The Project Gutenberg eBook, Frank Merriwell's Strong Arm, by Burt L. Standish

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Changes to the text are noted at the [end of the book.]

BOOKS FOR YOUNG MEN

MERRIWELL SERIES

Stories of Frank and Dick Merriwell

PRICE FIFTEEN CENTS

Fascinating Stories of Athletics

A half million enthusiastic followers of the Merriwell brothers will attest the unfailing interest and wholesomeness of these adventures of two lads of high ideals, who play fair with themselves, as well as with the rest of the world.

These stories are rich in fun and thrills in all branches of sports and athletics. They are extremely high in moral tone, and cannot fail to be of immense benefit to every boy who reads them.

They have the splendid quality of firing a boy’s ambition to become a good athlete, in order that he may develop into a strong, vigorous right-thinking man.

ALL TITLES ALWAYS IN PRINT

In order that there may be no confusion, we desire to say that the books listed below will be issued during the respective months in New York City and vicinity. They may not reach the readers at a distance promptly, on account of delays in transportation.

Frank Merriwell’s Strong Arm
OR,
SAVING AN ENEMY

BY

BURT L. STANDISH

Author of the famous Merriwell Stories.

STREET & SMITH CORPORATION

PUBLISHERS

79–89 Seventh Avenue, New York

Copyright, 1901
By STREET & SMITH

Frank Merriwell’s Strong Arm

(Printed in the United States of America)

All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign
languages, including the Scandinavian.

FRANK MERRIWELL’S STRONG ARM.

CHAPTER I.
WHEN THE SPRING COMES AGAIN.

In the sweet and balmy springtime the sedate senior’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of frivolity. All through the weary winter months he may have carried himself with the grave dignity that so well becomes a senior; but when the spring comes something stirs within him, and as the world turns green and the birds begin to twitter that something takes hold of him with a grip that makes him its servant. A strange sensation of restlessness pervades his entire being, running over his nerves like little electric thrills, setting his muscles itching, his heart throbbing, his whole body aching—aching to do something, anything, everything.

This is a very dangerous condition for a senior to fall into, and yet nearly all of them suffer from an attack of it. It drags them to the border-line of recklessness, and while it possesses them in all its awesome force, there is no desperate thing it might not lead them into. It even has the power to make them forget for a while that the whole world has its eyes fastened upon them.

There must be some vent for this spring-coltish feeling which assails the senior. Until he became a senior he could occasionally disport himself as a boy, but now for some months the burden of his exalted station in the world has roosted on his shoulders until it has become almost too heavy to bear. He longs to fling it off and be a boy again.

That’s it—that’s what ails the grave-faced senior when he feels that queer sensation running over the electric-wires of his body, which are known as the nerves. For the first time in life he realizes that his boyhood is slipping from him, and he makes a clutch at it to drag it back for one last look into its happy face before he is parted from it forever.

How sad a thing it is to part with boyhood forever; and yet how many do so without a sigh or a regret! It is only in after years that they wake up to understand how great was their loss. Some, well aware that the hour has come for boyhood to bid them farewell, turn to look after it fondly, even when their feet are set on the new road that manhood has led them into. Good-by, happy boyhood! this is the final parting; we shall never meet again. Of course, it’s a grand thing to be a man, but it’s only after we have become men that we realize how grand it was to be a boy.

The senior has been playing at being a man. He has carried a sober face, his manner has been sedate, and he has been very much impressed with his own importance. All this has begun to wear upon him, and with the awakening of spring he wakes up also to a knowledge of what is happening. By Jove! it’s a serious thing, after all, to permit boyhood to drift away without so much as a word of farewell. This hits him hard, and he suddenly stretches out his hands to that part of himself that he has so carelessly thrust aside.

Behold a lot of dignified Yale seniors wooing back their boyhood on a sunny spring day. You’d scarcely know them now. There in one group are Aldrich, who carried off the honors as a drum-major in the political rally last fall; Tomlinson, widely celebrated as a “greasy grind;” Browning, the laziest man on earth; Hodge, famous on the gridiron or the diamond, and Merriwell, famous the country over. And what are they doing?

Spinning tops! So help me, they are spinning tops!

But look around and you will see scores of well-known seniors engaged in the same surprising occupation. They enter into the spirit of if with the combined hilarity of boys and dignity of men. If you look beneath the surface, it may seem rather pathetic to witness this great crowd of intellectual young men seriously engaged in a last romp with their departing boyhood.

There is Porter, the famous poet of the Lit., frolicking down the walk, trundling a hoop before him with the apparent satisfaction of a lad of seven. See! his hoop collides with that of Gammel, the great Dwight Hall orator, and there is a general mixup. But they’re not real boys. They’re only men playing that they are boys. If they had been boys that collision might have resulted in an exchange of blows, instead of an exchange of bows.

Over yonder are more seniors spinning tops or rolling hoops. And a great throng of men from other classes stand off and watch “the sport,” commenting upon it sagely.

This top-spinning and hoop-rolling serves as a vent for the pent-up steam that has been threatening an explosion. The safety-valve is open, and the rollicking seniors proceed to let ’er sizz. There are other ways of letting off steam, but surely this is far better than the sign-stealing and gate-shifting recklessness of the freshmen.

This is a part of the life of Yale, a scene peculiar to the balmy days of early spring. It is one of the memories that old grads. smile over in after years. It is peculiar and characteristic of Old Eli; to eliminate it would be to take away something that seems to aid in making Yale what it is.

By themselves the Chickering set had gathered to look on and make comment. Their observations were most edifying. These remarks tell how the gray matter in their little heads is working. It has to work hard for them to think, for they have dulled the gray matter with cigarettes and hot suppers and lack of proper exertion. Yet somehow these “men” manage to keep along in their classes, and somehow they pass examinations, and somehow they will graduate, as hundreds and thousands like them graduate from colleges all over our land.

“Look at that big elephant, Bruce Browning!” lisped Lew Veazie, in derision. “Thee him thpinning a top, fellowth! Ithn’th that a thight faw thore eyeth!”

“And that cheap fellow Hodge,” said Ollie Lord, pointing with his cane. “Just look at him, gentlemen! Isn’t it just perfectly comical to see him spinning a top! Oh, dear, dear, dear!”

“And Merriwell,” said Rupert Chickering, whose trousers looked as if they had been freshly pressed that day. “It is a sad spectacle to see a man like that lose his dignity.”

“Oh, come off!” croaked Tilton Hull, his collar holding his chin so high that he seemed to be addressing his remarks to a twittering sparrow on a limb over his head. “That’s about the only kind of sport Merriwell is suited for.”

“It’s no use,” said Gene Skelding gloomily, exhibiting deep depression, for all that he was wearing a dazzling new pink shirt; “we can say whatever we like about Merriwell, but it’s plain he’s on top of the bunch to stay.”

They all regarded him in amazement, for always he had been the fiercest against Frank.

“This from you!” cried Julian Ives, smiting his bang a terrible smack with his open hand and almost staggering. “What does it mean?”

“It means that we may as well own up to the truth. He has pulled himself up to the top, and everything we or others have done or said has been fruitless in pulling him down.”

No wonder they were amazed! Skelding had been one who had often taken a hand in some daring move against Merriwell. The others to a man had lacked nerve, but Gene was reckless, and they knew it. He had never seemed to give up hope; but now, all at once, he flung up the sponge. Why shouldn’t they show consternation?

Behind his collar Tilton Hull gave a gurgling groan.

“It’s not Merriwell’s strength that has placed him on top,” he said despairingly. “He is not a strong man.”

“Not in any sense,” said Julian Ives.

“He’s strong enough in his way. No other Yale man has ever done the things he has done and kept on top. Think of him, a senior, going into the freshman boat as coxswain in place of the coxswain the sophs had stolen! The nerve of the thing is colossal. But what would have befallen any other senior who dared do such a thing? He would have got it in the neck. How about Merriwell? Why, everybody seems to think he did a clever thing in palming himself off as Earl Knight, the freshman. A man who can do a thing like that and come off all right is too strong to be thrown down. It’s no use, he is on top for good.”

“I don’t think he ith verwy thwong,” simpered Veazie. “He ith a gweat bwute! But there are otherth jutht ath thwong ath he ith. I weally believe he thinkth himthelf a Thandow.”

“I was not thinking of his physical strength,” said Skelding; “though it seems that he’s pretty nearly as strong that way as any other. You know they say he defeated that strange athlete of the scarred face.”

“That’s a story his friends tell, don’t you know, dear boy,” said Ollie Lord. “How can anybody be sure it’s true?”

“I don’t suppose there is much doubt of it,” said Gene, still with great gloom. “He is as strong one way as another, and that makes his position impregnable. He’s king of Yale.”

“It thirtenly ith a thwange thight to thee a king thpinning a top,” giggled Veazie.

“Come away!” croaked Hull, still with his eyes on the limb where the sparrow had perched. “Gene is in need of something to brace him up. Let’s get out of here for a stroll.”

So the Chickering set dragged themselves away, all feeling greatly depressed by the words of Skelding, for when he gave up, hope seemed crumbling ashes.

They had continued to hope that something would bring about the downfall of Merriwell. In Chickering’s perfumed rooms they had talked of the possibility. Even though every adverse circumstance seemed to turn in Merry’s favor, still they hugged the gasping form of hope and fanned breath into its pinched nostrils. Now they beheld it dead in their arms, for Skelding had grown tired and refused to fan any more.

In a gloomy group they left the campus and crossed the green. Few words passed between them, but all seemed to know where they were going. Into the Tontine Hotel they made their way and disappeared, for there they knew a room where they could be served with whatever they ordered, and no one would be permitted to trouble them.

It was fully an hour later when they issued from the hotel. There was a wild light in Skelding’s eyes, and his teeth were set. Hull had a flush in his cheeks, but his weak chin would have dropped had his collar permitted. Ives’ bang was rumpled, and he did not care. He was humming a tune. Lew and Ollie were clinging to each other, and making a pretense of being very sober, in order to attract attention to the fact that they had been drinking. Rupert had his hat canted at a rakish angle over one ear.

This is the Chickering set full of fuddle. Look out for them now, for they are real reckless. How strong they are now! You can see it in their faces and in the steadiness of their walk. And they demonstrate it by their language.

“It ith no uthe!” Veazie declared; “I don’t take a bit of thstock in thstorieth they tell about Fwank Merriwell being tho thwong. I think he ith weal weak.”

“That’s right, chummie!” chirped Ollie Lord, flourishing his cane in a fierce gesture. “We’d not be afraid of him, would we?”

“No, thir!” cried Lew; “not a bit!”

“Of course not!” said Ollie. “If we were to meet him we’d give him a shove.”

“I’d like to give him a thove!” said Veazie, shaking his terrible fist in the empty air. But somehow his other hand stole round behind him and hovered over a place that had once been spanked by Merriwell’s open palm.

“Don’t talk about the creature!” croaked Hull loftily. “He should be beneath our notice. We’ve settled the fact that he is not strong in any way. We did that back in the hotel after we took the second drink. Now, drop it.”

“Yes, drop it!” grated Skelding. “He’s been given every kind of a chance to demonstrate his strength, but I know it’s been nothing but luck. I could have done the same thing, had I been given the same chance. But I never have a chance.”

“Let’s not revile Merriwell,” murmured Chickering. “Let’s try to be charitable.”

“But I wouldn’t turn out for him if I were to meet him face to face right——”

Tilton Hull stopped speaking with a gulp, for he had come face to face with Merriwell.

CHAPTER II.
A STRONG ARM.

Hull did not pause to make any kind of a bluff, but he turned out with remarkable alacrity, for Merriwell’s eyes were fastened upon him and seemed to go through him like knives. Those eyes seemed quite enough to turn any one aside.

Seeing Tilton make that abrupt swerve, Veazie and Lord looked for the cause, and beheld Merry within two strides of them. They nearly fell over each other in their haste to get away, and they went clean off the sidewalk into the gutter.

Chickering pretended not to see Merry, although he could not help swerving aside the least bit. Ives suddenly became busy with his bang, and Skelding was the only man of the whole lot who ventured to give Frank one savage glance. But Merry paid no heed to Skelding, who was not in his path at all, and walked on. Gene was mad.

“Well, I swear, you are like a lot of frightened sheep!” he snarled, regarding the rest with scorn. “You make me sick, the whole of you!”

“What is the matter?” asked Rupert, with pretended surprise. “What made everybody dodge aside so?” Then he looked back and saw Frank. “Can it be?” he said, in great disgust. “Really, it’s too bad!”

In disgust Skelding left the sidewalk and started to cross the street. The others flocked after him stragglingly.

Then there was a great rumpus and uproar down the street. Men shouted and ran for the sidewalks, teams got out of the way in a hurry, and the electric car at the crossing slid over barely in time.

And right down on the Chickering set bore two runaway horses attached to a bounding, rocking, reeling carriage. The driver was gone from his seat, the reins were flying loose, and the two ladies in the carriage were quite helpless. At any moment they might be thrown out and killed. At any moment the mad horses might crash into another carriage, a car, a stone post, the curbing, or something that would cap the catastrophe.

Men looked on helplessly, or ran after the reeling carriage, shouting and waving their arms. Women shuddered, screamed, and turned pale.

Was there no one to stop the runaway? Yes, there was the famous strong policeman of that beat! Everybody knew him. He would stop the horses. He ran out before them.

Then the crowd watched the officer perform the wonderful feat. He was a giant in stature, and he had Hercules-like arms and legs. He hurled himself fearlessly at the heads of the frightened beasts, caught with one hand, clung, and was dragged.

“He’s down!”

Women covered their eyes to shut out the spectacle. He had failed to obtain a good hold on the bridles of the horses, his hands slipped, he hung desperately, and then——

It seemed that those terrible hoofs beat him down and went over him, leaving him lying there.

At first the Chickering set had seemed dazed by the commotion. Their brains were fuddled, and they hesitated fairly in the track of peril.

“Run, you fools!” shouted somebody. “Get out of the way, or you’ll be killed!”

As the others take to their heels and scamper for a place of safety, it is seen that one remains behind.

It is Skelding.

On came the terrified horses, and Gene braced himself for the effort that was to land him in the halls of fame—or in a cemetery.

The latter thought came upon him with appalling force as he saw those mad horses almost within reach. Their eyes were glaring, their teeth were set on the bits, their lips flung great flecks of foam, and the muscular play of their thrashing legs, bounding bodies, and shod hoofs, beating fire from the flinty stones, was enough to shake the nerve of a would-be hero. The power of their mad rush was something against which it seemed that no frail human arm could avail.

