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Title: Frank Merriwell's Prosperity; or, Toil Has Its Reward

Author: Burt L. Standish

Release date: January 20, 2021 [eBook #64347]

Language: English

Credits: Richard Tonsing, David Edwards, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRANK MERRIWELL'S PROSPERITY; OR, TOIL HAS ITS REWARD ***




[Illustration]

                      Frank Merriwell’s Prosperity
                                   OR
                          TOIL HAS ITS REWARD


                                   BY

                            BURT L. STANDISH

                               AUTHOR OF

                       “_The Merriwell Stories_”

[Illustration]

                       STREET & SMITH, PUBLISHERS
                   79-89 SEVENTH AVE., NEW YORK CITY

[Illustration]




                            Copyright, 1899
                           By STREET & SMITH

                      Frank Merriwell’s Prosperity




                     FRANK MERRIWELL’S PROSPERITY.




                               CHAPTER I.
                            WHEN RAGE RULES.


The scene was the stage of the Star Theater in Atchison, Kansas, and the
occasion the rehearsal of Frank Merriwell’s company in his new play,
“True Blue.” From the first night “True Blue” had been a success; the
playgoers of Puleob, Colorado, who had witnessed the failure of its
first version, welcomed “True Blue” enthusiastically and assured Frank,
as Roscoe Havener, his stage manager, had put it, that he had a
“winner.”

Frank had chosen to turn back toward the East, instead of continuing on
to the Pacific coast, for it was late in the season and business was on
the decline. It would be better for the members of his company if the
play closed its run in the East, leaving them on the ground when the
time came to make engagements for the coming season. Besides that
consideration, Frank had other reasons in turning Eastward. The failure
to keep the dates made for “John Smith” and the partial failure of “For
Old Eli” had made it difficult for him to secure theaters for “True
Blue” on the Western route, while it was comparatively easy to secure
good bookings on the way Eastward.

So it happened that the “True Blue” company had jumped from Puleob
straight across Colorado and Kansas to Atchison, where they were to open
that night.

All the actors, except Frank, were on the stage carefully rehearsing, as
Havener was determined that only by constant drill could slips be
avoided, and he aimed to have a perfect performance.

As the afternoon waned, more than one glance of comment had been
exchanged by the other players as they witnessed Bart Hodge’s repeated
acts of insubordination. Bart seemed to be in a very unpleasant frame of
mind, favoring everybody with savage glances and paying absolutely no
attention to the directions of the stage manager. In the eyes of actors
there is no more unpardonable offense than to treat the stage manager
thus.

And Havener was not the man to overlook such offenses. Obviously he was
incensed. But he understood how close to Frank Bart was, how strong were
Frank’s feelings of friendship and loyalty to the dark-haired youth, and
he controlled his wrath until finally he could tolerate the behavior of
Hodge no longer.

He called out sharply:

“Hodge!”

“Sir?”

“Come back!”

“Well?”

“Now, make your exit properly, please.”

Bart Hodge gave Roscoe Havener an angry, resentful look.

“Did you call me back for that?” he asked.

“I certainly did,” answered the stage manager, grimly.

“Why, sir?”

“Because you took the wrong exit. I have told you repeatedly to use the
right upper at the close of that scene, and you persist in leaving the
stage by the right tormentor.”

“It is the most convenient,” came sullenly from Bart.

“That makes no difference.”

“It makes considerable difference to me.”

Havener was angry, but he held himself in restraint. He did not curse,
after the manner of most stage managers, but he showed that he meant
what he said when he spoke again.

“You will do as I tell you at rehearsals, Mr. Hodge.”

“Oh, will I?” said Bart, in a manner that was decidedly insolent. “Oh, I
don’t know!”

“I know. Further than that, I will have no further back talk from you.”

“I don’t see how you will prevent it.”

“You are fined ten dollars.”

“Is that so?”

“It is. Now you will make your exit in the proper manner.”

Instead of that, Hodge walked off the stage by the tormentor.

Havener did not call him back again, but his face turned pale with
anger.

Frank was in a dressing room, and did not hear what took place on the
stage between Havener and Hodge.

Deep in his heart Bart felt that he was wrong, but he smothered the
feeling, refused to pause to reason, and hurried to the dressing room,
where he knew he would find Merriwell.

Frank was laying out his costumes and preparing for the evening
performance.

Hodge entered without knocking, and Merry knew in a moment, on looking
up, that something was wrong.

“Look here, Merriwell!” he flared.

“What’s the matter, old man?”

“I’ve stood enough of this! It’s the limit!”

“What are you talking about, Bart? What’s the limit?”

“Havener is the limit.”

“I don’t think I understand you, my dear fellow.”

“Don’t ‘dear fellow’ me! I am in no mood to take it now.”

Plainly enough something serious had happened, for Bart was not in the
habit of talking that way. Frank straightened up and looked at him
steadily without speaking. Bart’s eyes dropped before that gaze, but the
sullen look did not leave his face, and he stared at the floor as if
glaring at a deadly enemy.

“What is this, anyway?” Merry asked, after some moments. “What has gone
wrong between you and Havener?”

“I am tired of being bulldozed by him.”

“Havener is not in the habit of bulldozing anybody, Hodge, as you very
well know.”

“I know he is in the habit of trying it on me. He doesn’t like me, and
he doesn’t miss an opportunity to try to call me down. I’m dead sick of
it!”

“You are altogether too sensitive, old man. Havener is the stage
manager, and a good one he is, too. He has aided me immensely in getting
the play into shape.”

“Oh, you’re inclined to give other people too much credit. I’ll
guarantee there is not another playwriter who is starring in his own
piece who will say that his stage manager has done much of anything for
him.”

“I am not patterning my actions on those of others, Bart. I detest chaps
who ape others. I believe in individuality. Be what you are. That is the
maxim I go by. If others are selfish and ungrateful, it is no reason why
I should be so.”

“Gratitude! gratitude! gratitude! It makes me tired! Has a fellow got to
go through the world being grateful to everybody who is decent to him?”

“You know I did not mean that. You have a way of distorting what I say
so that it does not mean what I intended.”

“Oh, yes; of course I do something I shouldn’t do! I’m always doing
something I shouldn’t do! It’s been the way all my life! At home I was
forever doing something I shouldn’t do! At school it was the same. At
college it was no better. And now, in trying to be an actor, I am still
doing something I should not do. Oh, what’s the use to try to do
anything! A fellow might as well bump along and not give a rap what he
does or what happens to him.”

“You are getting in a bad way, Hodge,” said Merriwell, seriously. “I
believe your liver is out of order.”

“This is no joking matter!” Bart snarled. “Don’t poke fun at me, Frank
Merriwell! It doesn’t go with me for a cent!”

“If you had been given a sense of humor it might be better for you.
Unfortunately, you never see the humorous side of anything. You take
everything seriously, much to your own discomfort. Happy is the man who
can see and understand the humor in everyday life.”

“Well, I’ll guarantee there is nothing humorous in what just happened on
the stage.”

“You haven’t told me what happened.”

“Havener gave me a call down.”

“Did he?”

“Did he! did he!” panted Bart. “You say that as if it were of no
consequence.”

“Havener is not in the habit of giving anybody a call down unless they
deserve it.”

“Oh, it’s plain you think that fellow knows it all. But I’m going to
tell you now that I can’t stand his insolence, and I won’t stand it!”

Frank sat down on the lid of his trunk.

“We’ll have to talk this matter over, Bart,” he said. “If Havener has
given you a call down without cause, you may be sure I shall have
something to say to him. Now, tell me just how it came about.”

But, of a sudden, Hodge did not feel like telling. He began to realize
that the truth would not put him in a very favorable light. Instead of
quieting his anger, however, this made him feel still more angry.

“Oh, I haven’t anything to say about it!” he exclaimed, turning away.
“I’ll pay the fine.”

“What fine?”

“Ten dollars.”

“Then it is rather serious, for he fined you.”

“Oh, you are just beginning to realize there is something serious about
it, are you!”

“I wish you wouldn’t blaze at me like that, Hodge. Anyone would imagine
we were the bitterest of foes, instead of the firmest friends.”

“Friends! Ha, ha! Are we?”

“Are we?” echoed Merry, in amazement.

“Yes, are we?”

“Why, of course we are!”

“I don’t know about that. I have no friends. I wasn’t built to have
friends. I believe I was intended for an Ishmael.”

“Now, drop that, Hodge!” commanded Frank, not a little shocked. “You
were built for just what you choose to make yourself. If you select to
become an outcast, you can do so.”

“That is what you believe. I don’t believe anything of the sort. I
believe a fellow must be what he becomes. I believe everything is
predestined, and, try as he may, no man can change the course that it
has been destined that he must follow.”

“You are getting into a bad way, Hodge, for that is the argument of
every evil-doer and criminal since the days of Cain.”

“And it’s an argument that cannot be refuted!” shouted Bart, fiercely.
“I suppose that you claim God is all-wise—that He knows everything?”

“Of course.”

“Then, if He knows everything, He must know before a man is born just
what that man will become, what he will do, every act he will commit.
You can’t deny that. If He knows just what a man will do, then it must
be that the man’s actions are foreordained. You can’t deny that. Every
act that man does he was compelled to do because God knew what he would
do, and he could not do differently.”

“And you would argue that a man should not attempt to make himself
better and nobler because he cannot be any better if he tries? As I said
before, that is the argument of bad men and criminals for centuries.”

“That’s enough!” Bart hissed. “I understand you, Frank Merriwell.
You—you, who have pretended to be my friend—you have called me a
criminal to my face. Ha, ha, ha! I didn’t think it would come to that.
Never mind. I understand it all now. For all of our apparent friendship,
I know now that you have doubted me deep down in your heart. You have
not wanted to doubt me, but you could not help it, and so——”

Frank started toward Bart, his hand outstretched protestingly, crying:

“Stop! Has it come to this between us?”

“Yes, it has come to this!” snarled the angry, unreasoning youth.
“Didn’t you know it would? Didn’t you know I was a worthless fellow? Oh,
yes, you knew it.”

“Have you forgotten——”

“Nothing. I have not forgotten what you have done for me, but I am sorry
you ever did it. You have chosen between me and Havener.”

“You are wrong in——”

“I will not take a call down from any man living!” shouted Bart.
“Havener called me down. Havener is your stage manager. He fined me. If
you do not stand by him, go out there and tell him he must apologize to
me—tell him he must retract that fine.”

Hodge had not thought of making such a demand when he entered the
dressing room, but his anger had led him on blindly till now reason was
quite smothered by passion.

“I do not know the facts of the case,” said Frank.

“Confound the facts! You say you have not chosen between us? Then you
must stand by me. I tell you I cannot take this call down from Havener.
If you stand by me, go out at once and inform him that he must
apologize.”

“When you are cooler you will look at this matter in a different light.
I’ll have a talk with you, then. I’ll learn what has happened, and you
may be sure I’ll not uphold Havener if he is in the wrong.”

“That’s not what I want. You have said you would stand by me, even
though you knew I might be in the wrong. You are put to the test.”

“Again you distort the meaning of my words. If you were charged with a
wrong deed, I would stand by you—defend you—do everything in my power
for you. This is different, and——”

Hodge cut Frank short with a bitter laugh.

“You have been put to the test,” he again declared, “and you have
failed. It’s no use, Merriwell. I am an Ishmael. Every man’s hand is
against me, and my hand is against all mankind. I don’t care what
happens to me now.”

He flung himself out of the dressing room before Frank could say another
word.

Frank was not left in a pleasant mood. He realized that his arguments
had been rather weak against those made by Hodge, for he had been
overwhelmed for the moment by a tempest of angry words, and his modesty
had not permitted him to speak of the many instances of his unswerving
fidelity to the passionate, erring fellow in the past. He had not been
able to recall the many times he had stood by Bart alone, even when the
proof had seemed overwhelming that Hodge had committed an evil action or
a crime.

Frank had been astounded by the seeming burst of ingratitude from Bart,
but he quickly decided that the dark-faced youth would come to his
senses if given time to cool down and think over all the events that had
transpired since their first meeting on the little platform of the
railway station at Fardale.

Hodge, hot-blooded, passionate, unreasoning, had become his enemy on
their first meeting. In various ways he had tried to injure and disgrace
Merriwell, but he had failed in all his efforts. When they had both
become cadets at the military academy, Hodge’s enmity had continued
till, being charged with a disgraceful deed of which he was not guilty,
Frank Merriwell had defended him and proven his innocence.

Then these singularly assorted lads had become roommates and chums, and
time after time since had Frank proved his loyalty by standing true to
Hodge under the most trying circumstances. In his calm reasoning
moments, Bart knew this and was grateful. He had been ready enough to
show his gratitude, but now anger had overcome everything, and, in his
burst of passion, he had spoken words Frank had never expected to hear
from his lips.

At first Merry felt like following him. His own blood was throbbing
hotly in his veins on account of the injustice with which he had been
treated, but he had held himself in check with a firm hand. Frank had
learned that the man who can master himself can master others, and his
self-control was something remarkable.

He quickly decided that it would be best to give Bart a chance to cool
down somewhat. In the meantime, he would learn exactly what had happened
on the stage. Merry hoped Bart’s sense of justice would reassert itself
and would bring the hot-blooded fellow back with a desire to retract.

As for Bart, he was so blind with passion that he actually stumbled
against Stella Stanley as he hurried across the stage behind the rear
setting.

“Look out!” she exclaimed, with a short laugh. “Do you want to kill me?”

“I feel like killing somebody!” panted Bart, glaring at her; “but not
you—not you, Miss Stanley,” he quickly added.

“Oh, you don’t want to take it that way,” she said. “You’ll get used to
it after you have been in the business longer. We don’t get many call
downs from Havener. I’ve been in companies where the stage manager would
swear and tear around, and no member of the cast escaped being hauled
over the coals.”

“No man can call me down that way!” exclaimed Bart. “I won’t stand for
it!”

“What will you do?”

“Quit.”

“When?”

“Now.”

“You can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Your contract.”

“Haven’t any.”

“How’s that?”

“Never had one.”

“Why, I supposed every member of the company had a contract with Mr.
Merriwell. How is it that you have none?”

“Never made any with him.”

“That’s queer; but you are friends, and I suppose he thought it was not
necessary. You are bound by——”

“Bound by nothing! Do you think I’ll stay to take such bullying? No!
What difference did it make at rehearsal whether I made the exit by the
tormentor or right upper?”

“You know Havener insists on every member going through rehearsal
exactly as he will play so far as entrances, exits and business are
concerned. He is a stickler for that. He may allow some of us to chew
our lines at rehearsal, but the business must be correct. Merriwell has
given him entire charge of the stage, and——”

“And he has chosen me to bully. That’s the size of it, Miss Stanley.”

“Nonsense!”

“There is no nonsense about it.”

“Now, look here, Mr. Hodge, I like you——”

“Do you?” exclaimed Bart, in mingled eagerness and doubt.

“Of course I do, and I don’t want to see you make a bad break. What are
you going to do if you quit the company?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care.”

“Oh, yes, you do care. Don’t make a mistake. We need you.”

“No; I am not an actor—never was meant for one.”

“You play the part you have been given.”

“Because it does not require acting. It is a part that comes natural to
me.”

“Well, there’s nobody to fill your place now.”

“It won’t be hard work to get somebody.”

“I’m afraid it will.”

“Oh, is that it!” muttered Bart, suddenly growing fierce again. “You
take such an interest in me because you think it may be difficult to
find somebody to fill my place!”

She laughed a little.

“No, it is not that, my dear fellow—really it isn’t, I told you I liked
you, and it is true. I didn’t like you much at first. I’ll confess that,
but there’s something about you that makes me take to you. I rather like
your way of getting hot under the collar when somebody rubs you against
the grain. I’m pretty independent myself, but I don’t blaze up as you
do.”

“Look here, Miss Stanley,” said Hodge, seriously. “I want to know
something.”

“What is it?”

“Are you throwing a bluff when you say you like me?”

“Not a bit of it.”

“And you want me to stay with the company?”

“I do.”

“I’ll stay on one condition.”

“What is that?”

“You must give me a promise.”

“What promise?”

“That you will throw over Lester Vance and Billy Wynne.”

Stella Stanley was astonished.

“Throw them over?” she exclaimed. “What are you talking about, my dear
fellow?”

“I am talking what I mean,” breathed Hodge, hurriedly. “One thing you
will acknowledge, Miss Stanley—I have not been very forward.”

“Indeed, not. You have always acted as a gentleman toward me, Hodge.”

“I have not forced my presence. I have not flung myself in your way?”

“No.”

“No!” exclaimed Hodge. “I am going to tell you something, Stella
Stanley. I am something of a woman hater, although I do not go round
prating about it and making myself offensive. I believe all women are
treacherous—not to be trusted.”

The leading lady laughed again.

“Well, I must say you are frank, to speak the least!” she exclaimed,
showing her handsome, white teeth.

“I am truthful,” asserted Bart. “Others might lie about it; I tell you
the simple truth.”

“And not so simple at that!”

“I have come to believe what I do about women through what I have seen
of them. They have disgusted me.”

Stella stood smiling. She was two or three years older than Bart, and
inwardly she was thinking that he was very young, indeed, to have and
utter such opinions.

“My dear boy!” she exclaimed; “I’m sorry for you!”

“Don’t call me a boy!” panted Bart. “I don’t like it. Don’t be sorry for
me. I don’t like that.”

“Well, what do you like?”

“You, you, you!” he hoarsely whispered, leaning toward her, so that she
retreated a bit in sudden surprise.

“But I thought you were a woman hater?” she said, maliciously. “What is
the matter with you? Why aren’t you consistent?”

“Don’t ask me to be consistent!” he exclaimed. “I tried to hate you,
like all the others. I tried not to pay any attention to you. I tried to
avoid you. I couldn’t do it.”

“I don’t know whether to be flattered or offended.”

“Don’t be either, Miss Stanley. I am not trying to flatter. I hope I
shall not offend. I didn’t mean to say this to you. Oh, I meant to keep
my mouth shut, but I can’t.”

“That’s what ails lots of us,” she observed, with a flippancy that
jarred on his nerves.

He went on:

“Despite myself, I would think of you when you were not near. Despite
myself, I would be watching you when you were in sight. I saw you
laughing and talking with that addle-pated boy, Wynne, and I wanted to
spank him. I saw you smiling on Lester Vance, and I wanted to knock his
head off.”

“And all the while I never dreamed of this. Oh, say, Hodge, don’t get
sentimental now. I don’t like it, my boy. I didn’t stop you to have you
tell me all this, but——”

“I am going to tell it just the same!” he shouted, his eyes blazing. “I
did not mean to, but I’ll not be stopped now. I am going to tell it,
and, by Heaven, you must listen.”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“It’s a pretty bad case with you, that’s plain; but you’ll get over it,
my dear fellow.”

Again Hodge ignored her words and manner.

“I have seen you walking with Vance,” he said. “You went to church with
him in Puleob. You have permitted him to show you all kinds of
attentions.”

“I’ve simply been polite to him, in return for his kindness to me.”

“Polite! Kindness! I tell you I can’t stand it. That’s what ailed me
to-day. That’s why I would not obey Havener. It has gnawed on me—gnawed,
gnawed. I have felt like kicking that fellow. Sometimes I have found it
hard to keep my hands off him. Stella—Miss Stanley, you must quit him.”

“Really! Well, now, Hodge, you are going beyond the limit.”

Still he did not heed. He paid no attention to the flush that rose to
her cheeks. The words continued to pour from his lips:

“You have said you liked me. Prove it! Now is your chance! You want me
to stay with the company. I’ll stay if you throw both Vance and Wynne
over—give them the cold shoulder. I’ll stay for all of the call down
Havener gave me. I’ll swallow my pride and let the matter drop.”

“That will be sensible of you, but you must not be foolish about me, my
boy—really you mustn’t. I am older than you, and it is my place to give
you advice. You have lost your head, not your heart, my dear fellow.”

Bart’s hands clinched and unclosed.

“Don’t talk to me that way!” came hoarsely from his lips. “Don’t talk to
me as if you regarded me as a stripling! Answer me, Stella Stanley—will
you drop those fellows?”

“I couldn’t think of giving them the marble heart, Hodge. It wouldn’t be
right, you know.”

“And you’ll go on laughing and chatting with them! You will walk with
Vance! You’ll eat at his table! Do you think I can stay and stand that?
No! Oh, you are like all the others, and I hate you—hate you!”

He caught her in his arms and pressed his lips to hers. She was startled
by his sudden fierce action and cried out.

A man came springing forward.

“What’s this?” he cried. “Hands off, Hodge!”

It was Vance.

Bart straightened up, still with an arm about the actress, who seemed to
hesitate whether to laugh or be angry. His eyes met those of Lester
Vance, and they were filled with the most deadly hatred. He did not
speak, but suddenly he stooped and kissed Stella once more.

Vance sprang forward.

“Why, you insulting dog!” he shouted.

Quickly Bart swung the woman behind him, and squarely he met Vance. His
arm shot out, his fist landed with a crack and Vance lay stretched on
the floor.

Then, without a word, with simply a look of unspeakable scorn and
contempt toward the fallen actor, unmindful of the others of the company
who came rushing to the spot, Bart walked down the stairs and out of the
theater by way of the stage door.




                              CHAPTER II.
                          THROUGH THE TRANSOM.


Lester Vance got up. At first he was too dazed to speak, but he
recovered his tongue after a little and began to swear.

Frank Merriwell came forward, saying sharply:

“That will do, Mr. Vance! You know I do not permit any such language on
the stage or around the theater. There are ladies present, too.”

Vance put his hand over his eye and gave Merry an ugly look. The other
members of the company were around, asking what had happened.

“Yes, I know your rules,” he admitted; “but that cursed cur assaulted
me—struck me in a treacherous manner when I was not looking!”

“To whom are you referring in such a manner?”

“Hodge.”

“He struck you?”

“Yes, the dirty, sneaking, miserable——”

“Stop!” rang out Merry’s clear voice. “That will do, sir! Bart Hodge is
my friend, and I will not permit you to apply such epithets to him!”

Vance showed his teeth, much after the manner of a snarling dog.

“But I suppose you permit your friend to assault and insult the ladies
of this company?” he said, scornfully.

“Not if I know it; but Bart Hodge is not in the habit of assaulting and
insulting ladies.”

“He did so a few moments ago, the miserable whelp of a——”

Frank took a quick step toward the fellow, and Vance stopped instantly.

“I have warned you once,” said Merry, speaking in a low tone. “I shall
not speak again. Be careful!”

“Oh, you stand up for him, Frank Merriwell, without hearing what he has
done!”

“I am willing to hear what he has done, but you must use proper language
in relating it.”

“Proper language! I don’t know how proper language can be found to fit
the occasion. I tell you your friend of whom you boast has insulted one
of the ladies of the company!”

“Which one?”

“That one!”

Vance pointed at Stella Stanley, who, to his unspeakable surprise, broke
into laughter.

Frank turned toward her.

“Is this true, Miss Stanley?” he asked, gravely.

“Of course, it isn’t true!” she exclaimed. “Not a bit of it.”

“What?” cried Vance, astounded, glaring at her. “Surely, Stella, I saw
the miserable fellow clutching you in his arms. I heard you scream for
help.”

“I heard that,” declared Granville Garland.

“Yes, I heard her scream,” said Agnes Kirk.

“So did I,” nodded Billy Wynne, “and I came running to this spot as soon
as I could. I saw Hodge strike Vance.”

“Others saw that,” said Lester. “There were plenty of witnesses to his
assault upon me.”

“Methinks thou didst attempt to swipe him first,” murmured Douglas
Dunton, “else these faithful eyes much deceived me.”

“Gol darned ef Vance warn’t tryin’ to dew somethin’ ter Hodge,” grinned
Ephraim Gallup; “but he didn’t seem ter do it very much.”

“I simply attempted to protect Stella from his attack,” asserted Lester.
“I saw him seize her and kiss her in the most violent and offensive
manner, and——”

Stella interrupted him with a laugh.

“Offensive to whom?” she asked.

“To you, of course, for you struggled to throw him off.”

“Now, you saw that in your mind, Lester, my boy,” she declared. “I did
not struggle.”

Vance was astounded.

“But you—you screamed,” he fluttered, hesitatingly.

“Yes, I think I did.”

“Why did you do that?”

“Well, Hodge was a trifle abrupt, and he took me by surprise.”

“Then you acknowledge——”

“That—no more.”

“But it was an insult.”

“Nonsense! It was nothing of the sort.”

Vance was pale, and he began to glare at her, anger and jealousy in his
eyes.

“I hope, Miss Stanley,” he began, stiffly, “that you are not going to
say that you liked it? If you——”

“That is exactly what I am going to say,” laughed the actress, to the
surprise of all and the fury of Vance. “I’d just been taunting
him—having sport with him, you know. He had his revenge by seizing me
and kissing me.”

“In a most offensive and insolent manner,” sneered Vance.

“Offensive to you, perhaps,” she commented, cheerfully; “but not to me.
As I said before, I rather liked it. I like a fellow who has the nerve
to take things by storm when he cannot get them otherwise.”

She smiled on Vance in the most tantalizing manner as she said this, and
he well understood her meaning. He ground his teeth with impotent rage.

“If you liked it so well,” he panted, “you should not have screamed as
you did.”

“That was an accident,” she declared. “Didn’t mean to do it, you know,
but it slipped out.”

“By gum!” chuckled the youth from Vermont. “It don’t seem to me that
Bart done anything so very bad. I think he was a purty gol-darn lucky
feller!”

“I hardly think Mr. Merriwell, who is so rigid in regard to the
deportment of the members of his company, can approve of the behavior of
some of them,” said Vance, with something like a sneer.

At that Stella Stanley threw back her head and gave him a withering
look.

“Is it possible you mean me by that?” she said.

“Not so much as Hodge,” mumbled the jealous actor, weakly.

“Not so much?”

“No.”

“But some?”

“Well, I was surprised to hear you confess that you liked the treatment
you received from that low fellow.”

“Oh, you were!” came scornfully from the woman’s lips. “I understand
you, Mr. Vance, and I do not like your language! Any insinuation against
my character I will not stand! I see I have been wrong in thinking you a
gentleman! I see I have made a mistake in permitting you to pay me some
attentions! Now you are ready to presume on our friendliness.”

“No, not that! You are——”

She cut him short with a gesture that might have been given by a tragedy
queen.

“You have said enough, Mr. Vance! You cannot remedy it now. Let me tell
you something—let me tell you all something! Bart Hodge has acted as a
gentleman toward me. Anything that has happened that may seem to
contradict my statement I could account for—if I chose. Let me say
something more. I admire Bart Hodge. He is young, but he doesn’t care
for any living thing, and that is something that I admire in any man.
When he is angry he looks as if he’d enjoy killing somebody, and I
admire him for that! If he started to do a thing men or devils could not
keep him from doing it, and I admire him for that! When I attempted to
have sport with him, he seized me, held me, forcibly kissed me—and I
admire him for that! When some one attempted to interfere in my behalf,
he promptly knocked that person down, and I admire him for that!
There—I’ve said my say. You know what I think of Hodge.”

“I suppose you admire him for acting like a cad on the stage?” hissed
Vance. “Havener must admire him, too! Oh, he is a fine chap to admire!”

Stella looked at him and began to laugh again.

“My dear fellow,” she said, in a most provoking way, “you had better
attend to that eye without delay. It’s turning black. It’ll be closed if
you don’t look after it.”

Then she turned and walked away, leaving Vance almost frothing with
jealous fury.

Granville Garland was almost the only man who remained with Vance. The
others moved away, talking about what had happened.

“You’ve got it in the neck, Vance,” said Garland, sympathetically. “She
has thrown you down for Hodge.”

“Oh, don’t talk to me!” growled the discomfited actor. “I could murder
that fellow! I’d do anything to get even with him, and I’ll find a way
to do it, too!”

“Well, just now you had better take Stanley’s advice and attend to that
eye. You’ll be a beauty if you don’t doctor it in a hurry.”

Snarling to himself, Lester Vance left the stage, and a second later,
fuming with fury, hurried from the theater. At a market he bought a
slice of beefsteak to use as a poultice on his eye, and then hastened to
the hotel at which the company was stopping.

Entering as unobtrusively as possible, he hurried up to his room.
Turning a corner of the corridor, he suddenly halted, catching his
breath.

A short distance away, with his back toward Vance, Hodge was unlocking
the door of a room.

“Why is he going in there?” thought the jealous actor. “That is not his
room. It’s Merriwell’s!”

Bart opened the door and entered the room.

Vance stood irresolute in the corridor, wishing to do something to
injure Hodge, but undecided concerning the course to pursue.

“He has secured the key from the office and entered Merriwell’s room,”
muttered the actor. “I wonder what he is up to. I’d give something if I
knew.”

Softly he stole along the corridor till he reached the door of the room.
There he paused and listened. He could hear Hodge moving about inside.

“Wish I might get a peep through the keyhole,” thought Vance. “I believe
he is up to something queer. If I had time, I’d bring Merriwell here, so
that he might catch the fellow in there.”

He looked up at the transom.

“If I could get a peep through that!” he mentally exclaimed.

A moment later he was tip-toeing along the corridor, almost on the run.
He had the key to his own room, and he quickly and silently unlocked the
door and entered. Soon he came out, bearing a chair, and leaving the
door of his room standing wide open.

“I may want to get back there in a hurry,” he muttered.

Reaching Merriwell’s room, he placed the chair before the door and
quickly sprang upon it. Then, by standing on his toes, he was able to
look through the transom glass.

What he saw did not give him satisfaction just then, for Bart was
sitting at a little table, writing swiftly.

“Pshaw!” thought Vance. “He’s writing a letter—that’s all! He isn’t
doing anything out of the way.”

The fellow was filled with disappointment. Still he continued to stand
on the chair and watch the youth within the room.

After a time Bart finished his writing. He took out his watch and looked
at it, muttering:

“I must hurry if I want to catch that train.”

Vance pricked up his ears. He knew nothing of the quarrel between
Merriwell and Hodge, if quarrel it could be called, and still instinct
told him that something was wrong.

“Wonder why he’s going to catch a train?” he speculated.

Hodge had risen, leaving what he had written on the table. He now picked
up Frank Merriwell’s leather grip.

“It’s a good thing I know how to spring this lock,” said Hodge, “else
I’d not be able to get out of Atchison unless I walked, and I’d do that
before I would stay here now. I have cut clear from everybody now, and
I’m going to go it alone in the future. If I go to the dogs who cares!”

The eyes of the spy beyond the transom began to glitter and he was in a
flutter of excitement. Now he was certain that Hodge was up to something
crooked, and he eagerly awaited developments.

Bart worked at the lock of the leather bag. It was some time before he
succeeded in opening it, but succeed he did at last.

The man outside the door rose on his tiptoes and peered through the
glass. In his excitement he nearly lost his balance, but he recovered
without falling with a crash that would have alarmed the man he was
watching.

Vance felt his heart fluttering and throbbing; it was not easy for him
to control his breathing, which now was loud and hoarse. A sense of
exultation was growing in his bosom.

“So that is the chap Frank Merriwell trusts!” he thought. “That is the
friend in whom he has so much confidence! Ha!”

Hodge was taking things out of the grip. He scarcely looked at them as
he dumped them out. He was eager and in great haste.

Vance recognized the grip as being beyond a doubt the one Merriwell
always carried. He had observed that Frank seemed to think a great deal
of that plain leather bag. He remembered hearing Merriwell say once on a
time that the grip was very valuable to him, even though it might not be
worth much to anybody else.

Bart did not seem to be looking for any particular article in the grip,
for he did not examine the things he dumped out so carelessly. Evidently
he was after something that lay at the bottom.

What was it?

The spy choked down his heart, which seemed rising into his throat. The
glitter in his eyes became exultant. His lips were drawn back from his
teeth, and they quivered with a movement like the lips of a snarling dog
that is watching a hated enemy.

Everything was out of the grip at last; it was empty. The spy expected
Hodge would begin sorting the articles over in search of what he
desired, but nothing of the kind happened.

Bart picked up the leather bag, and then, with one hand inside it and
one outside, he made some singular movements.

“Jove!”

Vance almost shouted the word. Out from the grip Hodge had taken a false
bottom!

The spy dropped down and listened. He was aware that some sort of sound
had issued from his lips in his intense excitement, and he wondered if
the youth within the room had heard it.

After some minutes, hearing nothing to warrant him in believing he had
alarmed Bart, the fellow arose again on his toes and peered through the
glass of the transom.

Hodge was taking something out of the grip.

Money!

Yes, money—paper money! There was no doubt of it. In that grip, hidden
by the false bottom, Merriwell carried his money, and Hodge was removing
it!

Now the spy’s excitement was so great that he could hear his own teeth
chattering.

“I’ve got him!” he thought. “I’ll settle him now!”

Hodge partly turned toward the door, and Vance ducked down, listening
again. It was several moments before he dared peer through the glass
again.

Hodge had restored the false bottom to the grip, and was putting back
the various articles he had taken out in the first place.

“He’s got the money!” exulted Vance. “He’s a thief! This is Frank
Merriwell’s trusted friend! Oh, but I have him foul! I’d better skip,
for he’ll be coming out directly.”

Vance slipped down from the chair, and hurried toward his room, taking
the chair with him. Safely within his room, he watched and waited till
Hodge came out, locked Merriwell’s door and hurried along the corridor.

Dodging out from his room, the spy sped the length of the corridor.
Reaching the turn, he peered cautiously round.

The door of Hodge’s room was standing open, and Hodge was within.

Not more than two minutes did Vance have to watch. Hodge came out of his
room, carrying his light overcoat and a heavy valise. With these he
descended the stairs.

“By heavens! he is going,” muttered Vance. “He has robbed Merriwell, and
he is going to skip! What shall I do?”

He thought of stopping Bart and having him arrested, but quickly decided
that was not the best course to pursue, as he was not yet certain Bart
had really committed robbery. It was possible Hodge had given Merriwell
his money to keep, knowing it would be concealed in the bottom of the
grip.

Lester’s heart sank at that, for, if it were true, Hodge was simply
skipping the company, which was not such a serious crime.

“It’ll be best to let him go,” Vance decided. “That will queer him with
everybody, and I shall have no more trouble with him. If he has robbed
Merriwell, so much the better. Oh, but it will be my turn to triumph
now! Somebody’ll hear from me! Stella shall acknowledge that this
slippery chap is not such a fine fellow after all. Merriwell will not
stand up so proudly and claim Bart Hodge as his friend. Things have
turned my way!”




                              CHAPTER III.
                           BART’S WILD MOVE.


It was nearly an hour later that Vance returned to the theater, wearing
a bandage over his eye, and having his hat pulled well down to hide the
fact.

He was decidedly nervous, and still there was something of triumph in
his manner. He did not seem to feel the disgrace of his misfortune as
keenly as it had been fancied he would.

“Hang it all,” said Garland, finding an opportunity to speak with Lester
alone. “You actually act as if you thought you had come off best in your
encounter with Hodge! What ails you?”

“I rather think I’ll come off best in the end,” grinned Lester, in a
peculiarly knowing manner.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, nothing.”

“Yes, you do. I can see a peculiar under-meaning in your manner. What
has happened?”

“Nothing that I know about.”

“You did not see Hodge after leaving the theater?”

“Yes.”

“Did? Where?”

“At the hotel.”

“What was he doing?”

“Coming out of a room.”

“What room?”

“Merriwell’s.”

“What had he been doing in there?”

“How do I know?”

Garland looked at Vance steadily for some moments.

“You know something you are not telling,” he declared.

“On my word, I do not!” protested Lester, in sudden alarm. “What could I
know?”

“Well, you are acting rather queer. Has Hodge been up to anything?”

“Been up to anything?” repeated Bart’s enemy, as if he did not
understand. “What do you mean by that?”

“Oh, nothing! Let it drop. But I wonder why you think you will come out
best in the end.”

“Because I think this Hodge is a rascal, and I believe others will find
it out. That’s all.”

“I don’t understand what there is to warrant such a belief.”

“Oh, I fancy I have read him pretty thoroughly. I know just about how he
is made up.”

“I’m afraid you are off your trolley. Hodge is not popular in the
company, but I’m inclined to believe he’s on the level, for otherwise
Frank Merriwell would not have anything to do with him.”

“Merriwell may be fooled in the fellow, you know.”

“Not likely.”

“Why not?”

“They have been friends a long time. I believe they were schoolmates
together. That is why Merriwell sticks by Hodge as he does. He’s a chap
who will never turn his back on old friends, no matter what they may
do.”

Vance grinned.

“I’ll bet the time will come when Frank Merriwell will turn his back on
Bart Hodge,” he declared.

“I do not understand what reason you have for thinking that.”

“I suppose not.”

“Explain.”

