CHAPTER XXIITHE YOUNG SOLDIER.
“Inza Burrage—is it possible?”
Inza started and looked up.
The speaker, a straight, finely formed youth, had paused by her seat on the train. As there was no Pullman car on the train that ran to Fardale, Mr. Burrage had been made as comfortable as possible with cushions and was sitting opposite Inza, who was riding backward.
The one who uttered the words recorded wore a uniform of the regular army, but he was scarcely more than a boy in years, though he had a light-brown mustache. His face was bronzed by exposure to all sorts of weather.
“I can’t be mistaken,” he said, looking down at her. “This must be Miss Burrage?”
There was something faintly familiar about him, and yet she did not know him.
“I am Miss Burrage,” she acknowledged; “but you have the advantage, sir.”
He laughed.
“Is it possible I have changed so much?” he said, offering his hand in a manner that betokened the utmost confidence. “Look at me closely, Miss Burrage.”
She permitted him to take her hand, but still she failed to recognize him. This seemed to amuse him still more. In truth, she was somewhat agitated by the sight of the uniform he wore, for Walter was on that train, having gone forward to the smoker, Merry accompanying him.
“You knew me in Fardale,” he asserted. “I’ve been wondering if I’d meet any old friends there.”
Then he looked closely at the invalid, and again lifted his hat, saying:
“Mr. Burrage, I think?”
“Yes, yes,” huskily murmured the sick man, who also was alarmed by the appearance of the uniform. “Though, like my daughter, I fail to recognize you, sir.”
“That is not so very strange on your part,” said the young soldier, as he coolly seated himself on the arm of Mr. Burrage’s seat; “but it is a trifle surprising that Miss Burrage should fail to recognize me.”
“You attended the military academy at Fardale?” questioned the girl.
“I had that pleasure. Old Gunn hauled me over the coals many a time, and Scotch used to make me toe the mark. By the way, I hear that Professor Scotch is dead.”
“It is true.”
“Too bad! He was quite a jolly old boy, as we could raise hob with him. Haven’t you recalled my name yet, Miss Burrage?”
“No,” she reluctantly confessed.
“Why, I was a particular chum to your brother at the academy.”
Mr. Burrage stirred nervously.
“You were Walter’s friend?” said Inza.
“Correct. We entered the army together. Too bad Walter got into that muss. I’ve been stationed in the Philippines. Home on furlough. Suppose I’ll have to go back. Beastly country in some respects. No pretty women there, and women make or mar any country.”
There was something about the air of the fellow that did not please Inza.
“Well, I see it’s no use for you to try to guess,” he rattled on. “I’m Swift—Roy Swift. Now you remember me?”
Still she did not remember at first, but after a time she recalled Swift, whom she had known but slightly among many other cadets at the academy.
“It’s strange you should forget me so completely,” he said. “I could never forget you.”
He spoke the words in a very significant manner, bending on her such a meaning look that the blood rushed to her face.
“I remember the day I first saw you at a picnic in old Snodd’s grove,” he went on. “I’ve always remembered you just as you looked then. I thought you the prettiest girl I had ever seen. Since then it——”
“You must have seen thousands of pretty girls,” she broke in, trying to turn his conversation. “Have you had many adventures in the Philippines?”
“I have seen more than thousands,” he declared; “but never one of them all as pretty as you were that day, Miss Burrage. This is not flattery; it is the sincere truth. I have thought of you millions of times, and you have ever come to me as a truly representative American girl.”
“Thank you,” she said, not exactly pleased by his bold words of praise. “I’m sure you are altogether too complimentary.”
“Oh, not at all! I know a pretty girl when I see one! I tell you plenty of pretty girls have flung themselves at me, but I’m still single, you see. In every case, I could not help comparing the girl with one I had first seen at the picnic in Snodd’s grove, and, as a result, none of them caught me.”
He laughed and twirled his mustache, his pose being one calculated to arouse admiration. Evidently Roy Swift had lost none of his conceit since the old days at Fardale, when he regarded himself as “strictly the proper thing.”
Inza was displeased. She felt like immediately showing her scorn for this boasting fellow, but something held her in check.
Swift knew her brother. More than that, he knew all about the trouble into which Walter had been drawn, and he might recognize the unfortunate fellow on sight, even though Frank Merriwell had failed to do so, for he knew Walter was not dead, while Merry had been led to so regard him.
Such being the case, it was far better to be careful not to arouse the resentment of a fellow who might have it in his power to injure Walter. So Inza bit her lips and remained silent.
“I’ve been trying to get off on furlough for some time,” Swift went on; “but it has been very difficult. When I did get away, after visiting my people, I continued to think of the friends in general whom I had known in Fardale—and of you in particular. Then I determined to visit the old place. That’s how I came to be on this train. I presume you have been away from home on a visit of some sort.”
