Frank Merriwell's Champions: or, All in the Game

CHAPTER I – FRANK AND HIS FRIENDS

Ping! pang! crash!

Frank Merriwell, making a sharp turn in a narrow mountain path, felt his bicycle strike something which gave under his weight with a snapping, musical sound, and almost precipitated him over the handle bars of his machine.

Bart Hodge, who was close behind, checked himself with difficulty, and sang out:

“What’s wrong, Frank?”

“Smashed a music box, I guess,” answered Frank, leaping down and coming back.

In single file behind Frank Merriwell and his chum, Bart Hodge, came the other members of the bicycle party – fat and lazy Bruce Browning; the gallant Virginian, Jack Diamond; merry-hearted Harry Rattleton; the Yankee youth, Ephraim Gallup; the Dutch boy, Hans Dunnerwust; the lad with Irish blood in his veins and a brogue to boot, Barney Mulloy, and Toots, the colored boy, who when at home worked around the Merriwell homestead.

In the previous volumes of this series we have related how Frank and his Yale chums started out from college for a tour on wheels to San Francisco. This great journey was safely accomplished, and now the boys were on their way to the East once more. They had journeyed in various ways through California, Texas, Missouri, Kentucky and other States, and had now reached the mountain region in the southwestern part of Virginia. They had left the railroad at the entrance to the valley, and were now journeying by a little-used path to the pretty little summer resort of Glendale, situated by the side of a lake near the top of the Blue Ridge range.

A view of Glendale and the lake, which was known as Lake Lily, had been given them a minute before, at the top of a rise, as they were about to plunge into the bit of woodland, where the path made its short turn and brought to Merriwell the accident just mentioned.

The attractiveness of the view was not lessened to Frank Merriwell and his friends by the rustic cottages stretching along the shores of the lake and the flag that floated above them, proclaiming the place the summer camp of the Lake Lily Athletic Club.

“It’s a violin,” Frank regretfully announced, picking up the instrument that had been crushed by his wheel and holding it for the others to see. “I don’t – ”

His words were checked by a movement in the bushes, and a youth of nineteen or twenty pushed himself into view. He wore an outing suit of blue flannel, and a white straw hat that well became him rested on his abundant brown hair. He was tall and straight as a pine, with a dark face that might have been pleasant in repose, but was now distorted by anger.

“You did that!” he cried, facing Merriwell. “That is my violin, and you have crushed and ruined it. What business had you coming up this path, anyhow? This is a private path!”

“If this is your violin, I must confess that I seem to have damaged it pretty badly,” returned Merriwell, retaining his composure, in spite of the biting tone in which he was addressed. “As to the path being a private one, I am not so sure of that. At any rate, I did not run into your violin on purpose. It occurs to me that a path such as this, whether it is public or private, is not a place where one expects to come on musical instruments, and that you are somewhat to blame for placing it there. However, I assure you I am – ”

“You will pay for the violin, and a good round sum, too!” asserted the youth, doubling up his fists and advancing toward Frank, who stood beside his wheel, holding the broken instrument. “This woodland belongs to my father, and no one has a right to come up the path except members of our club. If you hadn’t been trespassing, you wouldn’t have run into the violin!”

“I was going to assure you of my regret at having damaged the instrument, and of course I am willing to do whatever is right to make good your loss,” Merriwell continued, smiling lightly and deceptively. “But I still insist that a place like this is no spot for you or any one else to leave a violin. I presume you speak of the athletic club down by the lake?”

The youth’s face showed scorn now, as well as anger.

“Those Lilywhites? Not on your life I don’t! I was speaking of the Blue Mountain Athletic Club. Our cottages are right back here among the trees. You can see them from that bend. As for the violin, I was playing it a while ago, and jumped and left it here when one of the boys called me, expecting to come back in a minute – ”

Again there was a movement in the bushes, with the sound of hurrying feet, and a voice shouted:

“Hello, Hammond! What’s the matter out there?”