“I can’t. It’s a sort of feeling I have, that’s all.”

“Well, I wouldn’t advise you to bank much on that feeling. It will fool
you. You feel that way because you hate Hodge. I don’t wonder you hate
him, but, take my advice and let him alone. He is a dangerous fellow.”

“Thank you for the advice. He isn’t half as dangerous as you think,
Garland. In fact, I regard him as perfectly harmless.”

“That eye doesn’t proclaim him to be. He must have given you that in
short order. There was a squall from Stanley, and I rushed to see what
had happened. Heard a heavy fall, and you were picking yourself up when
I arrived on the scene, while Hodge was gone.”

“That’s it!” growled Vance. “He didn’t stay to face me! He took to his
heels, like the sneak he is!”

“I hardly think he ran away.”

“I don’t care what you think; he did run away, just the same, and I’ll
bet he’ll take care not to meet me again.”

“He’ll have to meet you.”

“Perhaps not.”

“Of course, he will. You are both in the same company, and you have
business with each other in the play.”

“All the same, I don’t think Bart Hodge will dare meet me again,”
boasted Vance.

Garland turned away with an impatient gesture. He did not like Hodge,
but the seeming conceit of Vance was too much for him.

Vance saw the look on Garland’s face, and it cut him somewhat. He longed
to tell Granville something more and he opened his lips to do so, but
prudence bade him keep still, and so he did not speak.

With Hodge lacking, the rehearsal went on as well as possible, special
attention being given to the specialties.

Frank was restless and nervous. He longed to go in search of Bart, for
he fancied it was possible the hot-headed fellow had cooled down enough
to listen to reason. He observed Vance was swaggering around in a rather
remarkable manner under the circumstances.

“I wonder if he saw anything of Bart?” thought Frank.

Merry did not like Vance, but he resolved to question him, and so he
asked him if he had seen Hodge; doing so quietly in order not to attract
attention.

“Yes,” answered Lester, speaking loudly, “I saw Hodge at the hotel. He
was coming out of your room, too.”

“Coming out of my room?” questioned Frank, lifting his eyebrows.

“Yes, sir.”

“Where did he go?”

“I don’t know.”

Frank did not question the fellow any more concerning Bart. Just then,
Lester, who was looking down at his left hand, as if examining his
finger nail, gave a start, exclaiming:

“That’s queer!”

“What is queer?” asked Frank.

“My ring is gone.”

“Perhaps you left it somewhere.”

“No, I had it a while ago. I have been wearing it next to my little
finger, and I had a hard time to get it on, so I put it on my little
finger, although it was too large.”

“When was that?”

“Just before rehearsal began.”

“Then it’s likely you have lost it.”

“By gracious! I’m afraid so, and I valued it highly. It had my monogram
set in fine stones, you know, and it was a present to me. I wouldn’t
lose it for any amount of money!”

“It may be around the stage somewhere.”

In a few moments nearly everyone was searching for Lester’s ring.
Although they looked all around the stage and in the dressing rooms, it
was not found.

“You must have lost it after you left the theater, Vance,” said Rufus
Small.

“If I lost it on the street, I’ll never see it again,” said Lester,
dolefully. “It’s mighty tough!”

“Where did you go from here?”

“To a market, and then straight to the hotel.”

“Perhaps you lost it in the hotel. It may be in your room.”

Vance started and looked somewhat agitated.

“That’s so!” he cried. “I’ll look for it there if you’ll let me go, Mr.
Havener.”

“We’ll all go,” said Havener. “We can’t do anything more this
afternoon.”

“Needn’t hurry on my account,” said Vance, anxiously.

But rehearsing was over, and, not a little to Lester’s uneasiness, Frank
Merriwell left the theater at once and hurried toward the hotel. Vance
was unable to get ahead of Merry without running, and this he did not
do.

Presenting himself at the desk, Frank asked if Hodge was in his room or
around the hotel.

“No,” answered the clerk, “he has left.”

Merry caught his breath, a queer sensation striking through his heart.

“Left?” he exclaimed.

“Yes, sir.”

“You don’t mean——”

“He has settled his bill and departed.”

“Impossible!” cried Frank, in great consternation.

The clerk lifted his eyebrows, but said nothing.

“I beg your pardon,” said Merry, quickly. “I did not mean to contradict
your statement, but it does not seem possible for me to believe it. Will
you give me the particulars?”

“There are no particulars, save that he asked for his bill, paid it,
took the key to your room to get something he said he had in there, came
down very soon with his grip and coat, and left.”

It was a rare thing for Frank Merriwell to be dazed, but he seemed so
just then.

A little distance away stood Lester Vance, a look of intense
satisfaction and triumph on his face.

“Bart has gone crazy!” thought Frank, his lips being pressed together.
“He’ll be sorry for this. Unless I can stop him, there is no telling
what may become of him. I’ll not be likely to see him again for a long
time, and he is in such a reckless mood now that it will be dangerous
for him to go by himself.”

He took his key and went up to his room.

“I must have a chance to think,” he decided. “I must conclude what to
do.”

He closed the door of his room, and then he noticed a sheet of paper,
covered with writing, lying on the table. Hastily he caught it up.

“From Bart!” he breathed. “Wonder what this will tell me.”

His eyes ran over the written lines hurriedly, and this is what he read:

  “FRANK: It’s no use—I quit! I suppose you will say it is a mean
  trick for me to leave you this way, but I don’t care if you do! It’s
  my nature cropping out. I think the devil is in me. I have taken all
  the money I need, and it will be useless for you to attempt to
  follow me up. You may as well let me go this time. I take the money
  in place of my salary, which you have not yet paid me. HODGE.”

Frank stood there, staring at the paper—staring, staring. The words ran
together and danced before him. Something was tugging at his heart.

“Poor Hodge!” he murmured. “He cannot conquer himself.”

Then he crushed the paper and threw it on the floor.

“I’ll wager he didn’t take enough money to keep him a week!” came
hoarsely from Frank’s lips. “He should have taken twenty-five dollars,
at least, and it’s likely he hasn’t taken more than ten.”

He picked up his grip and quickly emptied it upon the bed. Then he soon
removed the false bottom and looked into it.

Frank stood there, as if turned to stone. On his face was a look of
mingled astonishment and pain.

“Gone!” he finally said, his voice cold, hard and metallic. “Every
dollar gone—eight hundred and sixty dollars in all!”

Rat-tat-tat!—a knock on the door.

Before Frank could speak the door swung open, and Granville Garland,
Douglas Dunton and Lester Vance entered.

“Mr. Merriwell,” cried Vance, “Dunton has heard something about Hodge!”

“Has he?” said Frank, with perfect coolness, as if nothing had happened
to disturb him in the least.

“I have,” nodded Dunton, looking serious. “I heard that he was seen
purchasing a ticket for St. Joseph.”

“Is it true he has gone?” asked Garland. “I could hardly believe it when
Vance told me.”

“I’m afraid he has been foolish enough to leave,” admitted Merry.

“And all because Havener called him down! My, my! How foolish! He
oughtn’t to mind a little thing like that.”

“That was not all,” said Vance significantly.

“No?”

“Remember what I told you?”

“Yes.”

“What was that?” asked Frank, sharply, causing Lester to start a bit.

“Eh? Oh—oh—nothing much. Only—only——”

“Only what?”

Vance stiffened up.

“I said Hodge would sneak,” he declared, attempting to be bold.

“Oh, you did?”

“Yes. He ran away after hitting me and I said he would not stay to face
me again. I knew he would sneak.”

“Remarkable!” exclaimed Frank, with a short laugh. “So you think Hodge
ran away to keep from meeting you again?”

“I am sure of it. He is a coward!”

“Mr. Vance,” said Frank, “whatever else Bart Hodge may be there is not a
drop of cowardly blood in his body. If you were a thousand instead of
one he would not have run away from you.”

Vance colored.

“You think so,” he said; “but I don’t fancy you know him very well for
all that you have been acquainted with him so long. I’ve never liked his
looks. To me he seemed to be a chap who would hesitate at no crime.”

Vance saw that Merry had been investigating the grip, and he fancied his
words would give the young actor-playwright a start, but Frank’s nerve
was unruffled.

“What are we going to do?” demanded Garland.

“Yes, that’s the question,” said Dunton, anxiously. “We can’t play
without Hodge to-night.”

“It strikes me that he has played you dirty, Mr. Merriwell,” said
Granville. “And he is the fellow with whom you have been so friendly!”

“A nice friend!” muttered Vance, sneeringly.

Frank was sick at heart, but his calm face did not betray the pain he
felt.

“It is possible you do not understand how matters stood,” he said. “I
had no contract with Hodge.”

“Didn’t?” cried Dunton.

“Really?” exclaimed Garland.

“That’s queer!” ejaculated Vance, in disappointment.

“No,” said Frank, “I had no contract with him, and so he has broken no
pledge to me in leaving in this manner.”

“Still,” said Dunton, “there must have been some sort of understanding
between you, and Hodge was pretty cheap to skip out without giving any
sort of notice.”

“Not exactly the act of a friend of whom one can be proud,” broke from
Garland. “I think you’ll have to acknowledge that, Mr. Merriwell.”

Frank was determined to defend Bart as far as possible.

“You do not know all that happened at the theater to-day,” he said.
“Hodge and I had some words.”

It was galling for him to make that confession, but he felt that
something must be said to explain the sudden desertion of Bart.

Garland whistled a bit.

“Then that must have happened before the unpleasantness between Hodge
and Vance?” he said.

“It did,” nodded Merry. “Hodge left me in anger. He is hot-blooded and
impulsive, and he did not stop to reason about the matter. He has
skipped out, it is evident, but I believe he will cool down and come
back when he comes to think it all over.”

“But he’ll be treating you dirty if he doesn’t come back in time for the
performance to-night,” said Garland. “You would not be likely to take
him back if he returned to-morrow. I’m sure you wouldn’t take back any
of the rest of us if we served you such a trick.”

“You can’t be sure of anything of the sort,” said Frank, sharply. “You
were not with the company when Leslie Lawrence deserted and returned to
beg pardon. I did not fancy Lawrence, he was not a friend, and yet I
took him back. If Bart Hodge returns to-morrow, I shall take him back.”

“Oh, you can do as you like about that,” said Garland.

“I suppose you would take him back if he had stolen your clothes from
you?” asked Vance, jeeringly.

“If I chose to I certainly should,” answered Merry, his eyes seeming to
bore Bart’s enemy through.

“Hodge didn’t have much money yesterday,” said Vance, staring at the
open grip. “I wonder how he happened to have enough to-day to settle his
hotel bill and purchase a ticket?”

“How do you know he didn’t have money yesterday?”

Frank shot the question at Vance.

“Oh, he—I—I heard him say so on the train.”

“Did you?”

“Yes. Where do you suppose he got his money?”

“Perhaps I let him have it.”

Vance was disappointed and puzzled. He could not understand why
Merriwell did not denounce Hodge, for he was certain Frank had
discovered the money was gone. Was it possible Merry intended to keep
silent and not charge Hodge with the robbery? Vance could hardly believe
such a thing possible. He could not fathom the depths of such fidelity
to a treacherous friend.

“What’s this?” said Garland, stooping and picking up the crumpled sheet
of paper. “There’s writing upon it.”

“Yes,” said Frank, as he quickly took it from the man’s hand. “I threw
it down there.”

Again Vance was disappointed.

“Merriwell is too proud to let us know,” he thought. “He doesn’t want us
to think he was fooled by Hodge.”

“Well, I, for one, shall not feel very good toward Hodge if he does come
back,” admitted Dunton. “What are we going to do, Mr. Merriwell? The
town is billed for the play, the day has arrived for the performance,
and there is a big advance sale.”

“We’ll have to lay off to-night,” answered Frank, as if that settled it
without further talk. “I will attend to that. Don’t let it worry you.”

“How can you get a man to fill Hodge’s place?” asked Garland.

“That I do not know yet.”

“I wonder what he was after in this room,” came from Vance, in a last
desperate effort to force Frank to speak out. “He sneaked out of here as
if he had committed a crime. You haven’t lost anything, have you, Mr.
Merriwell? He didn’t take anything from you, did he?”

“I haven’t looked around yet,” was the cool answer. “As for coming into
this room, he had a right to do that at any time. It was a privilege I
gave him, and it was always so understood by hotel clerks wherever we
stopped. I know you do not like Hodge, but take my advice, don’t try to
make him appear worse than he is. I don’t like it, and I won’t have it!”

Frank walked to the door and opened it.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I beg you to excuse me. I have business to look
after, and time is valuable now.”

They took the hint and filed out. The door closed after them. Vance
wheeled about and looked toward the door, his lips curling in scorn.

“Merriwell is a fool!” he declared.




                              CHAPTER IV.
                            “TRUE AS STEEL.”


Shortly after the three actors departed, Ephraim Gallup came bursting
into Frank’s room, looking excited and agitated.

“Gol-darn my pertaturs!” he spluttered. “Whut’s this I hear abaout
Hodge?”

“I don’t know,” said Frank. “What do you hear?”

“He’s gone!”

“Yes.”

“Skipped?”

“Yes.”

“’Thout notifyin’ yeou?”

“Yes.”

“Jee-roo-sa-lum!”

Gallup was stricken dumb for the moment. He stood there, his mouth
yawning and his eyes bulging, utterly incapable of expressing his
emotions.

Frank was packing some articles into his grip. He seemed to be making
arrangements to depart.

“Jee-roo-sa-lum!”

Again the Vermont youth uttered the exclamation. He straightened up and
cleared his throat. His mouth came together, and he began to look angry.

“By gum!” he exploded. “That’s whut I call a darn mean trick! I swan to
man I never thought Hodge’d go back on yeou, Frank!”

Merry was silent, calmly continuing the packing of his grip.

“An’ they’re sayin’ daown in the office that he swiped somethin’ wut
didn’t b’long to him,” said Ephraim.

That gave Frank a start.

“Who says so?” he asked, his heart giving a leap and seeming to drop
back heavily, as if weighted down with sudden dread.

Was it possible Bart had stolen something from the hotel? Frank could
not believe it.

“Why, some of the comp’ny.”

“Ah!”

It was a breath of relief that came from Merry’s lips, and still the
suspense was not fully removed. What if Hodge had taken something
belonging to some other member? Under the circumstances, it would brand
him as a thief, even though actors frequently appropriated articles
belonging to others of the craft, without seeming to regard it as
stealing. In this case, nearly every member of the company would be
against Bart, and they would magnify any little occurrence that might
damage him.

“What were they saying?” asked Frank, with apparent unconcern. “What do
they claim Bart has taken?”

“They say Vance knows he tuck somethin’ frum yeou, Frank.”

“Oh, is that the yarn! Well, I wonder how Lester Vance knows so much?”

“I dunno.”

“It would seem more manly for him to be silent about Hodge under the
circumstances. If he talks too much it will look like a case of spite.”

“That’s so.”

Frank was relieved, and still he wondered how Vance could be certain
enough to make such a charge against Hodge. He soon decided that it must
be no more than suspicion on the part of Bart’s foe. Lester had seen
Bart leave Merry’s room, and he had decided that Hodge had been in there
for no honest purpose. That must be the explanation of the accusation
against the erring youth.

“Hodge didn’t take ennything of yeou, did he, Frank?”

Ephraim threw the question fairly and squarely at Merry.

Instantly Frank straightened up, giving the Vermont youth a look that
seemed full of resentment and indignation.

“How can you ask such a question, Ephraim Gallup!” he cried. “I am
astonished! Have you forgotten how many times Bart has been unjustly
accused of such things? Have you forgotten how I have always stood by
him without ever once being mistaken? Do you think Bart Hodge would
stoop to do me a deliberate injury now?”

Ephraim was abashed for a moment, and then he said:

“Waal, he’s doin’ yeou an injury by jumpin’ aout an’ leavin’ ye in this
air kind of way, by thutter!”

“He didn’t stop to think what he was doing. That’s what’s the matter. If
he had, wild horses could not have dragged him away.”

“Mebbe so.”

“You know it, Ephraim—you know it! Hodge is passionate and hot-headed.
After his call down by Havener to-day he came to me in my dressing room.
We had some words.”

“Great juniper!”

“Hodge was unreasonable. I found it impossible to talk the matter over
with him properly. When I tried to do so, he flew off the handle. For
the first time since we became chums I was unable to control him. His
hot temper had burned his reason out. He left the theater and rushed
here to the hotel. Without delay he packed up and took a train out of
town. If he had given himself time to cool down he would not have
thought of doing such a thing.”

“I don’t like somethin’ they’re sayin’ about him naow.”

“What?”

“That is kainder looks ez if he run away to git rid of meetin’ Vance
ag’in.”

Frank laughed.

“That is the worst kind of foolish talk,” he said. “Hodge would not run
from an army of fellows like Lester Vance.”

“I don’t b’lieve he would, uther,” nodded Ephraim.

“If Vance had such a fancy in his head he is fooling himself.”

“I kainder think he b’lieves it hisself, by thutter!”

“He doesn’t know the kind of material Bart Hodge is built from.”

“Whut yeou goin’ to do, Frank?”

“I shall attempt to follow Hodge and bring him back.”

“No? Yeou don’t mean it!”

“Certainly I mean it. Do you think I am going to let the poor fellow go
to ruin? To-morrow he will be overwhelmed with shame for his hasty act,
but that very shame will keep him from returning unless I find him and
bring him back.”

“Frank,” said Ephraim, “yeou are the kaind of a friend to hev! Yeou
stick to yeour friends to the last gasp. Be yeou goin’ right erway?”

“Yes.”

“Do yeou know where Bart’s gone?”

“No; but I have a fancy that he has struck for St. Joseph first. I shall
try to trace him there.”

“Will yeou be back to-morrer?”

“I hope to, but I am not coming back till I find Bart Hodge!”

“But whut be we goin’ to do?”

“I’ll make arrangements about that. I want you to find Havener and send
him here to this room without delay. I have some instructions to give
him.”

“All right,” said Ephraim. “I’ll hunt him up an’ tell him.”

He hurried from the room. Outside the door he paused a moment.

“By gum!” he muttered. “Was there ever another feller that stuck to his
friends same as Frank Merriwell does? He’s true ez steel!”

Havener came up and found Merriwell all ready to leave. The stage
manager looked rather dejected.

“I’m sorry about this business, Mr. Merriwell,” he said, humbly. “I’m
sure I didn’t think it would end this way. If I had dreamed it would I
should have permitted Hodge to do just as he liked.”

“And thus ruined the discipline of the entire company,” said Frank. “You
would have made a great mistake, Havener.”

“But he’s gone—he’s skipped.”

“Yes.”

“And he has done it because I spoke to him on the stage. I might have
taken another opportunity.”

“Mr. Havener, when I made you stage manager of this company I did so
with the full intention that you should manage the stage and the people
on it. I made no reservations. At rehearsal I am under you, and I
thoroughly understand that. It is the only way to run a company as it
should be run. A stage manager must have absolute authority in his
province, or he is of very little value. I tried to tell this to Hodge,
but he was too hot to listen.”

“But Hodge is your friend.”

“Yes.”

“And you always stand by your friends.”

“Always. At the same time I will not uphold a friend to the absolute
injury of somebody else. I will stand by him and endeavor to convince
him of his error, if he has made one; but I will not aid him in injuring
another person.”

Havener brightened and the downcast look left his face.

“I was afraid you would blame me in this matter,” he said. “It’s pretty
rough to be upset just like this, after all the troubles you have had
and just when there seemed to be plain sailing ahead.”

“I do not blame you at all, Havener. I have heard just what took place
on the stage, and I have no complaint to make.”

“Thank you,” said Havener, much relieved.

“You have nothing to thank me for. I am going away. I am going to make
an attempt to overhaul Hodge and bring him back.”

“The performance to-night——”

“Will not take place.”

“The manager of the theater will be furious.”

“I can’t help that.”

“What will you do about it?”

“I want you to attend to that matter.”

“You will give me instructions?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“You are to notify the box office without delay that sale of seats must
stop.”

“Oh, but there will be a flurry!”

“Tell the manager just what has happened. Here is a check which I have
made out for you. It is for five hundred dollars.”

Frank handed Havener the check.

“What’s this for?” asked the stage manager.

“To settle with the manager of the opera house and to pay bills here
till I return.”

Havener slowly shook his head.

“I’m afraid this won’t do,” he said.

“Not enough?”

“Yes.”

“Then what do you mean?”

“It’s a check on a Denver bank, and it’s for five hundred dollars. I
don’t think I can get it cashed in this place, Mr. Merriwell. You have
plenty of ready money. You had better give me some of that.”

Just a bit of color added its flush to Frank’s cheeks.

“Unfortunately, Mr. Havener,” he said, “I have not plenty of ready money
at the present time.”

“But—but you told me on the train——”

“I know what I told you. I said I was carrying several hundred dollars
with me so that I’d not get in a tight corner.”

“Yes, you told me so.”

“I have disposed of that money since coming to Atchison.”

Havener stared.

“Disposed of it?” he muttered as if he did not understand.

“Yes. I have none of it handy now. For myself, I have less than a
hundred dollars, which I was carrying on my person, but that will be
enough for the present.”

“Remarkable!” exclaimed Havener. And then, all at once, a singular
expression came over his face. “It isn’t possible that what they are
saying about Hodge is true?” he exclaimed. “You don’t mean to admit
that——”

“I do not mean to admit anything of the sort!” Merry cut in, without
waiting for him to finish. “Vance was here with his unpleasant hints and
suggestions. I will make that check good.”

“Make it good?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“By getting the name of the hotel proprietor on the back of it.”

“Can you?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“I know that Mr. Kent Carson, who knows the proprietor of this house
very well, has vouched for me here, and the word of Kent Carson goes
anywhere in Kansas or Colorado.”

“If that’s right, you are lucky. I believe I understand why you are
determined to follow Hodge up. I hope you catch him, Mr. Merriwell. I
didn’t think it of him!”

“That is the kind of talk I do not like,” declared Frank, sharply. “I
have a favor to ask of you.”

“I shall be glad to grant it, you may be sure of that.”

“You are to inform the company that I have left five hundred dollars
with you to keep things straight and as a guarantee that I will return.”

“All right.”

“But you are not to say that I left you a check for five hundred
dollars. You are to let them infer that I left the cold cash. Do you
understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You are to permit no member of the company to see you cash that check.”

“Very well.”

“If anyone hints that there is anything queer about this business you
are to silence that person without delay.”

“I’ll do it, all right.”

“You know what to do in relation to the theater here.”

“But what if you do not return in time for us to play in Leavenworth?”

“I will cancel with Leavenworth by wire. No: if you do not hear from me
by ten o’clock to-morrow forenoon you cancel. That will be better, for I
might be where I could not wire you.”

“Say, but this is tough!” exclaimed Havener. “I hoped there would not be
any more of this kind of business.”

“So did I,” nodded Frank; “but we can’t help it. It’s pretty ragged, but
we’ll have to swallow it.”

“I don’t understand how it is that you still hold a feeling of
friendliness toward a fellow who could put you in such a bad box.”

“That is because you do not understand Hodge and our relations. If I let
him go now without an attempt to bring him back, I should regret it
always.”

“It’s a lucky fellow who wins such friendship as yours,” said Havener,
admiringly. “But I’m afraid Hodge doesn’t deserve it.”

“I don’t like that kind of talk!” exclaimed Frank, with a slight show of
impatience. “I have upheld you in the matter of the affair at rehearsal,
but I don’t like to hear you say anything against Hodge now.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“All right. Now we will go down and find the proprietor of the hotel. I
believe he will put his name to that check. I’ll take my deposit book
along, to show him that I have a little something in the bank at
Denver.”

They descended the stairs, Frank carrying his grip, but leaving his
handsome light overcoat behind. The proprietor of the hotel was found,
and in less than five minutes Merry had talked him into putting his name
on the check, although he regretted doing so as soon as Frank was gone.




                               CHAPTER V.
                             ON THE TRACK.


An evening train bore Frank Merriwell into St. Joseph. He had learned of
a certainty that Hodge had purchased a ticket and taken a train for that
city, and he hoped to find Bart there, although he feared he should not.

If Bart kept on for Chicago, as he might do, there was little chance of
overtaking him.

After starting, Frank began to realize that such a blind pursuit seemed
foolish in the extreme.

His one hope was that Hodge would step off in St. Jo. If Bart did not——

Frank did not like to think of that. And still the conviction that it
was more than likely Hodge would continue his flight grew stronger and
stronger.

“Well,” muttered Merry, as he stepped off the train, “I’ll make a search
for him here. It’s the best I can do.”

He had known all along that he might have stopped Hodge by means of
telegrams to the police departments of various places through which the
fugitive must pass; but, even though Hodge had taken the money from the
grip, Frank’s soul revolted against recovering it by bringing about the
erring fellow’s arrest.

Already Bart was on the downward road—the road to ruin! Frank felt
certain of that. Was it possible to stop him—to save him? It did not
seem possible. It appeared as if Bart’s downfall were complete.

After leaving the station Frank found a policeman and asked a number of
questions. Then he proceeded to a hotel, where he registered and left
his grip. He examined the register, but Bart’s name was not there. He
scarcely expected to find it, for something told him Hodge would not
register under his own name.

Frank believed he could recognize Bart’s handwriting at a glance, no
matter what the name might be, and it was in this manner that he hoped
to trace the fugitive.

He set out on a weary round of hotels, examining the register at each
one. He could not run over the list of arrivals swiftly, for he knew it
was possible Hodge might attempt to disguise his handwriting, as well as
assume a fictitious name. This made him scrutinize each signature
closely and carefully. It was a tiresome task, but he plodded on, hoping
against hope. His nature revolted against such crude detective work, but
this did not seem to be a case at which he could work in a systematic
manner. If he found Hodge it would be a case of good fortune as much as
anything else, and he knew it.

At last he had visited all the hotels and his search had been
unrewarded.

“It’s no use!” he muttered, in disgust. “A detective would laugh at me
for trying to find a fugitive in such a manner. Yes, he would laugh at
me for thinking a chap who had just stolen more than eight hundred
dollars would stop so soon after taking to flight.

“Still, to me there seems two reasons why Hodge may have stopped here.
If he had not taken money he might not have thought it necessary to get
further away. If he did take it, he may have thought it would be easier
to stop him by means of telegrams if he continued his flight by train
than it would if he dropped off here and lost himself in this city.”

This reasoning did not give Merry much comfort. He began to realize that
he was hungry. He had not felt the need of food before, so eager had he
been to investigate the hotel registers.

Coming to what seemed like a respectable restaurant, he went in and gave
an order.

He sat down near a table at which two men were eating. He noticed that,
although they made a display of flashy jewelry, they were rather
tough-looking chaps, decidedly sporty in their dress. One of them had a
thick neck and close-cropped hair, while his face resembled that of a
bulldog. The other addressed him as “Mul,” or “Muldoon.”

It soon became evident that the other man’s name was Rafferty. He had
long, slim hands, with fingers that squirmed in a snakish manner. His
eyes were restless and watchful.

Frank had a theory that most men betray the profession they follow by
the language they use. While he was waiting for his order to be served
he unconsciously listened to the talk of the two men.

“Well, Muldoon,” said the fellow with the snaky fingers. “I’ve taken
your tip and shoved up a good wad on the sucker.”

“An’ yer all right, my boy,” asserted the owner of the bulldog face.
“Dat chap ain’t so much of a sucker as some folks take him fer. Jest
’cause he comes from Chicago dey gives him dat name.”

“You feel sure he’ll brand the Maverick?”

“Do I? Well, say, ef I had a million I’d put it on dat. If he ever lands
dat left maul on Kansas Jim’s neck der Maverick won’t know wot hit him.”

“There is no cold deck in this game, is there? It’s to be a square game
with no holdout?”

“Say, want me ter tell yer somethin’?”

“Sure.”

“Der Maverick’s up ag’in it.”

“No?”

“Dat’s straight.”

“How do you know? Won’t he have a show?”

“He’ll never do up Hanks.”

“Then he’s playing against marked cards?”

“It’s dis way: It’ll be on der level jest as long as it can be, but if
dey see Jim’s gittin’ der woist of it—well, he’ll be t’rowed down.”

“How?”

“Dunno yit.”

“How do you know so much?”

“I’m on der inside, I told yer. I can’t give erway der boys wot puts me
onter der game, but dey’ve tole me ter tip me friends off ter lay their
long green on der Sucker.”

“Well, Mul, I don’t forget this turn if the game does run my way. I’ll
see that you get a chance to go against Tommy the Terror, just as I
promised, if I rake in the chips to-night. I don’t suppose there is any
danger that the police will interfere?”

“Well, dere was danger, but I rudder t’ink der cops has been put off der
scent. Dey dunno jest when der little bout’s goin’ ter come off.”

“But they must have seen the sports coming into town to-day. Lots of
them have struck St. Jo. within the last ten hours.”

“I should guess yes! It’ll be a good t’ing fer der club.”

“I don’t believe there is any other city in the United States where this
sort of game could be played to a finish. It’s to be a regular prize
fight under pretension of having a private sparring exhibition.”

“Dat’s wot.”

“But the way the sports have come into town should be enough to tell the
police that something more than usual is to take place.”

“Aw! der perlice here are dead slow! Den dey don’t care much, anyway.
Was dere menny sports come on der train wid you, Rafferty?”

“Several. One young fellow had got onto the fight somehow, and he was
dead crazy to see it, but didn’t know how to get there. I think he had a
roll to blow, too.”

“Well, why didn’t yer give him der tip if yer t’ought he was on der
level?”

“I did. I sent him to Mike Kelley and told him Kelley would get him in.”

Frank had decided that the fellow with the bulldog face was a slugger
and prize fighter, while his companion, the owner of the squirming
fingers, was a gambler. The language of the men had revealed this
plainly enough.

“Did yer give der young duck der word?”

“Yes. I told him to say ‘upper cut’ to Kelley and shove out his fiver.”

“That was all right. Who was yer friend?”

“I didn’t get his name. He was carrying a heavy grip, with a long slip
of paper pasted on the side of it. On the paper were printed the words
‘True Blue,’ but I don’t know what that meant.”

It was impossible for Frank Merriwell to repress a start. He came near
leaping to his feet with an exclamation of satisfaction, but quickly
closed his mouth and dropped back into his seat.

“On the track at last!” he mentally exulted. “That young fellow who
seemed to have a roll to blow and who was so eager to see the prize
fight was Bart Hodge!”

Frank Merriwell was on the alert now, his ears open to catch every word
of the conversation to which up to that point he had listened with the
idlest sort of interest.

Frank wondered why he had not thought of tracing Bart by means of the
strip pasted on Hodge’s grip. In a moment, however, it seemed natural
enough that he had not thought of such a thing, for it had not seemed
probable a fellow who had just stolen over eight hundred dollars would
travel around with a conspicuous label by which he might be spotted and
recognized. It was rather remarkable that Hodge had not removed the
words in some manner from his traveling bag.

And Hodge had acted as if he had a “roll to blow!” In the midst of his
feeling of satisfaction, Frank was stricken by a sharp pain. He was glad
to be on the track of Bart, but the evidence of his former friend’s
complete depravity filled him with distress.

Hodge had taken the money, and he was bound to have a gay time while it
lasted. At least, everything seemed to indicate that.

Merry fancied that Bart had given up at last in his attempt to be honest
and upright. For a long time he had struggled against his natural
inclinations and against the unjust suspicions of others. He had grown
tired fighting fate, for it had seemed that fate was determined that he
should go wrong. No one save Frank Merriwell had shown absolute
confidence in him.

Merriwell had ever seemed to believe that Bart would turn out well in
the end, but now it appeared that his faith had been sadly at fault and
his confidence woefully misplaced.

Frank could understand how a proud, sensitive fellow like Hodge could be
driven to dishonesty by suspicion and mistrust. But there was one thing
Merry could not understand.

How had Hodge smothered his conscience and his sense of justice and
gratitude enough to permit him to rob the best and truest friend he had
ever known?

That was a puzzle to Frank. He did not like to think of it. He could not
bear to believe he had been entirely wrong in his estimate of Bart’s
character.

Somehow Frank had hoped in the face of all the evidence of Bart’s
culpability that it was not really true—that Hodge had not taken the
money.

But now it seemed there could no longer be a doubt of it. This gambler
Rafferty had fallen in with Hodge, and had given him a “tip” concerning
the proper manner to get to the prize fight that was to take place in
St. Jo.

Hodge had seemed to have a roll and he was aiming straight in the proper
direction to get rid of it. Having cut clear from Frank, it was plain he
was seeking the low and vicious.

Although a youth who could “handle his dukes” and take care of himself
in a fight, Frank Merriwell thought very little of prize fights and
prize fighters. He regarded professional pugilism as brutal, and the
“sports” who followed it up and took delight in it as a low type of
humanity. It was his belief that such affairs should be prevented by
law, and the participants in them should be severely punished by fines
and imprisonment.

Not that Frank wished the encounters stopped for the sake of the
principals, but because he believed such spectacles aroused the worst
instincts in the witnesses of them and tended to lower and degrade human
beings who saw them.

Frank knew there was not a little that was cruel in Bart Hodge, but he
had suppressed this instinct in his endeavor to model after Merry. He
was one, however, who would have no mercy on an enemy, should it happen
that that enemy fell into his power. And always had he seemed to take
great satisfaction in a square standing fight.

Merry thought of his first battle with Hodge one moonlight night in an
old pasture at Fardale. That fight had not been finished, but Frank
recalled how like a fiend the black-haired boy had struggled. Since that
time he had seen Bart in many encounters, and always Hodge had fought
with the same terrible fierceness, as if he was burning with a desire to
kill his antagonist.

Such a fellow would take pleasure in witnessing a bloody and brutal
prize fight—a fight to a finish.

Somehow Frank’s sympathy for Hodge lessened. Had Bart taken the money
because he was in need of it, had he taken it to pay debts, had he taken
it with the hope of going somewhere and starting in business for
himself, then Frank could have been more lenient. But for Hodge to seem
to hasten with the stolen money straight to the companionship of
“sports,” gamblers, prize fighters and men of that order—it was too
much!

“These men must not get away,” thought Frank. “I must follow them. I
must find out where this fight is to take place and I must get into it.”

The waiter brought his order.

“If I could find this man Kelley of whom they were speaking,” thought
Merry. “I know how to get there through him. Five dollars and the
password, ‘upper cut,’ would do the trick.”

He began to eat in haste, for he heard Muldoon remark:

“We’d better be hustling, Rafferty. Der game will open at ten o’clock.”

“I’ll be ready to go in a minute,” said the gambler. “Here, waiter,
what’s the check?”

Frank was very hungry, but he would have left his food untouched rather
than to lose sight of them then. He bolted down a few mouthfuls and
drank the cup of coffee he had ordered.

By that time Muldoon and Rafferty had risen and were preparing to go.

Frank called the waiter the moment the two men started for the door.

“Check—quick!” he exclaimed. “Got to catch a train. Didn’t know it was
so late.”

The waiter gave him his check and he paid it in a hurry, flinging down a
quarter extra, and, grabbing his hat, bolted for the door.

Out on the street he was relieved to see Rafferty and Muldoon a short
distance away, walking rapidly.

Frank followed them.

“I rather think you will lead me straight to Hodge,” he thought,
exultantly. “If this was not a piece of luck! And it came just when I
seemed wholly off the scent.”

Neither of the men seemed to imagine they were followed, and so Frank
had no trouble in shadowing them.

At length the men turned into a side street. There it was somewhat more
difficult to keep track of them, but Merry shadowed them without seeming
to be doing anything of the sort. He kept track of all their twists and
turns, unfamiliar with the city, though he was, and, at last, he saw
them enter a saloon by a side door.

Frank was not far behind them. He noticed that others were flocking into
that saloon by the same side entrance.

Inside, the saloon was packed. Men were smoking, drinking, swearing and
exchanging sporting talk. Most of them were loudly dressed, and the
saloon lights glinted on many huge diamonds, of which there was a
decidedly vulgar display. A good number of the men were of the
thick-necked, beefy sort.

It was such a saloon as Frank would regard as a “beer joint,” but beer
was not the beverage there that night. It was either whisky, champagne,
or nothing—and where was the man who was taking nothing?

“Kansas Jim will win in a walk.”

“Go on, you bluffer! He ain’t in it with the Sucker!”

“Hanks won’t last three rounds.”

“What have you got that says so besides your mouth?”

“I’ve got good horse sense.”

“But no rino. Back your talk—back it up!”

“Where’s your money?”

“Here—right here.”

The speaker flourished a “roll.”

This talk did not seem to attract much attention, for everybody seemed
talking in a similar manner. One man was pounding on the bar. He had a
huge red nose and a diamond in his shirt bosom that was as large as an
acorn.

