em ate peminptamenr catia 2
ean Fe

3 CENTS

 

STREET & S/VITH
PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK

“Leave the settlement of this affair to me, Jim,” Merriwell said, with quiet decisi
iT) > ¢ . ° , ~
I will permit no fighting here. The fellow isn’t worth it.” Being

 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

f
| for the Affiérican Youth

> 7 SEY

 

 

 

 

Issued Weekly. Entered as Second-class Matter at the New York Post Office, by STRBET & SMITH, 79-89 Seventh Ave., New York.
Copyright, 1912, 6y STREET & SMITH. O.G. Smith and G. C. Smith, Proprietors.

 

TERMS TO TIP TOP WEEKLY MAIL SUBSCRIBERS.
‘ (Postage Free.)
Single Copies or Back Numbers, Sc. Each.
B MOMNENS.«- ++ +2 ee eenceen cee eccceeee BSc, ONG OAR iin Uke Lice. tp El Tas oe oeest $2.50
4 Wionths.------ cee ee cree e se eeee seer 85c. 2 copies one year...........
6 months. «+--+ sere eet = fa «OR, 20. 1 COPY CCN OORM. oh Saat wiles ses wasp icce 4,00

How to Send Money—By post-office or express money order, registered
letter, bank check or draft, at our risk. At your own risk if sent by currency,
coin, or postage stamps in ordinary letter. .

Receipts—Receipt of your remittance is acknowledged by proper change
ofnumber on your label. If not correct you have not been properly credited,
and should let us know at once.

 

 

No. 832.

NEW YORK, March 23, 1912.

 

Price Five Cents.

DICK MERRIWELL’S CHAMPIONS;

Or, FOUL PLAY. IN THE HOCKEY GAME.

By BURT L. STANDISH.

CHAPTER: 1:
A SUGGESTION OF MYSTERY.

Jack Tempest flung himself into Jim Phillips’ room,
banged the door after him none too géntly, and, after
jamming his hands to the utmost depths of his trousers

pockets, flashed a pair of blazing, resentful eyes upon
“the young men who were gathered there. .They had
N° been awaiting his’coming, too, but had not expected
) that he would bring one of his well-known “tempers”’
with him. ;
Maxwell nudged Jim Phillips, who sat next to him;

Brady reached under the table and gave Woful Wat-

son's leg a pinch which brought forth a pronounced

“Ouch!” accompanied by a ferocious scowl and some-
, thing murmured under the breath which fortunately
‘was not heard. Arnold winked at Hollister. Tod
Hunter grinned. All waited for Tempest to announce
- the nature of his trouble, and all knew that they would
not have long to wait.

- “Tt’s a confounded shame, fellows!” Tempest burst
~ out, and he glared from one to, another of the seven
' - faces that confronted him, as if he were bent upon

attacking every man there, jointly and severally.
‘What's wrong now, Jack?’ Phillips asked. He
had learned to know almost every phase of the char-

‘acter of the fiery, hot-headed Virginian, and he real-

ized, upon the instant that Tempest made his appear-
arice, that the present attitude of the young Southerner
was due to something that was more than trivial.
i “Tt’s a‘rotten shame that we can’t have a game of

any sort, no matter what, without a suggestion of
trickery creeping into it,’ Tempest said, with some ex-
citement. ‘There never was a nicer, healthier sport,
and there could not be a cleaner game than a cross-
country run, like the one we just had, but the social
scavengers around this town couldn't let even that
escape ‘their tongues. I—I'm afraid | let my temper
get the best of me, Jim; but honestly I couldn’t help
it. The fellow got so abusive that I—well, as I heard
one of the freshies express the “idea ‘the other day, I
handed him one.” .

“Oh, me; oh, my!” said Woful, with a groan. “Do
you mean, Tempie, that you were rude enough to
strike somebody with your fists?”

‘Yes, I do,’ Tempest replied, glaring at Watson.

“And he not a Yale man?” '

“No.) He was a——”

“Dear me! Probably that person has already gone
to a magistrate and sworn out a warrant for your
arrest. It is terrible! You will be convicted and sent
to prison, and——’’

“Shut up, Wo!” Brady growled. ‘“Who djd you hit,
Jack, and what was it all about?” he added, bending
toward Tempest. :

“T don’t know who he was, only that he was not a
gentleman,” Tempest replied hotly, turning toward the
young giant who loved a fight better than anything
else in the world, according to his own statement, but
whc never liked to get into one for fear of hurting
somebody. “I was at the Lincoln Hotel, calling upon

%

lt Scie ign hy a li oe abet | =

ia
aa

 

i Sone

Baten hi  mael,
pts

 
AIP) TOP

a. ftiend who is stopping there. He is an old-time
chum of mine, from the South. I’m going to have him
over and let you all meet hiin presently. He is——”

“Oh, tell us about the scrap,’ Hunter, exclaimed.
pet's ie the harrowing details of the unseemly row
at the Lincoln. The newest and greatest hotel of New
Haven has at last received it’s baptism of berrr-lood.
Quit kicking me on the shins, Arnold.”

“Where did it happen? In the lobby?”
inquired.

“No,” Tempest replied. “In the cafe. I had just
left: Spofford; who is the friend I have mentioned. I
wanted to go down Chapel Street, so I started to leave
the hotel ‘by passing through the café directly to Chapel
Street, instead of going out through the main entrance
to College Street.. There were four or five men stand-
ing ina knot at the bar as. I-~was:passing through. You
know the place is a trifle narrow right there, and I
was obliged to pass very close to them. I don’t think
I would have noticed them at all if I had not heard my
Own name mentioned, and then Brady's, and then
jJim’s.. And then—say, Jim, do you know a girl whose
naine is Anne?”

Every eye in the room was instantly turned upon
Jim Phillips—except the two that’ belonged to Bill
Brady His were fixed upon his shoe lacing, which he
Was vainly.endeavoring 5 retie. . Jim, quite naturall
blushed with confusion—and turned the redder |
cause he was conscious of it.

“She was a queen and invented cottages,’ Hollister
said, in a loud whisper to his nearest! companion.

“How old is Anne?’ Woful inquired solemnly, and
with so much seriottsness that Tempest instantly re-
plied to him, turn his attention for the moment
away from Phillips.

#1 don’t. know. how old she is or what her fast name
E don't even know whether there is really such a
But those fellows who were standing at that
a slander against the integrity. of the men
and they used a girl’s name in doing

’

Jim Phillips

V
ane

Je~

+
ing

is;
person.
bar; uttered
of: Yale college,
it, and—I couldn't stand it, that’s all.’

“Isn't this tale of yours getting ‘mixed, Jack?”
Phillips asked: “You started in by saying that we
eculdn’t have a game of any sort without a suggestion
of trickery, from somewhere, about it; then you
-branch off upon the subject of a girl. What has the
game to do with the girl, whose name you say is Anne,
-and what have the men ‘standing at the bar in the
Lincoln Hotel to do with either >

Tempest whirled toward: Phillips. For some reason
the question put by Phillips, or the form of it, had
brought back all the anger he had visited upon the men
in the barroom.
“You haven't replied to my question yet,’
“Do you know a girl by that name, Phillips ?”

“I know several young ladies who bear that name,”
‘wasithe reply. . <\
_. “Well. then, did you see and co to one ofthe
 several-—you and Brady? Both.of you?—during the
GEQss: country run, aap aa vr

he said.

WEEKLY.

“W
tion.
and Dick Merriwell,
said of the incident to whi
ring, and net a word had been uttered about that part §
of a certain interruption of the Saturday’s run.)*

“Did that cottage

‘hy, yes,’ replied Phillips, with evident hesita-

(It h ad been agreed between Phillips and Brady
that nothing whatever should be

you see her where had

q

i

been |

burned down—-where I came so near to catching yous

‘Tempest persisted.

99

that day?”
“Yes; but
“Hold on’ a minute, Jim.
about this before I tell my story about the row Over
at the Lincoln.
there, too?”
“Oh, say,

\

Jack, what’s the use of asking me a lof
of questions when I don’t know what in the world
you are talking about? Whave told you all about that)
fire, and that there wasn't anybody living in the com™
tage, and that we saw the fire from the.top of the hilly
from. which you first discovered us, and

“Stop again, Jim.
affair that you haven't toll, judging by your manner
I think it is my~right, now, and the right of all ‘of
us, in the light of what I have just heard, 1 to know. alt

j
i

I’ve: got to know more

ch Tempest was now refers ]

a

about that affair—for it seems to have assumed the

proportions of an event. When I went over
of the hill, and discovéred you and Brady, Merriwell
was with you. I looked upon that burning house as
merely one of the incidents of the run. But if there:

day, there is a whole lot more to it. I’ve had a
about the subject, now, and I demand to know
about it. I think we all ought to know about it.

I¢™

the brow ~

is quite ev ident that: you and Brady are holding some

thing back.”

Big Bill Brady leaped to his feet and took ‘the center,

of the floor.
“Dll tell you what I think,” he exclaimed.
this: We have met here, by appointment, to discuss

a challenge that has been sent to us.by the Wonders,”

to compete with them at hoe ckey. ,We were only await=

ing the coming of Tempest, to decide upon what wes

a

finish, that

are to do about it, and so I vote that we
up first.”

“Do. you?” Tempest rejoined wrathfully.
Pil tell, you oueeg right now,. hot off
too. I won't. play hockey, or any other game, with
you and Phillips, until I know your side of ithe story

about that affair of the cross- country ruil,’

CHAPTER Ii.

BIG BILL BRADY WAXES WROTH.

Wy elie
the’ bats.

y
Brady. turned an uneasy glance’ toward Phillips,

Jim replied to it by a shrug of his shoulders. | Both
Anew aie utterly. impossible as jane could a

‘» ° . ‘3
Was Cameron of the senior class, ¥

i

There. is a lot concerning that.

is even a semblance of truth in what I have heard! to- £

all ;

“Tt 4s d

 
if

F
Ih

i
j
}

Te Or

ns that his personal rights had been infringed
Nev eiicless: Phillips “made yet another effort
‘Listen to me a moment, Jack,” he said, in a tone
Pas soothing as he dared assume. “Tf there was any
thing about that incident at the burning cottage that
affected the class, or the men we » know, or the run
itself, Brady and I would have related it to all of
you long ago. You can take our word for it that
| there was not. If there is anything connected with
“it or associated with it that we have not told, you may
rest assured that we have had very good reasons for
keeping silent ; reasons which we consider adequate, as
p well as just ne we think that you should.have con-
fidence enough in both of us to respect our silence.
LAV have met here now to talk hockey, and——’”’
*"Well, I won't talk hockey, or anything else,

upon.

until

M 1 have received reasonable answers to my questions,”

]

ny it,”

} after we have finished about the hockey.
Bf ¢o go to New 3

i out the season, and this game with us, if we play it,

)

retorted Tempest hotly.

~ “The challenge is here,
said Brady.

“Oh, drop the other matter for the present, Tem-
i pest, Arnold called out. “We can take it up again
We've got
York to play the games. The Wonders
have defeated abut everybody they have met through-

and we must decide about

f will be the very last; and we must decide right now,

5

cold weather lasts, or we

y
iP

/
|
i

\
|),

t

f|!

i
!
‘
My

and fix upon a date within a very few days, while the
won't be able to play it
at all.’

for a moment there was intense silence, during
which Tempest g olared around the room from one face
‘fo another.  F nally , When his eyes encountered
Phillips’, he said:

“As that seems to be the general sentiment of. this
meeting, and as my wishes don’t appear to have any

Aveight, go ahead with your hockey—but count me out

a

i)
\

i
}
a

For it.’

“Don’t say that, Jack,’ Jim Phillips said.

“1 do say it, and I repeat it. Go ahead with your
hockey, and count me out. I have had a fight this
ce" which-almost developed into a bastoote row,

although I was only passing through the place when
! it happened. But it came about heeadae IT wouldn’t
Stand for what I heard said, reflecting upon you, and
Brady, and—and that’s all I'll say about it just now.

[<1 considered it my duty to uphold the gentlemanly

standards of my class, of this university, Favia of the
. games we play, and I did it. Your reticence, your re-
Juctance to talk about the very thing that compelled
“me to fight, makes it appear that perhaps those gos-
‘sipers were right, after. all, and that I did wrong in
resenting iliat they said. It is certain that I chal
not, take part in any game of hockey, or in any other
ame, in Which you and Brady participate, until I am
+ thoroughly assured that your own conduct was above
reproach.”
Phillips winced.
Spoke again.
' “TI think you are rather arbitrary,

Brady scowled.

Tempest,” he

Arnold, a junior,

WEEKLY. 3

said. “You can’t mould the entire university aecord-
ing to your ideas, you know.’

“NoN am beginning to realize that,’
castic response.

“You are unreasonable,
just:

‘That is a matter of
does not happen to agree with mine.
is all.”

“What is it that you want, anyhow?”

‘“Nothing—from you, Arnold.”

“Great Scott, man, just because you happened to lose
your temper over at the Lincoln, and got into some
sort of a scrap, do you think it necessary to return
here and get into another, with your best friends?
What's the use of going around with’a chip on your
shoulder all the time? We want you in this hockey
game. You're the only Southerner I ever saw who
could skate, but you are a wonder as a rover,
and

‘“Confound you,

was the sar-
‘Tempest; you are also un-

Arnold, and yours
We differ, that

opinion,

Arnold! Don’t you suppose that

Southerners can skate just as good as you Northern-

ers?’ Tempest cried, white now to the lips.

“Oh, well, I didn’t mean that as you took it, Tem-
pest.”

“T don’t care how you meant it. I wouldn't play
in the game now, anyhow. You can get another rover.
I won’t play,.and that’s all about it.’

Big Bill Brady, the giant of even temper, as he was,
sometimes called, because he was exceedingly slow to
wrath, seemed, for some inexplicable reason, to ~be
unduly mdved by the scene. Several times he had
apparently been on the point of interrupting, and had
controlled himself only with an effort.

Now he turned his back squarely upon Tempest.

“Arnold is right about the challenge,” he said.
‘There is necessity for haste. I move that we pro-
ceed’ to considér it, and that if there is any person
present who does not wish to take part, he withdraw

‘from the room. It is just possible that still another
barroom brawl might result from a discussion in the
presence of nonparticipants.”’

A deathlike hush fell upon the room after that.

The students were accustomed to the fiery outbursts
of Tempest, and rarely paid much attention to them;
they. had considered, almost to a man, that this one
would blow over presently, as many others had done.
Now Brady had called down the wrath of all his
fellows upon him for what they deemed to be a de-
liberate affront toward Tempest, whose one weakness
they had‘ grown into the habit of overlooking.

It was quite evident, too, that Brady had meant to
offend Tempest, though not a man there could guess
his reason—if he had one. It is doubtful if he could
have named it himself. Brady knew only that he was
unreasonably angry at Tempest for interfering as he
had done with the proceedings in regard to the great
game of hockey against the Wonders, which they were
eager to win; but deep down in Bill's heart was an-

 
PLE ELOP

other thought which he had-barely recognized, and
which he could not understand even then—it was ‘an-
ger at the thought that the name of a young woman
should have been mentioned in connection with the
misunderstanding; and more particularly that the
name of the girl should have been Anne Wheaton.

He stood quite still after’ he had spoken, ,with his
back toward Tempest; but the latter, now so angry
that he was actually white, stepped quickly forward
with uplifted arm, as if he intended to strike the young
giant.

Tom Arnold leaped forward on one side, Jim
Phillips on the other, and they both seized hold of
Tempest before he «ould commit the act. ‘Tempest
tried to wrench himself free from them, but was un-
successful.

“Tet go-of me! Take your hands off of me!” Tem-
pest cried.

But they held on the more tightly, knowing him as
they did:

~. *] won’t have any fighting in my room, Tempest,”
Phillips said decidedly.

“There isn’t any thing to fight about, anyway,” said
Arnold.

“Didn't you hear what that big, monolithie upstart
said to me?’ Tempest demanded.

Brady turned about in his tracks quickly. All could
see that he was also angry, though why he was so was
a mrystery.

“What I said, I meant, Mr. Tempest, every word
of it,? Brady announced. “You strut around New
Haven and the whole countryside forever announcing
that you are a gentleman, and eternally seeking to

“put everybody but yourself in the wrong. It’s getting
tiresome. ° It is time that you learned to exercise some
of the qualities you are always boasting about. For
my part, I think the hockey game is quite as well off
without your presence on the seven, and I am begin-
ning to believe that Yale would be none the worse for
your absence. Now, if you attempt to strike me, I'll
crush you as I would an eggshell; and’’—he turned and

“addressed Phillips—“unless we can proceed at once
with the business that brought us here, Jim, I shall
return to my own quarters.”

They released their hold upon Tempest’s arms and

_héwrenched himself away out of their reach.

He was speechless with his rage then. He could
‘only stand and glare around him. ~
But at last he found speech, and he raised his right

arm and ‘shook his fist in the air as he exclaimed furi-
ously :

“You shall pay for that, Brady.

You shall be
taught what view a gentleman takes of your present

conduct.” Then he turned upon his heels and went
_ out of the room.
The entire scene had been most embarrassing, and

“those who reinained went about the business in hand

: With heavy hearts. _

*

spoke up quickly.

WEEKLY:

CHAPTER tik

DICK MERRIWELL TAKES A“ HAND.

i consent nobody referred inf
any way to the incident’ that-had just taken place.» Asg
soon as Jack Tempest left the room, Phillips rapped hig
knuckles upon the table and called the meeting to
order. Harry Maxwell, pencil in hand, seated him=
self, with a pad of paper, to act as self-appointed sec
retary, as was his custom at such gatherings. :

“My friends,” said Jim, holding a paper in his hand}
from which he intended presently to read, “you haveg
sach been told what this méeting. is for. I have herey
a challenge from the members of a hockey club that is
called ‘The Wonders,’ inviting us to play them omg
game, with which they intend to close their season.
The Wonders are not a university team, but they standy
well, and have played many of the universities. Only]
two weeks ago they defeated the hockey players of the |
University of Toronto, and now they believe that they }
can take our scalps into their wigwams. What do you 4
think about it?” a

“Not by a jugful, they can’t!’ Tod Hunter yelled

“Why, we'll sweep up the ice with them, Jim,”4
shouted Maxwell: is

“The thing to be decided first is, shall we Play
them,” Arnold interjected. ‘Are any specific comdi-™
tions attached to that challenge, Phillips?” jan

‘No; that is, only: one.”

“What is that?” a

“The challenge reads: ‘At the Palace Rink, in New™
York City, on-any day of the week ending,’ et cetetay™
which is, I suppose, a condition. . It means that they’
will not come here to play, but that we must go there,

By mutual if unspoken

if we accept the challenge. But I should add, mm re»
gard to that point, that the letter which accompanies”
the challenge explains that somewhat arbitrary condi=
tion.” ‘aed
“What's the difference where we play them, 86°
long as we play them?” asked Hollister. ee
“And beat them,” added Woful, “that is, 1 Ww
don’t get beaten.. You know the ice might be bad,
Brady might get a lame ankle, and we’ve already lost:
Tempest. It puts us in a bad place.” ae
“For Heaven's sake, Woful, cheer up!” Brady said,
with just a touch of the savagery that he had directeds~
at Tempest still sounding in his voice. He turned tor
Phillips. “Don’t bother about putting this thing to
vote, Jim, If there is any dissenting voice to the pro-
posal contained in that challenge, let’s hear it peep>—
just once. It won't peep again very soon, Pek can get
my hands on it, I'll tell you that! | Nobody peeps, Jim,
so that’s settled.” eee
“There is one thing which we would do well to con
sider,” said Phillips, and there was a Slight flush o1
his face as he spoke, for Jim was much too honest no
to realize that it would be extremely difficult to fin
another rover as good as Tempest; but before Jim had
an opportunity to say what was on his mind, Brady

/ Th

ae ie

 
    
   
 
 
   
    
   
     
     
      
   
     
   
    
       
    
   
   
    
     
    
   
   
   
    
    
   
    
    
    
    
   
    
    
   
   
   
   
       
    
    
       
    
 
    
   
  

EP A OP

. “T know exactly what you were going to say,
‘ Phillips,” he said, “and I think it is my place to save
? you the trouble. | I'll try to make the situation a little
easier for all of you by saying that, as the case stands
F now, and in the light of the resentment I feel for the
\ moment toward Tempest, I’m glad that he has dropped
H out, and if it should be the sense of this meeting to
Snvite him to return and to take part in the projected
Re) game, you may include another goal keeper in that
invitation.”
3 “Well, if you call that making things easier-——

i

99

iad
~ Tod Hunter exclaimed.

“T+ makes ‘em simpler, anyhow,” Brady replied.
: ‘ “Tempest is out, and all we need to do is, to appoint
7? a new rover to play in his place. If you ask him to

[ ‘come back, all you'll need to do will be to appoint
| another goal keeper to act in my place.”

. “That's just about the difference between Tweedle-
dam and Tweedledee,” said Arnold,

i “What the dickens are you tnad about, anyhow,
i) Brady?’ Hollister demanded.’ “Nobody. but you
ie “thought it necessary to get warm around the cravat;
not even Phillips, and he was as deep in the thing as
lr you were.”

*“T despise a inan who will let the name of a girl
creep into a controversy,’ Brady replied, with some
heat.
~*Oho, oho, ohoho, and likewise oh-ho-ho-ho!” Max-
well murmured, sotto voce; and Tod Hunter bent over
and whispered in his ear, but so that everybody in the
room: could hear his remark:

“Does he call every evening, or only three times a
week, Harry?”

3rady wheeled upon them. His eyes were flash-
/ ing. It was rare indeed when William Brady, the
\ * good-natured giant of the sophomores, exhibited so
> mauch feeling.

“Tl say this much to you chaps who don’t know
~ anything about it,” he said. “When Phillips and. I
> were on that cross-country run together, we came upon
ha cottage that was burning, and at the scene of that
“fire we encountefed some people we had not ‘expected

to see there. Among them was a young lady. She
“went away before Tempest and his immediate follow-
| ers came over the brow of, the hill. Nothing hap-
pened that is any of our business—and,’” he added
slowly and with emphasis—*I do not expect to hear
again, from any man here, a reference, in any form,
to that circumstance.”
"There was a.dead silence.
*” Everybody there knew that Brady meant what he
| said.
ast by Arnold, who called out:
/ *Who.are we to have for rover, now that the posi-
“ion is vacant?”

Before the query could be ‘answered, there was a
fap at the door, and then it was pushed open, admitting
‘a personage whose advent brought every man there

to his feet upon the instant, for the newcomer was be-

loved by all. |

aS OR

 

 
 

 
 

     
 
 

 

Pd Vs 7

pi

 
 

by ora

An uncomfortable moment followed, ended at

WEEKLY.

“We'll ask Mr. Merriwell to settle that question for
us,’ Jim Phillips exclaimed, as the universal coach
came into the room and closed the door after him.
And, in response to that assertion, Tod Hunter began
to drum upon the floor with his heel and to drone
out in a sing-song tone in which everybody. joined
him:

“M-e, me, r-i, ri, merrr-ri, w-e, we, w-l, well; Mer-
riwell. He’s here!”’

“Getting things in shape for the game?’ Merriwell
asked, as he accepted a proffered chair and prepared
to take part in the proceedings; and he added, without
waiting for a reply: “You have accepted the chal-
lenge, of course—notwithstanding the fact that you
are at the present moment without a rover.”

“Oh, you know that, do you?’’ Arnold inquired.

“Certainly. I happened to meet Tempest. I asked
him why he was not here at the meeting. He said he
had withdrawn his name from the game, and passed
on; so I thought I’d come along up and see what was
to be done about it.”

“Tempest acted like ” Brady began, but Dick
Merriwell raised one hand and stopped him.

“T would rather not be told the particulars of what
has happened,” Dick said mildly. “Only one thing
about it is evident to me. It is this: The withdrawal
of Tempest leaves you without a rover, who 1s one
of the best rovers I ever saw in a hockey game. If
you accept the challenge of the Wonders, you will
have a game on your hands which will call forth every
bit of energy and skill you can command, and you can-
not afford to risk the loss of it for any reason that
can be avoided. Yale cannot afford such a. thing.
There are only three reasons in the world why Tem-
pest should not play the position of rover in the com-
ing gaine, and not one of them exists.”

