CHAPTER VI.ANTON MESCAL STRIKES.
Roland Packard had fancied he might be forced to destroy the original oilskin envelope in removing the message from it, and for that reason he had secured a duplicate. When he succeeded in getting the message out without destroying the original envelope, he decided that the best thing to do was to place the blank paper in that same envelope, as the clean newness of the other might betray the trick. Then he was seized by a desire to put the message in the other envelope and copy as accurately as possible the writing upon it, which he did.
The villainous student chuckled gleefully as he thought how his brother had been deceived.
“I have the message safe in my pocket,” he muttered, “while Oll is taking the fake to Merriwell. But must I give up this genuine article in order to get the five hundred from Mescal?”
He was not at all pleased by the thought. In fact, he quickly decided not to give up the message, if he could help it. He set to thinking the matter over, and it was not long before he had decided on his course of action. He left the club-room and skulked awayto his own room, taking care to attract as little attention as possible.
The following morning Roland secured another oilskin envelope. Knowing Oliver would be off to the exercises of the day, he sought his own room and prepared the envelope there.
When he came out the seniors, in caps and gowns, were assembling at the chapel, into which a crowd of visitors was flowing.
“Merriwell will be there in all his glory!” muttered Packard to himself. “He will be the cynosure of all eyes. Oh, he’ll feel proud and fine, but little he’ll dream that it is my hand that will send him forth from Yale a pauper.”
The chapel was thronged with visitors when the exercises began, and Packard was right in thinking that Merriwell would be the center of attraction.
In the meantime Packard had sought Anton Mescal, whom he finally found in a room at the Tontine. Mescal had a bottle of wine on the table at his elbow, and was smoking a Spanish cigarette. His face was flushed and his eyes gleamed wolfishly when Roland entered. He did not rise, but regarded the student grimly.
“I’ve come,” said Packard, with an air of triumph.
“I see you have,” said Mescal coldly, showing his white teeth after the manner of a wolf.
“You do not appear glad to see me.”
“But I am glad—very glad,” said the man from the West, in a very singular way.
Packard paused, and a shiver ran over him. There was something deadly in the atmosphere.
“Sit down,” invited Mescal, in that same awesome manner, making a slight gesture toward a chair.
“I had a hard time getting the message,” began Packard awkwardly.
“Then you did get it?” asked Mescal.
“Yes. When I set out to do a thing, I have a way of doing it. But you do not seem much pleased.”
“I am pleased—very pleased. Go on. How did you get it?”
“I went straight to Merriwell’s room in the tracks of the man you bade me follow.”
“To Merriwell’s room?”
“Yes. I could not get a chance to tackle the fellow and secure the message. You know the streets were full.”
“Yes.”
“If I had tackled him on the street I must have failed, and I would have been lodged in the jug.”
“Possibly. Go on.”
The manner of the Westerner had not changed in the least, and Roland felt that those daggerlike eyes were piercing him through and through.
“Merriwell’s room was packed with his friends, who were there to congratulate him. I walked right in after the messenger.”
“Very bold of you!”
“The messenger took the message from his pocket and handed it over to Merriwell.”
“And you?”
“I was near enough to spring forward and snatch it from Merriwell’s hand.”
“But you did not?”
“I did! I snatched it and fled. I eluded the pursuers and got away with it. Of course, they were searching for me last night, so I was compelled to lay low. But I am here now.”
“And you have the message?”
“I have.”
Mescal rose to his feet, and the look on his face seemed to become more dangerous than ever.
“Where is it?”
“Here,” said Packard, also rising.
From his pocket he took the fake envelope, which he held in his hand.
“Give me the five hundred dollars,” he demanded. “It is yours the moment you pay me the money.”
Mescal stepped clear of the table, and by a sudden spring placed himself between Packard and the door. He was like a panther in his movements.
“What’s the matter with you?” asked Roland, in alarm. “What are you doing? Don’t think for a moment that you can take the message from me without paying the money.”
“You fool!” said Mescal, in a low tone. “You liar! You traitor!”
Packard saw there was trouble in the air. He wondered if in any manner this man could have discovered his trick.
“What do you mean by calling me such names?” he blustered.
“I mean just what I have said; you are a fool, a liar, and a traitor. You came here to deceive me!”
“To deceive you?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“With that thing!” said the man, pointing at the oilskin envelope. “It does not contain the message!”
Packard was astounded, but he resolved to make a good bluff.
“What are you saying?” he exclaimed, pretending to be much astonished. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that I know your game to beat me out of five hundred dollars! I mean that I was watching you last night! I mean that I saw you when you went to Merriwell and gave the message to him with your own hand!”
Roland gasped.
“Went to him—and gave him—the message?” he faltered. “Why, man, you are——” Then he paused, uttering a little cry, as a sudden light broke on him.
It was Oliver this fellow had watched! It was Oliver he had seen give the fake envelope to Merriwell!
“You are mistaken,” he said swiftly, although he could not quite see how he was going to make things clear. “I have a twin brother who looks exactly like me. You saw him.”
For one moment Mescal seemed surprised, and then a dangerous laugh came from his lips.
“And what was your twin brother doing with the message?” he demanded.
Roland choked and hesitated. That hesitation seemed to fan the man to a burst of fury.
