CHAPTER XLIII
AN UNPLEASANT SITUATION
"Great Scott!" gurgled Old Put, staring after Marline. "But he is a regular fire eater!"
"He's a bad man – a blamed bad man!" fluttered Danny Griswold.
"That's right," nodded Lewis Little. "He really wants to fight with swords, I believe."
"Of course, he does," nodded Andy Emery, who had not said a word during all the talk between Merriwell and Marline. "Jack Diamond was another fellow just like him when he first came to Yale."
"So he was," said Putnam. "And it seems to me I have heard that Merriwell met him."
Frank smiled a bit.
"We had a little go," he said. "He put up a fierce fight, too, for a fellow that knew nothing about the science."
"Oh, everybody knows about that!" said Put. "It was the other affair I was speaking of. Didn't he force you into a duel with swords?"
"That affair was not very serious," said Frank, evasively.
"But I know it took place. He was a fire eater, and he had just such ideas of honor as Marline holds. Thought it a disgrace to fight with fists, and all that. You couldn't get out of meeting him in a regular duel, and you did so. I've heard the fellows talking it over. Let's see, who got the best of it?"
"It was interrupted before the end," said Frank. "The sophs came down on us, and we thought them the faculty. Everybody took to his heels."
"And Diamond would have been captured if it hadn't been for Merriwell, who stayed behind to help him out," put in Thornton. "The duel was never finished."
"Don't try it again, Merry," cried Danny Griswold. "The next one wouldn't come out as well as that."
"But what am I going to do?" asked Frank. "This fellow Marline will not let up on me."
"Don't pay any attention to him," advised Little.
"That's right, ignore him," said the others.
"That will be a hard thing to do. I am no bully, as you all know, but I cannot ignore a man who tries to ride me."
"Better do that than get into a fight with deadly weapons, and be killed," said Put.
"Or kill him," added Griswold.
"Never mind if he does try to brand you as a coward," advised Emery. "He can't make the brand stick. You are known too well here."
Frank flushed a bit.
"I don't know about that," he asserted. "It was only a few days ago that almost everybody here seemed to think me a coward because I declined to play football. They would be thinking so now if I had not played through absolute necessity."
"But what you did in that game has settled it so no man can call you a coward hereafter, and have his words carry any weight," said Putnam. "I believe you can afford to ignore Rob Marline. He is sore now because he was unable to play in the game, and because you put up such a game. He'll get over that after a time, and it's quite likely he'll be ashamed of himself for making such a fuss. He's not much good, anyway."
"Right there is where I think you make a big mistake," said Frank. "Marline has been underestimated by many persons. He has sand, and plenty of it. He is not responsible for his peculiar notions as to the proper manner for a man to settle an affair of honor, for he was born and brought up where such settlements are generally made with pistols."
"Well, you can't fight him in the manner he has named, and that's all there is to it. Nobody will blame you for not meeting him. Let him go it till he cools off."
"Perhaps he will be cool by the time his ankle gets well," said Griswold.
Others came along and joined the crowd, and the talk turned to football. Everybody seemed to want to shake hands with Frank, and his arm was worked up and down till it ached. He was congratulated on every hand.
Sport Harris stood at a distance and saw all this, while his face wore a sour, hateful sneer.
"It makes me sick to see them slobbering over him!" he muttered. "He'll swell up and burst with conceit now. Hang him! He beat me out of my last dollar yesterday, and now I'll have to take some of my clothes down to 'uncle' and raise the wind on them. Ain't got even enough for a beer this morning, and my account is full at Morey's. This is what I call hard luck! Wonder how Harlow feels this morning?"
Rolf Harlow had formerly been a Harvard man, and he was an inveterate gambler. Through him Harris had placed all his money on the Harvard eleven. Sport had tipped Harlow to the condition of the team, and the apparent fact that Harvard was sure to win, on which tip Rolf had hastened to stake everything on the Cambridge boys. At the close of the game Harris got away from Harlow as quickly as possible, finding him anything but agreeable as a companion.
Harris knew Marline hated Merriwell, and he felt sure the boy from the South had nerve and courage, but, to his wonderment and disgust, Rob would not enter into any sort of a compact against Frank.
"Together, we might be able to do up Merriwell," thought Harris. "The only man I ever, found who had the nerve to stick by me against Merriwell was Hartwicke, and he was forced to leave college. I'll get the best of the fellow some day."
