Читать книгу Frank Merriwell's Setback; Or, True Pluck Welcomes Defeat - Burt L. Standish - Страница 10

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The change in the weather had brought a change in the character of “Merriwell’s Entertainments.” Down by the famous fence on many a recent evening the “senior committee of three,” fresh from the gymnasium or athletic field, had discussed and laid plans for the merrymaking. The “committee of three” consisted of Merriwell, Browning, and Hodge, into whose hands everything had been committed. Their first plans had contemplated field-contests, burlesque football-games, and similar sports, but the freezing weather suggested something new and different, and they promptly accepted the hint of the weather-clerk, and made the change.

When, on Wednesday morning, it was reported that Lake Whitney would bear skaters, the “committee of three” decided instantly that races on ice-skates would be the proper thing for the half-holiday entertainment of the students that afternoon.

Except in spots, the ice was found sufficiently thick and firm, and the new attraction drew an immense crowd to the shore of the lake that afternoon. Huge bonfires were built, for the air was sharp and the ground still covered with snow, and a prettier picture can scarcely be imagined than that of the rosy-faced girls and young women clad in winter garments gathered round these bonfires, while they watched the skaters cutting figures and writing the names of themselves and their sweethearts in the glassy ice with their skates.

Inza and Rosalind were there, Inza having come out with Merriwell, and Rosalind with Dade Morgan.

There was no prettier skater on the lake that afternoon than Dade Morgan. His movements were as graceful as those of a bird, and Rosalind watched him with pleasure, now and then casting a sly glance at big Dick Starbright, as if for the purpose of reading his face. She wondered in the depths of her heart if Dick were very jealous of Dade, and told herself that surely he must be.

As Jack Ready had boasted that he could beat Morgan in a mile race, and Dade had accepted the challenge, that was the first thing on the program.

“Oh, you can beat him!” Rosalind urged in the ear of her escort.

“Of course I can beat him!”

Dade made good his boast. Jack Ready had chirped of himself as a “winged wonder,” but Morgan beat him in at the finish more than twenty yards.

“Well, you see, it was this way,” Ready explained, stepping up to Rosalind as Dade moved to meet her. “I knew how you felt about it, and that took away my heart. No one can skate well with the wishes of a handsome young lady against him.”

“Oh, come off!” Morgan snarled. “I beat you fair and square, and you know it.”

Somehow, Morgan had never appreciated the humor of the fellow of the apple-red cheeks.

Ready wiggled his right hand in his bland way.

“There’s a fellow over there you can’t beat!”

“Who?”

“Dick Starbright.”

Rosalind’s dark face grew warm, for the words had been caught up by Dashleigh and some other of Dick’s friends.

Finding himself growing angry, Morgan assumed a smile.

“It’s all right! I don’t care to race with Starbright!”

At the same time he was anxious for the race, for he fancied that he would be able to defeat Starbright more easily than he had Ready. His face showed nothing of the anxiety and plotting that had recently harassed him, and as for the wound on his head, the effects of it had entirely passed away, though there was a scar concealed by the hair and the cap.

As Dick was nothing loath to meet his enemy in a skating-race, the matter was quickly arranged, with Beckwith for the starter and one of the athletic-trainers for the timekeeper.

As the contestants skated away, Morgan remembered that Rosalind had not insisted that he could defeat Starbright, as she had that he could defeat Ready. He wondered about it, and his heart grew hot.

“I’ll beat him, all the same!” he determined, and started in with clean, quick strokes, remembering to skate handsomely at the same time, for the eyes of the spectators were on him.

To all appearances, the big freshman did not seem to be so good or so fast a skater as his slighter rival, but the way he went over the ice was surprising. His stroke was longer, though not so quick, and it took him forward with astonishing speed.

Morgan tried to draw ahead of him, but found Starbright hanging doggedly at his heels.

Away they went like birds down to the half-mile point, and, turning there, came flying back, with about the same relative distance still between them, Morgan skating with all his strength and skill, and Starbright, seeming slow, but still right at Morgan’s heels.

