CHAPTER V – DICK KEEPS THE LOCKET

Up one flight in the hotel was a window in the hall at the front of the house. Dick and June passed by this window, which, although closed, did not prevent them from hearing the words of the boys below, and June laughed when Sammy declared he would soak Spike Hanlon in the mouth if Spike said anything more about her.

“That’s the kind of champion to have!” exclaimed Dick.

“They are going to fight!” exclaimed June. “That freckled boy is big and strong.”

“But I’ll bet anything Sammy does him if they come to a genuine scrap,” said Dick. “But don’t worry; there’ll be no fight. The most of the boys are on Sammy’s side, and the other fellow doesn’t want to mix in.”

They heard Spike’s taunts just before he retreated, and June muttered:

“Just you wait and see what kind of a wheel he’ll have! I’ll make father buy him the very best in the market.”

“Then that other boy will turn green with jealousy,” laughed Dick. “It will be a great triumph for Sammy.”

“He deserves it.”

“I agree with you. He is a most remarkable fellow, and I like him. Evidently he’s a poor boy. But he didn’t whimper when his wheel was smashed, and that is why I say he is remarkable. Most boys would have put up a terrible outcry over it.”

“It is strange that my brother should have been hurt so badly just from falling backward out of the carriage when the horse started,” said June.

“Is it a fact that he is badly hurt?” asked Dick.

“I fear so. The doctor told me that, at least, we had not better think of returning to Fardale before to-morrow. He said he would be able to say positively to-morrow whether Chester is badly hurt or not. He is coming back with another doctor in a short time, and they will make a more complete examination.”

“For your sake,” said Dick sincerely, “I am very sorry that your brother was hurt.”

Dick spoke with perfect truthfulness, and she understood him. It is not likely that he would have felt keen regret on Chester’s account alone, but his interest in June made it possible for him to be sorry, as the affair had caused her distress.

She thanked him, but she did not misinterpret his words in the least. She understood that her brother and Dick Merriwell were persistent and unrelenting enemies.

“I was so glad to see you win the game to-day,” she said, seeming to wish to change the subject.

“Yes, the boys did splendidly.”

“They did very well, but you – you were the one who really won the game.”

“In football every man is dependent on the others engaged in the game. Without their assistance he would be powerless to win.”

“Oh, if you put it that way, of course no fellow could stand up alone against eleven others and win a game. But that does not alter the fact that you were the one who won the game to-day. And I thought you badly hurt that time when I – when I made a sensation by running on to the field,” she finished, her face getting very red.

She was confused, and Dick’s heart beat a bit faster now. But she quickly found a way to make it appear that it was not purely from agitation over Dick that she hurried on to the gridiron.

“I was so afraid that meant failure for the team! When I saw you down and feared you would have to leave the field, I knew Fardale was in a bad scrape. Without a captain, she would have been defeated quickly.”

Dick knew well enough that it was more than fear for the result of the game that had caused her to rush pale and trembling across the field and kneel to lift his head while he lay helpless on the ground; but he pretended disappointment now, seeking to draw her out.

“I’m very sorry,” he said, watching her closely; “I fancied you were anxious on my account. I presume it was conceited of me to have such a thought.”

She looked him straight in the eyes.

“Doubtless my conduct was such that it gave you cause to think so,” she nodded, perfectly at ease.

“Your conduct – and your words,” he returned.

She remembered with some dismay that she had been greatly excited as she lifted his head and knelt on the ground. She could not recall the words she had uttered at the time, but she knew she had called him “Dick,” and she entreated the doctor to tell her he was not badly hurt. Still June retained her self-possession, although she did not repress an added bit of color that again rose to her cheeks.

“I believe you were shamming, sir!” she asserted, severely. “You seemed almost unconscious, yet you pretend that you heard what I said. I think you dreamed that you heard it.”

“Well, it was a very pleasant dream, and it quite repaid me for the jar I received in that little clash.”

She could not resist his subtle compliment, and, in spite of her self-control, she felt her pulse thrill a little. Although a girl of sixteen and usually most reserved, she was open to flattery in its finest form, as most girls are.

Dick, however, was no flatterer, and he spoke what he felt to be the simple truth and nothing more. It is possible that his sincerity impressed her.

“My locket – ” she began.

“Oh, I hope you are not going to command me to return it to you again!” he exclaimed.

“No.”

“I am thankful for that. I gave it up once, thinking you would be generous enough to hear what I had to say; but you refused to see me or to permit me to explain – ”

“Which was very unjust of me,” she frankly admitted. “I was sorry when it was too late, but you did not come again.”

“Because I did not care to receive another snub.”

“Will you pardon me?”

“Surely I will, now that I have the locket again. But I do not wish you to believe that I ever dropped that locket intentionally with the desire of having it become known that you had given it to me. I did not think you could believe such a thing of me.”