Later on, Sport heard something of the encounter between Merriwell and Marline that morning. He listened eagerly to this, and he was seized by a few thoughts.
What did he care about Marline? If Merriwell could be led into a genuine duel with the lad from South Carolina, it might result in the expulsion of both from Yale, either if neither should be seriously injured.
If Merriwell should be injured, all the better. If he wounded Marline, the whole story might come out on investigation, and that would put him in a bad box.
Anyway, a duel between the two might bring about Merriwell's downfall.
Harris set about stirring the matter up. He reported that Marline had driven Merriwell "into his boots." There were a few fellows who "took some stock" in Sport, and through them he worked to spread the story.
Harris was industrious, and before another night all sorts of tales concerning the encounter between the rivals were in circulation.
Harry Rattleton, Frank's old-time chum, heard some of the reports, and he lost no time in telling Frank just what was being said. Merriwell smiled grimly, and said nothing.
"What are you going to do about it?" asked Harry, excitedly.
"Nothing," said Frank.
"What's that?" shouted Rattleton. "If you don't do anything, lots of the fellows will think the stories are true."
"Let them."
"I wouldn't stand it! I'd hunch somebody's ped – I mean, punch somebody's head."
"The fellows who heard it all know if Marline drove me into my boots."
"All right!" said Rattleton. "If you don't do anything about it, I shall. I'm going to find out who started the yarns, and then I'm going to punch him!"
And Rattleton went forth in search of some one to punch.
And he was not the only one, as we shall see.
Within three days Marline was able to get around, with the aid of a cane. His ankle was improving swiftly, and he expected it would be nearly as well as ever in less than a week.
Marline had a following. There were some rattle-brained young fellows in the college who looked on him with admiration, as it was known he came from a fighting family, and was just as ready to face a foe on "the field of honor" as any of his ancestors had been before him.
Marline considered himself a "careful drinker," for he took about a certain number of drinks each day, seldom allowing himself to indulge in more than his allowance.
He always took whiskey. Beer and ale he called "slops." Such stuff was well enough to boys and Dutchmen, but "whiskey was the stuff for a man."
Rob did not know he was forming one of the worst habits a man can acquire – that of "drinking moderately." The moderate drinker becomes the steady drinker, and, in time, he gets his system into such a condition that he cannot get along without his regular allowance of "stuff." The moment he tries to cut down that allowance, he feels miserable and "out of sorts." Then he "throws in" a lot of it to brace up on. Perhaps it is some time before he realizes what a hold drink has on him, and, when he does realize it, in almost every case it is too late to break off the habit. Gradually he increases his "allowance," and thus the moderate drinker becomes a slave to liquor, and a drunkard.
The only "safe way" to handle liquor is not to handle it at all.
Marline had a father with plenty of money, and he was provided with more than a liberal allowance while at college. He had money to spend, and now, knowing the value of popularity, he began to spend it with unusual liberality. As a result, there was a crowd of fellows who clung to him closely in order to get as many drinks as possible out of him.
Although Frank did not drink, he often went around with fellows who did. He had a strong mind, and it was not difficult for him to resist temptation.
Thus it came about that Merriwell and Marline sometimes saw each other in Morey's or Treager's, two well-known students' resorts. At first, they seemed to avoid each other. Then Marline got the idea that Merriwell was afraid of him, and he took to flinging out scornful insinuations and staring at Frank contemptuously.
It was difficult for Merriwell to restrain his passions, for never had he known a fellow who could anger him like Marline, but he held onto himself with a close hand.
Jack Diamond heard of the affair between Frank and the boy from South Carolina. Although Jack was from the South, he knew Merriwell as well as anybody at Yale, and his knowledge told him Frank was in the right.
It galled Diamond to think that anybody could sneer at Merriwell, and not be called to account. He did not say much at first, but, after a time, he began to feel that he had stood it about as long as possible.
"Look here, Merry!" he exclaimed, as he stalked into Merriwell's room one evening; "how long are you going to stand this?"
Frank had been studying, but he flung down his book immediately.
"Stand what?" he asked, smiling.
"Why, the insolence of this fellow from South Carolina. I heard him in Morey's last evening when he made that sneering remark about you, and it has been galling me all day. I expected you would jump him on the spot, but you never moved an eyelash."