“I’m Ned Carter of Kansas City!” he cried. “I reckon you gents know me!
If any of you has money to throw away just back the Maverick. That steer
will get branded deep to-night.”

“And I’m Col. McGraw of Topeka!” roared a tall man, who wore a slouch
hat thrust far back on his head, and whose drooping mustache and long
imperial were iron-gray. “I don’t give a dern whether you gents know me
or not; but I’ll bet a cool thousand even that the Maverick will put the
Sucker to sleep inside of fifteen rounds if he’s given a square deal.”

“Where’s your long green?”

“Money talks!”

“Put up, colonel!”

“Or shut up, colonel.”

“Oh, I’m here to back my talk,” declared the Topeka man, fishing into an
inside pocket. “Here’s the—— Well, I’m blowed!”

“What’s the matter?”

“I’ve been touched! Gents, I’ve been robbed of five thousand dollars I
took to back the Maverick!”

“Ha! ha! ha!” roared the crowd. “Colonel, it won’t go! You are a
squealer!”

To this the Topeka man roared a vigorous protest, but his words were
drowned.

Frank’s breath was almost taken away.

“Well, this beats!” he gasped. “It must be the police of this city are
dead slow, or else they are standing in with the parties who are running
this fight. If they were not, they’d be dead certain to catch on.”

He looked around for Rafferty and Muldoon, but could see nothing of
them.

“I’m certain they came in here,” he muttered. “They must be somewhere in
this crowd.” He moved about to find them, being obliged to crowd his way
about.

“Hi, there, young feller! ye’re treadin’ on my toes!”

“I beg your pardon,” said Frank, as politely as he could.

“Waal, ye’d better!” growled the big man, glaring at him. “What’re you
in here fer, anyhow? Ye’re nothin’ but a boy. This ain’t no place fer
you.”

Frank attempted to move away, but the arm of the man shot out, and Merry
was collared.

“You go home to your mammy, youngster,” advised the fellow, starting to
drag Frank to the door.

“Toss him out, McGinty!”

“Give him the bounce, slugger!”

“Spank the mother’s boy and send him home.”

“Does his mother know he’s out?”

The door was reached, and the big fellow started to swing Frank round to
get a better hold of him. At that moment Merry broke away with a sudden
twist and yank, caught the surprised ruffian behind, gave him a strong
shove, and planted his foot with all his strength under the tail of the
man’s coat.

McGinty, the slugger, was fairly lifted by that kick and sent spinning
through the swinging doors, which opened before him and closed behind
him.




                              CHAPTER VI.
                             RUN TO EARTH.


“Great ginger!”

“Holy smoke!”

“Did yer see that!”

“It’s dr’amin’ Oi am!”

“The young feller kicked the slugger out!”

“That’s what he did!”

“And it’s the first time anything like that ever happened to the
slugger.”

“McGinty’ll come back for his gore!”

“Young chap, you’d better skip out by the other door, or he’ll kill
you.”

“Thank you,” said Frank, quietly, his eyes flashing. “I am minding my
business, and I shall not run away from that tough. If he bothers me
again I’ll kick him so hard he won’t be able to walk for a week.”

“That’s the stuff!” roared Col. McGraw of Topeka. “The boy is all right!
He’s no baby, and anybody who thinks he is makes a mistake. What’ll you
have, young man? If I have been touched, I’ve got enough red money left
to buy the drinks, and you can have anything you want.”

“I never drink, sir,” answered Frank, calmly.

“Wh-wh-what?” exploded the colonel. “Never drink?—and you kicked
McGinty? Oh, say——”

But Frank could not be induced to drink.

“What do you think of that, Kelley?” asked the Topeka man, in apparent
disdain, addressing one of the barkeepers.

The man spoken to seemed so busy that he paid no attention to the
question.

“Kelley! Kelley!” Frank mentally exclaimed, taking good note of the man
who had been called that. “This must be the Kelley Rafferty directed
Hodge to see.”

He felt that the scent was growing hot.

McGinty did not return, and two or three men went out to see what had
become of him. They came back carrying the man Frank had kicked through
the door.

“He’s done,” one of them said. “Found him lying outside, and he said he
couldn’t get up.”

“Well, why in blazes did you bring him in here?” shouted one of the
barkeepers. “Take him into the back room, now.”

As McGinty was carried along he saw Frank.

“Say, young fellow,” he feebly asked, “do your legs run by steam? I was
kicked by a mule once, but that wasn’t a patch to this!”

Then they bore him into the back room.

Much to his dismay, Frank found that this little incident had sufficed
to draw attention to him. Again and again he was urged to drink. At
length, in order to get up to the bar and find a chance to speak to
Kelley, he consented to take a plain seltzer.

He reached the end of the bar and Kelley served him. As he did so, Frank
thrust a five-dollar bill over the bar, saying:

“Upper cut.”

“No good,” answered Kelley, shoving it back, to Frank’s dismay. “All
gone.”

“But Mr. Rafferty said——”

“Rafferty? Are you one of his?”

“Yes, he told me——”

“Then you’ve got the last one there is.”

The bill was taken, and a piece of pasteboard was tossed at Merry, who
caught it deftly.

On the pasteboard it said:

                          UNION ATHLETIC CLUB.
                          Sparring Exhibition.
                             Admit Bearer.

There was no date upon it.

“Is this good for to-night?” asked Frank.

“Sure,” nodded Kelley. “If you ain’t drinking anything but seltzer you’d
better be getting in so that you’ll have a chance as near the ropes as
you can get.”

“I am going in now,” said a man. “You can come along with me, young
fellow.”

Frank gladly availed himself of the opportunity.

“Well, if this isn’t luck!” he thought. “I am bound to get there now,
and I think I’ll be sure to find Hodge.”

He followed the man through a swinging door, and they passed along a
dark wall till they came to another door. Then they ascended a flight of
stairs, turned to the right, seemed to enter another building, traveled
another passage, ascended more stairs, and came to a door where their
tickets were taken.

“How long before the go?” asked the man with Frank.

“Not long,” was the doorkeeper’s response. “Fifteen or twenty minutes,
perhaps.”

They were admitted, and Frank soon found himself in quite a large room,
with something like a pit in the center. In this pit was a raised
platform, which was surrounded by ropes. All around this platform were
rows of seats, rising tier on tier, as they do in a theater.

From at least six different entrances people were streaming into that
room, and already a great crowd occupied the seats. Men were smoking
everywhere, but a huge fan ventilator seemed to carry off most of the
smoke and keep the air fairly clear.

Frank wondered if Hodge was there. He began to look around for Bart at
once.

“Come on,” urged his companion. “We must get as good a place to see as
possible. Let’s get down in front.”

But Frank was not so eager to get down toward the front, for he wished
to be where he could overlook the crowd of spectators. He permitted the
man to go ahead, but lingered behind.

It was wonderful how swiftly those seats filled up. It was not long
after Merry entered before every seat seemed taken and many were
standing. Betting talk was being made on all sides. The odds seemed in
favor of the “Sucker.”

Still Frank could see nothing of Hodge, and it seemed that he had
surveyed the face of every person present. He began to fear that Hodge
was not present and would not appear.

“If he ever dreams I have followed him he will stay away from here—he’ll
get out of St. Jo.,” thought Merriwell.

Although the seats were taken, still the spectators came pouring in.

A loud-voiced fellow appeared and made an announcement. He delivered
quite a speech, explaining how the referee had been chosen, and finally
introduced the referee, who followed with a speech of his own, in which
he boasted so much of his squareness that Frank decided he must be a
great rascal.

Then there was a howl from the assembled crowd:

“There comes the Maverick!”

Swathed in a blanket, one of the principals entered the roped arena,
accompanied by his second. The crowd thundered its applause, and he
bowed his bullet head several times in acknowledgment, finally sitting
down in a corner.

Then came the other fighter, also wrapped about by a blanket, and the
audience howled still more hoarsely.

Frank paid very little attention to this. He scarcely noted what
followed. Finally he heard the clang of a gong, and then he knew the
fighters were at it. He glanced toward the “squared circle” and saw them
sparring, lunging, dashing, retreating and dancing about each other, but
his heart was sinking more and more as he failed to see anything of the
one person he sought.

And then, right in the midst of the very first round, came a startling
cry:

“The police! the police!”

“We’re raided!”

There was a hammering at the doors.

At that very instant Frank Merriwell’s eyes rested on the face of the
one he sought. There he was, almost directly opposite.

“Bart!” he shouted—“Bart Hodge!”

Hodge must have heard the cry, for he looked across and his eyes found
Frank’s.

A moment later Hodge was swept out of sight by the stampeding crowd.

Frank felt himself lifted, carried, whirled about, borne onward despite
himself. He struggled to run back, to force his way toward the spot
where he had seen Hodge. It was useless.

Bang! bang! bang!—the police were hammering at the heavy doors.

Crash!—a door fell.

The police rushed in and the lights went out!

How it happened Frank Merriwell was unable to tell, but in the darkness
he was swept along through a doorway, down a flight of stairs, carried
onward again by the rushing men, to finally stumble down another flight
and grope his way out into the street by a basement door.

He had escaped arrest, but had lost Hodge. He found his way back to the
saloon where he had purchased the ticket, but that was in the hands of
the police.

Evidently the officers of St. Jo. were not so slow, after all. They had
made a goodly haul, and patrol wagons were bearing the prisoners away by
the twenties.

“I’ll bet anything Hodge was nabbed!” thought Merry. “If so, that will
be all the better, for I’ll be able to reach him when he is arraigned in
court to-morrow morning.”

Till midnight he remained up trying to find something of Hodge, and then
he sought his hotel, more than satisfied that Bart had been captured by
the police.

In spite of his exciting adventure, Frank slept well after retiring to
bed. He had a way of relaxing his nerves and throwing off all worry and
care, enabling him to sleep under the most trying circumstances.

In the morning Merry arose much refreshed, even though he had retired
late. The theatrical business had accustomed him to late hours.

He ate a good breakfast, and was on hand when court opened. He saw the
prisoners arraigned, and, to his unspeakable disappointment, Bart Hodge
was not among them.

“But Hodge is here in St. Jo.,” thought Frank. “That is, he is here
unless, after seeing me last night, he took alarm and fled. It’s
probable he may have done that. It was foolish for me to shout to him
just as the police were breaking in.”

It was useless, however, to regret this action.

Frank went to Kelley’s barroom. The place was wide open and doing
business, as if nothing had happened.

Merry inquired about Hodge, and, after a time, Kelley seemed to remember
Bart.

“Dark-faced chap,” said Kelley. “Rafferty sent him here, same as he did
you?”

“Yes,” nodded Frank, eagerly.

“You want to find him?”

“Yes.”

“I dunno how you will.”

“I’ll give twenty-five dollars to find him!” cried Merry.

A man who had been listening stepped forward.

“Do you mean that, young feller?” he asked.

“I do!” declared Frank.

“Will you give me that to tell you where to find him?”

“I will.”

“All right. I know the fellow you mean. He said he had a lot of money,
or he made some of Mike Roper’s gang believe he had. But the gang got
left on him, for they didn’t find enough on him to pay them for doping
him.”

“Then Hodge has fallen in with a tough crowd?”

“He’s the only one to blame for it. They’d let him alone if he hadn’t
put up such a bluff about having a lot of money.”

“And he didn’t have any?”

“Well, Frosty Ike said he didn’t have enough to buy drinks for the crowd
all round.”

“Take me to him. You shall have the money I said I would give.”

Frank followed the man from the saloon.

“Now, look here,” said the stranger, who was rather disreputable in
appearance, “you’ve got to promise not to blow to a living soul that I
put you onto this.”

“I’ll agree to that,” said Frank.

“And you’ve got to agree not to pull me into court over it.”

“If you are pulled into court it will be well worth your while.”

The man stopped, irresolutely.

“I don’t reckon I’ll go along with ye,” he said. “I can’t afford to get
Frosty Ike down on me.”

“Who’s Frosty Ike?”

“The worst man in St. Jo. He eats railroad iron when he’s hungry! I
wouldn’t make him a bite.”

“Well, now, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. If you lead me to my friend you
shall have the twenty-five dollars. If it is true that this Frosty Ike
and his gang have not robbed my friend there will be no danger of your
getting into court. If they have robbed him I’ll give you a hundred
dollars to testify against them, in case I think it best to prosecute. I
may not prosecute.”

“You will have to agree not to prosecute before I’ll go any further. I
wouldn’t get mixed up with Ike for two hundred dollars.”

Frank was not long deciding. He realized that he could not prosecute
Frosty Ike’s gang without having all the facts come out concerning the
manner in which Hodge obtained the money, and he concluded to give the
man the desired pledge.

He was led to a low quarter of the city near the river. Down among a lot
of storehouses they went, and entered one of the old buildings.

“He’s in here somewhere,” said Merry’s companion. “We’ll have to hunt
for him.”

Frank was on guard for a trap, for it seemed quite possible he had been
led into a snare. The search began. From room to room they went. At last
they came to a wretched room, filled with old boxes and barrels. Frank
was in advance. He entered the room, and there lay Hodge on the floor,
drugged or—drunk!

It was hours later that Bart came to himself in a respectable room of a
hotel. He opened his eyes, and they rested on Frank Merriwell, who was
sitting there, watching and waiting.

Bart did not speak. He lay there, wondering where he was and if he had
been dreaming.

After a little, Frank moved nearer the bed, smiling in his old, pleasant
way, and said:

“Well, old man, I expect you feel pretty rocky?”

Still Hodge did not speak.

“The doctor said he thought you’d come round all right in a short time,”
observed Merry. “He hasn’t been gone long.”

“Frank!”

“What is it, old man?”

“Have I been ill?”

“Well, you were about as ill as knockout drops could make you without
doing you serious damage.”

“Knockout drops! Then it was no dream! Then I did talk like a fool to
you in Atchison and run away! Then I did resolve to go straight to the
devil in a hurry and try to make a start on the road! Then I really saw
you at the prize fight just as the police broke in! Then I really did
get in with a gang after that and drink with them! I have betrayed you,
Frank! I ran away from you, like a miserable sneak! I felt I was doing a
mean thing after I had started, but it was too late then!”

“It is never too late to mend, you know.”

“A fool said that! In my case, it is too late!”

Still he had said nothing of taking the money. Frank wondered at that.

“What made you follow me, Frank?” said Bart. “Why didn’t you let me go?
You have bothered with me enough. There is no reason why you should do
so any more. You must despise me now. Why did you follow me?”

“I thought I might overtake you in time to save you, but you fell into
the hands of those toughs, and they stripped you. You did not have coat,
hat, watch or money when I found you.”

“They didn’t get much money,” said Bart, “for I didn’t have much. My
watch was valuable, of course, but——”

“What became of the money you had?” asked Frank.

“Why, I didn’t have much,” said Bart, “though I put up a bluff with the
sports that I did. I took only twenty dollars, you know, and I left the
note telling you I had taken that. I thought that was not too much for
my work.”

Frank sat still some seconds, staring at Bart. Then he rose to his feet,
and the look on his face caused Hodge to rise to his elbow and cry:

“What is it? What is the matter, Merriwell?”

“Bart,” said Frank, slowly, “every dollar I had in that grip was gone
when I looked for it after your departure.”

That brought Hodge out of bed.

“Gone?” he gasped, in horror. “Gone? Why, how could that be?”

“I don’t know.”

“Frank—Frank, you don’t think I took that money? My God! you don’t think
I took it? I have fallen pretty low, but you don’t think I would rob
you—you who have been the only true friend I had in all the world? Why,
Merry, I’d starve—I’d suffer the tortures of hell before I’d do such a
thing!”

Frank did not doubt him then; he felt in his heart that Bart spoke the
truth. And Merry’s heart leaped with joy and triumph. Hodge was not
guilty!

Who was?

But Bart was completely “broken up” by what he had heard. Never had
Frank seen him look so overcome by horror.

“Merry, Merry!” he gasped, “did you think I had stolen your money? Was
that why you followed me?”

“No!” cried Frank. “That was not why I followed you, Hodge. I followed
because I hoped to overtake you and bring you back—because I wished to
save you from the consequences of your folly.”

“But you thought I had taken the money?”

“I hoped not.”

“Still, you thought I had! Oh, heavens! Frank, Frank, this is enough to
break a fellow’s heart!”

He dropped down on the bed, burying his face in his hands and shaking
all over.

Frank’s distress was great, but it was mingled with a feeling of
triumph.

“Bart,” he said, speaking swiftly, “I could not account for the loss of
the money. It was gone, and on the little table was your note, in which
you said you had taken enough to meet your needs. What was I to think?
It was your handwriting—I knew that. How could I account for the
disappearance of the money?”

“How can you account for it now?” groaned Hodge. “Frank, are you sure it
was gone—are you sure you made no mistake?”

“Yes, sure.”

“It doesn’t seem possible!” panted Hodge.

Then he caught sight of Frank’s grip, sprang for it, caught it up.

“Open it, Frank!” he cried—“open it and let me see! I shall not be
satisfied till I look!”

“It is no use,” said Merry. “The money is gone.”

“Open it!” Hodge shouted.

Frank did so. Bart tore out the contents. He sprang the fastening that
held the false bottom in and removed the bottom.

“Yes, gone!” he groaned, thrusting in his hand and feeling about. “But
as there is a God, I swear I did not take it! Do you believe me, Frank?”

“Yes, Bart, I believe you.”

“Thank Heaven!”

“More than that, I never did believe that you took it. My doubts caused
me to keep silent when I made the discovery. Not a single person knows I
lost the money.”

“You—you kept silent—for my sake?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, Frank, again you have shown yourself the noblest fellow in the
whole wide world. But I was not worth it! Oh, I am so ashamed of myself!
I am such a mean, degraded creature!”

“You are nothing of the sort, Bart. You are too quick and passionate,
and you have made a false step, but there is plenty of time to turn
back.”

“I’ll never rest till I bring the real robber to justice!” vowed Hodge.

Then he gave a sudden cry:

“What’s this?”

He took something out of the grip—a ring!

Frank snatched it from Bart’s fingers and looked at it. Then, with
remarkable coolness and a feeling of unspeakable satisfaction, he said:

“This is the evidence that will convict the real robber! Look at the
monogram on that ring—‘L. V.’”

“‘L. V.’ Why, that stands for——”

“Lester Vance!”

                  *       *       *       *       *

Frank and Bart returned to Atchison. Of course Merry provided Hodge with
a coat and hat. Fortunately, Bart had left his overcoat at a lodging
house where he had stopped, so that was not stolen from him.

As soon as possible Merriwell summoned Lester Vance to his room. Vance
came in, looking rather uneasy. Hodge was there.

“Mr. Vance,” said Frank, “have you found your ring which you lost
yesterday?”

“No, I have not,” confessed Lester.

“I have.”

“You?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Under the false bottom in my grip, where I used to keep my money!”

Lester was thunderstruck. He turned deathly white and trembled all over.

“Vance,” said Merriwell, his eyes seeming to flash fire, “you can save
yourself from disgrace, exposure and imprisonment by returning every
dollar of that money. Otherwise, you go to prison!”

Vance broke down immediately and confessed. He told how he had slipped
down to the office after Hodge and obtained the key to Frank’s room when
the clerk was not looking, and how he had been able to take the false
bottom out of the grip and secure the money. He restored the whole of
it, and left the company suddenly and mysteriously.

The various members of the company, with the exception of Frank and
Bart, believed Vance had departed thus hurriedly because of Hodge’s
return.

Frank did not betray Vance, and he caused Hodge to keep silent.




                              CHAPTER VII.
                             FOOLISH GIRLS.


“Say!”

“What?”

“It’s getting too thin!”

“What’s that?”

“The way mash letters are coming in.”

Bart Hodge smiled faintly.

“I should say it was getting too thick, Frank,” he said.

Frank looked at Bart quickly.

“You are coming all right!” he exclaimed, with satisfaction. “When you
can even crack a ghost of a joke like that it is a sign that you are
getting to be yourself again.”

“Haw!”

Ephraim Gallup uttered the exclamation. He was sitting near the window
of the room looking out into one of the principal streets of St. Joseph.

“Now, what is the matter with you, Ephraim?” Merry asked.

“B’gosh! I thought yeou hed more sense!” drawled the Vermonter.

“Sense? How?”

“Then ter think Hodge is gittin’ like hisself ’cause he tried to crack a
joke. It kainder seems ter me he’s gittin’ off his trolley. Did yeou
ever hear him crack a joke when he was all right?”

“Don’t know—I don’t remember about it,” confessed Frank, smiling.

“’Course ye don’t. I think it’s a mighty bad sign when Bart Hodge tries
ter joke. He must be sick!”

Hodge said nothing. He was sitting astride a chair, with his arms
resting on the back and his chin resting on his arms. He looked at
Ephraim grimly.

Frank was sitting by a table, opening the mail Ephraim had just brought
to him.

“True Blue” was playing a two nights engagement in St. Joseph, having
opened the previous night at the Crawford Theater. The house had been
packed, and the rattling college play went with a vim that electrified
the audience and created a sensation. The manager of the theater had
been delighted, and he lost no time in asking for a return date, which,
however, Merry was unable to give him, on account of the lateness of the
season and the route already booked.

Fortunately, Merriwell had been able to find a man to fill the place of
Lester Vance, who had been “released” so abruptly in Atchison.

To Merry’s surprise the night before, the opening night, several
handsome bouquets of flowers had been handed to him over the footlights,
and one had been thrown at his feet from a box. He saw the person who
threw the flowers, in acknowledgment of which he had bowed a bit and
smiled, and he observed that she was a decidedly handsome young woman.

To his further surprise, he afterward discovered a slip of paper
attached to the bouquet, and on the paper were written Portia’s words,
“If you do love me, you will find me out!”

Frank had looked on this as something of a joke, but now, on receiving
his morning mail, he was astonished to find in it no less than four
“mash notes.”

“It’s evident you have made a hit with the fair sex in this city,
Merry,” said Bart.

“He does that ev’rywhere, by gum!” grinned Ephraim; “but they don’t seem
quite so forrud in some places. I ruther guess he hit ’em harder than
usual here.”

“Here’s one that is a prize!” exclaimed Merry. “Poor girl! She should
take a course at a good grammar school.”

He handed the note over to Bart. This is what Hodge read:

                          “DEER MR. MERRYWALL.

  “DEER SUR: I seen you last night at the Theeatur, and i was Stuck on
  you right Hard, you Bet. you are All Right. I never seen Nobody cud
  touch you When it cums to Good axting. I am Only 17 year Old, but i
  haiv alwus Wanted to go ontew the stayge. i Would like to Play a
  Part like cassie Lee plays. i Do wisht you hed a Chanc for me in
  Your compny. you Are so handsum. oh i cud Love a Man Like you with
  all my Harte. I Will bee out side of The stayge Doar when you Go in
  to night. i have Golden hare, and ware a Red hat, with a White
  fether in it. You will kno Me by that.

                                                           “MAGGIE M.”

“Grammar school!” exclaimed Hodge, as he passed the note on to Ephraim.
“She should attend the primary! What a fool she must be!”

“Oh, I dunno!” grunted Ephraim. “She says Frank is all right. There
ain’t northin’ foolish abaout that.”

“It is likely the poor girl has had no opportunities,” said Merry. “I am
sorry for her.”

“Look out!” warned Hodge. “If you get up a feeling of sympathy for all
the females who write you mash notes you’ll be in hot water. Every
popular young actor has to dodge girls who want to steal him.”

“By thutter! I’ve notissed some of this comp’ny don’t do mutch dodgin’,”
grinned Gallup.

“What do you mean?” asked Frank.

“Waal, they have mashes in ev’ry place they go to.”

“But they do not bother with the girls who get mashed on them?”

“Don’t they!”

“Do they?”

“I guess yes!”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve got eyes.”

Frank frowned a little.

“I do not like to carry round men who will give my company the
reputation of being a lot of mashers,” he said, soberly. “Of course
there is such a thing as a ‘harmless flirtation,’ but the girl who
flirts with a strange actor is very foolish. She is playing with fire,
and there is great danger that she will be burned.”

“But you can’t stop it,” said Hodge. “I haven’t been on the road very
long, but I have found out that girls everywhere are ready to make fools
of themselves over any old thing that is an actor.”

“Why, you haven’t been flirting with them?”

“I rather think not! You know well enough, Merriwell, that I do not take
any stock in girls. All the same, I’ve never been in a place yet where I
could not have made the acquaintance of girls. Mind, I say girls—not a
girl.”

“It’s remarkable that intelligent girls should be so foolish.”

“Foolish is the word for it, Merriwell. And surely most of the girls
seem intelligent enough. Some of them are very pretty.”

“And those bright and pretty girls are willing to become acquainted
without an introduction with actors of whom they know absolutely
nothing! Strange.”

“By gum!” broke in Ephraim. “It does seem that they’ll take any old
thing they kin git ef it is an actor.”

Frank shook his head, looking very grave.

“How do they know but they are flirting with married men?”

“Some of um don’t seem to keer a rap.”

“Those must be bad girls, don’t you think, Ephraim?”

“I dunno. Some of um don’t seem so bad.”

“I asked that question to see what you thought about it. I, myself, do
not fancy they are bad—all of them. It is simply a case of folly. There
is a certain glamour about an actor that robes him with false
attractions for light-headed young girls. It makes the most commonplace
fellows seem like heroes. No. I do not think all girls who flirt with
actors are bad, but I do think they are foolish. It is quite likely they
would turn in scorn and repugnance from the very fellows who seem so
much like heroes to them could they know the truth about those same
heroes. When a theatrical company comes into a place, the girls will
turn in many cases from the respectable, honest young men whom they
know, and smile and flirt with the members of the company, who are utter
strangers to them. In this manner they often acquire undesirable
reputations without going to the extreme of doing anything seriously
bad. But when a girl injures her reputation in such a manner it is
pretty hard for her to win back the ground she has lost. She is regarded
with suspicion, she has become a theme of gossip and perhaps she is
startled to find that the young men she knows, who have always been
polite and respectful, have suddenly grown familiar and forward in their
manners toward her. She does not understand this, but she is entirely to
blame for it. It is but natural for a young man to think there is
something wrong about a girl who will flirt with a strange actor. It is
but natural for him to lose in a certain measure his respect for such a
girl and become free and easy in his treatment of her. He sees no reason
why he cannot be that way if she will laugh and talk with an actor—a man
of whom she knows absolutely nothing.”

Hodge nodded.

“It’s plain enough you have thought about this matter, Frank,” he said.

“I have,” declared Merry. “Since going on the road I have thought of it
a great deal, for you must know that I have seen how easy it is for a
traveling showman to make the acquaintance of pretty girls wherever he
goes. I don’t know that I have ever expressed myself on the subject
before.”

“Yeou ain’t much of a hand to talk abaout gals,” said Ephraim.

“No, I do not like to say anything about them unless I can say something
pleasant. I think girls are the fairest creatures in all the world, but
they have their faults, the same as other fair things.”

Hodge smiled sarcastically.

“They’re all faults!” he declared. “I have grown disgusted with them.”

“Oh, you’re a pessimist!” said Frank. “You are too extreme. But I really
wish there was some way to warn the young girls of the country against
the folly of flirting with traveling actors.”

“There is no way.”

“I am afraid not. They will continue to flirt, as they have in the past,
and no end of sorrow and shame will come from it.”

“Some gals do it,” said Ephraim, “because they think they kin hev some
fun that way without goin’ too fur.”

“When the first false step is taken no human being can tell where it may
lead.”

Hodge nodded. In his heart he knew Frank Merriwell spoke the truth.

“Any girl must know she will be seen by people who know her in case she
flirts with a strange actor,” Frank continued. “What does she suppose
will be thought of her! If she does not think enough of herself to
refrain from such dangerous amusement, she should pause to consider what
others may think of her. The story will pass from mouth to mouth; it may
be elaborated. Perhaps she has passed in good society in her home. Of a
sudden she notices that some of her former girl friends are a trifle
frigid toward her. Then it is possible some little social event takes
place and she received no invitation. She feels hurt and mortified. She
may not suspect the truth, and so she goes on doing the very things that
have led to her unpleasant situation. Or she may suspect it and say, in
anger, that she has done nothing wrong, and so in absolute defiance
keeps on as she has begun. In both cases she finds herself dropped from
her social circle, and she is forced to seek friends elsewhere. She
feels this keenly, but it may make her all the more desperate and
defiant, so that she carries her flirtations with strangers further than
she otherwise would. In her anger and desperation she may grow very
reckless, which may lead to her utter shame and disgrace.”

“Darn it, Frank!” cried Ephraim, “ef the gals could hear yeou talk, I
ruther guess they’d be keerful. But they can’t hear ye, so haow be yeou
goin’ to do um any good?”

“I have thought of writing a play about it, or a book. If I wrote a
book, it should be a novel and its title should be, ‘Harmless
Flirting.’”

“You would waste your time, Merriwell,” said Hodge. “Your book would not
be read by the ones for whom you wrote it. Such light-headed girls
seldom read anything.”

“I am afraid you are right,” confessed Merry. “I am afraid girls will go
on flirting with actors and strangers to their own sorrow and remorse.”

Frank picked up one of the letters from the table.

“Now here is something from a girl for whom I am sorry,” he said.

He read it aloud:

  “DEAR MR. MERRIWELL: I suppose you will think me very foolish to
  write to you, but I saw you in your beautiful play ‘True Blue,’ last
  night, and I was perfectly charmed. It is a lovely play, and you act
  the part of _Dick Trueheart_ in a just perfectly splendid manner. My
  brother Tommy says you are a real Yale college man, and that you are
  just a peach. Tommy is fourteen. I am sixteen, but I’m real large
  for my age, so almost everybody thinks I am eighteen. I am going to
  see you again to-night. I wish I knew you. I think you must be
  awfully nice. I think actors are lovely, but papa says they are no
  good. He is a cross old patch. My mother is dead. I hope to go on
  the stage sometime and become a great actress, and wear diamonds and
  have flowers passed me over the footlights. I inclose a knot of blue
  and white ribbon. If you will wear it on your baseball uniform
  to-night I shall know you would like to become acquainted with me,
  and I will find a way to let you know my address before you leave
  St. Joseph. Oh, I do hope you will wear it! From your sincere
  admirer,

                                                               “DORA.”

“Waal, by gum! she’s hit hard!” grinned Ephraim.

“She’s another little fool!” sneered Hodge.

“Now, I am sorry for Dora,” declared Frank. “Her little head is full of
false notions, and she is very liable to make a big mistake on that very
account. I wish I might warn Dora.”

“You can by wearing that knot of ribbon and becoming acquainted with
her.”

“That is the very thing I will not do. I do not believe in becoming
acquainted in such a manner.”

“Then yeou ain’t goin’ to wear the ribbon?” asked Ephraim.

“Certainly not!”

“B’gosh! yeou’d better let me wear it!”

Frank looked at the Vermont youth in surprise.

“You, Ephraim?” he cried. “What’s struck you? It doesn’t seem that my
talk of a few minutes ago impressed you much.”

“Oh, I’m only jokin’,” protested Gallup, sheepishly.

Frank picked up another letter.

“Now, here is one that makes me weary!” he said, with a show of
repugnance. “Listen:

  “‘MR. FRANK MERRIWELL.

  “‘DEAR OLD CHAPPIE: If you want to become acquainted with a jolly
  girl, meet me to-morrow at 2 P. M. in front of the theater. You will
  know me by the white pinks I will wear. Don’t be afraid to catch on.

                                                            “‘DAISY.’”

“She must be gay, by jee!” gasped Ephraim.

“Bah!” cried Frank, tearing up the letter and flinging it down.

He took another from the table.

“Here,” he said, “is the most foolish one of the lot, for it is from a
person who should know better.”

“How do you know whom it is from?” asked Hodge.

“I saw her last night. She was the one who flung the flowers from the
box.”

“I noticed her. A stunning woman.”

“Yes, a handsome woman, twenty-five years old, at least. Listen to this:

           “‘If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully;
           Or if thou think’st I am too quickly won,
           I’ll frown and be perverse, and say thee nay,
           So thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world.

           I should have been more strange, I must confess,
           But that thou overheard’st, ere I was ’ware,
           My true love’s passion; therefore pardon me;
           And not impute this yielding to light love.

           And all my fortune at thy foot I’ll lay,
           And follow thee, my lord, throughout the world.’”

“Great ginger!” gasped Ephraim. “Did a female woman write that stuff to
yeou, Frank?”

“That is not all,” said Merry. “She has ended, like the others, by
trying to make an appointment with me.”

“It seems to be getting pretty hot, Frank,” said Bart.

“Too hot,” declared Merry, plainly annoyed. “I don’t like it at all.”

“Most actors would like it. They would be in their glory.”

“Then I am glad I’m not like most actors.”

“Yeou alwus was pop’ler with the ladies,” grinned the Vermont youth.

“I don’t mind being popular with the ladies, but I do not fancy this
kind of popularity.”

“You’d never do for a matinée hero,” said Hodge. “I have heard that they
are deluged with mash notes. It gets to be a common thing with them, and
they don’t mind it at all.”

“I don’t like to see such a display of weakness on the part of human
beings. Now, what does this woman who has quoted _Juliet_ to me know
about me?”

“As much as you know about her.”

“And she has taken chances of becoming a laughingstock and object of
ridicule by writing me such stuff. For all she knows, I may be married.”

“And, for all you know, she may be married.”

“I do not believe that is possible. No married woman would write such a
letter.”

“Wouldn’t? Oh, I don’t know! Some of them are inclined to be rather
gay.”

“If this one is married, she must be crazy.”

There came a knock on the door.

“Come,” Merry called.

The door opened, and a bell boy stood there.




                             CHAPTER VIII.
                       AN EMBARRASSING SITUATION.


“There is a lady in the parlor who wishes to see Mr. Merriwell,” said
the boy.

“A lady?” exclaimed Frank, with a start.

“Yes, sir.”

“Did she send up a card?”

“No, sir.”

“Nor give you her name?”

“No, sir.”

“I’ll be down directly.”

The boy bowed, closed the door and departed.

Ephraim was chuckling.

“Gol-durned ef they ain’t comin’ to see yeou, Frank!” he exclaimed.

“Nonsense!” cried Merry. “This is not one of them.”

“Then who is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“It might be one of them,” said Hodge, rather maliciously.

“Nonsense!” exclaimed Merry, but it was plain he did not fancy the idea.
“No one but a crazy female would think of doing such an immodest thing.”

“From what you have said, it’s plain you think some females do get a
little daffy over actors.”

“Whut ef it is one?” asked Ephraim, still chuckling. “Whut will yeou do,
Frank?”

“I’ll give her a little advice!” exclaimed Merry, as he prepared to go.
“I shall talk plainly to her. But it may be some actress who is out of
an engagement and wants a position.”

He went out, leaving Bart and Ephraim in the room. Frank was not in the
most agreeable mood possible, for he had been annoyed by the letters.

He made his way straight to the ladies’ parlor. In a corner a woman was
sitting. No other person happened to be in the parlor at the moment when
Frank entered.

As Frank came in, the woman rose quickly and came toward him. He paused
when he saw her face fairly.

“Great Scott!” was his mental exclamation. “It is the one who threw the
flowers from the box!”

The woman was handsomely dressed, and she showed some signs of
agitation. Frank surveyed her quickly. He saw at a glance that she was a
person who seemed more attractive at a distance than on closer view.
Still she was of the type that most men might call handsome. There was a
look of mingled boldness and hesitation about her that was rather
bewildering.

Her voice was not unpleasant.

“Mr. Merriwell!” she exclaimed.

“You wish to see me, madam?” said Merry, rather frigidly.

“Yes, yes!” she exclaimed.

“I am here.”

There was nothing in Frank’s manner to encourage familiarity.

“You—you—don’t you recognize me?”

The situation was far from agreeable to him, and he resolved to
discourage her at the very start.

“I have not had the honor of being presented to you,” he said, with a
faint bow.

She made an impatient gesture.

“But you recognize me? I threw you flowers—from the box. There—there—was
a—a note attached.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes, yes.”

“Madam, permit me to tell you it was very foolish for you to write a
note to an utter stranger.”

“But you—you did not seem like a stranger. You—why, it seemed that I had
known you always!”

She half extended her hand, as if to rest it on his arm, but he drew
back. A shadow came over her face, and a look of pain seemed to leap
into her large dark eyes. Very expressive eyes they were. At first they
had seemed full of innocence, but somehow there was something uncertain
and shifty about them—something that gave their wide-open innocence the
lie.

“Yes,” said Frank, regretting the necessity of speaking thus, yet
feeling that he must, “it was very rash of you. You could know nothing
of me. For all you knew I might be a rascal.”

“Oh, no, no, no!” she cried. “I knew you were not that! A rascal could
not play the part of _Dick Trueheart_ and make it so natural—so noble. I
knew you had a good and noble heart. I knew you were the one man in all
the wide world whom I could love!”