“What are they?” Brady demanded.

“A broken leg, no ice, or sudden death,” replied

 

Merriwell, without cracking a smile; but a general

grin went the rounds of the room.

“Flow about the place of goal keeper?’’ Brady asked
quickly.

“Tt stands in the same category,’ was the imper-
turbable reply.

“Well, I don’t like to be a kill-joy, but I guess youll
find that you'll have to fill one place or the other with
a substitute.
you're making your selection.”

He started toward the door, but Dick Merriwell
arose and stopped him. :

CHAPTER IV.
THE BIGNESS OF BRADY.

Brady came to a stop when Merriwell made that ©

gesture, which was merely a voiceless appeal that he
would not permit himself to act too hastily.

“Sit down, Bill,” Merriwell said. ’“I have some-
thing to say to you. After that you can, of coutse,
act as you think best about this matter.” Roe

 
  

Stae+ ot me abe : aes 8

So I'll withdraw from the room while

Mi

 
TIP TOP

Brady resumed his chair, and Merriwell then ad-
dressed them all.

“] have no authority over you save as you direct
and permit me to exercise it,’ he said, “‘and so I shall
not speak as one with authority, but as I would feel
impelled to do if I were actually one of you.”

“We understand, Mr. Merriwell,” Tom Arnold said.

“The point is this,’ Merriwell continued, “you have
‘ received a challenge from one of the best, if not the
best, hockey seven that has been playing this year.
They have been victorious over all their competitors,
and they have won their games by good, clean playing.
Now, you want to beat them, don’t you?”

“We do!’’ came the chorus of voices.

“Well, isn’t it'to the glory of Old Eli that you do
want to beat them?”

Pitist”

“Tsn’t it Yale first, and your personal desires next,
that spurs you on?’

oes. “Tt is... “You: bet!”
‘Merriwell,” and so on.

“Can you find excuse for permitting a personal
matter of any sort, whether trivial or great, whether
unimportant or of vast importance, to interfere with
your success in that game that is to be played?”

“No, no, no, no!’

“Then, is it not of the greatest importance. that you
should go to that game with every sinew of your team
strength unstrained, and in good Ww rorking order ?”

“Tt certainly is, Mr. Merriwell, * Jim “Phillips said.
“I don’t see how we can afford to dispense with the
services of Tempest at this critical time. But he chose
to withdraw, of his own accord, because he lost that
fiery temper of his. ‘Then Brady got mad, and said
he wouldn’t play if Tempest were asked to reconsider.
That was the situation when you entered the room.”

“Very well,” Dick replied. ‘That is sufficiently
plain. So now listen to me for a moment.”

“We are all only too eager to do that,’
reply.

“Under the terms of the challenge, there is not time
for special work in training. As your seven exists
now, you are nearly perfect in your team work, and
special training for this projected, game is unneces-
sary. 1 believe that I could send you on the ice to-
night, and that you would win’ against the Wonders.
: Phat is the w ay I feel about! it.’ .
| Hear, hear!” cried Tod Hunter.

“But—it is not the way I would feel about it if
the present make-up of the team were broken; if your
- team work were interfered with, as it would be by the
withdrawal of any one of the seven.’

Silence greeted that remark.

“Hollister, who has not taken part with you this
year, until now, is perhaps as good a rover—for |
_know how he can play—as Tempest; but the fact re-
mains that he has not been playing with you, has not
had the practice, and is not up in the very important
amd necessary team play, nor has he had the practice
in forwarding, this year, that is essential to victory.

“Sure thing, Mr.

was the

\

\

WEEKLY.

If Tempest’s place as rover is filled, even by Hollister,
there must be errors, or, at the least, misjudgments, in
passing the puck—and in a game with the Wonders

just one such error or misjudgment might lose for ind
Now, what have you to say to me in reply to (4

Yale.
all this ?”’
All eyes in the room were turned upon Phillips.

He stood up as Merriwell reseated himself.
“T believe, Mr. Merriwell,” he said, “that every man
in this room will uphold what I am about to say. The

incident that occurred here just before your arrival q)

amounted to nothing. Tempest was not angry at any
person here, when he entered the room, but he was
angry, all the same. When he has lost his temper,
it is likely to be directed against the first person who
happens to stand in the way of it. Unfortunately, I
was the first to do that, and Brady was the next one.
Tempest said things which neither of us liked, and
which we quite naturally resented. The result was his
withdrawal from: the room, and

seven; another result was Brady’s statement that, if

-O
ae

from the hockey 1

Tempest were asked to resume his place, We would ©

[ am sure that Bill

withdraw as goal keeper. Now,
He stopped and

Brady will take that back
waited for Brady to speak.

Brady, for a fuli minute, remained silent, his chin
upon his breast, and his whole form held rigid.

Then the others could see that it gradually relaxed,

and presently he raised his head! and directed his
glance straight at Merriwell. Then he spoké very
slowly :

“For. the good of Yale, for the success of our
hockey team, I am quite willing to become one of a
committee of three to.wait upon Tempest and request
him to reconsider his decision not to play,” he said.

vf

There was a general clapping of hands in response 4

to that statement, and Dick Merriwell smiled.

“Fine!” Dick said. ‘‘That settles that. I think we:
will ask him to reconsider. May I have the appoint-
ment of that committee?” |

OUTEs te OR EE gourse,
of the room,

“Then I will ask Phillips and Brady to act ath
me—and I think we may consider it accormplished.
You have taken a load fagm my mind. The only way”
in which you can win is to keep your present team
intact.”’

A came from all sides |

h

“There is one thing that you haven't been told about. .

the affair,” said Phillips.
“T’d much prefer not to ‘be told.

‘ready, we will go to Tempest’s room now.’

See es, said Maxwell. “We will wait

here.”

The three left Phillips’*room together and sought.
the quarters of the young Virginian; but, although »
there was a light burning inside when they ' arrived,
there was no response to their knock on the door.

“This is too bad,” said Merriwell.
that he would wait here till I returned.”

go ahead,”

Come, if you are”, ;

“He told me %

 
Pore
Brady, who"was turning away from the door, halted
abruptly.
+ “So you talked with him about this business, did
your” he inquired, with a darkening brow. “May |
ask, Mr. Merriwell, if he knew what your errand to
us was to be?”’

“He might have guessed what it was; I did not in-
form him, for I did not know, myself,”’ was the calm
reply. “I encountered him, and I saw that he was
angry. 1 asked him why he was not at the meeting
of the seven, and he replied that he had no further \in-
terest in it because he had withdrawn. I told him I
“owas sorry, and said that, I was going to the meeting,
because Phillips had requested me to be present; and
then I asked him if he would do me the favor to wait
liere in his rooms until I could return to him aftet
the meeting, and he told me that he would do so. Is
there any objection to any of that, Mr. Brady?”

“Qf course not. All the same, he hasn't kept his
word. He isn’t here.”

“And doubtless there is a very good reason for his
not beittg here, Bill. I have never known Jack Tem-
pest to go back upon his given word. Here comes Bill
Frazer, the patrol. It is not unlikely that he may, have
seen Tempest, I will ask him.”

CHAPTER VY,

THE STRANGER AT! THE HOTEL,

out
Merri-

“T saw him, not twenty minutes ago, passing
through the middle arch,” Frazer told Dick
well.. “He turned toward Chapel Street.”

They thanked him, anditurned away,

“It's a cinch that he was going back to the Lincoln,”
said Brady. “I suppose he hadn’t had all the fight he
wanted, and so he has gone back there to look for
more.”

“We will stroll over that way,” said Dick, paying
no attention to this reference to what. had preceded
#hé scene in Phillips’ room. So, presently they entered
the Lincoln by the College Street deor, and, not per-
ceiving Tempest anywhere in the lobby, passed on to
the-lititle door which gives upon the café.

But neither was Jempest there, and they passed
directly through it to Chapel Street, and would have
gone outside, had not one of several persons who had
heen standing at the bar as they passed through, left
his companions and stepped quickly forward so that
he could touch Brady’s arm.

“{ beg your pardon,” he said, “but are you not Mr.
Brady, of Yale, And a member of the hox ckey seven?

Bill halted, and half turned to look the man over
with deliberation before he replied, Phillips and Mer-
riwell could not avoid hearing what was said.

"That is my nate,’ Brady replied. '
~ (“My name is Simpson. I’m nota college man. But
Tam very much interested in hockey, and I happen
to that your team has received a challenge from

“One moment, if you please,”

Brady said, interrupt-

WEEKLY.

ing the ready flow of words. “If you are seeking any
specific information, be good enough to. state exactly
what it is. 1 am with friends, and we happen to be
very busy.” Brady had already discovered evidences
of a blow upon the face of the man who had spoken
to him, and he had no doubt that this was the. very
person with whom. Tempest had had the personal en-
counter in that very place; and Brady was instantly
resentful. He might get angry at Tempest himself,
and say the things he had said, but he would none
the less fight for Tempest as against an outsider, on
the instant.

“T only wanted to know whether your team was
going to:accept the challenge of the Wonders, that’s
all,’’ said Simpson.

“Yes.” Brady again turned away;
question halted him.

“Ts Tempest going to play with you?’

Dick Merriwell stepped quickly forward.

“Let me reply to the gentleman,” he said. . “I amt
glad to state, in reply to your question, Mr. Sinapson,
that in all probability Mr. Tempest. will play im his
regular position at the games you re fer to. Had you
a notion that he might not do so?

“Well, yes, that was my idea,”
with a smile that was not pleasant.
your friends join us at the——”"

“Pardon me, no. We are not drinking.. Perhaps
you will tell me where you received that idea that Mr.
Tempest would not play.”

‘Why, from him; from Tempest himself. He was
here a little while ago,sand he came back again tot,
twenty minutes ago. You see, we had a little mis-
understanding oho he was here the first time, and
—er—w ell—-perhaps you are looking for him, Mr.—
I haven’t the delight of knowing your name, sir,”

“My name is Merriwell. Yes, 1 am seeking Mr,
Tempest. Good night.”

“Gee whiz! Are you Dick Merriwell?”. The
stranger stepped quick ly after Dick as the ‘latter. was
turning away, but Phillips stepped in between, “and
the three friends passed out into the street.

But Simpson was not to be balked.. He ‘followed
them to the door, opening it, and standing there while
he called out, in a tone that was half derisive, and
w holly insolent:

“Your friend Tempest returned here the last time
to make another row with me. An officer led him
from the place, but whether you will find him at head-
quarters, in Court Street, or elsewhere, [ don’t know.
I declined to make a charge against him.”

The man closed the door and reéntered the place.
Brady whirled in his tracks and would have dashed
after him had not Phillips and Merriwell each caught
him by an arm and detained him,,

but the next

was the reply, given
“Won't you’ and

“T declare, Bill, you are éeciine as ba headed as.

Tempest himself,”’ said Phillips.
“T don't like that fellow’s ma nners,

Merriwell-laughed. }
‘Ate you sure it was not the necktie he was wearing

” Brady Behn

 

 

 
.

 

‘cern ourselves with

is the way I view it;

“there is something else that needs my attention. '
Brady, when we get there, if you wish to be really big

-\of the coach.

LEP ROP

that you objected to?” he asked. “One fault is about
as objectionable as the other, so far as we are con-
cerned.”

“All the same,’ said Brady,
who that fellow is.”

“So would I,” Phillips joined in. “It wasn’t the
necktie, or the manner of the man that I objected to;
it was the man hitnself.”’

“Even the man himself is not worth your consid-
efation, Jim,” rejoined Merriwell: ‘In all probability
he is a hockey follower, who keeps on the track of
the Wonders, and who bets on their games, There
are such persons, just as there are race-track follow-
ers. The hockey club is in no way responsible for
their existence, any more than a race horse is indi-
vidually responsible for the existence of a pool room.
But it is likely that those three or four who were in
that café knew about the challenge, and have followed
ithere. However it may be, we have nothing to con-
about them.”

“Do you suppose it is true, what he said
officer taking Tempest out of that cafe?”

“Knowing Tempest as well as I do, it is‘quite likely
that he returned there, after his withdrawal from the
hockey team,’’ said Dick.

“Tust looking for trouble, eh?’

“Or words to that effect—yes.’

“And it would be like that big coward to call an
officer.’

“Oh, I don’t know.

“T would like to know

about an

said Phillips.

It would be more like the man
behind the bar to do that; but there might have been
one inside the place at the time; one off duty, you
know, who saw that Tempest would get into trouble
if he remained, and merely induced him to leave. That
at least.”

“Then, where shall we look for him now? ‘There
isn't a policeman in town who would take Tempest to
headquarters except for a mighty good reason.”

“Oh, that goes without saying. I should suppose
that Tempest, is safely back in) his own room by this
time.”

“And madder than ever, I’ll bet a cooky,”
' grinned.

“Shall we return there?” Phillips suggested.
“Yes. We will return there ‘at once,” said Merri-
well. “But I shall ask both of you to be as nice about
this affair as you can be, because I wish to get away

as soon as possible. I have suddenly discovered that
So,

Brady

and great, begin the proceedings by telling Tempest

that you are mighty sorry for your part of what hap-

You do the*same, Jim, and you will

pened to-night.
I think I know

find that he will meet you halfway.
him pretty well.”

“T know what yothare up to, Merry,” said Brady, as
he nodded his head in compliance to the suggestion
“You are going back to the Lincoln to

find out more about that fellow Simpson, aren’t you?”
But Merriwell did not reply.

WEEKLY.

CHAPTERSV4.

THE MANLY. THING TO DO.

The voice of Tempest bade them enter when they 4
rapped upon the door, and they found the young
Southerner alone, with a black scowl upon his fine |
features.

He arose, and stood stiffly beside the table when
they entered the room, and he bowed his head coldly,
without speaking. He had all the sense of his re-
sponsibilities as the host of the occasion, and of the
requirements that were expected of him beneath his
own roof, as he would have termed the room he occu-
pied; therefore, after: bowing, he waved his hand to-
ward the chairs, and bowed again in an invitation
for them to be seated.

Merriwell dropped upon a convenient hale Phillips
and Brady remained standing. But Brady took a step
forward nearer to Tempest, and began at once.

“Tempest,” Brady said, “I am: exceedingly
for anything offensive which I said to you in Phillips
room to-night. I am here to express my regret for
anything I said which hurt your feelings in any way.
I spoke in anger, and I apologize.”

or a moment Tempest did not reply

He bit his lip to repress the emotion that surged
within him, for Jack Tempest was as kindly and as
sympathetic by nature as ever a man was made; and
he was all impulse, too.

For an instant only he hesitated. Then he stepped
quickly forward one pace, and held out his right hand,

“Forgive me, too, Bill,’ he exclaimed. “I was a
duffer to say what I did. I mean that for you, too,
Phillips,” he added, glancing toward Jim.

Jim brushed past Brady and seized Tempest by his
shoulders and shook him in his eagerness.

“I guess we were all a lot of jays losing our tem-
pers, Jack,” he said. ‘We will forget it all around,
eh? And you'll stick with the fellows, won't you?
Heavens, old man! we've just got to have you for
rover against the Wonders—and, anyhow, we cant
afford to be out of friendship.”

“Let's match to see who’s the big sgest chump;
man gets it,” said Brady, grinning. “I es Merri-
well, what do you think fe

He stopped and stared at the vacant chair upon
which! Dick Merriwell had seated himself upon enter-
ing the room, for the coach was no longer there. He
had arisen as soon as he saw that everything was going”
as he wished+it to, and had taken his departure so
silently: t that not one of the three had noticed it.

“T’'ll bet a silk crowbar against a brick watch that
he has gone back to the L Sea? ” said Brady.

“To the Lincoln?” Tempest exclaimed.
should he go there?
Lincoln ?”

. “We have,” replied Phillips. “We were js for:
you.” z ‘

“And,” Brady chimed in, “we interviewed a hockey
stout—if there is aie an acta the name of oh

“Why a

Have you fellows been at ba ;

 

sorry 9/4

odd
Ti FOF

Simpson... Maybe you will recognize him when I de-
scribe him as having the beginnings of a very beauti-
| ful s welling over eg right Bfsele bone, and the correct
sf imitation sf a ‘scratch somewhere near the left point
‘of his jaw. I say, did he get anything on you?

“Not so that you could notice it, ’ said Phillips, re-
‘plying for Tempest; and ther they all laughed to-
gether. It was a particularly joyous reunion.

“Say, Jim,” said Brady, then, ‘do you realize that

mPethere are half a dozen men waiting at your rooms for

our return? They'll have expectantitis and eruption
of the patience, if we don’t get back there presently.
Let's: go.”

“Wait just a moment, FAO WES ’ said Tempest.

“Adi right. What now:

“Vou said that you ih that Merry had gone
back to the Lincoln, Brady. Why did you say that?”

“Tist because I thought it; nothing else.’§

“But why should he return there—now?”

Brady glanced toward Phillips; Phillips returned
. the glance with interest. Then Brady raised his pon-
. dérous body on tiptoes and stage-w alked + for ward. to-
ward Tempest, whom he seized by the lobe of one ear,
pulling Tempest nearer to him, Then, ina loud whis-
per, he announced:

“Tf you should get a telegram in the middle of the
night asking you for that information you may quote
me. in reply, as saying that it is my personal and un-
qualified opinion, based upon information and belief
that he has gone back there to give that fellow Simp-
gon a licking—which licking the aforesaid Simpson
well merits.”

“What? exclaimed Tempest.
He has gone back there to——”

“Hush, worthy sir; be calm. Merry wouldn’t lick
him with his’ hands; he wouldn't soil them so. Nor
yet with his feet, for \ eye heard Merry called ta
Iicker. He will use a much more deadly and terrible
: weapon, and one which he knows well how to use when
occasion requires. It shrivels up an awe sary like a
drop of lemon juice on the wing of a fly;

‘What in the world are you talking oe a Bill 2”

ae empest demanded.
“Pair sir, the subject of-my discourse is ‘Contempt’
and the good Lord help the man who merits Mer-
‘riwell’s contempt, and gets it.”

“Tf there is going to be a fight over
“it is my duty to go.”

/“Sure! It would be. But there won’t be even an
imitation of one—so it is your duty to remain away.”

Just at that moment there came a loud rapping on
the door, which was instantly thrown open, and the
sad and apprehensive _ face of Woful Watson ap-
peared.

For an instant he regarded them, much as he might

“Do you mean that

thege, I think

-) have looked down upon the corpse of Calculus, had the

‘end of his sophomore year been at hands then he
turned about, and announced to somebody in the dark-
ness behind him:

- “Youu may enter, my frietds. Not even one of them
: ? ‘8

WEEKLY. 9
2
is dead. They are all -alive,
enough, albeit strangely
something. Mr.
enter here?”
‘““Aw, come on in, the water’s fine!’’ shouted Brady.
“And the tempest is. stilled,’’ murmured Tod
Hunter; and then all who had formerly been gath-
ered at Phillips’ rooms entered and seated themselves
on every available article that would hold them; and
instantly, as #f by prearrangement, they broke out into
the song:

<

and they seem well
and uncannily excited about
Tempest, good sir, may my friends

“For he’s a jolly good fellow,
For he’s a jolly good fellow,
For he’s a jolly good fellow,

Which nobody can de-ny—eye-eye. Ah—mennnnn!!”

Then somebody asked somebody else what he knew
about the hockey playing of the Wonders, and they
all replied at once, and in less than two minutes all
thought of any misunderstand had been totally for-
gotten; nor was the incident that lad brought that
misunderstanding about referred to.

If anybody there wondered what it could have been
that had made Tempest angry in the first place, and

if there was any curiosity about the.last name of

Anne, nobody thought of mentioning it.

In the meantime, Dick Merriwell had returned to
the hotel.

He was much more concerned about what he had
heard and seen than he had admitted, and he had the
feeling, too, that there was something familiar to him
about the man who had spoken to them as they were
passing through the café.at the Lincoln.

Merriwell had advised the acceptance ef the chal-
lenge by the Wonders for many reasons. The game
would be the very last one of the season, in all prob-
ability, and during that season the Wonders had not
once been defeated.

Nor had» Merriwell’s champions, as he
to call them.

The nearest the Yale seven had come to meeting
with defeat were two tie scores which they had played
almost at the beginning, and Dick felt that it would
be a good thing indeed if they could close the hockey
season by beating the Wonders.

But he knew,
Brady, that there was a following of an unsavory char-
acter which clung to the path of the Wonders, and he
desired now to determine, for his own satisfaction,
whether the man Simpson was one of those characters.

delighted

CHAPTER Vit.

THE SMILE /OF THE COACH,

This time, Dick entered the hotel by the Chapel
Street door, but as he walked past the big cigar counter
toward the café proper he could see that the man had
gone; so he passed on into the*hetel, and found him
seated between two men upon one of the leather-coy-
ered couches in the middle of the lobby.

He strolled along behind them, and he could not well

‘as he had intimated to Phillips and»

de

Sata ie tene SE gael

pe a ay
ABLATED Get GOL

ih cp Semicbirs Bri

 

 
IPR TOY

avoid hearing a temark that Simpson made as’ he
passed.

vit will be like’ taking candy from a child, I tell
you,’ Simpson was saying, ‘and you can find all the
Yale money you want to get in this town. They will
give odds, too, if you play the game right. But it will
be easy nioney, no matter what-

Dick Merriwell had never felt so much inclined to
stop and listen_to a conversation not intended for his
ears as he did at that moment. But every atom of his
manhood revolted at such a thought, and he could not
have done it, even had the stake been a greater one
than it was.

He felt, as he passed on toward the hotel desk, that
he could guess pretty nearly what the rest of that sen-
tence would have been had he paused to hear it, and, 3
his mind, he did complete it iva:

“But it will be easy money, no matter what the odds
are, or what shape the betting may take.”’

Such would be the logical completion of such a sen-
tence, without doubt; but the important thing to be
‘considered was this: That such a’sentence would not
have been begun by such a man, under stich circum-
stances, unless he felt reasonably well assured that he
knew what he was talking about.

Dick passed farther around the room until he. as-
sumed a position whence he could command a fairly
good side view of the man Simpson; and then, in sur-
prise, he recognized the man.

“It is Tony Greener, whom my brother Frank once
pointed out to me,” he told himself. “It’s the chap
who calls himself a fisherman, because, as he expresses
it, he is always fishing for ‘suckers’; that is, he is al-
ways! after what he calls the easy money to be won
from enthusiastic college supporters.’:

He went to the hotel desk and spoke to the clerk.

“Do you know those three men who are seated to-
_ gether on the middle couch?” he asked, in an under-

tone.

© The clerk glanced toward the men, and replied:

“One of them is a guest here—the middle one.
I can tell you his name in a moment, Mr. Merriwell.”

“Tt is probably Simpson on the register,” said Dick
coolly, “although that is not his real name. If he

should pass this way again, before he leaves, just say

+ something like this: “Oh, Mr. Greener!’ and see if he
_ turns to reply to you. Unless I am very greatly mis-
" taken, the man’s name is Tony Greener.”

. The clerk shrugged his shoulders, and made. no
“reply.

“Do. you know the two who are with him?”
asked.

“I know one of them by sight only.) I once clerked
at the Mammoth Hotel, in New York, and T used to
see him in the lobby there. All I know about him is
that he was a puller-in for.the gambling houses. The
. other. one I don’t know at. all.”

“Are they all stopping here?”
‘No; only Simpson; and he has given up his room,
ara - although ng oe took it this poring:

Dick

WEEKLY:

Dick was on the point of putting still another ques-
tion, when he saw the man who had called himself
Simpson rise and leave the others, and stroll toward
the desk; and Dick turned his. back while he said, in
a hurried whisper

Lr ¥ that name Greener on him now.
chance.”

The man came to the desk and asked for a postage
stamp, at the same time putting two pennies down
upon the marble slab. \

“Certainly, Mr. Greener,” the clerk replied; and,
without raising his eyes to note the effect of the nanie
he had uttered, pulled open the stamp drawer.