There was reproach in Dick’s words, and she felt it.

“My brother made it seem that you did,” she hastened to say; “and – and – another would not deny it.”

“Another?” exclaimed Dick. “I know who it was! It was Hal Darrell!”

“I have not said so.”

“But you cannot say it was not Darrell?”

“I will not say it wasn’t or that it was.”

“We were enemies once,” said Dick, “but I found him pretty square, and I can admire a fellow who is my enemy if he is honest. Later we became, not exactly friends, but reconciled. Somehow we could not get on real friendly terms, though I fancy we both wished to be friendly at one time. Of late he has changed, and I am satisfied that he is once more my enemy. I don’t think he will lie about me, but it is possible he might not correct the false statement of another. Miss Arlington, is it possible that, at the present time, there remains in your mind the least doubt concerning my behavior? If there is such a doubt, even though I would dearly love to keep your locket and your picture, I must beg you to take it back.”

He was grim and stern now, and for a single instant she felt a trifle awed. Then pride came to her rescue, and she exclaimed:

“If you wish to get rid of it so much, I’ll take it, sir!”

“I do not wish to get rid of it. Indeed, I wish to keep it always; but I cannot keep it knowing you might suspect me of showing it, laughing over it and boasting that it was a ‘mash.’ Do you understand?”

“I think I do,” she said quietly. “I shall let you keep it, and you may be sure there is no doubt in my mind. I believe you are a gentleman.”

Dick had triumphed. Again he was a winner, and it made him glad indeed. He thanked her earnestly and sincerely, upon which she said:

“Foolish though it may seem, I am certain now that the locket has given you good fortune. I felt sure you would win the game for Fardale to-day after I gave you the locket, and you took it. Then, with the locket still in your possession, you stopped the runaway. Keep it, and may it be the charm to give you luck as long as it remains in your possession.”

“I am sure it will!” he laughed. “As long as it contains that picture it will remain a charm for me.”

“You know I accept you as a friend, Mr. Merriwell; but my brother is angry with me, my mother will be more so, and my father will side with my mother. I tell you this as an explanation of my conduct in the future, should anything happen to make it seem that I am unfriendly.”

“I think I’ll understand you.”

“Then you will do better than most fellows,” smiled June; “for they do not understand girls at all. Hal Darrell – ”

Then she paused suddenly, for Hal himself had ascended the stairs and stopped, staring at them. His face was rather pale, and there was a glitter in his dark eyes.

“Oh, Mr. Darrell!” exclaimed June. “I have been looking for you.”

“Have you?” said Hal, his eyes on Dick.

“Yes. Brother wants to see you. He’s in room 37. Please go right up.”

Hal stood still and stared at Dick a moment longer, after which he mounted the stairs to the second story and disappeared.

CHAPTER VI – A DOUBTFUL MATTER

Chester and June Arlington remained in Hudsonville that night and the next day. On Monday they came back to Fardale, but Chester did not return to the academy. He declined to go to the house where June had been stopping, but ordered the best suite of rooms in the Fardale Hotel, and there he went comfortably to bed.

Perhaps it was a mistake to say he went comfortably to bed, for he was far from comfortable, as his back had been hurt badly, although the Hudsonville doctors consoled him with the assurance that, with rest and proper treatment, he would recover without any permanent injury.

June remained at the hotel to care for him as best she could, and Mrs. Arlington was notified of his misfortune, with the result that she lost no time in hastening to the side of her idolized son.

Dick had called at the hotel to see June a moment, and she showed him the telegram that told her that her mother was coming with all speed.

“I don’t know what will happen when mother gets here,” confessed June, “but there may be trouble. To tell the truth, I am afraid there will be, for Chester is determined to tell her I gave you that locket, unless I get it back.”

Dick’s heart sank a little, but he soon said:

“Then I suppose I shall have to give it up, for I do not wish you to get into trouble on my account.”

But she declined to take it.

“No,” she said firmly. “I gave it to you, and you are to keep it. I want you to promise to keep it, even though my mother demands it of you.”

His heart rose at once.

“You may be sure I will do so,” he said.

He was in very good spirits as he went whistling back to the academy. It was just past midday, but the autumn sun was well over into the southwest. The wind sent a flock of yellow leaves scudding along the roadside like a lot of startled birds. The woods were bare, and there was a haze on the distant hills. In spite of the bright sunshine, in spite of the satisfaction in his heart, he felt vaguely the sadness of autumn, as if the world itself were fading and growing old and feeble, like a man that has passed the prime of life and is hurrying down the hill that leads to decrepit old age and death. Always the autumn impressed Dick thus. True he saw in it much of beauty, but it was a sad beauty that made him long to fly to another clime where fallen leaves and bare woods would not remind him of winter.

