Book: Frank Merriwell at Yale

B >> Burt L. Standish >> Frank Merriwell at Yale




Frank hoped they would be able to overtake the fugitive, for if one of
the party escaped he would report to the sophs, who were bound to make a
big hustle to rescue their captured comrades.

The disguised freshmen came downstairs, bearing their captives, who were
swiftly thrust into the hack, which was a big, roomy, old-fashioned
affair.

As many of the freshmen as could do so piled inside and upon the hack,
and then Frank gave the signal, the driver whipped up his horse and away
they went.

"East Rock," said Frank.

"Eh?" exclaimed the driver. "Thot's not pwhere ye wur goin' in th'
firrust place."

"We have changed the programme. East Rock is where we are bound for
now."

"All roight, me b'y."

The triumphant freshmen felt like shouting and singing in jubilant mood.
Indeed, Rattleton could not refrain from "letting off steam," as he
called it, and he gave one wild howl of triumph that made the streets
echo:

"'Umpty-eight! 'Umpty-eight!"

"Break it off!" sharply commanded Frank. "Want to let the sophs know
we're up to something?"

"I don't care."

"They might raise a rescue party and follow us."

"But they wouldn't frop any chost--I mean chop any frost with us."

"Pwhat's thot?" came suspiciously from the driver. "An' is it not
softmores ye are yersilves?"

"Of course we are," returned Harry, instantly.

"Thin pwhat fer do ye yell fer 'Umpty-eight?"

"Oh, it's a way we have. Don't mind it, but keep on driving if you want
to retain your scalp, paleface. We are mighty bad Injuns!"

The driver knew how to pick out the darkest and most deserted streets.
By the time the outskirts of the city were reached the freshmen were
bubbling over.

Frank Merriwell improvised a stanza of a song, and in a few moments the
entire band caught the words and the tune. As the hack rolled along
toward East Rock the freshmen sang:

"We belong to good old 'Umpty-eight,
For she's a corker, sure as fate, sure as fate.
We have met the sophomores,
And they're feeling awful sore;
So hurrah for good old 'Umpty-eight! 'Umpty-eight!"

"Begobs! ye're th' quarest gang av softmores Oi iver saw!" cried the
driver. "An' it's not wan av yez Oi remimber takin' up to th' freshman's
boording house."

"We have changed," explained Ned Stover.

"And it's the first change I have seen for a week," declared Harry
Rattleton. "I'm waiting to hear from the governor."

"Howld on," said the driver. "Oi want to see the mon thot hired me."

He threatened to pull up, but Frank caught the whip and cracked it over
the horses.

"What do you want?" asked Merriwell.

"Oi want me pay."

Now, Frank knew well enough that the driver had received his pay in
advance, but he was beginning to suspect that the party that hired him
had come to grief, and so he was for exacting an extra payment from the
victors.

"Look here, driver," said Frank, sternly, "I want your number."

"Pwhat fer?"

"In case it may appear later on that you have received money at two
separate and distinct times for doing the same piece of work."

"Get oop!" yelled the driver. "It's ownly foolin' Oi wur."

So the hack rolled on its way, with the happy freshmen smoking and
singing, while the captive sophs ground their teeth and railed at the
bitter luck.

Inside the hack Dismal Jones, most hideously bedaubed, was smoking a
cigarette and brandishing a wooden tomahawk at the same time, while he
sat astride of Bruce Browning, who was on the floor.

"This is a sad and solemn occasion, paleface," croaked Dismal. "You have
driven the noble red man from his ancestral halls, which were the dim
aisles of the mighty forests; you have pushed him across the plains, and
you have tried to crowd him off the earth into the Pacific Ocean. Ugh!
You have pursued him with deadly firearms and still more deadly fire
water. You have been relentless in your hatred and your greed. You have
even been so unreasonable that whenever a poor red man has secured a few
paleface scalps as trophies to hang in his wigwam you have taken your
trusty rifles and gone forth with great fury and shot the poor Indian
full of hard bullets. You have done heap many things that you would not
have done if you had not done so. But now, poor, shivering dog of a
paleface, the injured red man has arisen at last in his might. If we are
to perish, we are to perish; but before we perish, we will enjoy the
gentle pleasure of roasting a few white men at the stake. Ugh! We have
held a council of war, we have excavated the hatchet, we have smashed
the pipe of peace to flinders, or something of the sort, and have struck
out upon the war trail."

"You act as if you had struck out," growled one of the captives.

