CHAPTER II.ANTON MESCAL.
A dark-faced, Spanish-appearing man stopped Roland Packard on the steps of the Tontine Hotel.
“Get out of the way!” snarled Roland, who had been drinking.
“Wait,” said the man, in a soft, not unpleasant voice. “I wish to speak to you. It is important.”
Roland was in anything but a pleasant mood. He had seen Frank Merriwell cover himself with glory in the game against Harvard, and, having foolishly bet that the Cambridge men would win the championship, he had taken to drink immediately after the game.
“It’s got to be cursed important!” he snapped, looking the stranger over. “I don’t know you. What’s your name?”
“Anton Mescal.”
“Never heard it before. Are you one of these blooming old grads who are overrunning the town?”
“No.”
“Then what in blazes——”
A group of men came out of the hotel and descended the steps. They had gray hair about theirtemples, and some of them were bald beneath their hats. They carried canes, their faces were flushed, and they looked hilariously happy. They were a group of “old grads,” and they had been celebrating Yale’s victory. With them the celebration had just begun; it would extend all through the night. As they rolled down the steps, clinging to one another’s arms, they were talking excitedly:
“He’s the greatest pitcher Yale ever produced!” asserted one.
“Come off, Smithy, old man!” cried another. “You know the class of ’Umpty-six had the champ. This fellow——”
“Don’t talk, Sluthers!” interrupted another. “Baseball was different then. Whoever heard of curves? This Merriwell——”
“Is a marvel!”
“He’s a dandy!”
“’Rah for Merriwell!”
“Let’s all cheer! Yow! I feel just like cheering! Cheer for Merriwell!”
Then they bumped against Roland Packard, who snarled at them. One of them grasped him; others followed the example of that one. They bore him down the steps to the sidewalk.
“What’s the matter with you?” the grad who had grasped him first demanded. “Are you a sorehead?Well, by thunder, I want to hear you cheer for Merriwell!”
“You’ll want a long time!” declared Roland, savagely. “Let go of my collar!”
“Boys,” said the old fellow fiercely, “here’s a chap who won’t cheer for Merriwell.”
“Shoot him!” advised another, who was rather unsteady on his feet. “Don’t bother with him! Shoot him on the spot, Bilton!”
“What spot?” asked Bilton.
“Any old spot.”
“All right,” said the one who had Roland by the collar, “I’ll do it.”
He was just intoxicated enough to be reckless, and he actually took a revolver out of his hip pocket.
“Brought this to celebrate with,” he declared. “Loaded it for that purpose; but I guess I’ll shoot this fellow.”
Then he fired straight at Roland’s breast.
Packard fell back with a gasping cry, and the dark-faced man caught him. The other old grads were appalled by the act of their companion, who himself was rather dazed, not having intended to fire the revolver; but he quickly recovered, saying:
“He isn’t hurt, gentlemen! The danged thing is loaded with blanks.”
Packard threatened to call for the police, not one of whom happened to be near.
Not wishing to get into trouble on account of the reckless act of their companion, the old grads hastened away.
Anton Mescal, the man with the dark face, laughed a little, as he said:
“Is this the East? Why, I didn’t suppose men were so careless with their guns here. For a moment I fancied I must be at home.”
Packard swore.
“Infernal old fools!” he muttered. “I’m going to follow and have them arrested! I’ll put that drunken idiot in the jug for this! Why, he would have shot me dead if the thing had been loaded with a ball cartridge!”
“Better let them go,” urged Mescal. “I want to talk with you about something important.”
“But I don’t know you.”
“I introduced myself just before those men attempted to stampede us.”
Packard seemed in doubt. He wanted to follow and make trouble for the man who had been so reckless with his revolver, and yet something was urging him to listen to the stranger, who claimed to have important business with him.
“If we stay here,” he said, “we’ll get bumped into again by these gray-haired Yale men of other days.”
“Yet I must stay here. Let’s get off the steps, where we can watch both entrances. I am not going to be given the slip again.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Something I will explain if you prove to be the man I think you are.”
“You are from the West?”
“That’s right, partner. Come down here.”
They moved aside on the walk, where they took pains to avoid the groups of hilarious men who were circulating in that vicinity.
“You do not like Merriwell,” said the man who called himself Mescal. “You refused to cheer for him, even when that man drew a gun on you.”
“I didn’t suppose the howling chump was crazy enough to shoot.”
“Still you refused to cheer for Merriwell, and everybody else is howling for him.”