“We do not live in Fardale now.”
“Ah, indeed? Then you are going there on a visit?”
“Yes.”
“How fortunate! Truly, it seems that Providence has brought this about. How disappointed I would have been had I gone there and not found you, Miss Burrage!”
“My father has traveled much for his health,” said Inza.
“And, having failed to find it, I’m going back to Fardale to die,” declared the invalid, in a weak voice.
“Oh, not so bad as that, I hope!” cried Swift. “You don’t want to give up that way. The man who gives up and says ‘die’ usually has his way. I knew a fellow in our company who felt that way just before a skirmish. He got it, all right. The little yellow devils soaked him in four different places, and he just lay down and groaned, ‘I knew it was coming!’ Then he croaked. If he hadn’t felt certain he was booked, it’s possible he might be living still.”
“Folly,” declared Bernard Burrage. “His time had come, and he was forewarned. It is true with me. I have had the warning.”
“Please—please don’t talk that way, papa!” begged Inza, the color going out of her face.
“Forgive me, child,” he murmured. “I forgot.” Then he relapsed into silence, and sat looking out of the window at the snow-bound world.
Swift shook his head, but there was a mist in Inza’s eyes and she gazed through a blurring veil at the father she had ever loved, despite his faults.
For Bernard Burrage had not been perfect. Once there had been a time that, with a persistency that seemed a craze, he had done his best to marry his beautiful daughter off to a wealthy man. His false view of life had led him to fancy he was best providing for her if he secured her a rich husband.
Perhaps he was not so much to blame, for he had felt the spirit of these days which has seized upon womanhood. He understood how the woman of to-day loves luxury, ease, show, society, position, and all that, and how thousands of them are ready and willing to sell body and soul for that which they covet.
In the past it was different. Then girls married because they loved, and they were willing to do everything in their power to aid their husbands in the struggle to rise. Then the question was not if the man could support them in the style to which they had become accustomed, but the girl was ready to take him, if she loved him, “for better or worse,” to cast her fortunes with his, to rise with him or to fall with him.
But Bernard Burrage had not looked at marriage in this way, and he did not give his daughter credit for having more heart and soul than that of the average modern girl spoiled by longings for wealth and social position.
In this he had made a great mistake, for Inza Burrage would not have tied herself to any man merely for riches or social standing. And she had baffled his every effort to accomplish his purpose until at last he gave up.
“Often,” said Swift, “I’ve wondered if you were married yet, Miss Burrage.”
“Oh, dear, no!” said she, turning toward the window to brush the mist from her eyes. “I’ve not thought of such a thing.”
“I’m glad you are not,” he declared, in his very meaning manner. “There was a caddish young chap at the academy whom you seemed to care for, but I fancied you would outgrow that.”
She looked at him inquiringly.
“A caddish person whom I seemed to care for?” she questioned. “You can’t mean Bart Hodge?”
“Oh, no!”
“Then I’m sure I can’t conceive whom you do mean. Will you please name him.”
“Why, Frank Merriwell, of course,” smiled the young soldier.
Inza’s eyes flashed.
“I’d like to know for what reason you call him caddish?” she exclaimed, the flaming color leaping to her cheeks and her dark eyes flashing.
“Oh-ho!” murmured Swift, as he saw how he had aroused her.
“I thought you were one of his friends at the academy,” said Inza.
“Never that,” declared the youth with the bronzed face. “I was not an open enemy, but I never liked him.”
“Why not?”
“Oh, for various reasons.”
“Name one.”
“Well, it is not my habit to chase after a fellow that everybody else is chasing.”
“Then the boys at the academy used to chase after Frank Merriwell?”
“Oh, he had a crowd that hung round him and seemed to think he was the proper thing.”
“And that is your only reason for disliking him?”
“Not by any means. But he was an upstart. You must remember that he was below me at the academy, and I graduated some time in advance of him. I never had much to do with him, for upper-classmen do not associate freely with plebes.”
By this time Inza was thoroughly aroused.
“It might have done you unspeakable good if you had associated with him more,” she said.
“In what way?”
“He was a perfect gentleman,” she declared; “and gentlemen always set a good example.”
That did not seem to ruffle Swift in the least. Indeed, her stinging words ran off him as water runs from a duck’s back.
“Ha! ha!” he laughed. “It’s plain you were fooled by the fellow, just the same as many others who did not see much of him.”
That made her long to express herself still more plainly, but Inza was a lady above everything else, and she could hold herself in restraint under certain conditions, for all of her passionate nature.
“I hardly think I was fooled; but I am certain you were deceived, or that you are inclined to maliciously misjudge him. I do hope it is not the latter case.”
“Thanks. I wouldn’t put myself to the trouble to misjudge him, for I do not regard the fellow as worth judging at all.”