The thought of fame had led Gene to halt there; but now the thought of something quite different got hold of him. He saw himself hurled to the stones with broken bones, maimed for life, perhaps. If he lived, he would hobble through life a miserable cripple. But he might be killed! It would be a glorious thing to die the death of a hero, but even that was not quite enough inducement.

Thus it happened that, at the last minute, Skelding made a backward spring and a scramble to get out of the way, not even lifting his hand to try to stop the horses.

At another time his haste might have seemed comical and caused the spectators to roar with laughter; but just now the peril of the helpless women in the carriage prevented any one from laughing.

But another Yale man has rushed out into the street and prepared to make an attempt to check those horses. As they approach, he runs in the same direction they are going. They come up beside him, and he swerves in toward them at exactly the right moment, having watched their approach over his shoulder. Then he leaps at their heads, gets them firmly by the bridles, and holds fast with a grip that nothing can break.

The crowd looks on in breathless anxiety and admiration. All had expected to see this beardless youth flung down and trampled as the policeman had been trampled, but nothing of the kind occurs.

What wonderful strength he must have, for he has checked the mad rush of the horses at once! Though they plunge and rear, he holds them fast and sets them back with a surge of his arm, which seems to have muscles of steel. They do not carry him half a block before he had brought them to a stand and holds them there, his jaw squared, his cheeks flushed a bit, but his broad chest scarcely seeming to rise and fall with more than usual rapidity. It is the deed of a man of wonderful nerve, skill, and strength.

“Who is he?” some ask.

“Why, it’s Merriwell!” others reply, as if all should know him.

Yes, it was Merriwell who had stopped the horses. He gave them his entire attention till he had them quite under subjection. Then other men came to his assistance, and he could leave them for a moment.

Frank stepped back to the carriage, politely lifting his hat, and saying:

“I trust neither of you is harmed, ladies? Your driver——”

He stopped, staring, astonished, wondering. The golden-haired girl was gazing at him in unspeakable admiration.

“Elsie!” he gasped.

For it was Elsie Bellwood! Then he glanced at the lady at Elsie’s side.

“Mrs. Parker! Well, this is a surprise!”

Mrs. Parker had been ready to faint, but now she recovered enough to say:

“How can we ever thank you, Mr. Merriwell? You saved our lives! There is no doubt of it!”

“When they ran away,” said Elsie, “when the driver fell off, I felt that somehow, somewhere, Frank would turn up and stop them. He did it!”

Her face was full of triumph. Although she still shook with the excitement of the adventure through which she had passed, there was happiness in that look she gave him.

Somehow that look stabbed him to the heart. Was it a look of love? Why had she not fancied that Hodge might be the one to stop the horses? In that moment, when he might have been well satisfied with himself for what he had done, Frank Merriwell felt miserable.

“Elsie,” he said, “I did not know you were in the city.”

“We came to-day,” said Mrs. Parker. “I have a brother who lives in Hamden.”

They had not let him know they were coming. He did not believe Hodge had known it.

Mrs. Parker refused to ride farther in the carriage. She declared the horses could not be managed. And so, as the dirt-covered driver came panting up, angry, ashamed, and humble, Frank was helping them from the carriage. He had offered to take the driver’s place himself, but Mrs. Parker would not even trust one who had shown his power to check the mad runaways.

“I shall return in a car,” she added. “Brother George shall not induce me to come out behind those terrible creatures again.”

Elsie had given Frank’s hand a gentle pressure as he helped her to alight.

“I was awfully frightened,” she whispered; “but I knew you would stop the horses the moment I saw you.”

She trusted him—she trusted him still! And she did not know the truth.

He was engaged to Inza!

CHAPTER III.
MAKING A FRIEND.

Bart Hodge had missed Merry from the throng of rollicking seniors. A little while before Frank had been in the midst of the sport; now he was gone. For a while Hodge continued to take part in the top-spinning, but his heart was not in it. He looked around and saw that he was not the only one who found it impossible to drag back his boyhood in such a manner. He saw that there were others who were taking part in the top-spinning simply because it was a privilege of seniors at this time. Some there were who laughed and joked and were merry, but, strangely enough, it seemed to Bart that these did not realize how sad a thing it was to lose their boyhood. So Hodge drifted away by himself, giving himself up to thoughts that were both pleasant and otherwise.

Bart’s boyhood had not been the pleasantest imaginable. His father was a careless, self-indulgent man, and he had given little thought to the manner in which Bart was coming up. Bart had been given almost everything he desired, and, thus pampered, it was not strange that he came to be regarded as a “spoiled child.” If he fretted for anything, he was given that which he desired in order to pacify him. Finding that he could win his own way with a pout and a whine, he pouted and whined more and more.

His mother saw with some alarm what was happening, but it was useless for her to try to reason with his father. “Oh, give the boy what he wants, and keep him still!” was the way Bart’s father settled it. His mother, knowing the real disposition of his father, feared for the future, and her fears were justified.

As Bart grew older, his demands became harder to satisfy, but he had a way of making life miserable for everybody around if he did not get his way. More and more he annoyed his father. “The boy must go away to school,” Mr. Hodge had decided at last. His mother would have kept him home a little longer, but his father had decreed.

Bart, however, had no fancy for going away to school. He swore he would not stay, and he did not. In less than two weeks he was sent home, expelled.

Then Mr. Hodge was furious. “We’ll see about this, sir!” he said. “An ordinary boarding-school is not strict enough. You shall attend a military school.”

“I won’t!” said Bart.

But he did—for a month. Then he came home again. The principal said he was incorrigible.

“We’ll see!” said Mr. Hodge, and his face was black as a storm-cloud. “I’ll give you one more chance, young man. This is the last one! If you are expelled again—well, you need not come back here! You may shift for yourself!”

Bart knew he meant just that, but even then he did not care. He had such a bad disposition that he longed to be expelled in order to “spite” his father. “I’d like to show him that he can’t force me into anything!” muttered Bart.

And so, when he was packed off to Fardale, he went with bitterness in his heart. During the journey he regarded with satisfaction the possibility that he would soon be expelled from this school. He pictured himself as turned from his own home, set adrift an outcast. He pictured himself as a reckless youngster, going to sea, perhaps. He would see many strange lands, lead a wild life, be shipwrecked, make a fortune in some far country, come home and treat his bent and aged father with kindness and magnanimity, caring for him in his declining years. He would be able to say: “Well, father, you see I bear no grudge, even if you did treat me in a shabby manner when I was a boy. I’ve made myself what I am, no thanks to you. It’s all right; but I can’t quite forget.”

But this fancy did not give him so much satisfaction as another that came to him. In this he saw himself wandering homeless over the world, living a wretched life, drinking, associating with bad men, sinking lower and lower. At last, having fallen to the depths, he might drag himself back home. He would be met by a stern father, who still rebuffed him. On his knees he would beg for one chance. When he was refused, he’d go out and break into a bank or something. Then, as he stood in the dock to receive sentence for his crime, he would turn to his father, point an accusing finger at the cowering man, and cry out, in a terrible voice: “You are responsible for it all! My sins are on your head!”

Having such thoughts as these, Bart was in a rebellious mood that day when he stepped off the train at Fardale station. His first act had been to kick a poodle dog that came within reach of his foot. That kick had led him into trouble with a bright-faced stripling who had also arrived on that train. Later on he had fought this stripling in an open field on a moonlight night. The fight had been interrupted, but in his heart Bart knew the stripling would have whipped him if it had continued to a finish, and he hated the stripling with a hatred he fancied undying.

The stripling was Frank Merriwell, and so they were enemies when they first met at Fardale.

Certain it is that Hodge in those days was ready to stoop to almost anything in order to get the best of an enemy, and many were the questionable and unfair things he did.

But, no matter how unfair Hodge was, Merriwell always fought fair and aboveboard. Bart had not fancied that anybody lived who would never accept an opportunity to take an unfair advantage of an enemy, and, at first, he could not understand Merriwell. Like many others in after years, he first mistook Merry’s squareness and generosity for timidity. The time came, however, when he realized that Frank Merriwell was as courageous as a lion.

The test that won Hodge to Frank came when Merry might have caused Bart’s expulsion from the academy by a word which would have made Bart seem guilty of a reprehensible thing that he had not committed. Hodge knew that Frank held him in his power; he knew that the proof of his guilt must seem convincing to Merry. For once in his life Bart was frightened, for he suddenly realized what it meant to him if he were expelled from Fardale. His mother’s letters had convinced him that there was no hope of his father relenting in such an event. “I’m done for!” said Bart, to himself. And he wondered why Merriwell did not strike. Had he possessed such a hold on Frank, he would have struck, even though he had known Merry was innocent.

Then came an accident at the academy that showed another cadet with the same initials as Bart was guilty, and Hodge was saved. Still he wondered why Merriwell had held his hand. “Why did you do it, Merriwell?” he asked, pointblank. “Because I was not absolutely certain that you were guilty,” Frank answered. “It looked that way, didn’t it?” “Yes, it looked that way.” “I should have been expelled if you had accused me.” “I think you would, Hodge.” “You had no reason to like me, Merriwell.” “I did not like you,” Frank admitted. “Then why didn’t you accuse me and get me out of the way?” “Because to save my life I would not charge my worst enemy with a crime of which he might be innocent.”

Bart remembered this conversation. He had pondered over it, and it had opened his eyes to the difference between himself and Frank Merriwell. All at once he saw that this fellow whom he hated was his superior in every way. He had suspected it before, and it had made him hate Merry more intensely; but now the full knowledge of the fact brought him a different feeling.

Not all at once did Bart surrender to Frank. He tried to keep away from Merriwell, but the rules of the military school threw them together singularly, making them roommates. Never were two fellows less alike. But Bart found that, for all of his sense of justice and honor, Merriwell was no milksop. Frank could defend his rights, and he did so often enough.

The end of it all was that Hodge became passionately attached to Frank, even though he tried to conceal the fact. He would have fought to the death for Merriwell at a time when he had not ceased to sneer and say bitter things about him. Others did not know how much he cared for Frank; he tried to hide it even from himself.

That friendship for Frank Merriwell was the making of Hodge. Frank was a splendid model. Unconsciously Bart began to imitate him, and the work of changing his selfish, revengeful nature went on slowly but surely. In time Hodge realized that he owed the great change to Frank, but he was not aware of it so much while it was taking place.

Inza had lived there in Fardale, and Bart admired her. But she was dark-haired and dark-eyed like Bart himself, and she took no great fancy to him. Merriwell’s success with Inza annoyed him at first.

Then came Elsie.

But it was Merriwell who had done most in saving her from her father’s shipwrecked vessel, which went to pieces on Tiger Tooth Ledge, off the coast at Fardale, one wild night, and it was Merriwell on whom the golden-haired girl smiled. The first sight of her had aroused a strange sensation deep down in Bart’s heart; but she would not even give him a glance.

That did not make him bitter toward Frank. Instead, he became bitter toward girls in general. He told himself that he hated them all, and that he would never have anything to do with any of them. So, for a long, long time, Bart Hodge believed himself a “woman-hater.”

He had kept himself from Elsie. When he thought of her he turned his mind on other things. She troubled him a great deal for a time, but at last, after being put out of his mind so many times, she bothered him less and less. He had not fancied himself in love with her. He would have ridiculed such a thing as preposterous.

But the time came when, on the burning steamer, he knew the truth in a sudden burst of light. He had loved her all the time, and, rather than be false to Frank; he had remained silent. In the face of what seemed certain death, his lips had been unsealed, and he had told her of his love.

Then—strange fate!—Merriwell himself had battered down the partition and dragged them out to life.

Perhaps it was the happiest moment of Bart’s life when he learned that Frank had found he loved Inza and she loved him. With Frank and Inza engaged, it seemed that there was no barrier left between him and Elsie.

He had known that he was going to meet Elsie in Charlottesville during the Easter trip of the ball-team, and he had made Frank promise to let him tell her everything, for she remained unaware of the engagement between Merry and Inza.

When the time came, however, Bart longed to learn from Elsie that she loved him most before telling her what had happened. He felt that not for anything would he wish to think she had accepted him because she knew Frank was lost to her. It was the great longing of his heart to be first in her heart.

And so, fearing what her answer might be unless she knew all, he had begged her to wait a little before making it. And he had left Charlottesville and Virginia without telling her of the engagement of Frank and Inza. Not, however, till they were back in New Haven did he confess this to Frank.

“I couldn’t do it!” he cried, alone with Merry in his room. “I long to hear her tell me she loves me most without having her know that you can never be anything to her. That would settle every doubt for the present and for all time.”

“I can’t blame you, Bart,” said Merry. “I believe I understand how you feel. But I fear you lost your courage when the right moment came.”

“Gods, Merriwell! who wouldn’t lose courage? Her answer was to make or mar my whole future. I longed to cry out: ‘Frank and Inza are engaged.’ But the fear that it would be that alone which would give her to me made me keep silent. I want her to love me because not even Frank Merriwell is as much to her.”

“I hope she will, Hodge,” said Merry sincerely; “and something tells me that she will. It will all come right, old man.”

CHAPTER IV.
THE STRONGEST MAN.

Bart wandered from the campus and left the vicinity of the college. He walked by himself through the streets, thinking of these things. With his mind thus occupied, he gave little thought to the direction he was taking. In time he came round into Church Street, and he was barely in time to see Merriwell assisting a young lady onto a car.

Hodge stopped. His heart had leaped into his throat, for he recognized the girl. Even then he brushed his hand over his eyes, as if in doubt. It did not seem possible that Elsie Bellwood could be there in New Haven without his knowledge.

He had not seen the elderly lady Frank aided onto the car in advance of Elsie. He saw nothing but Elsie.

Then he made a single step, as if to dash forward. Elsie turned and spoke something to Frank in a low tone, giving him a sweet smile, and Bart stopped as if shot. That smile seemed to strike straight through the heart of Bart Hodge. He would have given the world to have her smile on him like that.

The horrible conviction that she still loved Frank seized upon him. The whole affair was very remarkable, to say the least.

How had Frank known she was there in New Haven? Bart told himself that Merry must have known it, else why had he left the campus to meet her? It did not occur to Hodge that the meeting had been by accident. He knew nothing of the runaway. He believed Elsie had sent Merriwell word that she was coming to New Haven, and he had met her by appointment.

A terrible feeling of jealous rage took possession of him as he hurried away. That feeling, which was like a terrible, crushing pain in his bosom, drove reason and sober thought from him. For the time he was a furious fool in the grasp of the fiercest passion that can sway a human being—a passion that has overthrown empires. Oh, the terrible things he told himself! He strode on and on, his face black as midnight, his heart in a wild tumult.