It was becoming more embarrassing for Merry. Somehow, there was a
mingled timidity and unspeakable boldness about the woman that mystified
him not a little. He wondered if she could be just right, mentally.

“Madam,” he said, “will you tell me at once what you want of me. My time
is limited.”

“Now, don’t speak to me like that!” she almost sobbed. “It hurts
me—here!”

One hand fluttered up to her heart.

“Well, this is a nice mess!” thought Merriwell. “What can I do with
her?”

He did not like to run away; it did not seem dignified.

“As I watched you last night,” she went on, swiftly, “I became more and
more infatuated. When the curtain fell on the third act I was completely
carried away. I knew I had found the hero of my life’s dream. I did not
know you. We had never met before. I knew of no manner of obtaining an
introduction. Then it was I resolved to fling conventionality to the
wind, and I hastily wrote a single line on a slip of paper, which I
attached to the flowers I carried. Then, when you were called before the
curtain, I flung the flowers at your feet. You picked them up—oh,
bliss!—and bowed and smiled upon me!”

She seemed trembling with the great excitement that governed her. The
embarrassment of Frank’s position increased.

“Hang it!” he thought. “I wish I had let those flowers alone!”

“I went home,” the young woman continued. “And all last night I dreamed
of you, over and over and over. They were happy dreams. Ah, I was so
sorry when the light of morning came in at my window and drove away my
dreams by robbing me of sleep. I tried to sleep and dream some more.”

“Well, she’s got it bad!” Merry mentally exclaimed. “I’m afraid I’ll
have trouble with this case. I wonder if insanity runs in her family.
She’s old enough to know better, so she must be cracked.”

“At last,” the panting woman continued, leaning toward him, “I arose,
and I made a desperate resolve to meet you somehow—anyhow. Then I wrote
to you in the words of _Juliet_, which seemed to express my feelings so
well. Did you receive my letter?”

“Yes,” confessed Frank.

Her face lighted up.

“Ah,” she sighed, “I wonder if you understood—I wonder if you knew how
sincere I was! Oh, I could not write you everything, and I longed to so
much, but I knew you would not understand. As it was, I had to find a
moment when my husband did not see me, for he——”

“Your husband?” grasped Merry, thunderstruck.

“Yes; he is so suspicious—so jealous and cruel!”

“Great heavens! madam, are you married?”

“I am. I was married when I was sixteen—to a man I hate! Oh, you cannot
know the horror of being bound to a person you hate! It is dreadful!”

Now, Merry was beginning to grow indignant.

“And you, a married woman, are seeking a flirtation with a stranger—an
actor? Madam, your folly is astonishing!”

“Don’t—don’t speak to me like that!” she pleaded, tears seeming to
spring to her eyes. “I am not seeking a flirtation! I am seeking to know
my ideal. You—you are my ideal!”

“It is the height of folly and rashness!” exclaimed Frank, severely.
“Madam, if you have no thought for yourself, you should have some regard
for me! Think of the position in which you are placing me!”

“But if you care for me—if you love me——”

“I do not!”

Once more her hand fluttered up to her heart.

“That is because you do not know me,” she declared. “If you knew me—if
you knew all about my terrible position, tied to this man I hate, you
would have sympathy for me.”

“Even though you are bound to a man you hate, you are doing a most
unwise thing in seeking consolation from a stranger and an actor. You
can know nothing of me. Take my advice, madam, release yourself from
this man you hate before you seek to win the affections of any other
man. If you do not, you will succeed in winning nothing but the disdain
of any man worth winning.”

Again the tears brimmed in her eyes.

“Oh, how can you speak to me like that!” she cried. “It is cruel of
you!”

“In this case, cruelty may be kindness. You have placed me in a most
awkward situation, madam. If you have as much regard for me as you
claim, it hardly seems that you would do such a thing.”

“Oh, what can a woman do when her heart governs her in her every act! I
felt that I must meet you, and there was no other way for me to do so. I
could not let you go without knowing you—without seeking a few words of
consolation from you.”

“I am very sorry for you, but you should let your head govern your
heart. I trust you will excuse me, madam. This interview is anything but
pleasant for me.”

He half turned away, but she uttered a cry that stopped him. She seemed
on the point of flinging herself at his feet.

“Great Scott!” gasped Merry. “I hope she isn’t going to make a scene of
that sort! It would be too much!”

“Don’t—don’t leave me just yet!” she entreated.

“I must,” he firmly answered.

“Stop!” she exclaimed, her eyes beginning to flash. “You cannot scorn
me—you shall not! I have cast my pride aside, and I have exposed myself
to your ridicule—all for what?”

“Nothing.”

The word seemed like a blow. For a moment he fancied she was about to
pour a torrent of angry words upon him, but something entirely different
happened. With a low, queer cry, she sprang forward, attempting to fling
her arms about his neck!

“I love you!” she panted.

He grasped her wrists and held her off.

“You are crazy!” he exclaimed.

At that instant a flushed and furious-looking man burst into the parlor,
carrying a revolver in his hand.

“Villain!” cried the man. “That is my wife!”

“Well, this is jolly!” muttered Merry, wheeling to face the newcomer.

“Reginald!” burst from the lips of the woman.

The man paid no attention to her, but he glared at Merry in a murderous
manner, shaking the revolver.

“Wretch!” he snarled.

He was a man about thirty years of age, well dressed, but somewhat
dissipated in appearance. He seemed wrought up to a pitch of great fury.

“My dear sir,” said Merry, with the utmost coolness, “you had better be
careful with that revolver.”

“Be careful!” grated the angry husband. “I’ll be careful with it! I’ll
fill you full of lead!”

“Now, I wouldn’t do that. You might be sorry for it afterward.”

“What were you doing with my wife?”

“Giving her a little advice, that’s all.”

“I know better! I know what I saw with my own eyes! I tracked her here!
I knew she flung flowers to you last night! I knew she wrote to you this
morning!”

“If a lady sees fit to fling flowers to me, I can’t help it. If she
writes to me, I can’t prevent that”

“Then you acknowledge it! That is enough! Now I will shoot you!”

“Reginald!” the woman again cried. “Heavens, he will shoot!”

As the man lifted the revolver Frank leaped to one side and sprang
forward. In a twinkling he had grasped the weapon. There was a short,
sharp struggle, and the young actor leaped away, with the weapon in his
hand.

“I think I have stood about enough of this nonsense!” he said, sternly.

The man seemed astounded by the easy manner in which he was disarmed,
but he made a motion as if thinking of following Frank up.

“Don’t do it!” advised Merry. “The limit has been reached! I did not
seek the acquaintance of your wife, and——”

He caught a look from the trembling woman, and he was puzzled by it.
There seemed disappointment and appeal in her eyes. Instantly Merry
wondered what he could say to shield her. It seemed strange that she did
not faint or go into hysterics at the sight of her husband, but still
there was an expression of terror on her face that made Frank pity her.

“Poor, weak thing!” thought Merry. “There is no telling what may be the
result of this for her.”

Then he swiftly said:

“The lady was pleased with my play and my acting. She came here to tell
me so. It is possible she has contemplated becoming an actress herself.
She may have come to me for that reason. If so, I advise her to give up
all thoughts of going on the stage.”

It was lame enough, but it was the best he could do under the
circumstances without lying direct. Frank hated a liar, and yet he
realized there were times when a man’s gallantry to a woman would force
him to deviate from the direct truth. Such a “deviation” did not seem
like a genuine lie.

“Bah!” cried the man, scornfully. “Don’t think you can make me believe
such rot as that! I know better!”

“You are at liberty to believe it or not, just as you like, sir,” said
Merry. “But I have stood quite enough nonsense.”

“Oh, you have? And you enticed my wife here to meet you!”

“I did nothing of the kind, sir. Your wife came here entirely of her own
accord, without enticement of any kind from me.”

“Oh, I know better! You can’t make me believe it was because she was
interested in your play. She’ll not dare say that. Tell the truth
woman—why did you come here?”

She threw back her head, and then a strange, defiant laugh burst from
her lips.

“Very well, sir,” she sneered. “I will tell the truth.”

“Go on, go on! Why did you come here, madam?”

“I came because I wished to meet Frank Merriwell.”

“Ha! You confess it?”

“Yes, I confess it!”

“Ah-a!”

“I admire him—I love him!” declared the woman.

“Ah-a!” again burst from the lips of her husband.

“He is my ideal.”

“You hear that, sir!”

Frank heard it, and he realized that his efforts to shield her had been
worse than useless.

“As for you,” she went on, giving her husband a scornful look. “I
thought I loved you once—till I saw Frank Merriwell. Now—now I despise
you!”

“By Jove! this is getting hot again!” thought Merry. “What fools some
women are!”

The man ground his teeth together and walked the floor. He threw his hat
aside and tore his hair.

“I knew it!” he panted. “This cheap actor has won your heart! He has
alienated your affections from me!”

“Don’t dare call him a cheap actor!” she exclaimed, haughtily. “He is
grand and noble!”

“I must make a noble picture just now,” thought Frank, in deep disgust.

The words of the woman seemed to throw the man into still greater fury,
and it appears that he was about to attack her.

“I’ll have to defend her if he does,” Frank mentally decided.

“Woman, woman!” panted the furious husband, glaring at her. “Is this
what you have come to!”

“It is,” she returned, defiantly. “What are you going to do about it?”

“I’ll kill you—I’ll kill you both!”

“A man who threatens that way seldom carries out his threats,” was
Merry’s consoling thought.

“Go ahead,” defied the woman. “I rather think Frank Merriwell can
protect me.”

“Protect you! I am the one to protect you! And you have turned to this
common actor!”

“‘Cheap actor!’ ‘Common actor!’” muttered Merry. “This is real jolly!”

“You protect me!” sneered the woman. “I am done with you! I shall leave
you forever!”

“And this wretch has caused it all. You cannot deny that!”

“I do not wish to deny it. Ever since his eyes met mine, I have felt
myself drawn to him by an irresistible influence.”

“He has hypnotized you! Oh, he shall pay dearly for this!”

The husband shook his fist at Frank.

“He has won my heart, and I can never be anything to you again,” laughed
the reckless woman.

“Oh, you scoundrel!” shouted the man. “You have ruined my happiness! I
swear you shall pay for it!”

“I think I have stood quite enough of this!” Merry broke out. “I deny
that I have interfered with you in any way.”

“How can you deny it—liar?”

“If you dare use such language again, I’ll be tempted to give you the
thrashing you seem to desire, sir!” flashed Frank. “I am very sorry this
unfortunate affair has taken place, but I declare it is in no way my
fault. At first I was inclined to protect this lady, but she has seen
fit to make that impossible, and now I feel at liberty to tell the whole
truth.”

“Tell it! tell it—if you dare!”

“I will, in a very few words. I confess that your wife threw me flowers
from a box last night, and she came here to meet me to-day.”

“Then there was an appointment?”

“No! I did not know she was coming. She did not send up her card, but
the boy said a lady wished to see me in the parlor. I believe every man
should be as gallant to ladies as circumstances will permit.”

“Oh, yes!” sneered the husband, his lips curling.

“I came down to see what the lady desired. Your wife was here. I was in
no way responsible for what followed, but I assure you that she received
no encouragement from me.”

“What did I see as I entered this room?” demanded the man.

“You saw me preventing her from clasping her arms about my neck. I had
just told her how foolish she was, but she would not be rebuffed.”

“Liar!” panted the husband, seeming to become still more furious. “Do
you dare accuse my wife of such immodesty! Do you dare charge her with
following you without encouragement! She would not do such a thing. You
are trying to shield yourself behind a woman, you cowardly young——”

“Stop!” exploded Frank, stepping forward. “I have stood quite enough of
this from you! I am sorry for you, but I am not willing to be called all
sorts of vile names. Your wife forced me to tell the truth and the whole
truth. I do not fancy lying, but I might have stretched the truth to
protect her if she had given me any chance. She gave me no chance. She
came here of her own accord, without encouragement from me, and——”

“Oh, you shall pay for every word you speak! You dare thus traduce my
wife, you——”

“Stop again! I have seen quite enough of both you and your wife. I trust
you will be good enough to take her away. She is not the only one to
write me mash notes, and——”

Again the husband interrupted:

“So you boast of your conquests! You are a gallant young blade! But you
are like all actors, a poor, miserable——”

“You are like all jealous husbands—you have not a particle of sense in
your head. You are decidedly exasperating, sir. Be kind enough to take
your wife and go!”

“I will not go with him!” panted the woman, suddenly rushing on Frank
and clasping him about the neck. “I will stay with you! You are the one
I love!”




                              CHAPTER IX.
                               UNMASKED!


At this moment another man stepped into the parlor. He wore a long
overcoat and his features were hidden by a full beard.

“Ha!” shouted the husband, triumphantly, rushing at this man and
catching him by the arm, while he pointed toward Merry and the woman.
“Look there! See! I want you for a witness in this matter, Mr. Davis!
There is my wife with this wretch of an actor who has enticed her here!
Do you see—do you see?”

The other nodded.

“Yes, I see,” he said in a muffled voice.

“Don’t forget it, Davis! I shall want your testimony in court.”

“I’ll not forget it.”

By this time Merry had succeeded in putting the woman aside again, and
now he was thoroughly exasperated.

“It is plain you are determined to get me into a fine mess!” he
exclaimed.

“Take me away with you! He will kill me if you don’t!”

“Madam, you have passed the limit! I think you should be in an insane
asylum.”

“Oh, you are cruel!”

“Well, I feel a trifle that way!” confessed Merry.

Then he started toward the two men, but they turned toward the door, the
husband crying:

“I’ll have him arrested!”

“Wait!” cried Frank.

“No! I am going for an officer!”

But Bart Hodge appeared in the door, saying, grimly:

“Don’t be in a rush, gentlemen. Mr. Merriwell wishes to talk with you a
little.”

“Stand aside!” snarled the husband, with a threatening gesture.

“I wish you would try that little trick!” flared Hodge, his face
flushing suddenly. “I believe I’d enjoy a good scrap. I haven’t taken a
hand in one for so long that it would be a satisfaction.”

“Let us pass!” growled the man with the full beard and the muffled
voice.

“That’s what they say in melodrama,” observed Hodge, with grim humor.
“‘Unhand me, villain!’ and ‘Let me pass!’ are stock phrases. There is no
copyright on them, so you may use them whenever you like.”

Merry was somewhat surprised by Bart’s cool manner, but he knew there
was a slumbering volcano beneath all that coolness.

“Rush on him!” came hoarsely from the bearded man.

“Yes, do!” urged Hodge, putting up his hands. “I’ll manage to get a pop
at you both, I fancy.”

They hesitated.

“Hold them, Hodge,” directed Frank. “I have something to say to them.”

“What’s up, Frank?”

“I believe there is a game on,” answered Merry.

“A game?”

“Yes.”

“What sort?”

“Blackmail!”

The woman uttered a scream, and something like an oath came from the man
who had professed to be her husband.

“This is interesting!” exclaimed Hodge. “Then it appears that I happened
on the scene just in time.”

“You did.”

“They’ll not get out.”

“We will!” growled the man called Davis. “Come on, Seely!”

“I’m ready!”

“Waal, Bart, if yeou can’t hold the ’darn critters alone, I ruther guess
we kin both do it,” drawled a voice, and Ephraim Gallup appeared to
reënforce Hodge.

The men uttered exclamations of disappointment, alarm and disgust.

Frank Merriwell laughed shortly.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I wouldn’t hurry away. Just wait a while, and we
will settle this little matter.”

He advanced on them, scanning Davis closely.

“I believe I have seen you before,” he said.

“Never,” answered the bewhiskered man, seeming anxious to get out of the
room. “I do not know you.”

“Why don’t you speak in your natural tone?” asked Merry, sweetly. “You
will injure your voice trying to disguise it by growling like that.”

“You go to blazes!”

“Thank you for the invitation, but I have found things quite hot enough
right here to suit me. Now, if the tables should be turned, and you were
to find it rather warm, it would be no more than fair.”

Both men seemed anxious, but the professed husband attempted to bluster
again. His anger seemed artificial, however, and he did not impress
anyone.

“Acts like a rooster with his tail feathers yanked out,” grinned Gallup.
“He’s mighty mad over it, but the feathers are gone jest the same.”

Hodge had his lips pressed together, and he looked ready for anything
that might happen.

A few words passed between the two men. It was plain they contemplated
rushing on Bart and Ephraim in order to break from the room.

Frank strode forward quickly and grasped the bewhiskered man by the
shoulder, saying:

“Let me have a fair look at you, sir.”

The fellow turned with a snarl, striking hard at Merriwell’s face.

Frank ducked, thus avoiding the blow. A second later, he caught hold of
the fellow’s whiskers, gave a yank, and off they came in his hand.

They were false!

The man’s face was revealed.

“Lester Vance!” cried Frank, triumphantly.

It was a complete unmasking. The face of the rascally actor who had been
“released,” on account of his crooked work in Atchison, was exposed by
the sudden tearing away of the false beard.

“Great gosh!” gurgled Ephraim.

Hodge said nothing, but he glared at Vance with a look of deepest
hatred.

Vance himself seemed stricken dumb.

The woman dropped down on a chair, and her “husband” stood and uttered
some words which would not look well in print.

Frank Merriwell laughed chillingly.

“A very pretty little game!” he commented, sarcastically; “but it is all
up now. It didn’t work.”

“It was no game!” snarled the man called Reginald by the woman. “You
can’t get out of it so easy!”

“You will be lucky if you get out of it short of six years,” said Hodge.
“The law is rather severe on blackmailers.”

“And on thieves,” put in Ephraim, who had learned of Lester Vance’s
crooked work. “They make a purty good pair, by gum!”

“Vance,” said Merriwell, “you were foolish not to take my advice and get
as far away from us as possible.”

Vance muttered something.

“But you were doubly foolish,” Merry went on, “to come here in such a
slim disguise to aid in this miserable attempt to blackmail me. I have
been an actor too long not to tumble to false whiskers when I see them.”

“Take my advice, Merriwell,” cried Hodge, “land that snake in prison!
You can afford the time to get such a rascal out of the way.”

Vance was very pale, and showed agitation and fear.

“That’s right, by gum!” nodded Ephraim. “He is a snake, an’ I’d shove
him naow.”

Vance exchanged looks with the other rascal. It was plain both men were
confounded by the turn affairs had taken. But the one who claimed to be
the woman’s husband had obtained another revolver, and, of a sudden, he
pointed it at Frank Merriwell, crying:

“At least, I’ll shoot the villain who has trifled with my wife!”

Not one of the young actors was near enough to prevent him from shooting
if he wished, but Merry instantly faced him, looking straight into his
eyes over the top of the revolver, and calmly saying:

“You are a good bluffer, sir, but you haven’t the least idea of shooting
anybody.”

And then he walked straight up to the man, took hold of his hand and
pushed the revolver aside.

“Give it to him!” exclaimed Gallup. “I don’t want no darn fool p’intin’
pistols at me, by thutteration!”

The fellow made a sudden attempt to spring backward with the revolver.
He had been dazed by Merriwell’s calmness and audacity, but now he
resorted to action. He realized that the young actor fully fathomed him,
and it stung him to madness to think that his bluff had been “called” in
such a prompt manner.

Frank, however, had taken hold of the weapon, and, with a sudden twist,
he jerked it from the hand of the man, disarming the fellow in a
twinkling.

The eyes of Hodge glittered with satisfaction. This was Merriwell in his
old form. Not a whit of his nerve had Frank lost since the more exciting
days at Yale, on the diamond, the gridiron, in the cane rushes and
college bouts.

Having the revolver in his hand, Frank snapped it open, and then he
burst out laughing.

“Empty!”

With that word, he flung it at the man’s feet.

“Waal, I be darned!” gasped Gallup, and then he roared with laughter.

This laughing seemed to infuriate the one who claimed to be the husband.

“Curse you!” he snarled, catching up the revolver. “It won’t take long
to load it!”

He plunged a hand into his pocket, as if reaching for cartridges.

“I wouldn’t advise you to load it, sir,” said Merry, placidly. “It will
go harder with you if you are found with a loaded weapon when the
officer comes.”

“The officer?”

“Yes. Hodge, call a boy and send out for a policeman.”

“Then you mean——”

“Business!” finished Frank, grimly. “I don’t like blackmailers, and I
think they are dangerous, so I fancy I’ll have you put away for
safe-keeping.”

“That’s right!” cried Hodge, with intense satisfaction.

The woman began to weep.

Lester Vance looked around, as if in search of some avenue of escape. At
last he realized that he was in a very bad scrape, and he longed to be
well out of it.

All at once, with a wild cry, the woman sprang up, rushed at Frank,
clasped him about the neck and began to scream. Shriek after shriek came
from her lips.

Merry attempted to put her away, but she clung to him in a frantic
manner, continuing to scream.

Her wild cries brought bell boys, porter, clerk, guests and others
rushing onto the scene, and crowding into the parlor. There were some
moments of general confusion, a struggle near the door, and then the
woman seemed to swoon and slip to the floor.

Of course Merry was questioned, of course he was regarded with
suspicion. A pompous man demanded to know the meaning of it, looking
accusingly and scornfully at Merry.

In a very few words, Frank explained that an attempt at blackmail had
been made, but when he looked round to point out the two men concerned
in the crooked work, he found they had slipped away in the general
confusion.

“Gol-darned if I noticed when they got aout!” exclaimed Gallup, in
chagrin. “I was so upset by the howlin’ of that air woman that I never
saw nothin’ else.”

“Where’s Hodge?” demanded Frank.

“Here,” said Bart, coming forward, and Merriwell saw that he also looked
crestfallen.

“Where are those men?”

“I tried to hold Vance,” answered Hodge, “but some men seemed to think I
was trying to murder him, and they parted us, giving him a chance to get
away.”

“Gentlemen,” said Merriwell, speaking to the assembled crowd, “I
think you see how it is. The scoundrels have taken to their heels,
leaving this unfortunate woman here to get out of it as best she
can. The way they ran must convince you that they are just what I
claimed—blackmailers.”

The woman showed signs of reviving. A gallant man assisted her to rise,
and she quickly dropped down on the sofa, seeming weak and faint. As she
was rather handsome, the man, like men, began to say there must be some
mistake, as it was not possible she had been concerned in an attempt at
blackmail.

Frank listened to them with a faint smile on his face.

“They make me sick!” growled Hodge. “If she were old and plain, they
wouldn’t take so much interest in her.”

Of a sudden, the woman sprang up, her eyes flashing, her cheeks flushed.

“Let me pass!” she exclaimed, dramatically.

“The same old melodrama line!” murmured Merry, seeming indifferent in
regard to the woman.

“Are you going to let her go?” hissed Hodge.

“Yes.”

“Don’t do it, Frank!”

“Yes.”

“You are foolish! You——”

“Wait, Bart; we’ll talk of this later.”

“And she will get away.”

Hodge seemed inclined to make an attempt to stop the woman, but
Merriwell restrained him, to his deep disgust.

Out of the room walked the woman, and she hurried straight from the
hotel.

“The show is over, gentlemen,” laughed Frank. “I trust you have received
your money’s worth.”

Then he bade Hodge and Gallup follow, and left the parlor.




                               CHAPTER X.
                            MORE ADVENTURES.


Bart followed Merry to his room, and Ephraim trailed along behind. When
they were in the room, Merry fell to laughing. Hodge flung himself down
on a chair, looking sullen and sour, upon which Frank laughed the
harder.

Ephraim sat on the edge of the bed and grinned, but seemed to be in
doubt whether he had better laugh or not.

“Come, come, Hodge!” cried Merry. “What’s the use to look that way? It’s
all over now.”

Hodge growled something under his breath.

“I should think yeou’d be hoppin’ mad yourself, Frank,” said Ephraim.

“Oh, he laughs at everything!” exploded Bart. “He says I have no sense
of humor. Well, I am glad I haven’t if he sees anything funny about this
business!”

“Certainly I do see something funny about it,” asserted Merry.

“What is it?”

“The idea of anybody attempting to blackmail an actor—a traveling
showman. It is enough to make a horse laugh. I doubt if such a
remarkable thing ever happened before.”

Ephraim began to see the affair from Frank’s viewpoint, and his grin
broadened with great rapidity.

“By gum!” he cried. “I never thought of that! I guess folks wouldn’t
b’lieve it ef yeou was to tell um.”

“Still I fail to see what there is laughable about it,” snapped Bart.
“The fellow knew you had money—Vance told him that.”

“Without doubt.”

“And he knew you were young. He fancied you would be easy game. Where is
there anything funny about it?”

“I am an actor.”

“But you are a dead easy thing!” declared Bart. “Think of letting that
woman go in such a manner!”

“Now, Hodge,” said Frank, with more seriousness, “after I have talked to
you a bit, I rather fancy I can make you acknowledge that was the most
sensible thing to do.”

“Oh, no, you can’t! You’re forever doing things like that!”

“You know I was in earnest about giving Vance and the other rascal their
dues. You know that, Bart.”

“Well, it was a surprise to me.”

“Still you know it, don’t you?”

“You seemed to be ready.”

“Exactly. It was not my fault that they escaped.”

Bart flushed and looked uncomfortable.

“I suppose it was my fault?” he cried, almost resentfully.

“I did not mean that. I do not blame you, Hodge.”

“I thought you did. I’d held onto Vance if those fool men hadn’t
interfered. They gave him his chance, and he took it.”

“Waal,” drawled Ephraim, sheepishly. “I own right up, b’gosh! that I was
so ’tarnally flustered when that woman began to yoop her up that I
didn’t notice nothin’ till the men hed got erway.”

“Which was exactly what the woman wanted,” said Merriwell. “She grabbed
me and screamed like that in order to give the men a chance to skip.
They took the chance.”

“Which shows she was just as bad as the men,” said Bart.

“I haven’t a doubt of it,” nodded Frank.

“But you let her get away! Oh, it’s like you!”

“Hodge, do you remember what you said when those men in the parlor were
declaring the woman was too refined-looking to be engaged in a
blackmailing scheme?”

“Yes. I said they made me sick.”

“That was it. You also said that were she plain and old they would not
make such a fuss over her.”

“Yes.”

“Well, old man, at that moment I realized how little chance there was of
convicting that woman of blackmail were she arrested. Do you suppose a
jury of twelve men would have agreed to convict a young and handsome
woman like that?”

Hodge was silent.

“Answer!” exclaimed Frank. “Do you suppose that woman could have been
convicted?”

“I doubt it,” admitted Bart.

“That was the very reason I was willing to let her go. I should have
been foolish to put myself to the trouble of prosecuting her with every
chance against conviction. I knew that.”

Bart jumped up.

“Men are bigger fools than women!” he snapped. “I am beginning to
realize that better and better.”

“And you are a woman hater!” laughed Merriwell.

“Don’t fling that at me! A pretty woman will make a fool of a man any
day, and it is impossible to find twelve men who will convict a pretty
woman of crime if they can help it. Adventuresses know it, and they
profit by it. If they are arrested, they work all their arts on judge
and jury, and in nine cases out of ten, they go scot-free. The old fools
on the jury ogle the pretty prisoner, and sometimes they openly flirt
with her. They sympathize with her because she is young and pretty, and,
when the evidence is so strong they cannot acquit her, they disagree.
Yes, men are fools!”

Frank nodded.

“That being the case,” he said, “I think you will have to admit that I
was wise in letting the woman go.”

“Perhaps so,” acknowledged Hodge; “but I hated to see her get off. She
was the chief one in a pretty mean piece of business.”

“I do not think she was the chief one.”

“Then who——”

“Vance.”

“Well, you let him off after he had robbed you.”

“He returned every dollar of the money, and I did not lose anything. A
man in my place can’t afford to spend time in lawsuits. It would ruin my
plans. Vance seemed thankful to get away, and I hoped we’d not hear
anything from him again.”

“You hoped in vain.”

“Yes.”

“We’ll hear from him again.”

“Perhaps.”

“If we do——”

“It will be unfortunate for Lester Vance,” said Merry. “He has reached
the limit.”

“By gum!” cried Gallup, staring at Frank. “He wants to keep out of the
way naow! When Frank Merriwell looks that way, he’s out fer business.”

Hodge also saw the look on Merry’s face, and he recognized it as the
peculiar expression Frank wore whenever his patience was exhausted and
he had decided to crush an enemy. And remembering things which had
happened in the past, Bart knew well enough that Frank could strike an
enemy with terrible effect when he wished to do so.

Frank was on his way to the theater that afternoon, swinging along at a
lively pace, paying very little attention to anybody, when somebody
called:

“Mr. Merriwell.”

He looked up quickly, and saw approaching him a rather good-looking girl
of about nineteen. She was rather gaudily attired, and he noticed
instantly that she carried some pinks.

“Great Scott!” muttered Merry. “It’s another one of them!”

He waited, although he really felt like running away. The girl came
forward smiling. There was something rather saucy in her manner, and he
saw there was paint on her cheeks and rouge on her lips. As soon as he
discovered this, his desire to hasten away increased.

“Why,” laughed the girl, “you do not seem a bit glad to see me. Perhaps
you did not receive my note.”

“I do not know you, miss,” said Merry. “I do not think we have been
introduced.”

“Introduced! Ha! ha! ha! What do you care! I’ll introduce myself. I’m
Daisy Blaney.”

“Miss Blaney, don’t you think you are rather foolish to speak to a
stranger like this?”

“Oh, I guess not! You’re all right. I said that as soon as I saw you
come onto the stage last night. I wondered if you looked as well off the
stage as you do on it, and by gracious! I believe you look handsomer!”

This was almost too much for Frank. He flushed painfully, which seemed
to add to the girl’s enjoyment.

“Miss Blaney!” he said, grimly, “I must say you are rather outspoken in
your compliments.”

“It’s a little way I have, my dear fellow. Why, I do believe you are
blushing! Who ever heard of an actor that blushed! Ha! ha! ha!”

Frank’s embarrassment increased.

“Oh, say!” the girl went on; “don’t look at me that way. What do you
care? I wanted to get acquainted with you, and there wasn’t any other
way to do it.”

“Then it would have been better not to do it at all. Aren’t you aware
you are putting yourself in a very bad light by deliberately seeking the
acquaintance of a man and making it in such a manner?”

“Well, if you aren’t a queer actor!” she cried. “I have met lots of
them, but I never struck one like you before. Usually they are ready
enough to become acquainted.”

“I am afraid you have judged all actors by the ones you have met in this
irregular manner. There are honorable men who are actors, the same as
there are honorable men in other professions.”

The girl whistled softly.

“Is that so? That’s all right! That’s why I wanted to meet you. I
reckoned you were on the dead level.”

“No man who is on the dead level will seek the acquaintance of any young
lady in this manner.”

“No? Oh, come off! I’ve met lots of fellows who were all right, and I
never had an introduction to them, either. You must have old-fashioned
notions in your head, and you are the last chap I’d ever thought had
’em. Why, I took you for a fellow who would be rather lively! You must
be dead slow. You need somebody to wake you up.”

“I am afraid you are not slow, miss!” exclaimed Merry, severely.

“No, I’m not. I don’t like slow coaches. Oh, say, Frank, come out of it!
What do you take me for?”

“For a very foolish girl, Miss Blaney. I am sorry for you.”

“Sorry! Oh, come off! You must belong to the Y. M. C. A.! By George! I
didn’t think you would lecture me!”

“I haven’t time to give you a lecture, but I think you should receive
one. I’d like to talk with you a while, for I think I could show you the
folly of what you are doing.”

“Are you in earnest?” asked the girl, beginning to show astonishment.

“Never more so in my life.”

“Well, you beat the band! And I thought you were sporty!”

“I hope I am not sporty in the way you mean.”

“You must have wings sprouting! Are you kidding me? What are you doing?”

“I am saying what I mean.”

“And you do not believe in having a good time?”

“On the contrary, I do believe in having a good time. I believe
everybody should have a good time.”

“Now you are shouting.”

“But there is a right way to have a good time, and a wrong way. I fancy
you often think you are having a good time when you are deceiving
yourself. One kind of a good time leads to satisfaction and pleasant
memories; another kind of a good time leads to misery and remorse. My
dear girl, be careful what kind of a good time you choose to have.”

“Oh, say, you ought to be a preacher! You an actor! You have made a
mistake!”

“An actor may be a preacher. He may preach morality in his acting. I
believe an actor has the greatest opportunities for doing good by his
methods of preaching.”

“Excuse me while I draw my breath! You’ve knocked me silly!”

“I fancy you have met the worst class of actors, Miss Blaney. You
thought them all alike.”

“I never saw one before that wasn’t ready enough to make a mash and have
a racket.”

Frank saw he was not making much impression on the girl. He had
discovered that she was rather bright, for all that she was so reckless
in her manner, and he was truly sorry for her.

“I am glad to say all actors are not mashers,” he said, slowly. “I hope
none of my company are. My dear girl, you are making the mistake of your
life by seeking the acquaintance of strange men in such a manner—by
having anything at all to do with strange men. Don’t do it any more. You
are good-looking, and I fancy you have a good education. Be careful what
you do. By your actions you can win the scorn or the respect of people,
just as you choose.”

“Oh, don’t talk to me that way!” she cried, with curling lips. “It’s too
late!”

“Why too late?”

“Oh, people think I’m fly, and I can’t change their minds now. I’ve got
the name, whether I deserve it or not.”

“Who is to blame? You must have given them reasons for thinking so.”

“Perhaps I have!” she exclaimed, defiantly, all the laughter gone from
her face in a moment. “But I did it because they began to talk about
me.”

“What did you do to make them talk about you?”

“Oh, I didn’t die! I was ready to have some harmless sport, and they
began to say I was gay. That made me mad. I said I would give them
something to talk about—and I did!”

“And there was where you made your greatest mistake, my dear girl.”

“Now, don’t talk to me that way. I’ve heard enough of it from other
people! I didn’t want to get acquainted with you to be preached at—not
by a long shot.”

“Miss Blaney, have you no thought for others? Is there no person whose
heart you are breaking by your recklessness? Your mother——”

“Don’t—don’t talk to me about her!”

“Why not?”

“Because—oh, just because!”

“I think I understand. Your mother worries over you. She has tried to
talk with you and tell you you were doing wrong. Am I not right?”

“She talked too much. That’s what drove me away from home.”

“Drove you away from home? Then you have left home?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“A week ago.”

“Do your folks know where you are?”

“Yes.”

“And they let you go?”

“The old man says I needn’t ever come home again.”

“But your mother?”

The girl’s head drooped.

“I suppose mother is all broken up,” she confessed.

“Haven’t you been to see her?”

“Can’t. It’s too far!”

“How is that?”

“We live in Carrolton. I ran away from home.”

Now Merry’s interest was thoroughly aroused.

“How did you happen to come to St. Jo.?” he asked.

“Oh, I’ve got friends here. I’ve been here visiting twice before. The
first time I was here was when I began to flirt with an actor.”

“Miss Blaney, you should return home. Your mother will be glad to see
you, and——”

“The old man will kick me out. It’s no use, Frank Merriwell. I think you
mean well enough, but you are off your trolley in regard to me. I can’t
go back now, and I’m bound to have a good time while there is a good
time going. I thought you were sporty, but I see I made a mistake. I
reckon I’d better shift along. You are all right—from your head up.”

“Wait a moment. We play in Carrolton to-morrow night. Can I not take a
message to your mother from you? Think how she must feel. Can’t I tell
her something that will cheer her up?”

“What’s the use?”

“How do you know but her heart is breaking for you? Perhaps she prays
for you night and day. Perhaps——”

“Oh, don’t!” cried the girl. “I don’t like to hear about that. No, I
won’t send a message by you. The idea that an actor should want to take
such a message! Ha! ha! ha! Why, it’s perfectly ridiculous! Ha! ha! ha!
ha!”

The girl’s laughter caused him to shiver a bit. It was not the laugh of
genuine merriment—it was forced and unnatural.

She was quick to see how it touched him, and she suddenly cried:

“Don’t mind me! I’m not worth it! You have tried to give me some good
advice, but it’s a waste of breath. I’m going to do as I like, no matter
what comes of it.”

“Whatever you do,” said Frank, with deep earnestness, “don’t forget your
mother! When you are having a good time, as you call it, think of your
mother. When you are gay, think of your mother, who may be praying for
you at that moment. That is all, Miss Blaney. Good-by! I would like to
know that some day—very soon—you go back to your mother.”

She was not laughing now. All the false merriment had gone out of her
face, leaving it very sober. Something like tears seemed to fill her
eyes.

“Good-by,” said Frank, once more.

Without a word, the girl turned swiftly and hurried away, almost
running.

“Too bad!” he muttered, as he hurried on to the theater.




                              CHAPTER XI.
                         FRANK SPEAKS HIS MIND.