“What of that?” asked Packard suspiciously. “Haven’t I got a right to refuse?”
“Of course. The very fact that you did refuse convinced me that I had made no mistake in my man. You dislike Merriwell, when everybody else seems wild about him. You seem to be his only enemy here.”
“That’s right. There were enough of them once, but I’m the only one left.”
“What has become of them all?”
“He has triumphed over them, and they have bowed down to worship him. They are howling themselves hoarse over him to-night.”
“You mean——”
“They have become his friends, or else they have been driven out of college.”
“How does it happen that you have not succumbed?”
“Because I will not!” panted Roland fiercely.
“He has never defeated you?”
Packard hesitated about answering, for he knew that in everything that had brought about a contest between himself and Merriwell the latter had been victorious.
“Only temporarily,” he asserted. “I never give up.”
“Good!” exclaimed Mescal. “I am more than ever satisfied that you are the very man I want.”
Packard now demanded a full explanation. His curiosity had been awakened. Still Mescal, the soft-spoken man from the West, was rather cautious.
“Would you like to strike Merriwell a last blow?” he asked.
“Would I?” said the medic. “Ask me!”
For a moment the Westerner knitted his brows.He had asked Packard, and the slang of the East bothered him. But the expression on Packard’s face demonstrated his meaning, and Anton Mescal nodded.
“I thought so,” he said. “I may be able to give you the opportunity.”
“But you have not explained,” insisted Roland.
“I will. It takes a little time.”
“Then let’s go in here and get a drink. I’m dry and tired.”
Mescal shook his head, grasping the student by the arm.
“Stay here,” he directed. “It is necessary if you wish to strike Merriwell.”
This surprised Roland.
“What are you coming at?” he growled. “Think I’m going to hit him with my fist?”
“No. I am watching for a man who is in that hotel. I must not miss that man when he comes out.”
“How is he connected?”
“I have followed him pretty nearly three thousand miles, trying to watch him night and day. Four times he has given me the slip, and four times I have picked up his trail again. I have tried in every possible way to accomplish my purpose before he could reach this place, but thus far I have failed.”
This was interesting, and yet Packard failed to see how it was related to Merriwell.
“I’ll explain,” said the Westerner. “This man is the bearer of an important message to Frank Merriwell.”
“Ah! that’s it?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you can’t stop him now unless you kidnap or kill him.”
“I don’t want to stop him.”
“What, then?”
“I want to get hold of that message.”
“You wish to know what it is?”
“I know now.”
“Hey? Then why do you wish to get hold of it? Why the dickens have you put yourself to so much trouble?”
“Because I do not wish it to reach the hands of Merriwell.”
“The bearer——”
“Hasn’t the least idea what the message is.”
“Oh-ho!”
“He is simply a messenger—nothing more. He has been instructed to deliver an oilskin envelope to Merriwell. He knows absolutely nothing of the contents of that envelope. If he were to lose it, he would fail utterly in his task.”
Packard nodded, and made a motion for the man to go on.
“This message,” said Mescal, “is of the utmost importance to Merriwell. It will do him great damage not to receive it. Get it and place it in my hands, and you will strike Merriwell a terrible blow. Besides that, I will give you five hundred dollars in cold cash.”
“Five hundred dollars?” gasped Packard doubtingly.
“Just that. I mean it, and here is the money, to convince you that I can keep my word.”
The Westerner displayed a roll of bills, the outside one being for the amount of five hundred dollars.
Now, Roland Packard was involved in debt, and knew not how to clear himself. Of a sudden, he fancied he saw a way to wipe out his debts and strike a blow at Merriwell at the same time, and his bloodshot eyes shone greedily.
“How am I to do this?” he asked.
“That is for you to settle.”
“You mean that——”
“That you are to find a way. I am at the end of my resources, else I would not have applied to you. It was by chance that I heard you spoken of as the only enemy of Merriwell remaining in Yale, and it was bychance—a lucky one—that you happened along and were pointed out. I lost no time in stopping you right here, hoping you might be the man to do this work.”
“I’ll do it if possible; but how is it to be done?”
“Again I say that is something for you to find out. I will point out to you the man who has the message, and you are to follow him and get it if you can. If you succeed, the money is yours the moment you place that oilskin envelope in my hands. Are you ready to try it?”
“You bet! When——”
“Now!” whispered Mescal, as he stepped behind Packard, so that the student was between him and a man who was descending the steps of the Tontine. “There goes the man with the message!”