How he hated Merriwell now! At last he felt that he knew Frank Merriwell’s one weak point. Merriwell was deceiving both Elsie and Inza! Even now that he had proposed to Inza and been accepted, he was not satisfied to give Elsie up.

But Merry had deceived him; Bart told himself that over and over. He had slipped away from the rollicking seniors that he might keep the appointment with Elsie unknown to Hodge. Was not that a wretched trick?

All the old hatred he had once entertained for Frank, renewed and redoubled by his jealousy, swayed him now. He felt that he could kill Merriwell without a feeling of remorse. Why not? Was not Frank deceiving Elsie? And a wretch who would deceive her deserved death!

Bart knew that Elsie trusted Frank implicitly. She believed him the soul of honor, and the thought that he could deceive her in any way had never for a moment entered her mind. But he was deceiving her! Why was he doing it? Was it possible that he had grown sorry because of his proposal to Inza? Was it possible that he thought of giving Inza up and turning to Elsie?

Hodge asked himself these questions as he swung along, coming into Whitney Avenue. Away he went to the north, covering the ground with great speed, seeking to walk off the terrible feeling that possessed him.

At last he came to the outskirts of the city. To the right lay East Rock Park; ahead was Lake Whitney. Bart felt like losing himself somewhere in the country and not returning to college. He did not wish to look on Merriwell’s face again. Always he had seen honesty and frankness there; but now he felt that he would be able to detect deceit and treachery lurking somewhere about it.

Deceit and treachery in Frank Merriwell! That meant that the Merriwell he had known in the past was dead!

Bart tired of the highway. He longed to plunge into the woods, and he struck across some fields toward a distant grove, into which he made his way. There he felt that he would be quite alone, but he was mistaken. In the midst of the grove he found a lodgelike house, the doors of which were standing open. Near this house, in the grove, a large, broad-shouldered, muscular-looking man stood contemplating a large stone on the ground at his feet. His hat, coat, and vest were off, and his sleeves were thrust back, showing a massive forearm.

Bart paused to look at the man, admiring his Herculean build. Then the man looked up, as if he had known all the time that Bart was there, and called to him.

“Come here,” commanded the stranger, in a heavy voice. “I have something to show you.”

With his curiosity strangely aroused, Bart advanced.

“What is it?” he asked, as he paused near the man.

“Do you see that stone?”

The man pointed at the large rock at his feet.

“Yes.”

“Do you know how much it weighs?”

“No.”

“Do you think you can lift it?”

“I doubt it.”

“I’d like to see you try it.”

Hodge wondered at the peculiar manner of the man.

“Why should I try to lift it?” he asked wonderingly.

“Oh, just to show how strong you are.”

“I don’t want to show how strong I am.”

“Well, I want to show you how strong I am.”

“Go ahead.”

“I cannot, unless you take hold of that rock and convince yourself that it is heavy. When you have done that, I will show you how light it is.”

Possessed by a sudden impulse, Bart stooped and took hold of the stone. But try as he might, he could not lift it from the ground.

With a strange smile on his face, the muscular giant of the grove watched Bart’s unavailing efforts.

“Ha, ha!” he laughed. “It is heavy, isn’t it?”

“Rather,” admitted Bart, as he straightened up. “It must weigh half a ton.”

“As much as that,” nodded the man.

“You knew I could not lift it.”

“I can.”

“You?”

“Yes.”

“I do not believe you can budge it.”

“You shall see.”

Then the man bent his broad back, obtained a hold on the stone with his hands, and, to the astonishment of Hodge, lifted it fully two feet from the ground with no great apparent effort.

“What do you think now?” he cried triumphantly, as he let it drop.

“I think it is remarkable!” exclaimed Hodge, looking at the man in wondering admiration.

“I knew you would,” said the stranger, with a show of satisfaction. “Can you keep a secret?”

“I believe so.”

“Then I will tell you something.”

“Go on.”

“I am the strongest man in the world!”

These words were spoken with perfect seriousness, as if the one who uttered them believed them fully.

“Are you?” asked Bart, beginning to feel that there was something very peculiar about this man.

“Yes. You are the only one besides myself who knows it. I decided to tell you as soon as I saw you.”

“Do you live here?” asked Bart, looking toward the lodge and seeking to turn the subject.

“Oh, no; I only come here to get strong. I had this hut built here for that purpose.”

“Do you live near here?”

“Yes; this is my property all around here. I have discovered the secret of becoming strong. Although I am now the strongest man in the world, I shall keep right on getting stronger. The time will come when I’ll be stronger than a hundred men combined.”

Now, Bart understood that there must be something the matter with the man’s mind, although he had little the appearance of a lunatic.

“I have let no one know why I come here to this place at a certain hour every day,” the stranger went on. “I knew they would laugh at me, and it makes me angry when any one laughs at me. Don’t laugh, young man! I am very disagreeable when I am angry.”

Bart had no thought of laughing.

“This is a pretty place,” he observed.

“It’s quiet and secluded,” nodded the man; “yet it is so near the house that I can easily hear them when they ring the bell for me. They think I come here to study medicine. Why, I completed the study of medicine long ago. I let them think that, however, for they would not understand if they knew what I was really studying. Any man who knows the secret may become strong if he is willing to shorten his life. You look surprised. I will explain. In order to acquire my present amount of strength, I have been compelled to boil down and concentrate the strength of several years into one year, and my life has been shortened just that much. But it is a glorious thing to know that I am the strongest man in the world. I am bound to become famous, and almost any man is willing to sacrifice a few years of life in order to win enduring fame. Perhaps you think my fame will not endure, but you are wrong. The fame of Samson has endured, and I shall become even stronger than Samson. I know the secret that Samson knew. It did not lay in his hair. What fools they were to think so! But I know the secret. It will take a little time for me to condense all the strength of years to come in one year, but I shall succeed, and then I’ll astound the world. With ease I’ll be able to pick up a horse and fling it over my head, as if it were light as a cat. I’ll have the power to topple over houses as if they were built of cards. I will——”

A voice sounded through the grove, calling:

“Doctor Lincoln! Doctor Lincoln!”

Bart started, and listened in amazement.

“Doctor Lincoln! Doctor Lincoln!” called the voice.

It was that of Elsie Bellwood, and he saw her coming toward him along a path through the grove.

CHAPTER V.
THE MEETING WITH ELSIE.

In his wild desire to get away somewhere, Hodge had fancied he must be putting distance between himself and Elsie. Instead of that, he had hastened to her. There she was coming along the path. He stood still and stared at her in amazement.

The man grasped his arm with a grip that seemed to crush flesh and bone.

“You must not tell her that I am the strongest man in the world!” he breathed hoarsely. “Promise me you will not tell her!”

“I promise,” said Bart.

“That is all I ask,” said the man, in a low tone, releasing his hold on Hodge. “I see by your face that you are a young man who values his word.”

Then he lifted his voice, and answered:

“Here I am, Miss Bellwood. What do you want?”

“Oh, doctor!” called Elsie, “we met with such an adventure in town. The horses ran away and James fell off.”

Bart had drawn back. He would have slipped away, had it been possible to do so without being observed by the approaching girl, for he felt that he was in no mood to meet Elsie then.

How pretty she was as she came tripping through the woods. It seemed to Bart that she had never looked more beautiful.

She trusted Merriwell, and Merriwell was deceiving her! Again his heart seethed with indignation, and just then he felt that he longed to stand face to face with Frank and say a few things.

In the eyes of Bart Hodge, Elsie was the most beautiful girl in the world. In her he saw all that was sweet and good and true. He wondered how it was possible for Frank to care more for dark-eyed Inza than for golden-haired Elsie.

“The horses ran away?” exclaimed the “strong man,” with evident alarm and annoyance. “And James fell off? Well, James shall be discharged at once.”

“Oh, he was not to blame! He was not strong enough to hold them when they became frightened.”

“Not strong enough? Then he is not fit for the place. No man has a right to be weak. Strength should be sought by all. But I hope, Miss Bellwood, that the runaway did not result in a disaster?”

“Fortunately not, doctor. The horses were stopped.”

“Good—very good! Who did it?”

“A policeman tried to stop them first.”

“It was his duty!”

“But he did not succeed. Oh, I was so frightened! He was thrown down, and I thought he must be killed. We found out afterward that he was not very badly hurt.”

“He got hold of the horses?” asked the man frowning.

“Yes, but he could not hold them.”

“Weakling!” muttered the man, contemptuously. “Why, had I been in his place, I’d stopped them in their tracks!”

“They were mad with terror, and it seemed that no one could check them. But there was a young man who ran out, got them by the bridles, and brought them to a stand.”

“Ah!” cried the man, with a show of interest. “He must be the possessor of some strength.”

“He’s the greatest athlete in Yale. His name is Frank Merriwell.”

Elsie had stopped a short distance away. As he leaned against a tree which shielded him from her view, Hodge had not been discovered by her. Standing thus, Bart heard her tell how Frank had stopped the runaway horses. It gave him a strange sensation, and all at once he began to wonder if the meeting between Frank and Elsie had been unintentional, or accidental.

“Oh, yes; I know about him,” said the man called “doctor.” “I have seen him many times in athletic sports and games. I presume some men would regard him as rather strong.”

“You should have seen him drag those horses to a stop, doctor! Mrs. Parker wished me to come and tell you about it. She thought I might find you here, and——”

Elsie stopped. For the first time, she perceived that the man was not alone. Finding he was discovered, Bart stepped out into view, lifting his hat.

“Bart Hodge?” she cried, astonished. “Here?”

“Yes, Miss Bellwood,” he said, in a tone of voice that sounded strained and unnatural. “It is a surprise to us both, I fancy.”

“So you are acquainted?” exclaimed the man, looking from one to the other. “Well, well!”

Elsie started forward, her hands outstretched.

“I am so glad to see you, Bart!” she cried, her cheeks turning crimson.

“Are you?” he exclaimed, feeling his heart give a great throb of joy.

“Why, of course I am!” she asserted, as he met her and clasped her hands.

“But you did not let me know you were in New Haven.”

“You’ll find a letter when you get back to town. I dropped one in the office for you.”

“But Frank knew you were here.”

“He did not know I was coming. Oh, Bart, you should have seen him fling himself at the heads of those snorting, terrified horses and bring them to a stop! It was grand, and it was just like him!”

Admiration for Frank thrilled her; Hodge saw it in her face and heard it in her voice.

“She loves him still!” he told himself, his heart sinking.

“Then there was no harm done?” asked the “strong man,” seeming awakened at last to the possibility that the runaway might have resulted in damage.

“None, save to the policeman who tried to stop the horses, doctor. Of course, Mrs. Parker was frightened. James drove the team home, and we came by trolley as far as we could, and walked across.”

“I’ll discharge him at once!” declared the man.

“Please don’t!” entreated Elsie, leaving Bart and turning to the man. She fluttered to him, placing her gloved hands on his muscular arms and looking up into his face entreatingly. “I am sure James does not deserve to be discharged, doctor. Promise me that you will not do that.”

He melted before her appeal.

“Oh, well,” he said, “I’ll have to reprimand him, but, as long as you ask it, I’ll not discharge him.”

“Oh, that’s a good doctor!” she laughed. He patted her cheek, and she turned to Bart in triumph.

“Now,” she said, “you must explain how you happen to be here, sir.”

“I left town for a walk, and just wandered along here; that’s all.”

“Well, wasn’t that odd! And I’m so glad to see you! You had to leave Charlottesville in such a hurry.”

“That’s right,” he agreed. “I left much before I was ready to do so.”

“We are going to stay here for several weeks, perhaps. Now, if Inza and Winnie were here, how jolly it would be!”

The man had turned from them to the lodge, the doors of which he was closing and locking.

“Who is he?” asked Bart, nodding toward him.

“Doctor Lincoln,” she answered. “He is Mrs. Parker’s brother.”

“You are visiting him?”

“Yes. He lives here at Whitney Hill all by himself.”

“Is he a practising physician?”

“No. He has never practised. He is wealthy, and it has been his fad to experiment. He’s rather peculiar.”

“Rather,” agreed Bart. “I found that out very quickly.”

“But he is so kind and good. Some people around here seem afraid of him.”

“Some of the neighbors?”

“Yes.”

Bart nodded.

“I shouldn’t wonder.”

She looked at him searchingly.

“Why should they fear him?” she asked. “Hasn’t a man a right to his own peculiar ways? He built this lodge here in the grove in order to have a private laboratory where he could continue his experiments and investigations undisturbed. He says the neighbors were very curious about it, and used to come prying round till he was forced to find ways of frightening them off. Then they took a dislike to him and said he was queer.”

“Elsie,” said Bart seriously, “I am afraid Doctor Lincoln is not just right in his upper story.”

“Oh, you misjudge him!” she whispered. “I am sure you do! He is very kind in the house. He’s simply original.”

“There are hundreds of men in the country with his original ways who are spending their days in lunatic asylums,” murmured Bart, whose feelings had changed greatly. He escorted Elsie to the house, Doctor Lincoln following them at a distance, and giving them a chance to talk quite freely. Bart found that he had suspected Frank without the least cause, and he saw that his jealousy was groundless and foolish as far as he had thought Frank meant to turn to Elsie again.

But still within him was the feeling that Elsie still cared for Merry, and that was gall and wormwood to him. He longed to tell her everything, but resolved to see Frank and talk with him again before doing so. Just then Hodge fancied that he was in need of advice, and who was better able to advise him than Frank?

Elsie told Bart that Mrs. Parker had asked the doctor to have a house-party of college men and young ladies at Whitney Hill, and he had agreed.

“The invitations are to go out to-morrow,” she said. “We’ll have a delightful time. Oh, if Inza were here!”

Bart wondered if she felt no jealousy of Inza.

Having bade Elsie adieu, and waved his hand to the doctor, who returned the salute, Bart turned his face toward the city.

The fever had left his veins, and his heart was beating in its usual manner as he swung along. But he was ashamed of himself on account of the bitter things that had filled his mind in regard to Frank, and he resolved to make a confession and ask pardon.

His love for Elsie was more intense than ever. While he thought of her, visions of the strange, uncanny doctor kept obtruding upon him. He saw the man standing there in the woods, big, thick, muscular, staring at the huge stone at his feet. He seemed harmless enough, but Bart was firm in his conviction that such queer characters were dangerous, and should be watched. This being the case, he could not help feeling uneasy about Elsie as long as she remained at Whitney Hill.

It was growing dusk when Bart came swinging down Whitney Avenue. He did not look like the same person who had rushed madly and blackly out of town a while before. His face wore such a pleasant look that he was positively handsome.