But Dick Merriwell saw the man start guiltily, while
his eyes blazed resentfully; but the resentment and
the glare gave place to a smile of obsequiousness when
the clerk laid the stamp upon the marble in front of
him,

The man picked it up slowly, and said:

“You seem to have got the notion that my name is
Greener, Mr. Clerk. How is that?’

“Oh, I supposed I recognized you when I saw your
side face while you were seated over there with your
friends,” the clerk replied. “It is rather fortunate,
Mr. Greener, that you have already given up your
room.
nounce themselves so when they

Dick Merriwell turned casually
moment, and addressed the clerk.

“This isn’t exactly what you would call a fisher-
man’s hotel, is it, clerk?” he asked, as if he had not
seen the man at his elbow, or heard what had been
said.

But Greener saw Dick’s face in the mirror opposite,
and he recognized the voice, too.

“So, it’s you, is it?” he said, with a dé ingerous gleam
in his eyes, addressing Dick Merriwell squarely:
“Why, yes, I-suppose so,” replied Dick smilingly,

“And you’ye been buttin’
That is sometimes a dangerous
fledged, Mr. Merriwell. You
and leave it alone, or it won't

Merriwell smiled inserutably
half turned away; but Greener
talk just at that point. He went on rapidly:

“Your brother tried it on with me once-—maybe he: ™
has told you about it.. [suppose it’s from him that®
you got my moniker, eh? Or else you would not”
Have said what you did say just now about. fishers)
men.’ , a
“T don’t think there is any topic concerning which 7
we are mutually interested, Mr. Greener,” Dick said, :-
with intended insolence. one

“Oh, yes, there is; just one.”

"Indeed ?” with a raising of the brows. att

“Vil bet you a hundred or a thousand, even, right |
‘now, and put up the dough, that your seven, gets. they
gold dust torn out of them when they meet the Wome
ders... Aretyou on?”

ee ou must Haye ates good reason for 3

This is your

We don’t like incognitos here unless they an-
register.”’ ;
just at that 43

about,

proceeding for the un-
can take it from mé,
agree with you.” |
in the man’s face, and 7)

 

‘nto my affairs, have you? 7p

had no idea to end the’ < }
~~. whom I suppose I do not.

Se ant ee ee ee ne ee

Sees

ee

t

TIP TOP WEEKLY

that bet, Greener,” said Dick. “You are not one to
make such a proposition unless you are very sure of
your ground.”

“You're dead right, sonny, I ain't. Are you on?”

“What makes you so certain about this affair?”

“That's my business. I'll ask you a third time—
‘are you on?”

“No. Not with you, Greener. - But J do not think
your puller-i in friends over there will find much diffi-
culty in placing their money, if they are as liberal as
you are, im their offers. And now, I'll tell you some-
thing, Greener, that may interest you.”

“Oh, will you? What is it?”

“This: The city of New Haven has a cherished
dislike for professional gamblers. The dislike amounts
{0 a positive abhorrence when New York and Boston
blacklegs happen to. stop here.” He glanced toward
the clock. “There is a train for New Yerk in just
forty minutes, and it is beckoning to you, Greener ; to
you and your two friends. In just fifteen minutes
from now | shall go to the telephone, and I shall call
ip a certain place in Court Street; and I shall inform
the official who replies to that call, that one Tony
Greener and two of his associates are in town. I have
no doubt that, since you have given up your room at
this hotel, he will be glad to entertain you for a time,
at his establishment in Court Street.

Dick Merriwell smiled when he delivered that ulti-
matum; and every muscle of the gambler’s body be-
came rigid. He seemed about to strike, but he evi-
dently thought better of it, for he turned and strode
away toward his companions.

CHAPTER VIII:

INDICATIONS OF A PLOT,

Dick left the Lincoln and returned to Tempest’s
room.

“Well,
now ?”

“Tntirely so,’ wag the reply

“Ts there anything you care to talk over with me?”

‘asked Dick.

“Yes. I have a friend named Ben Spofford, from
Virginia, who is stopping at the Lincoln. I went there
to call upon him. In passing through the café I heard
my Own name mentioned, they Brady’ s, then several
other, names that I know, and among them was the
name of a young lady whom I do ‘not know—or

The remark that I heard
only in part, was sufficient to anger me, and I stopped
and demanded to know the rest of it. The man who
had made it, langhed at me. I told him he was a,cad,
and demanded to know by what right he used the
‘name of a lady in such a place, anyway. He laughed
again, and I struck him. Well, I need not go more
‘into particulars of the actual row. The cad whom |
Pence did not have any fight in him.”

-*T am very glad to have yot tell me about this,
_ Jack, ” Merriwell rte

Tempest,’ he said, “is everything all right

“Well, this is what I heard: “Tempest, the rover,
is the easiest. Brady, the goal keeper, is stuck on the
girl, but it’s a cinch that she still likes Cameron. They
all met at that fire. The girl’s name is Anne. She's
a beaut. Tempest is as full of misplaced chivalry as
any Southerner can be, and he'll fall for the plot like
rain out of the sky, and as for Phillips——— That is
exactly what I heard, Mr. Merriwell. Do you wonder
that I turned?”

‘““No. .What else is on your mind?”

“It is this, Mr. Merriwell. After that’ scene im
Phillips’ room, I was ashamed of myself. I realized
that I had been, as usual, overhasty. I regretted it.
I met you, and told you that I would wait in my
room for you, but I. got to thinking it over, and 1
made up my mind to return to the Lincoln and have it
out with that fellow over there,”

Dick nodded encouragingly.

‘As I: was leaving the campus, I met Bill Frazer,
the patrol, and he asked me where I was going,” Tem-
pest continued.

‘Over to the Lincoln,’ I told him. I did not see
that he turned and followed me, but he did. He had
been told of what had already occurred there, and he
reckoned what I was going back there for.”

“So he kept you from getting into a second muss,
did he?”

“He did.,; Before I could say a.word to that cad
Simpson, Frazer called to me, and said something
about wishing that I would do him a slight favor.
Anyhow, I turned around like a little lamb, and went
out with him.”

“Good! And he, never mentioned the subject at
all, after you got outside, I'll be bound.”

“Not a word. All he said was that he was going 0
do some target shooting in a day or two, and that
he would like to try my rifle. I suppose you know
that Frazer is one of the best rifle shots in the country,
don’t you?”

“Yes. But we are getting away from the subject.’

“No, we are not: I mentioned the fact that Id
like to do a little target shooting myself, with that fel4_
low Simpson as the target, and he laughed, and re-
plied that it would be an excellent thing for the col-
leges everywhere,'if that idea could be carried out.’

“Frazer said that?” ;

eS

‘Then he knew who the man was?”

‘He seemed to know, although he wouldn’t tell me’
anything about him, more than to say that he was a
gambler and a crook and a few other things of that
sort.”

Dick Merriwell
Then he said:

“Jack, do you think you could repeat. Simpson's .
words ?”’ |

aay se

“Say them over again, slowly, while I write thei’
down. I want to study them. I ine they have Sie

&

was thoughtful for a moment..

 

 
"Ip TOP

nificance, if only I can determine what it is, Just
‘repeat what you heard him say.

“All right. Here it is: ‘Tempest, the rover, is the
easiest. Brady, the goal keeper, is stuck on the girl,
but it’s a cinch that she still likes Cameron. They all
met at that fire. The girl’s name is Anne. She's a
beaut. Tempest is as full of misplaced chivalry as any
Sontherner can be, and he'll fall for the plot like rain
out of the sky, and as for Phillips That’s all.”’

Dick Merriwell wrote down the words.

“There is certainly a plot afoot,” he said, putting
the paper in his pocket.

3 “I have thought that, too, Mr. Merriwell. . And it
is quite certain that it hinges upon the name of that
young woman, Anne Somebody.”

~ Lhe young woman in the case is evidently Anne
Wheaton. Yes, it hinges upon her, as you suggest.
But she is'innocent of any connection with the plot.’

“Oh, I assumed that much, Mr. Merriweill. But
where does Cameron come into this?’

“Tl look Cameron up, I think. And do not men-
tion this conversation to anybody,”

“Certainly not.’

Merriwell went directly from Tempest’s room to
seek Cameron, but found that the senior was absent.

}

CHAPTER IX.
JIM PHILLIPS FEELS UNEASY.

The Yale hockey team reached New York on the
afternoon before the day set for the great game.
» / The weather was crisp, but not too cold, and ev ery-
_ body concerned felt that this last game of hockey of
_ the season was to be the star performance of the
year,
The interest which éutsiders felt in it was amazing.
) This was accounted for by the fact that the Won-
ders had proven themselves invincible in nearly every
_ contest they had played.
; They. had beaten nearly all of the univ ersity sevens,
_ from all parts of the country, and now they were to
‘ake, as their crowning effort, the play to defeat Old
$f Eli. And so enthtisiasts came to New York from far
_and near to witness the game,

- Merriwell accompanied the seven, with their sub-
ralinites, to their hotel. As soon as he hadi seen them
well housed, he excused himself with the plea that he
wanted to look about the city,

| His real cause for leaving them was the anxiety he
_still/felt in regard to those words that Tempest had
overheard. —

| As he was about to depart from the hotel, Phillips
called to him, and they walked out upon the street to-
gether.
sree Il tag along a little way with you, Merry,” Phillips
said, “if I may. There is a certain something that I
want. to: talk to you about.”
“Glad to have. you, Jim. Come along,”
hearty Tesponse, “What is on your ming?
thing concerning. the: game Mea snc yee

“I
was .the
Seine:

 

WEEKLY.

“Yes—and no. The truth is, lam beginning to feel
uneasy about that game, Merriwell.”) ©
“What. are you uneasy about?”

“I dgn’t know. That is the trouble. T’ve got the
feeling what some people call a premonition and others.
call a Tunak that something is going to happen,”

5 Something is going to happen. aN, ou are going to ~
give the W onders a sound beating.”

“I hope so.”

“Do you doubt it?”

“No,”

Jim.
“Then what is the matter?’’ he demanded:
This,” replied Phillips desperately. ‘There has

been something at work against us, in/some undérhand

way, ever since that challenge came from the Won:
ders.

am conscious, that something is going to happen. Did

Jack ever tell you anything more about what he heard, -

at the Lincoln that day, which started him to fig! TONE.)

and which ended—you know how?’

“Yes. He told me a little more about it.”

“T'll tell you why I ask.”

“Very well, Jim.” |

“When Tempest came into the room that day he®
wasn't mad at any of us; he was only angry at some:-
body over at the Lincoln who had used Anne Whea-
fons: name, and Sitti and Brady’s, and his in a way

names were aed eae chiese in connection with this
projected hockey match. JI haye not cared to ask”
Jack anything more about it because I did not care
to stir the subject up again. But am I right in my, 3 a
conclusions ?”’

“Quite so, Jim,”

“Can you tell me what was said?”

Merriwell thought for a moment; then he reached
into his pocket and produced the paper which ¢on-
tained the writing already referred to. koe

“This will tell you what was said, with exactitude,”
he said. “Jack repeated the words to me, and | wrote
them down. js; hae

Phillips read the sentences two or three. times over,
and then, still holding the paper in his hand, said:

“This make the things that I wished to bi to you .
somewhat easier.’ ;

“Well?”

“Brady confided 'to me last night that we woul
see one of our former acquaintances among the spet
tators at the game to-morrow. When'l asked hh
who he meant, he informed me that he referred to.
Miss Wheaton. I asked him how he happened ¢
know that she was coming to see the game, and he.
replied that he had been out to call upon her, ant: 8
had told him so,’

“Well, I don’t see anything’ so very apie be
that, do you, Jim?” was the smiling qupstiae that ae

dt Merriell ae

 

Dick Merriwell came to a full stop, and turned upon

There is always an undercurrent of which J)
ape
wt
- ;

PIPNTOP

“No. Here is another thing. Ollie Wilson came
over here last night, on the same train with Don Came-
ron. And yesterday afternoon I happened to take a
‘short ride with Ferguson in his car, and he took me

(ea ie + » to the station where he went to get an express package.

“While I was waiting in the car for Ferguson, I saw
' Miss Wheaton come to the train, evidently bound for
“New York. She had several other young ladies with

her, and—well, Bill Brady was acting as escort for
the whole lot.”’

There is nothing
safety in

say I, then.

“Happy William,
There is always

wrong about that, is there? r
‘numbers, you know.’

- “That paper’—and he held it up for inspectyon—
“Suggests a plot of some kind.”

“Tt certainly does. But you lo not intend to in-

‘sinuate, and J do not intent to think that you do, that

- » Miss Anne Wheaton could be per rsonally concerned in

~pilt Hall, ;
"Bill Frazer, when he jerked his head toward a man
who was passing down the opposite side of the street.
F. *Do you know that chap over.there?’ he asked.

“Tikely to try to get acquainted with you.
- do that, avoid “him,’

equally unsavory.
‘likely to get into that sort of company—but, Merri-
‘well, 1 want to tell you right here that it was not three

| walked out through the rathskeller.
seated ‘at a table with three men, one of whom was

‘such a as as you suggest.’
“No !
“Or that Bill Brady could be played upon to betray
his fellows, even by a beautiful young woman.”
“Good heavens, man, nothing was farther from my
oughts than that!”
“Then, what are you driving at, Jim?”
*T don’t know. I don’t like Cameron. Three or

number one, chatting for a moment with

‘And when I said that I did not, he replied: ‘He is
If he should
And then he went on to say
that the man was a gambler, and a lot of other things
[ laughed, and said that I was not

hours after that w hen Ih 1appened to see that same man
walk into the rathskeller, under White’s, with Don

‘Cameron for his companion.”
“Go on, Jim.”

“There is just a little more. I wanted to see what

_ those two were doing together, so I entered White’s”

y the main entrance, and ‘a little while afterward I
Cameron was

he chap whom Frazer pointed out to me on Chapel
eet, and the other two looked as if they were manu-

ae out of HS same kind of cloth, only worse

“Good! Iam going right now to call upon Came-
for L pooees to know where he stays when he is

(That. 1s what 1 was going tojdo when

ol overtook me. Don't worry about things, Jim,
Legs SRS on. yous, men, a SOE mg gate

2 on
$a De Fane ER Gray

WEEKLY.
CHAPTER X.

BILL BRADY AND THE GIRL. -

Jim Phillips walked slowly back toward the hotel
after he parted with Merriwell.

He knew perfectly well that he had no good reason
to expect trouble, and yet he could not get it off his
mind that something was brewing; and what rendered
the idea even more annoying was the fact that he had
not the remotest idea what it could be.

As captain of his team, he had arranged for the usé
of a semiprivate rink where he could coach his seven
that evening, and, of course, Dick Merriwell was to be
with them. But it occurred to himeat that moment
that inasmuch as the rink was not very far away he
would take a preliminary look at it. So he hailed a
passing car, boarded it, discovered that there was just—
one vacant seat, and, sitting down—found himself
next to Miss Anne Wheaton.

Both were surprised. She had been peering from
the window, and had not seen him until he took’ the
seat beside her.

“Goodness!” she exclaimed. “Who would haye
thought to see you here?” And Jim had an idea that
that she flushed up a good deal more than was called
for by the circumstances.

“Why, you expected me to be in town, didn’t you?”
he replied. “You came on to see the match, did
you not?”

“Of course, but one need not expect to have you sit
almost upon one’s lay.”

“Did I do that? I’m sorry.”’

“Are oh going very far?” she asked, after a mo-~
ment, and Jim thought, or imagined, that there was a
tinge of uneasiness in the question.
. “Oh, Iam just riding around—for exercise,”
plied. “And you?”

“T get off at—where are we?—oh, dear, I nearly
passed my street. Will you stop the car, peas AE
am getting off at the next corner.’

“And I, also,” replied Jim, with sudden cony iction
that he would do so, although if was not at all his
original destination. “Tl constitute myself your es-
cort, if you will permit me, Miss Wheaton. . Young
ladies should not be left alone in the streets of New.
York, particularly when they are from the country.”

“For that,” she said, “I refuse your escort.” And |
she left her seat as the car came to a stop. But Jim,
not at all dismayed by the declination of his offer, rose,
also, and followed her from the car. She came toa
full stop at the curb under the lamp-post, and de-
manded, witha fine show of Re nae offense: “Dids
you not hear what I said?”

“Certainly, Miss Wheaton.

ee
he re-

But you cannot poate

object to my trailing along behind, to make sure that) —
It will be dark’ prea Bae

rio harm shall befall you.
you know. It is very nearly that now.

“But” “and, |. she stamped her small foot—
want you,’ she said.

aa ‘ace

 

 
  

tA

He stiffened at once. . All his former misgivings,
which had been partly forgotten, returned to him.

“Oh,” he said. “Very well, Miss Wheaton. If that
is the case, of course | will not intrude upon you. I
beg your pardon.”

He lifted his hat and turned away—and almost ran
into the arms of Bill Brady.

The two came to a full stop, and for an instant
glared at each other, but it was the utter surprise
caused by the strange encounter, more than anything
else, which induced ‘that mutual staring. If either of
them had possessed the wit to look tow ard Anne Whea-
ton at that moment, they would have seen that she
was nearly convtlsed with suppressed laughter. But
before she could*recover herself sufficiently to speak,
Jim Phillips had inclined his head in a cold, salutation
to his friend, and had passed on, without speaking.

“You certainly haye done it now, Mr. Brady,” Miss
Wheaton exclaimed. “She laughed in a merry, light-
hearted* way. :

“What ir the world did you want to bring him
along with you for?’’ Brady demanded.

“T didn’t.”

“Well, he was here, wasn’t he? And now, what do
you suppose he will think of me? And he gave im-
perative orders that not one of us was to leave the
hotel without his permission. I had to sneak out, sup-
posing he was with Merry. I saw them go away to-

gether. I say, Miss Anne, what did you bring him
here for, anyway? Just to put one over on me oe
“No. He came of his own accord.”

“What excuse shall I make to him when he asks
me about it.”

“He.won’t ask you. Don’t fear that.’’

“But if he should do so?”

“Tell him the simple truth.”

 

“What? That we are on the track of a plot, and
that “ ;
“No, silly!’ ‘

“What, then?”

“Why, that you are in love with me,
scrape up enough courage to tell me of it.’

The bare words, in print, are entirely inadequate to
express the saucy, mischievous manner of the girl,
which contained nothing of boldness or forwardness.

Big, good-natured Bill Brady grinned delightedly.

“Say, Miss Anne,” he said, “honestly, I could al-
most fall dead in love with you, and that’s s a fact; only
I like you much too well to do that, you know. I'd
rather keep you as a friend. You’ve got as much
pluck and sand as a boy, and :

‘Well, I like that! Confess at once that you are
madly in love with me, or I will—I don’t know what I
wont do to you, and the others, w hom I am trying so
hard to save.’ x

“That's so. Say, Anne, have you found out any~
thing more ?”’

“Not a single thing, Mr. Brady.
» ‘call. me Anne in that way, either.”

and can’t

 

And you mustn't

iP TOP

   

WEEKLY.

“AH right. How shall I say it?”

“Never mind, now. No, I haven’t been able to find
out a single thing.
tried and tied bast it is no use,
word with Don Cameron. You know, of course, that + | *
I can't send for him. That would never do at all; and ie
every time he sees me near him, he avoids me as 1f [
had the plague. But, all the same, he pops up wher-_
ever I go, just as if he was following me: And’’—she
stamped her foot with emphz 1sis——AT just know that
there is some horrid conspiracy afoot somewhere, if
we could only find out what it is. You will hag to
meet me here again—let me see—w hen shall I say?” aS

“You needn’t say. I can’t come.’ (SE vie

“T would like to know w hy not?’ op

‘“‘Because there isn’ time, for one thing.’ We prac-—
tice to-night, and we'll be under the strictest kind of.
orders to-morrow, up to the minute that the match be-
gins; and, anyhow, I couldn’t do it after meeting Jim
here to-night. You were, so certain that there was a

Ve

3eatrice and I have tried and Pe

And I cannot get a:

 

 

 

*

 

horrible plot afoot to murder us all in our beds. and) fe
we both knew so little about New York. that we had the
to agree upon this place and time at the very last oa
minute when | went to'the station with you; but eae ae
“I think that is real mean of you, W illiam B radyas g . A

“T know it, Anne. Of course it is.
not much of a girl’s fellow. I don’t know how to say . iy
the things they like to hear. I just say what comes ie ¢
first into my mind, the same as I would say it to Jim, foie
or Jack, or Tod, or any of the fellows. But, all the
same, Anne, ; want to thank you for what you have {
tried to do. You couldn’t bear to see e anything under-
hand going on, and when your father told you that
three men “had stopped.at the road house for dinner
and had talked together about some plot that they had
against our seven in this hockey game, and named Don
Cameron as their confederate, you just couldn’t help.
coming to me with it. And TI want you to know, too,
that I “eealiae how hard it was for you to do it, feel-
ing, as I know you do, toward Don Cameron; for 1
believe, honestly, that you are just as fond of him
now——— a

“You stop right where you are, Will Brady!” she «|
interrupted him, with flashing eyes. hoe

“All right. I don’t know any too well how to get
along with girls, but I can handle the fellows all right, ee
and if Don “Cameron doesn't begin pretty soon to ap- ae |
preciate you, I'll take him by the-———”

Brady stopped, for he was talking to the empty air,
Miss Wheaton had stamped her foot’and darted away
from him toward a car that had stopped at the corner,

You S€e; Tm

 

   
  

r.
. a

 

pe

  
  
 

2 [
: «

   
  
  
     
 
  
   
 
    
  
  

CHAPTER XI. Hak

. DICK MERRIWELL’S W ARNING.,

  
  

At eight o'clock that night there came one of those
freak changes in the w cathes for which New Yorkis a
proverbial. It suddenly grew intensely cold. ‘Jim
Phillips was conscious of it while on his way back to_
the hotel smi his ‘Sngourter with Bye and. Anne’

  
     

        
     
 — Wheaton at the corner. The thermometer dropped as
\ “if somebody had hit it and knocked it down, and by
} the time the students went forth for their practice; as
Jim had arranged, the mercury was hovering some-
where near to zero, and promised to go still lower. It
was cold without wind, too.

All of the players, with their substitutes, were at
the dinner table when Brady returned,’ after his talk
with Anne. He was conscious of the fact that he was
blushing as he walked to the table across the room, with
every one of the fellows keeping time to his step in
one way or another. He was greeted in almost as
many different ways as there were individuals to do

“' the greeting—only that Phillips did not look toward
*him at all as he took his seat. Merriwell was there,
and nodded pleasantly.

As they were leaving the table, after the meal was

ts concluded, Merriwell announced:
aes “7 want to have a few words with all of you before
"we go out, so if you will go directly to my rooms, I'll
say them.”

Ten minutes later, when they were all gathered in
tle parlor of Dick Merriwell’s suite of three rooms,

|

{st

[ ¢ 3 ee.
|

'

 

 

ce AyD
| Ups.
f + mec 4
4

| © 4 he looked to see that the transom above the door into
» “the corridor was closed, and then addressed them as
te Tellows :

“Vou are going out presently to do some practicing
J ie for to-morrow’s.game. There will be a good many
4 “¥ ~ persons, strangers to you, admitted to the place where
you are to practice, for that is invariably the case on
“4 occasions like this one. It is also true that always,
E when there is such a gathering, some undesirable per-
sons will force their way into the company, and they
cannot be entirely eliminated. Such will be the case
» to-night. The time has come when you should all be
™ told that there has existed, since the moment .this
’ ~ hockey match was first suggested, a determined con-
spiracy to defeat Yale. I suspected it some titne ago,
put I never became convinced of it until this afternoon.
* Your opponents, the Wonders, have nothing to do
with it—as an organization. ‘There is, perhaps, one
} of their number—I am not entirely sure of this—who
‘4g at least a passive observer of what is going on. It
- would not be fair to mention his name, as I have no
proof of my statement; but I charge you all to be on
‘the watch every minute of the time when you are
y playing; and to-night, at your practice} I have already
suggested to your captain that you be as misleading as
“possible in what you do. . In a word, I want you to
rely upon your previous ; practice for to-morrow’s
* game. Do not really practice at all to-night,

#7 have no doubt that many of you have been ap-
proached, since you arrived at this hotel, by persons
' who have offered to bet against you. I have no doubt
that you have been offered inducements to make such
hets, and doubtless some of you have made them. I
havei.no comment to make as to. that, save thist. I
know that several of the agents of certain gamblers
who had chosen to mterest themselves in this. affair,
are lingering about the lobby and the cafe of the house.