The crowds on the shore began to cheer. Dade heard it and increased his efforts. Then he heard Starbright’s stroke quicken, and, to his dismay, saw the big fellow go by him.

The fight to the finish was pretty. Starbright still seemed to be skating slowly, and Merriwell, who was watching him, saw that the giant freshman had a lot of reserve force, and that he was not doing all that he could.

Dashleigh danced up and down and almost broke the ice through, so jubilant was he when he saw his big chum in the lead.

Rosalind was paling and flushing by turns, and even Frank, who glanced at her occasionally, could hardly determine whether she favored Starbright most, or Morgan.

In the final twenty-five yards Starbright seemed to lift himself and fly, and crossed the line easily and neatly the winner.

The smile was still on Morgan’s face as he returned to Rosalind’s side.

“My skates are dull,” he said. “I think I could beat him with another pair. But now we’ll see what Merriwell will do!”

One of the interesting things of the afternoon was to be a race between Frank Merriwell and Jack Simmons, a junior, who was everywhere noted as the “Skate King.”

The enemies of Merriwell were jubilant. They had openly boasted that Frank would never dare to meet Simmons in a race on ice-skates, though they were forced to concede that in nearly every form of athletics Frank was the best man who had ever been seen in Yale. But Frank, though he had defeated Jack Ready and some others, had never laid any claims to be a wonder on skates.

He had not wanted to enter a race against Simmons, for, in arranging the “entertainments,” his idea was to give others an opportunity to show what they could do. Therefore, he had no desire to exploit his abilities. But he had finally consented, when Simmons came to him and told him that he personally wished to make the race.

The excitement over the previous contests was tame compared with that now witnessed.

Frank came on the ice wearing the winged skates which had been given him by Inza Burrage the previous winter. They were as handsome as were ever turned out by a skate-maker, and on the heels, as ornaments, were pairs of tiny metal wings, in imitation of the winged sandals of Mercury.

Jack Simmons wore racing-skates of the most approved pattern. He believed that he was really the king of skaters, and he was anxious to prove his superiority to Merriwell in this great winter sport.

The cheering ceased when the skaters moved forward side by side for the line, which they crossed together. It broke out again as they sped away, and was renewed as the racers neared the half-way point.

“Merriwell is fooling again!” growled Hodge, who was standing with Inza.

The skaters neared the half-mile turn, with Simmons slightly in the lead.

“He will win, you may be sure,” said Inza. “Frank always wins!”

“Well, I’ve known him to fail, and often to come near failing by being altogether too generous. It’s not my way!”

Inza smiled sweetly and serenely.

“Oh, I know it isn’t, you fire-eater! You want to murder everybody who comes against you in a contest!”

“Well, if I could beat them, you bet I’d beat them, without any monkey-business!”

There was no “monkey-business” as Frank came down on the home-stretch. He walked away from the skate king with marvelous ease, the winged skates bearing him on as if they were truly winged.

Simmons spurted in an effort to lessen the widening distance, but found it impossible; and Frank shot across the line far in advance of him, with Inza clapping her hands in delight, and Hodge growling that he knew Merriwell had “monkeyed” in the first half of the race.

There were other races; between Beckwith and Browning, which Bruce won, between seniors and juniors, and between sophomores and freshmen; races of all kinds, from singles to team-races. Combined with all of this there were many exhibitions of fancy skating.

Some boys came down to the shore drawing their sleds.

“A sled-race!” said Inza.

Rosalind heard it. Inza was talking to Starbright, and Rosalind’s jealous heart was flaming.

“Starbright beat you before,” she whispered to Morgan. “Perhaps you can beat him in a sled-race.”

“How?” Dade asked.

“Why, don’t you know? When I went to school in our village the boys used to skate races, drawing girls on sleds. Every fellow was anxious to draw his sweet-heart in such a race, and to win, of course. You can do it!”