"What did you think I'd do?"
"Punch him, confound it!"
"How can I?"
"How can you? With your fist, of course."
"But I can't do it, you know. He has acknowledged publicly that he is no fighter with his fists, and I'd seem like a bully if I hit him."
"Oh, rot!" exploded Jack. "Think I'd let any fellow insult me and then rub it in without giving him a thump on the jaw? Not much!"
"Your ideas on that point seem to have changed since you came to Yale. You will remember you did not believe in fighting with fists when you came here."
"That's right," nodded Jack. "I thought gentlemen never fought in such a manner, but I have found out that even gentlemen are occasionally forced to do so."
"Marline holds just the same ideas as you held. I demanded satisfaction of him, and he said he'd give it to me, with swords."
"He's a chump! What he really needs is a good drubbing, and you ought to give it to him."
"And be called a bully. They would say it was a cowardly thing to do. Really, Jack, I'm in a confounded nasty place!"
"I believe you are," admitted Diamond, slowly. "But you must do something."
"Suggest something."
"Fight him with the weapons he named!" cried the Virginian, hotly. "You can do it, and I know you can get the best of him. I haven't forgotten our little duel. Not much! Why, Merriwell, you disarmed me twice! You can do the same trick with him."
"Perhaps not."
"I know you can. If you disarm him twice, you can call him a bungler, and refuse to continue the duel. Do it, Merry!" excitedly urged Jack. "I'll stand by you – I'll be your second."
"Thank you, old man; but aren't you afraid of getting into serious trouble? If the faculty – "
"Hang the faculty! We'll have to take chances. You can't stand his insults, Merry, and you'll have to fight him with the weapons he has named. That's the only thing you can do."
"You may be right," said Frank, slowly. "I am getting sick of the way the thing is going, but I don't want to make a fool of myself."
"You won't; but you'll make a monkey of Rob Marline, and I'll bet on it. Why, Merry, you are wonderfully clever with the foils, and you have nerves of iron."
"Still, there might be a slip, you know."
"Are you afraid he'll do you up?"
"Not that," said Frank, "although I know he might. I'll tell you the truth. I hate Marline, and I might do him up. A sword is a nasty weapon. What if I should run him through?"
"I never saw the time yet when you were not your own master. I don't think there is any danger that you will kill Marline, but you pink him, just so he would remember you. He wouldn't blow. He's from the South. He wouldn't blow if you pinked him for keeps."
"I think you are right about that. Well, Jack, there's no telling what I may be driven into. If I have to meet him in a duel, I shall call on you to act as my second."
"You may depend on me. I'll serve you with great satisfaction. Call him out, Merry – call him out!"
CHAPTER XLIV
STUDENTS' RACKETS
Inza Burrage came back to New Haven with Miss Gale. Frank discovered she was there by seeing her on the street. He started to join her and speak, but she entered a store, and he lost her.
That evening he started out to call on her, resolved to have a talk with her and come to a complete understanding, if she would see him.
He knew where Miss Gale was stopping, and he made his way to the house by a roundabout course, thinking over what he would say in case Inza consented to see him.
As he approached the house he saw some one ascending the steps. The person going up the steps carried a cane.
Frank halted abruptly.
"Marline!" he whispered.
It was his rival.
Rob rang the bell and was admitted to the house.
Frank turned about and walked swiftly away.
"That settles it!" he grated. "I don't want to see her now, for I am sure she was playing double with me. She is stuck on Rob Marline. It's all right! it's all right! I'll have to take Diamond's advice. Marline shall have all the satisfaction he desires."
On his way back to his room he met Browning, Diamond, Rattleton and several other fellows, who were starting out for a jolly time. They were singing, "Here's to Good Old Yale," and he immediately joined in with them, his beautiful baritone adding to the melody which floated out on the crisp evening air.
"Hurrah!" cried Rattleton. "It's Merry! Come on, old man, and we'll have some sport."
To the surprise of all, Merriwell joined them, without asking where they were going. He seemed ready enough for any kind of sport, and his laughter rang the loudest and merriest of them all. He was overflowing with jokes and witty sayings, so that the boys began to say to each other that he was like the Frank Merriwell of old.
They made the rounds of the "places." Nearly all of them drank beer, but, although Frank seemed in a reckless mood, not a drop of beer or liquor touched his lips. He seemed to enjoy the sport as much as any of them, and still he remained sober.