Then half a dozen boys, attired like the owner of the violin, hurried into view.

Merriwell’s friends crowded closer to him when they saw this array of force, and Rattleton was heard to mutter something about Frank’s punching the violinist’s head.

“I don’t think there is any need of a quarrel here,” declared Jack Diamond, pushing forward. “Here, you fellows! I’ve been bragging all day to Merriwell and my other friends about the big-heartedness of the people of Virginia. I’m a Virginian myself, and I believed what I said. I hope you won’t insist on doing anything that will make me want to eat my words!”

The statement was not without effect.

“He must pay me for the violin!” growled Hammond. “I can’t afford to have an instrument like that smashed into kindling, and just let it go at that. As for this land, it is my father’s, and very few people besides members of our club go along the path.”

“Then the path is not wholly private?” queried Frank. “I am glad to know that.”

“And he as good as said he was to blame for leaving the thing where he did!” exclaimed Harry Rattleton. “I don’t think he is entitled to a cent.”

“Come, come!” begged Diamond, again assuming the part of peacemaker, though he was raging inwardly at the belligerent Virginia boys. “We expect to stop a few days in Glendale, and we can’t afford to be anything but your friends, you know. What is the violin worth?”

“A hundred dollars!” Hammond announced, though in reality the instrument had cost him only twenty. “I doubt if I could get another as good for double that sum.”

“I don’t want to quarrel with you,” said Merriwell, “and I won’t, unless I’m driven to it. I’m willing to settle this thing in one way, and in one way only. We will pick three disinterested persons who know something about violins. Let them set a value on the instrument. You stand half the loss for carelessly leaving it in a path which, by your admission, is not wholly private, and I will stand the other half for what I did.”

“Thot’s talk, Merry, me b’y!” shouted Barney Mulloy, who was itching for a “scrap” with these campers.

Hammond gave Barney a quick glance of hate.

“I’ll do nothing of the kind,” he asserted, turning again to Frank. “You pay me a hundred dollars, or I’ll have it out of your hide!”

“Oh, you will, will you?” said Merriwell, facing him, and laughing lightly. “Jump right in, whenever you are ready to begin!”

One of Hammond’s followers, seeing that, in spite of the lightness of his manner, Frank Merriwell meant to fight, caught Hammond by the shoulders and drew him back.

“Let me at him!” cried Hammond, becoming furious in an instant, and making a seeming attempt to break away from his friend. “Let me go, I tell you! I’ll pound the face off him!”

“Let him go, as he is so anxious!” laughed Merriwell. “I’m willing he shall begin the pounding at once.”

At this, another of Hammond’s friends took hold of him, not liking the looks of Merriwell’s backers, and the two began to force the enraged lad through the screen of bushes in the direction of the invisible camp.

“Here is his violin,” said Merriwell, tossing it after them. “I am sorry I ran into it, and am willing to do whatever is fair. When he is in the same frame of mind, let him come down to the hotel at the village, and we will try to talk the thing over amicably. I will be his friend, if he will let me; or his enemy, if he prefers it that way!”

CHAPTER II – THE LAKE LILY ATHLETIC CLUB

Frank Merriwell’s party was scarcely installed in the Blue Ridge Hotel when two visitors were announced. They proved to be a delegation from the Lake Lily Athletic Club.

“We heard of your arrival only a little while ago, and we came straight up,” said one, speaking to Merriwell, who had risen from his piazza chair to greet them. “My name is Septimus Colson – Sep for short – and this is my friend, Philip Tetlow.”

“I am very glad to meet you, Mr. Colson – and you, Mr. Tetlow,” answered Merriwell, who then proceeded to introduce himself and his friends to the callers.

Colson and Tetlow were sunburned youths of seventeen or eighteen – keen-looking, intelligent fellows, attired in outing suits.

