Kitabı oku: «Dick Merriwell's Trap: or, The Chap Who Bungled», sayfa 8
CHAPTER XVI – A FINE PAIR
Uniontown was dazed. The remarkable change in the cadets they could not understand. It did not seem that they were playing against the same team at all.
In vain Durkee talked to his men. They were rattled and sore, and they could not stop the gritty cadets. Fardale made another touch-down and goal, and when the game ended the ball was once more within three feet of Uniontown’s line.
Again Dick Merriwell was triumphant, but now he felt that he was on the verge of an explosion. The two captives in the bathroom of the gym would be discovered directly. Then what would happen?
Buckhart reached Dick’s side as soon as possible when the game was finished.
“Dick, did you see him?” he asked.
“See whom?”
“Kennedy.”
“No.”
“He was here.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes; I saw him over there by the gate. I reckon he has taken leg-bail by this time.”
Together they looked for the fellow, but Kennedy, if present, had lost no time in hastening away.
The cheering of the cadets at the finish of the game had drowned all other sounds, but Dick pricked up his ear as they drew near the gym. He expected to hear a racket coming from within the building. It was silent as the members of the victorious team entered. Dick wondered if Arlington and Warne had found some method of escaping, but he discovered that the door of the bathroom was still closed. He walked straight over to it and flung it open. The captives walked out, Warne pale with rage, while Arlington’s eyes gleamed vindictively.
“I beg your pardon!” exclaimed Dick, in apparent surprise. “Did I accidentally lock you gentlemen in there? It’s too bad! But I am sure you will be pleased to learn that we won the game.”
He expected a terrible outbreak from both of the fellows, but in this he was disappointed. Arlington, however, stepped close to him and hissingly whispered:
“I’ll have your life for this piece of work!”
“Thank you,” said Dick, loudly enough for those near to hear. “I am glad you accept my apology. The score was twenty-four to eighteen.”
Arlington passed on.
Warne had not spoken.
“Well, I’ll be hanged!” muttered Brad Buckhart, the truth dawning upon him. “That takes the prize! Why, he shut ’em up so they wouldn’t bother him during the last half!”
It was plain that Arlington and Warne had decided that it was best for them to avoid making a scene, but Dick knew well enough that they were not the kind of fellows to forego a chance for revenge.
That night the talk of the academy was the football-game. It had become known that the athletic committee were responsible for the shifting about of the players in the first half of the game, and not a few of the students criticized this interference with Dick’s part of the business. He had demonstrated beyond a doubt in the last half of the game that he knew the positions to which the men were adapted and that he could run the team successfully if not interfered with.
In the evening Dick and Brad went into town. As they approached the post-office, Dick suddenly grasped his companion’s arm and drew him into a doorway.
“What is it?” asked the Texan.
“Look across the street.”
“Where?”
“See those two fellows over there?”
“Yes. Why, one of them is – it’s Arlington!”
“Sure.”
“And the other is – ”
“Fred Kennedy!”
“Right!” exclaimed Brad triumphantly. “That is Kennedy! I knew I wasn’t mistaken! Come, Dick, let’s go over there and tackle them! You can do up Kennedy. I’ll take care of Arlington while you even the score with the fellow who blinded you in Uniontown.”
But Dick held Brad back.
“Don’t be too hasty,” he warned. “What are they doing together? I’d like to understand that.”
“It is right queer.”
“I should say so! Chester Arlington is a member of the Fardale Academy athletic committee, and is associating with this Kennedy, who is a crooked gambler. Without doubt, Kennedy came here to-day to bet money on the football-game, and you may be sure he did not bet on Fardale.”
“Arlington is a traitor!” growled Buckhart. “Pard, you can throw him down hard, and it’s up to you to throw!”
“I want to find out just what is doing between these two.”
“They’ll get away!”
“No! I’m going to follow them.”
“I’m with you.”
But Dick knew he could shadow the two far better without the aid of Buckhart, so he insisted that Brad stay back and watch him from a distance.
From a main part of the town Dick shadowed Arlington and Kennedy over that portion known as The Harbor. Buckhart saw him take that direction and then lost sight of him. But Brad was satisfied that Arlington and Kennedy had made for The Harbor, and he followed cautiously.
