CHAPTER XXI.
CAPT. MERRIWELL.
Phil Hardy was an honest-looking fellow, and it was not remarkable that Merriwell did not believe him the crafty chap Rattleton represented him to be.
He came forward swiftly.
“You are the very man I am looking for, Mr. Merriwell,” he said.
“Well, you have found me,” smiled Frank.
“I thought I might find you here when I found you were not in your room or on the campus. You are wanted at a meeting of the directors of the ball team.”
Rattleton gave Frank a warning look.
Hardy took hold of Merriwell’s arm and led him away, while Hodge and Rattleton followed.
“It’s a shame to drag Merry into this!” spluttered Harry.
“Into what?” asked Bart, innocently.
“Why, don’t you know? They’re after him to be captain of the ’varsity nine in Hardy’s place.”
“That’s good.”
“Good!” cried Harry. “It’s a conspiracy—a plot—an outrage! That’s what it is!”
“Oh, come off! What are you driving at, anyway? Are you nutty?”
“Not a bit of it, Hodge. I tell you it is a plot to hurt Frank! He’s a fool if he lets them pull him into it after what I have told him! But, for all of his shrewdness about most things, he is easy sometimes. He wants to think everybody white. He is the kind of fellow who will let a chap walk all over him and then play the friend to that sort of a cur. That’s where he makes his mistake.”
Now Hodge was aroused, for Rattleton had touched him on a tender spot.
“You are wrong!” cried Bart, flushing. “No man walks all over Frank Merriwell. You never knew a fellow to get the best of Merriwell and hold his advantage. Frank is a fighter, and his worst enemies agree on that point, but he fights fair. He will not take an unfair advantage of his meanest and most sneaking enemies, and, for that very reason, the worst enemies he has respect him.”
“Rot!”
“There is no rot about it. I know, for I was his enemy once, and I did everything in my power to injure him. I did not hesitate to resort to any sort of expedient, no matter how mean and sneaking. I did some very mean things, but still I could not get the best of Frank Merriwell. Sometimes I thought I had him, but I always found out my mistake. When I got him down I was unable to hold him. It made me furious, for I have a temper of my own and a little pride. I was fierce enough to kill him.”
“Well, what does that prove?” impatiently asked Harry.
“Wait. I am not through. What I want to tell you is this: The more I tried to hurt Merriwell in a sneaking manner the lower I sunk in my own estimation, for I found that he knew what I had done, and yet he refused to get back at me in the same way, although he had opportunities enough. He would not lower himself to fight me with the same kind of weapons I was using. At first I thought him afraid of me——”
“That’s it! that’s it!” cried Rattleton. “That’s just what they think of him when he goes easy with them.”
“But I learned better than that after a time,” Hodge went on. “I found out he was not afraid at all. It wasnot cowardice, but it was courage. He was willing to fight me fairly while I took any mean advantage of him, and still he was not afraid I would get the best of him in the end. He felt himself my match, and I began to feel that he was a better man than I in every way. That was what hurt me most. I did not like to think that the fellow I hated was more honorable than I; I did not like to think he would scorn to strike me a foul blow, knowing all the while that I had struck him many such blows. I was forced to confess to myself that he was a squarer man than I, and that hurt me more than anything he could have done to me. It is the same with his enemies now. They know he is white, and they feel that they are sneaks. That galls them.”
“Let Frank Merriwell alone, Rattleton. He has a level head, and he can take care of himself.”
“Oh, you don’t understand the situation now!” cried Harry, showing impatience. “That is plain enough. Frank is so square he would not dream anybody could pull him into the trap that is set for him. Now look here, Hodge, I want you to understand that I am just as much Merry’s friend as you are, and I don’t like to see him trapped. I have warned him, but I’ll bet he’ll let them fool him just the same.”
“It’s seldom he is fooled, old man. It may seem for a time that he is fooled, but, in the end, it turns out the other party is the one fooled.”
“It can’t turn out that way this time. I have been in college longer than you, Hodge, and I know something about what I am driving at. The ’varsity nine is in a bad way this season. It is weaker than it has been before in six years, while Princeton and Harvard are stronger. Yale’s stanchest supporters say she has no show of winning the pennant. Now, right here is where the trick comes in. Phil Hardy is captain and manager. Heknows he will be blamed more or less for the fizzle Yale is bound to make, and he gets out in a hurry——”
“By his doctor’s orders.”
“Bah! Fake! Trickery! Can’t fool me that way! Doctor’s fush! I talk what I’m knowing about—I mean I know what I’m talking about. It was a trick. Hardy wanted to get out, and he took that way. Now, Merriwell is to be pulled in to fill the place, so all the blame may be piled on his shoulders. I’ve told him the whole business, and he will go in with his eyes open.”
“If you have told him, don’t worry about him,” said Bart, quietly. “He won’t be caught.”
“That’s what Hardy is after him for. I heard him say the directors of the ball team wanted to see him.”
“That’s all right. They will not trap Frank Merriwell. Don’t let that worry you.”
But Bart could not impart this feeling of confidence to Harry. They got on to the same car with Hardy and Merriwell, and Rattleton was uneasy and nervous all the way back to the college.
Harry wanted to get another word with Frank before the latter went before the directors, but Hodge held him back.
“I tell you to let him alone,” said Bart, sharply. “I should resent it if you kept after me in such a manner.”
“You needn’t worry!” snapped Harry. “I wouldn’t keep after you at all. If I took the trouble to warn you once, I’d let you go after that.”
“Surely Frank Merriwell is as shrewd as I am.”
The afternoon exercises were over. On the campus were gathered knots of students, all of whom seemed to be eagerly discussing something of general importance.