 

   

pe

 

  

 

  

  
 

   

TIP TOP WEEKLY.

ait rat Rony ae ¥ ‘ Bh tea

   
   
   
  
  
   
  
  
   
   
  
   
   
   
   
  
  
  
  
   
     
  
 
 
   

They have been sent here to make bets: with you, in
the belief that they will be able to win your money, by’ é
reason of a plot that has been hatched to: make you se
lose the match.” i

There were loud murmurings, and questions. were
shouted, Then Dick said:

“Tf you will be quiet, I will tell you all that I deem
necessary, and all that I believe myself right in tell-
ing. But I wish it to be distinctly understood that you
must regard what I say in all seriousness, must not
take it lightly, and must not repeat, outside of the
room, the name of the young lady who has been so
unfortunate as to have her name connected with the
affair.” .

He hesitated for’a moment, then.went on:

“On the occasion of. our cross-country ruh, a short —
time ago, there was an incident which has not been
told, and ~which need not be toid now. I was present 4
when it happened, and I stayed with it till the finish,
so I know full well what [ am talking about. There |
was, connected with that incident, a certain member
of the senior class at Yale, and a young lady whose
first name you have all heard mentioned. Out of that
incident has been created an-imaginary opportunity
for the conspiracy against you to which I have: re-
ferred. The gentleman of the senior class was ap-
proached by the conspirators, because they had had
dealings with him in the past, and because they be-
lieved that he’ would readily fall in with their propo-
sition. But he had learned a lesson from what came
out of the incident of that run, and he profited by it. 7
He had learned more than a lesson, for he had made" ™
the discovery that nothing is right but right, and that
a wrong ,can never be made right. So, when three
gamblers with whom he had hobnobbed in the past
approached him in reference to their plans about this) |
hockey match, he deterniined to appear to fall in with ~~
them, in order to discover exactly what they intended ~~
to do, and to defeat their plans. In order to accom?  ~
plish that, he, was obliged to place himself in a false.
position, and to appear to be what he had always been
in the past, but he was convinced that the end justified
the means. ‘This afternoon, soon after our arrival, 17>
went to see that gentleman—and I found him just
starting out to make a call upon me. The moment
had arrived when he could tell me what he knew. thes

“T am making rather a long speech, but it seems
necessary under the circumstances. The conspirators ~~
have won their first point. The match will not be 7
played at the rink, as scheduled. The ice there is in —
splendid condition to-night, but it will have been ren- ~~
dered unfit.for use by morning. Fortunately, the ~
weather has changed to very cold, and there will be ~~
good ice in the open, at one of the parks. The point ~
of this is inthe fact that the men who have conspired ~
against you to render it sure that you shall lose to. —
the Wonders, required that the place where the match
is to be played, should be changed, and that it should) ©
be changed to the one that will be selected: I do not.
know the exact character of the plot against: you};

 
   

   
   
    
       
  
  

 

 
 
    
   
       
  
    
        
   
  
  

  
  
 
 

s

    
* and waited for Phillips to speak.

’

TIP TOP WEEKLY.

neither did ‘my informant. And so I can give you
only a general warning. Each and every one of you
‘should have his extra boots and skates at hand when
the game is called, to-morrow, for there is a strong
likelihood that those you will wear to begin the game
will have been tampered with. That is warning num-
ber one. Warning number two is this: If there should
be screams, and cries for help, during a critical part
of the game to-morrow—if you should hear the voices
of women suddenly calling for assistance—if you,
Phillips, and you, Brady, should hear somebody shout,
‘Anne Wheaton is drowning!’ and if: you, Tempest,
should hear such a cry, or such shouts, I want you to
pay no attention to them. I want you to promise me
now that you will keep right on with the game, as if
you had not heard them. For if there are such cries,
they will occur only at a critical moment, when the
slightest inattention will be costly, and likely to lose
you the match. On miy own part, I promise you, in
return, that the locality at the games which will be

“ occupied by Miss Wheaton and her friends will be

carefully guarded, and that she and her companions
will be rescued and cared for if there should be occa-
sion for it, so that your assistance will neither be ex-
peeted nor required. ;

-*One word more: Such an interruption, if it does
occur, will doubtless take place near the end of the
second half. It, is conceded on every hand that the
eames will be close; that there will be faw goals made
by either side, and that the contest will not be decided
in anybody’s favor, until during the last two or three
‘or four moments of the last half. If you should get
well ahead of your opponents before that time, the 1n-
terruption will not occur, because there will be no need
for it; but should the match be close up to the end of
the second half, look out for it, and remember what I
have said. .

“You understand, of course, that Miss Wheaton is
entirely an innocent party in this business. She has,
indeed, been trying to find out what is brewing, and
would haye told it all to Brady, or to one of us, if she
had succeeded. The senior, whose name I have
omitted, will continue to work in your behalf. Now,
go in and win.”

Nearly all of the players started toward Dick, each
with a question upon his lips. But they all held back
He said: 7

“We think,/ Mr. Merriwell, that you should tell us
the naine of the one player among the Wonders to
whom you have referred as at least a passive conspira-
tor. We will recewWe it in the same confidence, and in
the same manner that we have heard the name of the
young lady you have been good enough to trust with

+3

cS

“THe mam is Conklin,
He is

“Very well,” Dick replied.

it. He can break an opponent’s ankle, or leg, or arm,
and make it appear as if it were entirely the fault of
the:man who gets hurt. So look out for him.”’

CHAPTER: XII.
THE CHAMPIONS WIN.

‘The two great sevens, having indulged in some pre-
liminary “goaling”’ practice, were ready to begin play.
The ice was dotted by blue pennants emblazoned by
the white letters that spelled Yale, and brought into
sharp contrast by the maroon and green of the Won-
ders. Rooters were everywhere, for’both sides. Low-
browed men with fierce mustaches, and high-browed
men without them, but who wore the uifiniSen eae
stamp of gambler upon their faces and in their man-
ners, hurried from group to group, offering and ac-
cepting wagers, and so active had they become that
among the “rank outsiders” the odds were against the
university seven. Still, all Yale men and their svim-
pathizers eagerly seized upon anything and eyerything
that was offered, and for an hour before the vane
was to begin there was as much rushing to and fro, as”
much hustling and shouting of odds, as much shoving,
and pushing, and hauling around the oblong square as
is seen at Sheepshead when the Suburban 3 run.

Dick Merriwell remained with his men, and Jim
Phillips kept them together and away from the mem-
bers of the opposing seven, as also from contact with
outsiders.

Phillips had decided to make one small bluff—in the
light of what he had heard—hbefore the game should
begin, and so, ten minutes before the hour, he slipped
quickly into the inclosure where their eff
threw off his skating boots, donned ‘a pair without
skates, seized upon one skated boot that belonged te
Bill Brady, and, holding it in his left hand, riche
out upon the ice as if he were very greatly excited. >
There was still five minutes before the first whittle
should blow. :

Brady arid Tenrpest, who were both “wise! to this
ee play of Phillips’, which was intended to take
some of the confidence out of Conklin, of the Wo
saw him approaching, and skated forward: so that ae
would meet him close to the spot where Conklin had ©
halted. |

The players on both sides discovered Jim Phillips’
approach at the same instant. They saw that he wore
no skates. They wondered what could have happened. —
hey stopped’ in their gyrations. They formed im.
bunches and groups. Dick Merriwell ran forward to- 7
ward Phillips. oem

Jim ran toward Conklin, of the Wonders, waving
the hoot he held in the grip of his left hand, and from _
which the skate was displaced, as if one of the fasten-.
ings had been torn Bose. ¥

 

fects were kept, #7

> the best forward among the Wonders’ seven.
Bias big, and as strong, and as powerful as our own Bill
~ DPrady, but he plays a terrific forward. He’is, with-
out doubt, the most dangerous hockey, player Of to-
_ day, in body-checking, and he is extsemely clever at

Phillips paused directly in front of Conklin, He”
thrust the shoe and skate forward toward>the Won-
ders’ best forward. He clenched his right hand and ©;
held it atoft in a gesture that was half threatening.

 
  

 

 

larly, just now,

a fast and furious manner,

TIPS ROX

Bill Brady pulled himself up close beside, and partly
behind, Conklin. Tempest skated forward and stood
close beside Jim. Dick Merriwell stopped and. bent
forward toward them all eagerly wondering what had
happened to excite Jim P hillips so greatly

“T want the referee!” Jim exclaimed. “Look at
skate, Conklin. You are the captain of your seven.
Do your men know anything about this? Look at that
skate! Look at it. It is one of five that we have
covered, each the'property of a different player among
us, and each one treated with acid so that, at the least
strain, it will break and become utterly useless. Oh,
I know we can replace them, but suppose the ‘break
should occur at a critical moment? What, then? And
that is not all, either. There is——’

Jim stopped, for he heard the voice of Dick Merri-
well calling to him.

Dick had seen an angry gleam gathering in the eyes
of Conklin. He feared the consequences what
Phillips was saying—of the half charges Jim was mak-
ing. He could see, or, at least, he: believed he
could, that Phillips was partly in earnest, and partly
playing a part. But he knew that the sophomore’s at-
titude might disrupt the game at the last moment. So
he interfered.

“Stop, Phillips! he called out. “Mr. Conklin,
Phillips does not intend to refer personally to you.”
Then he addressed Phillips directly: “Leave the
flement of this affair to me, Jim,” Merriwell added,
with quiet which instantly quelled the rising
anger that was all about them. Then he stepped. for-
ward and, taking Phillips, drew him backward, while
he added, in an undertone so that others could not
hear: “I will permit no fighting here. hea ae
that. Besides, the fellow,isn’t worth it) And what 11
the world did you make this disturbance for, all
when the match is about to begin?”

dis

OT

too,

Set

decision,

“Til tell you,” said Brady, leaning over Phillips’
shoulder and replying for him, ‘He did‘it just to

What he said about: the acid and the
We discovered it only -a few minutes
ago. Anyhow, Conklin and his.men know that we
are onto them now,' and they will p

Brady was interrupted by the blowing of the signal
whistle. .

The menon both sides
The umpires took

rattle Conklin.
skates was true.

darted to their positions.
their places. The referee prepared

_to face, and Phillips and Conklin lined up «with their

sticks, prepared to receive the puck.
Never was there a game of hockey played in such
right from the start, as
that one.
Conklin caught the puck, lifted it at the first stroke,

i and sent it with the force of a bullet toward the left

 

   

barrier.

It was stopped neatly by one of the for
wards of the Wonders, who carried it skimming over
the ice toward the Yale goal, and by a wonderful
‘display: of skill succeeded in dodging past his oppo-
nentstuntil'he found an opening from which to shoot.

And he did shoot ferociously, but Bill Brady, on the

‘
) z

i

WEEKLY.

this,

alert and prepared, received it neatly, and, with a deft
turn.of his wrists, sent it flying back again. . But one
of the Wonders caught it waist-high with his stick,
and succeeded in passing it to Conklin, who started
forward with it with the speed ofa race horse, and
with the agility of a rat.

Tempest darted into his path, and he undertook
what would have been considered dangerous by any
other player on either seven; he body-checked the great
Conklin. ’ 4

Phillips was there, ready. While the two were half
struggling together, in their efforts to rise from the
ice, he got the puck, and made one desperate effort to
shoot it nearly the entire length of the'oblong square.
Myers, the goal for
guard. Nobody had expected that Phillips. would at-
tempt.a shoot at that distance, and the consequence
was that the puck went straight into the net—and
Yale scored one. .

The cheers that went up from the spectators were
good to hear. But there was-no time for the Yale
seven to congratulate themselves. The referee was a

busy man, and he believed in rapid play. The puck
was faced again as quickly as it could be done, and

the play went on.

After that there. were mintite¢ at a time when the
puck hovered like a live thing, close to one goal or the
other, There were shots made which seemed certain
of but which were as inevitably foiled by the
goal keepers. Bill Brady never played such a game at
goal, as he did that day; and there were those who car-
ried the colors of the Wonders, who said the same for
Myers.

Jack
checking Conklin once, tried it a second time near the
end of the half—and got himself sent off the ice pi
two minutes: and the half ended while he was still of
so he secured a much needed rest. Indeed, he ae
pale and used up when Phillips asked him how he felt.

success,

The two sevens returned to the ice for the second
half wit® the score at one to nothing, in favor of Yale,
and amid many cheers for the Blues; and when the
puck was faced that time, Conklin succeeded in making

very nearly ‘the same play. that Phillips had accom-
plished at the beginning of the first half,

He secured the puck, passec d it to his right wing, and
it presently fell to the same,forward who ‘had so nearly

succeeded with it before, and might have done $0, but >
This time, however, he did»

for Phillips’ interference.
succeed, and in less than three minutes from the time
the puck was faced the Wonders secured a goal for
their side. A
The two umpires were nearly as busy as the players,
and it required all of their individual skill to, keep
themselves free from the several mix-ups that haps,
pened neaf either goal. .
The umpire happened to be an excellent one. qaiok
to discover a false pass, and to blow his whistle.
Neither side had occasion to'find the least fault with’

the Wonders, was taken’ off his’

Tempest, who had succeeded so well in body-

~~

\

ce

ee

&

 

“¢
+

   
   
  
   
 
     
  
  
  
  
   
   
  
  
   
    
  
   
        
     
       
       
     
         
       
       
             
       
              
       
     
     
       
       
     
       
     
   
       
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
  
 

 

TIP TOP

him; and he was a man after Jim Phillips’ heart, inas-
‘much as he kept them going, permitting no more-time
than was absolutely necessary when ‘he had to face the
~ puck for the players.

- The small rubber prize for which they struggled
seemed often endowed with life; it appeared at times
eager, then obstinate. It flew toward a goal, or glided
at one, as if nothing could stop it, but only to be deftly
turned aside by Brady, or by Myers, and subjected
again to a hammering and pushing process.

And so the end of the half approached, with the
score at one to one,

The spectators crow ded close to the barriers. Every-
body was intent upon the great game, and nobody
noticed that one man had stepped out of the crowd and
stood for a moment behind it, and lifted a white hand-
kerchief as if to wave it'toward some person who was
evidently watching for such a signal. That is, nobody
but Dick Merriwell saw the act, but he had been on
‘the lookout for just such a thing to happen, and, not-
withstanding his absorbing interest in the game, he
had managed to keep a more or less careful scrutiny
“upon Tony Greener, the “Fisherman,” whom he had
early discovered among the spectators.

“When he saw Greener step behind the crowd and lift
the handkerchief in that manner, he believed he ‘knew
what was about to happen, and he reachec out and
"seized the man by the wrist in a grip that made the
' bones of it crunch together almost to the point of

fracturing them.

“Drop it, Greener,” he said coldly. “There will be
"no signal by you, to-day. No matter which side wins
_ this match, it shall be won honestly.”
~ “*¥ou!’ Greener shouted, struggling to escape from
a Merriwell’s iron grasp. And the sword used made Dick
/ release his hold upon the man. It made him double his
- fist almost involuntarily, and it compelled him to strike

aut at the same time.

| - Tony Greener went down like a handkerchief that
is dropped to the floor, and Dick turned away from
“him without looking back. For, at that instant, a wild
yell went up from the throng of spectators, while high
aboye’ all the noise, Dick Merriwell heard the news
shouted. from hundreds of throats, that his champions
had won. ;
i ‘They had woh, too, during the last minute of the
last half/of the match. The invincible Wonders were
beaten at last, and Yale was victorious. Nor had any-
“f thing happened to cast a shadow upon the glory of that
OEY
No

The tampering with

dreadful thing had happened.

the skates before the game, no doubt accomplished by
‘amblers, was only an incident, and was quickly
otten in the flush of Success./

fad the sidecr: that might have tispfenet: for,

0 both s sevens, around ‘him, he enolsanvel sat: ie had

WEEKLY.

been so thoroughly convinced that the followers/of
Greener intended something desperate, that he had/en-
gaged the interests of a detective bureau in the matter,
and they had discovered that a small charge of dyna-
mite had been placed under the ice not far away ‘from
where the crowd had stood, which was to be fired at a
critical moment, thus distracting the attention of the
players.

“I have only this to say to you gentlemen of the
Wonders,” he added, in closing: “Two and possibly
three of your seven had some inkling of what was to
happen, although I do not charge them with actual
knowledge of it. But they were to play on, unmindful
of what might happen. There would have been an op-
portunity, then, to have had a close game decided in
your favor. But, let us shake hands all around, now,
and forget it.”’

- ** * * * x! *

On the train returning to New Haven, Dick shia
one of the Pullmans, where he found Miss Anne
Wheaton and Donald Cameron seated near each other.

“T only wanted to congratulate you both,” he said
smilingly. “‘I wish to tell you both how much I appre-
ciate what you did for my champions.”

THE END.

“Dick Merriwell’s Marksmen; or, The Best Men at. ©
the Trap,” is the title of the thoroughly novel and de-
lightfully original story ‘of Yale student life which will 7
appear in the next issue of this weekly. The marks-—
men of Old Eli are challenged to shoot at the traps by 1!
a recognized gun club. he universal coach makes an
amazing discovery of something not “on the cards,”
something that might seriously endanger the success.
of his men behind "the guns were they not the sharp-
shooters the coach hriogn thenr to be. When an unex-"
pected condition is revealed to the marksmen, they are
not at all disconcerted. At the great contest much’
happens that is exciting and that arouses the keenest.
interest and admiration of the spectators. This ex+
cellent story contains a plot that is ‘most ingeniously
unfolded, bit by bit. It is No..833, out March 3oth,

tt» oD
eee

SELF-SPANKING. ae
Automatic flogging machines are in use among: the
military forces of several European natiehs. For many
years the whipping was always done by a soldier, under
the command of an officer, and the punishment variec
according to the personal relations existing between the)
soldier and his victim. It. was to correct this Stet
vantage that the flogging machine was invented, oi
The machine is automatic in action, and as soon as the
culprit is fastened in position a spring is tightened’ or ~~
loosened to gauge the exact force of the blow... A pointer Yi
is moved over a dial, to the requisite He of strokes, %

and the mechanisin is started, Ks
the game was over, when he called the meinbers
by the ane the Benin of the whit ote moved\b

- With perfect regularity the victim’s back: is. aoe

 
his OP

screw device after each stroke so that the lash does ‘not
fall upon the same spot throughout, the punishment.

Each blow is of uniform severity, and as soon as the
required number has been given the machine comes to
a rest and the offender is ‘released, with the assurance
that the exact punishment ordered has been meted out to
him.

——— 0 +
WHAT’S THE ANSWER?

There is a-certain instructor in mathematics in a Wash-
ing institution who is beginning to wonder whether his
five-year-old son*is going to inherit his mathematical
temperament.

On one occasion the father and mother of this young-
ster, while visiting a resort near the capital, were watch-
ing the boys and. girls swing the circle on a merry-go-
round. The father commented upon the sight presented
by one small-sized youngster astride a huge lion,’and
as he did so, noticed a serious look on the face of his
own offspring, who was standing beside him.

“Why such a solemn expression, Tom?”
father.

“IT was just wondering,” said Tom, who lad one ride,
and, haying a ticket for another, wished to use ‘it to the
best advantage, ‘whether I would get a longer ride than
I had on the horse in the inside circle, if I rode on one
of the lions on the outside row?”

asked the

—_———_ = ° Oo

MAN VERSUS MUSCLE.

By CHARLES KROTH MOSER.

* When Hancher came to enter the great State University
at Buckeley he came up from the wide waste country
south of the Tehachapi, where children take life seri-
ously, where little men do big thitigs, and where big men
do tremendous things.

- Hancher was a little man, with a pallid skin and frail
arms. His bones were small.and his lungs weak. Also
he was piteously poor; so poor that during his first year

~ at the university he earned his way by working ‘in the
experimenting gardens with a trowel and a hoe. In the

years that followed he secured a position in the registrar's
office, where he earned more money.

From the very first his life was almost a perpetual
grind of work and study; when a leisure hour did come
his way, he went in for the formidable Y. M. C. A.
sociable, and that sort of thing—the only pleasure he
could afford.

It followed»: therefore, from these premises and‘ a

‘hundred, others, that the boy could take no noticeable

part in the various college activities, and particularly in
any kind of athletics. As a football possibility no one
“ever gave him a thought.
-* But little Haficher was a grub only because all circum-
stances were lacking that could make him a butterfly.
- There were other things to him besides a capacity for dig-
ging dry knowledge out of books dead and gone, or pass-
ing coffee to frowsy co-eds in the association parlors.
-- ~ Some people thought they saw these other things, and,
consequently, they were not at all surprised when little
~ Hancher, in spite of his terrific struggle with poverty and
his country-cut clothes, began paying serious court to
Miss Weston. | 7
‘Every man that entered college did that at some time
qn his career, but they all speedily fell by the wayside.
; get :

WEEKLY. 19
It certainly was a matter for surprise that she should
tolerate—and some even declared she encouraged him
—the attentions of little Hancher.

Miss Weston was athletic mad—crazy, stark, staring
mad over football and the heroes of the gridiron. She-
had four brothers who had worn the varsity colors, and
to her a football man was the only man on earth.

She was the college belle; a dashing beauty, with a
fortune in her own right, and a spirit as rollicking as the
play of summer light—a catch for the best man that ever
sported the blue and gold.

All men were her admirers, but those to whom she
gave preference were for the most part great shaggy
fellows, with the brawny shoulders and the thick arms
of the linesmen, or hatchet-faced, keen-eyed mén with
long, sinewy legs, such as belong in the back field.

Little Hancher was,certainly not of either of these,
and yet he apparently stood high in her regard. People
could not.understand it; for the first time in her life Miss
Weston favored a man whose fragile body seemed only
a reed which bent beneath the weight of his unusual
head.

So for nearly a year little Hancher adored her, and
paid her court in that earnest, reserved way characteristic
of him, until that wonderful. night when, all at once
and wholly to his own horror and astonishment, he found
himself telling her how much he loved her, how he would
work, would fight for her if she would only wait for
him, how much she meant to him, and—then stopped
suddenlyssick and frightened at his own temerity. For
—sle was rich and beautiful—he thought—and he was
nothing but a grub worm.

But when he looked up into his sweetheart’s face; he
saw by the gentle moonlight, not the smile of scorn he
half thought to find, but in her eyes a serious trouble.
She was standing, her elbows resting on the: myrtle-
crowned pillars, beside the gateway, and all the frivolity
he knew so well was gone. Miss Weston was not sur-
prised; she had expected this, perhaps.

“T don’t know, Arthur,’ she said. “Perhaps I do love
you. I’ve thought it all out, ahd I don’t know. You~
aren't my ideal of a man, you know. . I’ve
most loved football men, and you aren’t, you know. You
know what I mean, don’t you? I’ meay: that football
stands far so much in the men I like. It isn’t mere size%
or just bigness of bone and physical power 1 admire;
Arthur; I’ve had four brothers who were varsity men,
and two were big men, and two were short. But they
were all men, and it takes a man to play football. Now
do. you understand?) Sometimes I do think you are a
big man, but, then, I know you aren’t really, and—oh, 1
don’t know! If I could see you in a hard, hard game,
I’d know. A woman has so few things to judge a man
by; her intuitions aren’t always accurate, and I want to
be sure. Perhaps I do love you—oh, I don’t know. But
this I know, Arthur: I won't marry you until you are a
football man. ‘Please, this isn’t a childish whim, I
mean it.”

Little Hancher heard his sentence, amazed. He never
forgot the scenhe—the soft moonbeams playing over the
girl’s serious, face, and the myrtle-wreathed pillars of the
gateway supporting her arms. And he thought he re-
alized all his answer meant to him.

“Then [ll be a football man—for you, love,” he said.