Dick was peering in at the window of one of the wretched saloons of that quarter, when he heard some one approaching. He stepped back, hugging close to the corner of the house, and Brad would have passed.
“Here, you!” whispered Dick. “Hold up, old man. Come here.”
Brad stopped in surprise.
“Is that you, pard?” he asked, in a low tone.
“Sure thing. Come here where you’ll not be seen if any one comes along.”
Brad joined him.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I’ve followed those fellows here,” said Dick. “They are inside.”
“What are they doing?”
“That is what I can’t make out.”
“And why did they come here?”
“To get away where there would be little chance that they would be seen together by any one they did not wish to see them, I fancy.”
“But the whole thing is a mystery to me, pard,” confessed Buckhart.
Dick touched his arm, and cautioned him to keep still. Somebody was approaching. The street ran close by the corner of the house, and, from their place of concealment, they saw a person passing.
“Great Scott!” whispered Dick, who seemed to have eyes like an owl. “Did you recognize him, Brad?”
“Too dark. Did you?”
“Well, if it wasn’t Joe Savage, I’m greatly mistaken!”
“Joe Savage?”
“Yes.”
“Here?”
“That’s what.”
“Well, this thing is growing thick. Where is he going?”
Dick peered round the corner and watched the dark figure pass down the street and vanish in the gloom.
“I may have been mistaken,” he admitted; “but I know he had a walk like Joe Savage, was just about the build of Savage, and looked to me in every way like Savage.”
Then he slipped to the window and again peered into the saloon. He was just in time to see a man with a lamp in his hand conduct Arlington and Kennedy into a back room. After a few moments the man came out and closed the door behind him.
“If there is a window to that room, we must find it,” muttered Dick.
There was a window, and they found it. Further, there was a broken pane of glass in the window. Inside the window some shutters had been closed, but in one of the shutters was a broken strip, and through this crack Dick peered and saw Kennedy and Arlington seated with a table between them.
Buckhart stood on guard while Dick watched those within the little back room of the old saloon. The broken pane enabled Dick to hear the conversation of the fine pair inside.
“It was hard luck!” said Arlington.
“Hard luck?” exclaimed Kennedy. “Is that what you call it? Hang it! you told me it was certain Uniontown would win!”
“That’s right!”
“But Fardale pulled out and won the game. I dropped three hundred dollars.”
“And I dropped every blooming cent I have made playing cards in a week, besides what money my mother left me when she went away. I have been skinning a sucker, and all I have left to show for it is his I O U’s.”
“You said you had fixed it so it was a sure thing.”
“And so I did. Didn’t Uniontown have a walkover in the first half?”
“Look here, Mr. Arlington, if you had not given me the cold cash to bet on our team, I’d be dead certain you threw me down. Where did you go when the first half was over? You vanished, and you were not seen again by me. Then Merriwell switched the team round and walked into us.”
It was plain Arlington did not care to reveal how he and Warne had been trapped by Dick. He hesitated a little, and then told an improbable story about being called away by one of the professors.
“You see, I’ve been in a little trouble here,” he said, “and they have been investigating the affair. I was wanted just about then to answer some questions, and I had to go.”
“Fishy!” exclaimed Kennedy suspiciously. “It was a queer time for the faculty to be carrying on an investigation.”
“Oh, they do queer things around that old academy. I tried to get away and hurry back, but they wouldn’t let me. I thought the game was Uniontown’s, anyhow, and so I didn’t worry about it.”
Brad Buckhart could hear some of this, and now he was grinding his strong teeth together.
“A fine chap to have on the athletic committee!” he hissed. “He ought to be lynched!”
“There is just one thing led me into this deal,” Chester explained to his companion. “That is my hatred for Dick Merriwell. If he were not captain of our team, you’d never catch me betting against it. If he were off the team, I’d work for it as hard as I could. But I am going to down him if it takes a leg! I’ll stop at nothing to do it! I have the athletic committee just where I want them. Some of them have played right into my hands, and they don’t dare do anything but what I tell them to do. In short, I am the whole committee.”
“Very interesting information,” commented Dick, in a low whisper.