At the stage door he saw Douglas Dunton talking to a very pretty,
blue-eyed girl, who started and blushed when she beheld Frank, quickly
exclaiming in a low tone:

“Oh, there is Mr. Merriwell!”

“Never mind him,” laughed Dunton. “He’s not the only pebble on the
beach.”

Frank said not a word, but entered the theater, apparently to the
disappointment of the girl.

A short time later, Dunton came in. Frank called him aside.

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Dunton,” he said, “but there is a matter I wish
to speak about.”

“Oh, it’s all right,” grinned Douglas. “I knew you didn’t want to catch
on there, old man. Elsie Bellwood or Inza Burrage is your style. This
girl——”

“How did you know I mean to speak of the girl?”

“Oh, that wasn’t so hard to guess! She’s all broken up over you, but I
think she can be induced to forget you. She is a little beauty, only
she’s rather light-headed and thinks she’d like to be an actress.”

“Foolish child!” said Merry, scowling. “She needs somebody to look after
her closely.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t mind taking the job of looking after her.”

“In what way, Dunton? How did you meet the girl?”

“Oh, she was walking around outside the theater, and I simply walked up
and spoke to her.”

“You never saw her before?”

“Of course not. It was a case of mash.”

Frank scowled still more.

“Dunton,” he said, “I hope you are not a masher. I hope you do not make
it a practice of trying to mash pretty girls in the places where we
play.”

“Oh, of course not; but when——”

“Mashing actors I detest,” declared Frank, plainly. “They have done no
end of harm. They have given the profession a bad name. I would like a
company who did not make a business of mashing.”

“Oh, I don’t make a business of it!” protested Douglas. “But when a
fellow sees a nice little thing like this, he doesn’t feel like letting
it go by—especially when it is easy.”

“I am sorry you spoke to the girl. She has an innocent face. Dunton, I
wish you would let such girls alone.”

“What? Why, you wouldn’t want the members of your company running around
with fly girls in the places where we go, would you?”

“No! I want them to mind their own business. I hope you will understand
me, my dear fellow, and will not be offended. I do not wish my people to
get a bad name by associating with those who are bad; nor do I wish them
to get bad names by misleading those who are weak and foolish. It is
likely that little girl has a mother who——”

“No; her mother is dead.”

“So much the worse. She has no one to look out for her and restrain her.
She can easily be influenced in the wrong direction. No man who is a man
will mislead such a girl.”

Dunton was restless.

“Oh, you’re putting it too strong, Mr. Merriwell,” he said. “There is no
harm in a little flirtation with a pretty girl. Don’t be jealous because
I happened to catch on to her before you came along.”

He tried to turn this remark with a laugh, but Frank said:

“You know very well that is not why I am speaking to you. There was
something about that girl’s innocent face that made me sorry for her.
She is trembling on the brink of a downward path, I am sure of it. She
is a girl not naturally bad, but she has her head filled with false
notions, and she needs somebody to look out for her till she gets old
enough to become aware that those ideas are false.”

“Oh, you are making too much of this, Mr. Merriwell. Don’t worry about
girls like that. There are thousands of them. They are everywhere.”

“All the more reason why a man should take an interest in them. If one
of them can be prevented from making the fatal mistake, it is a great
thing.”

“If they are bound to be gay, they’ll be so, and you may lecture to them
all you like.”

“But I hope no one in my company will help any girl to become ‘gay,’ as
you call it. That is all I have to say, Dunton. I trust you will
understand me. I don’t wish to meddle with your business.”

Frank knew it was useless to say anything more or talk plainer. Dunton
understood him, and all he might add to what he had said would make no
deeper impression.

That night the theater was packed to the doors. The “S. R. O.” sign was
put out some time before the curtain went up, and several hundred more
seats might have been sold. More than ever was the manager of the house
delighted. He declared “True Blue” the greatest drawing card of the
season, and he offered all kinds of bookings for next season.

The performance went off smoothly. The splendid climaxes in each act
received tumultuous applause, and at the end of the third act the
audience was worked up to a pitch of great excitement. There were
repeated curtain calls.

“Merriwell,” said Hodge, his dark face flushed with excitement, “this
play beats your first one out of sight. I’ve never acknowledged it
before, but I do now. ‘John Smith’ was not in it with this piece. Oh,
but you wouldn’t do a thing with this in New Haven! Can’t you play
there, Frank?”

“Perhaps,” smiled Merry, in a singular way. “I am going to put the play
to the test in Chicago. We’ll be there the first of next week, and then
we jump to New York.”

“What?” cried Hodge. “And you have never told me before?”

“Because I have been working for those engagements, but did not know
that I’d get them. We play a week in New York. It’s make or break, old
man. I started out on that plan, and I’m going to stick to it. I’ve been
aiming for the top notch, and I’ll get there if it is possible.”

“You’ll get there!” exclaimed Bart.

Frank was almost the last one of the company to leave the theater that
night. He had remained to see that everything was properly cared for,
being anxious that there should be no further hitches in the performance
of “True Blue.” The company carried quite a lot of special scenery and
mechanical “effects,” the most striking of which were those used in the
great boat race scene which concluded the third act of the play, and
Frank wished to be certain that everything was properly handled in
getting it ready for shipment.

Well satisfied, Merry was walking swiftly toward his hotel when he
noticed two persons entering a restaurant. He paused instantly,
whistling softly to himself.

“Dunton and the blue-eyed girl!” he exclaimed. “He made a date with her,
and she met him after the performance. I’m sorry she did it.”

He went forward till he could look into the front window of the
restaurant, and he saw the actor and girl pass behind a screen down the
room.

“I suppose the tables reserved for ladies must be down there,” muttered
Frank. “Well, I don’t like the idea of playing the spy on anybody, and
so I think I will let them alone.”

He walked on, but his sense of satisfaction had passed, and he was
depressed. Although he tried to forget the actor and the girl, he found
he could not do so.

Before the hotel was reached, he stopped short and stood in deep thought
for some minutes. The blue eyes and innocent face of the girl haunted
him.

“I can’t abandon her to what may happen!” he muttered. “No, even though
I hate to play the spy. It is my duty to see that no harm comes to that
foolish girl.”

He turned squarely about and retraced his steps.

Reaching the restaurant, he entered and walked down the room till he
reached a table near the screen. There he took a seat, for, just as he
reached that place he noticed a mirror set against the wall in such a
position that it reflected a certain portion of the room beyond the
screen, and that mirror showed him Dunton and the blue-eyed girl sitting
at a table. Frank sat down where he could watch their every movement by
aid of the mirror.

There were a number of couples in the room beyond the screen, and the
sound of talk and laughter came plainly to Merry’s ears. Three men
besides himself had taken seats in his part of the room.

Merry had sized up the place quickly. He decided that it was a
second-rate restaurant, catering to the class of people who kept late
hours.

A waiter came for his order, and Frank realized that he was hungry, so
he ran over the bill of fare and ordered something he fancied would
satisfy his appetite.

“What will you drink?” asked the waiter.

“Water,” was Frank’s answer.

“Wouldn’t you like beer?”

“No.”

“Tea or coffee?”

“No.”

The waiter lifted his eyebrows in surprise and departed.

While waiting for the order to be served Merry watched the reflections
of Dunton and the blue-eyed girl. The actor was doing his best to make
her feel at ease, but it was evident that the experience of dining with
a man in a restaurant at that hour of the night was novel to her, and
she was nervous and excited, although she made efforts to appear at
ease.

The popping of corks and clinking of glasses came from beyond the
screen. The laughter of the men and women was of the strained and
artificial kind. One man was talking rather loudly in a manner that
plainly indicated his tongue felt thick and unwieldy. Occasionally a
woman would begin to sing, but her companions cut her off.

“A bad place for the blue-eyed girl!” thought Merry. “I doubt if she
ever saw anything like it before.”

Dunton was talking earnestly to the girl. He seemed to be telling her
some sort of story, and he was using every fascination of which he was
capable. On the stage, Dunton usually played heavies and villains; in
everyday life Dunton was something of a comedian. Now he was able to
bring fleeting smiles and nervous laughter to the lips of his companion.

A waiter brought them an addition to their order. Dunton told a funny
story that seemed to amuse and startle the girl, for she looked at him
reprovingly, even while she laughed.

“But they are not drinking!” muttered Frank, with no small satisfaction.

His own order was filled after a time, and he fell to eating. He had
begun to wonder if he had not made a mistake in thinking the girl in any
serious danger. Perhaps Dunton had not known the real character of the
restaurant when he took her in there. Still, Frank was sorry she had
been brought into a place where such people could sit near her and she
could hear the sounds and see hints of the false pleasures which lure so
many girls to waywardness.

For some little time Merry did not pay much attention to what was taking
place behind the screen. At length, he observed that Dunton was leaning
over the narrow table and talking in a low tone to the girl, his eyes
looking into hers. The actor had secured one of her hands. As she
listened, the color in her cheeks came and went. She seemed confused and
abashed, yet fascinated.

Now, Frank knew she was in real danger. He thrilled all over, and half
started from his seat, but dropped back, muttering:

“Not yet!”

A waiter came with two bottles, buried to their necks in cracked ice. He
stopped at their table and prepared to open the bottles.

Frank felt that the time for action was close at hand.

One bottle was opened and glasses were filled.

Frank was astounded that Dunton should think of “blowing himself” on
champagne, for that was what, beyond a doubt, the bottles contained. It
was a most remarkable thing for an actor to open anything so expensive
for a stranger.

When the wine was placed before the girl, she hesitated and drew back.
Frank was watching her closely, and that movement, that hesitation,
settled him in the resolve to act.

Dunton leaned over the table, laughing and coaxing her. In a
good-natured way, he was ridiculing her into drinking the wine.

Frank felt his blood tingling in his body as he watched this.

Merry rose to his feet. A check had been placed on his table, and he
tossed the amount of his bill beside it.

All the while he was watching the girl. He hoped she would refuse to
touch the wine, but he realized she lacked the firmness to do so. Her
face, though pretty, betrayed in its mold the weakness of her character.

Dunton was winning. The girl looked at the wine, while he continued in
his persuasive way to urge her to try it. In hesitation and laughing
confusion she asked him something, and Frank knew he was declaring on
his honor that the wine was harmless.

She reached out her hand, which trembled the least bit, and took up the
glass.

And then, just as Dunton was clinking his glass against that of his
pretty companion, Frank walked round the screen. The girl lifted her
glass to drink.

Merriwell stood beside the table.

“Miss,” he said, quietly, “I wouldn’t do it if I were you.”

She gave a little cry of alarm, and nearly dropped the glass.

Dunton stared at Frank and muttered an exclamation of astonishment.

“Oh, it’s Mr. Merriwell!” cried the girl, in mingled delight, confusion
and shame, as she put the wine down.

“Yes, it is!” said Dunton; “but where the dickens did he come from?”

Frank looked the actor sternly in the eyes.

“I think I wasted my breath when I talked to you to-night, Dunton,” he
said.

The man moved restlessly in his chair, and his face flushed in an angry
way.

“Have you been spying on me, Mr. Merriwell?” he demanded.

“I have been watching you,” said Frank, honestly. “It was purely by
accident that I saw you come in here with this young lady. I came in
also and sat out there beyond the screen. I sat down where, by the aid
of the mirror yonder, I could see everything you did.”

Dunton’s anger threatened to flare forth. He half started up, but
dropped back, grating his teeth together. His look just then reminded
Merry of the time when, infuriated beyond endurance, Dunton had tried to
wound or kill Frank in a sword combat on the stage.

“Why have you done this?” snarled the angry actor.

“Because I was impressed by the innocent appearance of this girl, and I
feared for her safety. I thought it possible I had been mistaken till I
saw this wine brought on, and now——”

“Now—what?” hissed Dunton, in great excitement.

“Now,” said Frank, looking straight into the eyes of the girl, “I’m
going to take this young lady home!”

With a savage exclamation Dunton sprang to his feet, staring at Frank.

“Well, this is the greatest case of nerve!” he exclaimed.

The girl looked frightened and seemed on the verge of bursting into
tears.

“Steady, Dunton!” commanded Merry, turning on him. “Don’t make a scene.
It will do no good.”

“Do you think this is a very nice thing for you to do, Mr. Merriwell!”
panted Dunton. “Don’t you think you are overstepping the bounds?”

“I fancy not.”

“But the young lady will not go with you!”

“On the contrary, I am quite sure she will.”

“Not on your life! She is with me! I believe you are jealous because you
did not catch on with——”

“Stop!”

That word cut the speaker off instantly. Merriwell’s eyes looked
dangerous just then, and Dunton knew Frank could not be trifled with
when he was aroused.

“Oh, very well!” said the actor, with an effort to be mildly sarcastic.
“I presume you will walk in here and take the young lady away from me
without her consent? It is barely possible she may have something to say
about it.”

“It is,” admitted Frank, “and I propose to let her say it, but still I
am sure she will permit me to see her safely home.”

The girl arose at once, but just then two waiters came hurrying up,
demanding to know what the trouble was about.

“No trouble at all,” assured Frank.

“Well, what are you doing bothering this gent and lady?” growled one of
the waiters, who looked like a bouncer.

Frank did not look at him.

“Will you come with me, miss?” he asked.

“Well, that beats!” gasped the bouncer. “He’s tryin’ ter take the gent’s
lady frien’ away from him.”

“T’row him out!” suggested the other.

“All right!”

Now Frank paid some attention to the men.

“Don’t attempt to put your hands on me!” he said, grimly. “If you do, I
shall knock you down!”

“Ho! ho!” laughed the bouncer. “Out yer goes, freshy!”

He endeavored to catch hold of Merry to run him for the door, and the
other offered assistance.

Smash! crack!—two blows stretched one of the waiters on the floor and
sent the other flying over the top of a table.

The girl seemed overcome with terror, but Merry politely offered his
arm, calmly saying:

“If you will accept my protection, I will see you home.”

She took his arm, and they started toward the door.

All this had happened so suddenly that the other patrons of the place
scarcely seemed aware there was any trouble before the waiters had been
knocked down and Frank was leaving with the girl.

Uttering furious exclamations, the waiters scrambled up.

“Give it to him!” snarled the bouncer, starting after Frank.

Then, strangely enough, Douglas Dunton thrust out his foot, and the man
tripped over it, going down with a crash. The other waiter was following
him closely, and he went sprawling over his companion.

Dunton made haste to skip out by a side door, not even stopping to pay
his bill. The waiters saw him escaping, and, remembering he had not
paid, they turned after him, giving Merry an opportunity to get away
without further molestation.




                              CHAPTER XII.
                            A LIVELY NIGHT.


Entirely unaware that he had been saved from a second attack from the
waiters by Dunton’s action, Frank lost no time in leaving the place, the
girl clinging to his arm.

She was so badly frightened when the street was reached that it was some
time before she could tell where she lived.

When they had walked some distance, Frank said:

“Miss, I hope you will pardon me for interfering as I did, but I could
not help it when I saw Dunton inducing you to drink wine. I read
innocence in your face. I knew you were out of your element in that
place and among the frequenters of it, and I resolved to save you.”

“But—but, the gentleman I was with, Mr. Dunton, is one of your company,
Mr. Merriwell,” faltered the frightened and bewildered girl.

“I am well aware of that, and that was one reason why I was all the more
determined to save you.”

“But he seemed like a nice fellow. Of course I did not admire him as I
do you, Mr. Merriwell, but he was so pleasant, so jolly, so kind!”

“I haven’t a doubt of it. That made him all the more dangerous. I saw
you talking with him when I entered the theater this afternoon.”

“Oh, did you!” she exclaimed. “Why, I didn’t think you noticed me at
all!”

“But I did, and I had a talk with Dunton about you.”

“About me?”

“Yes.”

“Goodness! I was not aware I was so important!”

“I talked to him plainly, and I fancied my words had some impression. I
was astonished when I saw you entering that place in company with him
to-night.”

“Oh, Mr. Merriwell!” cried the girl, in confusion; “is that a bad place?
I didn’t know. I never was in there before! I didn’t know anything about
it.”

“I believe that is the truth, for you did not seem at all at home in the
place. I noticed that while watching you.”

“Mr. Dunton said it was a respectable restaurant, and he was so kind to
ask me to have a little lunch with him, and he seemed so much like a
perfect gentleman, and I didn’t like to refuse, and you did not even
give me a look this afternoon, and—and——”

“There, there! You have explained it all. I understand it perfectly, my
dear Miss—Miss——”

“Dow—Dora Dow.”

“Dora?”

“Yes.”

“One of the notes I received to-day was signed Dora.”

“I—I wrote it,” confessed the girl, greatly embarrassed.

“I thought so.”

“You—you didn’t wear—the—the ribbon I sent.”

“No.”

“Then you did not want to know me?”

“My dear girl, I did not believe I would be doing right to encourage you
in your folly. It is plain you have some very mistaken ideas in your
little head. You said you thought actors perfectly lovely.”

“I do.”

“Some actors may be, but it is not safe for you to think them all so,
and, above all things, it is not safe for you to make the acquaintance
of actors as you made that of Douglas Dunton.”

“But there’s—there’s no other way to become acquainted with them, is
there, Mr. Merriwell?”

“I fancy you will be better off if you do not know them.”

“I must know them! How can I ever get onto the stage unless I do? Now,
tell me that, Frank Merriwell!”

“My dear Miss Dow, is it absolutely necessary for you to go on the
stage?”

“I don’t know that it’s absolutely necessary, but I want to do so. It
must be just perfectly lovely to play parts and sing and get flowers and
wear diamonds!”

“That is how it seems to you. You know nothing of the work and worry of
the life, nothing of its uncertainties, its privations. You see the
actors dancing and singing and being merry before the footlights, and it
seems ‘perfectly lovely.’ You may not know that in hundreds of cases the
actresses send themselves the flowers they receive. Their diamonds
glitter, but stage diamonds are paste, as a rule. I have no time to tell
you all about the hollow mockeries of the life, but I have an
opportunity to warn you, if you have a home, to stick by your home, and
forever give up the notion of becoming an actress.”

The girl pouted.

“Oh, I don’t like you, Mr. Merriwell!” she cried. “I didn’t think you,
an actor, would talk like that! That is the way papa talks.”

“Your father is right. Listen to him. I believe you said in your note
that your mother is dead?”

“Yes.”

“That is most unfortunate. Just now you need a mother to look out for
you. But you have a home. If you were to become an actress, it is
probable you would not have a home. Six months in the year, perhaps, or
even more, you might be searching for an engagement, living as best you
could during that time, uncertain as to the future. You would be the
prey of sharks and sharpers, you would be bullied and cheated, you might
get out with a company and be left stranded and penniless a thousand
miles from anywhere. Your sensitive nature would revolt against mankind
and the world. All your finer nature would be ruined. Then you would do
one of two things. You would end it all by taking your own life, or you
would turn about and prey upon men, sinking lower and lower, traveling
the road to destruction.”

The girl shuddered and cried out:

“Oh!” she gasped. “I can’t believe anything so horrible would happen to
me!”

“It has happened to thousands before you.”

“But I—I thought——”

“That all actresses were happy and prosperous—that they lived lives of
ease and pleasure.”

“Yes, it seemed that way.”

“And I dare say you thought it an easy thing to become an actress?”

“It seemed so,” she repeated.

“Did you ever stop to think if you had any special qualification for
becoming an actress?”

“Well, I thought I was rather—rather——”

“Pretty?”

“Yes,” she admitted, in great confusion.

“And did you think that the only requirement for becoming an actress?”

“No, of course not, but——”

“The girl who can act, who has real dramatic ability, is fortunate if
she is pretty. That is absolutely true. It requires great talent for a
homely girl to win success on the stage. At the same time, a girl who is
merely pretty has almost absolutely no show unless she has dramatic
ability to some extent, or can sing in a manner to command attention.
Are you a fine singer?”

“I can sing a little.”

“A little will not do. Keep off the stage, Miss Dow. Avoid actors. Do
not flirt with them. You know nothing about them. They may be honorable
men, and they may not be. The chances are that they are not. They are
here to-day and gone to-morrow. They live lives which tend to rob them
of their fine sense of honor.”

The girl was silent some moments, as they walked along. At last she
said:

“Mr. Merriwell, I believe you have told me the truth. I have refused to
believe others who have told me things about the stage and actors, but
you are an actor, and you know what you are talking about. I realize now
that I was very foolish to-night. Oh, I’ll get a scolding from papa, for
he told me I could not go to the theater, and I ran away to go, just to
see you.”

She seemed on the verge of tears.

“If your father scolds to-night, do not answer him saucily,” advised
Frank.

“What can I tell him? He will want to know where I have been.”

“My dear girl, the best thing you can do is to tell him the truth.”

She gasped.

“I’d never, never, never dare do that! He would be furious!”

“Then you must not ask me what to tell him. I can give you no other
advice.”

Again she was silent some moments.

“I’ll do it!”

The exclamation burst from the girl’s lips.

“Mr. Merriwell,” she said, “I am going to tell papa just what has
happened, no matter how angry he may be. I’ll tell him all about the
good advice you have given me, and I’ll also tell him that I mean to
heed it. No matter what happens, I am going to tell the truth to-night!
That is settled!”

“Bravo, little girl!” exclaimed Merry, in great satisfaction. “I do not
believe you will be sorry.”

They turned down a street, and the girl stopped before they had gone
far.

“I live just a few doors below,” she said. “I don’t think you had better
go further. Mr. Merriwell—I—I don’t know how to say it, but I want to—to
thank you. You have been awfully kind to me, and I appreciate it. You
are just as brave as I believed you were, for you were not a bit afraid
of those two waiters in the restaurant, and you handled them so easily!
No matter what you have said about actors I shall always know there is
one who is brave, noble and honorable! I shall not forget you, Mr.
Merriwell!”

Her voice trembled.

“I am glad to know you will remember me that way, Miss Dow,” said Merry.
“You must not understand that I said all actors were bad. There are
honorable men who are actors, the same as there are honorable men in
other professions. The dishonorable ones, however, are those you are
most likely to meet through a chance acquaintance. I hope you will never
make the acquaintance of any man again in such a manner.”

“I—hope you do not—think too—bad—of—me,” she murmured, hanging her head.

“I do not think that way of you at all,” assured Frank. “I simply think
you are like many other girls, too ready to depend on the honor of men
of whom you know absolutely nothing.”

“Thank you.”

“Good-by.”

“You—you may come to St. Jo. again?”

“Possibly, although it is uncertain.”

“But you have done so well here this time, and the people liked you so
much.”

“I know; however, I may not be in the theatrical business next season. I
hope to return to college. Good-by.”

She held out her hand.

“Good-by!” she exclaimed, impulsively. “I wish you all the success you
deserve, and that is good fortune in everything.”

He took her hand. Then she turned away quickly, and he watched her till
she had ascended the steps to her home.

Frank was satisfied. No matter what came out of the affair between
himself and Dunton, he felt that he had done right. Thinking it all
over, he walked onward swiftly.

Suddenly he stopped and looked around.

“By Jove!” he muttered. “I believe I have lost my way! I do not remember
passing through this quarter of the city.”

He walked on slowly.

“I’ll meet a policeman pretty soon,” he thought, “and I’ll ask him to
direct me.”

But the section of the city seemed to grow still worse as he advanced.
Almost before he was aware of it, he found himself near the water front.

“Well, I’m clean off my trolley!” he muttered, turning back.

Pretty soon he came to a street where lights shone from windows here and
there, and there were sounds of laughter and music issuing from some of
the rather disreputable-looking buildings. Women flitted along the
street, sometimes accompanied by men, sometimes alone. One of them,
quite alone, stopped Merry, grasped him by the arm, peered into his
face, and brokenly asked:

“Have you seen her?”

By the light that shone from a window, Frank saw that the woman was at
least fifty years old and dressed in a fairly respectable manner. She
seemed greatly excited, and she was trembling.

“Whom do you mean, madam?” asked Frank, respectfully.

“My child—my little girl!” answered the woman. “She is here somewhere in
this city! I don’t know where! I can’t find her! Oh Heaven! I can’t find
her!”

“You have lost your daughter?” questioned Frank, with a thrill of
sympathy.

“Yes, yes! Have you seen her?”

“How should I know her if I saw her?”

The woman seemed dazed. She put her hand to her head, as if trying to
think. Frank could see she was nearly distracted with grief. Her eyes
were red from weeping and her care-lined face still wet with tears.

“I don’t know! Oh, I don’t know how to find her! The only way is to ask
somebody—anybody. I thought I would ask the men whom I met on the street
to-night, hoping some of them might be able to tell me something about
her.”

“I am very sorry, madam, but I’m afraid I can tell you nothing.”

A despairing moan issued from the woman’s lips.

“I followed her as soon as possible,” she said. “She ran away from home
and came here to this city. She has been here before, and the city has
ruined her. Her head is filled with false notions! Oh, I fear I shall
not find my little girl again!”

“Cheer up, madam. Have you applied to the police?”

“No, no; not yet! I didn’t want to do that. Daisy is so proud—so
spirited! She would be awfully angry if I were to put the police after
her.”

“Daisy!” exclaimed Frank.

“Yes, that is her name.”

“Daisy Blaney?”

The woman gave a scream and caught hold of him with wonderful strength.

“You have seen her? You know her? You can tell me where she is?”

“If that is your daughter’s name, I have seen her and had a talk with
her.”

“Where is she—where is she?”

The woman was so excited that she fairly choked over the words.

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t tell me that!” the distracted mother screamed. “You must know!”

“I give you my word of honor that I do not.”

“When did you see her?”

“Shortly after noon to-day.”

“Where?”

“Near the Crawford Theater.”

“What was she doing there?”

Frank did not wish to tell that she had spoken to him. He said he did
not know, and, in a clever manner, explained how he had talked with her,
without telling how it came about.

“Poor Daisy! My little Daisy!” sobbed the woman. “She did not tell you
the whole truth. She is not stopping with her friends here now. Her
father was rather harsh with her, but he is ready enough to take her
back. I followed her as soon as I could, but I have hunted, hunted,
hunted—all in vain. Oh, I must find her! Can’t you help me?”

“My good woman, the best thing you can do is to get some rest to-night
and look for your daughter to-morrow.”

“Rest! Do you think I can rest while my little girl is adrift in this
wicked city? No, no! I shall never rest again till I find her!”

In vain Frank urged her, seeing that she was almost utterly worn out.
She would not listen to him. She made him promise he would tell Daisy if
he saw her that her mother was there searching everywhere for her. And
then, all at once, the woman cried out that she must be searching,
searching, and away she went.

When she was gone, Frank realized he had not found where she was
stopping, or how he could communicate with her if he happened to meet
Daisy again.

“But it isn’t likely I’ll see the girl again,” he muttered, walking on.
“We leave the city early to-morrow.”

The meeting with the unfortunate woman had driven the feeling of
satisfaction from him. He could not forget her and her saddened,
tear-wet face. He was haunted by thoughts of her.

He came to a large building, in front of which hung a lighted,
transparent sign, which read:

                           _THE JOLLY CLUB._
                            DANCE TO-NIGHT.

The sound of music came from the open windows far above his head.

As he paused a moment and glanced upward, he heard a laugh that gave him
a start. He had heard that mocking laughter before.

“It’s Daisy Blaney!” he exclaimed.

In a moment Frank had formed a resolution. He would find the girl if she
were in the dance hall.

Frank ascended the stairs, learned that he could obtain admission for
fifty cents, paid the money and entered the hall.

A waltz was in progress, and the floor was covered with gliding,
whirling couples. As Frank had expected, the patrons of the dance were
of the lower order of society, although there seemed to be some
semirespectable people on the floor.

Merry looked around for the girl whom he sought, and, to his intense
satisfaction, it was not long before he discovered her. She was waltzing
with a tall, red-headed young man, who looked like a would-be tough.

Frank kept watch of her, and when the waltz was over he saw her
disappear with her partner into an adjoining room.

Merry followed.

He found this room was where “refreshments” were served. In this case
the “refreshments” seemed to consist mainly of beer, which the thirsty
couples consumed at little tables.

Daisy and her partner were seated at a table, and Frank walked past,
hoping she would notice him. She did, and instantly she uttered an
exclamation of surprise.

“Frank Merriwell!” she cried, starting up. “What are you doing here?”

“Miss Blaney,” said Frank, stopping and lifting his hat in the most
respectful manner, fully aware that the red-headed youth was glaring at
him in a savage manner. “I was looking for you.”

“For me?” gasped the girl, in still greater astonishment. “Now you are
chucking a jolly at me!”

“Not a bit of it.”

“Then come sit down. Mr. Merriwell, this is a friend of mine, Mr.
Gallagher.”

Frank acknowledged the introduction by a bow, and “Mr. Gallagher”
growled something in his throat.

Daisy urged him to sit down, but Frank did not fancy taking a seat in
that place. However, in order to get an opportunity to talk with her, he
finally seated himself, to the disgust of the youth with the red hair.

“Wot’ll yer have?” demanded a waiter, appearing at Frank’s elbow the
moment he was seated.

“You may bring me a sarsaparilla,” said Merry, “and serve Miss Blaney
and Mr. Gallagher whatever they choose to order.”

“Sarsaparilla!” shouted the girl, with a laugh. “Oh, say, Merry, old
fellow, have a beer! Babies drink soft stuff!”

“Then I think you’ll have to class me with the babies,” said Frank.

“Excuse me,” growled Gallagher, rising. “I don’t drink wid chaps that
goozle that kind of stuff.”

Then he walked away.

Merry was satisfied to have the fellow depart.

The moment Gallagher was gone, Daisy’s manner changed, and she swiftly
said:

“What made you come here? You are in danger!”

“Danger?” exclaimed Frank, astonished.

“Sure thing.”

“What do you mean?”

“Soon as I left you to-day, some men came up to me and asked me if I
knew you. I chucked a bluff that you were a particular friend of mine.
Then they offered me twenty-five dollars to decoy you into a dive where
they could knock the stuffing out of you.”

“This is interesting!” commented Merry, with a smile.

“Both those chaps are here to-night!” said the girl.

“Still more interesting.”

“You had better get out right away. There are some scrappers here, and
you wouldn’t stand a ghost of a show if they spotted you, and tried to
lay you out.”

“You must go with me, when I go, Miss Blaney.”

“I must? What for?”

“Your mother is in St. Jo. searching for you.”

“My mother?” cried the girl, astounded. “Oh, come off your perch! What
are you giving me?”

“The truth. I met her a short time ago. She is nearly crazy, and she’s
wandering up and down the streets to-night, searching for you, stopping
every man and asking if he has seen you. She stopped me, and that was
how I knew she was here.”

The girl turned pale for all of the paint on her cheeks.

“Heavens!” she gasped. “I didn’t think for a minute she would do such a
thing! My mother wandering about the streets of this city to-night! It’s
awful!”

“Here’s yer drinks,” said the waiter, as he placed the glasses before
them.

“I don’t want anything more,” said the girl, rising.

“But der drinks were ordered, an’ dey’ll have ter be paid fer,” declared
the man, in an ugly manner.

“Here is your pay,” said Frank, flinging down a piece of money. “Come,
Miss Blaney; we’ll try to find your mother.”

They started to leave the room, but before they had crossed the floor
three men appeared in the doorway. Mr. Gallagher was one of them, and he
pointed at Frank, saying:

“Dere’s yer meat, gents!”

The others were Lester Vance and Reginald, the blackmailer!

“Those are the men who wanted me to decoy you into a dive!” whispered
Daisy Blaney, in great alarm. “You are in a bad scrape, Frank
Merriwell!”

Both the rascals uttered exclamations of satisfaction on seeing Frank.

“We’ve got him!” cried Vance, triumphantly. “Let’s fix him so he’ll not
be pretty enough to play the hero on the stage again for a month!”

“Oh, we’ll fix him!” laughed the other man, showing his teeth.

“He’ll be easy,” sneered Gallagher. “He drinks sarsaparilla!”

Then the two men sprang at Frank, crying:

“Spotter! Fly cop! Spy!”

That cry was enough to create a sensation in the room.

Merry met their assault, and he quickly got a crack at Vance that sent
the fellow spinning.

A hot fight ensued, but Frank was more than a match for the two men. He
seemed to avoid their worst blows, and the way he got back at them
filled Daisy Blaney with unutterable satisfaction.

“Well, he’s a bird, Gallagher, if he does drink sarsaparilla!” she
cried. “He can eat you!”

That infuriated the red-headed fellow, and he plunged into the conflict.
He took Frank by surprise, and got in a blow that staggered Merry for a
moment.

“Dat fresh eat me!” howled Gallagher. “Well, I guess nit. He’s a soft
t’ing, an’ I can do him wid me hands tied behind——”

Just then Frank got at Mr. Gallagher. He feinted, leading the fellow to
lift his guard, and then Merry drove in a sledge-hammer blow over the
heart that caused the red-headed chap to collapse and lay gasping and
groaning on the floor.

It is possible Frank would have come off with flying colors, but the men
had been given the impression that he was a spotter or spy who had been
sent there for the purpose of making the club trouble, and now at least
a dozen persons sailed into him. Before such an onslaught he was unable
to stand. He was beaten to his knees, and he would have been trampled
under their feet in a few seconds more.

Then it was that a woman literally tore her way into the heart of the
crowd, pushed and beat them back from Frank, and stood over him with a
small revolver in her hand, screaming:

“Cowards! Are there no real men among you? Back! This gun is loaded,
and, by Heaven! I’ll shoot the first one who tries to touch him!”

“It’s Queen Mab!” exclaimed several, and they fell back before her.

Frank staggered to his feet. One look he took at the woman, and he saw
she was the one who had sought to aid in blackmailing him.

“He is no spotter,” she declared. “He is Frank Merriwell, the actor who
is playing at the Crawford. I suppose he came in here to enjoy himself,
the same as any man may. He has behaved himself, and this brutal assault
is an outrage.”

“Mab!” cried a shaking voice, and the man who had claimed to be her
husband forced his way forward, his face bruised and cut and bleeding
from the blows he had received, “have you gone crazy?”

“No!” she shouted back. “But I’ve seen enough of this! Shame on you,
Reg, to try to get revenge like this just because he was too sharp to
bite your bait! As for that fellow who planned the job, he’s a cheap
actor who was kicked out of Merriwell’s company, and he has been trying
to do something to get revenge. I’m disgusted with him!”

It seemed that the woman was well known there, and her words carried
some weight. It was useless for the man to protest, she showed her scorn
for him and expressed her admiration for Frank Merriwell.

“He’s going out of here!” she declared, “and not another one of you will
lift a hand against him! I’ll shoot the dog that tries it. I promise you
that, and you know Queen Mab always keeps her promises.”

“What she says goes,” declared a man. “You may as well let the young
fellow alone. She’ll take him out.”

“I’m not going without Daisy Blaney,” muttered Frank, looking round.
“Where is she?”

Daisy was found, and the three moved toward the door. No one offered to
stop or molest them.

When the street was reached, the woman stopped and put up her revolver.
She laughed a little.

“I rather admired you this morning, Mr. Merriwell,” she said. “I found
you were too shrewd to be caught in such a trap as we had set for you.
But more than ever I admire you now since I have seen you fight a dozen
men and nearly prove a match for them all. You are all right, my boy,
and you’ll not be troubled again by Queen Mab.”

Then, before Frank could say a word, she whirled about and ran back into
the building.

They were standing there in the light from the doorway when there came a
cry, and a woman came running up, flinging her arms about the girl.

“Daisy!” she screamed. “My child, I have found you!”

“Mother!” exclaimed the girl, putting her arms round the aged woman and
supporting her. “Mr. Merriwell found me and told me you were here,
searching for me. Oh, mother, mother! I am so sorry!”

The woman was crying. Between her sobs, she exclaimed:

“Daisy, you will—go back—home? Father is—sorry! He’ll forgive
and—forget, if you’ll—come back. I have been distracted! You—you’ll kill
me if you don’t—come home! Won’t you come?”

“Yes, mother,” said the girl, now breaking into tears, “I’ll come home!”

“Well,” uttered Frank Merriwell, “this has been a rather lively night,
but it has turned out most satisfactory in all ways.”

                  *       *       *       *       *

“Merriwell,” said Dunton, the following day, “I don’t remember just what
I said in that restaurant last night, for I was pretty angry with you. I
have been thinking it over since, and I’m rather glad you did just what
you did. That little girl was altogether too unsophisticated. I don’t
hold any hard feelings, and I hope you’ll forget anything I shot at
you.”

“It’s all right,” assured Frank. “It’s rather awkward for either of us
to speak about the matter, and I’m glad you were the one to mention it.
But let such girls alone, Dunton. The world is bad enough, and women
have reasons enough for thinking men deceivers and villains. You’ll find
you’ll feel better if you do your best to make them think they have made
a mistake in judging the sterner sex.”

“I think you are right about that,” confessed Dunton. “I believe I have
learned a lesson.”