In fact, Frank was a leader in wild pranks that night. Before the evening was over, the boys got two policemen after them, and were forced to run to escape arrest.
Rattleton was somewhat slower than the others in starting, and he soon found one of the policemen was close upon him.
"Stop!" cried the officer.
"Go to thunder!" flung back Harry.
"Stop, I tell yer!"
"Save your wind! You can't catch me in a thousand years."
"Can't?"
Whiz – something flew through the air. It struck Harry between the shoulders, knocking him forward on his hands and knees.
Then the officer pounced upon him, picking up his stick, which he had flung at the boy.
"Oh, I've got yer!" grated the policeman. "I'll teach yer to be tearin' down an' shiftin' round people's signs! I saw yer when yer pulled down the sign in front of the Chinese laundry, and the charge'll be larceny. We're goin' to fix some of you frisky students."
The police had been sore ever since their ineffectual attempt to get upon the campus and arrest the students who were parading with the horns captured from the band. Word had gone the rounds among the students that the "cops" were watching for an opportunity to retaliate. Evidently this policeman fancied his opportunity had come.
Larceny! Harry realized the full meaning of the charge, and he knew it would go hard with him if he were convicted. Thoughts of making a desperate effort to slip out of his coat, and leave it in the officer's clutch, flashed through his head; but the blow of the club had knocked the wind out of him, and, just then, he did not have the strength to make the effort.
Where were the others? Had they all escaped? Had they abandoned him?
"Git up!" ordered the policeman, releasing his grip on Harry a bit, in order to change his hold.
Swish! thump! bump!
A dark body came out of the shadows and struck the policeman with the force of a catapult.
The officer was hurled through the air, his hold on Harry being broken. He struck the stone paving heavily.
A hand fastened on Rattleton's collar, a strong arm jerked him to his feet, a familiar voice hissed in his ear:
"Run!"
It was Merriwell! Harry's heart leaped as he realized that. Frank had not deserted him. Frank never deserted a friend.
Rattleton was somewhat dazed, but Merriwell's hand directed him, and away they sped. They heard the policeman behind them, heard him shout breathlessly for them to stop, but they had no thought of obeying.
Into a narrow space between two buildings plunged Frank, telling Harry to follow. Merriwell came to a gate, but he seemed to see it, for all of the intense darkness.
"Over here!" he called to Harry.
They heard the policeman plunge in behind them. Over the gate they scrambled, not daring to pause long enough to find the way it was fastened. Out into a back yard they dashed, hearing the officer run into the gate and grunt as he was flung backward.
There was a high fence around the yard, and it seemed that they might be in a trap.
Frank felt for a clothesline and found it. He seemed to see in the dark.
"Over the fence, Harry – over the fence!" he whispered.
"Come on!"
"In a moment."
"What are you doing?"
"Lowering this line, so it will just catch Mr. Officer under the chin. Get over the fence."
Rattleton obeyed. He found a place where he could scramble to the top of the fence, and there he sat, calling to Frank:
"Come on – hurry!"
The policeman came out into the yard. It seemed that Merriwell had been waiting for him. Frank started to run, and the officer started after him.
"I have yer now!" grated the policeman.
Frank led him directly toward the clothesline. Just before the line was reached, Frank seemed to stumble and nearly fall. He did it in order to duck under the line.
A triumphant exclamation broke from the officer. It was cut short by another sort of exclamation.
The clothesline caught him under the chin. It snapped his head backward and his heels forward. He went down flat on his back with a terrible thump, and there he lay.
With a triumphant laugh, Frank shinned up the fence and perched on the top beside Rattleton.
The officer was sitting up. He had seen more stars and fireworks than it had ever been his fortune to behold before.
"Ta, ta, old chappie!" tauntingly called Merriwell. "We'll see you some other evening."
"Stop – stop right where you are!" ordered the policeman, in a bewildered way, looking around for the speaker. "You can't get away. It's no use for you to try."
"You're twisted, old man," laughed Frank. "Good-night, and pleasant dreams! We certainly had you on a string to-night. Ha! ha! ha!"
Then the boys dropped down from the fence into the next yard, made their way to the street, and hastened toward Morey's.
"Christopher? what a racket!" laughed Rattleton. "Why, I haven't been in anything like this since I was a freshman."
