Читать книгу Frank Merriwell's Setback; Or, True Pluck Welcomes Defeat - Burt L. Standish - Страница 5

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Jack Ready and the sophomores had rushed to Guilford by train with their band, after Starbright’s departure from New Haven, and had easily beaten him there, with plenty of time to spare. They returned by train, feeling supremely joyous over their success.

Dick, however, in accordance with the terms of the wager, was forced to wheel back to New Haven over the route he had come, again stared at and questioned by the curious people along the road.

The leaden clouds thickened and darkened, portending a northeaster; but, with the wind for a large part of the trip at his back, Dick sped swiftly along, approaching New Haven well ahead of time.

On the outskirts of the city he came upon a sight that stirred his blood. Dade Morgan, who had been out on a wheel accompanying Rosalind Thornton, found himself confronted by a rough-looking man whose brutal face was somewhat familiar to him, and who planted himself in the center of the street as if to intercept him.

Dade was not particularly afraid of the man, but rather scorned him.

“Out of the way!” Dade roughly commanded.

He rang his bell furiously. Rosalind paled.

Seeing that the man did not mean to step aside, and having no desire for an altercation with him in Rosalind’s presence, Dade veered his wheel to pass. The man leaped at him, thrust a foot out in front of the wheel, stopping it, and Dade was thrown heavily over the handle-bars.

Rosalind, who was close at his side, was also thrown to the ground, though she saved herself from injury and skilfully alighted on her feet.

When Starbright saw this he set his pedals in still swifter motion, all his chivalrous instincts aroused.

Dade scrambled up; but the man struck him a heavy blow which knocked him backward.

“Dis is me time I git even wid you fer dat insult. See!” the ruffian growled. “Ye insulted me t’other night, when ye hadn’t no call. Now I pays ye back!”

Rosalind gave a scream of fright. Starbright, swinging forward like a whirlwind, saw Dade dodge the next blow and grapple with the ruffian and saw them begin a furious fight.

Dade, who was a good, hard fighter, had been weakened by his fall, so that it was evident at a glance that he was no match for his burly adversary. He struck savagely, however, and managed to release himself from the man’s grip.

The tough now struck at him, using a big doorkey as brass knuckles, with the amiable intention of cutting open the face of the “college dude.” Morgan evaded this and landed a blow, but the fellow tripped him and kicked him heavily as he fell.

Rosalind, screaming for help, ran to one side of the road. Dade jumped to his feet again, and, managing to fasten on the tough, the two went down together.

Then the whirring wheel stopped beside the struggling couple; and, as the rough pulled loose and tried to strike Dade in the face with the heavy brass key, a blow from Starbright’s big fist sent him reeling.

“Anodder college dude!” growled the ruffian, wheeling about. “Ye’ll wish’t ye’d kep’ out o’ this!”

His hand went to his hip-pocket, but he found no weapon. Then he gathered himself and made a spring at the newcomer. As a result, he ran his face into the big fist on the end of a long, straight, stiffened left arm. At the other end of the arm were something like two hundred pounds of hard-trained muscle and over six feet of young manhood.

A feeling of jarring surprise penetrated to the evil brain. It was not often that he ran against anything quite like that. He paused a moment to stare his surprise; and Dick saw that he was a big, brawny fellow, with heavy jaw, small head and piggish, wicked eyes, the type so often found in the lowest slums of great cities, but seldom seen in New Haven.

The effect of that blow rendered the man cautious.

“Dis ain’t your cut in, young feller!” he snarled.

Then, thinking to take Dick by surprise, he struck out suddenly, with the force of a piledriver. But his maul-like fist did not connect with Dick’s face, and the force of the blow almost threw him to the ground.

Crack! Dick’s hard right fist sounded like the smack of a board striking a house. The fellow reeled, but recovered. His head was like iron.

“W’en I gits me fingers onto ye, ye’ll wilt! See!”

He dodged Dick’s next blow and rushed in with the ferocity of a bulldog. Dick stepped lightly aside; and the hard, white fist pounding the ruffian on the jaw threw him senseless to the ground.

Dade Morgan, having regained his strength somewhat, was on the point of coming to Dick’s assistance, but drew back when he saw the man senseless on the ground.

“That was handsome of you, Starbright!” he acknowledged. “I’ll try not to forget it.”

Rosalind tried to stammer her thanks, but the presence of the ruffian, even though he was insensible for the moment, made her wildly anxious to escape from the vicinity. Some people were approaching, those in the lead seeming to be of the same type as the fellow knocked out.

Before their arrival the man was stirring into consciousness, making Rosalind more than ever wildly anxious to proceed. So she and Dade remounted and wheeled away.

“Perhaps the fellow is your friend,” said Starbright, speaking to the man who arrived first. “If he is, look after him. He interfered with that young lady and her escort, and got what he deserved!”

Then he, too, rode on into the city.