“You’ll excuse us for the call,” begged Colson, “but you see it’s this way: We’ve got those cottages down there, with the flag flying over them, and hardly anybody in them. The cottages aren’t much to brag of in the way of looks, but they are comfortable.”

“And you want us to help you occupy them?” laughed Merriwell.

“Yes, and help us do up the Blue Mountain fellows!”

Barney Mulloy and Harry Rattleton hitched their chairs nearer.

“Do you be afther m’anin’ thim chumps in the woods up on the mountain?” asked Barney. “Begorra! av yez say yis to thot, Oi’m wid yez.”

“I mean the fellows of the Blue Mountain Athletic Club,” said Colson. “A week ago they sent us challenges, which we accepted, but which we must back down from unless your party is willing to join in and aid us. You see, we had sixteen boys in the camp at that time. Now we have only five. The others, who came from the same town down by the coast, had to leave because of sickness in their homes.”

“How many boys are in the Blue Mountain Club?” inquired Jack Diamond.

“Well, there are fourteen besides Ward Hammond, who is their leader. They are already crowing over us in a way we don’t like, because they think we can’t meet them.”

“Are they summer visitors?” asked Rattleton.

“Some of them are. The others belong here in the village. Hammond was brought up here, and his father owns a good deal of land in these mountains. He hasn’t a very good name, though, and is not well liked. I’ve been told that he’s related by blood to some of these fighting mountaineers, but I don’t know how true that is. When you meet him, you will notice that he has the tall, lank appearance of a mountaineer.”

“We’ve met him!” grunted Browning.

“About challenges. What is their character?” questioned Merriwell.

“The arrangements were for an archery shoot, day after to-morrow, with a swimming match on the lake the next day, and that to be followed by a mountain-climbing contest.”

Colson looked hopefully at Merriwell and his companions.

“You must not say ‘no’ to our invitation,” he insisted. “You’ll find it much pleasanter in our cottages down by the lake than in this hotel, and we need you! We want you to join our club. It is perfectly legitimate, for we’re allowed to recruit from anywhere. As I said, a number of the Blue Mountain boys – more than half of them, I think – do not have their homes in Glendale.”

“What do you say, fellows?” questioned Merriwell, turning toward his companions.

“Av it’s thim chumps upon the hill!” exclaimed Barney Mulloy.

Merriwell nodded.

“I think I’d like that, by thutter!” declared Ephraim Gallup.

“You pets my poots, dot voult pe a bicnic!” asserted Hans Dunnerwust, the jolly-looking Dutch boy.

The others assented, each after his own peculiar manner.

“When do you want us to come down?” asked Frank.

“Right now, this minute, if you will!” cried Colson’s companion, who had hitherto maintained a grave silence. “It’s lonesome as a graveyard down there. And you’ll want to do some practicing! Can you handle the bow and arrow?”

Philip Tetlow’s face lighted up with such fine enthusiasm, and his delight was so manifest, that Frank could hardly restrain a laugh.

“We must see the landlord of the hotel first,” said Merriwell, “for we have already registered here, and he may interpose objections to our summary leave-taking. But you may count on it that we will be with you without much delay.”

Two hours later, Merriwell and the entire Yale Combine were snugly installed in the cottages of the Lake Lily Athletic Club.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have another one of those infernal chills,” grumbled Browning, as, with a blanket drawn over him, he reclined in a hammock and looked across the water toward the village. “I guess I shall never get that Arkansas malaria out of my system, though I’ve taken enough quinine to start a drug store.”

Rattleton cast a look of mock anxiety at the rather flimsy walls.

“I say, Browning, when you get to shaking right good, as you did that other time, you’ll have your cot put out under the trees, won’t you? Just for the safety of the rest of us, you know.”

“No, I won’t!” Browning growled. “If I bring the house down on myself, like old Samson, it will delight me to bury all the rest of you in the ruins.”