That was hard to bear! Had Inza been a man she might have placed her hand on Roy Swift’s collar just then.
“I am sure he made a good record at the academy!”
“But did not graduate.”
“His guardian died.”
“Still, he might have remained in the academy.”
“The provisions of his uncle’s will gave him a better opportunity to secure an education. Professor Scotch was appointed his guardian, and it was arranged that he should travel while being tutored by the professor. He was fitted to enter college.”
“You seem to know all about his affairs, Miss Burrage. It is plain that you did take a very strong interest in him.”
“Why shouldn’t I? Do you think I’d forget one who saved me from the jaws of a mad dog? I saw him fight that dog with nothing but a pocket-knife! From that hour I took an interest in him that has never relaxed, and I am proud of it now.”
“Oh, well, it’s all right,” smiled Swift, in an easy way. “I did not know I was hurting you, else you may be sure I’d not said so much. But, of course, I must continue to think what I like about him.”
“That’s it—you think what you wish to think, not what is the truth about him.”
“Oh, Miss Burrage!”
“I know it!” she persisted, her dark eyes flashing. “Do you imagine that you are showing a liberal spirit, Mr. Swift? Don’t you think you are making yourself seem rather small and mean?”
“Inza!” exclaimed her father restrainingly.
“Don’t be disturbed, papa,” she said, soothingly. “I can take care of this case very well.”
Again Swift laughed.
“By Jove!” he cried; “you are the same spirited girl as of old! I don’t wonder Merriwell was crazy over you!”
How offensive he was! Yet he seemed to fancy he had said something to please her.
“I have said,” she reminded, “that he was always a gentleman. Those who associated much with him imbibed something of his spirit. You should have known him better, Mr. Swift.”
“Oh, well, let’s let him drop,” he urged. “He is of no particular consequence. I’ve heard he’s working all the time to make himself popular in college.”
“He does not have to work to become popular. He is a natural leader, and men flock round him because they cannot help it. He was captain of the eleven last fall, and Yale did not lose a game. It had the greatest football-team ever put on the gridiron.”
“And, of course, he won all the critical games? Ha, ha, ha!”
“He won the most critical game, the one against Harvard. Everybody has given him credit for that.”
“He must be a high-stepper now!”
“He is as modest as ever.”
“Then he’s not very modest, for he was forever putting himself ahead.”
“He never put himself ahead in the world, sir! Others put him there. They recognized his abilities and made him a leader. This spring he is captain of the Yale nine.”
“It’s a wonder that he’s not on the crew, also!”
“He has been on the crew in the past, and he keeps himself in such trim that he can take an oar at any time. If anything happens that he is needed, as has happened in the past, I have no doubt but he will pull with the crew in the great race.”
“A modern marvel, to be sure! Why, he’s the athletic wonder of the age!”
“In some respects he is,” she agreed defiantly. “But he is a gentleman, as well as an athlete. You should meet him again, Mr. Swift; it would do you a world of good.”
By this time he was beginning to feel the sting of her repeated insinuations, and he bit his lips, though continuing to smile.
“I haven’t the least desire to meet the fellow again, Miss Burrage. In fact, I would not turn one step out of my course to do so, though, as a rule, I’m fond of meeting anybody who ever attended Fardale.”
“He must have offended you greatly, sir?”
“Oh, not at all!”
“I presume you are not naturally envious?”
“There was nothing about him that I could envy, Miss Burrage. I found him offensive, that’s all.”
“But you will confess that he was brave?”
“Why should I?”
“The mad-dog affair proved that. Would you have fought that mad beast alone, with a coat wrapped round your arm to protect it from the creature’s jaws, and a jack-knife for your only weapon? Frank Merriwell did that.”
“Because he was too frightened to run away,” laughed Swift. “I heard that at the time, and I believe it was told to me by a fellow who afterward became very chummy with him, Bart Hodge.”
“Hodge hated him at the time, and he would have told anything to injure him. Hodge ran, and I was left to face the dog alone. Frank saw it. He tore off his coat, wrapped it round his left arm, and, with the knife in his hand, fought the dog till Mr. Snodd came and shot the beast.”
“Then he fainted,” laughed the young soldier, with a sneer.
“But not till he had saved us, and his fingers were fastened on the throat of the dog with a regular death-grip, his knife having been lost in the struggle. Oh, I’ll never forget how white and still he was as he lay on the ground!”
She shuddered a little, and Swift laughed again.
“And you’ve been ready to stand up for him ever since, which shows how loyal you are. I admire you for it, Miss Burrage. He should appreciate it, but I suppose he’s like all conceited fellows, and they seldom think much of their best friends. For it is a fact that Merriwell always was conceited.”
“Thank you, sir!” said a quiet voice.
Frank Merriwell was standing near.