Arlington was smoking a cigarette. Kennedy had lighted a cigar. Both had ordered drinks, but had not touched the stuff brought them.
“If I hadn’t been called away,” Chester went on, “the result of the game would have been different. Merriwell could not have changed the team round again had I remained on the field.”
At this moment, as Dick peered through the broken shutter, the door of the room was thrown open and Joe Savage appeared in the doorway. Savage was pale and excited.
“Oh, here you are!” he exclaimed. “I passed this place once. Didn’t think this was the place you meant when you made the appointment.”
He came in and closed the door.
“I was right!” thought Dick. “It was Savage I saw.”
Neither Arlington nor Kennedy offered to get up. Chester motioned toward a broken chair.
“Sit down,” he said:
“I don’t care to stop here,” said Savage. “I don’t like the looks of the place.”
“You’re fussy, my friend,” said Kennedy, with a short laugh.
“What have you got to say about it?” exclaimed Joe, frowning at Kennedy. “I have no business with you. If Mr. Arlington will kindly hand over those I O U’s, as he agreed, I will get out of here and bother you no more.”
Chester languidly lighted a fresh cigarette.
“Sorry, Savage,” he drawled, “but I didn’t bring them with me.”
“You didn’t?”
“No.”
“You agreed to – you promised! Confound you, Arlington! are you tricking me? You won my money from me, and I gave you those papers when you continued to stick me. You knew I had sworn off gambling when you coaxed me into it. You knew my father had said he’d disown me if I played cards any more. And so, when you found your opportunity, you made me play into your hands. At the meeting you sent word that you would forward those I O U’s to my father if I did not withdraw and do my best to give you my vote. If I did so, you would give them over to me. You have not kept your word to give them up. You promised to do so to-night if I would meet you here. Now, do you mean to keep your promise?”
“No,” answered Chester coldly.
The next moment Savage had Arlington by the throat and was choking him. Kennedy sprang up, caught the bottle and struck Savage over the head, dropping him to the floor. Then Dick Merriwell smashed the window, burst the shutters open, and went into that room. But the rascals did not wait for him. With the first crash of breaking glass, they leaped toward the door, through which they disappeared.
Dick lifted Savage, whose head was cut and bleeding. Buckhart followed Dick into the room by the window, and was on hand when the proprietor of the saloon came hurrying in.
“What’s happened here?” asked the man who ran the place.
“Where are those fellows who were here?” demanded Dick, who was tying a handkerchief about Savage’s bleeding head.
“They dusted out. But who are you, and where did you come from? My window is broken, and – ”
“I’ll pay for the window,” said Dick. “The entire damage isn’t more than two dollars. Here is five.”
The man took the five-dollar bill Dick extended.
“Can you stand, Savage?” asked young Merriwell.
“I – I think I can,” said Joe. “But that rap took the nerve out of me. I’m limp as a rag. They ran! Arlington got away! I – I didn’t get what I came for.”
“But you’ll get them, all right,” said Dick grimly, “Don’t worry about that.”
“You bet!” growled Buckhart.
“We must get you to a doctor who can sew up your scalp where it was cut by that bottle. You’re bleeding pretty freely, and that must be stopped. Take hold, Buckhart. We’ll get him out of this quarter if we have to carry him.”
Between them they got Joe out of the saloon and started for the respectable portion of the village.
“We didn’t get a crack at those galoots!” said Brad regretfully. “I opined we’d have a lively time when you smashed the window and went jumping in there.”
Savage grew stronger after getting out into the open air.
“That devil!” he muttered. “Dick, I know you must think me a pretty cheap fellow. I can’t help it. I believe I am pretty cheap. But Arlington is slick. He got me into a bad scrape. I had an idea no one could beat me playing poker, but he’s the slickest thing in the business, and he skinned me clean to my eye-teeth. He had my I O U’s, and he was going to use them against me. That’s how he forced me to withdraw and permit him to get on the committee. He has no right there!”
“Don’t worry about that,” said Dick. “He’ll not stay on that committee. He will resign Monday, and you’ll get your I O U’s on the same day.”