Some children had been playing a game of tag. One of them fell and was hurt. Bart stopped, picked up the child, wiped away its tears, soothed it to laughter, and left it with a quarter clasped in its soiled fingers.

Straight to Frank, Bart went. He found Merry in his room, writing steadily, manuscript scattered about. Often, of late, Bart had found him thus employed, and he wondered somewhat what the nature of Frank’s work could be.

“Where have you been, Hodge?” Frank asked. “I’ve tried in vain to find you.”

“Have you?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I wished to tell you something.”

“About——”

“Elsie—she is here.”

“I know it.”

“You have seen her?”

“Yes.”

Then, without shielding himself in the least, Bart told Frank how he had seen him helping Elsie onto the car, and how he had fancied all sorts of bad things about him. Hodge’s face was flushed with shame as he proceeded. Several times Merriwell tried to check him, seeing that this confession was causing him great humiliation and distress, but the penitent fellow would not desist until he had finished.

When it was finished they stood there, Frank looking straight at the dark-faced lad, whose eyes were on the floor. The silence caused Hodge to look up.

“I don’t blame you, Merriwell!” he exclaimed. “I don’t blame you for despising me! I’m a bad fellow to think such things of you, after all you have done for me!”

“It’s not that I am thinking, Hodge,” said Frank gently. “I am thinking of the great change in you since the days when we first met. Then you would not have confessed you were wrong if you had committed a crime; now you are eager to confess, when you have no more than thought wrong of me.”

“That was a crime! How could I think wrong of you after all you have done?”

“What have I done? We have been friends, and I’m sure you’ve done as much for me as I ever did for you.”

“No, no!”

“You saved my life. You dragged me from the burning hotel.”

“You have done a thousand times more than that for me. You have saved me from dishonor and disgrace. You have saved me from going wrong and becoming a dissolute reprobate. All that I am and all that I hope to be I owe to you! Yet I could hold hatred for you in my heart this day! Oh, Merriwell, the shame of it is too much to bear!”

He shook with the intensity of his emotion, covering his drawn face with his hands. Quickly Frank advanced to his side, and his arm went across Bart’s shoulders.

“You think too badly of yourself, old man,” declared Frank. “You were jealous, and jealousy has parted the truest friends.”

Bart turned and caught hold of Merry.

“But it shall not part us!” he cried fiercely. “Say it shall not part us, Frank!”

“I hope not, Bart. We will not permit it.”

“No, no! Such friendship as ours comes but once in a lifetime! Once lost, nothing can ever take its place.”

Frank nodded.

“That is true,” he said. “I think there is no danger, Bart.”

“But can you feel just the same toward me after—after this?”

“Just the same, old man? If anything, I must think more of you. You might have hidden it from me, and I’d never been the wiser.”

“Oh, I couldn’t! Had I thought such things wrongly of any one else, I’d never confessed it; but of you——”

“I understand, Bart. You had no reason to be jealous, for you know I am engaged to Inza.”

“Elsie does not know?”

“Because you have not told her, after asking the privilege to do so. I should have let her know it long ago but for that. Bart, you must tell her. It is not treating her right to keep it from her.”

Then Hodge confessed why he had not told her before—confessed that he feared she still cared for Merry.

“I hope you are not right, Bart. Something tells me that you are not. But you know it is possible that she believed she would be doing me an injustice if she learned to care more for another, and Elsie would not, to save her life, do anything she thought wrong. The safest way, Bart, is to tell her everything. If you will not, you must let me do it.”

“I will!” said Hodge resolutely. “There is to be a party out there, given for Elsie, and we’ll receive invitations to-morrow. At that party, I’ll find a way to tell her, Frank.”

CHAPTER VI.
THE PARTY.

“There are lots of joy forever here this evening,” observed Jack Ready, as he surveyed the assembly of pretty girls and manly youths. “In fact, it’s been a long time since I’ve had the pleasure of looking on such a fine collection of joy forever.”

“What are you trying to get off?” asked Bert Dashleigh, who for once was unaccompanied by his mandolin, which made him feel very lonesome, although every one else was well satisfied. “What are joys forever?”

“Things of beauty, of course,” explained Jack, with an expression of contempt. “My callow young friend, it is barely possible that you have heard it said that a ‘thing of beauty is a joy forever.’”

“I believe I have,” faltered Bert.

“Well, just take a look at those stunning girls. Aren’t they things of beauty? Then, of course, they are joys forever. Where do you get off?”

“Anywhere,” muttered Bert meekly. “You have such flowery ways of saying things that——”

“That will do!” said Jack loftily. “It is plain you belong to the common herd that does not understand the poetic feelings of those who soar to heavenly heights. By Jove! there is Jennie Dwight! I wonder if she will lend me her chewing-gum.” And away he went in pursuit of a vivacious-looking girl.

It was the evening of the party at Whitney Hill, and Doctor Lincoln’s handsome residence was thronged with beautiful girls and bright-looking young men. From basement to attic the mansion was glittering with lights, and the sound of music and laughter and chattering voices seemed to come from every part of it.

Elsie was happy. Of course, she had been compelled to meet scores of strangers when she would have preferred to be enjoying herself with a group of her own particular friends, but all were kind and pleasant, and a spirit of good-fellowship seemed to pervade the gathering.

Never in her life had Elsie looked more attractive. Her dress was of some gray-silk substance, made over pink, which gave it a delicate tint that seemed to match her complexion perfectly. Her eyes were blue as the summer sky, and shining like stars, while the smile that flitted about her sweet mouth made it seem sweeter than usual.

The heart of Bart Hodge had given one great throb when his eyes rested upon her.

“How beautiful she is!” he inwardly cried.

She gave him her hand, with a pressure that thrilled his every nerve. The hot blood was in his cheeks, and she saw the love-light flame deep in his intense eyes. She knew how much he cared for her, and his love was something that made her afraid at times, for not yet did she understand her own heart.

Frank came. He was splendid, and he had a way of saying something pleasant in a manner that did not seem prosaically conventional. Pretty girls flocked round him, and he showed that he was one of those rare men who, while in every way a “man’s man,” could be quite at his ease in the presence of the other sex.

It was a perfect spring evening, so warm that the windows were thrown open and many of the guests sought the breeze that could be found on the broad veranda. Out there Chinese lanterns dangled and glowed, and the throng strolled beneath them.

Somewhere behind a screen of palms and flowers an orchestra gave forth sweet music. The heroes of Yale, the gridiron gladiator, the baseball man, the hammer-thrower, the sprinter, and others who had done things, were in great demand by the pretty girls.

But of all the heroes present Frank Merriwell was the most popular. The girls crowded to get a look at him, to speak to him, to hear his voice and receive a smile from him.

“He is it!” declared Jack Ready. “He has the call in this little game. I don’t know another fellow who wouldn’t look a little foolish or self-conscious. He doesn’t seem to know that he’s just about the whole blooming show. That makes him all the more popular. I am for boycotting him.”

“Boycott him!” growled Browning. “He’ll be girl-caught if he doesn’t look out. There isn’t a pretty girl here who doesn’t stand ready to fling herself at his head on the slightest provocation.”

“But what sort of a show do we stand?” sighed Ready sadly. “All the girls seem to want to talk about Merriwell, Merriwell, Merriwell. I just told a saucy young miss that I thought him perfectly horrid. She gave me the icy eye at once. Bet a button she won’t know me the next time we meet.”

“You should know better. You’re old enough.”

“But I’d like to be a little bit of a tin hero to somebody,” the queer sophomore sobbed. “I’m going to do something. I have made up my mind to do something to produce notice. What would you advise?”

“Shoot yourself,” said Bruce gravely. “You’ll get an obituary notice.”

“Thanks!” retorted Jack. “I am not seeking posthumous glory, my wise friend. I don’t know of anything I have less use for. I want to do something that will make a lot of stunning girls cuddle round me like flies around a molasses-barrel. Now, if I could only take part in a duel!”

“You will ‘duel’ to avoid such a method of obtaining glory,” said Bruce.

Jack gasped.

“Air!” he moaned faintly.

“That’s all anybody finds in your vicinity,” said Bruce, moving away.

Next to Merriwell, Dick Starbright seemed the most popular with the girls. The handsome freshman giant had won his spurs on the football-field. Having the build of a Spartan gladiator, the rosy face of a boy, and the pleasant manners of a Yale gentleman, it was not strange that he should find himself almost constantly the center of a bevy of handsome girls. And he knew what it meant when, in a careless, apparently thoughtless, manner, some of them rested their hands on his arm for a moment. They wanted to feel his muscle!

Hodge might have had a flock around him, but he was so dark and stern that they seemed a little afraid of him. When they gathered near, he did not seem to mind them. There was only one girl among them all for Bart, and he was impatiently waiting the time when she would be at liberty to give him some of her attention.

Doctor Lincoln seemed very happy. His heavy face wore a smile, but Bart fancied the wild light lurked in his eyes. The doctor found Hodge and drew him aside.

“I have been listening to the talk,” he said. “I have heard these young people speaking of Merriwell as such a wonder. And Starbright—they seem to think he is very strong.”

“He is,” said Bart.

“I presume so—in a way. He is big, and, of course, he must have a certain amount of strength. But he is not what I rate as truly strong.”

“Isn’t he?”

“Not at all. Do you think he could lift that stone out there in the grove?”

“He might.”

The doctor frowned.

“Perhaps he might, but I doubt it. I am certain Merriwell could not lift it.”

“Don’t be too certain. Frank Merriwell is far stronger than he looks. I fancy, if put to the test, he’d be able to show himself even stronger than Starbright.”

“Do you think that?” exclaimed the doctor, in apparent surprise. “Well, you know them both, and you may be right. But how I could astonish them. They do not know that I am the strongest man in the world, do they?”

“I don’t think they do.”

Somehow, this answer seemed to arouse the man’s suspicions.

“Have you betrayed my secret?” he whispered rather fiercely. “You promised that you would not. Have you told them that I am the strongest man in the world?”

“No.”

“You are sure?”

“Yes.”

The man seemed to draw a breath of relief.

“I was afraid you had done so,” he said. “You must keep my secret. You must not breathe it to a soul. I don’t know why I trusted you. It was foolish of me.”

Bart said nothing.

“You took me by surprise,” declared the strange doctor. “You were watching me there in the grove. Why were you watching me? Answer that question.”

“It happened quite by chance.”

“Did it? Then you were not spying upon me?”

“Of course not.”

“I thought perhaps you might have been. I have kept the great secret until the time comes to divulge it, which I shall do in a most sensational manner. I have not yet decided how it is to be, but I shall do something to rival the act of Samson when he pulled down the temple upon his enemies. I have enemies. You may not know it, but it is true. I have secret enemies, and they would rob me of my strength if they knew I possessed it. That is why I wish to keep it a secret until the time comes. Then I shall call them all out in a body and topple some massive building down upon them. That will obliterate them, and they will give me no more trouble.”

He was speaking in a quiet tone of voice, and any one observing him must have fancied he was simply chatting with Bart about ordinary matters.

More than ever was Hodge satisfied that the man was a dangerous lunatic. And he was all the more dangerous because he had craftily concealed from those who knew him best the fact of his derangement. They simply thought him “queer,” but it was not likely that any of them dreamed that his mind was actually unbalanced.

“When the time comes,” the doctor continued, “I may ask you to assist me in calling my enemies together. Oh, I’ll show you some sport! You love sport, and you’ll laugh at this, I promise you. We will get them to stand in one long row, and then I’ll bring the bricks and mortar and stone and iron thundering down upon them. It will be just like children playing with blocks.”

The doctor laughed silently to himself as he thought of this, and Bart felt a cold shiver creeping over him.

“I must tell Elsie everything,” he thought. “She must not remain in the house with this madman.”

Then he saw her coming toward them.

“Excuse me, doctor,” he said. “I wish to have a chat with Miss Bellwood.”

“But not a word of the great secret to her!” warned the man, in a whisper. “If you value your life, be silent!”

CHAPTER VII.
FOR ELSIE.

“Elsie.”

She stopped and turned as she heard her name spoken. Mrs. Parker approached, accompanied by a young man, whom she introduced.

It was Gene Skelding.

“The dancing is about to begin,” said Mrs. Parker. “Gene is my nephew, Elsie.”

Then, in a very clever manner, she practically asked Elsie to give Gene Skelding the first waltz.

Now, Elsie did not care to dance with Skelding, but she could not refuse under the circumstances, and Bart Hodge was filled with dismay, chagrin, and anger when he saw the fellow bear Elsie away toward the drawing-room on his arm. She glanced back over her shoulder, but he had seen her turn, and he pretended to be deeply interested in another direction.

This was a disappointment to Elsie, for she had intended to indicate to him by a look that she was not pleased with the arrangement, which she had been unable to avoid.

Skelding was triumphant. For a long time he had admired Elsie Bellwood, but, being outside Merriwell’s set, he had not succeeded in making her acquaintance.

When he chose, Skelding could converse pleasantly, and he exerted himself just now to be agreeable. In fact, he exerted himself so much that he came near overdoing it.

When they reached the drawing-room, the dancing had begun. It was with great satisfaction that Shielding glided onto the floor with Elsie, brushing past Frank Merriwell, who was still surrounded by several pretty girls.

Gene knew Merriwell had paid Elsie great attentions in the past, and it was his belief that Frank still cared for her. Therefore, he regarded the securing of the first waltz with her as a very clever thing on his part.

Frank saw Elsie with Skelding, and he was astonished, for he did not know the fellow was Mrs. Parker’s nephew, and he wondered how he had obtained her for that dance.

A sudden fear came to Frank. Was it possible that Elsie did not care for Bart, and had taken particular pains to avoid him, giving this dance to another for the purpose of causing him pain? No, he could not think that of her. Elsie was not the girl to deliberately give pain to any one she regarded as her true friend.

But perhaps she really did wish to avoid Bart. Perhaps she considered this as the best way of showing him what her wishes were. If she did not care for Bart—what then? Frank remembered the past, and it gave him no little uneasiness.

“Why hasn’t Hodge told her of my engagement to Inza?” he inwardly cried.

Then he realized that he was standing there with those girls talking to him, yet without understanding a word they had been saying for the past three minutes.

The college men ventured to come up and bear one after another of the girls away. Frank selected one, and was soon in the midst of the waltz.

In vain he looked for Bart. Hodge was not dancing. Indeed, Bart had withdrawn from the house to the veranda, where he stood facing the cool breeze that felt so pleasant on his flushed cheeks.

“Curse that fellow!” he inwardly cried. “Properly, this is my dance with her. Why did she give it to him?”

He longed to throttle Skelding. The fact that Elsie was waltzing with a member of the despicable Chickering set caused him to grind his teeth in rage. He felt a touch on the arm.

