style="font-size:15px;"> “Perhaps you’ll get another one, all right,” said Dick. “I think you will, even if I have to pay for it.”
“You won’t have to do that,” declared the man who had been among the first to express his admiration over Dick’s feat. “The girl’s brother said he’d give a hundred dollars to the one who stopped the horse. That ought to buy another wheel.”
“But I didn’t mean that I’d give it to him!” said Chester Arlington weakly.
“What?” roared the man. “What’s the difference who stopped the horse? I heard you telling since the runaway started that you are the son of D. Roscoe Arlington, the great railroad man. If that’s so your father can buy a whole bicycle-factory without going broke. You’d better keep your word.”
“You mind your business!” jerked out Chester, trying to rise from the steps to meet June, who had been assisted to the ground by Dick. “It was on his account that – ”
Then Chester’s knees buckled beneath him, and he dropped in a limp heap at the foot of the steps. With a cry, June bent over him.
“He’s hurt!” she exclaimed, in great agitation. “Chester! Chester! Speak to me, brother!”
But Chester Arlington lay white and still on the ground.
“I think he has fainted, Miss Arlington,” said Dick. “Don’t be alarmed. He may not be seriously hurt at all. The fright over your danger may have brought this on. Come, fellows, let’s carry him into the hotel.”
Brad Buckhart drew back.
“Well, I don’t care about dirtying my hands on the coyote,” he muttered.
There were others, however, who were ready enough to assist Dick, and Chester was borne into the hotel, where he was attended by one of the village doctors who had joined the crowd. In a few moments he recovered.
The doctor was unable to tell just how much Chester was hurt, and he was taken to a room for further examination and treatment. June kept close to him, betraying the greatest anxiety on his account.
Chester’s back was injured, and he did not seem to have strength enough in his legs to walk. However, as he lay on the bed, he gave his sister a reproachful look, saying:
“See what you have brought me to, June! It was all on account of your obstinacy, and – ”
“Oh, hush, Chester!” she said gently. “I am very sorry anything happened to you.”
“And you came near being killed, too. If you had – ”
“Don’t talk that way! I am all right, thanks to Mr. Merriwell.”
He started as if he had been stabbed with a keen point, his face showing pain and anger.
“That fellow! that fellow!” he panted. “That he should be the one to stop the horse! Oh, I’d given anything rather than had him save you!”
“I presume you would have preferred to see me thrown out and injured or killed!” she exclaimed.
“No,” he huskily said, “no, June! Oh, you don’t know how I felt when I realized what had happened and that you might be hurt! I tried to get up and run after the horse, but I didn’t have the strength. June, you know I – I wouldn’t have harm come to you for anything. You know it! But to have him save you!”
There was no doubting Chester Arlington’s affection for his sister; but his hatred for Dick Merriwell was equally intense.
“My dear brother!” she murmured, gently touching his hair. “Don’t be silly! Don’t worry any more. It’s all right.”
“No, no; all wrong!” he groaned.
CHAPTER III – HAPPINESS AND MISERY
Dick escaped from the crowd and from his friends and took a bath, followed by a brisk rub-down. When this was over, he donned his clothes, feeling pretty well, for all of the game he had played through, for all of his exertions in pursuing the runaway, for all of the bruises received in stopping the frightened horse.
Being in perfect physical condition, he recovered swiftly. His eyes were sparkling and there was a healthy glow in his cheeks as he hurriedly packed his stuff and prepared to take the train that was to carry the triumphant cadets back to Fardale.
He could hear the boys singing in a room across the corridor. The “faithful” were having a high old time. They were packed into that room, their arms locked about one another, howling forth the old songs of their academy, “Fair Fardale,” “The Red and Black,” and “Fardale’s Way.”
“It’s no use moaning, it’s no use groaning,
It’s no use feeling sore;
Keep on staying, keep on playing,
As you’ve done before.
Fight, you sinner; you’re a winner,
If you stick and stay;
Never give in while you’re living —
That is Fardale’s way.”
Dick smiled as he heard this familiar old song roared forth by the lusty-lunged chaps who were rejoicing over the wonderful victory. It gave him a feeling of inexpressible pleasure, and it was something he would never forget as long as he lived.
Oh, these wonderful days at Fardale! It was not likely he would forget them in after years. He had learned to love the old school as Frank Merriwell loved it before him, and he was thankful that Frank had rescued him from the lonely life in far-away Pleasant Valley beneath the shadow of the Rockies and brought him to the academy.
Not that Dick’s heart had ever ceased to turn lovingly toward the hidden valley where he had lived a peaceful, happy life, with his little cousin Felicia Delores as his sole companion and playmate near his own age. True, he often thought of the days when he had wandered alone into the woods and called about him the birds and wild creatures, every one of whom seemed to know him and fear him not a bit. True it was that he realized a change had come over him so that no longer could he call the birds and the squirrels as he had done; but still he was happy and had no desire to exchange the present for the past.
“No matter where we roam in the mystic years to come,
There are days we never shall forget,
The happy days when we, in a school beside the sea,
Cast aside the past without regret;
’Twas there sweet friendship grew ’mid hearts forever true,
And our longing souls must oft turn back
With yearnings for that time in youth’s fair golden clime
When we wore the royal red and black.
“Oh, the royal red and black!
We’ll love it to the end.
True to it we’ll stand,
And true to every friend;
So rise up, boys, and cheer
For those colors bright and clear —
For the royal red and black.”
In spite of himself, Dick’s eyes filled with a mist as he heard this sweet song, in which the great chorus joined in that room