Having reported his return, Dick put away his wheel, and, feeling tremendously hungry, went to a restaurant and had something to eat. It was not until long after nightfall that he went to his rooms. The sophomores had returned to New Haven by rail long before.

“Gone out nagging signs!” was the scrawl left for him on the table by Dashleigh.

Dashleigh had not heard of what had befallen his chum on the trip to Guilford, for the joke had been kept from the freshmen. The sophomores had feared Starbright would learn of it through his freshmen friends; and, besides the sophomores had other plans in store for making it interesting for the men of the lower class.

After changing his clothing, Dick went out to give instructions for the “dinner” he meant to give to Ready and other sophomores that night. When he returned he encountered Dashleigh as the latter was about to ascend to their apartments.

“What have you got tucked under your coat?” Dick asked.

“Sh!” Bert warned. “It’s a sign.”

“Nagging,” or stealing, signboards is, for some inexplicable reason, one of the standard forms of amusement for freshmen. No one can tell just where the fun comes in, unless it is found in imagining the stormy anger of the storekeepers and others when they find their signs gone.

“Had a great time!” Dashleigh panted, as he and his chum hurried up-stairs. “Never had more fun in my life. Ready was with us. Say, that fellow is a corker!”

“What time did he get back?”

“Back where?”

“New Haven.”

“I didn’t know he was out of town. Anyway, he didn’t say anything about it. We nagged a lot of signs this evening. Ready went along to put us onto the thing right, you see. I hardly thought he’d favor freshmen that way, but he was just as jolly about it; said he’d been a freshman not long ago himself, and that he hadn’t forgot it.”

“What kind of a sign did you get?” Dick asked dryly.

He had cause to fear the “friendliness” of Jack Ready for unsuspecting freshmen.

“The dandiest in the lot. It’s a new blacksmith’s sign, or a blacksmith’s new sign, and it has a picture of a horse on it that is a real work of art.”

They had arrived at their rooms, and Dashleigh carefully unbuttoned his overcoat and took from under it the sign. He stared at himself and the sign in comical amazement.

The sign had been freshly painted, and his clothing was coated with the paint. In addition, he had slapped the picture of the horse up against his dark new coat as he tucked the outer coat over it, and the impression of the horse had been transferred to the coat. Starbright could not help laughing.

“Seems to me it is literally a horse on you! That is more of Ready’s work.”

“Why——”

Dashleigh looked from the paint to the red face of his friend.

“Jack Ready?” he gasped. “Say, did Jack put up a job on me?”

“He certainly did, and he put up another on me this afternoon.”

Dashleigh daintily put down the sign, stripped off his overcoat, and sat flat down in a chair.

“Well, say, when I meet that fellow I’ll kill him! Don’t you suppose there was a mistake?”

“Biggest kind of one!”

“What?”

“When we let ourselves forget that Jack Ready is a sophomore and we are only freshmen.”

Dashleigh looked ruefully at his clothing and at the fresh red paint of the sign. Then the humor of the situation came to him, and he smiled, though the smile was somewhat ghastly.

“I’m an idiot!”

“Of course you are. We’re a pair of idiots!”

“What did he do to you?”

“Tell me about the sign first.”

“Well, you see, I’ve been wanting to go out nagging for several nights. Jack heard of it, and he told me that he could give me some pointers. So I spoke to some other fellows.”

“All freshmen?”

“Yep.”

“So I thought.”

“And Ready piloted us to-night. He showed me this beautiful sign in front of the blacksmith’s, and told me that it had been up there only a short time, and it would be a lovely one to nag.”

“It had been up there only a short time!”

“Confound him! I see it had. I thought it felt damp as I pulled it off the hooks, but we had a few drops of rain this evening, and I supposed that was the reason. Then I clapped the thing under my coat and fled hitherward. And there the thing is. And my beautifulest suit is ruined. Well, when I meet him I’ll kill him!”

“It will give a good job to some coat-cleaner. Better tackle the thing yourself, while the paint is fresh. There is some benzine over on the shelf.”

Then, while Bert Dashleigh tried to remove the paint from his clothing, Starbright told of his race to Guilford and of the advertisements and greeting given to the “Giant of the Wheel.”

“Say, we’ll have to murder that villain!” Dashleigh whispered. “I feel to-night fit for treason, stratagem, and spoil.”

Nevertheless, after laboring with the suit and benzine for an hour, he hung the sign against the wall, went out again, and, meeting Ready, greeted him with great cheerfulness.

“Thanks for the sign!” he murmured. “I’ve hung it on our wall, and intend to have it framed as a memento of our adventure.”

Ready grinned.

“That blacksmith will be tearing mad in the morning. His sign hadn’t been hanging there long.”

“Confound you! Don’t I know it hadn’t? That blacksmith never saw that sign in his life, and he never will!”

“It had a beautiful steed on it!” Ready purred.

“A sort of transfer picture! I transferred it to my coat!”

Then they adjourned to Traeger’s and buried the hatchet, after which Ready betook himself to the dinner which Starbright was giving to the sophomores.