CHAPTER XXVI.
FIGHTING A GANG.
“Merriwell won the game.”
That was the report brought back to New Haven by the victors, and Frank was more of a hero than ever.
There was one man who came back with a heart overflowing with bitterness. Pink Pooler had made bets right and left that Yale would not win the pennant that season. He had offered all sorts of odds, and he felt that he would be in a bad hole if Yale did win.
Yale played Harvard on Yale field to follow the Princeton game. Now that the blue had won over the orange and black there were enough fellows with money to bet that Yale would down Harvard.
Pooler had received a “straight tip” that Harvard was coming with a powerful team, and he raked every dollar he could raise to back her as a winner.
Pooler firmly believed Yale had won the Princeton game by a fluke. Harvard must come out ahead in the game on the following Saturday. If not by fair means—well, there would be a way to fix it!
Much talk was made about Merriwell’s double-shoot. Hodge was enthusiastic over it. He declared Merry would paralyze the Harvard men with that curve.
Frank retired Hal Faunce from the team. He put Puss Parker in right, and placed Bruce Browning on first. Then he pulled in Joe Costigan from left field and restored him to third base, the position he had played the previous season.
“Who will he play in left?”
That was an open question. He practiced with bothGamp and Walling in that position. Walling showed up poorly, while Gamp, tall, “gangling” and awkward, made some remarkable catches. Walling was placed on the bench, and Gamp was installed in left.
Old players looked on aghast. Surely Merriwell was crazy. Gamp was not a practical man. Browning might go to sleep on first. What sort of a team was Frank getting together?
Merry did not pay any heed to what was being said. He took his team out for practice every day. He worked them hard. He drilled them on team work. He had them so everyone understood the code of signals which he introduced.
Pooler went out day after day to see them practice. He was deeply interested, and not a few fellows believed his interest came from patriotic motives.
He was sizing up the nine, and, as the day for the game with Harvard approached, he became more and more nervous.
“I can’t lose this time!” he thought. “It will ruin me! Merriwell is the moving spirit of the whole team. With him out of the way, Harvard would have a walk-over.”
With him out of the way!
That thought kept running in Pink’s head. How could Merriwell be disposed of so he could take no part in the game against Harvard?
Pooler fell to scheming. He formed plan after plan, but discarded them all. He thought of trying to drug Frank on the field, but that had been tried too many times. It was dangerous, and it might not prove successful.
“No,” he decided, “I will see that he is cooked in advance.”
He went into town, and was seen talking with some lads who seemed rather disreputable in appearance.
Friday came. Among the first to reach the park forpractice was Merriwell and Hodge. Frank was going to pitch to Bart a while before all the team assembled on the field.
It happened that Bart and Costigan were the first to get out of the dressing room, and Frank was left putting on his shoes. He finished his task, and rose to his feet. As he did so, the door opened and a rough-looking chap dodged in.
“Hello!” exclaimed Frank, in surprise. “Who are you, and what are you doing here?”
The fellow caught up a bat and swung it aloft.
“Shut up!” he hissed. “If you holler, I’ll split your head open!”
Then he gave a sharp whistle.
Frank knew that whistle was a signal, and he instantly realized crooked work was a-foot. With his eyes he measured the distance to the intruder. An instant later, he made a catlike spring, caught hold of the bat, twisted it from the fellow’s hand, and had him by the collar.
“You infernal sneak!” he cried. “What is your game? I am onto you!”
The door came open with a bang.
“Come on, fellers!” cried the first fellow to enter. “We’s got him all alone! We kin fix him!”
Five or six young ruffians started to swarm in at the door. They had heavy sticks, and it was plain they meant to do Merriwell harm.
The one Frank had by the collar tried to give him a swinging blow, but, quick as a flash, Merriwell caught him up and flung him straight at the gang in the doorway!
The human catapult struck the foremost of the ruffians and nearly swept them off their feet. Before they could recover, Merry caught up the bat and charged them.
Mercilessly he belabored them over the shoulders. Once or twice he cracked one on the head.
They howled with terror and disgust, and Frank soon drove them from the dressing room. He slammed the door, barred it, and held them out successfully till some of the other players arrived on the field and came to his rescue.
The gang, seeing they had been baffled in their attempt, lost little time in getting away.
“I’d give something to know who put them up to the job,” said Frank. “I am sure they were hired to do me up. If I had not tumbled and acted in a hurry, they would have done it all right.”
Hodge was indignant.
“I’ll wager something I can tell just who put them up to the game,” he said.
“Name him.”
“Pink Pooler.”
“What makes you think so?”
“Pooler hates you. He bet me fifty dollars Yale would lose the game with Princeton. I beat him at that, and I know that was not all the money he had on the game. He has put up everything he could rake that Yale will not win the pennant. If Yale wins, Pooler is ruined. If he didn’t hire that gang to do you up, I don’t know.”
“I hate to think it of him, but I remember now that he did stand in with some of my enemies who have been driven to leave college. I’ll keep my eyes open for him in the future.”
“You won’t make a mistake if you do.”
The story of the attempt to knock out Merriwell caused no small excitement, for Frank had hundreds of friends, and all Yale seemed to look to him as the Moses who might lead them out of the wilderness.
The time of the game with Harvard rolled round at last, and the boys from Cambridge came down in force. Rooters with powerful lungs and tin horns galore were on hand.
Yale was at home, and she was stuffed full of courage, for all of the queer team Frank had got together.
Yale started off like winners, making two scores in the first. But, not to be outdone, Harvard managed to get in two on two scratch hits and as many errors.
Then both pitchers settled down, and not another score was made for six innings.
In the seventh Harvard scored. In the eighth Yale tied her. In the ninth Yale got another and took the lead.
Then was the time for Frank Merriwell to show the timber he was made of, and he did so. Then it was that his double-shoot came into use, and won the game by fooling three of Harvard’s best batters so they all struck out.
Yale had won the first two games of the series with Princeton and Harvard, and was fairly on the road to the pennant.
Pink Pooler felt like murdering Frank Merriwell. He took no part in the jollification that night, but kept at a distance, listening with burning heart to the songs and cheers of the hilarious students.
That night he realized that he was a traitor in every sense of the word, and he was more bitter at heart than ever before.
“Frank Merriwell is responsible for it all,” he kept declaring. “He has the greatest luck! Sometime he will have the luck to get it in the neck. Those fellows made a failure of the attempt to knock him out before the game, but they got away with my money, for they would not attempt the job unless I paid in advance.”
Although Frank knew he had enemies in Yale, he was not aware there was one quite so desperate and dangerous as Pink Pooler.
And, despite all his enemies, with the aid of his double-shoot, he succeeded in piloting the Yale team to victory that season. The feat stands on record as most remarkable,for it was generally acknowledged that never had Yale put a poorer team in the field at the opening of the season.
It was generally agreed that she won almost all of her games in the box.