                             CHAPTER XIII.
                           A MISSOURI TERROR.


“Stop!”

“What?”

“That!”

Frank Merriwell shot out the first and last words; a local sceneshifter
and stage hand of the Wilcoxson Opera House asked the question.

Several days had elapsed and Merriwell’s company had reached Carrolton,
Missouri, and Frank was watching the men who were bringing the special
scenery for “True Blue” onto the stage.

The local stage hands were assisting in this work, and one of them, a
rather fresh young chap, began to tear off some of the cleats that held
the sets together. To do this, he used a hammer, and he began knocking
them apart in a reckless manner.

Then came Frank’s command.

The young fellow seemed astounded.

“What’s the matter with you?” he demanded. “We can’t take care of this
stuff in this shape.”

“Let it alone,” ordered Merry. “I’ll have somebody look out for that who
knows how to do it without staving it to pieces.”

“What do ye suppose I’m hired for?”

“You are not hired to smash my scenery. If you are, I’ll not allow it.”

“Your scenery!” sneered the fellow, who did not know Merry, and fancied
he might be the property man of the company, as he was a beardless
youth. “Why, you talk as if you owned the old show! You make me tired!
Some chaps like to show off when they get a little authority, and I
reckon you’re one of that kind.”

Frank made no retort to these insolent words, but his jaws squared a bit
and there came to his eyes a look which the fellow would have known was
dangerous had he been better acquainted with Merry.

The local stage hand fancied he had settled the matter by giving the
presumptuous “property man” a call down, and he now went at the scenery
again, smashing at the cleats with the hammer.

He did not strike more than a single blow, for, with a spring, Frank had
him by the collar.

In a moment, Merry took the hammer from the surprised chap’s hand, and
flung it far away.

“Here! what the——”

The fellow whirled about and struck at Frank, but he was sent spinning
to one side, to fall sprawling over some properties.

“Don’t try it again,” calmly advised Merry.

The astounded stage hand scrambled up, snarling with anger.

“I’m Joe Hooker!” he cried. “And I can do up anything in this town. I’ll
have to smash ye for that!”

“If you know what is real healthy for you, Joe Hooker,” said Frank, with
a grim smile, “you’ll keep your distance and let this scenery alone.
You’re too fresh.”

“You’re the one that’s fresh, you two-cent property man!” howled the
wrathy fellow. “You think you own the whole show, but I’ll knock some of
the conceit outer your head!”

He made a furious rush at Merry.

Apparently Frank had no thought of getting out of the way, but, at the
moment when Hooker struck out with his open hand, thinking to give Merry
a slap that would set his head ringing, if it did not upset him, the
young actor leaped aside, ducking the swinging blow, caught his
assailant by the collar and a handy portion of his trousers, and ran him
off the stage, shooting him down a flight of stairs, at the bottom of
which he fell sprawling.

Ephraim Gallup came round just in time to witness this, and he stood
laughing heartily, his hands on his hips.

“Gol-darn ef I don’t believe he kainder thinks he struck somethin’
all-fired decepshus, Frank!” chuckled the Vermont youth.

Billy Wynne, the property man, had also seen the finish of the
encounter, and he was highly amused.

There was a scrambling sound on the stairs, and, a moment later, Joe
Hooker, his face flaming red, came scrambling and panting to the top,
revenge gleaming in his eyes.

“Drat ye!” he snarled. “Ye didn’t do that fair! You don’t ’mount ter
shucks, and I can paralyze ye in a fair fight!”

“I am not here to fight,” Merry laughed. “I am minding my own business,
and, if you know when you are well off, you will do the same. If you
don’t, you may get hurt.”

Frank’s laughter irritated the chap more than anything else. Again he
made a rush, but this time it was with the intention of smashing Frank
without delay.

Now Frank wished to avoid a fight, if possible, and he easily dodged in
time to avoid the fellow’s rush.

Gallup shouted:

“Yeou darn fool! Yeou don’t know who yeou’re gittin’ up ag’inst! You’ll
be etarnally chawed up fust thing yeou know!”

But the furious stage hand did not heed, if he heard. He wheeled and
came at Merry again.

Frank was beginning to get tired of this. He did not wish to strike the
fellow, and yet he could not keep up the dodging.

The curtain had been raised to let light in onto the stage while the
scenery was being brought in and arranged.

Once more Merry managed to avoid the rush of the angry chap, although he
was barely able to do so, as now the fellow was watching for him to
dodge.

This dodging made Hooker all the more confident, for he thought Frank
did not dare stand up and meet him.

This time, however, Frank stepped back as the belligerent stage hand
plunged past him, unable to stop his rush when Frank had dodged, and
quickly grabbing him, flung him clean out over the proscenium and
footlights, so he struck sprawling between the front row of seats and
the stage.

This handling astounded Hooker, who could not understand it at all. He
jumped up and started to leap back onto the stage.

The local stage manager had appeared in time to witness the manner in
which Frank handled Hooker, and now he shouted:

“Here, Joe, what’s up?”

“That dratted property man’s meddlin’ with me!” snarled Hooker. “I’ll
eat him if he’ll stop dodging!”

“Property man!” cried the stage manager. “Why, you’re daffy! That’s
Frank Merriwell, the owner of the show!”

Hooker was astounded. He had reached the stage again, and he stopped in
a half-stooping posture, staring at Merry, his under jaw drooping.

“Him the owner of the show?” he ejaculated, in evident doubt. “Ye’re
kidding, Sawyer.”

“No, I am not,” assured the local stage manager. “What’s all this about,
anyhow? What’s he been doing, Mr. Merriwell?”

“He started to tear apart some of the scenery here, and I told him to
let it alone, but he was not inclined to do so. When I stopped him he
attacked me.”

“An’ he faound himself up ag’inst a feller that kin eat Hookers ez fast
ez they kin walk up,” laughed Ephraim Gallup. “There ain’t enough
Hookers in Mizzury to bother Frank Merriwell.”

“Is that so?” sneered the stage hand. “My brother Sam can clean out this
whole show. He’s just home from New Mexico, and there ain’t anybody in
this town wants to tackle him.”

“Yeour brother Sam would be pie for Frank Merriwell,” asserted Ephraim.
“Ef he knows when he’s well off, he’ll mind his own business.”

“By hocus, we’ll see,” shouted Hooker. “He don’t ’low anybody to meddle
with me, and I’ll just bring him round here. He’ll make things sizzle!”

The fellow started for the door.

“Where are you going?” demanded Frank, sharply.

“After Sam, by thunder!”

“Don’t do it!”

“I will!”

“I shall not handle your brother in the same gentle manner that I
handled you, in case he comes here and attempts to make trouble. You
know you were wrong, so you had better drop it.”

“That’s right, Joe,” said the local stage manager, anxiously. “What’s
the use to kick up a fuss over it?”

“Think I’m going to stand this kind of treatment?” snarled Joe. “I’m no
fool! I’ll be back pretty soon.”

Then he ran off the stage and down the stairs.

The stage manager looked frightened.

“You had better leave right away, Mr. Merriwell,” he said.

“Why?” asked Frank.

“Joe’ll do it.”

“What if he does?”

“His brother’s a pirate! He’s a big fellow, and a regular ruffian. He’s
been in half a dozen fights since he got home, a week ago. He killed a
man in a fight before he left for New Mexico, two years ago, and that
was why he got out of here. They ain’t dared try to arrest him sense he
come back.”

“Well, that’s pretty interesting!” commented Frank, with a slight show
of scorn. “So the law-abiding citizens of Carrolton permit the ruffian
to run things just as he pleases?”

“Yes.”

“That’s strange.”

“He’s armed. He carries two pistols all the time.”

“What of that?”

“And he can shoot.”

“Well?”

“He went into a saloon the night he got home and shot the necks off all
the bottles in sight, ending by shooting out the lights.”

“And nobody arrested him for that trick? Well, this fellow must be
regarded as a bad man from Bitter Creek.”

“That’s what he calls himself.”

“I think he needs to be curried down.”

“There ain’t nobody here dares tackle the job. He gets drunk and shoots
out windows in houses, and has a great time.”

“I should think they’d bind him over to keep the peace.”

“They don’t want to try it. He’s going back to New Mexico pretty soon,
and as long as he don’t do any great damage they’ll keep still while
he’s here and pray for him to go. He’ll be furious when he hears Joe’s
story. There’ll be the dickens to pay!”

“Well, I don’t like to have trouble with anybody,” admitted Frank, with
a slight show of regret; “but I couldn’t let that young fellow smash up
my scenery. Why do you have him round the theater?”

“He’s a good worker, and the managers are the ones who hire him. I don’t
have anything to do with that. You had better go away, Mr. Merriwell.”

“Go away?”

“Yes, before he comes back with Sam.”

“Why?”

“So they will not find you.”

“What? Do you want me to run away? Is that it?”

“It will be a discreet thing for you to do.”

“And cowardly.”

“Nobody is regarded as a coward for trying to avoid trouble with Sam
Hooker. People say anybody who won’t get out of the way and let him
alone is a fool.”

“I shall not run away from Mr. Hooker.”

“Remember he carries pistols.”

“It doesn’t make any difference if he carries cannons. Go ahead with the
work of putting in my scenery. I shall stay here till the last piece is
in.”

“That’s all right, Frank,” said Ephraim; “but there ain’t no need of
yeou gittin’ chawed up by this pirut. I an’ Wynne’ll stay here ter look
aout fer the stuff, an’ yeou better go to the hotel.”

Frank regarded Gallup with astonishment.

“Well, by Jove!” he exclaimed. “That beats! I didn’t think I’d hear
anything like that from you!”

The Vermonter reddened a little.

“Darn it!” he cried. “There ain’t no reason why yeou shouldn’t be
keerful. That ain’t bein’ a coward.”

“Of course not,” hastily put in Sawyer, the local stage manager. “Didn’t
I tell you nobody is regarded as cowardly for attempting to avoid
trouble with Sam Hooker.”

“Still, I should feel that I was running away.”

“That’s better than having your head broken. If you stay here and wait
for Sam Hooker, you won’t play to-night.”

“Think not?”

“I know it. He’ll put you out of shape. They say he knocked down old
Dorman’s bull with one blow of his fist.”

“I have heard of such things being done,” said Frank, still without
showing alarm; “but I’ve never happened to see anybody do it yet.”

“I know he broke one of Mose Herrick’s ribs with a blow.”

“Well, I shall do my best not to let Mr. Sam Hooker hit me in that
manner. That is all.”

“If you do your best, you will get out and go to the hotel. If he comes
there you’ll have somebody tell him you have gone somewhere else.”

Frank laughed.

“Just keep that stage door wide open,” he directed. “I threw Joe Hooker
down those stairs, and it may happen that his brother will take the same
sort of tumble. Go on putting the stuff in, and don’t worry about me.”

So the work continued, although everybody but Frank seemed anxious and
nervous. Merry was perfectly cool, and seemed to have forgotten all that
had occurred and that Joe Hooker had departed to look for his terrible
brother.

It was not much more than thirty minutes before there was the sound of
heavy feet on the stairs, and, after taking a look down, Ephraim ran to
Frank, exclaiming:

“They’re comin’, by gosh!”

Not a word did Merry say, but he advanced to meet the Hookers, buttoning
his coat tightly around him.

Joe Hooker came in first, his face shining with triumph. He was followed
by a large man, who was dressed in the rough garments of a cowboy and
wore a wide-brimmed hat, with a cartridge band round it. This fellow had
a flushed face and reddish eyes. He did look decidedly savage.

“Wherever is this yar kay-o-te?” he demanded.

“Right there!” cried Joe, pointing at Frank Merriwell. “That is the
chap! He’s the one, Sam!”

The cowboy stopped, placed his hands on his hips, and glared at Frank in
great amazement.

“Hey?” he shouted. “Is that him?”

“It is,” assured Joe.

“An’ he slammed yer round?”

“Yep.”

“This yar dood did?”

“Yep,” sheepishly admitted the younger brother.

“Yer must bin dreamin’!”

“No; he done it, Sam.”

“An’ he allows he kin fight?”

“He does.”

“Why, he wouldn’t be a bite fer me. Look hyar, ef you can’t handle that
yar lily-faced chap, yer ain’t no brother o’ mine. I reckoned yer was
goin’ ter put me up ag’in somethin’ what wuz wuth tacklin’.”

Sam Hooker seemed to be on the point of turning about and leaving, much
to the relief of Ephraim and the local stage manager.

But Joe had no thought of letting the affair end like that.

“If you don’t thrash him, Sam,” he said, “he’ll blow all over town that
he walloped a Hooker.”

“Hey?”

“He’ll do it, sure.”

The cowboy turned and looked Frank over again.

“Did yer slam my brother around somewhat?” he asked.

“Your brother did not obey me when I asked him to stop hammering at some
of my scenery, and I was compelled to handle him roughly,” admitted
Frank, quietly.

“Did yer throw him off the stage?”

“Yes.”

“Down ther stairs?”

“Yes.”

“An’ yer said ye’d handle me rougher than that ef I come round?”

“I believe I made some such remark.”

“There!” shouted the younger brother, in delight. “I told ye!”

“Whoop!” roared the elder. “Is this yar possible? Is it possible a
hand-fed cosset calf will blat at this untamed old maverick in this yar
manner? I reckon I’m dreamin’!”

“It’s jest what he done, Sam,” declared the younger brother, eagerly.
“He thinks he can do you.”

“Waal, I reckon I’ll hev ter wipe up ther floor with him, jest ter teach
ther blame fool a lesson.”

Whereupon the cowboy spat on his hands and prepared to attack Merriwell,
at whom he glared in a manner that expressed his contempt for such an
insignificant person.

Ephraim Gallup stood near, his mouth wide open and his knees seeming to
shake beneath him. The aspect of the cowboy was so terrible that the
Vermonter actually seemed frightened.

Sawyer, the local stage manager, was also frightened, but he did not
dare interfere, for he stood in great fear of Sam Hooker.

“It’s too bad!” he said, in an aside to Billy Wynne. “There won’t be any
show to-night, unless Mr. Merriwell has an understudy. Sam Hooker will
stave him all up.”

“Perhaps so,” said Wynne. “But Frank Merriwell is quite a scrapper when
he is forced to fight.”

“He’ll be a baby in Sam Hooker’s hands.”

“I hope not.”

“It’s no use hoping. He’s done for! Too bad!”

“Are ye reddy, tenderfoot dood?” shouted the cowboy.

“I warn you again to keep away and let me alone,” said Frank, grimly. “I
do not wish to fight with you.”

“To be course ye don’t! Haw! haw! Ye’d be a fool ef ye did! But ye’ve
made some loose talk, so that I’ve gotter chaw ye up. Be ye reddy?”

Frank stood with his hands at his sides, his eyes watching every motion
of the ruffian. He seemed perfectly careless and unprepared, but, in
fact, he was quite ready for anything.

Sam Hooker took a step forward, but paused in astonishment when Frank
did not cower or attempt to run away.

“Give it to him!” urged Joe, who seemed anxious to “get even” with the
youth who had handled him so easily. “He’s a dodger! Look out for him!”

“He won’t be able to do no dodgin’ when I’m done with him,” declared the
vicious cowboy.

“Mr. Sawyer,” said Frank, speaking in a cool manner to the local stage
manager, “please hold the door wide open, so I can throw this ruffian
downstairs without trouble.”

Sam Hooker gasped.

“Do my ears hear straight?” he gasped. “Throw me downstairs! What—that?
Waal, may I be jiggered!”

Then, with a roar, he made a leap at Frank.




                              CHAPTER XIV.
                      THE DOWNFALL OF SAM HOOKER.


To the astonishment of Joe Hooker, Frank Merriwell did not attempt to
dodge. Instead, with a sweep of one arm, he knocked Sam Hooker’s hands
aside, and then planted a blow on the cowboy’s chin. It was a swinging
uppercut, and it literally lifted the ruffian off his feet.

The head and shoulders of the man struck the floor before any other part
of his body. Barely had he dropped when the young actor was on him,
grasping him by the collar and slack of his trousers. With a jerk, Frank
brought the man up, ran him to the door, and gave him a thrust. Then, at
the very head of the flight of stairs, Merry lifted Sam Hooker with a
terrible kick.

The man actually seemed to turn over and over in the air, and he struck
at the bottom of the stairs with a thud that shook the building.

Joe Hooker gave a shout of rage, and he was on Frank just as Merry
delivered that kick. It was too late for him to aid his brother, but he
knocked Frank against the wall, and then tried to clutch him by the
throat.

Right there Ephraim Gallup “got into gear.”

“Hold on, ye crooked critter!” he shouted. “Yeou can’t do that when I’m
araound, by thutteration!”

He caught hold of Joe Hooker and gave him a yank backward.

In a moment Merriwell had recovered from the surprise of the sudden
attack, and he also had hold of the cowboy’s younger brother.

“Let me have him, Ephraim!” he grimly commanded.

“I don’t want him,” confessed Gallup, as he relaxed his hold on Frank’s
assailant.

Merry whirled Joe toward the door, and, a moment later, the fellow went
sailing downstairs after his brother, on top of whom he landed.

Sam Hooker, stunned and bewildered, was just crawling to his feet when
Joe came flying through the air, striking on his shoulders. The cowboy
was hurled to the floor again by the crushing weight of his brother.

Joe was not seriously hurt, as his fall had been broken, but Sam lay
still and groaned.

Joe sat up and looked at his brother, whom he had regarded as mighty and
invincible. Sam opened his eyes after a little and looked at Joe. It was
several moments before either of them spoke.

“Are ye hurt much?” asked Joe.

“I dunno,” grunted Sam.

“Feel any pain?” asked Joe.

“I dunno,” grunted Sam.

Then they were silent several moments, still staring at each other. At
last, Sam ventured to speak again.

“What done it?” he inquired. “Was there an earthquake?”

“You went up to lick a dude for me,” explained Joe.

“Did I?” murmured the cowboy. “I’m ruther muddled. Where’s the dude?”

“Up there.”

“An’ we’re down here?”

“Yes.”

“Sing’lar!”

Again they were silent, while the cowboy seemed trying to collect his
thoughts, plainly no easy matter.

“What did I do to the dude?” he finally asked.

“Nothing,” answered Joe, dolefully. “He did it to you. He kicked you
clean down the stairs, and then threw me after ye.”

Sam made a frantic struggle and sat up.

“Look hyar, Joe!” he growled; “don’t tell me a lie, fer I’ll wallop yer
ef yer do!”

“That ain’t no lie,” declared Joe. “He done it, Sam.”

“How?”

“Don’t ask me! I reckoned you’d chew him up, but he seemed to handle you
easier than he did me.”

“Why, thar ain’t no galoot in this yar town kin handle me!” growled the
cowboy, making a desperate struggle to rise.

He grew dizzy and toppled over. Then Joe assisted him to his feet, but
he stood there in a bewildered way.

“Never felt so queer in all my life,” he muttered. “The wind seems all
knocked out of me. I think I need a drink to brace me up.”

“What are you going to do to the dude?”

“I don’t think I’ll do a thing ter him now, but I reckon I’ll settle
with him later. I’ll shoot him full of holes like a sieve! I’ll smash
him like a fly! I’ll rope him like a—steer! I’ll brand him like a calf!”

Joe seemed greatly disappointed.

“I allow you made some talk like this before we came here,” he said;
“but the dude kicked you down the stairs.”

“I wasn’t ready for him. I wasn’t expecting him to move so quick. He
took me off my guard. Ef he’d seemed at all dangerous, I’d been watchin’
out. But I’ll do him! He’ll never play in his old show ter-night! I
promise you that, Joe. I’ll fix him so he won’t be able ter walk acrost
ther stage!”

With that threat, the cowboy staggered out of the building, aided by
Joe.

As Joe landed in a heap on Sam, Sawyer, the stage manager, stared at
Frank Merriwell in wonder and admiration.

“How did ye do it?” he muttered. “Why, Sam Hooker didn’t seem to bother
you no more’n his brother Joe, and both of ’em was pie.”

“Haw! haw! haw!” roared Ephraim Gallup, slapping his thigh. “I did think
that big feller was dangerous, but he was disposed of so gol-darn easy
that it was over before I knowed it hed begun.”

“And he is the terror of the town!” gurgled Sawyer.

“When he come up here, I ruther thought I’d like to be to hum on the
farm, b’gosh!” confessed Ephraim; “but now I wouldn’t hev missed it fer
a hull acre of pertaturs.”

“Mr. Merriwell is a noted amateur athlete,” said Billy Wynne, speaking
to Sawyer. “But he never boasts about it, and we, the members of his
company, are just beginning to find it out.”

“Well,” said the stage manager, “I’m glad he was able to handle Sam
Hooker, but I wish he’d done the feller up so he couldn’t make any more
trouble. He’ll try to get revenge, see if he don’t. He’ll make lots of
trouble for Mr. Merriwell.”

“He better not,” said the Vermont youth, grimly. “The best thing he kin
do is ter keep still and mind his business.”

“He won’t do that. Mr. Merriwell must be on the watch for him.”

“I hardly think Mr. Hooker is very dangerous,” smiled Frank. “I have
noticed in almost every case that bullies are overrated. People get to
thinking them very dangerous, and thus they are able to carry on a reign
of terror till somebody takes the wind out of them. After that they
seldom amount to much. Sometimes they degenerate so that boys can handle
them. I am willing to prophesy that Mr. Hooker will turn out one of this
kind. As soon as it is well known that somebody has thrashed him, he
will become an object of ridicule, and no one will have cause to fear
him.”

“Well, if you could bring such a state of affairs about, the whole town
would owe you a vote of thanks,” declared Sawyer.

“It is not very likely that he will molest me again, unless, by some
chance, it becomes known that he was handled roughly this time. Then he
may make a desperate attempt to reclaim his lost reputation.”

“And you are not at all afraid of him, Mr. Merriwell?” “Afeared of him?”
exploded Ephraim Gallup. “By gum! I ain’t never yit seen ther critter
that walked araound on two laigs that Frank Merriwell was skeered of.”

“But this fellow is a bloodthirsty ruffian.”

“I do not believe he is nearly as bloodthirsty as he wishes people to
believe,” said Merriwell.

“Would you go right out of the door down there if you knew he was
waiting for you?” asked Sawyer, doubtfully.

Frank laughed outright.

“Do you think I would drop out of a window on the other side of the
building so he would not see me?”

“No, but it don’t seem to me that you know just what kind of a man Sam
Hooker is. You don’t seem to realize that he has whipped five fighting
men in a stand-up battle. I don’t believe that kind of a man can be
easily tamed.”

“Why, ding-darn it!” cried Gallup. “He never come back to git any more
arter he run ag’in Frank!”

“And for that very reason,” said the local stage manager, “I am inclined
to believe he will lay for Mr. Merriwell.”

“If he does, he’ll git a wuss wallopin’ then he ever guv anybody in his
life. I’ll warrant him that.”

“He made a mistake in thinking he was going to handle Mr. Merriwell
easily. Next time he will not make that mistake.”

“Waal, he don’t want ter.”

“He’ll try to smash Mr. Merriwell at the very start.”

“Don’t worry about that, Mr. Sawyer,” said Frank. “Go ahead getting my
stuff in. Ephraim, go to the hotel and send Havener and Dunton here to
help handle this stuff. We must have somebody in the place of Joe
Hooker.”

“All right.”

Ephraim departed, and Frank continued to watch the disposal of his
scenery as it was brought in.

It was not long before Havener, Dunton and Gallup appeared. Ephraim came
in fuming.

“By gum!” he cried. “Yeou’re goin’ ter have a raow with that feller,
sure, Frank! He’s watchin’ fer ye!”

“Hooker?”

“Yep.”

“I knew he would!” exclaimed Sawyer.

“Where is he?” asked Merry.

“At the saloon on the corner,” answered the Vermonter. “He was peekin’
aout of the winder, an’ he jumped aout when he saw me comin’. Soon as he
saw yeou warn’t with me, he said somethin’ kainder disgusted like an’
went back in. There’s a reg’ler gang with him.”

“A gang?”

“There is a crowd of young toughs who follow him around,” explained
Sawyer. “They think he’s able to whip Corbett, and they take delight in
seein’ him smash anybody.”

Frank did not show the least alarm, but his face grew grim and resolute.

“I rather fancy I shall have enough of my friends with me to see that I
get fair play,” he said. “That is all I ask.”

Dunton got close to Frank, and said:

“You can count on me, Mr. Merriwell. I believe I’d like a chance to make
myself solid with you again, for you must have a poor opinion of me
since what happened in St. Jo.”

“You did no more than hundreds of actors are doing every season,” said
Merry; “and you were man enough afterward to acknowledge that you
believed you were in the wrong. I have held nothing against you,
Dunton.”

“Thank you,” said the actor, simply.

“Ephraim told us about your encounter with this ruffian,” said Havener.
“You should have broken his head with a club.”

They continued the work of arranging the scenery and getting it ready
for quick handling at night. The first scene was set.

Frank told Sawyer that he wanted five men for supers, and they must be
on hand at three o’clock for instructions. Sawyer promised to provide
them.

Then Frank prepared to leave.

“Now,” said Ephraim, who was somewhat agitated, despite his efforts to
keep cool, “there’s goin’ ter be a dinged hot old time. Come erlong, Mr.
Sawyer, if yeou want to see ther jamboree.”

“I’ll follow,” said Sawyer, and it was plain that he did not wish to be
seen with the actors.

As they approached the saloon on the corner a number of men were seen
loitering in front of it. One of them darted into the saloon.

“Gone ter tell Hooker!” gurgled Ephraim. “Jeewhillikins! I’m beginnin’
ter feel that I kainder wisht I was to hum on the farm!”

Next to the saloon a man was washing windows with a hose.

As the little party reached the corner, Joe Hooker came running out,
quickly followed by his brother and several of the toughs of the town.

“There he is!” cried Joe, pointing to Frank. “Now smash him, Sam! Yeou
said you would.”

The cowboy grinned viciously as his eyes rested on Frank. He placed
himself squarely in the middle of the sidewalk.

“Don’t let him get hold of you, Merriwell!” panted Dunton, who was pale
and unsteady. “He looks like a perfect devil!”

Frank said nothing.

“Hold on, hyar!” roared Sam Hooker, glaring at Merry. “You’re ther
galoot I’ve bin waitin’ fer!”

“Go for him, Sam!” cried the toughs. “Give it to the dude show chap!”

“Oh, I’ll make mincemeat of him,” promised the ruffian, advancing on
Merry. “I’ll pulverize him!”

Frank did not order him to keep off, for he knew it would be a waste of
breath. Instead of that, to the astonishment of Hooker and his gang, he
went straight at the fellow like a flash.

This was a movement entirely unexpected. The cowboy attempted to catch
hold of Merry, but Frank dodged aside, still advancing, struck the
fellow a blow on the elbow that whirled him sideways, and then gave him
one under the ear that made him stagger.

“Paste him, Sam!” howled Joe, beginning to dance.

The ruffian whirled back, but Merriwell had followed him closely, and
the blow Hooker struck was readily parried. Then Merry began to hammer
the fellow scientifically, following every advantage closely, and
keeping him going. Only once was Frank hit, and that was a weak blow,
for he jumped back in time to avoid the full force of the swinging
drive, which must have knocked him down had he not made the movement.

As Frank leaped back, the ruffian fancied things had turned his way,
and, uttering unprintable language, he tried to close in.

“Don’t let him get hold of you, Merriwell!” again panted Dunton, who was
shaking in every limb.

To the astonishment of everybody, Frank paid no heed to this, but
suddenly darted inside his assailant’s guard and grappled with him.

“Now I’ve got ye!” shouted the cowboy.

“Now Sam’ll break him!” yelled Joe Hooker, with satisfaction.

Then something happened that caused everybody to open his eyes.

The ruffian tried to crush the young athlete, but, by a wrestling trick,
Frank lifted him, flung his heels into the air, snapped him over his
hip, and sent him heavily to the solid walk.

These movements had carried them close to where the man who had been
washing windows in a dazed way, with the hose in his hands, the water
pouring from the nozzle.

In a twinkling, Merriwell caught the hose from the man’s hand and turned
the stream on Sam Hooker, who had risen to a sitting position.

“Whar is he!” the ruffian roared. “Has he run away? I’ll swaller——”

“Water!” laughed Frank.

Sizz—spat!—the stream from the hose struck Hooker full in the mouth,
drowning his words instantly.

The fellow was knocked flat on his back by the force of the water.

“Perhaps this will cool him off,” observed Merry.

The crowd of toughs began to realize what was happening to the terror of
the town, and they were astounded.

“Ther dude flammed him!”

“Sure thing!”

“Sam’s met his match!”

“You bet!”

“That’s Frank Merriwell!” cried one of the boys of the town. “If you
fellers have ever heard of him, you oughter know he can do up all the
Hookers in Missouri! He’s a honey cooler!”

Joe Hooker was dazed, for up to this meeting he had not realized that
his bully brother had met his match in a smooth-faced, boyish-looking
actor.

Even now, when the realization of the truth was beginning to force
itself on Joe, he was so infuriated because such a thing could be
possible that it made him crazy. Snarling and spitting like a wild cat,
he made a spring for Merry.

Quick as a flash, Frank turned the stream from Sam Hooker to his
brother. It struck Joe in the eyes, blinding him, staggering him. It
filled his mouth and forced its way down his throat. He gurgled and
choked, and then his heel caught and he fell flat on his back.

By this time Sam was able to sit up again, catching his breath and
rubbing the water out of his eyes.

“Oh, I’ll have his blood!” panted the cowboy. “This settles him! Whar is
he? Show him ter——”

He was trying to get out a revolver when Merry gave it to him again, and
over on his back he was knocked once more.

The spectators had been filled with wonder, but now they saw the
ludicrous side of the encounter, and they began to pound each other on
the back and shout with laughter.

“I sw’ar, it’s ther funniest thing I ever saw!” roared one.

“Think of Sam takin’ water like that!” shouted another.

“He’s swallered enough ter p’izen him a’reddy!” declared another.

“Bet he ain’t hed a bath afore in a year!” exclaimed a fourth.

And then, in chorus, they roared:

“A-haw! a-haw! a-haw!”

Ephraim Gallup executed a grotesque dance on the sidewalk.

“By gum! this is a reg’lar jamboree!” he giggled. “It oughter be an
advertisement fer ther show if Frank does ther bully of ther taown up
good.”

“It will be the wonder of the place,” declared Sawyer, the local stage
manager. “I don’t understand it now.”

Douglas Dunton showed his relief. Although he had agreed to stand by
Frank, Dunton had been decidedly frightened. Now he was beginning to
laugh.

Havener had not said much, but he was looking on in great satisfaction,
nodding his approval over what was happening.

Joe Hooker sat up, but Merry was giving Sam all he wanted just then, and
he paid very little attention to Joe.

The younger brother got onto his hands and knees, and then sprang to his
feet. He did not make more than two steps toward Merry, however, before
the stream of water struck him in the eyes once more.

This time it came unexpectedly, but Joe was not knocked down. He reeled
back, putting up his arm to protect his face.

Frank continued to pour the water upon him. Joe whirled back toward
Merry, but the water struck him in the back of the neck. He bent over,
and the stream beat under his coat, turning it up over his head. Then,
with his coat in that manner, Joe gave up and took to his heels, dusting
round the corner.

“Go it!” shouted the crowd, in merriment.

No one had offered to help the brothers. At first no one had imagined
Sam Hooker could need help in disposing of the boyish actor. When they
began to understand that the bully had met his match, they were so dazed
that no one made a move to help him. When the stream of water was turned
on him, the risibilities of the rough fellows were aroused, and they
shouted with laughter over the plight of the fellow upon whom they had
gazed in fear and awe a short time before.

As soon as a bully ceases to command respect, as soon as he is made
ridiculous, his prestige is gone. No one had dared laugh at Sam Hooker
before that. He had done the most grotesque things without causing
anybody to crack a smile. Now, however, they literally roared with
amusement.

Sam heard them laughing. At first it infuriated him, but that stream of
cold water cooled his rage swiftly. He got onto his hands and knees and
tried to rise. The water struck him again, sending him back to his hands
and knees. That was too much. Without realizing what a laughable
spectacle he presented, he scrambled on all fours for a place of safety.
He scampered round the corner after his brother, and Frank Merriwell was
left in possession of the field.




                              CHAPTER XV.
                         THE FRUITS OF EFFORT.


“Permit me to return your hose to you, sir,” said Merry, smilingly, as
he gave the hose back to the man from whom he had snatched it. “I trust
you will pardon me for my rudeness in taking it thus abruptly, but there
did not seem to be time enough to ask in a polite manner.”

The man was holding onto his sides and shouting with laughter.

“O-ho! o-ho! o-ho!” he bellowed. “Funniest—thing—I—ever—saw! Oh-ho!
a-haw! a-haw!”

He wiped his eyes, literally gasping with laughter.

“I am glad I was able to provide you with amusement, sir,” said Merry,
quietly. “And I trust I have caused you no inconvenience.”

“Hey?”

The man suddenly grew sober.

“By gosh!” he exclaimed.

He looked alarmed.

“What is it?” asked Frank.

“Never thought of it before.”

“Thought of what?”

“What Sam Hooker may think about my lettin’ you have the hose.”

“But you didn’t let me have it. I took it.”

“I know you did, but Sam may not look at it that way.”

“You fear he’ll make trouble for you?”

“Yep.”

“If he does, I’ll hunt him up and give him the worst thrashing of his
life,” said Merry, with the utmost coolness, speaking loudly enough for
the staring roughs to hear. “I have been very gentle with him thus far,
but the limit is reached. Next time I have trouble with him I think I
shall break his back.”

“Gosh!”

“Wow!”

“Hear him talk!”

“Bet he kin do it!”

“He’s hot stuff!”

These muttered exclamations came from the lips of the toughs.

“Didn’t I tell ye he could do up all the Hookers in Missouri!”
triumphantly cried the village boy. “I’ve read all about him, and he is
the warmest biscuit in the pan.”

“I reckon I’d better git away afore Sam Hooker comes back lookin’ fer
me,” said the man who had been using the hose.

He shut off the water, made haste to detach the hose, and hustled into
the store, without saying another word.

“Come on, gentlemen,” said Merry, speaking to his friends. “The Hookers
seem to have hooked it.”

Then he turned to the staring toughs, saying:

“If it should happen that Sam Hooker wishes to see me again, tell him to
come round to the hotel and call for me. If he hasn’t had enough, I’ll
finish him next time.”

With that he walked away, accompanied by Ephraim, Havener and Dunton.

Dunton was breathing easier.

“Merriwell,” he said, “I don’t know how you do it.”

“It wasn’t half as hard as it looked,” declared Frank.

“But that fellow was a most desperate-looking ruffian.”

“He seemed pretty desperate, but there’s not much behind his outward
appearance. I saw that in the first place.”

“How could you see it?”

“Well, I will explain. He is masquerading here in cowboy rig, and he is
doing that to impress the people of this place. He makes himself look as
fierce and terrible as possible. That is for the purpose of terrifying
people and making them stand in awe of him. He has a way of swaggering
and bragging. Now, a real desperado seldom makes such an effort to
convince people that he is desperate. Very often it is the case that the
genuine desperado, the real dangerous man, is peaceful and mild in
appearance, seeking to avoid rather than to attract attention. One of
the most desperate ruffians the West ever produced—Slade—was as
mild-mannered as a woman. Wild Bill, who was a ‘killer’ all his life,
never swaggered and boasted of what he could do. Jesse James was not a
boaster. I might name many others. In nine cases out of ten, the
desperado who boasts and brags, who swaggers and tries to frighten
everybody by his terrible appearance, is a craven at heart, and he may
be handled with ease once he realizes he has met his master.”

“Merriwell,” said Havener, “it is a wonder to me how you read human
character so well. Do you ever make a mistake?”

“Oh, yes!” laughed Frank, honestly. “I have made lots of mistakes.”

“How?”

“By trusting men who were rascals. By giving them too much chance at
me.”

“It’s alwus in that way that he makes mistakes, by thutter!” put in
Gallup. “He never makes um any other way, an’ I guess by jee! that
sometimes when he does trust a feller, he knows the chap’s crooked, but
kainder hopes he won’t prove that way.”

“Yes,” smiled Merry, “I have trusted many chaps, while I felt in my
heart that they were crooked, but I hoped I might be mistaken. I do not
like to condemn a man before he has been given a show to display what
there is in him.”

Dunton had been walking along in silence after his first remark. Now he
observed:

“I rather believe that sometimes, by trusting such fellows, you put them
on their honor so that they are ashamed to do you a dirty turn.”

“That is my object—it is my hope,” said Merry. “The moment a man knows
he is mistrusted, if his character is weak, he begins to mistrust
himself. Let him feel that others have confidence in him, and his
conscience in many cases makes him ashamed of being crooked.”