“Say, fellows,” cried the irrepressible Rattleton, “why is Browning like a member of a certain well-known religious organization?”

“Oh, go chase yourself out of here!” begged Bruce. “I’m already sick, and your weak jokes make me sicker.”

“It’s because he’s a Shaker.”

Browning groaned and turned his face toward the wall.

“Won’t some one kindly kill that idiot for me?” he pleaded.

Frank Merriwell came into the room, holding a handsome lancewood bow and a sheaf of arrows.

“If we are going to meet Ward Hammond and his Blue Mountain boys day after to-morrow,” he said, surveying the lounging group, “it strikes me that it would be well for the new members of Lake Lily Athletic Club to get in a little archery practice.”

To this there was a general assent, and the entire party prepared to leave the room, with the exception of Bruce Browning, who shivered and drew the blanket closer about him as they got up to go.

Out by the lake there was a level stretch of greensward. Here a target had been set up, and the members of the club had practiced at archery.

Both the new and the old members of the Lake Lily Athletic Club practiced with the bow so faithfully in the limited time given them that when they climbed to the archery ground on the wooded crest of Blue Mountain they felt that they would be able to give Ward Hammond and his friends a hard contest, if nothing more, though Hammond had been heard publicly to declare that the Lilywhites’ new members would add nothing to the strength of the club.

The spot was an ideal one, and commanded a view of the lake and the town. A glade, covered with short grass, opened on the side toward the village, being flanked by wooded slopes. Near at hand were the cottages of the Blue Mountain Club. They were handsomer and more expensive than those of the other club, but not more comfortable. Across one corner of the glade, and dipping down into the dark woods, ran the path on which Merriwell’s bicycle had collided with and crushed the violin.

Ward Hammond and his companions were already on the ground, and Hammond was looking at his watch as Merriwell’s party came up.

“I didn’t know but you fellows had backed out,” he declared, with a sneer, snapping the gold case together and dropping the watch into his pocket.

Jack Diamond flushed and pulled out his own timepiece.

“We’ve ten minutes to spare, if my watch is right!” he asserted.

“Of course your watch is right!” was the suggestive retort.

“I hope you don’t mean to insinuate that I turned my watch back for any reason,” said Diamond, gulping down his growing anger.

“You ought to know that I wouldn’t insinuate such a thing against any member of the Lilywhites?” Hammond sarcastically purred, but in softer tones.

Frank Merriwell was stringing his bow and glancing off toward the target. It was a thirty-pound lancewood bow, with horn notches at the tips, a handsome bow, and a good one, as he had reason to know.

The target was set at a supposed distance of sixty yards from the archers. It was a flat, circular pad of twisted straw, four feet in diameter, and it was faced with cloth, on which was painted a central yellow disk, called the gold. Around this disk was drawn a band of red, and next to it a band of blue, then one of black, and finally one of white.

“I suppose you understand how the scores are to be counted?” inquired Hammond, glad to change the subject, for he did not like the look that had come into Diamond’s dark face. “A hit in the gold counts nine, in the red seven, in the blue five, in the black three, and in the white one.”

“And if you miss the gol darned thing altogether?” drawled the boy from Vermont.

“You’ll likely lose an arrow somewhere down there in the woods,” Hammond laughed.

Craig Carter, a sinewy lad of about seventeen, Hammond’s most intimate friend and admirer, stepped forward with drawn bow and placed himself in readiness to shoot, as his name came first on the list.

“We’re not ready yet,” objected Merriwell, noting the action and again glancing toward the target. “The distance hasn’t been measured.”

“We measured it before you came,” said Hammond, with an uneasy look.

“It is only fair that it should be measured in our presence,” continued Frank. “Errors can happen, you know, and as the rules call for sixty yards and we have been practicing for that we don’t want to run any risks by shooting at any other distance.”

No one knew better than Ward Hammond how essential it is in archery shooting to know the exact distance that is to be shot over.