“You did not decide to dance?”

It was the voice of the doctor.

“No,” answered Hodge shortly.

“It is a beautiful evening.”

“Yes.”

Bart did not feel inclined to talk just then, but the doctor lingered.

“If you are not going to dance, what do you say to a stroll?”

Now, Hodge had no fancy for taking a stroll with this man just then, and he politely declined.

“Perhaps I might be able to tell you some things of interest,” suggested the doctor, in a low voice. “You know I have a secret. Wouldn’t you like to be able to acquire marvelous strength?”

“I am quite satisfied with my strength.”

“Are you?” asked the man, as if he really pitied the poor fellow. “That is because you do not know what you are missing. You do not know what it is to feel that you are able to move a mountain if you wish. That is living! It goes all through you.”

Bart turned away. The talk of this lunatic wearied him.

“If you will come to the lodge in the grove,” whispered the doctor, “I’ll reveal to you my wonderful secret. Think of it! I have never before made such an offer to any living human being. I will show you how you may become strong like me.”

“Why should you do this?”

“Because I have taken a fancy to you. Come, come!”

He seized Bart’s arm as if he would force him from the house toward the grove near at hand.

“Stop!” said Bart sternly. “Let go, sir! I will not go with you!”

The man’s eyes seemed to gleam at him balefully through the gloom, and it was plain that he was hesitating. Hodge nerved himself for the struggle, in case he was attacked. But the attack did not come. The doctor’s hand fell from the arm of the student, and he laughed softly.

“You are the first man I ever offered to give a part of my great secret,” he said, “and you have refused to accept it! I did not expect it of you! My confidence in you has been misplaced, but again I warn you to be silent. If you betray me, it will cost you your life!”

Then he turned and left the veranda, walking rapidly away into the darkness. Hodge gave himself a shake.

“The man means me harm!” he decided. “I feel that he wished to get me away from the house for no good purpose. He is dangerous, and Elsie must not remain beneath this roof!”

Then he thought of Elsie waltzing with Skelding and ground his teeth again.

“Why did she accept him for that waltz? She knew I was waiting for her! Can it be that she wishes to stand me off?”

The thought filled him with intense anguish, so that beads of cold perspiration started out upon his face. The music stopped. The waltz was over.

“I’ll keep out of the way for a time,” he decided. “I am in no mood to be seen now.”

Some of the dancers came out onto the veranda, where they could chat, but Bart remained in a dark corner. Everybody seemed happy, and he was most miserable.

After a time a little group of students gathered near him and lighted their cigarettes. He saw their faces by the flash of the match, and an exclamation nearly escaped his lips as he observed that Skelding was one of them.

“Never enjoyed a waltz so much in my life, fellows,” declared Gene. “Didn’t I have a queen?”

“She’s Merriwell’s best,” said somebody. “Look out, or you’ll get tangled up with him.”

“Merriwell be hanged! I don’t care for him.”

“Perhaps not, but still, he’s bad medicine. She is a queen, though.”

“Fellows, she’s a peach of a waltzer,” declared Gene, while Hodge began to tremble in every limb.

“You must be struck on her,” chuckled one of the others.

“I’m hard hit. I wouldn’t mind winning her for keeps.”

“You can’t win her away from Merriwell.”

“I got the first waltz with her.”

“Well, that was something; but he’ll waltz with her oftener than you do to-night.”

“I’ll go the fizz for the crowd that he doesn’t.”

“Done!”

By this time Bart was furious. His hands were opening and closing nervously, and it seemed that his hoarse breathing must be heard by the group of students.

“Oh, this is going to be easy!” laughed Skelding.

“That’s all right. We’ll see how easy it is. I saw Merriwell watching you.”

“I’m glad of that. Made him jealous. Ha, ha!”

“You seem to think you have a safe thing.”

“Why, fellows, I’ll tell you something: she squeezed my hand during the waltz.”

“You’re a miserable liar and a cur!” said Bart Hodge, as he stepped into the midst of the group and confronted Skelding.

Before Gene could get out of the way or lift his hand, Hodge seized him by the nose, which he gave a pull that brought a cry of pain from the fellow’s lips.

Then the two were thrust apart. Gene had clasped his nose with both hands. Beneath his feet his cigarette spluttered sparks and went out. Somebody laughed beyond an open window.

“Curse you!” hoarsely breathed Skelding. “You shall pay for this!”

“With pleasure,” said Bart grimly.

“Now!”

“The sooner the better!”

“Follow me.”

“Lead on.”

Some of the others tried to interfere and prevent the fight for the time, but such a thing could not be averted. They left the piazza and moved away from the house toward the lake. Bart did not seek the companionship of friends. The men whom Gene had been speaking to thus lightly about Elsie went along.

They found a quiet spot at a distance from the house, yet within hearing of the music and laughter. The orchestra had started up again, and the happy throng in the house was dancing.

Hodge was eager to get at Skelding. He boiled to teach the cheap fellow a lesson. That any one had dared speak in such a manner of Elsie was enough to make him furious.

They stripped off their coats and vests. They even removed collars, neckties, and white shirts.

Skelding’s friends helped him prepare. Bart disdained help. Hodge fastened his suspenders about his waist to support his trousers. He was ready first.

“I’ll make you sorry for what you did!” vowed Skelding.

“I’ll make you swallow your lying words, or I’ll kill you!” declared Bart, in a low, terrible voice.

“Are you ready?”

“I am waiting.”

They stepped quickly toward each other. In a moment they were at it.

It was not light enough for them to see to fight in a scientific manner. Hodge pressed the fighting from the very start. Skelding had tried to do this, but he found Bart a perfect whirlwind, flying about him here, there, everywhere, hitting him on one side and then on the other.

The spectators watched in great excitement. It was a fierce fight, and they knew it could not last long. Suddenly one of the men went down before a blow that sounded like a pistol-shot.

It was Skelding. Bart stood over him, panting.

“Get up! Get up and let me finish you! I’ve not begun to give you what you deserve!”

Skelding was ready enough to get up. He did so as soon as he could, meeting Bart’s rush in the best form he could command.

But the blows rained on Gene’s face. He felt the blood flowing, and he panted and staggered. What made him feel the worst was that he could not seem to reach Hodge with a single good blow.

Bart was fighting for the honor of Elsie, and it made him a thousand times more terrible than usual. Indeed, it was a wonder that Gene stood up before him as long as he did.

At last, however, Skelding went down again and again before those terrible fists. He could not stand in front of them at all, and he was very “groggy.”

“That’s enough, Hodge!” exclaimed one of the spectators. “You have given him punishment enough!”

“Keep back!” commanded Bart, in an awesome voice.

“But I say it’s enough!”

“If you interfere, you’ll have to fight, also!”

“Do you want to kill the man?”

“If he does not swallow his lying words, I shall never stop till he is dead or unconscious!”

He meant it, and Skelding knew it. He knew that he could not endure such fearful punishment much longer, and yet he hated to give up.

“You—you devil!” he almost sobbed, his heart filled with shame and anger.

“You lied about her, Skelding! You know it, and I know it. Take back those words!”

“I will not!”

Crack—down Gene went.

Bart waited for him to rise, and he got up slowly.

“Take back those words!”

“I refuse!”

Crack—it was repeated.

Again, after a pause, Skelding dragged himself up.

“Take back those words!”

“No, I will——”

Crack—a third time he went down.

The men who were watching did not dare interfere. Skelding dragged himself to his elbow, but did not try to rise.

“You can’t make me take them back!” he said thickly.

Bart dropped to one knee, grasped the fellow by the neck, and lifted his terrible fist.

“Take them back,” he said, “or I’ll disfigure you for life! I’ll never stop till you swallow those words!”

“I—I will take them back!” faltered the beaten fellow, his nerve failing him at last.

“Confess that you lied!”

“I—I lied; I confess it!”

“That’s all!” said Bart, rising. “But if you ever speak her name again, and I know of it, I’ll give you worse than anything you have received to-night!”

Then he removed his suspenders from about his waist, found his clothes, and began to dress, his manner seeming so cool that the witnesses of the fight wondered. A short time after, Bart sauntered slowly up to the house, as if he had simply been out for a little stroll.

As he mounted the steps to the veranda, some one uttered a little exclamation of pleasure, and came toward him through the shadows. Then Elsie was before him, and her hands were on his arm.

“I’ve been searching for you everywhere, Bart,” she declared. “Where in the world have you been?”

“Oh, just wandering round the grounds,” he answered.

“You did not dance.”

“Without you!” His voice was full of tender reproach.

“Oh, Bart! I couldn’t help it,” she told him. “Mrs. Parker asked me to dance with him that time, and how could I refuse?”

“Why was she so anxious?”

“He is her nephew.”

“Good gracious!” exclaimed Bart; but that was all he said, though he was thinking that Mrs. Parker might not recognize her nephew if she could see him just then.

“I was afraid you would not understand,” said Elsie. “You see what an awkward position I was in. I didn’t have enough wit to tell a fib and say I had promised you.”

“I am glad you did not tell a fib, Elsie. Even a white fib would seem out of place on your lips.”

“But were you angry with me?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, Bart!”

“I was as angry as a—as a—as a fool!” he said. “I couldn’t help it! I even thought of leaving without a word, and going back to town.”

She uttered a little cry.

“I am so glad you did not!” she whispered.

“Are you really glad, Elsie?”

“Really and truly, Bart.”

“Have you been dancing again?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I was searching for you. Somebody asked me to dance, but I refused him.”

“Who was it?”

“Frank.”

“Frank Merriwell?”

“Yes.”

Hodge almost choked.

“You refused to dance with Frank?” he said huskily. “All because you had not danced with me?”

“Yes, Bart,” she whispered, and he felt her hands trembling.

He found those hands and imprisoned them both, all the great love in his heart surging up to his lips and seeking to be outpoured at once.

“Elsie, my sweetheart! You are—I feel it! I know it! And a little while ago I thought you did not care—I thought you wished to show me that you did not care, and that I was nothing to you!”

“How could you think such mean things of me, Bart?”

“I did not want to think them, God knows! but they would come into my head.”

The music was some simple little love-song, and it came sweetly to their ears. It seemed to be particularly adapted to the moment, and ever after, through all their lives, that tune was the sweetest of all tunes to them.

“Elsie, you do love me—you do?”

She did not answer in words, but her hands were clasped in his, and he received a pressure that told him much. And only a short time before he had fought another man for claiming to receive such a pressure from those dear hands.

He would have kissed her then and there, but a strolling couple approached along the veranda.

“Let’s take a little walk through the grounds,” he suggested. “It is warm. Will you need a wrap?”

“Nothing more than this I have about my shoulders,” she answered.

They descended the steps and moved away along a walk. Up from a spot near where they had been rose a dark shadow, like a thing of evil, and stole silently after them.

CHAPTER VIII.
A FIGHT WITH A MANIAC.

Frank had been unable to find either Hodge or Elsie for some time. He wondered what had become of them, and the fancy came to him that perhaps Bart had met her and was improving the opportunity to unbosom himself.

“I hope he has,” thought Merry; “and I hope she accepts him. He is a truly splendid fellow! Not many chaps would have made the confession he did to me yesterday.”

At last Frank left the house and started alone for a stroll about the grounds. He was weary of being lionized, and he wished to get away by himself. At the farther extremity of the grounds, he paused, hearing some one running swiftly toward him, panting and sobbing as she came, for the sound was like that of a woman.

This person ran almost into Frank’s arms. She saw him, caught her foot, and nearly fell. His strong arm kept her from going down.

“Help!” she gasped, in the greatest terror, clasping his arm. “Bring somebody to help him!”

“Elsie!” he exclaimed. “What has happened? Tell me everything! Tell me quick!”

“Oh, Frank!” she gasped, being almost too exhausted to speak. “Bart—he——”

“What has happened to Bart?”

“He told me—all about Doctor Lincoln. And then—while we were talking—the doctor came right upon us. He seized Bart, and they had a terrible struggle. I tried to help Bart, but he thrust me off. Then I saw him strike Bart with something, and Bart fell. He has—carried him off—into the grove!”

Now Frank was stirred.

“Where did this happen, Elsie? Tell me if you cannot show me! I must do what I can to save him.”

She had confidence in Frank; she believed Frank could save him. Her strength seemed to come back, and she started away, crying:

“Follow me; I’ll show you!”

She ran again, and he followed her. At a distant part of the grounds, not far from the edge of the grove, she showed him the spot where the encounter had taken place.

“And he carried Bart off toward the grove?”

“Yes, yes!”

The grove looked dark and gloomy, but Merriwell bounded toward it at once. Hodge had told him of the lodge in the midst of that grove, and he felt that the maniac had carried Bart to that.

Frank was right. Having struck Hodge down with an instrument that rendered Bart helpless and unable to resist, the man caught him up in his powerful arms and rushed straight toward the lodge in the midst of the grove. Knowing every foot of the way, he bore the unfortunate college man straight there.

The door opened before the touch of the doctor, and he carried his intended victim into the hut. When they were inside, the doctor touched a button, and electric lights flashed up.

Hodge was conscious now, and he tried to make another struggle. The man caught him by the neck, and it seemed that those iron fingers would crush flesh, sinew, and bone. There was a frightful glare in the eyes of the mad doctor.

“I trusted you,” he said in a terrible voice, “and you betrayed my secret! For that you shall die!”

The struggle did not last long, and Bart was hurled into a big chair with arms. Then the doctor held him there, binding his limbs with cords and tying him fast.

Hodge felt like shrieking for help, but he knew that would be folly, and he made no cry. Instead, he tried to think of some method of appeasing the maniac.

“Haven’t you made a mistake, doctor?” he said in a voice that possessed all the calmness he could command.

“No!” roared the madman. “You know I have made no mistake! You are the traitor!”

“Did you hear correctly, doctor? I did not——”

“It will do you no good to lie! You have betrayed me, and you must die!”

“I was speaking to Miss Bellwood when you pounced upon me.”

“Yes; you had told her that I thought myself the strongest man in the world. Thought! Ha, ha, ha! Why, I know! You were like a child in my hands! Did you see how weak and helpless you were? Yet I’ll wager that you think you are strong. You thought you were strong when you fought with Skelding a while ago.”

“You know of that?”

“Oh, yes; I know of it. I have been watching you for a long time, as something told me you would betray me. You thought you were strong because you could conquer him. Bah! I could have stepped in and handled you both without an effort. I could have toyed with you. It would have given me pleasure to do so, but I did not care to betray my great strength to those others who were present. That was why I stood off and waited.”

So this maniac had been following him round all the evening? The thought was hardly agreeable.