"That's because he has had a few balls," gurgled Browning. "Talk about
being burned at the stake! That's not torture after being obliged to
inhale his breath. My kingdom for some chloroform! Will somebody please
hit me on the head with a trip hammer and put me out of my misery?"

"Whither art thou bearing us, great chief?" asked one of the captives.

"We will bare you out yonder," answered Dismal. "At the stake you shall
stand arrayed in the garments nature provided for you."

"I don't care for tea," murmured Browning--"not even for repartee."

"This is worse than being roasted at the stake!" muttered a soph in a
corner. "It is severe punishment."

"Help!" cried Dismal. "Somebody take me out! I can't get ahead of these
miserable palefaces."

"You'll get a head if I ever find a good chance to give it to you,"
declared the voice of Puss Parker from the darkness.

Outside the painted savages were roaring:

"Farewell! farewell! farewell, my fairy fay!
Oh, I'm off to Louisiana
For to see my Susy Anna,
Singing 'Polly-wolly-woodle' all the day."

And thus the captured sophomores were borne in triumph out to East Rock,
and as they were the ones who engaged the hack, they paid for their own
conveyance.

Never before had anything like it happened at Yale. It was an event that
was bound to go down in history as the most audacious and daring piece
of work ever successfully carried through by freshmen in that college.

And Frank Merriwell was to receive the credit of being the originator of
the scheme and the general who carried it out successfully.




CHAPTER VIII.

THE "ROAST" AT EAST ROCK.


A strange and remarkable scene was being enacted in the peaceable and
civilized State of Connecticut--a scene which must have startled an
accidental observer and caused him to fancy for a moment the hand of
time had turned back two centuries.

Near a bright fire that was burning on the ground squatted a band of
hideously-painted fellows who seemed to be redskins, while close at
hand, bound and helpless, were a number of palefaces, plainly the
captives of the savages.

That a council of war was taking place seemed apparent. And still the
savages seemed waiting for something.

At length, out of the darkness advanced a tall, well-built warrior, the
trailing plumes of whose war bonnet reached quite to the ground. If
anything, this fellow was more hideously painted than any of the others,
and there was an air of distinction about him that proclaimed him a
great chief.

"Ugh!" he grunted. "I am here."

The savages arose, and one of them said:

"Fellow warriors, the mighty chief Fale-in-his-Hoce--I mean
Hole-in-his-Face--has arrived."

Then a wild yell of greeting went up to the twinkling stars, and every
savage brandished a tomahawk, scalping knife, or some other kind of
weapon.

"Brothers," said Hole-in-his-Face, "I see that I am welcome in your
midst, as any up-to-date country newspaper reporter would say. You have
received me with great _eclat_--excuse my French; I was educated
abroad--in New Jersey."

"Go back to Princeton!" cried one of the captives.

"Fellow warriors," continued Hole-in-his-Face, without noticing the
interruption, "I am heap much proud to be with you on this momentous
occasion."

"Yah! yah! yah!" yelled the savages.

"And now," the chief went on, "if you will proceed to squat on your
haunches I will orate a trifle."

Once more the redskins sat down on the ground, and then the late arrival
struck an attitude and began his oration:

"Warriors of my people, why are we assembled together to-night?"

"Because we couldn't assemble apart," murmured a voice.

"We are assembled to avenge our wrongs upon the hated paleface," the
chief declared. "It was long ago that the proud and haughty paleface got
the bulge on the red man, and we have not been in the game to any great
extent since then. Every time we have held two pairs he has come in with
one pair of sixes or a Winchester and raked the pot. He has not given us
any kind of a show for our white alley. Whenever we seemed to be getting
along fairly well and doing a little something, he has wrung in a cold
deck on us and then shot us full of air holes, purely for the purpose of
ventilation in case we objected. Warriors, we have grown tired of being
soaked in the neck."

"That's right," nodded a savage, "unless we are soaked in the neck with
fire water."

"At last," shouted the orator--"at last we have arisen in our wrath and
our war paint and we are out for scalps. We have decided that the joy of
the red man is fleeting. To-night a flush mantles your dark cheeks, but
to-morrow it will be a bobtail flush. What have we to live for but
vengeance on the white man and a little booze now and then? Nothing! Our
squaws once were beautiful as the wild flowers of the prairie, but now
the prize beauty of our tribe is Malt Extract Maria, whose nose is out
of joint, whose eyes are skewed, whose teeth are covered with fine-cut
tobacco, and who lost one of her ears last week by accidentally getting
it into the mouth of her husband.