CHAPTER XVII – DICK CONQUERS HIS ENEMY
Dick rapped sharply on the door of Chester Arlington’s room. There was a stir within, a pause, and then —
“Come in,” called a voice.
Dick entered.
Chester had risen and was standing at attention. When he saw Dick he looked surprised and disgusted.
“I thought it an inspector,” he growled sullenly, a frown coming to his haughty face, then he flung himself loungingly upon a comfortable chair, drew forth a cigarette-case, took out a paper-covered cigarette, and rolled it between his fingers.
There was smoke in the room.
“If I were an inspector,” thought Dick, who had closed the door behind him, “I see where you would get pulled over the coals.”
“What in thunder do you want here?” asked Arlington sneeringly, as he struck a match and lighted his cigarette.
He was not a little surprised by Dick’s boldness in entering that room, and yet he suspected what had brought his unwelcome visitor.
“I have a little business to transact with you, Arlington,” said Merriwell, with a quiet, determined manner that irritated Chester still further.
“Well, I don’t care to have dealings of any sort with you,” declared Arlington, “and I will inform you at once that you are not wanted here. This is my room, and you had better get out.”
Dick did not show any inclination to mind this indirect command.
“You may be sure, Arlington,” he returned, “that I am not dealing with you from choice. Circumstances have made it necessary.”
“Well, I refuse to have anything at all to do with you, so get out!”
Instead of obeying, Dick came a little nearer.
“You’ll not refuse,” he asserted.
“Oh, yes, I will!”
“Oh, no, you won’t!”
“I’d like to know why not?”
“Because you dare not.”
“Dare not?”
“Exactly. If you refuse, you will be called before the faculty to-morrow morning to answer to several grave charges.”
It seemed that Chester turned a trifle pale, but he snapped his fingers, stained yellow by cigarettes.
“A threat!” he exclaimed. “But I do not mind your threats, fellow!”
“You will mind this one, for it will be mighty unhealthy for you.”
“You’re a bully!” cried Arlington, springing up. “But you can’t bully me in my own room! There’s the door!”
He pointed with his finger, but Dick did not look; instead, he kept his dark eyes fixed on those of his enemy, and there was something in that steady look that held Chester in check.
“When I am through,” he said, in the same manner of quiet assurance, “I shall lose no time in getting out by that door.”
“I won’t disgrace myself by getting into a row with you,” sneered the other.
“You have disgraced yourself enough already. I advise you to go slow.”
“I want no advice from you!”
“In your heart you know well enough one reason why I am here.”
“Really, I haven’t the least idea,” said Arlington, as he again sat down, a bored expression driving the look of anger from his face.
Dick, however, knew Chester was not bored, knew he was shamming, knew he was nervous and apprehensive.
“It will not take me long to tell you why I am here. For one thing, I want you to resign immediately from the athletic committee.”
Chester laughed,
“You – you want me to! Well, what you want is nothing to me. What you want and what I’ll do are two entirely different things.”
“You will resign,” declared Dick, with positive assurance.
“Not much!”
“You will resign.”
“Why? Because you order it? Because you want to run the football-team, the committee, and everything connected with Fardale athletics? Well, you’ll find that you can’t have everything your own way!”
“If you do not resign,” said Dick, “I shall immediately take steps to compel you to do so.”
“You compel me?”
“I shall.”
“Why, you crazy idiot! You conceited duffer! You swell-headed – ”
“That will do!” came sternly from Dick’s lips. “I know you would like to provoke me into attacking you here, in order that you might claim I came to your room and assaulted you. I shall not touch you in this room, but if you continue your insulting epithets I shall call you to account elsewhere the first opportunity that presents.”
“Bully! But you can’t frighten me. My father is D. Roscoe Arlington, and – ”
“That is something you have told everybody in this school a dozen times, or more; but I should fancy you ought to see by this time that it fails to make an impression.”
Dick spoke like one who felt himself entire master of the situation, and that was one thing that infuriated Arlington, although he could not help being impressed by it. It was this air of perfect assurance of his position that marked Dick as one different from most lads and gave him influence and power to a degree. He was also magnetic, and those who learned to admire him as a friend grew soon to swear by him in everything and believe he could not make a mistake.