“Something told me you would give away my secret,” went on the mad doctor, his eyes dancing. “That was why I clung so close to you. When I hear that voice whispering something in my ear, I know it speaks the truth. It whispered over and over: ‘He is a traitor! He is a traitor!’ But you lied to her!”

“How?”

“You told her that I am mad. Poor fool! Why should you think anything so ridiculous? You did it because you were jealous. I can read you. You did not wish the world to ever know that I am the strongest man alive. Why, you idiot! did you think they could take me and confine me in an asylum? Why, you must have known that I can bend and break the strongest iron bars! You must have known that I could pull the walls down. There are no walls strong enough to hold me.”

“I think you are right,” said Bart.

“I know I am!”

“Well, why don’t you proclaim your wonderful strength to the world?”

“The time has not come.”

“This is a good time to do it. Why wait so long? To-morrow you can astonish the whole world.”

The doctor shook his head.

“I am not quite ready.”

“But your enemies—you wish to obliterate them, and I am to help you. I will get them together to-morrow, and you may topple those heavy buildings upon them.”

“You can’t fool me!” laughed the maniac, with a cunning leer. “I know your game!”

“You proposed it yourself. You suggested that I was to help you.”

“But then I thought you all right. Now I know you are a traitor. You would not help me.”

“If I promise——”

“I will accept no promise from you. A man who has been false once will be false again. You must die!”

Bart began to realize that he could not deceive the maniac in such a manner; but he was thinking that Elsie had rushed away for aid, and this talk might give her time to bring help. So Bart went on talking. After a time, however, the doctor seemed to suspect his purpose.

“It’s no use,” he grinned, as he went to a closet in the wall, from which he took a long black knife. “I know what you are trying to do, but there is no hope for you. They will not come to your aid. And even if they did, what could they all do against me? Why, I could handle them like a giant among children.”

He was feeling of the edge of the knife with his thumb.

“It is sharp,” he nodded. “One slash of this will do the work, and I shall be stronger when it is over, for all your strength will go into my body.”

“Is that how you won your strength?” asked Bart, still hoping help might appear.

“I’ll not tell you! You have betrayed me, and I’ll tell you no more. Your time has come! I am going to make quick work of you. I’ll not torture you. One strong, swift stroke, and the knife will finish you. Brace up, now. You’re white. Show that you are not a coward.”

Bart fancied the door behind the doctor’s back moved slightly. He fancied it was swinging open.

The maniac bent over Bart and lifted the knife.

Then the door swung back noiselessly, and Frank Merriwell came into the room, leaping on the back of the mad doctor, whose wrist he grasped.

Then began one of the most terrible struggles Hodge had ever witnessed. And Bart was helpless to render Frank the least assistance. He could only look on and pray that Merry might conquer this terrible maniac.

Frank knew that it was a life-and-death struggle, and he exerted his wonderful powers as he had never before done. The doctor uttered a roar of rage, and tried to fling the youth off.

“Look out for him, Merry!” panted Bart. “Look out for that knife!”

Frank was taking care that the man did not get his knife-hand free. He had jerked the doctor’s hand back and given it an upward twist behind his back, hoping to force him to release his hold on the knife; but the man continued to clutch it for a time.

Higher and higher Frank twisted that arm, on which the muscles stood out in great ridges. At last the fingers relaxed, and the knife slipped to the floor with a clang.

Bart gave a sigh of relief and hope. But having released the knife, the mad doctor wrenched about and fastened his hands on Frank.

The strength of the maniac was appalling, but against it was pitted the strength and skill of the cleverest athlete Yale had ever known.

Frank succeeded in tripping the man, but the wall kept the doctor from going down. The lodge shook and rocked beneath their fearful struggles. The fact that he could not handle Merry at once made the maniac madly furious.

“You fool!” he roared. “Do you think to pit your puny strength against mine? Why, I am the strongest man in the world, and I can crush you!”

“Strong!” retorted Frank, with an expression of contempt. “Why, you are weak as a child! You could not handle a healthy boy of ten!”

“What?” snarled the doctor, in amazement. “You know better than that!”

“I am fooling with you now to show you how weak you really are,” Frank declared. “I can handle you any time.”

“It’s a lie!” shrieked the doctor, redoubling his efforts. “I’ll break every bone in your body!”

Then he did his utmost, and a gasp of horror came from the lips of Bart, for he saw Merry gradually forced to his knees, despite his efforts to prevent.

Hodge knew Frank had sought to shake the maniac’s confidence in his own strength by his words, and now Bart broke into taunting laughter.

“That’s it, Merriwell!” he cried, as if delighted. “You can fool him with that trick! He thinks he is getting the best of you, but——”

Frank had given a sudden, great twist, and the doctor was flung heavily to the floor. Frank was on top.

The shock was a great surprise to the madman, but he did not give up. He had fancied he was getting the best of his antagonist, only to find himself thrown with a wrestler’s trick.

Here and there over the floor they writhed and squirmed. With his powerful body, the doctor would lift Merry more than a foot, but Frank always drove him back to the floor with a shock that made the lodge quiver.

How Bart longed to break free and take a hand! Together they could have conquered the man. But though he writhed and twisted and strained, the cords held him fast.

Where was Elsie?

Frank had run on before her, and she was lost somewhere in the grove, wandering about in search of the lodge. Had she been there, she might have rendered assistance just then.

There was a sudden flop, a turn. It seemed that the man had Frank foul at last. He laughed harshly, and Hodge held his breath.

But Merry rose to one knee, got his feet beneath him, struggled up despite all attempts to hold him down, and again they both were on their feet.

“Great work!” exclaimed Bart, in delight. “Now give him the cross-buttock, Merry!”

Frank did it at the very instant that Bart spoke, but he got his body far under that of the doctor, whom he flung fairly over his head. Down came the man with a terrible crash, his head striking the floor hard.

Merry was on him.

“The strongest man in the world!” laughed Bart. “Why, he is a kid in your hands, Merriwell!”

“I told him so,” said Frank. “He must be an invalid, or he could do better than this.”

A groan of disappointment escaped the lips of the doctor, for at last he realized that this youth had conquered him; and then, as Frank had hoped, with this realization all the remarkable strength seemed to go out of the man, leaving him helpless in Merriwell’s grasp.

At that moment Elsie appeared at the door and looked in, having found the lodge at last.

“Just in time!” cried Bart. “Quick, Elsie! take that knife and cut these cords!”

She staggered a little, but she caught up the knife and obeyed, setting Hodge free.

“Let me help you, Merry!” panted Bart, as with some of the cords he bent over the conquered maniac. “We’ll soon have him tied up in fancy style. Old man, you put up a dandy fight!”

So they swiftly bound Doctor Lincoln, taking pains to tie him fast. Frank drew a deep breath when the job was done.

“Well,” he said, “of all the men I ever tackled, he is the most remarkable. At times he seemed to have the strength of two men, and I did fear that he would get the best of me.”

A strange look came to the face of the doctor.

“Then you lied when you called me weak!” he cried, frothing at the mouth. “It was a trick! You did it to deceive me!”

“That is true,” nodded Frank. “It was necessary to do something.”

Bart was supporting Elsie.

“Come!” she whispered; “let’s go away. I can’t stay here! The sight of him terrifies me!”

Hodge supported her from the lodge, saying:

“Come on, Merriwell. He’s secure, and we can leave him till we can send somebody to take care of him.”

Frank lingered a little, to make sure the mad doctor’s bond’s were secure.

“Oh, Bart!” Elsie breathed, when they were alone outside; “I have suffered such terror, for I thought he would kill you! Had he done so, it would have killed me also!”

“Elsie—Elsie, my sweetheart! Then you do love me? Tell me that you love me!”

“Bart, I love you—I love you!”

And so Bart found his happiness as he had wished, without disclosing to Elsie the fact that Frank Merriwell and Inza were engaged.

CHAPTER IX.
THE FIFTEENTH MAN.

The early spring days passed rapidly at the college, and the interest of the students had been for days centered in the date fixed for the elections to the senior societies.

It was five o’clock in the afternoon of the third Thursday in May. In front of the fence the juniors had congregated in a body, and there they waited in solemn and expectant silence. Without doubt, every man in that throng by the fence hoped deep in his heart that it would be his fate to make “Bones.”

Some there were who felt confident, and their confidence showed in their faces; but others were doubtful and nervous, while still others, knowing that their chances were not worth reckoning upon, seemed resigned, as if nothing more than curiosity to watch the rest had brought them there.

Still all hoped. Often in the past some unexpected man had been chosen to accept the high honor of entering one of the three senior societies, and what had happened might happen again. Of course, there were men whose election seemed certain. Their society career had begun in Kappa Omicron Alpha, when they were at Andover, and had continued triumphantly through Hé Boulé or Eta Phi, the Yale sophomore societies, into Delta Kappa Epsilon, Psi Upsilon, or Alpha Delta Phi, the great junior societies of the college. It would be against all precedent to leave such men out of all three of the senior societies, and of course they felt certain that the hand of some searching senior society man would fall smartly on their backs that day.

But out of that throng of students only forty-five men could be the favored ones, fifteen to each society. The confident ones were all looking to make “Bones,” though, to tell the truth, there was some inward trepidation among them.

For Skull and Bones is the great senior society at Yale, being the oldest and richest of them all. He is not a Yale man who would prefer scholarship, honors, or prizes to membership in this society, and it is supposed that the honor falls each year to the fifteen men who stand highest as scholars, athletes, or have made brilliant records in a literary and social way.

Next to “Bones” comes Scroll and Key, generally known as “Keys,” and, after “Bones,” it gets the cream of the picking. If a man does not make “Bones,” he may feel solaced and satisfied that his great ambitions have not been entirely fruitless in case he is taken into “Keys.” Indeed, the men who make the latter society seem to convince themselves that it is the one they always preferred, and they bear themselves with the air and dignity of conquerors.

And so on this third Thursday in May all the probable and possible candidates were gathered at the fence. Freshmen and sophomores stood off and looked on, for in this ceremony they had no part.

In less than one minute after the clock struck five, a solemn senior was seen threading his way through the crowd, and all knew a “Bones” man was in search of the candidate he had been sent to notify. All eyes followed him, and an anxious hush fell on the great throng.

“It’s Gunnison!” whispered somebody, as the searcher was seen looking sharply at a man.

“No, Rice!” fluttered another. “See, he’s turned away from Gunnison.”

But he passed Rice.

“Who can it be?”

In a moment they would know. Of a sudden, the searcher dealt a student a sharp slap on the back, sternly saying:

“Go to your room!”

“It’s Gildea!” said a voice that was drowned in a great shout that goes up from the spectators.

The first “Bones” man had been chosen.

Then came another grave senior weaving in and out through the throng, and soon another shout went up as another man was tapped sharply on the back and ordered to go to his room.

The watchers were keeping count with untold excitement and anxiety, for thus they could tell where each man went and how their own chances were growing less, in case they were juniors.

Bertrand Defarge was smiling and serene, for he had made a sophomore and a junior society, and he was confident of being taken into the field of “Bones.”

At one time he had feared, but since that time he had made his peace with Merriwell. It had been a terrible humiliation for him to go to Frank and humble himself, but the French youth, feeling that his ambition was hopeless unless he did, had forced himself to do so. It was the manner in which Merriwell had met him that restored hope and confidence to the heart of Defarge, for Frank had seemed glad that he came, and had appeared to accept in good faith his repentance.

Defarge left Merriwell that night with the firm conviction that Frank’s one great ambition in life was to make friends of his enemies. And he told himself that he had deceived Merry finely with his tearful protestations of sorrow, repentance, admiration, and pledges of future friendship. He had seen Merriwell do much in the past for enemies who had become his friends, and Bertrand worked to deceive Frank into giving him a lift toward the goal of his ambitions, “Bones.” In this he was crafty, knowing that open speech would not do, but yet he fancied he had managed to convey his meaning and desires in a most delicate manner.

The fellow had even been so confident that he boasted of his cleverness to one or two intimate and confidential friends.

“Merriwell is the easiest fellow in the world to fool if you know how to go about it,” he had said.

“Do you think that?”

“I know it. I’ve been playing my cards wrong with him. I’ve just found out the trick.”

“What is it?”

“Make him think you love him. Make him believe you’re awfully sorry for any harm you may have tried to do him. Be a repentant sinner, and seek forgiveness. He loves to forgive. He has a magnanimous way of saying: ‘Oh, that’s all right, old man; don’t mention it.’ Then he’ll turn to and do more for the enemy he believes has become his friend than for any one else.”

“What makes you think that?”

“His record. Diamond was his enemy; see what he did for Diamond. Browning was his enemy, and he has stood ready to do anything for him. Hodge was one of the bitterest enemies he ever had, yet they are bosom friends now. Badger, who hated him, finally turned friend, and Merriwell helped Badger win and carry off Winnie Lee for his wife. That is proof enough. I’ve given him the hint, and I know he’ll throw his influence for me. Not a word, old man, but I’m sure of making ‘Bones’ now.”

So Defarge stood by the fence and smiled as he saw man after man tapped and ordered away. He had little interest in a chap he knew was looking for a “Keys” candidate, and none whatever in the Wolf’s Head searcher.

Hock Mason happened to be standing close to Defarge. Bertrand had sought to be friendly toward all of Merriwell’s friends after his professed “change of heart,” and now he was conversing with the youth from South Carolina.

“Twelve men gone to ‘Bones,’” he said in a low tone. “That leaves only three more.”

“And I know twenty good fellows who ought to go there,” said Hock.

“Oh, yes; that’s all right; but you see it can’t be, as only fifteen men can make it.”

“You’re not tapped yet.”

“Oh, there’s time enough,” declared Bertrand, but the confident smile was fading from his face and giving place to a look of anxiety.

What if he should not be chosen, after all? What if he should be thrown down after making every other Society in order? He felt that the disgrace would kill him. But that could not be. Merriwell had not yet appeared in search of a candidate. He would come soon, and something told Defarge that it would be the hand of Frank Merriwell that would tap him on the back. Ha! what a satisfaction it would be to use Merriwell at last as a tool in this manner! Defarge felt that there was something in making use of a hated foe in such a way that was even more satisfactory than in maiming or killing him. Of course, they would be bound together as brothers in the society, and Defarge knew he would never again lift a hand against Merriwell; but the fact that Frank must leave college in a few short weeks, to return no more, was a great comfort to Bertrand.

Another cheer went up from the great throng, telling that yet another candidate had been chosen. The happy man was seen walking swiftly toward his room, followed by the grave-faced senior who had slapped him on the back.

“‘Bones,’” said the watchers.

“Thirteen!” counted Defarge, in a husky whisper.

“Only two more,” muttered Mason.