"My brothers, we are not built to weep. It is not the way of the noble
red man. A few more summers and we will be no more. We will have kicked
the stuffing out of the bucket and wended our way up the golden stair.
But before we cough up the ghost it behooves us to strike one last blow
at the hated paleface. When we get a chance at a paleface it is our duty
to do him, and do him bad. Are you on?

"We have been successful in capturing a few of our hated foes, and they
are bound and helpless near at hand. Shall they be fricasseed, broiled,
fried, or made into a potpie? That is the question before the meeting,
and I am ready to listen to others. Let us hear from Squint-eyed
Sausageface."

"It doesn't make a dit of bifference--I mean a bit of difference to me
how I have my paleface cooked," said the one indicated as Squint-eyed
Sausageface. "Perhaps it would be well enough to cook them at the
stake."

"I think that would be the proper mode," gravely declared another
warrior; "for I have heard that they boast they are hot stuff. They
should not boast in vain."

"Warriors," said Hole-in-his-Face, "you have heard. What have you to
say?"

"So mote it be," came solemnly from one.

"Yah! yah! yah!" yelled the others.

"That settles it, as the sugar remarked to the egg dropped into the
coffee. Prepare the torture stakes."

There was a great bustle, and in a short time the stakes were prepared
and driven into the ground, one of the savages hammering them down with
a huge stick of wood.

Then the captives were bound to the stakes and a lot of brush was
brought and piled about their feet.

Some of the sophs actually looked scared, but Browning kept up a
continual fire of sarcastic remarks.

"Ugh!" grunted Hole-in-his-Face. "This paleface talks heap much. Remove
his outer garments, so the fire may reach his flesh without delay."

Then Browning was held and his clothes were stripped off till he stood
in his under garments, barefooted, bareheaded, and still defiant.

"Oh, say!" he muttered, "won't there be an awful hour of reckoning!
Merriwell will regret the day he came to Yale!"

At this Hole-in-his-Face laughed heartily, and Browning cried:

"Oh, I know you, Merriwell! You can't fool me, though you have got the
best makeup of them all."

When everything was ready, one of the savages actually touched a match
to the various piles of brush about the feet of the unfortunate
sophomores.

As the tiny flames leaped up the painted band joined in a wild war dance
about the stakes, flourishing their weapons and whooping as if they were
real Indians. Some of their postures and steps were exact imitations of
the poses and steps taken by savages in a war dance.

"Say, confound you fool freshmen!" howled one of the captives. "This
fire is getting hot! Do you really mean to roast us?"

"Yah! yah! yah! Hough! hough! hough!"

Round and round the stake circled the disguised freshmen, and the fire
kept getting higher and higher.

Puss Parker fell to coughing violently, having sucked down a large
quantity of smoke. Some of the others raved and some begged. But still
the wild dance went on.

"Merciful cats!" gasped Tad Horner. "I believe they actually mean to
roast us!"

"Sure as fate!" agreed another. "They won't think to put out the fires
till we are well cooked, if they do then!"

"This is awful!" gurgled Parker. "Browning, can't you do something?"

"Well, I hardly think so," confessed the king of the sophomores. "But I
will do something if I ever get out of this alive! You hear me murmur!"

"Say!" cried Tad Horner. "I can't stand this much longer. The fire is
beginning to roast me."

"It's getting warm," confessed Parker. "But it seems to keep burning
around the outside edge."

"Keep cool," advised Browning.

"What's that?" yelled Horner. "Who said 'keep cool?' Oh, say! That's
too much!"

"Just look at the wood," directed the king of the sophomores. "You will
notice that all the wood about our feet is water soaked, and there's
only a little dry wood out around the edges. That's all that is
burning."

This they soon saw was true, and it gave them great relief, for it had
begun to seem that the crazy freshmen actually meant to roast them.

At the very moment when the uproar was at its height there came a sudden
loud cry, like a signal, and out of the darkness rushed at least twenty
lads.

They were sophomores who had somehow followed them out there to East
Rock, having been aroused and told of the capture of Browning and his
mates by the soph who escaped.

One fellow on a bicycle had followed them till he felt sure of their
destination, and then he had turned back and told the others, who
hastily secured teams and flew to the rescue.

"'Umpty-seven! 'Umpty-seven! 'Rah, 'rah! 'rah!" yelled the rescuers as
they charged upon the freshmen.

"'Umpty-eight! 'Umpty-eight! 'Rah! 'rah! 'rah!" howled the painted lads
in return.