- During that summer’s vacation Hancher worked on the

 

always—al- >
TIP TOP WEEKLY.

ranch as he had never worked in his life. He rode herd
on the wild plains cattle, he wrestled with the calves and
yearlings, he fought furious battles with the untamed cow
ponies—tasks for harder men, all of them. But Hancher
was building up wind and linth, preparing himself with
all his might for the strenuous footbdll career which lay
before him and filled all his dreams when at nights he
dropped down, exhausted,on his bunk. Nor did he for-
get the scientific training which a casual and desultory
. Observation had taught him was necessary.
Out in’ the corral, close under. the eaves of the great
( batn, he tied one end of a rope to a projecting beam, and
/) Swung a gunnysack filled with straw to the hanging rope.
_ Eyery evening, while the other hands sat with their
cigarettes and pipes on the cook-house porch watching
the late sun’s slow drop behind the red-brown grass, little
Hancher was hurling himself hard and furiously upon his
straw man.
_ Not an evening of the summer passed ‘but found him
tackling it savagely, springing long and low, striking bag
and ground with a shock that wracked his bones—just as
> he had seen real football men work in the campus practice.
- And all the time he heard singing in his. ears the shrill,
_ Dlood-tingling cry of the coach: “Harder, boys, harder!”
till it became to him as the gurgle of wine to one athirst.
~The other cow-punchers watched him curiously for
“some days without divulging their curiosity. It is part
of their code to let every man mind his own business

side lines to help the scrub team in its short, hard smashes
against the varsity stars. ae

As the fall wore on, and he daily grew more and more
proficient at tackling the dummy, falling on the ball, run-
ning punts down the field, Hancher begged for a chance,

“Wait,” the coach responded time and again ; then threw
him an occasional,sop by lining him up with the serubs
of the freshman elass.

“I'm afraid,” the coach explained to Magnum, the big
captain, “he’s all sand and no timber. If I send him into
a scrimmage, those big chaps’ll scatter him all over the
field.”

‘Toward the end of the season Hancher did get ‘into a
scrimmage one day, and crawled out of it with a broken
collar bone and two ribs smashed, Tucked under his.
good arm was the ball, which painfully he tried to adz
vance before he fainted. It was six weeks before he could
attend his lectures again,

In his junior year Hancher made his place on the serub
team by dint of sheer grit. Constitutionally : he hated
football, and feared it, but he overcame his dread, and
constant, earnest, determined practice made him a fair
tackler and a light, fast runner down the field, “A faculty
for always keeping his eye on the ball gained: him the
notice of both his captain and the coach. But there was
no varsity material in him yet.

It was not until his last year at college that Hancher’s
chance came. Came when hope had sickened in his heart, :

when he was almost in despair; came then by the miss” |
chance of another.

Hancher was almost a veteran in knowledge of the
game then. His muscles had toughened, his frame broad-
ened until he was no longer the campus weakling. There
had been minor matches in which he had played his
game and a man’s part. The rooters had found his name
a theme for doggerel, and made it a slogan for pluck.

Miss Weston had been frank in her praise of his play,
and Hancher felt that if the good God would only send
him a chance he could show her. But Reeves, the varsity -! ~
left end for three years, was a host for his team, and’)

-in his own way—and to do likewise themselves. But
* finally one of them, admiring the boy’s earnestnesg, asked:
» “What’s it all about, sonny? <Ain’t tryin’ to hurt th’
“sack /none, aire ye?”
_» tlancher scarcely paused from his efforts. “I’m prac-
“ticin’ to lick th’ stuffin’ out of a big galoot up to th’ col-
» tege,” he answered, falling into the ranch vernacular.
_ “Ain't goin’ to percipertate them foul tactics on him,
vaire ye?”
Goin’ after him any old way to git him; he’s bigger’n
-a herd of me.”
_ Theréafter the boys took a deep interest; they felt
sotry for the white-faced “sonny” who, for some reason Hancher knew he might never hope to wrest the place
which was none of their business, was going against a big from him.
’ husky—and without a gun, too. So they taught him How he had worked none but God and himself knew 3 |
_ many of the tricks of boxing and wrestling and “rough- , and it had come to naught. For, of course, no man js a.
house,” together with much advice concerning half nel- football man until he has ‘proven himself in a great) 7%
sons, strangleholds, kneeing, and locktrips. fy? Thanksgiving game against the hated rival of his beloyed’ >
_ Hancher learned his lessons with avidity. And when) University. Hancher prayed, almost wept, that something .
the fall semester began he presented himself before the might happen. It did. oes ot
‘football coath as a candidate for the varsity—less pallid, A week before the annual Thanksgiving match with
» tess fragile, less like a broken reed than he had ever been. ‘Stamford University, Wickham, the captain, called Han- ~~
| Even at that, the coach smiled.a warm, pitying smile, and cher into his dressing room one afternoon’ after signal” |
‘down in his heart wondered greatly at the deep love of practice. The coach was in the room with him; both ~~
is man for his university. wore troubled countenances, i pe
~ That year little Hancher fought -his fight without re- _Hancher,” Wickham began, without parley, ‘you're
ward. Of Miss Weston he saw but little; a delicate pride, 8°! Into the game next Saturday. Reeyes is down and >
amherent in him, made him ¢all infrequently, and the sub- out. Pneumoniz. Mr. Whipple and Pye agreed that |
' dect of his football ambitions was never more than cas- Youre the te best—but you have got to play ball, o
“ually dwelt upon. The boy was as‘equally determined not Hancher. We only had a fighting chance to beat Stam= =

) force his attentions upon her as he was that she should ford this year, and now—but I know you'll play like the
t lose sight of him, devil. You’ve got it In you, and we're trusting you to.

Ev ry day he climbed into his mole skins and joined take care of youriend till you drop... That's valle’ ‘ara
ete sound of peiididatre’ an the-aructice Hod. ie aes se sacar left: the room, head swimming with the joy -
t for left end; it’was the only possible position for a é . CRE oe
of his light build and inexperience. But there were > apes mages ey Ce it tl A ae

zen others, abler, better men, before him. Not once A cold, bright sun shone down on the white-barred «

eason did the coach order him out from the — field and glanced back in brilliant flashes upon cardinal

n dic 0% F mam, out trom the . held and. glanced back. im brilliant. Upon cardinal
: ‘ ts sy 0 A Aaa tc } wes pe ates bret yp ey ih i Hives teh ' 4 ee Mi sag My, Kay 3 is 3 es ray

4 *

 
 

LIP sPOr

-» . banners; thousands of blue-and-gold ribbons streamed

» out on the gay, salt-flavored wind that blew in fresh from

the bay.

A great multitude of fair ladies, their gowns blazing
e with the bright colors of the rival universities, sat amid
¢ & © axyet greater host of strong-lunged men around the arena,
i ae waiting to hear a shrill whistle, and then to see twenty-

®  « two giant, red-blooded, fighting men charge and pummel

amd wrestle each other for the honor of Alma Mater.

f. yes glittered, faces tingled with excitement and the
sharp sting of the November breeze; there was life in

‘the very air; strong, lusty young life in the great shout-
ings, the cheers, and the roaring songs that arose, like
; ' the breaking of surf on the seashore, from out of the
aes. rooters’ sections, here and yonder across the arena. It
_ »# was good to live, to see, and to feel, and to hear, for this

“i was the day of days for youth—the day of the Thanks-
# © giving football match.

a. Rival bands played rival tunes that jarred and ground

\® ‘together in harsh discord; hoarse cheers from noisy

2%. youngsters in hats of gold and blue were drowned in

% hoarser jeers from noisy youngsters under cardinal caps
across the field.

- Red flags, red fans, red ribbons. waved and fell in
rhythmic unison, like the rush and flow of sun-burnished
billows in a tropical sea, under the red ball of the even-
ing sun. Gold streamers and blue bunting, blue and gold
combined, flashed and glimmered like the play of arctic

- lights aross the polar sky. The riot of color was’ the
riot of young spirits, the frantic outburst of young life,
~ Around the side lines officials of the contest strolled,
~. exchanging banter and trivial bets, sometimes. critical
- opinions. A doctor sat among those in the press seats,
two litters and a bag of surgical instruments at his feet.
Outside the gate a hospital ambulance was drawn up
near enough the fence for its driver to see the game; the
‘horses, nose-deep in feed bags, munched their oats con-
tentedly. The rivalry between Stamford and the State

University was uncommonly fierce.

In the dressing room under the bleachers little Han-
~ cher sat with the team, listening to the coach’s last word.

’ Tt was not puerile child’s talk he gave them.
fae NO must go in and win this game,” he said. “Not
' because a football victory is anything in ‘itself, ‘but be-
» cause it is the thing you have worked for, it is the duty
~ you are trusted to do, it is your life’s work at this mo-
ment. Right now there isn’t any future for you but this
game; you must realize that, in the sense- of duty and
effort, the rest of your life is influenced and built on
* what you do to-day. Try jnot to think of it as a mere
~ episode of sport, but as a task destiny has put upon you
‘and expects you to accomplish. If you can realize all
_ that it means to you, I shall have no fear of your being
~ defeated.”

Hancher, listening, with his heart in his mouth, knew
‘that he realized all that it meant t6 him. The next mo-
“sment they were running out on the field, a tumult of
sound and moving colors engulfing them.

» ‘The Stamford team were out before them, running
- through signal practice with the snappy, machinelike pre-
cision of an automaton, Hancher, looking at them
through blinking eyelids, thought he had never seen stich
huge-limbed, massive men, whose every movement in-
‘dicated tremendous power. Especially was he fascinated

 

 

 

  

  

  

   

and shoulders of a viking; a herculean being little Han-

WW ’
: ’

 

WEEKLY.

‘ to go out of his limbs, and almost he wished for Reeves

by their full’ back—a great tawny giant, with the head Je
_ Ten minutes after the ball was put in play Wickham

   
  
  
   
  
  
  
   
  
  
  
  
   
  
   
  
  
   
  
    
  
   
 

cher knew Stormer to be in the moment’s glance, and there
came into his soul a sudden fear. ‘The stiffening seemed

there in his place, and he in the warm bed, struggling
against nothing. more terrifying than pneumonia—then he
saw Miss Weston.

She was standing up in the bleachers, a glorious figure-
of womanhood bathed in the flashing university colors;
she was waving her flag at him and shouting something.
Hancher could not hear, but the nameless fear in his
heart ebbed. The whistle blew. .

Swift down the field Hancher sped, under the ball that
Wickham had booted almost to Stamford’s goal. posts,
He saw it suddenly descend. into a pair of monstrous, up-
flung red arms—then he struck something, and crumpled. ~~ 4
up in the dirt. When he came to himself he was stoop- ae
ing at his place in the line, and Stamford’s quarter back ca
was loudly droning out: “Two, twenty-two, thirteen, |
nine.”’ The goal posts were not ten yards away, and © 4
Hancher realized he had dropped the mighty Stormer in» 4
his tracks. The rooters’ section was sending out a wild © 94
chorus of cheers, and he heard his name on ten thousand ae
tongues. one

Nothing mattered after that. He had made good, and aa

 

he knew it. . He was a football man, and she would be © 4
his wife. This was all his thought, and for the life of ~~ 4
him Hancher could never have told how he played after- © 74

ward. All he realized was that every time he saw a red
jersey he got mixed up with it somehow, there would
be a terrific shock, and he would go down. And now
and then there would come to him, as though from some ~
far-away land hidden in thin, gray mist, a faint, high-
droned chorus: ;

‘“‘Hancher, Hancher! Good boy, Hancher!” \

The first half ended without either team scoring, and ~~ 4
the little end trooped with the others into ‘the dressing ~ 4
room for the ten-minute rest before the second half began.»
Most of the team were enthusiastic, confident of seoring
in the second half, though every man showed evidences —
of the rough play to which he had been subjected. But .
the coach and Wickham. stood off in a corner talking
earnestly, and, with shadowed faces. .

“They've got too much beef and ginger,” he oyerheard
the coach say. : a

Now that he was resting, Hancher felt faint, his limbs
trembled, and there were strange aches in his bones, It
was only fatigue, he told himself, but he had never felt
fatigue so acutely before. There was pain in his eyes
and in the back of his head—-what if he should fail to ~
hold his own this half? Not before her, no, by thunder, ~
no! He gritted his teeth to keep his mind away from
the numbness in his legs as he walked back ‘on the field.”

If the first half had been a hard struggle, the second °
was terrific. The Stamford giants had come back to ~
the fray with strength renewed tenfold, as thouigh each.
one were an Anteus whose strength multiplied each time ~
he fell to:earth. ;

In vain the varsity back bucked..and twisted and
hurdled, seeking to advance the ball; the Stamford line
held impregnable. Helplessly the gold-striped linesmen_
bent théir shoulders and strained their legs against the
onslaught of the cardinal backs; the mighty Stormer, like —
Thor among the lesser Norse gods, hurled his’ tremen- |)
dous body bolts among them, and tore great; gaping holes’ *
in the line wherever he struck. pW Rera

      
         
      
   
        
   
       
         
   
   
       
     
   
       
    
          
         
 
      
           
   
        
         
   
   
    
       

    

    
        

    
“22. Mie HPOr
caught a kick or the forehead that scattered ‘his wits, and,
although he played bravely on, he lost control of his team.
Slowly it crumbled up, gave back yard after yard before
the furious assaults of the cardinal men, fighting sav-
agely every inch of the ground, but as surely going to

pieces as a rotten sea wall crumbles under the smashing
of the combers in a storm.

It was little Hancher who quickly seized control and
sought to stem the tide of defeat. Without asking for
authority, without awaiting command, he took the cap-
taincy of his mates upon himself, and began with won-
derful quiet force to steady them. Afterward, it was a
university tradition how he succeeded.

Playing his own position with the fury of a fiend from
the nether world, he yet found time to direct his team

\ . ~ ° .
~, in cool, masterful plays, to encourage the faltering with

a word here and a touch of the hand there.
Despite the battering of the Stamford backs, the pow-
“erful surging of the forwards, the’ swift darts around the
end; and their perfect interference, the warsity checked
their advance. Several times it’ even threw them back.
The disheartened rooters caught encouragement from the
little end, and broke into pandemonium:

Who’s the rancher? Hancher, Hancher!
Good boy, Hancher.
You're the chap!
Knock ’em! block ’em!
Beat ’em back!
You're the rancher!
Give ’em the ax!

Soak ’em! choke ’em!

Good old Hancher!

But Hancher heard nothing of this. All his powers
were concentrated on winning the victory. His soul was
aflame with the thirst for glory. Through him there ran
the hot desire for blood, to hear bodies groan, and see
them fall under the avalanche he was directing upon them ;
he was a young animal again, with fangs and claws rend-
‘ing his prey. The heat of battle was upon him, and he
was a thing transformed.

_ Five minutes more to play, and the ball in Stamford’s
possession thirty yards from het own goal. It was the
third down, and she had all her yards to gain. The quar-
ter passed the ball to Stormer for a punt, and his mighty
swinging leg, driving like a catapult, sent the ball far
up the field into the very shadows of the varsity goal
posts.

Kingston, the varsity full back, caught the ball, but
before he had run in ten yards, the Stamford ends were
upon him. As he fell, the pigskin bounded from his
arms, and a red-shirted player fell on it. Stamford’s
- ball on the varsity ten-yard line! It was now or never!

_ The rooters in the grand stand hushed their clamor and
- waited——breath indrawn, hearts and faces straining hard.
“= Suddenly Stormer bounded forward like a great beast
unleashed, and drove his huge form through the varsity

WEEKLY.

look of a man doomed. The old trainer rushed over
to where he lay; it did not need Hancher’s faint words,
“I can't move, Jimmy,” to tell him what had happened.
He signaled for the doctor, and the crowd, misunder-
standing, started to cheer. Jimmy raised a beseeching
hand, its gesture too eloquent for words, and the shouts
died on the lips.

“Time out!” called the umpire, and amid a silence |
more appalling than the roars of thunder, they put little —
Hancher into a stretcher and carried him off the field,

The sun waned behind the incoming fog, the gaudy
banners drooped under a burden of dampness, the air
suddenly chilled, and when the game was resumed, the
noise of the rooters was but a faint echo of its former .
lustiness. The accident to the stout-hearted little end
acted like a wet blanket on the enthusiasm of the crowd.
And when, in the last minute of the game, Stormer
crashed through the broken varsity for a touchdown,
even the victors subdued their triumphant cries,

That night Miss Weston and her mother went to the
hospital 'seeking tidings of the injured player. As a
physician entered the anteroom where they sat, Miss
Weston arose, and, bravely steadying her breaking voice,
loked at him,frankly as she spoke:

“Doctor, tell me—is Mr. Hancher very severely hurt?”

The physician was grave. ‘‘He is,” he said. “He has 4;
suffered a severe dislocation of the neck. He is per-)”
fectly conscious, however, and if we can relieve the pres-
sure on the spinal cord he will get well. But his position
is.very dangerous, for if we cannot, then——” >

The warm-hearted man of medicine stopped at the look
in the girl’s eyes. Then he smiled. ,

“I think,” he drawled ingenuously, “he might get better
if you would see him.”

Trembling in every muscle with terror and remorse,
Miss Weston followed the doctor through the surgical
wards to where the boy lay helplessly in his white cof.
At sight of the suffering in his drawn countenance her
self-control gave way; she sank on her knees and buried
her head in his pillow. .

“Arthur, Arthur !

It was the man.
ways!”

What the boy’s thoughts were no one could tell, and he
was tao sorely hurt to talk much for himself. But the joy’
in his heart must have been great enough to conquer the’
pain in his body, for it rushed to his lips in a feeble
whisper. * ue

“Oh, mall right,” he said.

Three weeks later little Hancher left the hospital a
whole man again. He was the college idol, and Miss ©
Weston’s fiancé; it seemed to him that, after all, life was

}
It wasn’t the football I cared about.
Live, dear, live—and I'll love you, ale

nothing but sunshine. But Miss Weston could never fore
get how her craze for a football hero nearly cost her her.
life’s happiness. ny

Tl ni i i es

LOOKING BACKWARD ;

' The man of the future sat patiently darning the family
socks. From time to time his mild blue eyes glanced —
wearily round at the pile of mending at his elbow, and he’
sighed as he ghought of Murphy, the raw Irishmah, who ©
needed incessant instruction in the most elementary “de-
tails of the culinary art. Two noisy, sturdy girls romped —
toimgirlishly about the room, aggravating his headache,

4 ‘
f t

line as though it were made of straw. Straight for the
-- goal posts he sprang, with Hancher, alone, barring his
_ way. The boy made a'long, low dive; even as his body
~ straightened out in mid-air, like a flying fish his arms
encircled the giant’s knees, and the two went down to-
gether. In the uproar of the rooters no one heard the
~ dull rasping of bones.
/* Stormer.shook himself loose from the limp arms that
held him, “but a mass of muddy blue legs. and arms
_, hurled itself upon him, and he was overwhelmed. Amid
' a perfect frenzy of noise the players scrambled to their
feet to line up once more—all but Hancher. — He lay inert,
helpless, his face convulsed with pain, and in his eyes the

“ : bites uan

 
ay ee

'» |< »while their gentle little brother sat quietly by his father’s

side, studying pictures in an old book of bygone fashions,

which appealed naturally to the domestic instinct of the

little man.

oe “Took, father,”

4 “Be of the year 1909.
; oe are

he murmured, pointing to an old print
“See what queer clothing that man has

 

 

Coty: they? Did men really wear these, then?”
i. “Yes, dear,” replied his father, laying down his needle
P. for a moment and bending over the page. ‘‘I never saw
ee % ‘any, but father once told me that grandfather wore them
“ae when he was a boy. They called them trousers!”
£ <4 + 0+
Tee e EASY MONEY.
i * 5) Jones and Smith, while walking by a canal, saw a
* -@ ‘signboard which stated that a dollar would be paid to
whoever rescued another man from drowning.
is It didn’t take them more than a minute to arrange
» that one should fall in and be saved by the other, and
e the “stakes’’ divided.
In went Jones, and found it rather deeper than he
expected. However, he splashed about, crying:
“Come on, Smith! Save me!”
Smith hesitated.
“Jones,” he said, “I’ve been reading that notice board
> Cae. again, and it says, “Iwo dollars for a dead body.’ Now,
4. do be reasonable.”
. <0
: _Kallico Dick and His Cactus Bat.

 

By MARTIN A. FLAVIN.

Bo, | It’s jest possible, stranger, that you ain’t never heard
“tell of the Sage Brush League; and, such being the case,
» *the chances are about a thousand to one that you don’t
AX know nothing of Kallico Dick and his cactus bat. But,
yall the same, there was a Sage Brush) League, and there
is a Kallico Dick who once had a cactus bat; and the
| mixing up of these three things like to plunged the whole
> west end of Squgee County into a long and bloody civil
“war.

_. The Sage Brush League consisted of the Desert Stars
which was tus—and the Little Divides—which was our
~ Matural enemies since about 2000 B. C.

~ At the time I’m telling about we had ’em tied for the
_ champeenship of the world, and were getting ready to
~ play our ace of trumps.

There wasn’t nothing to it, we thought, seeing as how
we had the most wonderful pitchers, catchers s, and batters
_ on earth.

~ ‘Take, for instance, Shovelfoot Jones, our catcher.
"Why, Shovel’ had often been known to: reach right out
* jn front of the batter and grab the ball before the feller
ever got a chance to swipe at it.

**. On first we had an old, bald- headed cyclone named
Doe Mellins, that had Deer in Cuby with the Rough-
‘riders, and could catch cannon balls in a china plate.

- Our pitcher, Stack Smith, could plug a quarter with
‘an ordinary baseball at five hundred yards; and our
sprinter, Spider Tom Gallagher, was so blame’ fast he
had’ to put asbestos on the soles of hah feet to keep from
burning up his socks. if

, Spider didn’t think nothing of running around the bases
‘three times while the Gulch Dams were, fielding in the
ball; and as, according to our rules, this ‘counted ‘for
three scores, you kin see he wasn’t no slouch, .

  
   
         
     
    

  

    

  

  

   
 

  

WEEKLY.

  

»

But the real war-whooping, all-round star of the gang
was Soakem Slade; right field, and the champeen heavy
hitter of Squgee County.

Soakem could swat the ball a mile without half trying,
and the time he made his record of a mile and seven-
eighths and thirty-four feet he scored minety-seven runs,
and would have made a hundred if he hadn’t got off the
base line in the dark and run into a post.

I might go on and name over the'rest of the nine, be-
eause every one of ‘em was remarkable, in one way or an-
other, but there ain’t no use in anticipating events, ‘so
I'll jest wind up the catalogue with Kallico Dick.

Kallico w = Son agal utility man, and first and only sub-
stitute. He |! 1adn’t never played a game of baseball in
his life, and didn’t cw a foul tip from a home run,
but Sliver Murphy, our manager, kept him on the list
because of his inventive. genius.

You see, Kallico had a natural bent for inventing
things, and, whereas he had formerly wasted his bloom on
airships and divining rods, when he joined the Desert
Stars he broke out in several new places at once.

He was always a-fixing up patent bases a feller couldn't
stand on, and masks as couldn’t be seen through; and
once he made a chest protector and tried it on Shovelfoot,

but something went wrong with what Kallico called the

resilient quality, and for three weeks we didn’t have no
catcher.

After that the boys gotekind of leary of his inven-
tions, and when he
percha mitt or a pair of pneumatic shoes, there was more
or less cussing and a sort of general panic.

Poor old Kallico was considerably offended at this

lack of appreciation, but he kept right on a-trying, and ©

the last we heard of him he was working overtime on.a
cactus bat. He said he wanted to have it done in time
for the final game.

We tried to persuade him that there wasn’t no pos-"

sible tise in trying to make a-bat out of cactus wood, be+
cause it’s that soft inside, like a watermelon, that you
could throw a ball clean through it; but Kallico was in
no wise convinced.

He guessed there was great room for improvement in.

the manufacture of base ball bats, and, so long as he had

started out to make one out of cactus wood, he was g0-.

ing to do it or bust,

Well, to cut a long story short, the great and glorious
day wherein we were to lick our foes clean off the map,
arrived at length, and with it’came the Little Divides in
a stagecoach, ‘all trimmed up like a Sunday-school pic-
nic. Sorghum Riley, their manager, and Sliver went out
to inspect the diainond) which was right on the edge of.
town.