“I don’t suppose I’m any too good,” admitted Dunton. “In fact, I realize
I’m not. It was not so long ago that I tried to do you a bad turn,
Merriwell. That was when you first joined the company to which I
belonged. I was no match for you. You did me up, but then, instead of
exposing me and causing my release in disgrace from the company, you
kept still and gave me a show. When I understood the full extent of your
generosity, I began to compare myself with you, and the comparison was
odious. I was disgusted with myself. I said, ‘Frank Merriwell is square,
white and generous. What are you?’ Then I came to you, Merriwell, and
owned up.”

“That’s right,” nodded Frank. “And I do not believe to this day Havener
knows anything about it, although he was witness of the whole affair as
it originally happened.”

“I knew there was some trouble between you and Dunton,” said the stage
manager, “and I saw that it came out all right, for both of you dropped
all hard feelings, or seemed to.”

“But you never knew,” said Dunton, “that I tried to kill Merriwell.”

“Kill him?” gasped Havener.

“Yes.”

“Great gosh!” gurgled Ephraim.

“No,” admitted the stage manager, “I never knew that.”

“Well, it’s a fact,” admitted the actor. “It was in the time when we
were playing in repertoire just after the wind up of poor old ‘Uncle
Tom.’ You remember that Merriwell was run into the leading part in a
hurry, to fill the place of Leslie Lawrence, who was ill.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“And I wanted that part.”

“I remember that.”

“I thought it a shame to run in a rank amateur like Merriwell on a
lead.”

“You said so.”

“Well, I was hot because I could not have the part, and I did not
rehearse very well.”

Havener nodded. He remembered all this perfectly.

“In my heart,” Dunton went on, “was a perfect hell of fury. I don’t
think I ever felt that way before. My hatred for Merriwell knew no
bounds. I resolved to show him up. I am something of a fencer and there
was a sword duel in the play. I was the villain in the piece, and I
fought with the hero. It was necessary for Merriwell to do the duel with
me. In the piece I should seem to have the best of it at first, and then
he should show superior skill and disarm me.”

“I remember all about that,” said Havener. “Go on.”

“It was in that duel that I determined to make a monkey of him. I would
show the audience what a stick he was.”

Ephraim Gallup chuckled.

“I’ve known other folks to git fooled in a real duel with him,” said the
Vermonter.

“This turned out a real duel,” said Dunton. “When the time came, I
insulted Merriwell by adding venom to the regular lines of the part. I
called him a crawling cur. I did my best to make him feel my real
contempt for him.”

Frank was smiling, but he said nothing.

“The duel began,” Dunton continued. “I started to play with Mr.
Merriwell, who had rehearsed awkwardly in the afternoon. To my surprise,
I found his awkwardness was gone. He met me with the touch and skill of
an expert. At first I could not realize that he had fooled me. When I
did, I was infuriated beyond measure. My first thought was to wound him,
if I could.”

Havener uttered a low exclamation.

“I fought with all the skill and fury I knew,” said Dunton; “but he met
all my attacks, and held me at bay with ease. My rage increased till I
lost my head entirely. I longed to kill him, I swore I would kill him—I
made a desperate attempt to do it!”

“Gosh!” gasped the Vermont youth, staring at the speaker.

“I remember that the duel was the finest I ever saw on the stage,” said
Havener, “but I was afraid something would happen. I didn’t dream it was
a real duel.”

“It was,” nodded Dunton. “I lunged straight for Merriwell’s body, trying
to run him through.”

“Waal, darn my pertaturs!” palpitated Ephraim Gallup.

“I know that he understood my purpose. I do not think I deceived Mr.
Merriwell for a moment. He met me fairly. Then, before I knew it, my
weapon was wrenched from my hand and sent spinning into the air.”

“Hooray!” exclaimed the Vermont youth, with satisfaction.

“Merriwell caught it when it came down, and immediately offered it to
me, hilt first.”

“Thutteration!” gurgled Gallup.

“A single moment I hesitated,” the actor continued, “and then I was
seized by such rage as I never felt before and never expect to feel
again. I snatched the weapon and made one mad lunge to drive it straight
through the heart of my antagonist.”

The Yankee lad nearly lost his breath.

“Mr. Merriwell was on guard for me. He was not taken unawares, and he
foiled my attempt. Then he attacked me with such fury that I could not
stand before him. I was driven back and back. I saw a terrible light in
his eyes, even though he laughed in my face. His sword was flashing and
glittering everywhere. I realized that I was completely at his mercy,
and I believed he intended to kill me. Then I dropped my sword and cried
for mercy.”

“Whoop!” exploded Gallup. “That’s ther way Frank Merriwell serves ’em!
Oh, he is the boy ter do it!”

“Well,” finished Dunton, “I more than half expected to be cut down, but
nothing of the kind happened. I remember with what scorn Mr. Merriwell
said he would not stain his sword with my treacherous blood. I remember
how I felt after that. No person can understand the tumult of feelings
in my heart. I thought of running away. You complimented us on the duel
after the curtain had fallen, Mr. Havener, but you warned us that we
were far too reckless, and we must not do it that way again. I believed
Mr. Merriwell would expose me then. He did not. Then I was sure he would
do so very soon. He did not. I waited in suspense as long as I could
stand it, and then I came and asked him when he was going to blow the
whole thing. He said he was going to wait and see how I behaved in the
future, and that he had no thought of blowing if I didn’t try it again.
Well, I haven’t tried it. Have I, Mr. Merriwell?”

“No,” answered Frank, “we haven’t had much trouble since then.”

“And to think I never knew a thing about this before!” exclaimed the
stage manager. “Mr. Merriwell never breathed a word of it to me—not a
word.”

“Of course he didn’t!” exclaimed Ephraim. “He never blows anything.”

“Mr. Dunton kept his word to me,” said Frank. “I am sure it was my place
to keep mine to him.”

“And you engaged him for your own company!”

“Yes; he was too good a man to let slip. I had a place for him, and he
has filled it.”

“And I think,” said Douglas Dunton, seriously, “that my association with
Frank Merriwell has improved me in various ways. Anyone who takes him
for a model is bound to improve.”

“That’s right, b’gosh!” nodded Gallup.

Hodge came rushing into Merriwell’s room almost as soon as Frank
arrived. He waved two papers over his head in a triumphant way, crying:

“Great stuff, Frank—great stuff!”

Merry was astounded, for such a demonstration on the part of Hodge was
almost unprecedented.

“What is it?” asked Frank.

“The dramatic papers from the East.”

“Well, what about them?”

“Got full reports of ‘True Blue’ in ’em. Great stuff, I tell you!”

“Well, this is interesting. The papers must have given the play a good
send off?”

“Great—simply great! Here’s the _Dramatic Reflector_, the leading New
York paper, and it has almost a quarter of a column about the production
of your piece in Puleob.”

“As much as that?”

“Yes. And the _Snipper_ gives you a good long notice, too. The
_Reflector_ says ‘True Blue’ is a winner from the start, and you are a
dandy in your part. The _Snipper_ does not give the cast, same as the
other paper, but its notice is just as complimentary. Here, read ’em,
read ’em!”

Frank took the papers and read the notices. His face showed his
satisfaction.

“It is better than I expected,” he said. “Now I understand how it
happened that I received notice in St. Jo that there was an opening in
New York for the week that I desired. The manager of the theater had
seen these notices.”

“That’s about the size of it,” nodded Hodge. “Oh, you are on the
straight road to success—you are forging to the front.”

“Well, I have hopes of getting there,” smiled Frank.

“You will. I know that. Just think of the houses we had in St. Jo. And
the advance sale here is remarkable. The manager says he never knew such
a sale but once before. The house will be jammed to-night. We could play
here three nights to paying business, and this is a small place. What’ll
we do when we hit Chicago?”

“That’s what I’d like to know.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Chicago will be the test.”

“How?”

“I think I shall be able to tell in Chicago whether the piece will be a
success or not.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. You can’t be sure. The taste of Chicago
sometimes varies from that of New York. What is a success in one place
is sometimes a failure in the other.”

“But that happens so seldom that it is an exception. If ‘True Blue’
catches on in Chicago, it will go in New York.”

“Well, I believe it is bound to go anywhere. It took me some time to
realize you had written a better play than your first one, but I know it
now.”

The door was standing ajar. Cassie Lee appeared outside.

“May I come in?” she called.

“Come right in, Cassie,” invited Frank. “Who’s that following you? Tell
him to come in.”

The soubrette entered, followed by Havener.

“I—I came to tell you something,” she said, but hesitated, as she saw
Bart sitting there.

“If it’s anything private, I’ll disappear,” said Hodge.

“It’s nothing private,” declared Havener. “There is no reason for being
secret about it, Cassie. The entire company knows we’re engaged.”

“But I don’t feel just like—like——”

“Oh, I know,” smiled Havener, who looked decidedly happy. “But I’ll
tell. We’re going to be married in Chicago, Mr. Merriwell. We have
settled on that. I’ve induced Cassie to agree to it at last.”

“I congratulate you, Havener!” exclaimed Frank, grasping his hand and
shaking it warmly. “I believe you will be happy together, and surely you
deserve happiness, if any man deserves it, for fortune was rather hard
on you in your other venture.”

Bart rose and extended his hand to the stage manager.

“Permit me to add my congratulations,” he said.

Havener accepted Bart’s hand.

“And Cassie,” said Frank, looking into the eyes of the girl. “Why, she’s
changed remarkably in the last few weeks. The sad look has gone from her
face, and there is color coming to her cheeks and luster to her eyes.”

“I owe you everything, Frank!” she murmured. “Everything!”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“You gave me courage to fight my terrible habit. You encouraged me to
pray. Heaven gave me strength. I believe I have won at last; but not
until I was reasonably sure of that would I again consent to the
marriage after that woman interfered with the other. The shock of that
nearly sent me back into my old ways again.”

“But it has ended well at last.”

“Yes, yes.”

“I am very glad, Cassie—glad for both you and Havener. I knew how much
depended on it.”

“The happiness of our lives depended on it—yes, our very lives!”
asserted the man.

“Well,” said Frank, “I presume I am to be best man?”

“Of course!” cried Havener and Cassie together.

“Then that is settled.”

“I have satisfied myself beyond a doubt, and Cassie also, that the woman
I believed my wife was the lawful wife of another at the time we were
living together. She committed bigamy. That clears me of her, and I am
free.”

Frank showed Havener and Cassie the notices in the dramatic papers, and
they took their turn to congratulate him.

“The sun of happiness and prosperity is shining brightly on all of us
just now,” said Merry. “I see my way clear to get back to college,
and——”

“Leave the rest of us in the lurch,” laughed Havener. “Well, I guess we
can take care of ourselves.”

“But I don’t propose to leave the rest of you in the lurch, Havener.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“This play will go on the road again next season.”

“Yes; who will manage it?”

“Roscoe Havener.”

“What?”

Havener was astounded.

“I have resolved on that, if you care to take it out.”

The stage manager was dazed for the moment.

“Oh, that is so good of you!” cried Cassie. “Just think of it, Ross! You
were saying yesterday that you’d give anything if you had a piece like
this for me to play in!”

“I know it,” said Havener; “but I never dreamed of——”

“Nor did I!” cried the little soubrette. “Oh, how can we thank Frank!”

“I don’t know,” said Havener. “Words can’t seem to express what I want
to say.”

“Same here!” chirped Cassie.

“Don’t say anything,” laughed Frank.

“But how are we to get all the money to back the piece?” asked Havener.

“I’ll back it myself,” said Frank. “That is, I’ll do it if Chicago and
New York does not break me. Of course, I may run against snags in those
places. If I get broken, I believe you should be able to find an angel,
Havener, in case I do not keep in the business.”

“It’s a shame that you are thinking of leaving just as you’re getting
such a start!” cried Cassie.

“I want to get back to college,” said Frank. “I feel something drawing
me back there. If I wait longer, my old classmates and chums will be
gone. Of course I can go back and finish my course, but it will not be
the same. I have made up my mind to return to Yale somehow in the fall.”

“Well,” said Cassie, “whatever you do, I wish you good fortune and
happiness, for I am sure you deserve it.”

“Thank you. A man deserves what he wins. I have worked hard to win out,
and prosperity seems coming my way at last.”

Havener and Cassie departed pretty soon, and Frank turned to find Bart
seated on a chair, his elbows resting on his knees, and his face hidden
in his hands.




                              CHAPTER XVI.
                            BART AND DAISY.


The change from Hodge’s jubilation of a short time before to his present
attitude and appearance of dejection was rather startling. Merry paused
an instant, then stepped forward quickly, exclaiming:

“Bart!”

Hodge did not stir.

Frank’s hand fell gently on his shoulder.

“What’s the matter, old man?” asked Merry, softly.

“Nothing,” mumbled Hodge.

“Oh, but there is,” declared Frank. “You were feeling well enough a
short time ago. What’s the meaning of this change?”

Hodge was silent.

“Look here, Bart,” said Merry, gently, “I’m your friend—I’m the one for
you to talk to about this matter, old man.”

Bart looked up, now, but there was something like defiance in his face.

“There isn’t anything to talk about,” he asserted. “Can’t a fellow have
the blues once in a while, if he wants ’em!”

“Nobody wants the blues, Hodge. A man in good health, with a liver that
is not torpid, should not have the blues. Is there anything the matter
with your liver?”

“Dunno.”

“There was a cause for the sudden change in you,” said Merry, seriously.
“A little while ago you seemed in better spirits than you have shown
before for a month. And now you are in the funks.”

“Oh, don’t use that word!”

“What word?”

“Funk.”

“What’s the matter with that word?”

“It’s Yale slang.”

“What of that?”

Hodge sprang up and walked the floor.

“I don’t want to hear it!” he cried, fiercely. “I don’t want to hear
anything that will remind me of Yale! Isn’t it bad enough for me to know
you are going back there!”

“I’m afraid I do not quite understand you,” said Merry, slowly. “Why
should you feel that way about it?”

“I am an outcast! You are going back to finish your course.”

“Is that it?”

“Yes.”

“Are you jealous, Hodge?”

“No; I’m glad you’re going—I’m glad for you!”

“Then what is the matter? You seem to be completely off your trolley,
old man. You’re getting freakish.”

“Oh, I suppose so! Rub it in! I had a letter from my mother yesterday.
She said she was sorry to give me up, but I had been a terrible
disappointment to her. She did hope I would get through college. She was
sending me money to get through on, you know. I was a fool! I gambled
her money away, and she sent it without letting my father know, for he
would have stopped her had he known. Oh, isn’t there a reason why I
should feel blue?”

“I think you are inclined to make things out worse than they are,
Hodge.”

“Worse! worse! Ha! ha! How could they be any worse? Here my mother, who
has clung to me all through everything, is giving up in despair! She
thinks I have gone to the dogs.”

“And I suppose you do not write and tell her all the truth?”

“What’s the use?” said Bart, bitterly. “She knows I ran away from
college. Do you fancy it would make her feel any better to know I did so
because I could not meet the gambling debts I had contracted? In this
case, it is better not to tell the truth.”

“I think I will write to your mother, Bart.”

“What for?”

“I have something to tell her.”

“What?”

“That you are going back to college in the fall.”

Hodge stopped and stared at Frank. After a few moments, he spoke:

“Why would you tell her such a thing as that?”

“It would make her feel better.”

“But you were speaking of telling the truth a moment ago.”

“And I should be telling the truth then.”

“What?”

“Nothing but the truth.”

“Look here, Merriwell, I want to know just what you are driving at! Come
out and give it to me straight.”

“All right,” smiled Frank. “I mean that you are going back to college
when I go. Is that plain enough?”

“It’s plain enough, but it’s you who are off your trolley.”

“Oh, I think not.”

“You are, just the same. I am done with Yale. How could I go back there,
after skipping out as I did and leaving all those debts? It’s
impossible.”

“You know your debts were paid. When Browning returned to college, he
squared them all.”

“Without my knowledge, Merriwell. I refused to let you send the money,
but you did it without letting me know a thing about it. I was the one
to pay the debts I had contracted. You did that.”

“Something I’ll guarantee is known to no person but Browning.”

“What makes you think that?”

“I know it.”

“How?”

“He was bound by a pledge not to say I had anything to do with it, but
to give the impression that the money came from you.”

Something misty came into the eyes of the dark-haired lad.

“Merriwell,” he said, huskily, “I’d be an ungrateful churl not to
appreciate such kindness!”

“It’s all right, old man; it’s what I’d wish another to do for me were I
in your place.”

“It’s exactly what you would not accept from another. I know that. You
put me in this position without my consent. Now I owe you all that
money.”

“Forget it!”

“That’s easy to say, but it’s not easy to do. Now you are going back to
college, and what’s to become of me? I am left!”

“I tell you that you are going with me.”

“No; I have no love for any of your Yale friends. Of course I was sorry
that I failed to finish my course and graduate. It’s too late now. I
tell you my mother has given me up. That makes it impossible for me to
return to college. She was paying my way. Now there is no one to furnish
me with money, and I am as bad off as you were when you lost your
fortune.”

“Bart, I’ve been thinking of something lately. You know all about our
discovery of the lost fortune in the Utah Desert.”

“I know all about your discovery of it, and I know no other person had a
hand in it.”

“But Browning, Diamond, Rattleton and Toots were with me. It has been
divided equally among us. Shortly after the discovery of that treasure
you joined our party. I have thought it all over, and it seems no more
than fair that you should have a share of that fortune.”

“You’re going daffy!”

“Not a bit of it. I say it is right. The others have received their
shares, but you shall have your share of mine. I will divide with you,
and that will give you four thousand dollars. With that sum you can
return to college and finish your course.”

Hodge laughed sarcastically.

“I’d like to know what you take me for!” he cried. “Are you trying to
insult me, Frank?”

“You know better!”

“Do you imagine I’m a fool?”

“No.”

“Well, then, don’t ever make me such an offer again. You know what I
think of those chaps who accepted the checks you sent them. You know I
believe that treasure belonged entirely to you, and no other had a right
to a dollar of it. Do you take me for a fellow who would accept from you
a gift of four thousand dollars? Well, that’s what you propose to make
me—nothing more, nothing less. It won’t go with me, Merriwell. I do not
thank you for the offer, for you should have known better than to make
it. Go back to Yale. I wish you good fortune—I wish you everything you
desire. I will go my way in the world; you’ll go yours. It must come to
that in time, anyhow. What odds if it comes sooner than we had
anticipated! You have taken an interest in me, Frank, and your
friendship is the pleasantest memory of my life; but even that must
become a mere memory sometime.”

“There is no reason why it should become a mere memory while life shall
last,” said Frank, soberly. “Though fate may divide us, still our
friendship should remain firm and unshaken. As for your return to Yale,
I’m not going to say anything more about it now, but I shall not give it
up.”

While a rehearsal was taking place for the benefit of the supers that
afternoon the local stage manager came to Frank and said:

“Mr. Merriwell, there is a young lady down at the door who wishes to see
you.”

“A young lady?” exclaimed Merry, not without a feeling of consternation,
for his recent experiences in St. Joseph were vivid in his memory.

“Yes, sir.”

“Who is it?”

“I don’t know her name.”

“But she belongs in this town?”

“Yes.”

“Methinks thou hast another mash, most noble grand high muck-a-muck,”
spouted Douglas Dunton, in the eccentric manner he sometimes assumed.

“I’m afraid so,” admitted Merry.

“Perchance thou wouldst send me down to see the fair damsel—but I doubt
it,” murmured Dunton.

“No,” said Frank, “I think I had better go down myself.”

He went down to the door and found the girl who was waiting there. He
was surprised to see her standing with her head bowed, in an attitude of
apparent dejection and shame.

“Did you wish to see me, miss?” he asked.

She nodded her head, but did not look up, not a little to his perplexity
and wonderment.

“I am here.”

“Mr. Merriwell,” she murmured, “I have come to thank you.”

“To thank me?” exclaimed Merry. “For what?”

“For your kindness to me in St. Joseph.”

Frank’s heart dropped.

“Good gracious!” he thought. “Has she followed us from St. Jo.?”

Then the girl looked up, and he recognized her.

“Daisy Blaney!” he exclaimed. “Why, I didn’t know you!”

No wonder he had not recognized the bold, saucy, reckless girl in this
meek, abashed, low-spoken maiden.

“Yes, Daisy Blaney,” she said. “I thought perhaps you did not want to
know me, and I did not wonder much.”

“Didn’t want to know you? Why not, Miss Blaney?”

“Oh, because—because—you know,” she faltered, in confusion. “I reckon I
ain’t just the sort of girl you would be proud to introduce to your
friends. You didn’t meet me under very favorable circumstances, and you
must think I’m pretty far down the scale.”

“I hope not,” said Merry, quickly.

“Still, I know just what you think, and I don’t know that I blame you
much. You are different from any show feller I ever met before. I never
fancied any of them cared a snap what became of a girl if they could
have a good time. None of them ever gave me any good advice before. I
never saw one before you who was not ready to catch on and have a
racket. Instead of catching on, you gave me a calling down. I knew I
deserved it, and it made me feel all the more reckless. I thought I was
too far on the road to turn back, and I tried to forget what you said to
me; but I couldn’t forget it, and it kept sounding in my ears all the
time. I couldn’t run away from the sound; I couldn’t drown it with music
and laughter. I saw you looking at me in that sympathizing, pitying way,
and, though I tried to laugh at you for a fool, your eyes haunted me.
Oh, I tell you I was right miserable after that talk with you. You set
me to thinking of mother and home.”

“Mother and home!” said Frank, softly. “The two strongest influences for
good. How many a wayward wanderer has been reclaimed by thoughts of
mother and home!”

“If mother had had her way at home I’d never left,” the girl went on.
“It was the old man—father, I mean. He drove me away. He didn’t seem to
understand me at all. If I made a little mistake, he was so harsh and
cruel with me. Why,” she exclaimed, suddenly relapsing into slang under
the pressure of excitement, “the old duffer uster be a pretty gay boy
himself, and there wasn’t any reason why his daughter shouldn’t take
after him. All the same, he never thought of that, but he was dead hard
on me.”

Frank knew this was the fault of many fathers. They forgot their own
younger days and were harsh and hard with their sons or daughters who
showed they had inherited certain lively qualities from their parents.

“But your mother—for her sake, you must overlook anything from your
father.”

“Yes, I suppose I ought, but it’s pretty hard sometimes. He’s tried to
be so strict with me it’s driven me to do some of the things I have
done.”

“That is where you are making your mistake. I do not wish to lecture you
now, Miss Blaney, and I am going to say no more about it. I am glad I
was able to find you that night in St. Jo.”

Her eyes began to shine and something like a flush came to her cheeks,
which, with satisfaction, Merry observed were now unmarred by paint.

“You were brave, Frank Merriwell!” she cried; “just as you seemed to be
in the play—just as I knew you were! Those men did not frighten you in
the least. You fought the whole crowd like a tiger. But I thought you
would be killed till that woman interfered. Who was she?”

“A stranger—a woman I had never seen but once before in my life. Then
she was in a plot to blackmail me. The plot failed, and she was ready to
turn against her accomplices. What do you know of her?”

“Nothing, save that she is known in the sporting circles of St. Jo. as
Queen Mab, and she is something of a mystery. There’s not a gay girl in
the city who would not give anything to be like Queen Mab.”

“I am sure the woman is not all bad. It was rare good fortune that
brought your mother along there just as we escaped from the place.”

“One reason why I came here was to thank you,” said the girl; “but there
is another reason.”

“Yes?”

“Yes; I want to warn you.”

“To warn me?”

“You have had some trouble with Sam Hooker.”

“I have.”

“Everybody in town has heard of it. Sam is in disgrace, but he has sworn
a great oath that he’ll disgrace you worse than you did him.”

“Oh, he has?”

“Yes, I heard it from his brother Joe. You know Joe kind of—kind of——
Well, he calls at our house.”

The girl’s confusion explained her meaning. The red blood mounted to her
face now, and Frank saw she was ashamed of Joe Hooker when she compared
him with some of the flashy city youths she had met.

“He told you?” questioned Merriwell.

“Yes; I pumped it all out of him. He doesn’t know I ever met you in all
my life. I slipped in here on the sly, so they would not catch on that I
had warned you.”

“It was kind of you.”

“No; it won’t half pay back what you did for me—the risk you ran. I was
thinking of that.”

To Frank it seemed a case of “bread on the waters.” But he had not
learned what plot had been formed against him, and his curiosity was
aroused.

“Joe says Sam is just furious,” the girl went on. “He is fierce enough
to kill you. He would kill you, if he dared. He loaded up his guns and
swore a mighty oath to make you regret the day you were born.”

“There is considerable wind about Sam Hooker,” said Frank; “but still he
might be driven to something desperate.”

“You know he’s been a cowboy?”

“Well, he says so.”

“He really has, and he can throw a lasso.”

“What of that?”

“He’s coming to the show to-night.”

“What then?”

“He says he’s going to bring his lasso.”

“Why?”

“And he swears he will rope you from the stage.”

“Is that it?” cried Merry. “So that is what he means to do?”

“Yes. He says he’ll drag you over the footlights and clean out of the
theater.”

“Well, this is rather interesting!” exclaimed Frank; “and I am greatly
obliged to you for telling me about it.”

“What will you do?”

“I shall be prepared for Mr. Hooker, be sure of that. But you must take
care not to let him know you have told me.”

“Little danger of that. I wouldn’t dare. Joe invited me to come to the
theater with him to see Sam square the score. I shall be here, and I do
hope you will look out.”

“Don’t worry at all about that, Miss Blaney. Now that I know what is
coming, there is not the least danger in the world that I shall not be
ready.”

“I am glad I was able to warn you, Mr. Merriwell.”

“It may prove a most fortunate thing for me. I thank you, Miss Blaney. I
shall not forget your kindness.”

He held out his hand, and she grasped it eagerly, looking up into his
face.

“Oh, Mr. Merriwell!” she exclaimed; “I hope you’ll not think of me as so
very bad! I hope you won’t remember me that way!”

“No,” he said, looking straight into her eyes; “I shall not think of you
that way, Miss Blaney. I shall think of you as the joy of your mother in
her old age. I shall think of you as loving and soothing her in her
declining years. I hope I shall not be mistaken in my thoughts.”

“You shall not!” she said, earnestly; “I promise you that, Frank
Merriwell! I will be a better girl in the future. It will help me to be
better knowing you remember me that way. Good-by.”

She turned hurriedly and was gone.




                             CHAPTER XVII.
                              PLAIN WORDS.


The entire company seemed in high spirits that night as the time
approached for the curtain to rise on the opening scene of the first
act.

People were pouring into the theater. Every seat had been sold, and the
sign “S. R. O.” was displayed at the box office.

“Methinks this settles it,” spouted Douglas Dunton, behind the curtain.
“Prosperity has struck us hard, and we are winners from the word ‘go.’
Oh, this whole company is hot stuff!”

The orchestra began to play, and Frank, made up for his first
appearance, came to the peephole and looked out at the audience.

Every seat in the Wilcoxson Opera House was filled. The rear of the
theater was packed with those who had paid admission for the privilege
of standing.

“By gum! it’s a sight fer sore eyes!” exclaimed Ephraim Gallup, close to
Frank. “Don’t yeou think so?”

Frank did not reply, for he was searching the faces of those in the rows
near the stage, looking for Sam Hooker.

“There he is!”

Merry muttered the words as his eyes rested on the ruffian.

Sam had secured a seat where he could easily accomplish his purpose, as
he fancied. There was a look of fierce determination on his countenance.

After looking at the fellow some moments, Merry said:

“He’ll try it!”

“What the dickens are yeou talkin’ abaout, Frank?” asked Gallup.

Merriwell straightened up.

“Ephraim,” he said, “go find Mr. Garland and bring him to me.”

“All right.”

The Vermonter hurried away, soon returning with Granville Garland.

“Great fortune, Mr. Merriwell!” exclaimed Garland. “That’s the sort of a
house that pays. It strikes me we are forging to the front with great
strides.”

“Mr. Garland,” said Frank, “have you the revolver you draw on me in the
first act?”

“Yes.”

“Let me take it.”

Garland, wondering a little, passed the weapon to Merry.

Immediately Frank took some cartridges from his pocket, snapped the
weapon open, and——

“What are you doing?” exclaimed Garland, in perplexity. “The revolver
was loaded, Mr. Merriwell.”

“With blanks.”

“Of course.”

“I am loading it with another kind of cartridge,” said Frank, as he
refilled the cylinder.

“Not with regular cartridges?”

“Yes.”

“Why—why, I don’t understand why you are doing that.”

“I suppose not,” admitted Frank, as he finished loading and snapped the
weapon back into shape. “I didn’t think you would understand.”

“A weapon that is loaded with anything but blank cartridges is not a
very safe thing to squabble over.”

“That is true, and, for that reason, we must be very careful in our
squabble over it to-night, Mr. Garland.”

“Really, I—I don’t like this. What if something happened!”

“Something is liable to happen. That is why I have loaded this weapon.
If I should call for it suddenly, you are to pass it to me; but I do not
think I shall need it till after the struggle takes place. It will be in
my possession from that time on.”

“Won’t you explain, Mr. Merriwell?”

“No. It is sufficient that I have a reason for wishing this revolver
loaded with something besides blanks. Here, take it, Garland, and be
careful with it. When you pull it on me, point it in the air and begin
to pull down with it. I will spring forward and grasp it before it
covers me. Keep your finger off the trigger. Do not hang to it quite as
tight as usual in the struggle.”

“All right,” said Garland, in a puzzled way; “but I’d give something to
know what is going on.”

Ephraim Gallup was as much puzzled as Garland, but he asked no
questions, for he knew there were times when it was utterly useless to
question Merry.

The story of Merriwell’s strange act passed from mouth to mouth, and the
actors and actresses were puzzled and bewildered over it. Agnes Kirk
even declared that she believed success had turned Frank’s brain.

“He was always queer,” she asserted. “A fellow who will stoop to feed
and pet a tramp cat and then carry it around as a mascot is not right.
But I call on everybody to notice that we have become prosperous since
he let that cat go.”

“Oh, I hardly think that,” said Stella Stanley. “He did not let the cat
go till after this piece had made a hit. Then he said he could not carry
the creature around, and he would prove she had nothing to do with the
success or failure of the show by letting her go. He seemed to knock the
wind out of your superstitious prophecies, Agnes.”

“Not at all,” declared the other actress, stiffly. “I said the cat would
hoodoo us in the first place, and it did, no matter what happened
afterward.”

“Oh, it’s no use to talk with you.”

“Not a bit.”

Stella Stanley turned away, laughing. She saw Hodge, standing at a
distance, regarding her steadfastly.

Since the affair in Atchison, when Bart deserted the company, the
dark-faced youth had scarcely spoken to Stella. After being brought back
by Frank, he seemed to take the utmost pains to avoid her.

Now, as she started toward him, he wheeled about and disappeared behind
the back drop.

“I’d like to know what ails him!” she exclaimed, somewhat angrily. “He
shan’t keep up this running away from me!”

Then she followed Hodge and ran him down back where the shadows were
thickest. She grasped him with both hands.

“Look here, Bart Hodge!” she exclaimed; “do you think I’m going to eat
you up? or what ails you? You run away from me as if you regarded me as
a snake!”

Hodge stood there, silent, looking at her. She gave him a shake.

“Stop it!” she cried. “I’m tired of it! I don’t like it! I won’t have
it! Will you be good enough, Mr. Bart Hodge, to treat me differently?”

“I don’t know,” he said, obstinately. “Why should I?”

“Why shouldn’t you?”

“There is every reason why I shouldn’t.”

“Name a few of them.”

“To begin with, you regard me as a mere boy—a stripling who does not
know his own mind. You insulted me when I told you of my admiration for
you. You laughed at me. You might as well have said ‘calf love.’ I won’t
stand for that kind of treatment from you or any other woman!”

She did not laugh at him now, for he was beginning to realize that he
could not be treated like a boy. She could not flatter and flirt with
him as she did with Billy Wynne. His admiration for her was not of the
sort to endure that kind of cajolery.

“Mr. Hodge,” she said, “if I did anything to offend you, if I was
offensive, I beg your pardon.”

“Yes, you beg my pardon, but you will go on regarding me as an
addle-pated boy. If I dared open my lips to honestly tell you of my
admiration, you would laugh at me! Oh, I know! You are like them
all—only handsomer and colder!”

“You have a fancy that you have read me, Bart Hodge, but let me tell you
that you are a very poor judge of human nature. You seldom read anybody
aright.”

“It’s not such a difficult thing to read a woman,” he sneered. “They are
all alike in one respect—they are as treacherous and fickle as cats!
They think they love. They enjoy being petted and caressed. They purr
and show all sorts of affection, but they are shallow. No more than a
cat do they know true affection! As ready as a cat are they to sink
their claws into the hand that caresses them! And when their master is
gone, like a cat, they seek petting and fondling from another. They
cannot be constant till the master returns; they cannot be true to death
and after—like a faithful dog!”

Stella Stanley was rather high-spirited, and it made her “hot” to hear
anybody talk in such a manner.

“You are trying your best to insult me now,” she said, “and you are
succeeding very well! I’d like to tell you what I think of men like you,
but I haven’t the time, and I don’t choose to waste my breath on you
now. In some respects, I admire you; in others, I despise you. You are
like all men, thoroughly unjust toward women. Other men may hide their
thoughts, but you speak out; that is the difference. Men talk of the
fickleness of women, but experience shows that women are far more
constant than men. Once a woman loves a man truly, with all her heart
and soul, she never loves another like that. She gives that man all that
is best of her. What does she receive in return? If he provides her a
home, clothes, food, he thinks he is doing his full duty. Don’t talk to
me of the fickleness of women!” she hissed. “Don’t ever dare speak to me
again like this, Bart Hodge! Sometimes I think I admire you, but when
you show yourself as you have just now, I despise you!”

With that she left him; but she did not despise him, for all of her
words.

And Bart? He was trembling all over.

“By Heaven!” he hoarsely whispered. “I could love her, but I won’t!”




                             CHAPTER XVIII.
                          AN ASTONISHING SHOT.


The overture was finished, and the orchestra played a “riser” for the
curtain to go up.

“True Blue” began.

It was an audience to make any actor do his best. Gallup in the part of
_Reuben Grass_ soon put the audience in a good humor. He strolled onto
the stage in his jay make-up, singing the song with which he had made
such a hit in Merriwell’s first play:

                “I alwus mind what dad says ter me
                Sense fust he tuck me uver his knee;
                But when I’m away ’way outer his sight
                I do jest abaout as any boy might;
                Fer then I know that he’ll never see
                That I don’t mind what he says ter me.”

The audience received him with a burst of applause, and Ephraim
responded by getting off several country gags that delighted everybody.

No, not everybody. Down near the front sat a man who scowled and
glowered at the stage. It was Sam Hooker, and he was there to make
trouble. He was handling something which Gallup could not see. Ephraim
paused and winked at the ruffian in a most tantalizing manner.

The audience was waiting for the appearance of the star. The whole town
had heard of the manner in which Frank had treated the terror of the
place, and everybody seemed anxious for a look at the boyish actor who
had dared face the ruffian.

Granville Garland, as _Carius Dubad_, came on and carried things with a
high hand, everything leading up to an effective enter for Merriwell.

_Dubad_ was terrorizing _Grass_ when the moment came for Merry to make
his appearance. As he entered there was a great burst of applause and a
voice from the gallery cried:

“That’s him! That’s Frank Merriwell hisself, and he’s a lollypalooser!”

Then about fifty boys jumped up in the gallery and yelled like a lot of
wild Indians.

Immediately after his enter, Frank’s lines caused him to threaten to
fling the villain of the piece out of the house, whereupon the villain
drew a revolver.

This was the weapon Frank had loaded with bullet-bearing cartridges.
Merry sprang on Garland and wrested the revolver from his hand, while
Ephraim looked on in apparent terror.

While this brief struggle was taking place, Sam Hooker rose to his feet,
roaring:

“Whoop! He’s a purty lively maverick, but I’m ther puncher ter put my
brand on him. First I’ll rope him, same as I would a steer. Hyar goes!”

Round and round his head he swung a lariat, and then he quickly made the
throw.

The man’s words had warned Merry that the time for action had come. With
the loaded revolver in his hand, he sprang back from Garland.

The noose of the lasso came shooting through the air.

Quick as thought, Frank lifted the revolver and fired a single shot. The
bullet cut the rope, and the noose fell harmlessly at the feet of the
young actor!

It was over in the twinkling of an eye, and the ruffianly cowboy stood
there with the useless end of the cut rope in his hands, dazed and
bewildered by what had happened.