“I am not going to be dictated to by you! Put that in your pipe and smoke it! You can’t order me about. I was elected to the committee to fill the place made vacant by the resignation of Warwick, and on that committee I’ll stay.”
“You will not be on that committee to-morrow night. I give you your choice, you may resign or be fired off. But you had better resign, for you may be fired out of the school if you are fired off the committee.”
“Bah!”
“The charges that will be preferred against you on the committee are certain to leak out, and a call before the faculty must follow.”
“What are you talking about, anyhow? What charges will be preferred?”
“You will be accused of having dealings with Fred Kennedy, a gambler, of giving him money to bet against Fardale, and of being a gambler yourself. Thus you, one of the athletic committee, therefore deeply interested in the success of the football-team, are plainly a traitor working against your own school.”
“That’s fine!” sneered Chester. “It’s easy to make such a charge, but how are you going to prove it?”
“I have proof enough.”
“What proof?”
“You were heard in Murphy’s saloon at The Harbor dealing with Kennedy.”
“By whom?”
“Myself.”
“Ha, ha!” laughed Chester. “And do you think that proof enough? I think my word is as good as yours.”
“I was not the only one there. Brad Buckhart was with me outside the window, which was broken, and he heard your talk.”
“Anybody knows he would lie for you.”
“Joe Savage saw you in that room, where he went to have some dealings with you. He was attacked, struck with a bottle, and seriously injured. He will appear against you.”
“He’d better not!” grated Arlington fiercely. “If he does, he’ll go out of Fardale, too!”
“He’ll appear, though. You failed to keep your promise to him, and so – ”
“What promise?”
“Your promise to give up his I O U’s, won from him at the poker-table.”
“So that’s his story, eh? Ha, ha! Do you fancy he’ll be fool enough to get up before the committee and tell that he gambled with me? Why, he’d be in trouble at once! Gambling is not allowed here. And he doesn’t want his mother to know that he played for money.”
“You’re right about that, but you have driven him to the limit. The worm has turned. Arlington, I am holding him in check now. But for me he would have gone to Professor Gunn with the whole story.”
“I don’t believe it!”
“Believe it or not, as you like.”
“Why should you hold him in check – you? You are my enemy, and I am yours. You’d not do such a thing for me.”
“No.”
“Then – ”
“For your sister.”
“My sister! Confound you! how dare you speak of her! She is nothing to you!”
“She is a splendid girl, and it is a shame she has such a scoundrel for a brother.”
Chester leaped up, seizing a paper-weight from the table, and swung it backward to hurl it at Dick.
“You won’t throw it,” said Merriwell, with the utmost coolness, making no move to dodge or to protect himself, but looking his enemy straight in the eyes.
Chester was quivering with excitement, and his lips were drawn back from his handsome white teeth.
“Blazes take you, Merriwell!” panted Chester. “Some time I’ll kill you!”
“Perhaps you may try it. It would be like you. Put down that paper-weight.”
Dick was watching his enemy so closely that he did not see the slight movement of some curtains which hid an alcove, did not see them slightly parted, and did not observe a pair of beady black eyes that peered out at him. Some one besides Arlington and Merriwell was in that room and had been there all the time.
Chester hesitated, but Dick’s dark eyes seemed to have some magnetic power over him, for he suddenly lowered his hand and tossed the paper-weight with a thud upon the table.
“Better not mention my sister further,” he said huskily, shrugging his shoulders. “You touch me on a sore spot. I can’t bear to think of her having anything at all to do with you – even speaking to you.”
“You asked me a question, and I answered it truthfully. You are her brother, and she worries over you. It would hurt her to have you expelled from Fardale.”
“Expelled?”
“That is just what will happen to you if I cease to hold Joe Savage in check. That is what is almost certain to happen to you if I go before the athletic committee and tell what I know.”
“Hang you! You are bound to get me off that committee. You tried to keep me from getting on it.”
“I should have done so, but I did not. That was where I made a mistake. But I had promised your mother not to interfere with your ambitions, and I – ”
“Bah! What did you care about such a promise to my mother?”