“Just enough to take us both in,” said Bertrand, with pretended lightness, though his heart was sinking.

“Not enough to take me in,” declared the youth from South Carolina rather sadly. “There was never a ghost of a show for me. I only came here to see the other fellows made happy. You know my record when I first came here hurt me, and when a man gets started wrong at Yale, he has hard work to change his course and get on the right track. I’ve been side-tracked right along.”

“It’s too bad!” nodded Defarge. “Hello! there goes another ‘Keys’ man. You might make Wolf’s Head, Mason, you know.”

“My chance of making heaven is better. But surely a society man like you——”

“‘Bones,’ or nothing!” muttered Defarge grimly. “There are two more to go, and I’m waiting.”

“Hooray! Codwell! Hoopee! Hooray!”

“‘Bones!’” said Defarge hoarsely, his face growing white.

“Fourteen!” counted Mason. “That leaves but one more.”

“I’m the man!” the French youth inwardly declared. “I must be the man! What if they did not take me in! What if I failed after making the other societies!”

It could not be! Such a thing was unprecedented. Fortune had simply held him back for the fifteenth man. His mouth and lips were dry and he trembled a little. Was it possible, after all, that he had failed to deceive Merriwell? But it had been claimed by all of Merriwell’s friends that he would not use personal feelings to retard any man from advancement.

“He will not,” Defarge told himself. “It would be more like him to go against any feeling of dislike he may have for me, and seek to uplift me for that very reason. I’m all right! I am to be the fifteenth man.”

He heard nothing of the roar from the crowd as a “Keys” man was slapped, or the fainter shout as a candidate went to Wolf’s Head. He was waiting for Frank Merriwell to appear; he was looking in all directions for him.

Those in the crowd who were disappointed were doing their best to hide it away under a mask of happiness over the good fortune of others. Many were there who felt a great pain in their hearts and longed to crawl away and hide themselves, but they laughed in a strained fashion and talked of the luck of others. Those who had been to their rooms, followed by tappers, were back receiving congratulations from friends, their hands being shaken till their arms were tired.

This was the acme of college glory. Truly, it did seem that some of those happy-faced chaps were not nearly as deserving as some others who were congratulating them. But it is the case all through life. Not always the men we regard as the most deserving win the high prizes. We may, however, be wrong in our estimates of men.

Only one more man to go to “Bones.” Who would it be? The crowd were speculating.

“Harrison is the man.”

“Don’t believe yourself. He can’t get there. It’s Fairbush.”

“All wrong. It’s Defarge, of course.”

“That’s right; Defarge must be the man. Look how cool he is. He knows he will be chosen, even though there is only one more choice. He’ll get it.”

“Sure thing. Who’s the man he’s talking to?”

“Oh, that’s Mason.”

“So it is! What a chump I am not to know him! He can play ball.”

“Merriwell brought him out. Nobody ever suspected there was much in him till Merriwell took hold of him. He never did cut any ice.”

All at once Defarge stiffened up. Moving through the crowd, looking right and left, he had seen a well-known senior.

It was Merriwell!

Frank was the last of the “Bones” men to come forth in search of a candidate. His was the fifteenth man. All eyes were turned on Merriwell, and a great hush fell on the watching throng.

In and out, here and there, Frank moved. As he came near, the heart of many a man rose into his throat; as he turned away, those swelling, fluttering hearts seemed to drop back like lead.

The mouth of Defarge was dry as a chip now, and he felt cold shivers running up and down his spine. He almost feared to watch Merriwell’s movements.

What if he should be left out? It seemed that he could never bear the disgrace of it. Mason was speaking to him. At first he did not seem to hear, but soon he understood these words:

“Everywhere for you. He’s passed Fairbush and Harrison. They are both looking ill. Too bad! I’m sorry for them. It must be tough on a man who has counted on being chosen. He sees you, Defarge! He is coming this way!”

Yes, it seemed that Frank had seen Bertrand at last. He turned in that direction, and came forward slowly, as became the dignity of a senior on such a grave mission.

Bertrand’s heart leaped for joy. Now there could no longer be a doubt; he was the man, and to Merriwell had fallen the lot of notifying him.

Defarge came near laughing aloud. He did smile. He saw how everybody was watching Merriwell. Many present knew Frank had found in the French youth a persistent foe, but of late it seemed that Merry had discovered a way to hold Bertrand in subjection and submission. But the great mass of students did not dream of the many villainous attempts Defarge had made to injure Frank.

In that moment Bertrand Defarge saw visions of being made a member of Merriwell’s flock. He even vowed that he would do his level best to gain such distinction, as it would give him standing after Merriwell had left college.

Not that he loved Merriwell at all. Not that his treacherous nature had been changed in the least. But “Bones” would bring about the eternal burial of the hatchet, and never could anything cause them to betray a symptom of enmity.

Frank came nearer.

“It’s a sure thing, Defarge!” said Mason, in a whisper. “Congratulations.”

“Yes, it’s a sure thing,” thought Bertrand. “I knew it. How could I ever doubt it for a minute? They could not skip me. I was a fool to think such a thing!”

Frank came nearer. Bertrand even turned his body so that Merry might have less trouble in reaching his back and giving it a slap. Then he waited again.

Smack! Frank’s hand had fallen.

“Go to your room!”

The fifteenth man had been chosen.

It was not Defarge!

CHAPTER X.
THE MAN WHO WAS NOT CHOSEN.

Defarge heard the smack of Frank’s hand, but he was astounded beyond measure when he failed to feel it upon his back. Scarcely could he believe Merriwell had given the slap. One moment before he had felt perfectly confident that he was the one who had been chosen for the honors. Like a flash he turned. What he saw astonished him beyond measure.

Hock Mason, the youth from South Carolina, was looking at Frank Merriwell in a most bewildered way, as if he doubted the evidence of his own senses.

Merriwell had slapped Mason.

In all that gathering of students, no man had less expected such an honor. To Mason it seemed that the heavens had opened with a golden shower.

To Defarge it was like a bolt of lightning from a clear sky.

Plainly Mason could not yet believe he had been selected for “Bones.” He was on the verge of telling Frank that he must have made a mistake.

Defarge, also, felt like crying out to Merry: “You’re wrong, you chump! Here I am!”

Plainly, the selection of the fifteenth man had been a surprise to many, for there was a protracted hush. Then it broke, and there was a great cheer for Mason.

The blood rushed back to the face of the Southerner. It came so fast that he grew dizzy and everything seemed to swim round him. He put out his hands, as if to grasp something. Was he dreaming? Had this greatest honor that a Yale man can receive really come to him?

There was no mistake. The crowd had greeted the selection with a cheer, and he had heard his name at the end of it. He, who had expected nothing, had received the great reward.

With faltering steps, he started to go to his room, but he was so bewildered that he started in the wrong direction. Somebody put an arm round him and turned him the right way, whispering in his ear:

“I’m gug-gosh darn gug-glad for ye!”

It was Joe Gamp—poor, dear old Joe, who had never “cut any ice” in society life at Yale. Joe Gamp, the lad from New Hampshire, who would have given up any hope of inheriting his father’s farm for the glory of entering “Bones,” had seen in the face of the Southerner the unspeakable joy of the moment, and he whispered that he was glad.

Mason remembered it afterward, for he was not a fellow to forget. Mason, who had come to Yale with a feeling of prejudice for “Yanks,” would have fought to the death for one “Yank” after that. For more than one, as Merriwell was a Northerner, and he had long felt that he would do anything in his power for Frank.

The burden of disappointment had fallen heavily on many men that day, but to none had come greater joy than to Hock Mason. His heart was threatening to tear a hole in his bosom as he walked through that crowd, which parted for him to pass, knowing that Frank Merriwell was gravely following in his footsteps.

Frank’s face was unreadable as that of a stone image as he brushed past Defarge and followed Mason. And so they proceeded across the campus and disappeared into one of the arches.

Behind them they left a youth who felt that he must die of disappointment and shame. Defarge knew that it had been supposed he was sure to make “Bones” or “Keys,” and he had told himself that nothing less than the greater society would satisfy him. Now, however, he was weak and crumbling with the bitterness of it all upon him.

It must be that he had been chosen by “Keys.” That was the last hope, and the last “Keys” man was passing through the throng in search of the final candidate.

“He must be after me!” Defarge inwardly cried.

But the searcher had found his man. His hand rose and fell.

“It’s Carson! Hooray! Carson! Carson!”

Berlin Carson was the man.

Defarge started to go somewhere. He did not know where he wanted to go, but he had a desire to get away. This was the day he had lived for during the past year; and this was what it had brought him!

“Merriwell is to blame for it all!” he cried mentally. “Oh, curse him! But for him this shame would not have fallen on me!”

He was wrong. He alone was to blame. His own treacherous nature, which he had so skilfully concealed at first, had led him on to his downfall. He had been very shrewd in his early days at Yale. It was only when he became ambitious to overthrow Frank Merriwell that his downfall began. With each failure he had dropped lower, but he did not realize how fast he was falling. Merriwell had shielded him by silence, but nothing could keep his rascality secret. He had plotted, and his plots, all of them failures, had reacted upon himself.

As he was moving away, he bethought himself of one last possibility, and paused. Perhaps he had been chosen for Wolf’s Head.

A few minutes ago he would have scorned the thought; he would have asserted with disdain that nothing could induce him to enter that order. Now he stopped and looked round, in hope that the lowest of the three societies might prove a shelter for him in this hour of distress. How gladly he would accept it now!

But even as he paused with this faint hope, the final man was chosen for Wolf’s Head, and he knew at last that he had no chance.

This, in truth, was the worst punishment Defarge had ever received for his wrong-doing. Physical punishment had been as nothing in comparison to it. He did not mind a few bruises; he did not care if he happened to be confined to his room for a day or two. But this struck straight to his heart.

In this moment came the thought that he had brought it all on himself when he sought to harm Merriwell. He felt that somehow Merriwell was responsible, and the hatred he had known for Frank in the past became a thousand times more intense.

“I could kill him!” he muttered hoarsely.

He saw the chosen candidates receiving congratulations on all sides, and the spectacle maddened him. He was muttering to himself as he found his way out onto the Green, where he wandered round and round for half an hour before realizing that he was acting like a daffy person.

There was a little place where Bertrand had often dropped in to have a quiet drink, and toward it he now turned his steps, for he felt that nothing but drink could give him relief.

He found his favorite seat by the corner screen, dropping down heavily and sitting there staring blankly at the table when the waiter came up. Not until the waiter had asked him twice for his order did he arouse himself. Then he ordered absinth.

After a little it was placed before him, the devil’s drink that lifts men to the seventh heaven of bliss, only to hurl them at last to the lowest depths of hell. He knew when he took the stuff that it robs men of manhood and makes them its slaves, yet he drank it. He knew the awful effect of that decoction on the human being, for absinth-drinkers soon find their way to madhouses, yet he drank it. He knew he was taking into his system a poison that must work on every part of him, yet he drank it.

It soothed him after a little, and that was what he sought. He leaned back in his chair and lighted a cigarette, which he puffed leisurely. In the blue smoke he saw strange pictures of himself overthrowing and destroying one whom he hated with all his heart, and that one was Merriwell. How strong he felt! Why, it seemed that he could crush Merriwell to the earth without an effort. What did he care, after all, if he had failed to be chosen to enter the ivy-wreathed door of “Bones”! That was a passing joy, but absinth he could have always—till death! “Waiter, bring another of the same.”

With the second glass, everything passed from him save his determination to get even with Merriwell. Of late he had feared Merriwell, but now he did not fear him. Merriwell had seemed to possess a strange power over him, but now he felt that the power was broken. He knew he was in every way superior to Merriwell, and it seemed strange that all others did not know it as well. In his heart something was making soft music, like chiming bells, and he listened to it with quiet delight. How easy it was to start that music to going! “Waiter, another absinth.”

But the waiter was not near, and it was too much effort to call him. He smiled to think he had cared if he failed to get into “Bones.” Foolish! He knew the fellows who had been chosen, and he was better than the best of them. He would prove it, too, some day. He knew he could prove it easily, for he had the power to do anything he desired.

Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle!—he seemed to hear the fall of water in a fountain, which sparkled and glowed before his eyes, as his imagination conjured it there. He saw it in the moonlight of a soft Italian night, and the odor of a thousand flowers was brought to him with a passing breeze. He looked into the fountain, and a face smiled up at him. He saw it was the face of the man he hated, and he put out his strong hands to grasp it by the throat. There was no struggle. He was so strong that his enemy could not struggle. So he forced him down and held him beneath the surface of the water, watching him drown. It was a great delight to watch him drown.

The end came, and he relinquished his hold on that throat. Down, down to the bottom of the fountain sank the head, and there it lay looking up at him with wide-open, staring eyes. He nodded and smiled at it, saying: “I have conquered at last!” But it simply stared straight into his soul.

Those eyes made him shiver a little, they were so cold and glassy. Those eyes had cast upon him a fearful spell when their owner lived, but they were powerless now. Were they powerless? Dead though he knew they were, they seemed to take hold of him and possess him. He could not tear his gaze from them.

Slowly round the fountain he moved, trying to escape from those eyes. He did not see the head move, but it must have moved, for always those eyes were fixed upon him.

A great horror crept over him. What did it mean? Was he not the victor? He was seized by a fear that even in death Frank Merriwell remained his master.

Then he longed to shriek aloud, to run away, to do something. He could feel those dead eyes getting a stronger hold upon him. He knew he was becoming their victim. He had not conquered; Merriwell was still his master.

“Yes,” he said aloud, “I am coming; I am coming.”

Then, with a singular look on his drawn face, he rose, hat in hand, and started from the place. He walked like one in a trance, staring straight ahead, minding nothing around him.

“I am coming,” he murmured.

“That’s the last drink of that stuff he gets in this place!” muttered the waiter, shaking his head and staring after Defarge. “He’s been up against it hard. Never saw a fellow take to that dope so suddenly as he has, and he’s gone down like a rock in less than a week. Next time I’ll refuse to serve him.”

CHAPTER XI.
HOW SKELDING QUIT.

“It’th a thame!” declared Lew Veazie, standing before Chickering’s fireplace, his feet as far apart as his short legs would comfortably permit, while he inhaled the smoke of a cigarette with the air of one long accustomed to the things.

“That’s so, chummie,” agreed Ollie Lord, regarding Lew with a look of admiration. “It’s a howling shame!”

“They say his mind is affected,” said Rupert, who had gently seated himself in a position that would bring the least possible strain on the knees of his handsomely creased trousers.

“Oh, no doubt of it!” nodded Julian Ives from the opposite side of the table, pressing a hand against his beautiful bang, as if he feared the air might disturb its symmetry, or it might fall off.