Something in Dade’s heart made him rebel against the proposition; but looking at Starbright, and feeling keenly the rankling sting of his recent defeat, he determined to offer the challenge. So he walked over to the big freshman and proposed the sled-race.

“If Miss Burrage doesn’t object,” said Dick, his fair face flushing. Inza did not object. She had seen and read the jealous look of Rosalind Thornton, understood its meaning, and was willing that the race should take place, believing firmly that Starbright could win.

“I think it would be delightful,” she said. “Only, if I should fall off while you are going so fast, your skates might run away with you, Mr. Starbright, and take you into the woods.”

Merriwell might have objected if he had been consulted, but this was outside of the program, and he had no wish to interfere. At the same time, he did not quite like the look in Morgan’s eyes.

The race was to be across to the opposite point of land, and back; and as there were to be no official starters and timekeepers or red tape, the arrangements were quite simple.

The sleds were brought forward, the girls seated themselves, and Starbright and his enemy were away, each dragging his fair load in the race across the ice.

Rosalind now and then gave Inza a stab out of her dark eyes, but the other dark-eyed girl affected not to notice this as they were whirled on almost side by side.

The character of the ice made a divergence from the direct line necessary, thus increasing the distance to be skated.

Dick, who was not “playing” with Dade Morgan, even if Frank Merriwell had been “playing” with the skate king, reached the opposite point first, and turned to retrace his way.

Looking back as he carefully swung the sled round, he saw the crowd on the opposite shore waving handkerchiefs and caps, and heard their encouraging cheers. Then an increased desire to defeat Dade Morgan by as great a margin as possible came to him.

When Morgan turned the point, more than twenty yards behind Dick, his face was white and set. This second defeat meant much to him. He had not thought when he entered into it so readily that its result might mean his permanent defeat for the freshman leadership by his rival, but now his heart told him this was the peril before him.

To be twice defeated in one afternoon by Starbright might bring about the enthronement of the big freshman as the undeniable leader of the freshmen athletic forces.

“I will beat him!” he hissed. “He shall not defeat me again!”

“I’m not afraid!” Rosalind encouraged, feeling also the sting of defeat. “Go as fast as you can!”

Thus urged, Dade swept forward on the home-stretch with all his might. He saw that an advantage could be gained by pressing nearer the dangerous ice, and to get that advantage he swung inward.

“We’re going so fast that there isn’t the least danger!” he told himself. “At this speed, one could safely pass over the thinnest ice.”

Then he swerved still more.

Suddenly Starbright, who, taking the safe course, and was losing by this device of his opponent, heard the cracking of ice and a scream. He stopped, turning his skates sidewise, and almost being thrown by the sled, which ran against his heels.

Then he saw a sight that chilled his blood. The ice had given way under Rosalind’s sled, and she had been thrown into a yawning opening.

She was struggling wildly in the icy waters.

The momentum had carried Dade across in safety, and the dropping of Rosalind from the sled had pitched him headlong.

Before he could recover, Starbright had skated back past him, and, without hesitation, seeing that nothing but prompt action could save the imperiled girl, had leaped into the water to Rosalind’s assistance.

The lake was instantly covered with skaters hurrying to the scene of the disaster, among the foremost being Merriwell and Hodge.

Starbright secured a grip on Rosalind’s jacket, and though the icy waters seemed to strike a chill to his bones, he succeeded in holding her head up, and swam slowly with her to the edge of the broken ice.

A half-dozen fellows threw themselves on the ice in a line, with Merriwell in the lead, crawled to the dangerous and crumbling brink, and thus drew Starbright and Rosalind out to safety.

Fortunately, carriages were in waiting, and into these the soaked skater and the equally soaked and half-drowned girl were quickly placed, and the drivers lost no time in getting their charges into the city.

“I’m awfully sorry!” said Inza, as she and Frank returned to town. “It was partly my fault. But I didn’t think Morgan would be such a fool.”

“There is no telling what a fellow will do when he is angry or jealous!”

“Or a girl, either,” said Inza. “I could see that Rosalind was both when she saw me talking with Starbright.”