The audience was startled, and Frank saw that the people must be calmed
at once, so he immediately stepped to the footlights and began to speak:

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “there is no real cause for alarm.
Please keep your seats. The attempt of this ruffian with the rope to
break up the performance has proved a failure. This is his third attack
to-day upon me. I fancied I had taught him a lesson, but he does not
seem to have sense enough to know it. Now, if there is an officer
present, I wish he would remove the man from the house. The performance
will then go on.”

“Waal, dern my eyes!” muttered Sam Hooker, having drawn in the rope and
examined the severed end. “Ther critter shot it in two with a bullet!”

“Is there an officer present?” asked Frank, from the stage.

“You needn’t call fer an officer,” said Sam Hooker. “I’ll go right out
without no trouble. You say I ain’t got sense enough ter know when I’m
beat. Mebbe not, but I’ve got sense enough ter know you froze me out on
this yar game without half tryin’.”

Then the dejected ruffian turned and made for the door, hissed on every
hand by the angry audience.

When Hooker had disappeared, the performance continued as if nothing had
happened.

There was not a little excitement among the actors. They bombarded
Merriwell with questions at the end of the act. They wanted to know how
it happened that he had been aware of Hooker’s intention. On this point
he did not enlighten them, but he assured them he had been prepared for
any move the ruffian had contemplated.

The time between the acts gave the audience a chance to buzz about the
remarkable thing that had happened. Some could not believe it possible
Frank had cut the rope with a bullet. Not a few insisted that it was
impossible, because actors never used weapons loaded with bullets on the
stage.

But all had witnessed what had happened, and it was plain the star had
defeated Sam Hooker’s purpose in some manner.

There was no further attempt to interrupt the performance, although some
timid ones expected Hooker to return with a gang of roughs and create
disturbance.

The performance was over at last, and Frank breathed easy. Although he
had been on his guard for anything that might happen, he could not help
feeling relieved when the curtain fell on the last act without
witnessing another effort to break him up or molest him.

“Waal, by gum!” said Ephraim Gallup, as he met Frank behind the curtain,
“yeou’ve made a new record ter-night. If yeou don’t use that fer
advertising in ther Chicago papers, yeou are dead slow.”

“Use what?”

“Shootin’ that rope in tew. It’d be a great story for yeour press agint.
Yeou oughter git it sworn to by reliable parties who saw it, an’
telegraph it to yeour agint right off.”

“Well, I haven’t thought of that. I’m afraid it would seem too much like
a fake to be swallowed by the people who read the theatrical columns in
the papers.”

“Not by a darn sight! Yeou kin git it sworn tew.”

“Well, I think we can draw houses in Chicago without the use of that
yarn. It may be all right, but I don’t fancy we need it.”

“Say, Frank!”

“What?”

“Let me ’tend to that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let me git reliable persons to swear ter whut they saw.”

“Oh, if you want to——”

“An’ let me telegraph it to Riddle.”

“I don’t care.”

“All right!” exclaimed Ephraim. “I bet yeou four dollars I git aout a
yarn that packs your theatur in Chicago.”

He made a run for his dressing room to get off his stage dress and
make-up, eager to carry out his plan.

Hodge was in the sulks and would have nothing to say to anybody. As soon
as possible he left the theater and went to the hotel.

Ephraim, hot to get reliable citizens of Carrolton to swear to the
remarkable happening of that night, had also left.

Those who were not required to remain behind and handle scenery did not
lose much time in getting their make-up off and their effects together,
after which they departed for the hotel.

Frank lingered to watch the packing of the special scenery. He was not
supposed to do this, but his anxiety that everything should be done
right led him to do so.

When the last of it was nearly packed, Frank put on his light coat and
left the theater by the side door.

He had not gone twenty steps from the door before he fancied he heard a
light step behind him.

Instantly Frank whirled about.

Too late!

Something settled over his head and entangled him in muffling folds. At
the same moment he received a blow that knocked him down.

Although thus attacked from behind and taken by surprise, Frank made a
desperate fight.

He realized he had been set upon by several assailants, and they were
trying to beat him into nonresistance. For a time the blanket protected
him from the force of their blows, but it smothered him, and he grew
weaker and weaker. He did not give up, however, as long as he had the
least strength left to resist.

At last he was beaten into a state of helplessness, and then, still
enfolded by the smothering blanket, he was hurriedly lifted and carried
away by strong hands.

When Merry came to himself he found himself in a small room that was
poorly lighted by a single kerosene lamp.

Five men were in that room, all wearing masks that completely hid their
faces.

In a stove a fire was burning, while on the stove sat a big pan, which
contained some substance that gave out a peculiar odor.

The odor that came to Merry’s nostrils was that of tar.

The men seemed waiting for him to recover.

“He’s comin’ round,” said one.

Another of the masked gang uttered an exclamation of satisfaction.

“I’m glad the critter ain’t hurt much,” he said, in a voice which Frank
instantly recognized. “I didn’t want ter crack his head, fer that ’ud
spoil ther fun we’re goin’ ter have with him.”

“He won’t make much spread on the stage for a long time after we get
through with him,” said the first speaker.

“Not onless he does so as a curiosity,” chuckled the other, hoarsely.

Then this one stepped up to Merry and kicked him in the ribs.

“Come, my pritty dude actor,” he said, roughly. “We’re goin’ ter give ye
a new suit o’ clothes.”

At this the other masked ruffians laughed.

“Thank you, Sam Hooker,” said Frank, quite coolly. “You are becoming
exceedingly generous.”

“Who ye callin’ Sam Hooker?”

“You.”

“Waal, yer needn’t.”

“That is your name. You can’t fool me, even if your face is hidden. I
know you. I know your voice.”

“Waal, what ther blazes do I care!” cried the man, stripping the mask
from his face and casting it aside. “I want yer ter know me! I want yer
ter know I’m gittin’ even with yer. I am Sam Hooker.”

“You would look better if you kept on the mask,” said Merry. “Anything
to hide that villainous face of yours.”

“Drat ye! Do you dast talk ter me like that now!”

Again Hooker kicked Merry in the ribs.

“It’s a good time for you to do that!” exclaimed Frank, scornfully. “You
wouldn’t dare if my hands were free! You are a coward—a miserable
coward!”

“Hold yer tongue!”

“Oh, you can’t keep that still, unless you gag me.”

“Can’t? Waal, you may git another rap on ther head that’ll keep it
still!”

“It is a wonder to me that a ruffian of your stamp has hesitated at
murder. Go ahead with your dirty work!”

“Oh, we ain’t goin’ ter kill ye! Not much! We’ve got somethin’ better
fer ye! We’ve got somethin’ you’ll like—I don’t think!”

“That’s right,” laughed one of the others. “It’ll keep ye good an’ warm,
an’ you’ll be a pretty picture.”

“So both Hookers are in this little business. Joe, if you follow in the
tracks of your brother, I’ll guarantee you will land in prison. He’ll be
there within a year.”

Joe Hooker followed his brother’s example and tore off his mask.

“I want ye ter know I’m in this business, too!” he snarled. “If ye swear
to it afterward, your word’s no better’n ourn, and we’ll swear you lie.”

“Now,” said Merry, “if the rest of the fine gentlemen will kindly
uncover, we’ll be able to talk this matter over face to face.”

But the remaining three ruffians declined to show their faces.

“They jest come erlong to see ther fun,” said the cowboy. “We’re goin’
ter do ther business. Eh, Joe?”

“You bet!”

“What is your game?”

“Oh, ye’re anxious ter know! You’ll find out soon enough. Is ther tar
hot, Joe?”

“Well, I reckon it’s hot enough for our requirements.”

“Then we’d better prepare the gent for his new suit o’ clothes. Bring in
ther feathers.”

Now Frank understood the foul purpose of the gang, and his rage knew no
bounds. However, he realized it would be useless to give vent to his
anger, and he held himself in check.

“Tar and feathers, eh?” he said, apparently quite cool, for all of the
seething fury in his heart.

“Ye’ve struck it,” chuckled Sam Hooker, as Joe hurriedly left the room.
“You’ve made me ther laughin’-stock o’ ther town, an’ now I’m goin’ ter
disgrace you.”

Joe returned with an old pillow, which he quickly ripped open, crying:

“There are yer feathers, Sam.”

“Now,” said the cowboy, “we’ll ondress ther gent.”

“Wait a minute,” said Frank. “I have a few words to say to you before
you begin your dirty work.”

“Speak lively, fer we ain’t got no time ter waste. All the same, ye may
as well spare yer breath, fer nothin’ you kin say will make any
difference.”

“I do not expect it will, but I wish to make you a little promise, Mr.
Hooker. It is this: If you adorn me with a coat of tar and feathers, I
promise you that I will make you regret the day you ever saw me. I
promise you I will make you weary of life! I will not rest in carrying
out my promise. I will hound you down, and I’ll make you such an object
of scorn and contempt that you will long for death! I swear it!”

This vow had no effect on the men.

“Go ahead!” cried Sam Hooker. “You’ve made me ther laughin’ stock o’
Carrolton now, an’ I’m bound ter git even with yer! Now, we’ll strip
him, Joe.”

“Stop!”

Through the door bounded a girl. With all her strength she pushed Sam
Hooker aside. Over Frank Merriwell she stood, with a hardwood baseball
bat raised aloft.

“I’ll brain the first man who touches him!” she almost screamed.

It was Daisy Blaney!




                              CHAPTER XIX.
                           AN UNEQUAL BATTLE.


“Daisy!” exclaimed Joe Hooker.

His brother gave vent to an exclamation of rage.

“Back!” cried the girl. “You shall not harm him!”

Joe took a step forward, but she glared at him and seemed ready to
strike with all her strength.

“I’ll hit you, Joe Hooker, just as quick as anybody else!” she declared.
“And I reckon I can lay you out with this bat!”

“Daisy, you don’t mean it!”

“Yes, I do!”

“But—but——”

“You shan’t touch him, I tell ye!” she screamed. “He was my friend. He
talked to me better than anybody ever did before. I won’t see him hurt.”

A greenish light came into Joe Hooker’s eyes.

“Are you in love with him?” he sneered. “Are you struck on him, Daisy?”

“If I was,” she answered, defiantly, “I’d be struck on a man!”

“By blazes! I believe ye are!”

“I won’t see you do your mean work!” she panted. “You were to blame in
the first place, and you know it! He met you like a man, and, because he
was your master, now you have plotted to disgrace him this way. Shame!”

“You’re a fool, Daisy!” hissed Joe Hooker.

“I’ve been a fool to have anything to do with you!” she flung back. “I
am done. From this night I’ll never speak to you again!”

“Oh, ye won’t!”

“No! I have seen the difference between a real man and a common fellow
who swaggers and blusters. Frank Merriwell is a man.”

“Now I wouldn’t let him off to save my life!” snarled Joe, all the
jealousy of his nature aroused. “You are struck on him! He shall have a
double coat!”

“Never!”

“Oh, but he shall! What can you do?”

“I can fight to protect him.”

“Little good that will do! You are nothing but a girl, and we are five
men.”

“No, you are not men! You are cowards—all of you!”

Frank admired the girl then. He strained at his bonds trying to free his
hands, but in vain.

“Jump her, Joe!” snarled Sam Hooker. “She won’t hit you.”

“I will!” she cried—“I swear I will! Don’t try to put a hand on me, Joe
Hooker! If you do, I’ll stretch you on the floor!”

Of a sudden Joe attempted another tack.

“Oh, come, Daisy,” he said, coaxingly, “don’t be foolish! You can’t save
him! Put down that bat and we will talk it over.”

“Not on your life! I know what you want and you don’t get it that way!
Frank Merriwell has been good to me, and I will fight for him as long as
I can draw a breath!”

“Look out!” exclaimed Merry, suddenly.

“One of the other men—behind you!”

It was too late, for one of the masked men had edged along till he found
a favorable opportunity to spring. Now he made a leap at the girl,
grasping the bat.

She screamed and struggled, but it was useless then. They seized her,
tore the bat from her hands, held her helpless, even though she bit and
scratched.

“Take the cat out of here, Joe!” roared Sam Hooker. “Be lively about it!
Get her away, and keep her away!”

Joe Hooker lifted the girl in his arms and carried her from the room,
for all of her screams and struggles. He was not gone long before he
returned, slamming the door and fastening it. He was panting, but seemed
more vicious than ever.

“What did ye do with her?” asked Sam.

“She broke away from me,” answered Joe. “Hurry up with the job! I want
to put the tar on myself! Oh, I’ll fix him! She called him a man! She is
struck on him!”

He glared at Frank, who was now sitting with his back against the wall,
having drawn himself into that position.

“We’d better be lively if that girl is free,” said Sam, nervously.
“There is no telling what she may do.”

They advanced on Frank, but stopped in surprise, as he suddenly shot up
to standing position, with his back against the wall. There was a look
in the eyes of the captive that warned them he was not in a submissive
mood.

“Grab him, fellers!” ordered Joe Hooker. “Strip his clothes off! We’ll
have the tar and feathers onto him in less than five minutes! We’ll fix
him!”

He sprang at Frank, but out shot one of Merry’s feet, striking Joe in
the stomach and hurling him backward with terrific force. The fellow
dropped to the floor, where he lay gasping, grunting and groaning,
apparently badly hurt.

Sam Hooker gave a howl of rage when he saw what had happened to his
brother. He had fancied Merriwell was beyond making further resistance,
but now he saw his mistake. However, the fate that had befallen Joe did
not render him cautious. Uttering fierce language, he rushed at Merry.

In France Frank Merriwell had learned to “box with his feet,” having
taken lessons from a Frenchman who was an expert in the art. Frank had
realized the value of being able to use his feet scientifically in a
rough-and-tumble fight, and now his acquirement stood him in good stead.

Joe Hooker had been kicked in the stomach, but his brother received a
kick under the chin that fairly lifted him off the floor.

Sam went down with a crash.

The masked ruffians were astounded. They stared at Frank as if unable to
believe a youth whose hands were tied behind his back had upset the
terrible Hooker brothers so quickly and easily.

“Go—for—him!” groaned Joe, catching his breath in gasps. “Kill him!
Smash him!”

Frank Merriwell laughed! It was the old-time ringing laugh of defiance.

“Come on!” he invited. “My hands are helpless, but I fancy I am a match
for all of you, so long as I can see. Come on!”

The masked ruffians hesitated.

“Make a dive for him all at once!” cried one of them. “Ready!”

“Ready!” said the others.

“Now!”

At him they leaped.

They had expected that he would stand still, but he did nothing of the
kind. He ducked and darted between them. Then he whirled and raised one
of them into the air with a terrible kick.

Clinging to his jaw and snarling like a furious animal, Sam Hooker
struggled to his feet, meaning to take part in the struggle.

Frank saw the fellow getting up.

“I’d rather have a good lift at you than anybody else!” cried Merry.

He got what he wanted. The kick he gave Sam Hooker threw the fellow full
upon the stove, and his head struck in the pan of hot tar. Over the
stove to the floor went Sam, tar and all.

Then the most frightful howls of pain issued from the throat of the
ruffian. He rolled about on the floor, clawing at his face and eyes, and
roaring with pain.

“I’m killed!” he shouted. “Murder! Oh, wow! Throw some water on me!”

“He wouldn’t mind having the hose turned on him now!” laughed Frank.

Joe tried to get up, but he was kicked full against his brother. In his
agony, Sam struck out and smote Joe full on the nose, causing the blood
to flow.

“Why, this is a regular merry old spree of a time!” exclaimed Frank
Merriwell, as he danced backward, still laughing. “You chaps seem to be
having lots of fun with me! Aren’t you glad you brought me here? Isn’t
it a real jolly time?”

Then he actually charged on the masked rascals, and they dodged to get
out of his way. Then might have been seen the remarkable and ludicrous
spectacle of three men making frantic endeavors to avoid one whose hands
were tied behind his back—one whom a few moments before they had
regarded as a helpless captive!

“Whar’s my guns?” roared Sam Hooker. “I’ll shoot ther critter full o’
lead! I’ll kill him! I’ll——”

“You seem to have a little tar on you, Sammy,” laughed Frank. “Why, you
make a real laughable spectacle! If you could see yourself in a mirror
you would be greatly amused. It will take you several days to comb the
tar out of your hair.”

“I’ll kill you!”

“I heard you say so before. You were going to tar and feather me, but
your scheme seems to have miscarried. You’ve got the first dose of tar
yourself.”

“Where’s that baseball bat?” howled Joe Hooker. “I’ll beat his brains
out! Give me that bat!”

He saw it and made a scramble for it, but Frank headed him off and
bowled him over, although Joe made a desperate attempt to get hold of
Merry.

Sam Hooker had not found his “guns,” but he was on his feet now, and in
his hand glittered a long knife.

“Oh, I’ll fix him now!” he snarled.

“Hold on!” cried one of the masked men. “That is going too far! We don’t
want a hand in a murder!”

“You go to blazes!” snarled Sam. “I’ll cut his throat!”

He made a rush for Frank, brandishing the knife.

Merry knew his life was in danger, but that did not rob him of his
nerve. He actually laughed again.

“Brave fellow!” he cried. “It is what I expected of you!”

Then came a startling cry from one of the masked men:

“Fire! fire! The house is on fire!”

In the excitement of the struggle none of them had noticed it, but now
they saw the room was filling with smoke. And they paused, they could
hear the crackle of the flames.

“Where is the fire?”

One of the men leaped to the door and tore it open. Then they saw the
gleam of the flames, and, for a moment, they were appalled.

“The old house is all afire!” shouted the man at the door. “We must get
out in a hurry if we want to get out at all!”

Then there was a rush for the door.

Sam Hooker was the last of the gang to reach the door. He turned a
moment, and his tar-bedaubed face made him look like a fiend.

“Stay here and roast to death, Frank Merriwell!” he snarled.

Frank bounded toward the door, but it closed with a slam, and he
recoiled helplessly from the shock of striking against it. Again and
again he flung himself against that door, but it refused to yield, and
he realized that he was a helpless prisoner in the burning building,
abandoned to his doom by those dastardly ruffians.

There was another door, and Frank tried that, but it was as solid as the
first.

He looked for windows, but the only one he could see was in the roof,
far above his head.

“Cooped up!” he muttered. “Done for! Left to roast!”

It was a terrible position. He could hear the crackling of the flames as
they gained headway, and the smoke came pouring into the room so thickly
that it threatened to strangle him. He coughed and choked and hurled
himself again and again against the doors, till he was weak and battered
and hopeless.

“Somebody must see this fire,” he muttered; “but they will get here too
late to save me! The jig is up!”

He was in despair.

Then came a sound at one of the doors! Then it was flung open, and a
coughing, strangling girl staggered into the room.

“Daisy Blaney!” he shouted, joyously.

“Come!” she gasped. “Hurry! If you don’t, we’ll not get out of here! The
old building will be all afire in five minutes!”

He followed her. The light of the flames showed her seeming to plunge
into the thickest of the yellow, rolling smoke. He reached some stairs
and fell clean to the bottom. There she got hold of him and dragged him
out into the open air.

Both were coughing, but, as she worked to set his hands free, she said:

“I had to do it! It was the only way I could save you.”

“Had to do what?” he asked.

“Set the fire.”

“Did you do that?”

“Yes.”

“Daisy, you are all right! It was the best job you ever did!”

“We must hurry!” she panted. “The fire will be seen! We do not want to
be found here! Men will come and ask questions.”

His hands were free, and he rose quickly. She sprang up.

“This way,” she whispered, and he ran after her, as she darted round the
building, from the upper windows of which there now came a reddish
glare.

“I know how to get away from here,” she said. “This old building is on
the outskirts of the town.”

He trusted everything to her, and they ran on through the darkness,
cutting across lots till they reached a distant street.

Then they heard the cry of fire from another direction, and they knew
the first alarm had been given.

A few moments later the fire alarm sounded.

They were fortunate in escaping observation till the home of Daisy was
reached.

“I’ll not forget what you have done for me to-night, Miss Blaney,”
declared Frank. “You saved my life!”

“You did quite as much for me,” she asserted. “I believe you saved me
from a life of wretchedness. You made me understand just where I was
drifting.”

“You are a brave little girl! I shall remember how bravely you stood up
before those ruffians.”

“But they were too many for me. I could not fight them all.”

“How did you know they had me in that old building?”

“I knew something was happening. Joe would not tell me what, but I knew
they were going to do something. I followed him after he left me
to-night. I did not go into the house, though he thought I did. I saw
them take you there. Then was when I made my mistake. I should have
hurried to your friends and told them what happened, instead of trying
to save you myself.”

“Well, it has turned out all right. They will think I perished in the
burning building.”

She shuddered.

“Oh, the wretches!” she exclaimed. “To leave you there to be burned to
death! I’ll never have anything to do with Joe Hooker again—never as
long as I live!”

“He is not in your class, Miss Blaney. In the morning both Joe and Sam
will be arrested on a warrant I shall swear out. They will not be
expecting it. It will be a great surprise for them.”

“I don’t care,” said the girl. “I hope you will make them suffer for
their dreadful acts. I shall not pity them one bit.”

“I shall give them the full benefit of the law.”

“But you must go on with your show. I shall not see you again.”

“You will be a witness against the Hookers?”

“If you want me.”

“I do.”

“Then you may depend on me. I’d do anything for you, Frank Merriwell!”

He pressed her hand in parting, bade her good-night and hurried toward
the hotel.

At the hotel door, they met Gallup and Hodge, who were coming out.

“Hello!” exclaimed Bart. “Where have you been?”

“We was jest goin’ to the fire,” said Ephraim.

“I have been to it,” said Merry, quietly.

“Is it worth going to see?” asked Bart.

“I hardly think so. It is an old building on the outskirts of the town.
It is not tenanted.”

“Not tenanted. Then how did it catch afire?”

“I am inclined to think somebody must have set it.”

Later, in his room, he told them of the thrilling adventure through
which he had passed.

“What are you going to do, Frank?” panted Bart, fiercely. “What are you
going to do to the Hookers?”

“Give them the full benefit of the law,” was the answer.

“They ought to be lynched!”

“That’s so, by gosh!” spluttered Ephraim. “They’re wuss’n I thought they
was! If ever any critters oughter be lynched, them is the ones!”

“The sheriff will wait on them in the morning,” said Merry. “He will
serve them with a great surprise, for they think I am burning in that
old building.”

In the morning, however, neither of the Hooker brothers could be found
in Carrolton. Whether they had learned of Merriwell’s escape or not,
they had taken the alarm and fled from the town.

Frank made known the story of their atrocity, and the anger of the
honest citizens of the place was great. They assured Merry that neither
of the brothers would be tolerated in Carrolton again if they reappeared
there.

Had not Frank felt that any neglect of his present duties would
seriously endanger the success he now seemed on the highroad to achieve
he would have abandoned everything in order to follow the wretches and
bring them to justice. His future weighed heavier in the balance than
his just vengeance, however, for Merry was too shrewd and clear sighted
to pass over the substance to pursue the shadow. “True Blue” meant
wealth, the satisfaction of his desires, happiness; the punishment of
the Hookers, aside from its aspect as an act for the benefit of society,
was but the satisfaction of anger, and nothing more.

Accordingly, early the following morning, Frank and his company left
Carrolton en route for Chicago, where the real test of “True Blue” was
to come. Frank felt little anxiety as to the result of this test. He
knew he had written a winning play and he believed that at last he had
seized that tide in his affairs that was to bear him on its broad bosom
to fame and prosperity.

Frank had experienced adversity in its most chilling form. Firm and
sturdy in his purpose to overcome his misfortunes, he had toiled with
body and brain like the strong-hearted American youth he was, and now,
as he reviewed the past and calculated his future from its present
promise, he might well say:

“I have won, as pluck and purpose and cheerfulness always win!”


                                THE END.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                           THE MEDAL LIBRARY

         FAMOUS COPYRIGHTED STORIES FOR BOYS, BY FAMOUS AUTHORS


This is an ideal line for boys of all ages. It contains juvenile
masterpieces by the most popular writers of interesting fiction for
boys. Among these may be mentioned the works of Burt L. Standish,
detailing the adventures of Frank Merriwell, the hero, of whom every
American boy has read with admiration. Frank is a truly representative
American lad, full of character and a strong determination to do right
at any cost. Then, there are the works of Horatio Alger, Jr., whose keen
insight into the minds of the boys of our country has enabled him to
write a series of the most interesting tales ever published. This line
also contains some of the best works of Oliver Optic, another author
whose entire life was devoted to writing books that would tend to
interest and elevate our boys.


                             PUBLISHED EVERY WEEK
 ═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════


                       To be Published During September

 =328—Frank Merriwell’s Prosperity=                      =By Burt L. Standish=
 327—Jack Harkaway’s Friends                             By Bracebridge Hemyng
 =326—A Rattling Good Story=                           =By Horatio Alger, Jr.=
 325—The Young Franc-Tireurs                                    By G. A. Henty
 =324—Frank Merriwell’s New Comedian=                    =By Burt L. Standish=
 323—The Sheik’s White Slave                                  By Raymond Raife


                         To be Published During August

 =322—A Rattling Good Story=                           =By Horatio Alger, Jr.=
 321—Snarleyyow, The Dog Fiend                                By Capt. Marryat
 =320—Frank Merriwell’s Fortune=                         =By Burt L. Standish=
 319—By Right of Conquest                                       By G. A. Henty


                          To be Published During July

 =318—A Rattling Good Story=                           =By Horatio Alger, Jr.=
 317—Jack Harkaway’s Schooldays                          By Bracebridge Hemyng
 =316—Frank Merriwell’s Problem=                         =By Burt L. Standish=

                                     ____

 315—The Diamond Seeker of Brazil                                By Leon Lewis
 =314—Andy Gordon=                                     =By Horatio Alger, Jr.=
 313—The Phantom Ship                                         By Capt. Marryat
 =312—Frank Merriwell’s College Chums=                   =By Burt L. Standish=
 311—Whistler                                                By Walter Aimwell
 =310—Making His Way=                                  =By Horatio Alger, Jr.=
 309—Three Years at Wolverton                                By A Wolvertonian
 =308—Frank Merriwell’s Fame=                            =By Burt L. Standish=
 307—The Boy Crusoes                                        By Jeffreys Taylor
 =306—Chester Rand=                                    =By Horatio Alger, Jr.=
 305—Japhet in Search of a Father                             By Capt. Marryat
 =304—Frank Merriwell’s Own Company=                     =By Burt L. Standish=
 303—The Prairie                                         By J. Fenimore Cooper
 =302—The Young Salesman=                              =By Horatio Alger, Jr.=
 301—A Battle and a Boy                               By Blanche Willis Howard
 =300—Frank Merriwell on the Road=                       =By Burt L. Standish=
 299—Mart Satterlee Among the Indians                   By William O. Stoddard
 =298—Andy Grant’s Pluck=                              =By Horatio Alger, Jr.=
 297—Newton Forster                                           By Capt. Marryat
 =296—Frank Merriwell’s Protege=                         =By Burt L. Standish=
 295—Cris Rock                                             By Capt. Mayne Reid
 =294—Sam’s Chance=                                    =By Horatio Alger, Jr.=
 293—My Plucky Boy Tom                                      By Edward S. Ellis
 =292—Frank Merriwell’s Hard Luck=                       =By Burt L. Standish=
 291—By Pike and Dyke                                           By G. A. Henty
 =290—Shifting For Himself=                            =By Horatio Alger, Jr.=
 289—The Pirate and the Three Cutters                         By Capt. Marryat
 =288—Frank Merriwell’s Opportunity=                     =By Burt L. Standish=
 287—Kit Carson’s Last Trail                                     By Leon Lewis
 =286—Jack’s Ward=                                     =By Horatio Alger, Jr.=
 285—Jack Darcy, the All Around Athlete                     By Edward S. Ellis
 =284—Frank Merriwell’s First Job=                       =By Burt L. Standish=
 283—Wild Adventures Round the Pole                          By Gordon Stables
 =282—Herbert Carter’s Legacy=                         =By Horatio Alger, Jr.=
 281—Rattlin, the Reefer                                      By Capt. Marryat
 =280—Frank Merriwell’s Struggle=                        =By Burt L. Standish=
 279—Mark Dale’s Stage Venture                           By Arthur M. Winfield
 278—In Times of Peril                                          By G. A. Henty
 =277—In a New World=                                  =By Horatio Alger, Jr.=
 =276—Frank Merriwell in Maine=                          =By Burt L. Standish=
 275—The King of the Island                            By Henry Harrison Lewis
 274—Beach Boy Joe                                    By Lieut. James K. Orton
 273—Jacob Faithful                                           By Capt. Marryat
 =272—Facing the World=                                =By Horatio Alger, Jr.=
 =271—Frank Merriwell’s Chase=                           =By Burt L. Standish=
 270—Wing and Wing                                       By J. Fenimore Cooper
 269—The Young Bank Clerk                                By Arthur M. Winfield
 =268—Do and Dare=                                     =By Horatio Alger, Jr.=
 =267—Frank Merriwell’s Cruise=                          =By Burt L. Standish=
 266—The Young Castaways                                         By Leon Lewis
 265—The Lion of St. Mark                                       By G. A. Henty
 =264—Hector’s Inheritance=                            =By Horatio Alger, Jr.=
 263—Mr. Midshipman Easy                                    By Captain Marryat
 =262—Frank Merriwell’s Vacation=                        =By Burt L. Standish=
 261—The Pilot                                           By J. Fenimore Cooper
 =260—Driven From Home=                                =By Horatio Alger, Jr.=
 259—Sword and Pen                                     By Henry Harrison Lewis
 =258—Frank Merriwell In Camp=                           =By Burt L. Standish=
 257—Jerry                                                   By Walter Aimwell
 256—The Young Ranchman                                   By Lieut. Lounsberry
 255—Captain Bayley’s Heir                                      By G. A. Henty
 =254—Frank Merriwell’s Loyalty=                         =By Burt L. Standish=
 253—The Water Witch                                     By J. Fenimore Cooper
 =252—Luke Walton=                                     =By Horatio Alger, Jr.=
 =251—Frank Merriwell’s Danger=                          =By Burt L. Standish=
 250—Neka, the Boy Conjurer                            By Capt. Ralph Bonehill
 249—The Young Bridge Tender                             By Arthur M. Winfield
 248—The West Point Rivals              By Lieut. Frederick Garrison, U. S. A.
 =247—Frank Merriwell’s Secret=                          =By Burt L. Standish=
 246—Rob Ranger’s Cowboy Days                      By Lieut. Lionel Lounsberry
 245—The Red Rover                                       By J. Fenimore Cooper
 =244—Frank Merriwell’s Return to Yale=                  =By Burt L. Standish=
 =243—Adrift in New York=                              =By Horatio Alger, Jr.=
 242—The Rival Canoe Boys                              By St. George Rathborne
 241—The Tour of the Zero Club                            By Capt. R. Bonehill
 =240—Frank Merriwell’s Champions=                       =By Burt L. Standish=
 239—The Two Admirals                                    By J. Fenimore Cooper
 238—A Cadet’s Honor                       By Lieut. Fred’k Garrison, U. S. A.
 =237—Frank Merriwell’s Skill=                           =By Burt L. Standish=
 236—Rob Ranger’s Mine                                    By Lieut. Lounsberry
 235—The Young Carthaginian                                     By G. A. Henty
 =234—The Store Boy=                                   =By Horatio Alger, Jr.=
 =233—Frank Merriwell’s Athletes=                        =By Burt L. Standish=
 232—The Valley of Mystery                             By Henry Harrison Lewis
 231—Paddling Under Palmettos                          By St. George Rathborne
 230—Off for West Point                    By Lieut. Fred’k Garrison, U. S. A.
 =229—Frank Merriwell’s Daring=                          =By Burt L. Standish=
 =228—The Cash Boy=                                    =By Horatio Alger, Jr.=
 227—In Freedom’s Cause                                         By G. A. Henty
 226—Tom Havens With the White Squadron               By Lieut. James K. Orton
 =225—Frank Merriwell’s Courage=                         =By Burt L. Standish=
 224—Yankee Boys in Japan                              By Henry Harrison Lewis
 223—In Fort and Prison                              By William Murray Graydon
 222—A West Point Treasure              By Lieut. Frederick Garrison, U. S. A.
 =221—The Young Outlaw=                                =By Horatio Alger, Jr.=
 220—The Gulf Cruisers                                 By St. George Rathborne
 219—Tom Truxton’s Ocean Trip                             By Lieut. Lounsberry
 218—Tom Truxton’s School Days                            By Lieut. Lounsberry
 =217—Frank Merriwell’s Bicycle Tour=                    =By Burt L. Standish=
 216—Campaigning With Braddock                           By Wm. Murray Graydon
 215—With Clive in India                                        By G. A. Henty
 214—On Guard                           By Lieut. Frederick Garrison, U. S. A.
 =213—Frank Merriwell’s Races=                           =By Burt L. Standish=
 =212—Julius, the Street Boy=                          =By Horatio Alger, Jr.=
 211—Buck Badger’s Ranch                                   By Russell Williams
 210—Sturdy and Strong                                          By G. A. Henty
 =209—Frank Merriwell’s Sports Afield=                   =By Burt L. Standish=
 208—The Treasure of the Golden Crater             By Lieut. Lionel Lounsberry
 207—Shifting Winds                                    By St. George Rathborne
 206—Jungles and Traitors                                By Wm. Murray Graydon
 =205—Frank Merriwell at Yale=                           =By Burt L. Standish=
 204—Under Drake’s Flag                                         By G. A. Henty
 203—Last Chance Mine                                 By Lieut. James K. Orton
 =202—Risen From the Ranks=                            =By Horatio Alger, Jr.=
 =201—Frank Merriwell in Europe=                         =By Burt L. Standish=
 200—The Fight for a Pennant                                By Frank Merriwell
 199—The Golden Cañon                                           By G. A. Henty
 =198—Only an Irish Boy=                               =By Horatio Alger, Jr.=
 =197—Frank Merriwell’s Hunting Tour=                       =Burt L. Standish=
 196—Zip, the Acrobat                                      By Victor St. Clair
 195—The Lion of the North                                      By G. A. Henty
 194—The White Mustang                                      By Edward S. Ellis
 =193—Frank Merriwell’s Bravery=                         =By Burt L. Standish=
 =192—Tom, the Bootblack=                              =By Horatio Alger, Jr.=
 191—The Rivals of the Diamond                             By Russell Williams
 190—The Cat of Bubastes                                        By G. A. Henty
 =189—Frank Merriwell Down South=                        =By Burt L. Standish=
 188—From Street to Mansion                               By Frank H. Stauffer
 =187—Bound to Rise=                                   =By Horatio Alger, Jr.=
 186—On the Trail of Geronimo                               By Edward S. Ellis
 185—For the Temple                                             By G. A. Henty
 =184—Frank Merriwell’s Trip West=                       =By Burt L. Standish=
 183—The Diamond Hunters                                        By James Grant




                           TALES OF VICTORIES


Gained in the Pre-Revolutionary wars by lads of pluck and intelligence.
Every true boy will be fascinated with these stories of the exciting
adventures of boys who gladly gave their lives to freedom’s cause.


                       _BOYS OF LIBERTY LIBRARY_

  3. —The Young Ambassador. By John De Morgan

  7. —The Young Guardsman. By John De Morgan

 11. —Fighting Hal. By John De Morgan

 15. —By Order of the Colonel. By Lieut. Lounsberry

 19. —A Call to Duty. By Lieut. Lounsberry

 23. —The Young Patriot. By Lieut. Lounsberry

 26. —The Trader’s Captive. By Lieut. Lounsberry


                        Only Ten Cents Per Copy
                           At All Newsdealers


         _If ordered by mail, add four cents to cover postage._


                       STREET & SMITH, Publishers
                                NEW YORK




 =MEDAL LIBRARY= A weekly publication devoted to good literature. =NO.
                                  328=
                             Oct. 9, 1905.

[Illustration]


                             CUTCLIFFE HYNE

has written a new series of adventure stories for THE POPULAR MAGAZINE,
entitled




                    “The Trials of Commander McTurk”


The purchase of these stories at a handsome price, for publication in
THE POPULAR MAGAZINE, beginning with the September, 1905, number, is
only one step toward the goal we have set for this magazine:—that is,
the best reading matter and more of it than is given by any other
magazine in the world.

Cutcliffe Hyne is the author of the renowned “Captain Kettle” stories,
which caused a sensation among lovers of good reading. We are free to
say, however, that “The Trials of Commander McTurk” will become even
more popular because they are written, at our suggestion, around an
ultra-patriotic American character. We feel certain that the doughty
commander will win his way into a warm corner of every reader’s heart.

  THE POPULAR MAGAZINE is for sale at all newsstands at 10c. per copy.
  Back numbers may be secured from your dealer or from the publishers at
  the regular price.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES


 1. Moved advertising from the beginning to the end of the novel.
 2. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.
 3. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed.
 4. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
 5. Enclosed bold font in =equals=.



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