you?” cried Dick. “Not much! Fardale will defeat you to-day, for all of tricks and crookedness!”
“Whoop-ee!” exploded Buckhart. “You bet your boots she will!”
Then both boys turned on their heels and left the room.
Dick and Brad were descending the stairs to leave the hotel when something struck Dick’s shoulder with a little tinkle and fell on the steps before him.
Dick picked it up, and glanced upward. He fancied he saw a face disappear above, and there was a rustling sound that died away almost immediately. In his hand Dick held a bit of paper that was twisted about an old-fashioned copper coin. He untwisted the paper and saw there was some writing upon it.
“I shall try to be at the game. See me a moment if possible. Have something to say to you. —
“What is it, pard?” asked Brad.
“Nothing much,” smiled Dick, folding the paper and carefully putting it in his pocket, along with the coin.
The smile left his face, as at the very door, when he was passing out, he encountered Mrs. Arlington, who had just alighted from a carriage and was coming in. She saw him, and a haughty look of anger and accusation settled on her cold face.
“So you decided to come!” she said freezingly. “It is well that you did. I have consulted a lawyer, and I have about concluded to have you arrested.”
“To have me arrested?” said Dick, in surprise.
“Exactly.”
“What for?”
“Theft!”
Dick’s face flamed crimson, while a gurgle of incredulity and astonishment came from Brad’s throat.
“Theft, madam?” said Dick warmly. “Such a thing is ridiculous!”
“Outrageous!” came from Brad.
“I sent for a piece of property belonging to my daughter and you declined to return it,” said the woman, with a crushing air of superiority.
“So it was you who sent for it?” came quickly from Dick. “I am glad to know that.”
“My daughter wrote the note, which I sent by a messenger. Your refusal to return the locket makes you a thief. But I presume you have come to your senses and decided to give it up, in which case I shall not proceed against you.”
Dick was boiling with anger, and he longed to tell the woman just what he thought; but he could not forget that she was June’s mother, which held him in check.
“I did not call to return the locket, madam,” he said. “I had another matter that brought me here.”
“Indeed?” said the woman, annoyed and surprised. “You will find it best to attend to this matter without delay if you wish to escape the unpleasantness of being arrested. To a boy of your callous nature I do not suppose arrest would seem like a disgrace, but you may fear imprisonment.”
Dick could not find words to retort to this insult, but he knew he could not restrain his outraged feelings much longer, for which reason he sought to pass the woman at once and get away from her. But Mrs. Arlington had not played all her cards. She was holding one in reserve.
“I think you were somehow concerned in stopping a horse that had become frightened in a neighboring town, and I also think my daughter was in the carriage,” she said, in the same haughty, freezing manner. “Much to my regret, I have learned that my son failed to pay you for your act, as he promised to do; but you know he was injured by falling from the carriage, which explains his failure. I have been told that he said he would give you a hundred dollars to stop the horse. I always take pains to have my son keep his word, and I shall do so in this case. When you call with the locket you shall have the hundred dollars, just as he promised.”
Dick knew she felt sure the promise of that money would cause him to hasten to bring the locket, and it but added to his outraged sense of fairness. Surely she was the most overbearing, haughty, cold-blooded woman he had ever met! But she was June’s mother!
“Madam,” he said, “if you imagine for a moment that I stopped that horse because a hundred dollars was offered to any one who would do so, you have made a great mistake. I did so because your daughter was in peril. Nothing could induce me to accept money from your son, from you, or from any one on earth for such an act!”
He managed to pass her, but Buckhart paused to say:
“Well, I should opine not! Why, confound it! I told you once that this yere pard of mine has money enough to buy up your old husband’s railroads and run ’em! Money! Why, when he comes of age he’ll have it to burn in an open grate instead of coal! Money! Don’t insult him by – ”
“Brad!” said Dick sharply; “that will do! Come!”
“All right,” said Buckhart, regretfully following young Merriwell. “But I wasn’t half done with her. I was just getting round to say over my opinion of her, and I reckon I’d sure rumpled her fur some.”
“Never mind,” said Dick. “We’ve got other things to think of besides that woman.”
“Don’t you worry none whatever about arrest,” said the Texan. “She’ll not be that big a fool.”
“I hope not,” said Dick.
As Dick said, he had other things to occupy his mind. He was bound to win the game that afternoon and teach Franklin a lesson.
Midday had passed and Dick was entering the gymnasium to prepare for the game when a boy on a bicycle hailed him. He stopped, frowning a little as the boy came up swiftly, for he half-fancied it was some one sent by Mrs. Arlington. As the lad drew near, however, Dick suddenly recognized him. It was Sammy – Sammy of Hudsonville, on a brand-new wheel! Sammy was laughing as he jumped off.
“I wanted you to see the wheel Mr. Arlington sent me in place of the old one,” he said. “I’ve ridden over here on it to thank Miss Arlington and to see the football-game. I’m going to root for you in the game. Say, ain’t this wheel a peach?”
“It is very handsome,” said Dick. “It seems to be quite as good as your other one.”
“Oh, it’s better! A machinist over in our town says it’s the best he ever saw, and he knows a good one when he sees it.”
“I congratulate you, Sammy,” said Dick. “I’m very glad you got the wheel all right and like it.”
“Oh, I like it! Say, you’re going to do them Franklin fellows, ain’t you? They beat our team, and they think they are the real stuff. I’d give anything to see you do ’em up.”
“All right,” smiled Dick. “Keep your eyes open this afternoon, Sammy.”
CHAPTER VIII – FARDALE’S WAY
In some respects the first half of the game that day was like the first half in Hudsonville. Franklin had the heavier team, and it kept the ball in Fardale’s territory fully three-fourths of the time. The first touchdown was made by Franklin with such ridiculous ease that the watching cadets groaned in despair. But Dick managed to