The ball
desert for
your hand,
bushes.

about two hundred miles, and as bare “as

Sorghum and Sliver put up some ropes to keep back

the crowd which had already begun to accumulate, some’
of the people having come fifty miles and brought their.
families; and then they comé back to town after us.

At two o’clock the Divides trotted onto the field of | bat-

tle, and, having been uproariously greeted by their friends, oe

set about display: ing theirselves to the best advantage, ©
They were, a sure-enough fine bunch of heroes, and if’

tt hadn't been for Soakem phases § we might have Peon?

would come around with a gutta-_

grounds were plenty big, extending over themes

except for a few clumps of brush and’ cholla ”

    
   
   
  
  
  
   
   
  
   
  
  
  
   
  
   
  
   
   
    
   
   
 
  
   
  
  
  
   
  

eR ant SS CR es

 

 

      
     
     
     
       
         
         
       
        
      
    
    
        
    
      
  
    
   
 
   
  
    
 
   
  
 
 
 
   
  
 
 
   
   
 

St Rees

— ~
aman cia as etree amet

x

8

 

genuinely worried. But we knew that after Soakem had
got one swat at the leather it would be up to the Divides
to send out a searching party, so we didn’t lose our
nerve.

We let ‘em knock up flies and grand stand around till
they got tired, and then we ups and marches onto the
diamond.

Well, you should have heard that mob yell! ‘Three
cheers and a tiger for the Stars!” hollers: Abner Green, of
Coffeyville; and they give ‘em with a will.

We felt mighty proud, I tell you; and when Soakem
stepped to the plate to show his style, he was so plumb
tickled that he sent the first one right up into a cloud,
$0 it was gone for seventeen minutes, and come back as
wet as if it had been soaked in a bucket of water.

The Little Divides looked pretty sick at this perform-
ance, and by and by Sorghum called Sliver aside and said
it wasn’t fair to keep a ball in the air that long unless
his fielders were to be perwided With airships.

Sliver he ‘lowed there wasn’t nothing in the rules
agin’ keeping a ball up for a hour or sending it clean to
heaven, if a man could do it, and, furthermore, he wasn’t
supplying airships to nobody.

Then Sorghum wanted an empire. He said if he
couldn’t have an empire he wouldn’t let his men play.

We hadn't never had an empire afore, not ever being
able to find one that would stick through the first inning,
but finally Sliver give up, arfd said he would stand for
an empire, pervided it warn’t no Little Divider.

He kalklated they wouldn’t pay much attention to the
empire, nohow, and right there is where he made an

awful miskalkalation. 3

So they went off a-hunting for one, and finall¥ located

_a likely-looking prospectiin old “Texas Bill” Miller a-play-
ing solitairé under a wagon box.

They dropped on him afore he had*a chance to draw,
and “lowed he’d hev to empire that game, whether he
wanted to or not.

Texas he said he hadn’t never.played; baseball in his
dife, and didn’t know no more about 4t than a cow-

puncher did about the Holy Land; but if he had to—
then he would, only he reckoned he’d wear his guns.

Sorghum and Sliver reckoned he wouldn’t, but Texas
jest cocked his triggers and says, sez he: “Who's a-em-
piring this game, anyhow?”

Well, of course that settled it. Then Texas he made
a little speech to the audiénce, saying as how he had
been forced to accept this yere honor agin’ hhis will and

nat’ral inclinations; but seeing as how he had accepted
it, he wanted it thoroughly understood that he was boss
of the ring, and would empire that game or bust.

Most everybody had it figgered out that he was ‘going
‘to bust, but they didn’t have the dope dished out right,
by a jugful.

The first thing Texas did after he called the game

__was to begin calling strikes, and he called ’em for three

innings without taking breath.

It was the quickest game I ever see. The pitchers
jest rolled the ball along the ground; there wa’n’t no kind
of use in doing nothing else,with such a fool empire.

Tt didn’t make no difference what kind of a ball it was,

Texas said “Strike,” and after he’d said this three times
he says “Out.” It was the worst foolishness a man ever

seen. seit
Well, after the third inning Sorghum and? Sliver held
consultation, and decided to change their minds.

¥

  

ei POR OW a

 

They apologized for disturbing the empire, but said
they really didn’t need him any more, and hoped he'd = 4
take hisself away.. But Texas jest planted his feet a bit
harder and guessed he’d stay.

Meanwhile the crowd was holding an injination meet> 4
ing, which ended in a committee being appointed to pre- 4 |
sent Texas with a book of rules. ts

Texas took the book because, he said, it was his duty ze
as a public character to hearken to the small voice of the
people. He didn’t think there was anything in the book + . 9
he didn’t know, but to prove that he warn’t no conceited — | 4.
tenderfoot, he would suspend the fight while he bit off a |
few chunks of sporting literature. |

At the end of five minutes he saidyhe knowed more
about baseball than a Kentucky thoroughbred knowed
about blue grass; and things went rolling along their joy-
ous course. /

The fourth inning opened up with us in the field and +
a pretty tolerable degree of ‘enthusiasm on both sides. ea,

The first man up rapped out a single before Texas had
a chance to open his head, and got to second on Diamond ;
Pete’s sacrifice. ‘ a

Gopher’Connors came next, with blood in his eye but Cae:
nothing in his hands, so tar as results was concerned; if
and Tubby Stevens popped up a sweet little fly that came
down right in my mitt.

The way things were going \didn’t please Texas a bit,
His feelings was hurt, and when we come to bat hé
showed it.. He called everything a ball till he got the ~7
bases full, and then he put everybody out for trying to 3
steal. Also, he wouldn’t listen to no arguments, neither. ~*  §

The Little Divides opened the fifth with a gymnastie
exhibition by Three-finger Donovan; but pricked up their ~~
ears like a desert horse smelling water when Duteh ~*~ 7}
Shultz dropped a two-bagger out in my direction, and
snaked down to third. He got there safe because Téxas
was biting off a chaw of tobacco, and couldn’t say “Out.” ©

Things didn’t appear bright to us when we see their
heavy hitter, Hunky Mike, invading the limelight; and
Stack, who was always a bit afraid of Hunky, made a
slip on his first throw, and sent a beauty right square over
the plate.

w

 

      
     
     
       
       
     
     
      
  

Hunky was just laying for that kind of an opening,
and, swinging hard, he lambasted a corker’clean over’
Soakem Slade’s head. \

        
         
 

Soakem, he turned to run back, with his eyes on the
ball, and, as luck would have it, stepped right plumb
down on a loafing rattler, and immediately lost all further |
interest in the game. —

    
       
      

He run straight in for the home plate, clean forgetting
the ball, which he might just as well have brought along”
with him, seeing as how we needed it so bad, and, hav-
ing drunk off half a gallon of booze, became unavailable
for any purpose.

In the meantime Dutch had brought in his run and)
Hunky fourteen more. :

There was some talk of disqualifying the last thir- ©
teen, because there ain’t nothing in the rules about snake ~~
bite.. But Texas ‘lowed a snake bite was a dispe’sation. om
of Providence and, taking any sich action would be noth=
ing short of flying in the face of the Almighty. He em-
phasized his ruling by shooting six holes in the first base,
and this argument warn’t answerable, , —

Well, you kin maybe imagine about the way we ‘felt
with the ‘score fifteen to nothing in the sixth inning

 
       
   
     

 

        
     
       
   
    
  

    

/
1
j
}

 

   

\ MN Bi ei e

Teoh

 
 
 

of a seven-inning game, to say nothing of having our
only hope chewed up by a rattlesnake.
We all felt powerful down-spirited, and Sliver he walks
} out to Texas, hat in hand, says as how it ain’t possible to
"4 Ss play the game without a right fielder, and so the contest
has got to be adjourned till Soakem gets sober.

Texas goes to’ pawing around in the rule book, and
had jest about got to the point of sending the game up
for thirty days, when Sorghum comes a-butting into the
ca confab and busts up the whole plan.

a “Excuse mé, Mr. Empire,’ says Sorghum, “but if a
player is put out of a game-by injuries received therein,
a substitute must be got; I would refer the gentleman to
oe rule number thirty-five on page sixty-eight.”

S - Texas got mighty red in the face at this, and told
4% « Sorghum to mosey along and count his own chips; that
9 ~~ sche: warn’t calling for information from no Little Divider ;
+ but, all the same, he took a sneaking squint at page sixty-

“4 > eight, and seen that Sorghum was giving him straight
Weg goods, and that made him sore at Sliver for getting him
, eo nto it.

4 “Ain't you got no substitute?” he snaps.

7 “Sure we have,” said Sliver, kind of faint hike, “but
+ he ain't no good. Why, honest, Mr. Empire, Kallico
re don’t know no more about baseball than you do.”

Sliver didn’t mean that speech the way it sounded, but
he couldn't make no explanations to Texas, and we all
went off to hunt for Kallico with the cheerfulnews a-ring-
F ing in our ears that if we didn’t find him in less’n three

w

 

4 ~—s minutes the game! would be forfeited to the Divides.

ef cae However, it warn’t no trouble to find him because he
oe was sitting quiet like on the edge of the crowd, playing
oe checkers with Doc Adams.
heme When he first seen us he thought we had come after
ane the cactus bat, and his face lit up like a sunflower.. We
j - = told him we didn’t need the bat yet a while, but for

him to come on in and help us play. And he said he
would, but fox us to wait a little while till he got another
“man in the king row. . He was jest that meek and inno-
cent like.

_ Of course, we didn’t do no waiting; jest grabbed him
>» and hustled him out in the field, where we left him,
* with the instructions that whenever he seen the ball he
Was to run-after it.. That was all he could do.

, But them inhuman Little Dividers done the rest.. They
put “em over him and under him and on all sides of
‘him. Why, acshually, he like to killed hisself a-chasing
‘em. Two or three of ’em fell on his. hands before he
could get “em out of the way; and Buck McCarthy lifted
a fly that come square down in his pocket.
There was considerable excitement about this because
Texas said it was a safe hit, and Buck got to third base
before Kallico found the ball.
Most of the crowd seemed to think that Buck ought
to been put out, but Texas, he said no, and explained
thisaway: “When a man pockets a ball in a game of
pool, he don’t give the other feller a point, does he? No.
Well, then, I reckon it’s the same thing in baseball.”

' There warn't no answer to this, so Buck went on around
-and brought in 'the twentieth. .

After this they didn’t get no more for a spell; but
when we come to bat we was all that worked up and
sick that we warn’t no more fitten to hold sticks than a
passel of prairie dogs; and the Divide twirler initiated
three healthy candidates into the Down and Out Club be-
fore we had time to get started.

TIP TOP’ WEEKLY.

couldn’t be persuaded to touch it.

  

Twenty to nothing in the first of the seventh! That
looked encouraging, I don’t think! The audience was
about half asleep, and even the Little Dividers was getting
tired of the massacre. A victory like that ain’t mtich
glory to nobody. However, they, knocked a few out
around Kallico jest to keep him in practice.

Kallico picked up the fine points of the game mighty
quick, and by this time he could tell within a hundred |
yards of where a ball was going to land. In fact, it was
in this inning that he almost caught one. Afterward he
said he would ’a’ got it if a horned toad hadn’t run be-
tween his legs and tripped him.

But there*ain’t no use in lingering over disasters like
this, and to make a sad story sadder, the Little Dividers
incteased their lead to twenty-four, and only went out
then because they got tired, and didn’t care.

A good part of the crowd was going home now, and
the balance was playing horseshoes or setting aréund
swapping lies. The enthusiasm had kind of petered out,
which warn’t surprising, all things considered.

When we come'in from the field Kallico said he
guessed he’d better go up home now and get his bat, but
most everybody told him to go to blazes. He was still
hanging on to his favorite idea, and chinning about it,
when Sliver happened by and heard him. ‘

“Go on and get it,” says Sliver mournfully, “and if
you've got a basketful of- home runs stowed eWay any-
where, bring them along, too. "We may need ‘em before
we get through.”

Most of us laughed, but Kallico hadn’t waited for the
last sentence, and was scampering away across the desert.

Shovelfoot was the first man up, and he must have
had a awful friendly feeling for the ball, because he
After him comes
Spider, who makes three weak-kneed swipes without—
doing any more damage than to disturb the atmosphere.

“Next,” says Texas, with a yawn.

And who should came a-waltzing up to the block
but Kallico Dick! Yes, sir, Kallico Dick, with the cactus
bat and a sad, smiling look in his eyes like a lamb being —
druv to the slaughter house.

Well, it was pitiful. The crowd groans, and*begins to
stretch itself. The Little Divide fielders take off their
mitts and walk slowly in. The catcher signals for a slow,
straight ball, and the pitcher grins as he’prepares to de-
liver it.

Kallico is hdlding his dinky bat straight out in front
of him, like a new kind of garden rake, and waiting pa-
tiently when

 

3iff! Splat!
“A hit! A hit!’ yells the mob. “Run, you walrus, -
run!” And Kallico starts off like an express train

straight for third base. ~ .
“Drop the bat,” hollers Sliver, grabbing him by the
collar and heading him around in ‘the right direction.
And Kallico, chucking his stick well inside the base
line, puffs off for first like a rusty locomotive, with every-
body a-shrieking at him to follow the white line and
sprint. tenes
And all this time where is the ball? Nobody seems
to know. The fielders are waving their arms and run-
ning, crazy like, this way and that. \
The crowd says: “To the right!” ~ To, the left!”
“Tn the center!’ without much choice ; and the best of us
ain’t recovered enough to say anything,

Sorghum appeals wildly to the empire. But Texas

«

as

 
   
      

  

   
  
 
 
  
  
  
   
   
  
   
   
    
  
  
   
 
  
  
  
     
 

  
        
     
      
  

      
       
         
         
       
     
           

    
     

 
    

    
 
Sen ooe eae rber crs

“three people seem to have retained their senses:

» Well, it was; and not six feet frorn the home plate, I'll

_ rected the professor.

TIP TOP.

can't give him no satisfaction—‘It didn’t drop outside,”
he says, “so it’s got ter betinside.” And that’s the best
he can get.

So they hunts while Kallico completes his third round
in a blaze of glory, and starts nobly on the pourth.

But Kallico warn’t built for no ten-second clip, and
at the end of the tenth lap he has to have a jug of ice
water poured down his back.

This helps him some, but®on the fifteenth he staggers
and calls for whisky. A bucketful is passed to him, and
he drinks it on the way.

Meanwhile the nine Divides has. quit the
is busy digging out gopher holes.

By this time the excitement is terrible; in fact, only
Texas,
But Kallico ain’t got no more wind,
fait down, breath-

se

diamond and

Sliver, and; Kallico.
‘and in the stretch of the twentieth he f
ing very hard and begging for air.

“Get a horse,” some one stggests.

“Yep, a horse, a horse,” yells the crowd.

“No,” says Texas. “There ain’t nothing in the rules
about running ‘bases on horseback, and [ don’t. reckon
it's sca’cely allowable.”

sWe offered to ride him in a wheelbarrer, but there
wwarn’t no wheelbarrers in the rules, neither, so that
wouldn't do. More whisky, then, and ice water; and
pretty soon Kallico is up and off again.

Twenty-one, twenty-two—only three more needed, and
évyerybody is standing on their toes and screaming like
ymad. The Divides has tore up about an acre of cholla
bushes and is after the mesquite trees with a hand ax.

“Twenty-three, twenty-four!”

“They've, got it!”

No ee

ii Toa

“No {”

“By Heck, it’s a stone!”

“Here he comes!”

“Sprint, you mucker, sprint!’

And Kallico crosses the t tape running blind, and faints
aid away in my arms.

And, stranger, do you reckon that ball was ever found?

411
take my afhdavy. Where? Why, jest a-sticking in the
Dat; same as if you was to sink a false tooth in a chunk
‘of bakery pie and leave it there.

Yes, oh, yes, the Little Divides kicked some ; but Texas
he ‘lowed there warn’t nothing in rules agin’ cactus wood,
and if the boys didn’t think to look inside the bat, that
was their business, not his; and, of course, that settled it.

———$$ +9404

LESSONS IN RHETORIC:
| How often we misuse words to the extent of saying
the contrary to what we mean is pointed out in the fol-
lowing anecdote. A college professor, who prided. him-
self on his correct English, heard his wife remark:

“T intended to call Jane to bring a fresh bucket of

water.”

“You-doubtless mean a bucket of fresh water,” cor-
“I wish you would pay some atten-
tion to your rhetoric; your mistakes are curious.

“A few moments later’ the professor said, ‘My dear,

_. that picture would show to better ady antage if you were.
Ean fe hang it over the clock.”

oe if _ She replied quietly,

“you doubtless’ mean if I

WEEKLY:

were to hang it above the clock. If I were to hang it
over the clock we could not tell the time. I wish you
would be more careful with your rhetoric; my dear; your
mistakes are curious.’
And the professor all at once became very much inter-
ested in the book he was reading.
$40

A GOOD SALESMAN. ,

‘My dear sir,” said a canvasser to a man into whose
office he had forced his way, “I am sure I have what
you want. Here is a new patent paper cutter, sir, that
[ am selling for a quartet. It is the best in the rage
never tears “the pages of an uncut book

“Very nice indeed,” interrupted the victim;
have no uncut books, and so——”

“L suspected that, sir,” mterrupted the agent.

why I have brought along this beautiful, uneut copy of
Shakespeare. Three hundred pages of elevating Tread-
ing, embellished with beautiful engravings. Just the thing
for a center table!”

“I haven't got a center table
man, so you see

“That's good!”: said the canvasser. “Let me show you
the catalogue of our company’s furniture. It is all of”
the very best make, and a center table like that ,in the

“but I

,’ exclaimed the badgered

picture on page twenty-two will prove an ornament 1o)% a

33

your drawing-rooim-
“But I haven’t any drawing-room—I have no nce
my friend. Consequently i
“Glorious!” cried the agent.
Your Own House Company, of ——
“Oh, go away,” cried the victim. “‘Here’
I'll take a paper cutter!’

39

*

The Squeeze in “Transit.”
By LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE.

SYNOPSIS OF PRECEDING CHAPTERS,

Neil Hillis, son of General Homer Hillis, upon leaving college, iS

is taken into his father’s stock-broking business, the firm name

becoming Hillis &*Son. The firm does a general commission

business in Wall Street. On the first day of active duty in the
office, Neil has exciting experiences. There is a financial pantie,

and the day becomes known gn the stock exchange as Black =
Thursday. Benton, an old friend of Neil’s father, has cornered .
the market in Southern Atlantic stock, of which Neil’s firms.
“short.” The failure of ely llis & Son is announced on the stocky
exchange. The old general, however, resolves to saye sonie of
his fortune, if possible, fae he and Neil ge ‘to Benton to ask
help. Benton receives them with a leer. i?

CHAPTER IV.—(Continued:)

“In fact,” resumed General Hillis, ‘

ern Atlantic at a reasonable price, or ” He left the:

matter open ; ; Benton, he knew, caught his meaning,

“And so you come to me.
harshly.

‘T must have South-

evilly,

“Because it is said’ that you have engineered this Ot!

ner. That is so, is it not? You have the stock?”
3enton smiled ‘s slyly, hemming and hawing before Ki
resi yonded. .

Oiane to me you take a great deal for granted, ee 3 |

said, at last. “You go pretty straight to your Augie
I hold the stock: Well?”
“I want you to help me out.

ee
“That's

“TI represent the Own
»

W ‘hy 3 ’ sneered the ho ;

e’s your quarter!’ =

 
‘Pea

&
tomers’ accounts. Even allowing them to make good—
all such as cani—lI can’t settle and keep my business. Of
course,” he went on hastily, “I know that we have differed
in the past, Benton. We've not been the best of friends,
but I have hoped é

The stock gambler, the big operator, turned to his desk
and took up a typewritten list of names.

“Til tell you something, Hillis,” he said, running his
eye down the sheet of paper: “every share of stock that
you sold to-day came to me through my brokers. I have
it here—with the prices.’”” He named the total amount;
Hillis nodded confirmation. ‘‘So—lI’ll tell you something
else: I put this deal through with the hope of getting
some people.in a position to feel the turn of my screw. |
have succeeded.” He paused to give effect to his conclu-
sion, sneering again. ‘‘You’re one of ’em,” he broke
out angrily. “I swore once to get even with you.
have you where I want you. Hillis—let me finish—lI will
settle with you for exactly $250 per share—not a red
cent less.”

Neil turned from the window, his face livid with rage
at the cruel insolence in the man’s tone. He might have
spoken, but his father gave him pause with an uplifted
hand, as he arose from the chair.

For a minute General Hillis stood looking down at the
hgure that quaked with triumphant laughter in the depths
of the chair before him—then

“Thank you,” he said, with calm courtesy. He bowed
slightly. ‘Come, Neil,” he said, and left the place. As
they waited for the descending elevator in the hall with-
out

“That settles it,” he concluded, “I’m—sorry, Neil. It
means a new start in life at my age. And you, my boy

” His voice broke. ;

“Don't worry about me, sir,” cried Neil. “I can take
care of myself, dad. I’m young—but—but I’ll make that
cur inside there eat his words, sir, for his cruelty to you,
if I : 9

“There, there, son! No harm is done. I am too old to
mind—that, now. It was only for your sake that I laid
myself open to his lash.”

He broke off, stammering, and reached out for his son’s
shoulder. With that support, he stood swaying for a
moment, his mouth open, his eyes glazing. To the young
man's eyes it seemed as if he grew visibly smaller, shrink-
ing within his clothes, and he wavered back and forth.
Suddenly Neil caught his father in his arms—a dead
weight. The general’s head fell forward ‘on his son’s
breast. He breathed stertorously, gasping—shuddered—
was limp and motionless.

In his arms the young man bore his father down to

the offices of the firm that was doubly a firm no longer—_

dissolved by its failure and by death.

aK CHAPTER  V.

* :

aE Wall Street, nothing lasts, nothing is stable. The
Napoleon of to-day’s stock market is the “one-point mar-
gin piker” in to-morrow’s bucket shop.
houses in the end go to the wall; to-day the wise man in
the Street will'nod his head knowingly, and say “Hillis?
Why, my dear boy, Hillis is as firm as the Sub-Treasury
- up there!” and to-morrow the white-headed chairman will
. pound with his gavel on the rostrum and announce the
failure of Hillis,

Now [

‘ his operations with interest and profit.

The strongest.

WEEKLY. 27

Nothing lasts—except, possibly, hatred; and even that
is forgotten, as friendship is forgotten, in the mad rush
to make money. A good, strong, honest, full-grown;
dyed-in-the-wool hate between two men cannot stand in
the way of their workiag the market, bulling or bearing
it in entire amity, for mutual benefit.

Wall Street, which before had feared, hated Benton for
the work of his braiti that made Black Thursday—hated
and followed meekly where he led. The shriveled man,
spiderlike in his too-large chair on the fwenty-fourth floor
of the skyscraper, accepted the hatred with equanimity
and—made the Street follow him. Men arose and con-
tested his power—and fell, leaving Benton the richer
by this or by that which their ill-advised rivalry had
forced them to abandon in the fight and defeat which in-
evitably ensued.

Therefore, when in the course of his really marvelously
astute operations, Benton was aware of concealed oppo-
sition, he did not repine, nor bother his head overmuch
as to where it emanated.

Nor, had he been informed that it came from the firm
of Mally, Briggs & Co., would he have for an instant
thought that its determined and ceaseless antagonism was
irispired by a feeling more deep-seated than the Street’s
ordinary, everyday, openly avowed dislike of him and his
methods.

Himself, Benton was a gambler, pure, simple, and un-
ashamed. Had he conducted his operations around green-
baize topped tables, he would have accepted the discovery
of his short-card dealing with an equanimity as entire as
he accepted the imputation that his methods in the Street
were not above suspicion.

Why should he care? Trickery and underhand dealing
paid him. He grew older every day, and more greedy.
The dollars that could not benefit him after he had passed
the portals of the grave—so near—were his sole and abid-
ing passion; to acquire them, by means fair or foul,
his one ambition.

And so the Street continued to hate him and to follow
It was a super-
stition among some that his touch was that of Midas, so.
far as the manipulation of a certain stock was.concerned.
Nevertheless, none would. have been sorry to see Benton
forced from the Street.