Then for a few moments there was a pitched battle.

The battle did not last long, for the freshmen saw they were
outnumbered, and at a signal from their leader they broke away and took
to their heels.

By rare good luck every man was able to get away, for, not knowing
anything about the water-soaked wood piled about the feet of the
captives, the rescuers nearly all stopped to scatter the burning brush.

"Oh, say!" grated Browning, as he was released. "But this means gore and
bloodshed! We'll never rest till we have squared for this roast, and we
will square with interest! Merriwell's life will be one long, lingering
torture from this night onward!"

"What's all this racket and cheering?" asked one of the rescuers.
"Listen, fellows! By Jove! it seems to come from the place where we left
our carriages!"

"That's what it does, and it's the freshman yell," cried another. "Come
on, fellows! If we don't get a move on we may have to walk back."

They started on a run, but when they arrived at the place where the
teams had been left not a team was there.

The freshmen had captured the teams, drivers and all, together with the
hack, and far along the road toward the city could be heard a cheering,
singing crowd. As the disgusted and furious sophs stood and listened the
singing and cheering grew fainter and fainter.

"Fellows," said Chop Harding, "I am sorry to leave Yale, but I am
certain to be hanged for murder. After this, whenever I see a freshman I
shall kill him instantly."

It was a doleful and weary crowd of sophs that came filing back into
town and sneaked to their rooms that night.

Of course the sophs would have given a great deal could they have kept
the story quiet, but on the following morning it seemed that every
student in the college knew all about it.

The juniors laughed and chaffed the sophomores, who were sullen and
sulky and who muttered much about getting even.

The freshmen were jubilant. They were on top for the time, and they all
knew they might not have long to crow, so they did all the crowing they
could in a short time.

And still nobody seemed to know just who was concerned in the affair,
save that Merriwell and Browning must have been.

When Browning was questioned he was so blankly ignorant of everything
that it seemed as if he had slept through the whole affair. He had a way
of turning every question off with another question, and it was soon
discovered that no information could be obtained from him.

Still it was passed from lip to lip that the great and nighty king had
been found by the rescuers, stripped to his underclothes, and tied to a
stake, while the smoke arose thickly around him and nearly choked him.

Some one suggested that Browning's complexion seemed to have changed in
a remarkable manner, and then the students fell to asking him if he
really enjoyed a smoke.

Browning seemed subdued; but those who knew him best were telling
everybody to hold on and see what would happen.

"This is just the beginning," they said.

However, several days passed and still nothing occurred. It began to
look as if the sophs had decided that they were outgeneraled and were
willing to let the matter drop.

Frank Merriwell was not deceived. He knew the sophs were keeping still
in order to deceive the freshmen into a belief that there was no danger,
and he continued to warn all his friends to "watch out."

In the meantime Diamond had recovered and was in evidence among the
freshmen. It was said that he went down to Billy's, a favorite freshman
resort, and spent money liberally there almost every night.

The result of this soon became apparent. Diamond was surrounded by a
crowd of hangers-on who seemed to regard him as a leader. He was working
for popularity, and he was obtaining it in a certain way.

Now, Frank Merriwell was no less generous than Jack Diamond, but he
would not drink liquor of any kind--he would not touch beer. It did not
take him long to discover that this peculiarity caused many of the
students to regard him with scorn. He was called the Good Templar and
was often derisively addressed as Worthy Chief.

The very ones who were first to apply the name in derision afterward
came to call him Worthy Chief in sincere admiration.

Frank went around to Billy's occasionally, and although he would not
drink, he treated frequently, paying for anything his companions wanted
to take, from beer to champagne.

One evening Frank, Harry and Dismal Jones went into Billy's and found
Diamond and a large crowd there. Jack had been drinking something
stronger than lemonade, and he was holding forth to a crowd of eager
listeners.

One look at Diamond's flushed face did Merriwell take, and then he knew
the fellow was open for anything. The high color in the cheeks of the
Virginian was a danger signal.

Merriwell and his two friends ordered drinks, Frank taking ginger ale.
Harry and Jones lighted cigarettes.

Frank examined the pictures around the walls. There were ballet dancers
who were standing on one toe, famous trotters, painted pictures of
celebrated fighting cocks, hunters in red coats leaping five-barred
fences, and so forth.

As he looked over the pictures he became aware that Diamond was saying
something that was intended for his ears.