"It's good for a fellow once in a while," said Frank. "It stirs up his blood."
"But I was in a hard place when you came to my rescue, Merry. The cop had me pinched, and he said the charge would be larceny. I thought I was in for it."
"I wasn't going to leave anybody to be locked up."
"You never do, Merry; you always stick. It does me good to see you out on a time like this, for you have not been like yourself in weeks. Now you seem like the old Frank Merriwell."
They reached Morey's safely. Entering, they discovered nearly all the others of their party there ahead of them.
And Rob Marline was there, drinking whiskey.
As soon as Frank and Harry appeared, the others of the party surrounded them, asking about their adventures.
Bruce Browning was wiping the perspiration from his flushed face, while he growled:
"Haven't done anything like that for a long time. It was awful! Wouldn't done it then if it hadn't been to escape arrest. Cæsar's ghost! think of being arrested."
"I was arrested!" said Rattleton.
"What?" cried the others. "Come again!"
"A cop pinched me."
"No? How did you get away?"
"Merriwell came to my rescue. He didn't desert me, if the rest of you did. He saw the cop nail me, and he sent his buttons flying by running into him. That gave me a chance to skip. I tell you, it took nerve to tackle a cop like that."
Rob Marline laughed sarcastically, but did not say anything. Rattleton flushed with anger, but Merriwell did not seem to notice it.
Harry went on with his story, telling of their adventures, and the party shouted with laughter when he related the clothesline incident.
The fellows were gathering about Merriwell, and Marline found that he was being deserted, which added to his bitterness. He saw the boys listening to the story of Merriwell's attack on the officer and the trick with the clothesline, and the soul of the boy from the South was filled with bitterness.
"He's cutting ice with the gang again," thought Marline. "That must be stopped."
But how could he stop it? He thought of calling to those who had been with him before Merriwell came in, and asking them to have another drink. Then it seemed that he would humiliate himself by doing so, for he would cause everybody to notice how he had been abandoned. So he ordered another drink for himself, and drank it sullenly.
Every time the boys laughed Marline grated his teeth. Things had not gone right with him that night, and he was in an ugly mood. He had called to see Inza Burrage, and had attempted to make himself "solid" with her. In the course of his conversation he had made some disparaging remark about Frank Merriwell.
That remark was like a spark of fire in a keg of powder. In a moment Inza flared up and exploded. She told him Frank Merriwell was a gentleman. She told him Frank Merriwell was too much of a man of honor to malign an enemy behind his back. She showed deep scorn and contempt, and Marline left the house crestfallen and raging with anger.
He had been touched on a tender spot. To have any one insinuate that Frank Merriwell was more honorable than he, was like stabbing him to the heart.
The whiskey made Marline desperate. Little did he know that the boy he hated was in a most reckless mood. Had he known it, he would not have cared. There was not a drop of cowardly blood in Marline's body. He longed for an encounter with Merriwell.
At length, when he could stand it no longer, he arose to his feet. Some one was complimenting Merriwell on his nerve. Marline had not tasted the last glass of whiskey brought him. He took it in his hand, made two steps toward Frank, and flung the stuff full into Merry's face!
"If Mr. Merriwell has so much nerve, let him resent that!" rang out the hoarse voice of the boy from South Carolina. "We'll see how much nerve he has!"
Frank took out a handkerchief and slowly wiped the liquid from his face. He was very pale, and his eyes gleamed with a glare that his best friends had never seen in them before. But he laughed, and those who knew him best shuddered at that laugh.
"Mr. Marline," he said, his voice calm and modulated, "will you be kind enough to name your friend?"
Marline looked around. Sport Harris was at his side in a moment.
"I'll serve you!" Sport eagerly whispered.
Marline felt that almost any one was preferable to Harris, but he saw the others had drawn away. Harris seemed to be the only one with nerve enough to stand by him. He felt forced to accept Sport.
"Mr. Harris is my man," he said.
Frank bowed gracefully.
"Mr. Diamond will wait on him."
A gleam of exultation came into Marline's face, for he felt that he had driven Merriwell to the wall at last.
Frank and Jack immediately withdrew from Morey's, and, later, the Virginian sought Harris in his room.
Frank awaited Diamond's return. He came back in about an hour
"To-morrow, at sunrise," he said.