bright-faced stripling who had also arrived on that train. Later on he had fought this stripling in an open field on a moonlight night. The fight had been interrupted, but in his heart Bart knew the stripling would have whipped him if it had continued to a finish, and he hated the stripling with a hatred he fancied undying.
The stripling was Frank Merriwell, and so they were enemies when they first met at Fardale.
Certain it is that Hodge in those days was ready to stoop to almost anything in order to get the best of an enemy, and many were the questionable and unfair things he did.
But, no matter how unfair Hodge was, Merriwell always fought fair and aboveboard. Bart had not fanciedthat anybody lived who would never accept an opportunity to take an unfair advantage of an enemy, and, at first, he could not understand Merriwell. Like many others in after years, he first mistook Merry’s squareness and generosity for timidity. The time came, however, when he realized that Frank Merriwell was as courageous as a lion.
The test that won Hodge to Frank came when Merry might have caused Bart’s expulsion from the academy by a word which would have made Bart seem guilty of a reprehensible thing that he had not committed. Hodge knew that Frank held him in his power; he knew that the proof of his guilt must seem convincing to Merry. For once in his life Bart was frightened, for he suddenly realized what it meant to him if he were expelled from Fardale. His mother’s letters had convinced him that there was no hope of his father relenting in such an event. “I’m done for!” said Bart, to himself. And he wondered why Merriwell did not strike.Had he possessedsuch a hold on Frank, he would have struck, even though he had known Merry was innocent.
Then came an accident at the academy that showed another cadet with the same initials as Bart was guilty, and Hodge was saved. Still he wondered why Merriwell had held his hand. “Why did you do it, Merriwell?” he asked, pointblank. “Because I was not absolutely certain that you were guilty,” Frank answered.“It looked that way, didn’t it?” “Yes, it looked that way.” “I should have been expelled if you had accused me.” “I think you would, Hodge.” “You had no reason to like me, Merriwell.” “I did not like you,” Frank admitted. “Then why didn’t you accuse me and get me out of the way?” “Because to save my life I would not charge my worst enemy with a crime of which he might be innocent.”
Bart remembered this conversation. He had pondered over it, and it had opened his eyes to the difference between himself and Frank Merriwell. All at once he saw that this fellow whom he hated was his superior in every way. He had suspected it before, and it had made him hate Merry more intensely; but now the full knowledge of the fact brought him a different feeling.
Not all at once did Bart surrender to Frank. He tried to keep away from Merriwell, but the rules of the military school threw them together singularly, making them roommates. Never were two fellows less alike. But Bart found that, for all of his sense of justice and honor, Merriwell was no milksop. Frank could defend his rights, and he did so often enough.
The end of it all was that Hodge became passionately attached to Frank, even though he tried to conceal the fact. He would have fought to the death for Merriwell at a time when he had not ceased to sneer and say bitter things about him. Others did not knowhow much he cared for Frank; he tried to hide it even from himself.
That friendship for Frank Merriwell was the making of Hodge. Frank was a splendid model. Unconsciously Bart began to imitate him, and the work of changing his selfish, revengeful nature went on slowly but surely. In time Hodge realized that he owed the great change to Frank, but he was not aware of it so much while it was taking place.
Inza had lived there in Fardale, and Bart admired her. But she was dark-haired and dark-eyed like Bart himself, and she took no great fancy to him. Merriwell’s success with Inza annoyed him at first.
Then came Elsie.
But it was Merriwell who had done most in saving her from her father’s shipwrecked vessel, which went to pieces on Tiger Tooth Ledge, off the coast at Fardale, one wild night, and it was Merriwell on whom the golden-haired girl smiled. The first sight of her had aroused a strange sensation deep down in Bart’s heart; but she would not even give him a glance.
That did not make him bitter toward Frank. Instead, he became bitter toward girls in general. He told himself that he hated them all, and that he would never have anything to do with any of them. So, for a long, long time, Bart Hodge believed himself a “woman-hater.”
He had kept himself from Elsie. When he thoughtof her he turned his mind on other things. She troubled him a great deal for a time, but at last, after being put out of his mind so many times, she bothered him less and less. He had not fancied himself in love with her. He would have ridiculed such a thing as preposterous.
But the time came when, on the burning steamer, he knew the truth in a sudden burst of light. He had loved her all the time, and, rather than be false to Frank; he had remained silent. In the face of what seemed certain death, his lips had been unsealed, and he had told her of his love.
Then—strange fate!—Merriwell himself had battered down the partition and dragged them out to life.
Perhaps it was the happiest moment of Bart’s life when he learned that Frank had found he loved Inza and she loved him. With Frank and Inza engaged, it seemed that there was no barrier left between him and Elsie.
He had known that he was going to meet Elsie in Charlottesville during the Easter trip of the ball-team, and he had made Frank promise to let him tell her everything, for she remained unaware of the engagement between Merry and Inza.
When the time came, however, Bart longed to learn from Elsie that she loved him most before telling her what had happened. He felt that not for anything would he wish to think she had accepted him becauseshe knew Frank was lost to her. It was the great longing of his heart to be first in her heart.
And so, fearing what her answer might be unless she knew all, he had begged her to wait a little before making it. And he had left Charlottesville and Virginia without telling her of the engagement of Frank and Inza. Not, however, till they were back in New Haven did he confess this to Frank.
“I couldn’t do it!” he cried, alone with Merry in his room. “I long to hear her tell me she loves me most without having her know that you can never be anything to her. That would settle every doubt for the present and for all time.”
“I can’t blame you, Bart,” said Merry. “I believe I understand how you feel. But I fear you lost your courage when the right moment came.”
“Gods, Merriwell! who wouldn’t lose courage? Her answer was to make or mar my whole future. I longed to cry out: ‘Frank and Inza are engaged.’ But the fear that it would be that alone which would give her to me made me keep silent. I want her to love me because not even Frank Merriwell is as much to her.”
“I hope she will, Hodge,” said Merry sincerely; “and something tells me that she will. It will all come right, old man.”