"Southerners never fight with their fists," the Virginian declared.
"They consider it brutal and beastly, and so they do not learn the
so-called 'art.' They are able to fight with some other weapons, though.
There is a man in this college who is trying to be a high cock of the
walk, but he will never succeed till he shows his right by meeting me
face to face with weapons of which I have knowledge. I have met him with
his weapons, and if he is not a coward he will give me a show. But I
think he is a coward and a sneak, and I--"

That was more than Frank could stand. He did not pause to think that
Diamond had been drinking and was utterly reckless, but he whirled and
advanced till he stood squarely in front of the Virginian.

"I presume, Mr. Diamond, that you are referring to me," he said, coldly
and steadily, although he could feel the hot blood leaping in his veins.

Diamond looked up insolently, inhaled a whiff of his cigarette, and then
deliberately blew the smoke toward Frank.

"Yes, sir," he said, "I presume I did refer to you. What are you going
to do about it?"

"You called me a coward and a sneak."

"Exactly, sir."

"If I had not already left the marks of my knuckles on you I would slap
your face. As it is, I will simply--pull your nose!"

And Frank did so, giving Diamond's nose a sharp tweak.

Up to his feet leaped the Virginian, his face white with wrath. He
picked up a glass of champagne as he arose, and then he dashed it into
Frank's face.

In a twinkling friends were between them, keeping them apart.




CHAPTER IX.

THE DUEL.


Merriwell smiled and wiped the champagne from his face with a white silk
handkerchief. The proprietor bustled in and threatened. Diamond quivered
with excitement.

"There will be no further trouble here," calmly said Frank. "This matter
must be settled between us--I could see that plainly enough. It wan just
as well to bring it to a head at once."

"Lunder and thightning--I mean thunder and lightning!" panted Rattleton.
"He won't fight you again with his fists."

"I do not expect him to."

"You'll have to fight with rapiers, sure!" said another.

"Merriwell, you're a fool!"

"Thank you."

"You have fallen into his trap. He was making that talk to drive you to
do just what you did."

"Well, he may congratulate himself on his success."

"Blamed if I understand you! You seem cool enough, and still you act as
if you actually meant to meet him with deadly weapons."

"I shall meet him with any kind of weapons he may name."

Roll Ditson came forward.

"Of course you understand that I have no feeling, Merry, old man," he
said; "but Diamond has chosen me as his second once more, and so I can't
refuse to serve him. It is a most unfortunate affair, but he insists
that you fight him with rapiers."

"Very well; I agree to that. Arrange the time and place with my second,
Mr. Rattleton."

Frank sat down, picked up an illustrated paper, and seemed deeply
interested in the pictures.

Ditson drew Rattleton aside.

"My principal," said he, swelling with importance, "demands that this
meeting take place at once."

"Great Scott!" exploded Harry. "I object to this sort of business. It is
outrageous! If one of them should be seriously wounded, what excuse can
be made?"

"We'll find some excuse that will go."

"But what if one of them should be killed?"

"I hardly think anything as serious as that will occur."

"But should it, there would be an investigation, and expulsion and
disgrace, if nothing worse, would overtake us."

"Oh, well, if you are afraid, just go back and tell Mr. Merriwell to
apologize here and now, and I think Mr. Diamond will let him off."

Harry looked at Merriwell and then shook his head.

"He'll never do that," he said, hoarsely. "We'll have to arrange this
duel. There is no other way for it."

Between the ages of sixteen and twenty-three blood runs hot and swift in
the veins of a youth. It is then that he will do many wild and reckless
things--things which will cause him to stand appalled when he considers
them in after years.

Frank believed that in order to retain his own self respect and the
respect of his comrades he must meet Diamond and give him satisfaction
in any manner he might designate.

But there was another reason why Frank was so willing to meet the
Virginian. Merriwell was an expert fencer. At Fardale he had been the
champion of the school, and he had taken some lessons while traveling.
He had thoroughly studied the trick of disarming his adversary, a trick
which is known to every French fencing master, but is thought little of
by them.

He believed that he could repeatedly disarm Diamond.

His adventures in various parts of the world had made him somewhat less
cautious than he naturally would have been and so he trusted everything
to his ability to get the best of the Virginian.

Roland Ditson longed to force Merriwell to squeal. He did not fancy
Frank knew anything of fencing, and he thought Merriwell would soon lose
his nerve when he saw himself toyed with by Diamond.

And Diamond had promised not to seriously wound the fellow he hated.

The meeting was arranged as quietly as possible, and the freshmen who
were to witness it slipped out of Billy's by twos and threes and strode
away.

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.