“It must have been an awful disappointment to him,” solemnly croaked Tilton Hull.

“Poor fellow!” sighed Chickering. “The whole college is talking about it. He was a ‘Deke’ man, and yet he failed even to get into Wolf’s Head.”

“It’s perfectly dreadful, fellows!” said Ollie Lord.

“Thimply awful!” said Lew. “And evwybody knowth who ith to blame faw it.”

“That’s so, chummie,” agreed Ollie.

“The man whose word is law at Yale brought it about, of course,” croaked Hull, like a parson droning a sermon with uplifted eyes.

“Let’s not be too harsh on any one,” put in Rupert hastily, with a warning gesture of his hand.

“Oh, come off!” exclaimed Ives. “The man had little feeling for poor Defarge, and, without doubt, it was his influence that kept Defarge down.”

Gene Skelding was sitting square in a chair, his hands clasped, his eyes roving from one speaker to another, a strange, grim expression on his face. Thus far he had taken little part in the conversation, but now he broke in.

“I think Defarge has only himself to blame,” he said.

“What?” exclaimed the others, staring at him in startled surprise.

“Let’s be honest with ourselves for once,” said Gene. “I was the one who found Defarge, hatless, coatless, his shirt torn open at the neck, wandering about in the old cemetery on the evening of tap day. I took him to his room and watched him all night long.”

“And you’ve told us how he raved about Merriwell’s dead eyes,” came hoarsely from Hull.

“The fellow had been drinking dope of some sort,” asserted Gene. “I’ve told you that.”

“Dwiven to dwink by the injuthice he had endured,” put in Lew, with an effort to be dramatic.

“Just so, chummie,” nodded Ollie.

“He had taken to drink, all right, all right,” nodded Gene. “But he acted exactly as if he had been hypnotized by those dead eyes he raved about.”

“What do you suppose made him talk about Merriwell having dead eyes?” asked Chickering.

“I was with him long enough to know that he seemed to see some sort of vision. He talked about a fountain in the blackness of a dark night, and a face down in the fountain—a face that seemed luminous, so he could see it for all of the darkness. It seemed to me that he thought he had drowned Merriwell in that fountain, but he fancied it was far off in Italy, or some foreign country.”

“And all those wild fancies were brought about by his terrible disappointment,” said Julian Ives.

“They were brought about by the stuff he had been drinking,” asserted Skelding. “I took some pains to investigate a little, and I have found that he’s been drinking absinth. That explains it. He’s in a bad way.”

“Driven there by a certain man,” said Chickering solemnly.

“Driven there by his own blank foolishness,” said Gene positively. “No man can be in the condition Defarge was in and drink absinth without quickly paying the penalty.”

“Tempwance lecture by Mithter Thkelding!” cried Veazie, and Ollie snickered.

Gene gave the two little fellows a look that seemed full of positive disgust and contempt, but he held his temper, going on:

“Defarge, like some of the rest of us, has been bucking up against the wrong man, and he did not know enough to throw up the sponge when he was beaten. That is the whole of it in a nutshell.”

“I don’t understand you, Gene,” said Julian Ives, staring at Skelding. “Do you mean that we have bucked against the wrong man when we bucked against Merriwell?”

“That’s what I mean. Doesn’t it look that way? Now, be honest in answering.”

There was consternation in that room at once. Always Skelding had been the fiercest and bitterest against Merriwell.

“Good Lord!” croaked Hull, standing on his tiptoes in order to glare down over his collar at Gene. “What’s this I hear? One of our number talking like a Merriwell saphead? I must be dreaming! I know I am!”

“Oh, Gene is joking!” said Ives.

“Gwathuth! What a queer joke!” murmured Lew.

“I want to tell you fellows what I did with Defarge before I left him the next morning,” said Gene, who had risen to his feet. “All night I listened to his ravings. Now, you all know I’m not squeamish, but I confess that some of the things I heard gave me cold chills. He had some of the most horrible fancies, and through them all he was hunted by Merriwell’s eyes. Those eyes seemed to follow him everywhere. He fought them, he threw the furniture at them, he covered his own eyes to shut out the sight of them, but he could not get away from them.

“I pitied the poor fellow. His face was ghastly and drawn, and great beads of perspiration started out on it at times. His lips would be drawn back from his teeth, and he looked like a grinning death-head. Of course, I knew that the most of the things he raved about were fancies, but with those he mixed lots of facts. I found that more than once he had thought of murdering Merriwell. He had even tried it. Now, I’m no saint, and I have fancied that I could kill Merriwell; but never have I been ready to carry it to that extent when the time came to lift my hand. In listening to the mutterings of Defarge I found that Merriwell had caught and baffled him. Still, for some reason, Merriwell had not crushed him. He had seen at last that he must make his peace with Merriwell if he was to get into ‘Bones,’ and so he went and played a part.

“He tried to fool Merriwell into thinking him repentant, and he thought he had succeeded; but I do not think it so easy to fool that man, even though he may let one fancy he is being fooled. Merriwell saw through Defarge all the time. In fact, I think Merriwell must have hypnotic power over Defarge, and so he could read Bertrand’s secret. That is why those eyes seemed to hunt Defarge so. The eyes were before his fancy, just as he had seen them boring into his soul more than once. Now, it’s likely that somehow there was an understanding that Defarge was to go to ‘Bones.’ Whether Merriwell found a way to stop him or not I cannot say, but it was just punishment for the injuries Defarge has tried to do Merriwell, and so I told the fellow before I left him that morning.

“He was pretty sober when I talked to him, and I told him we were both thundering scoundrels and pitiful fools. Had we been decent fellows we might have belonged to Merriwell’s crowd, and that would have helped carry us anywhere. But our greed and our hatred had made us outcasts. We were getting our dues. He had to listen to me, for I held him while I talked. That night with him was just what I needed to open my eyes at last, and now I’m aware that I have made a howling idiot of myself.”

They stared at him in wonder. Was this Skelding? He had been the worst of the lot.

“I believe staying with Defarge that night affected his head some, fellows,” whispered Chickering.

Gene gave Rupert a look of contempt.

“It did affect my head,” he acknowledged. “It gave me, I believe, a little more sense than I have had for a long, long time. I came to see myself and a few of my particular friends, as well as the men I have reckoned as my enemies, in the true light. Chickering, I’ve never held you in much respect, for you are a hypocrite, and I have known it right along.”

“Would you insult your friend in his own rooms?” cried Ives, also starting up.

“Hush!” said Rupert, with a gentle gesture of restraint and sorrow. “Do not revile him, Julian. Even though he may unjustly turn upon me, I have no revengeful feeling in my heart, and I cannot forget that he has often taken tea from my hand.”

“Go on!” exclaimed Gene. “I’ve borrowed money of you, too. I know it. If it hadn’t been for that I’d not be here now. You knew how to make me one of your set. You lent me money, but I’ve paid it back, every dirty cent! Haven’t I? Answer me! Haven’t I?”

Rupert shuddered a little at this fierceness.

“I—I believe you have,” he said.

“You believe! You know! Say you know it!”

“Oh, very well; I know it,” agreed the alarmed fellow.

“That has been one of your holds on all your friends. Your friends! Well, here they are! Look at them! Compare them with Frank Merriwell’s friends! Ha, ha, ha! That night I spent with Defarge I came to look the whole matter over, and I saw just how it was that I belonged to our gang. Do you know what we are? Well, we’re outcasts, every one of us. We are compelled to flock by ourselves for company, as other men want nothing to do with us. Merriwell to-day, the man we hate with all our hearts, is better known and more popular than any other man who ever entered Yale. He is the idol of the youth of our country. They regard him as the typical young American. But what are we? We are looked on as snobs, and cads, and sappies. It’s just what is coming to us, and we can’t kick!”

“He must have turned crazy with Defarge!” exclaimed Ives.

“He must!” croaked Hull.

“I turned crazy enough to get some sense into my head. It’s too late for me to ever make anything of myself here in college, but I have resolved to turn over a new leaf, just the same. Even Defarge was given a show on the eleven last fall. Though he had been Merriwell’s open foe, Merriwell did not keep him off the eleven. That man is square as a brick, and that’s the way he gets his friends and holds them. He does hold them, too. You know it, every one of you. Did you ever know one of his friends to go back on him? Never. It’s a wonder how he grapples them to him with hooks of steel.”

“The trouble with him,” said Ives, in an aside to Chickering, “is that he found more than he could handle in Hodge that night. You know when I mean.”

Rupert nodded. Skelding flushed.

“I fought Hodge squarely,” he said, “and he whipped me, just as he can any man here—or any two of you!”

“He’s done for!” said Chickering, with a gesture of sorrowful regret. “He’ll be bowing down and licking the dust off Merriwell’s feet now.”

“That’s a lie!” said Gene. “Merriwell won’t have me, even if I want to. But I am done with this crowd.”

“You won’t have many friends,” croaked Hull, with an expression of satisfaction.

“That’s tho!” cried Veazie.

“Just so, chummie!” agreed Lord.

“I know you are right about that. I’ll have to go it alone, unless I can convert Defarge, and I’m afraid he’s too far gone, poor devil! I think his selfishness and his hatred for Merriwell have brought about his ruin.”

“Merriwell has ruined him!” cried Ives savagely. “You would have said so a week ago! I don’t know what you’re going to try to do, but I don’t believe you’ll get taken into Merriwell’s flock.”

“I don’t expect to be; but I’ll take myself out of this flock, and that will give me a chance to regard myself as something more of a man. What are you, one and all? Chickering is a pitiful creature, with just enough brains to be a hypocrite. Hull never had a real thought in his wooden head in all his life. You, Ives, are a poor imitation of a real man, and, though you sometimes bluster and brag, you are always the first to dodge behind shelter when there is danger. Veazie is a poor, simple little thing, who never can become a man, and Lord is his counterpart.”

“Be careful, thir!” screamed Veazie, shaking his fist at Gene. “I won’t thand it, thir!”

“Poor Gene!” said Rupert, with increasing sadness. “After all I have done for him!”

“He’s an insulting scamp!” croaked Huff, his face very red.

“He’s a——” began Ives, but Skelding cut him short, advising:

“Don’t you say much, unless you want to fight. I’d be ashamed to put my hands on any of the others, but I may be tempted to thrash you before leaving, so you’d better keep your mouth closed.”

Ives gasped and gurgled, but Skelding really seemed to find it difficult to keep off, so Julian closed up.

Skelding took up his hat and light overcoat, tossing the latter over his arm.

“I’m going,” he said, “and I’ll never come back to this place any more, I’m happy to say. I feel as if there may be a chance for me to become a man. And I want to warn you to let Defarge alone. He’s pretty low now, and you’ll only send him lower.”

Skelding walked to the door, where he paused, turned, and surveyed them all with a look of contempt.

“When you meet me hereafter,” he said, “kindly refrain from speaking to me. It will be best for you to do so, for I promise you that I shall take it as a deadly insult if you speak. I may not be able to whip Bart Hodge, but I’ll bet my shirt that I can whip any one of you, or the whole bunch together. Good night.”

Then he went out.

“Go to the devil!” hissed Julian Ives.

“Poor, misguided fellow!” sighed Chickering. “I must have some tea to steady my nerves.”

CHAPTER XII.
THE MAD STUDENT.

It was with a feeling of unadulterated satisfaction that Gene Skelding left the perfumed rooms of Rupert Chickering, after having expressed his opinion of the Chickering set, separately and collectively.

It had always seemed a little strange to any one who knew Gene that he had been one of the members of that crew of worthless cigarette-smokers. For Skelding was a fighter, and he was the only genuine fighter in the collection. The others were cowards of the most abject sort.

Skelding had a way of closing his mouth firmly, and keeping it closed, which was a most difficult thing for any other member of the set to do.

Indeed, Tilton Hull found it possible to keep his mouth closed only when it was held thus by his collar propping his lower jaw up. Take away his collar, and his jaw drooped at once.

Lew Veazie always carried his mouth open, breathing through it from habit. It would have caused him great discomfort, not to say agony, had he been compelled to close his mouth and keep it thus for three minutes without a break.

Of course, Ollie Lord imitated Veazie in everything, and he fancied that the insipid, brainless expression of a cigarette-smoker with open mouth in repose was proper.

Julian Ives breathed through his mouth from habit, but Chickering had a way of pressing his lips together, turning up his eyes, clasping his pale hands, and looking like a saint. This was the expression he wore as Skelding retired from the room, and he hoped it would be so impressed on Gene’s mind that the “rude fellow” would come to believe in time that he had done Rupert a great wrong. Skelding afterward spoke of that look as reminding him of a dying calf.

Gene descended the stairs, stepped on the steps, and drew several deep breaths, as if he would clear his lungs of the atmosphere that had defiled them while he was in that room. He was satisfied with himself and what he had done.

For some time he had been growing more and more disgusted with the Chickering crowd. Of late he had appeared in public with them as seldom as possible. Skelding was not a fool, and he saw at last that his folly in taking up with such fellows had given him his standing at Yale, and that standing was not pleasant to contemplate.

At last he had been taught the old, old lesson that a man is judged by the company he keeps. Most boys are told this early in life, but somehow it seems to have little impression on them until their eyes are opened by experience. Shun bad company; better have no friends than to be friendly with the wrong sort of fellows.

Skelding had never smoked cigarettes until he fell in with the Chickering crowd. Then it was nothing more than natural that he should take to them, for they were forever near him, being smoked by his companions and offered to him.

He had not found them agreeable at first, but surely he, big and strong, could endure as much as that little whipper-snapper Veazie, and so he had persisted in using them until the habit was set upon him.

A dozen times he had vowed that he would smoke no more, but always he had found the things at hand in Chickering’s room, and the cloud of smoke hanging there almost constantly led him to break his pledge. The man who does not smoke is annoyed to extremes by the smoke of others; but he soon ceases to notice it if he fires up and joins them.

Now, however, Skelding paused on the step and shook his light overcoat with the idea of getting the smoke smell out of it. Never before had the fresh air seemed so good to him. He drew it into his lungs with satisfaction and relief. Then he reached into a pocket of that overcoat and took out part of a package of cigarettes.

“There!” he exclaimed; “by the eternal hills, I am done with you forever! You are the badge of degeneracy.”

He threw the package away. It seemed to him that at that moment he had severed the last strand that had bound him to the Chickering set.

There was untold satisfaction in the feeling of relief and freedom which came to him. He looked back on what he had been, and wondered at his folly. He contemplated his association with Rupert Chickering and his pals, wondering that he could have found any satisfaction in such company. No matter what happened, he was done with them.