“They know what is up,” said Harry. “They are talking baseball.”
He was right. Almost the sole topic of conversationon the Yale campus that afternoon was the baseball situation. The outlook for Yale was so dark that the most hopeful felt the shadow of gloom. Right on top of the loss of Capt. Hardy, Bink Stubbs had been conditioned, so that he must give up playing or take the chance of being dropped a class. The general feeling seemed to be that Yale’s nine was all to pieces.
The appearance of Merriwell in company with Phil Hardy caused a stir.
“There goes the lamb to the slaughter,” laughed Walter Gordan, who was in the midst of a little gathering of Merry’s old-time foes.
“Wouldn’t it be moah propah to say the cawfe?” drawled Willis Paulding, with a weak attempt at wit.
“Oh, he made himself a big gun by his work on the football team last fall,” said Pooler, with a grin of satisfaction; “but he’ll lose it all if he takes Hardy’s place on the nine.”
“He can’t get Hardy’s place,” said Walt Forrest.
“Hey?” cried the others. “What do you mean by that? It’s what they want him for.”
“I guess not,” grinned Forrest.
“Really?” questioned Sidney Gooch, in his smooth, insinuating way. “Why, that is what I heard.”
“They may want him to be captain of the nine,” said Forrest; “but he can’t have Hardy’s place. He will be substitute captain, and that is all. Besides that, Hardy was manager. I know for a fact that the directors intend to keep Hardy in manager just the same, so Merriwell will be under him.”
“And I know for a fact,” said Pooler, “that Phil Hardy has no intention of remaining manager. He knows better than that. Don’t take that boy for a fool.”
“You think—just what?”
“He wants to get out of it entirely.”
“Because he thinks Yale has no show?”
“Sure.”
“Aw! I think that is wight, don’t yer ’now,” drawled Paulding. “Some verwy fine fellows in Hawvard. I weally think they awe going to win this yeah.”
No one paid any attention to Willis, for his opinion was not regarded as important.
“If Hardy gets out, Merriwell will be manager,” said Walter Gordan, who was green with envy, although he was trying to hide it.
“Not on your life!” laughed Forrest. “The directors will attempt to manage the team themselves, and I pity the poor devil of a captain. He’ll get it in the neck on all sides.”
This caused a general laugh, for these fellows rejoiced to think of the trouble Frank Merriwell would get into.
“Weally,” said Willis, again attempting to call some attention to himself, “I am wuther glad Hawvard has a show this yeah. I do not think it propah faw Yale to win all the time, deah boys.”
“Oh, rats!” cried Gordon. “Harvard hasn’t a show. It will be Princeton this year.”
The others nodded.
“Finch will make monkeys of our poor fellows,” said Pooler, with an attempt at dolefulness.
“What’s the matter with you?” exclaimed Forrest. “You want to see Yale defeated?”
“Oh, really I protest!” cried Pooler.
“Still, as long as Merriwell has anything to do with the Yale team, it will give you satisfaction to see Yale defeated. You can’t deny that,” said Forrest.
“Oh, I’d rather see Yale win, for all of Merriwell, but I do not have so much sympathy with her when she loses if he plays.”
“Say!” cried Forrest. “I want you to think of one littlething. Yale seldom loses at anything when Frank Merriwell is in the game. He seems to be Old Eli’s mascot.”
“Of cawse, it’s all beastly luck,” put in Paulding. “He doesn’t really have any more to do with it than any other good man would.”
“You may think as you like about that,” said Forrest, evasively; “but you must confess that he seems to bring Yale good luck. We thought she was a dead duck at football last fall, but he put new life and snap into the team, and Yale came out on top.”
“He can’t do that with the ball team,” said Gordan. “There’s where he’ll meet his Waterloo.”
“Let’s see, Gordan,” said Forrest, “I believe you and Merriwell were rivals for pitching honors the first year in college. He got on to the ’varsity nine, and you got left. Ha, ha! You haven’t admired him since.”
Gordan flushed.
“Oh, it wasn’t that,” he declared; “but he thinks he is so much. That’s what makes me sick.”
“We all have our reasons for not loving him,” said Pooler. “It’s no use to talk about that. The worst thing I wish him now is that they make him captain of the ball team.”
Rattleton and Hodge drifted from knot to knot of the students on the campus, finding all were talking baseball. The events of the last few hours had stirred up the “sports” wonderfully.
Rattleton was excited and nervous. He was waiting for the reappearance of Frank Merriwell.
On the other hand, Hodge seemed unusually cool and unconcerned. Bart smiled whenever he heard fears expressed as to the result of the struggle for the pennant, and he smiled more when some one declared Yale did not have a show.
It was generally known that the directors meant toappoint Merriwell captain of the nine, but there were not a few who declared Frank was too wise to accept the position at that late hour and under such unfavorable circumstances.
An hour passed. It was growing dark swiftly. Lamps were sending gleams of light from the windows of the quad. It was a mild spring night, and voices could be heard calling from the open windows. Over in South Middle a banjo was plunk-plunking. There were bursts of laughter now and then. Some fellow was whistling “Maggie Murphy’s Home.”
Still the “sports” lingered on the campus, waiting for Hardy and Merriwell to appear.
Rattleton was so nervous he could not hold himself still three seconds at a time. Hodge was not disturbed in the least.
“Here they come!”
Somebody uttered a cry. The former captain of the nine was seen approaching, with Frank Merriwell at his side. He was seen to grasp Frank by the arm and draw him toward the largest collection of students near the fence. Other students made a rush for that spot.
“Gentlemen,” said Phil Hardy, speaking clearly and distinctly, “I wish to introduce to you my successor, Mr. Merriwell, who is now captain and manager of the ’varsity nine.”