Hammond’s uneasiness seemed to communicate itself to other members of the Blue Mountain Athletic Club.

“Get the tape measure,” Hammond commanded, addressing Craig Carter.

Carter gave his bow and arrows to another member of the club and hurried into one of the cottages. From this cottage he was seen to rush into another and then another, and came back in a few moments with the announcement that the distance would have to be stepped, as somehow the tape measure had been mislaid and he could not find it.

Harry Rattleton promptly drew a tape measure from one of his pockets.

“You will find that this is as true as a die,” he asserted, smilingly passing it to Hammond. “Stretch it across the ground there, and I’ll help you do the measuring, if you’re willing.”

“Certainly,” said Hammond, critically eying the tape. “You will do as well as any one.”

Rattleton took one end of the line and ran with it out toward the target, and Hammond put the other on the ground. Rattleton marked the point, and Hammond moved up to it.

“The distance is five yards too short,” Rattleton announced, when the measurement had been made.

“This line is not right,” declared Hammond, white with inward rage.

“Send to the village and get another, then,” said Merriwell. “A dozen if you like. Or take another look for your own.”

“Of course we’ll set the target where you say it ought to be,” fumed Hammond, who had hoped to take a mean advantage, which had been prevented by the true eye of Frank Merriwell.

What made the discovery so bitter to Hammond was the knowledge that he had injured the chances of himself and his friends in the contest, for they had done nearly all of their practicing at the false distance. His attempted cheating had recoiled on his own head.

Craig Carter again took his bow and stepped forward to shoot. He held himself easily and gracefully and drew the arrow to the head with a steady hand.

Whir-r-r – thud!

The shaft, in its whirring course through the air, arose higher than the top of the target, but dropped lower just before it hit, and struck in the pad of twisted straw with a dull thud.

“Five – in the blue!” called the marker, coming out from behind the tree where he had screened himself, and drawing the arrow from the target.

“Heavens! Can’t I do better than that?” Carter growled.

Sep Colson had the lists of the members of the two clubs, and he called Jack Diamond’s name next.

Diamond stepped forward confidently and let his arrow fly.

“In the blue – five!” announced the marker.

“Well, it’s a tie, anyway!” said Diamond, with a disappointed laugh.

“By chaowder, it ain’t so derned easy to hit that air thing as it might be!” drawled Gallup. “I think I’d stand a heap sight better show to strike gold with a shovel an’ pick in Alasky.”

Dan Matlock, one of the boys of the Blue Mountain Club, came next, and then Hans Dunnerwust’s name was called.

“Shoost you vatch me!” cried the roly-poly Dutch boy, as he advanced and spat on his hands before taking up the bow. “I pet you your life I preaks der recort.”

There was a howl of derision at this from the Blue Mountain boys, and even the Dutch boy’s friends joined in the laugh.

“Vell, you may laugh at dot uf you don’t vant to,” he exclaimed, “put maype you don’t laugh on der oder side your mouts uf pime-py. Ged avay oudt! I vas goin’ to shoot der arrow oudt mit dot golt, py shimminy, und don’d you vorgid me!”

He drew the bow slowly up to his face, shut one eye and squinted along the arrow. Then he put the bow down, with a triumphant laugh.

“Who vas id say to me avhile ago dot dis pow veigh dirty pounds, yet alretty? Vy, id can lift me like id vos an infant.”

“Go on and shoot,” said Merriwell. “The bow doesn’t weigh thirty pounds. It takes a thirty-pound pull to bend it. That’s why it is called a thirty-pound bow.”

“So, dot vos id, eh?” queried Dunnerwust, looking the bow over curiously. “Id dakes dirty pounds to bent me! Vell, here I vos go ag’in. Look oudt eferypoty.”

His fingers slipped from the arrow and the bowstring twanged prematurely.

This was followed by a howl from Toots, who dropped to the ground and began to roll over as if in great agony.