“Fool!” he hissed, crouching. “You have tried to deceive the wrong man! Had you known me better you would not have done so! In my body flows the blood of the Spaniard, and I never forgive an injury! You betrayed me, and I will settle with you as we settle such scores in the West!”
Out flashed a slender dagger in his hand. Roland uttered a cry of fear as Mescal leaped upon him. The student tried to defend himself, but Mescal’s blade rose and fell.
“You devil!” gasped Packard. “You have stabbed me.”
Then, as Roland sank to his knees, Mescal broke away, flung the blood-stained dagger on the floor, and bounded to the door. One backward look he took as he disappeared, seeing the bleeding youth upon the floor.
Then he fled from the hotel and from New Haven.
Packard was not fatally wounded. The dagger had pierced the muscle of his arm, and the point had penetrated his side as far as a rib. The wound in the arm was the most painful, and the other was not dangerous. In the hospital Roland was skilfully treated, but he persistently refused to tell how or by whom he had been wounded.
Nor would he stay in the hospital when he found that his wound was not at all dangerous if properly cared for. He came out that afternoon and returned to the college.
He found the afternoon exercises on the campus taking place. The place was like an open arena, with temporary seats rising in tiers all round it. Those seats were packed with human beings, spectators and friends of the students. Already the classes had marched in, led by the band, and assembled on the benches in the middle of the arena, where they now sat sedately smoking long clay pipes and wearing capsand gowns. They were listening to the historians of the class, who were reading the class histories.
Packard looked on, feeling that something was occurring in which he had no part and no interest. His arm was in a sling, and this last enemy of Merriwell at Yale looked a forlorn and wretched figure.
The histories read by the different historians had been full of hits upon the various members of the class. As a man’s name was called his companions lifted him upon their shoulders, while his history was given to the strained ears of the gathering. He was compelled to submit gracefully, but some of those sharp hits caused the victims to look like fresh-boiled lobsters.
The historian was reading when Packard reached a spot where he could see and hear. Bruce Browning was held aloft upon the shoulders of his fellows. When it was finished, Browning was lowered, and up came Bart Hodge as his name was mentioned.
“Merriwell’s friends!” muttered Packard bitterly. “Everybody seems to be Merriwell’s friend to-day. I’m the only one of the whole howling pack who has remained his enemy. He has conquered them all, but I’ll conquer him!”
Then Hodge was lowered. There was a stir. The name of Merriwell came from the lips of the historian. Instantly something remarkable took place. Merrywas lifted and held aloft, but every man on these benches rose to his feet. It was a tribute to Frank, and the great crowd of watching spectators caught the feeling. Up rose that mass of men and women and youths and girls in one great surge, standing for the moment to do honor to the most famous college man in the world. It was a spectacle never forgotten at Yale.
Then those students who were not holding Frank aloft sat down, and the spectators followed their example.
The historian, his voice ringing out clear and strong, delivered a blood-stirring eulogy on Merriwell.
“Bah!” muttered Packard, and, sick at heart, he slunk away, unwilling to listen to those words of adulation for one he hated with undying intensity.
Late that afternoon, when the exercises were all over, Oliver Packard found Roland in the room they had occupied together. Oliver was surprised when he saw his brother’s arm in a sling, and he asked what had happened.
“None of your business!” answered Roland surlily.
“You are hurt?” exclaimed Oliver, forgetting that he had vowed he would take no further interest in his wayward brother. “What is it, Roll! Won’t you tell me how badly you are hurt?”
“Go to the devil!” snarled Roland.
Oliver sat down, a look of sadness on his face. For some time he sat in silence; but he spoke at last.
“Where were you while the exercises were taking place to-day?” he asked.
“That’s my business,” said Roland.
“You should have been there. If you had, it’s possible your arm would not be in a sling now. Roland, I have returned the message to Merriwell, and I feel that he will take no action against you. I did not ask him not to do so, for I have been forced to ask him so many times before that I was ashamed.”
“Then I owe you no thanks.”
“No; but you do owe him something. Is the last spark of honor and the last particle of justice driven from your heart? Can’t you see where you have placed yourself by your conduct toward this man, who to-day has been honored as no Yale man ever before was honored?”
“Honored by fools!” growled Roland.
“Honored by the wisest men in college! Honored by every one! If you had seen every person in that great crowd on the campus rise when his name was spoken by the historian——”
“I did see it, and then I got away.”
“Then you were there? But you were not in your place.”
“If I had been, they would have seen that onecollege man did not rise when Merriwell’s name was called.”
“And you would have brought on yourself the scorn of every one. Can’t you see that by his generosity, his fine character, and manliness, he has risen far above you?”
“No! I see that he has a trick of fooling everybody but me. He can make his enemies forget that they were once enemies, but I am not like the others. I want to tell you something, Oll. You think Merriwell has triumphed, but you are wrong. I am the one who has triumphed, though no one save myself knows it. Some time Merriwell shall know, and then he will realize that one of his enemies was more than a match for him.”
“What do you mean?” asked Oliver, amazed. “Are you crazy?”
“Never mind what I mean, but I speak the truth. I have triumphed, and Merriwell is my victim. I’ll talk no more about it, so you may as well close your face.”
And Oliver could get nothing further from his brother.