“My friends urged me to work against you and keep you from getting on the committee. I know you are a fellow who does not hesitate to break a promise, and so you cannot understand why I should desire to keep the promise I foolishly gave your mother. I refused to interfere in any way. Seeing that, many of the fellows who would have voted against you had I used my influence declined to vote at all. Some even voted for you, thinking it might be well to have a plebe on the committee. I was one who counted the votes. I could have prevented you from winning then without making a move. I did not suppose you would find a way to sway the whole committee if you got on, and I thought it might deepen your interest in the welfare of the team if you got on. I cannot understand a fellow who will let his personal feelings lead him into working for or even desiring the defeat of his school team in order to humiliate an enemy.”
“Oh, you’re such a wonderfully upright and honest fellow!” sneered Arlington. “You make me sick!”
“I shall not waste further words with you. I want your promise before I leave this room to resign from the committee, or I shall expose you.”
Arlington felt that he was cornered, but he hated to give in to the lad he detested.
“All right!” he finally exclaimed. “I’ll resign.”
“Then that point is settled.”
“But don’t think for a minute that you are done with me! I am still your enemy, and you will find Chester Arlington relentless! I have power, too. The Arlingtons refuse to be beaten, and you can’t beat me.”
“That’s all right. If you resign, you’ll be wise. But I have one thing more to demand.”
Chester gasped.
“Something else? Confound you! that’s too much! You have driven me just as fast as you can!”
“I want the I O U’s you hold against Savage,” said Dick, in the same self-possessed, confident manner.
“You want them? Ha, ha!”
“Yes; you will give them to me.”
“If I do – ”
“Don’t be too hasty. What do you expect to do with them?”
“I won them. He owes me almost fifty dollars.”
“Which he cannot pay.”
“That’s not my fault. He’ll have to pay, or – ”
“You wish revenge against Savage. It won’t work. I am satisfied that you won from him crookedly.”
“He thinks he’s pretty slick with cards,” said Chester; “but he got bitten, that’s all.”
Dick knew Joe Savage had not been above winning money in questionable ways at one time, but Savage had reformed, and he seemed sincere, so that Merriwell was satisfied that he had been led into gambling again, not that he had chosen it of his own inclination.
Arlington’s words were a practical confession that he had “skinned” Savage, and Dick had no further hesitation about carrying out his original plan.
“You agreed to give up those I O U’s if Savage would withdraw as a candidate for the athletic committee and ask that all votes cast for him be thrown for you on the next balloting.”
“Well?” said Chester defiantly, “what of it?”
“You failed to keep your agreement with him.”
“Well, you’re taking a lot of interest in this fellow who went against what he knew was your desire in that meeting! What are you after? Are you working to get him in your power? That’s it! You have no right to demand those I O U’s, and I shall not give them up to you.”
“Then you will be summoned before the faculty to-morrow.”
Arlington was desperate. It was difficult for him to control the rage he felt.
“So you’ll ruin Savage here just to get a blow at me!” he cried harshly. “That shows how much of a friend you are to him!”
“I am doing this with the full knowledge and consent of Joe Savage.”
“Then he’s a fool!”
“Call him that to his face when he recovers from the treacherous blow he received.”
“Oh, I’d willingly do it! I have no fear of him – nor of you!”
But Chester was beginning to fear Merriwell, as well as hate him. Why was it Dick always accomplished anything he set about doing?
Dick turned toward the door.
“If you choose to sacrifice yourself for those worthless bits of paper,” he said, “go ahead. I have told you what I shall do, and you know I never fail to keep my word.”
He was going, and Arlington wavered. It was the bitterness of gall to surrender, but he felt that it was better than the disgrace of expulsion.
“Hold on!” he said. “I don’t want the old papers, anyhow! Here!” He took some slips from his pocket. “Here they are. Take them. I meant to give them to Savage.”
Dick stepped back quietly, with no expression of satisfaction or triumph, and took the slips from Chester’s hand. Quietly he ran them over, glancing at each one. Arlington longed intensely to strike him, but experience had taught him that he had better not do so.
“These are right,” nodded Dick, coolly putting the slips into his pocket.
Again he turned and walked toward the door. Just as he put out his hand to open the door, something whizzed past his head. Thud! – it struck the door and stuck there, quivering. It was a knife!