The brokerage commission house of Mally, Briggs &
Co. rose, phoenix-like, from the ashes of the house of
Hillis & Son. And this was the manner thereof:

When the obligations of the firm had been settled, dol-
lar for dollar, according to his father’s wish, Neil Hillis
was left alone in the world with no occupation which
he understood well enough to make a living from, and

‘with no tangible asset save a seat on the Stock Exchange,

his by inheritage.

Now, the young man who starts out in the world with
a property worth from $5,000 to $75,000, according to’the
demand, is not actually penniless. But to Neil Hillis this”
sum was worse than nothing—it provided him with the
éhance to avenge his father’s death by fighting Benton on
the floor of the exchange without giving him the means
wherein to make the fight.

With a seat on the exchange and no money, he was
in much the same case as the toothless, starving beggar
with a crust of ‘flint-hard bread.

To him, hungering and thirsting consumedly for the
blood of Benton—by which is. meant Benton’s dollars,

 
iP TOP

the two terms being synonymotis—came Mally and Briggs
with a proposition.

Briggs, during his term of service for General Hillis,
had thanaged to accumulate about twenty five thousand
dollars. Mally, through the friendship of a former cus-
tomer of the defunct firm—a customer who had not
“sone short” of Southern Atlantic at the wrong time—
was able to borrow a like amount.

Between the two of them they were able to control a
large amount of trading. They proposed to form a paft-
nership with Neil Hillis, by the terms of which he was
t> convey to Mally, for the consideration of his and
Briggs’ fifty thousand dollars, his. seat on change; which
fifty thousand he was to invest as his own share in the
partnership.

Mally, who knew the business throughout, would be
able to do the trading on the floor; Briggs would attend
to the financial department, as before, while Hillis was
to take charge of the customers’ room—under the tutelage
of both.

And the policy of the firm was to be: First, to ac-
-eumulate sufficient money to make the fight; second, and
hereafter, to hammer Benton and Benton’s pet schemes.

It is a sufficient comment on the astuteness of Mally
and Briggs, and, when he began to understand the pro-
fession—as he did quickly—of the judgment and strategic
generalship of Neil, when it is pointed out that for eight
years the firm prospered and acquired wealth while cease-
lessly in opposition to Benton—that wonderfully unde-
feated operator.

Square dealing pays in the long run. So does knavery ;
but there are penalties attaching unto dishonesty; such as
being found out—in the long run. If Benton prospered
by dark ways and unscrupulous, the house of Mally,
Briggs & Co. prospered exceedingly by straightforward
Management. In its seventh year of life—that year in
which Benton’ organized Consolidated Suburban Transit,
a merging of the properties and interests of several New
Jersey trolley systems into one tremendous whole—Mally,
Briggs & Co, branched out, adding a large banking busi-
mess to their already enormous brokerage and commis-
‘sion interests. |

It became a power in the Street, controlling millions by
proxy, and directly in the confidence of and allied with
many of the largest and boldest operators Wall Street
has ever known.

And*the latter were envious gf and frankly opposed to
Benton. And Neil Hillis was their leader.

Alone, and unsupported, except spasmodically, the at-
tacks upon Benton by Mally, Briggs & Co. had been mere
‘skitmishes, exasperating—as the sting of a mosquito is
teXasperating but not crippling. Acting in concert, how-
ever, with such long-headed men and sincere haters as
Israel Kahn, of Kahn, Diemer & Sons; as Steele, of
Hardwick, Steele & Brother; as Sol. Deutchwanger, the

». greatest bull Wall, Street acknowledged; with their in-

numerable affiliations with the room traders and opera-
tors in the district, they became a power not to be ignored.
- But they bided their time with patience. The coalition
of interests against Benton had been formed secretly-; and
for a long time Benton was not aware of its existence.
+ He only knew that thmgs went with him not as well as
‘formerly. In the matter of the marketing of Consolidated
- Suburban Transit stock, for instance—that is, in the busi-
-ness of listing it on the exchange, of bulling it and caus-

4

WEEKLY.

ing it to be talked about until public interest was aroused
and trading in it general and active, to the benefit of the
coffers of the corporation—Benton was met with unex-
pected and persistent and annoying opposition.

He was not dismayed; he was undefeated; he finally
accomplished his purpose; for the man was a masterly
manipulator, and in the end Cons. S, T.—as the ticker
called it—was excessively active about go. But it was
one of the hardest pulls Benton had ever experienced.

He determined to track down the opposition to its
source, and in the end was satisfied that Hardwicke, Steele
& Brother were leading the bear sentiment in regard to
Consolidated Suburban Transit. \

By this time the stock was well scattered about the
Street ; Benton himself, knowing that it was waterlogged,
had managed to dispose of his entire holding without ex-
citing stuspicion—since board day was far away; he still
he believed, controlled the stock by virtue of proxies con-
veyed to him by a majority of stockholders,

And, by this time, Benton was in sore straits, He
needed ready money; in particular, he needed a matter of
five millions or so to meet the interest due on a bond of
one of his pet stocks. The banks could not let him have
it, it appeared upon application—or' else they would not,
being sagely distrustful of the stock general's methods.

He determined to hoist with their own petard the Hard-
wicke-Steele contingent—for he saw only the mask-of
the house of Mally, Briggs & Co. He basely deserted
and played the traitor to his own child—Consolidated
Suburban Transit—and planned a bear campaign directed
against that particular security.

The Steele gang, he considered, once aware that he
was hammering Transit, would bull it to the best of their
endeavor. They would acquire around 90 large quan-
tities of Transit, which they didn’t want, and pay ont
their good money therefor; and presently ‘Benton—who
knew just how—would knock the everlasting bottom out
of Transit.
recoup.

In other words, he would precisely reverse the campaign
which he had eight years before conducted in Southern
Atlantic. He proposed to sell to Hardwicke, Steele et él,
Transit shares at ninety dollars per, and to settle with
them with Transit shares which he wottld later buy im at
about twenty dollars. e st
after selling short, and exposed its intrinsic rottenness, he
knew that it could not stand a minute, with whatever —
support.’

CHAPTER VI.

Peerson, Benton’s best-known and openly acknowledged
trader, appeared on the floor with an offer to sell 5,000
Consolidated Suburban Transit at 895%.’ This was at bis
thirty in the morning of a winter’s day, Pi

Hardwicke, Steele’s board member, closed promptly a
with'Peerson. Benton stood under contract to deliver.
5,000 Transit to the Steeles at the market rate. Ns

And—this is what Benton did not guess—~word was
promptly conveyed by the Steeles to a young man, now”
turning thirty, who was the “Co,” of the house of Mally,
Briggs & Co. ieee

Neil sat down and studied the situation closely for
some time. It was. ten-forty-five before ‘he made up hig i
mind that this was the vital moment to strike Benton,

 

In the meantime, by selling short, he would |

For, if he put the knife in the stock .
PEP LOE

By ten-forty-five the heads of the Steeles, the Kahnsgthe
Murtens, and the Honorable Sol. Deatchwanger himself
had had private conversations with Neil Hillis, and come
to a private agreement with him.

By noon Benton had hurled into the market contracts
to deliver a total of 100,000 shares of' Transit at prices
The market broke under the
impact of these tremendous sales. It naturally had to,
in order tiot to excite Benton’s suspicions. Indeed, even
with the ten-point break—which was comparatively 1in-
significant under the circumstances—Benton ‘was moved
to wonder, and to senilely congratulate himself at the
dear public’s confidence in the securities which he.had
foisted upon it by misrepresentation,

In’ the next hour he pounded fifty thousand shares
more into the traders, who gobbled them in greedily—
astonishingly, willingly—at an average price of 50.
| Benton then stood committed to the delivery of 150,000
shares of Transit—which he had yet to buy.

In another man this would have been the height. of
insanity. In’ Benton it was “financiering’’; his record
of successes were so marvelous that he did not believe
that he could be defeated. Overconfidence snapped and
warped his judgment, perhaps.

But—he needed the money; and he stood to win a
matter of eight millions by the operation.

And the purchases of his “sales” were not being made
in a way to inake him suspect that a corner was in proc-
ess. Twenty, thirty, and forty brokers, the well-known
traders for as many commission houses, were doing. the
majority of the buying, in lots of from 1,000 to 2,500 or
3,000 shares—buying for “pikers,”’ as Benton contemptu-
‘ously termed it.

Then Benton set about to hammer the ‘Transit. still
further into the void of the valueless. His rumor-mon-
gers were set busily to work, acting: in the most -har-
“monious concert. By ten minutes past one the public was
shuddering as it read from the tape, or heard in hoarse
whispers from excited men, that the overcapitalization
of Consolidated Suburban Transit was being taken up by
the Supreme Court, that the officers of the corporation
were about to be indicted by the Federal Grand Jury,
that the earnings of the past. year were not even ‘sufhi-
cient to pay the interest on the bond issue, that strikes
threatened or already were in progress on the com-
“pany’s system, that it was being harassed by flood, and
fire, and battle, and murder, and sudden death,

And the stock of the timid lambs whose margins had
been wiped out in their foolish endeavor to appear bulls,
caine out at an average of 35—fifty-five points’ drop in
Transit in a day. Benton rubbed his hands in glee. He
did not buy at 35, leaving that for others, from whom he
‘would presently acquire it at 20, which was the point he
had set.

The stock went to 20—and went lower.

ranging from 899% to 79.

In knocking

thé values out of Transit, Benton had been successful be-

yond his wildest hopes. By two o’clock the market was
-panic-stricken. Benton’s lieutenants brought him word
that presently he would be able to buy in for almost noth-
ing at all, Transit was a drug on the market.

’ Very well. So far so good. He gave orders to com-
‘mence the “covering” operations at once.

And it presently appeared that’ Benton must haye
driven Transit so deep into the ground that he would
never see its head again.

t

WEEKLY.

For it did not come out.

History repeated itself, Consolidated Suburban Tran-
sit was as .coy, as shy and shrinking, and reluctant as
Southern Atlantic had been eight years before—by Ben-
ton’s wish. History repeated, but not exactly—this time
Benton was on the other side of the fence.

And he could not buy.

CHAPTER VII.

This is what happened:

The market closed at three o’clock that bitter eld
winter’s day with Transit eagerly sought by Benton's
traders at almost any price, from 20 to 50.

When it was evident that it was cornered, Benton set
himself to studying. All that night the shriveled, spider
like man conned the situation; and always he was forced
to the conviction that Hardwicke, Steele & Brother had
all the Transit in existence. This was not so, in reality,
but Benton could not see it any other way. Steele's
traders had been especially active in the buying.

In the morning he was at Steele’s office long before
the opening of the exchange. At another'time he would
have, with sublimely impudent’ autocracy, summoned
Steele to his office. In his present straits, he dared not
risk offending Steele.

Strangely enough, he found Mr. Steele awaiting him,
and was accorded an instant audience with the younger
man,

Jenton, by invitation, took a chair by Mr. Steele’s
desk. He fidgeted slightly with his fingers, but he went
straight to the business end of his errand.

“Mr. Steele,” he said, “I understand that you area
heavy holder of Consolidated Suburban Transit ‘)

But he got no further. Steele interrupted him coldly,

“On the other hand,” he said, “I have not a share of}
that stock in the world. It’s rotten. Good morning, Mr
Benton.”

Benton atose, blankly amazed.

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Steele,” he quavered; “I am
Sure I don’t mean any offense—but are you sure? Your
traders bought strongly yesterday.” .

“Oh, yes, that is true enough,’ Steele admitted. “We
bought for a client.”

“And might [ask .

“T don’t think they would have any objection to my
telling you, sir. I bought for Kahn, Diemer & Sons.
Doubtless if you inquire from them Good morn-
ing, Mr. Benton.” ney

Benton hurried—in a cab! reckless. expense—to Kahn,
Diemer & Sons. Kahn kept him waiting in the outer
office for twenty agonizing minutes. Then he gave Mr,
Benton just enough of his valuable time to inform him
that all that firm’s holdings of Transit had been trans-
ferred to Sol. Deutchwanger.

To Deutchwanger, then, Benton must go—though it
tore at his heartstrings to do it. He went, and—Sol.
blandly directed him to the Murtens, to whom he had
sold his purchases of Transit.

At Murtens’ he at last got the right scent. The game
was up; there was no need of prolonging his agony any
further; as it was, the entire Street was in the joke, and
holding its sides with glee. The Murtens told the final
truth—Mally, Briggs & Co. had the stock.

Neil was seated, alone in the private,office, when Ben- ©

{

9?

”

 
TIP. FLOP

ton was announced. Benton mistook him for Mally, the

senior partner.
quiet, contained subdued-mannered man who sat teeter-
ing in a pivot chair, as he soberly and respectfully greeted
him, was ‘the same person who had been in his—Benton’s
—office on the afternoon of Black Thursday eight years
back.

“Sir,” said the old man, crumpling into the chair Neil
proffered, “I am told by the Murtens that you hold
Transit.”

“That is right,’’ Neil told him. He consulted a memo-
tandum before him, and“announced in a matter-of-fact
tone: “Out of the three hundred thousand shares issued
by the corporation—your corporation, Mr. Benton—I
now control just two hundred and seventy-five thousand.
The other twenty-five thousand are scattered about among
small investors; I have their names and ath waiting to
receive their promised options.” :

“And I can settle with you for——”

Neil pretended to deliberate. He was not heartless;
but he was remembering with.a keen thrill of horror
the honorable old man who had seemed to shrink as he
stood before his son, following an interview with this
same dishonorable old man, this carrion crow of the stock
market. And he was not averse to keeping the man on
the rack. Finally he said slowly:

“I will settle with you, Mr. Benton, for just two hun-
dred and fifty dollars per share. Nota red cent less.”

Benton’s natural pallor became livid.

*That—that is my ruin!”

~ 1 Know it,” agreed Neil coolly.

‘ Benton arose, peering sharply at the man before him.
A flash of recognition illuminated his intelligence.

~“What—what is your motive?” he demanded sharply.
“What is your ndme, may I ask?”

“Hillis.”

Benton nodded.

“Ah! I see,” he said, wagging his wicked gray head.
“1 suppose no plea for mercy will avail, Mr. Hillis?”
he asked, at last. #

“You should know—you who were ruthless, Mr, Ben-
ton.” ;

“Very well.”

He trotted out of. the office, mumbling to himself dis-
connected sentences. “The elevator was prompt to) whirl
him to his sky-line office. He went to his private room
and locked the door behind him.

For-a long time he sat motionless,gradually compre-
“hending. His day was done,'his stin set. After a while
a strange light began to flicker in his cold, gray eyes, and
he muttered fragments of vague phrases. After all, it
was his own fault; if he had played fair, if he had not
£8rced Hillis, his enemy, to the wall, he would be a con-
queror to-day. ‘Well

“Hillis died—out there—after I told him. I suppose
—it would be consistent——’ He laughed grimly, reach-
ing into the desk for the key to his office closet.

Then he arose, still smiling, and walked across the
room; the key grated-in the lock loudly, harshly. He
felt inclined-to peer over his shoulder, like a frightened,

guilty thing. The door swung open; on the upper shelf
was the set of shaving materials which his private barber
used on his face évery morning, here iri the office.

Benton had been too, busy for his morning shave that

Certainly he never dreamed that the

WEEKLY.

da® But he was not going to rectify the mistake now,
even though he’ selected the keenést razor of the three
with great care, testing the edge on his thumb nail.

The steel was cold as ice to his fingers—as searing
flame to his throat.

THE END.

D4

THE CZAR’S JOKE.

_The late Emperor Nicholas, of Russia, was in the habit
of traveling about incognito in public stagecoaches, ac-
companied only by one of his generals. On-one of these
occasions he and General A. were told, on arriving at a
postal station, that the next piece of road was so bad it

would take the coach three hours ito teach the town; but *,

that, if they liked to walk through the woods, they would
get there in half that time.

As the weather was fine, the emperor and the general
started off on foot, {

By and by they came to a rapid river, but could see no
bridge. A peasant happened to come by, and the em-
peror asked him where the bridge was.

“There is none,” replied the peasant.

“Then is there no way across?”

“No; only through the water.”

“Well, Pll give you ten roubles ($4.20) if you’ll carry
me across.

The peasant took the emperor on his shoulders, and in
a few minutes landed him on the opposite shore.

“Now,” said the emperor, “ten roubles more to bring
my friend over.’’

The’ peasant waded back, took the general on his shoul-
ders, and started with him. When they got to the middle
of the river, the emperor called out:

“Dll give you twenty roubles to drop him into the
water.

In a moment the general was splashing in the river,

“A hundred roubles to carry me on,” he gasped.

The peasant picked him up again, but had not gone
three steps before the emperor shouted: ik

“Two hundred roubles to throw him in again.”

ee pues stood still, in perplexity.

“Five hundred roubles to cafry me tc yank,” y :
eee y me to the bank,” yelled

“Eight htindred
peror.

The peasant began to slip the general off his back, but
theJatter clutched him tightly, and cried:

“A-thousand roubles to put me on the bank.”

The emperor was laughing too much to say any more.
The general was put on shore, and the two, with the
peasant as a guide, reached the town. Aftet they had
lunched, the general made up his official imperial accounts.
In them were these items:

To carrying his majesty across the river, to roubles.

To carry General A., under: difficulties graciously cre-.
ated by his majesty, 1,000 roubles. :

roubles to. drop him,” shouted the em-

~>4><.
or@)+->

A LITTLE TOO FRANK.

A woman teacher in one of the public schools, in trying
to explain the meaning of the word “slowly,” illustrated
it by walking across the floor. Then she asked the class
to tell her how she walked. She nearly fainted when
a boy at the foot of the class shouted: 7, eniphes

“Bow-legged, ma’am !”

 
Cheshire Cats a Specialty.

The first home for friendless
Connecticut, if not in New England, has
been established at Cheshire, Conn. Walter
Scott, proprietor of an inn, has fitted up a
large room in the basement where any
homeless’ cat. can take refuge. Ninety-
seven breakfasted there on the day the cat
home opened.

Mr. Scott is enthusiastic. He said: “I
aim now resolved to establish a chajn of
homes for friendless cats, though at/ ipres-
ent we can only care for Cheshire cats,”

cats in

Wew Rules for New York Boxing.

The State Athletic Commissioners, of
New York; formulated the following, rules:
All boxirig clubs must provide press seats
in the first row around the ring; one rep-
resentative from each paper shall be en-
titled to a seat in the press stand;
resentatives of the morning
shall receive preference of the allotment of |
seats alongside of telegraph instruments. |
Contestants in the main bout shall. weigh

in at the ring side in the presence of the|

inspector of the club or the representative
of the commission, regardless of private |
agreements between contestant& in
match, and ring-side weights shall be an-
nounced from the ring before, the contest.
The commissioners also. suggest all star
bouts as far as possible be started in the

future at or near Io p. m. ss

>

Pension for ‘‘Fighting Bob’s’? Widow.
Mrs. Robley’ D. - rans, “Fighting Bob”

Evans’, widow, will draw a pension of $30
a month from the United States pension
fund. Rear Admiral Evans lost his money
in investments in California oil. He left
his widow nothing. She owns the house in
Washington, D. C., in which she lives. It
came to her from her father; but it is
encumbered. 3esides her pension, Mrs.
Evans must rely for her maintenance on
‘whatever financial assistance may be given] >?
her. by her two married daughters and. her
son, Commander Frank Taylor Evans,
U.S. N. Admiral Evans’ friends. will
urge Conegréss to grant her a larger pension
than $30 a month.

ei /
Legacy for Tolling Bells.

“Mrs: Frederick Apfel, who died at Union
Hill, New Jersey, bequeathed $2,000 “for
_the jassisting of the poor and \the ringing
of church bells during the funéral services
of the deserving while on their way to the
‘cemetery’ in her native village of Eisfeld,
Germany.

f ‘4 ¥

Parcels Post News.

Edward Berwick, president of thc i
_ Progress League, of California, who, lives
in Pacific Grove, California, gives the fol-
‘lowing facts and figures ‘relating to the
‘parcels post in: Great ‘Britain:

“In Great Britain the'parcels post was
established on August & 1893. In the first
syéar only 22,904,000 parcels were handled,
““ postage on which amounted to some $2,-
a 00,000, of which suin 55 per cent was paid
pte the ‘railroads for a sa sta es 45 per

the rep- |
newspapers

the |

TIP TOP. WEEKLY.

Deyo | LEMS- OF INTERES

 

cent was.the share of the post office. The
average postage was 10 3-5 cents per piece.

‘The business has multiplied exceedingly,
the number of pieces handled in 1910-1911
having been 121,802,000—-nore than five
times the quantity handled the first year.
The gross receipts were $12,300,000, of
which the railroads received $5,500,000 and
the post office $6,800,000. This disparity
was occasioned by the fact that 19.11 per
cent of the parcels was carried in motor
vans, or other vehicles, this method proy-
ing cheaper than paying 55 per cent of the
gross postage receipts to "he railroads.

“Quite. apart from and in addition to
these enormous figures the post-office de-
livered 1,044,100,000 ‘halfpenny {1 cent)
packages’ and 196,300,000 newspapers, also
charged 1 cent each,”

 

American Hounds in African Jungle.

Paul J. Rainey, a millionaire, when he re-
i turned to London from British East Africa,
where he had‘been hunting lions with dogs
| said:

“I killed sev enty- -four lions
months, sixteen im one day. I
the only way to get lions is with dogs.
government sent me to kill some
which they had unsuccessfully tried to
poison in the ostrich-farm reserve. My
dogs enabled me to kill them all. My dogs
are American bearhounds, bred. in Mis-
Sissippi. There’s a’ good deal of. blood-
hound in them, They are of the breed
which the old planters had before the Civil
War. Often mine have got a leopard down
and killed it.”

in eleven
found that
The
lions

The ‘‘Big Sleep’ of Baseball.

“Snoring Bill” Burns, former Washing-
ton, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and White
Sox pitcher, now with the Minneapolis
club, is the big sleep of baseball. How Bill
slept between innings while the Washington
ae was trying to win an extra-inning
game, and how it was necessary to awaken
him whenever W ashington took the field or
it was his time to bat, is baseball history.
3ut Bill’s sleeping feats while in the Ameri-
can League were nothing compared to his
performances in the National

The first day he wore a Cincinnati uni-
form he fell asleep on the bench in asgame
with Brooklyn) One day Clark Griffith
sent him out to warm up in a tight game ir
Boston. ill tossed up a few curves, then
sat down pte fell asleep. He invited
Pitcher Harry Gaspar up to his room to
Jook at some pictures. | Gaspar picked up
several and made.comments about them,
He turned around to find B ill sound asleep
in a big leather chair.

One day Burns invited several recruits
to pay’ a visit to one of the big packing
plants in Chicago. He acted as a guide.
Phe recruits found seats in a.smoker. Bill
didn’t smoke and sat in the next car) “l’ll
call you wher it’ time to get off,” he said.
After they had traveled about an hour. one
of the party went back to ask Bill if it
wasn’t about time to get off. Bill was
sound asleep, The packing plant had been
passed half an hour before. Tom Downey
and Burns (went out hunting on Burns’

 

 

 

in Texas. Bill fell sound asleep
while astride his horse ae rode several
miles in the dark before Downey~ discoy-
ered it.

ranch

Wew Record for Battleship Speed.

A record speed of over 31 knots during
an eight-hour run in stormy weather was
made by the battleship cruiser Lion. The
German armored cruiser Molike had held
the record, 29 Knots.

Youth is Town Boss.

Longport, New Jersey, a resort near At-
lantic City, has the youngest mayor in the
world, as far as is known. He is’ Ralph
Harcourt, twenty-three years old, wh suc-
ceeded A. H. Phillips, resigned. The téwn’s
property valuation is more than $2,006,000.
It has 125 voters, and is a summering place,
Harcourt was a fine football player. He
captained the Central Manual team ‘of
Philadelphia and afterward played ‘at
Swarthmore and/the University of Pennsyl-
vania. He says he intends to make Long-
port a model town, .

California’s Women Lawyers.

A woman’s law school, which will be de-
voted to the fitting of young women for
the bar, has been fotunded by Mrs. Clara
Shortridge Foltz, of Los Angeles, Califor-
nia, a pioneer woman lawyer. Registration
for the! first semester of the freshman year
began to-day. Mrs. Foltz has been teach-
ing a class of women law students in her
offices for the last two years

Alaskan Public Health Board.