Not that Dick disliked the winter, for in it he found those pleasures enjoyed by every healthful lad with a healthy mind; but it was the change from early autumn to winter days that stirred his emotions so keenly and filled him with that unspeakable longing for something that was not his.

A stream ran through the little valley, the sunshine reflected on its surface. Beyond the valley was a little grove, where a red squirrel was barking, the clear air and favorable wind bringing the chatter of the little creature to the lad’s ears. Some one had started a fire on the distant hillside, and the smoke rose till it was hurled away by the sweeping wind.

Dick’s eyes noted much of beauty in the landscape, for he was sensitive to color, and the woods were gray and brown and green, the fields were mottled with brown and green, for there remained a few places where the grass was not quite dead, late though it was; the hills were misty blue in the far distance, and the sky overhead was cloudless.

From a high point of the road he could look out on the open sea, and he heard the breakers roaring on Tiger Tooth Ledge.

The squirrel in the grove seemed calling to him, the woods seemed to beckon, and even the dull, distant roar of the sea struck a responsive chord in his heart. A sudden desire came upon him to stray deep into the woods and hills and seek to renew the old-time friendship and confidence with nature and the wild things he had once been able to call around him. Then he thought of Fardale, of the football-field, of his friends at school, and, lastly, of – June.

“No,” he muttered, “I would not give up my new friends for those I used to know. The birds and squirrels know me no longer, but I have found human friends who are dearer.”

He resumed his whistling and trudged onward with a light heart.

That afternoon Dick worked earnestly with the scrub on the field, for the weakness of the academy’s line in the recent game with Hudsonville had shown him that injury to one or two players simultaneously might cause Fardale’s defeat unless some remarkably good substitutes were ready at hand to go in. And he had come to realize that first-class substitutes were lacking.

The injured ones were improving as swiftly as could be expected, but it was certain they would not get into practice until near the end of the week, and Shannock might not be able to go on to the field for another week to come.

At the opening of the season Fardale had resolved not to play with Franklin Academy for reasons well known on both sides. A year before Franklin had permitted a Fardale man and a traitor to play with its eleven, and the traitor had dashed red pepper into Dick Merriwell’s eyes at a time when it seemed certain that the game would be won by the cadets through young Merriwell’s efforts.

Brad Buckhart “mingled in” and promptly knocked the pepper-thrower stiff, after which the fellow had been exposed.

But Franklin’s action in permitting the traitor to play on her team had angered the Fardale athletic committee so that a vote was taken not to meet her on the gridiron again. But the faculty at Franklin took a hand, offered apologies, regrets, and made promises to look after the team in the future. They felt a keen disgrace to have Fardale refuse to meet the Franklin eleven. The result was that the Fardale athletic committee finally withdrew the ban, and a date was arranged with Franklin.

This was the team Fardale had to meet on the following Saturday after the game with Hudsonville, and to Dick’s ears came a rumor that Franklin had a remarkable eleven that had been winning games in a most alarming manner.

To add to Dick’s uneasiness came a report that Franklin had hired a professional coach and that there were at least four “ringers” on the team. Dick was not inclined to believe this at first, for it did not seem possible such fellows would be permitted on the eleven after the entreaty and assurance of the Franklin faculty.

Brad Buckhart resolved to investigate. Without saying a word to Dick, who, he fancied, might object to “spying,” the Texan paid a man to find out the truth. The result was that, one day, he informed Dick there was not the least doubt but the “ringers” were to be with the Franklin team.

“I can hardly believe it now!” exclaimed Dick, when Buck had explained how he came by his knowledge. “How can they afford to do such a thing?”

“Well, pard,” said the Westerner, “I hear that they’re hot set to wipe out the disgrace of last year’s defeat, and then they won’t care a rap whether we play with them any more or not. That’s what’s doing over yon at Franklin. I opine we’d better decline to play.”

“No,” said Dick. “We have no absolute proof that there are ‘ringers’ on their team, although it is likely your man made no mistake. I shall notify their manager at once that I have heard such a report, ask concerning its correctness, and protest against the questionable men being in the game.”

“And then if they are in it just the same?”

“We’ll play them,” said Dick grimly, “and beat them. After that we can decline to have any further athletic dealings with them.”

“Partner, you’re right!” exclaimed the Texan. “The only thing I fear is that our team may not be up to its usual form. If it is, we can down ’em, ‘ringers’ or no ‘ringers.’”

No reply came to Dick’s note of protest until Friday, before the game was to come off. Then the manager answered briefly that all the men on his team were amateurs and were taking regular courses at Franklin Academy.

“That settles it,” said Dick. “I’d play him now if I had proof that he had ‘ringers’ on his team. Then I’d relieve my mind after the game.”