Bishop P. T. Rowe, of Alaska, for Six-
teen years an Episcopalian missionary, rec-_
ommended to the United States . Senate
committee on territories, at Washington,
D. C., the appointment of a committee’ to
look after the pullic health m Alaska.
Many children there are blind, according
to the bishop, and about thirty per cent ‘of
the people in the northern section of Alaska
have pulmonary tuberculosis.

Everybody Can Live Ninety-three Years.
- Doctor Harvey W. Wiley, chief of they
chemistry bureau, Washington, D. C, de-
clared that it is possible for anybody to live
to be ninety-three years old,

“By preventing contagious and prevent~
able diseases, particularly among infants
under one year of age,” he ‘said, “we can
taise the average expectation of life from
the present thirty-three years given us by”
the mortality tables to, fifty-three. Personal

hygiene and care will eventually give the es

individual ninety-three years of life.

“That it can be done is shown by the’:
Panama Cane, The French failed not
because of lack of engineers, ability, work-

men, or machinery, but because of disease,’ ~

Ve made the zone sanitary before work
was started, and now Panama is a health
resort. The death-rate is almost nothing.
“It has been the same way jn the army. —
Japan taught the, world a les$on. In pres 7
vious conflicts’ many’ more. men died of.
disease than’ from bullets. ee
“Most digeases are avoidable. In thg

 
near future all of them will be. I prophesy

that in twenty-five years we will be able}

to fight cancer as intelligently as we now
fight fever. In the meantime we will stop
the infant mortality, which is almost 1n-

variably due to some form of malnutrition |

when the babe is deprived of natural food.”

A Fatal Feather.

A small feather drawn into her lungs
several months ago while engaged as a
milliner caused an infection which resulted
‘n the death of Miss Cora Stults, at Hunt-
ington, Indiana.

New Land Opened to Settlers.

The 2,340,880 acres of remaining unal-
lotted lands on the Cheyenne River and
Standing Rock Indian reservations in the
Dakotas will be opened to settlement under
two bills by Senator Gamble, favorably re-
ported by the United States Senate com-
mittee on Indian affairs, at Washington,
D. C. The Gamble bill to extend payment
for lands on the open portion of those two
reservations for a year also was favorably
reported.

Former Senator a Novelist.

The Senate United States
turned out a Copies were re-

of the
novelist.

‘ceived in ,Washington, D. C., of a novel |

written by former Senator Henry C. Hans-
brough, of North Dakota,, entitled “The
Second Amendment.” It is a story dealing
intimately with affairs at Washington, and
especially with the Senate. Most of the

scenes are laid in Washington, and the book |

reveals

matters and procedure.

WNation-wide Food Inquiry.

An investigation of the food supply of the
United States, with special reference to
the increased cost of living, has been in-
stituted, under the personal supervision of
United States Commissioner of Labor
Charles P. Neill, at Washington, D. C.

This inquiry will be nation-wide and will
be the most comprehensive ever undertaken.

Experts will be sent over the country to
visit fields, factories, and stores. Each im;
portant article of food will be traced from
its beginning to the door of the consumer,
and then the department statisticians will
prepare a report for the government and
the public.

‘A Novel Railroad Pass.

Secretary of Commerce and Labor

Nagel, in Washington, D. C., received a|

novel railroad pass, which he dare not use,
because the law forbids a government off-
¢ial to use any railroad pass. This pass is

over the John Worsing Railway, of Hunt- |
ington, Pennsylvania, and reads as follows: |

“This being a complete railway (cover-
“ing a space of one large room) the general
manager (aged seven years) would greatly
appreciate acknowledgment of the within
‘pass for future reference. Meals and
lodgings not included. The courtesy of

_ free transportation hereby extended is ac- |
cepted with the express understanding that |

‘when the passenger service over the said

railway for any reason shall become inade- |

quate to enable the holder hereof to reach
destination with reasonable dispatc’ he, she,
or they shall have the right at all times to
get off.and walk, Should personal injury
arise from such undue haste by reason of
-erossing over, under, or throwgh the

has |

an intimate knowledge of Senate |

 

TIP TOP’ WEEKLY.

| bridges, the trestles, or tunnels of this com-
pany it is expressly agreed that this com-
{pany shall not be lable for any damages
i whatsoever.”

‘‘Chinese’’ Gordon’s Memorial.

| The cathedral erected in Khartoum,
|Egypt,.as a memorial to General Charles
| George Gordon, who was killed January

26, 1885; when Khartoum was captured by |
ithe Mahdists, was consecrated by the bishop |

| of London, who was assisted by other dig-
nitaries of the Church of England. It was
built on the ground where “Chinese” Gor-
don met his death. Theodore Roosevelt
| placed the keystone of the cathedral arch in

|position on March 17, 1910.
|

| Will Direct 50,000 Postal-savings Banks.
The new head of the 50,000. postal-sav-
ings banks, which now do a business of
| $1,000,000 a week, is Theodore L. Weed, of
|Washington, D. C. He was appointed by
| Postmaster General Frank H.
whose right-hand man he has been for some
time.

| c : ‘
}one of the most important in the whole gov-
{ernment service.

When a Railroad Sells Eggs.

The Philadelphia & Reading Railway
| Company was acquitted in the quarter ses-
sion. .courts: ins “Philadelphia, Payiof
ithe charge of disposing for food pur-
poses eggs that were decayed. The com-
pany had received a consignment of! eggs
from Missouri, which were refused by the
|consignee as unfit for food. The company
then turned them over to a commission
firm, which sold them. The company in its
defense declared that it was
for their sale as good eggs, and that if the
commission merchants sold them as fresh
eggs they were misrepresenting the quality
of the goods. The court ordered the jury
to acquit the railroad, as the pure food
law of the State does not prevent a railroad
from selling perishable goods.

Book for Dickens’ Centenary.

The Dickens centenary will be respon-
sible for much bookmaking, but few of the
topical productions are likely to be_ better
worth reading than the collection of Charles
Dickens’ letters to W. H. Wills, written
during the time of their coeditorship of
“Household Words’ and “All the Year
Round.” Mr. R. C. Lehmann, who is con-
nected with Wills by ties of kindred, has
made a selection of these hitherto un-
| printed letters, and calls his book “Charles
Diékens as an Editor.”
shows the keenness with which the, great
“Boz” welcomed promising
‘and the eager good-will with which he pre-
sided over his editorial office. There will be
portraits of Dickens, Thackeray, SEE:
Wills, and Wilkie Collins.

‘Cyclone’? Thompson Beaten.
“Cyclone” Johnny Thompson, the Ameri-
can middleweight pugilist, was easily out-
pointed by Dave Smith, the Australian
middleweight, pugilist and former cham-
pion, in a twenty-round contest .at the
stadium in Sydney, Australia.

 

Suffragettes to Make Life Miserable.
The life of Lewis: Harcourt, British sec-
retary of state for the colonies, in London,
‘England, is to be made miserable if the

Hitchcock, |

The position carries with it a salary |
of $5,000 a year and will shortly become |

not responsible |

The correspondence |

contributors, |

{suffragettes can do anything to make it so.
Mr. Harcourt reiterated to a deputation his
opposition to woman’s suffrage, and the
ak of the deputation declared that the

women of Great Britain would do all in
their’ power to work for his discomfort.
His bread, she said, was buttered, and’ he
had no sympathy for working women.
e
|
To Repeal Blue Laws.

With the object of rendering the present
| Sunday observance laws so obnoxious to
ithe people of Connecticut that the next
|General Assembly at Hartford will be asked
to repeal them, the Gaelic Association of
Athletic Clubs of Connecticut, in corven-
{tion at Bridgeport, Conn., ittdorsed the
|movemeént looking to a rigid enforcement
|of these laws. Organizations are.to be
'formed in every city and town in the State
}to see that on Sunday everything is closed

tight. and that none of the so-called blue>

laws are violated.

United States Has Second Greatest Navy.

With the completion of all of the vessels
‘now under construction. or authorized, the
| United States will have a fleet of 382 ves-
isels of all classes, with an aggregate dis-
iplacement of nearly a million and a half
tons. The total displacement of vessels of
all classes of the navy as it stands to-day is
1,126,715, including tugs and auxiliaries.
The warship tonnage is 757,711, putting
the American navy next to Great Britain
with 1,896,149; Germany ranks third, with
|749,699. Were all the vessels‘now building
|completed, however, Germany would take
isecond place, with 1,087)389 tons, and this
/country’s total would be increased only
|885,866. Great Britain would still hold
{first place, with 2,324,570.

“‘The Next Religion.” '

Israel Zangwill, the famous English toy-
elist and playwright, has finally decided to
iproduce in America his latest play, “The
Next Religion,” for which the British cen-
sor refused a license. The censor’s action
|was taken because of certain passages in
ithe play which he regarded in the light of
religious criticisms.

Saving the Swiss Eagles.

In order to preserve the few ‘remaining
eagles in Switzerland, the Swiss govern-
ment, at Geneva, announces that it has
undertaken to give monetary compensation
to the peasants for any havoc wrought

that the eagles are not killed,

 

Glass Eye Bars Immigrant.

| The Vossische Zeitung, of Berlin, Ger-
;many, published a violent attack on tie
|" American immigration inquisition,” which
iis alleged to be becoming more ¢ruel and
| relentless day by day. The case of Mrs.
i

Pettin Kauil, described. as the wife of a

|New York banker, is cited as a classic ex-

}ample of the practice in vogue on Ellis Is-
land. It is charged that she and her two
sons were prevented from rejoining her

husband on American soil because the old-|

est boy wore a glass eye.

Commissioner
Ellis Island Immigration Bureau, in New
| York harbor, said that a glass eye would
tat bar any person from entering the coun-

| try if the wearer was otherwise in a healthy io

condition.
4 j

‘,

among their flocks by these birds, provided

3

William Williams, of the 4

 
 
ALL, OF THE BACK NUMBERS

TIP

OF

TOP WEERL&

THAT CAN NOW BE SUPPLIED

 

1—Dick Merriwell’s Visit.
2—Dick Merriwell’s Retaliation.
23—-Dick Merriwell’s Rival.

o: 524 —F rank Merriwell’s Young Crew
5—Frank Merriwell’s Fast Nine.
526—Frank Merriwell’s Athletic

Field.
527—Dick Merriwell’s Reprisal.
528—Dick Merriwell Dared.
es Dick Merriwell’s Dismay.
530—Frank Merriwell’s Son.
é 5 iF rank Merriwell’s Old Flock.
2—Frank Merriwell’s House Party
3 Merriwell’s Summer
Team.
584—Dick Merriwell’s Demand.
5387—F rank Merriwell’s Proposal.
538—Frank Merriwell’s Spook-
Hunters.
589—Dick Merriwell’s Cheek.
540—Dick Merriwell’s Sacrifice.
541—Dick Merriwell’s Heart.
542—Frank Merriwell’s New
544—F rank Merriwell’s
Winners.
545—Dick Merriwell’s Lead.
546—Dick Merriwell’s Influence.
547—Dick Merriwell’s Top Notch.
548—Frank Merriwell’s Kids.
549—Frank Merriwell’s Kodakers.
550—Dick Merriwell, Freshman.
551—-Dick Merriwell’s Progress.
552—Dick Merriwell, Half-back.
5538—Dick Merriwell’s Resentment.
554—Dick Merriwell Repaid.
555—Dick Merriwell’s
Power.
556—Dick Merriwell’s ‘‘Push.”’
557—Dick Merriwell’s Running.
558—Dick Merriwell’s Joke.
559—Dick Merriwell’s Seven.
560—Dick Merriwell’s Partner.
561—Dick Merriwell in the Tank.
562—Frank Merriwell’s Captive.
563—Frank Merriwell’s Trailing.
564—Frank Merriwell’s Talisman.
565—Frank Merriwell’s Horse.
566—Frank Merriwell’s Intrusion.
567—Frank Merriwell’s Bluff.
568—Dick Merriwell’s Regret.
569—Dick Merriwell’s Silent Work.
570—Dick Merriwell’s Arm.
571—Dick Merriwell’s Skill.
572—Dick Merriwell’s Magnetism.
573—Dick Merriwell’s System.
574—Dick Merriwell’s Salvation.
575—Dick Merriwell’s Twirling.
576—Dick Merriwell’s Party.
577—Dick Merriwell’s Backers.
578—Dick Merriwell’s Coach.
579—Dick Merriwell’s Bingle.
580—Dick Merriwell’s Hurdling.
581—Dick Merriwell’s Best Work.
582—Dick Merriwell’s Respite.
58: terres Merriwell’s Disadvan-
tage.
584—-Dick Mer riwell Beset.
586—Dick Merriwell’s Distrust.
587—Dick Merriwell, Lion Tamer.
588—Dick Merriwell’s Camp-site.
589—Dick Merriwell’s Debt.
590—Dick Merriwell’s Camp Mates.
591—Dick Merriwell’s Draw.
592—Dick Merriwell’'s Disapproval.
593—Dick Merriwell’s Mastery.
594—Dick Merriwell’s Warm Work.
595—Dick Merriwell’s “Double
Squeeze.”
596—-Dick Merriwell’s Vanishing.
597—Dick Merriwell Adrift.
598—Dick Merriwell’s Influence.
599—F rank Merriwell’s Worst Boy.
600—F rank Merriwell’s Annoyance.
601—F rank Merriwell’s Restraint.
602—Dick Merriwell Held Back.
603—Dick Merriwell in the Line.
604—Dick Merriwell’s Drop Kick.
605—Frank Merriwell’s Air Voyage.
606—Frank Merriwell’s Auto Chase.

Auto.
Young

Staying

607—Frank Merriwell's Captive.
608—Dick Merriwell’s Value.
609—Dick Merriwell Doped.
610—Dick Merriwell’s Belief.
611—Frank Merriwell in the
ket.
612—Frank Merriwell’s Fight
Fortune.
613—Frank Merriwell on Top.
614—Dick Merriwell’s Trip West.
615—Dick Merriwell’s Predicament.
616—Dick Merriwell in Mystery
Valley
617—Frank Merriw ell’s Proposition.
618—Frank Merriwell Perplexed.
619—F rank Merriwell’s Suspicion.
620—Dick Merriwell’s Gallantry.
621——Dick Merriwell’s Condition.
622—Dick Merriwell’s Stanchness.
623—Dick Merriwell’s Match.
624—F rank Merriwell’s Hard Case.
625—Frank Merriwell’s Helper.
626—F rank Merriwell’s Doubts.
627—F rank Merriwell’s ‘‘Phenom.’
628—Dick Merriwell’s Stand.
629—Dick Merriwell’s Circle.
630—Dick Merriwell’s Reach.
631—Dick Merriwell’s Money.
632—Dick Merriwell Watched.
a 3: 3—Dick Merriwell Doubted.
334—_Dick Merriwell’s Distrust.
6 35—Dick Merriwell’s Risk.
i—Frank Merriwell’s Favorite.
637—Frank Merriwell’s Young
Clippers.
ank Merriwell’s
Breakers.
640——Dick Merriwell’s Shoulder.
641—Dick Merriwell’s Desperate

Mar-

for

639—Fr Record

Work.
642—Dick Merriwell’s Example.
643—Dick Merriwell at Gale’s Ferry.
644—Dick Merriwell’s Inspiration.
645—Dick Merriwell’s Shooting.
646—Dick Merriwell in the Wilds.
647—Dick Merriwell’s Red Comrade.
648—Frank Merriwell’s Ranch.
649—F rank Merriwell in the Saddle.
650—F rank Merriwell’s Brand.
651—F rank Merriwell’s Red Guide.
652—Dick Merriwell’s Rival,
653—Dick Merriwell’s Strength.
654—Dick Merriwe ‘1l’s Secret Work.
655—Dick Merriwell’s Way.
656—Frank Merriwell’s Red Visitor.
657—Frank Merriwell’s Rope.
658—Frank Merriwell’s Lesson.
659—F rank Merriwell’s Protection.
660—Dick Merriwell’s Reputation.
661—-Dick Merriwell’s Motto.
662—-Dick Merriwell’s Restraint.
663—Dick Merriwell’s Ginger.
664—Dick Merriwell's Driving.
665—Dieck Merriwell’s Good Cheer.
666—Frank Merriwell’s Theory.
667—F rank Merriwell’s Diplomacy.
668—F

ment.
669—F rank Merriwell’s Great Work.
670—-Dick Merriwell’s Mind.
671—Dick Merriwell’s “‘Dip.”’
672—Dick Merriwell’s Rally.
673—Dick Merriwell’s Flier.
674—F rank Merriwell’s Bullets.
675—F rank Merriwell’s Cut Off.
676—F rank Merriwell’s Ranch Boss.
677—Dick Merriwell’s Equal.
678—Dick Merriwell’s Development.
679—Dick Merriwell’s Eve.
680—F rank Merriwell’s Zest.
681—F rank Merriwell’s Patience.
682—F rank Merriwell’s Pupil.
683—Frank Merriwell’s Fighters.
684—Dick Merriwell at the ‘Meet.’
685—Dick Merriwell’s Protest.
686—Dick Merriwell in the Mara-

thon.
687—Dick Merriwell’s Colors.
688—Dick Merriwell, Driver.

rank Merriwell’s Encourage- 7:

689—Dick Merriwell on the Deep.

690—Dick Merriwell in the North
Woods.

691—Dick Merriwell’s Dandies.

692—Dick Merriwell’s Skyscooter.

693—Dick Merriwell in the Elk
Mountains.

694—Dick Merriwell in Utah.

695—Dick Merriwell’s Bluff.

696—Dick Merriwell in the Saddle.

697—Dick Merriwell’s Ranch
Friends.

698—Frank Merriwell
wake.

699—F rank Merriwell’s Hold-back.

700—F rank Merriwell’s Lively Lads7

701—F rank Merriwell as Instructor.

702—Dick Merriwell’s Cayuse.

703—Dick Merriwell’s Quirt.

704—Dick Merriwell’s Freshman
Friend.

705—Dick Merriwell’s Best Form.

706—Dick Merriwell’s Prank.

707—Dick Merriwell’s Gambol.

708—Dick Merriwell’s Gun.

709- —Dick Merriwell at His Best.

710—Dick Merriwell’s Master Mind. 7

fm Jick Merriwell’s Dander.

Me

1

1

at Phantom

2—Dick Merriwell’s Hope.
3—Dick Merriwell’s Standard.
4—Dick Merriwell’s Sympathy.
5—Dick Merriwell in Lumber
Land.
16—F rank Merriwell’s Fairness.
17—F rank Merriwell’s Pledge.
18—F1 rank | Merriwell, the Man of
Merriwell’s Return
720—F rank Me -rriwell’s Quest.
721—Frank Merriwell’s Ingots.
722—Irank Merriwell’s’ Assistance.
723—Frank Merriwell at the
Throttle.
724—Frank Merriwell,
Ready.
—Frank Merriwell
Land.
726—Frank Merriwell’s
Chance.
rank Merriwell’s Black
ror.
Frank Merriwell
Slab.
29—F rank Merriwell’s Hard Game
30—Frank Me rriwell’s Six-in-hand
31—F rank Merriwell’s Duplicate.
32—Frank Merriwell on Rattle-
snake Ranch.
738—Frank Merriwell’s Sure
34—Trank Merriwell's
Map.
5—F rank Merriwell,
the Rope.
7386—Dick Merriwell,
, the Varsity.
37—Dick Merriwell’s Control.
38—Dick Merriwell’s Back Stop.
39—Dick Merriwell’s Maske 7 En-
emy.

0—I ick Merriwell’s Motor Car,
~Dick Merriwell’s Hot Pursuit.
~Dick Merriwell at Forest Lake

£ —_Dic k Merriwell in Court.

- —Diec k Merriwe I} s s Silence e.

the Always

725- in Diamond

Desperate

127— Ter-

728- Again on the

Hand.
Treasure

Prince of

Captain of

6—Die k Me scuteretl’s s 1 Suhtae fuge.
—Dick Merriwell’ s Enigma.

—Dick Merriwell Defeated,
+49_Die k Merriwell’s ‘“‘Wing.”’
750—Dick Merriwell’s Sky Chase.
751—Dick Merriwell’s Pick-ups.
752—Dick Merriwell on the Rock-

ing R.

Dick Merriwell’s Penetration.
—Dick Merriwell’s Intuition.
55—Dick Merriwell’s Vantage.
56—Dick Merriwell’s Advice.
57—Dick Merriwell’s Rescue.

De
5

oe
‘emma
6

758- —Dick Merriwell, American.
‘o9—Dick Merriwell’s Understand-
ing.
760—Dick Merriwell, Tutor.
761—Dick Merriwell’s Qu: undary.
762—Dick Merriwell on the Boards.
763—Dick Merriwell, Peacemaker.
764—Frank Merriwell’s Sway.
765—Frank Merriwell’s € ompre-
hension.
766—Frank Merriwell’s
Acrobat.
767—Frank Merriwell’s Tact.
768—Frank Merriwell’s Unknown.
769—Frank Merriwell’s Acuteness.
770—Frank Merriwell's Young
Canadian.
1—Frank Merriwell’s Coward.
-——Frank Merriwell’s Perplexity.
—Frank Merriwell’s Interven-
tion.
Frank Merriwell’s Daring Deed
-Frank Merriwell’s Succor,
—* ‘rank Merriwell’s Wit.
7—Frank Merriwell’s Loyalty.
-~Frank Merriwell’s Bold Px LY.
—Fr rank Merriwell’s Insight.
—Frank Merriwell’s Guile.
-Frank Merriwell’s Campaign.
2—}-rank Merriwell in the Na-
tional Forest.
—Frank Merriwell’s Tenacity.
-Dick Merriwell’s Self- -sacrifice.
—Dick Merriwell’s Close Shave.
Dick Merriwell’s Perception.
-Dick Merriwell’s Mysterious
Disappearance.
788—Dick Merriwell’s
ork.
Dick Merriwell’s Proof.
-Dick Merriwell’s Brain Work.
Dick Merriwell’s Queer Case.
Dick Merriwell, Navigator.
7938—Dick Merriwell’s Good Fellow-
ship.
794—Dick Merriwell’s Fun.
795—Dick Merriwell’s Commence-
ment.
796—Dick Merriwell Montauk
Point.
797—Dick Merriwell, Mediator.
798—Dick Merriwell’s Decision.
799—Dick Merriwell on the Great
Lakes.
800—Dick | Merriwell

Young

7
i
t:

‘).
2
y

4
5—
6-

7
if
7¢
777
78
79
7T80-
81-
782

783
784
7T85-
7T86—
TST-

Detective

T89—
790
791
792

at

Caught Nap-
ping.
801—Dick Merriwell in the Copper
; Country.
802—Dick Merriwell Strapped.
805-—Dick Merriwell’s Coolness.
804—Dick Merriwell’s Reliance.
805—Dick Merriwell’s College Mate.
806—Dick Merriwell’s Young
Pitcher.
807—Dick Merriwell’s Prodding.
SO8—F rank Merriwell’s Boy.
809—Frank Merriwell’s
ence.
810—F real Merriwell’s
Warriors.
811—F rank Merriwel l’s Appraisal.
812—Frank Merriwell’s Forgive ness
815—F rank Merriwell’s Lads.
814—F rank Merriwell’s
Aviators.
815—F rank Merriwell’s Hot-head,
816—Dick Merriwell, Diplomat.
817—Dick Merriwell in Panama.
818—Dick Merriwell’s Perseverance
819—Dick Merriwell Triumphant.
820—Dick Merriwell’s Betrayal.
821—Dick Merriwell, Revolutionist.
eee es Dick Merriwell’s Fortitude.
825—Dick Merriwell’s Undoing.
824—Dick Merriwell, Universal
Coach.
825—-Dick Merriwell’s Snare,
826—Dick Merriwell’s Star Pupil.
827—Dick Merriwell’s Astuteness.

Interfer-

Young

Young

PRICE, FIVE CENTS PER COPY

If you want any back numbers of our weeklies and cannot procure them from your news-dealer, they can be obtained direct

from this office.

Postage-stamps taken the same as money.

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