"But----"
"There"s no "but" about it! I"ve been through worse things than this and if you fellows don"t put the initiation through just as if nothing had happened, I"ll be hanged if I"ll join the society."
CHAPTER XIX.
THE LEAP INTO THE RIVER.
"That"s the right kind of talk anyway!" said Rowe, "and it"s just what we might have expected from you, but really, Merriwell, this was the last thing on the programme for to-night, and even if that scoundrel hadn"t pushed you in front of the car we should have made you go to bed at this time."
"Well, I"m bound to obey you in any case," said Frank, "but speaking of that, am I at liberty to talk?"
"Of course, for you"re in the presence of members of the Pi Gamma in good standing."
Rowe grinned when he said this, for he thought of the black-mark nonsense and realized that Frank took it in earnest. He added:
"Out of consideration for this accident, Merriwell, I shall ask the president to score off the black marks already entered against you and let you begin with a clean record."
"Well, I can"t object to that," said Frank, "for I must say it struck me that some of those marks were chucked on rather harshly."
"You"d better not make any criticisms of the way this society is run,"
declared Rowe, sternly.
"That"s so; I take that all back, but what I wanted to say was that it seemed to me as if somebody had interfered with the game."
"That was it exactly, Merriwell, and it was something that we shall have to take a hand in before long."
"How did it happen?"
The others told Frank what they had seen. He listened thoughtfully and remarked:
"Some fellow evidently had a grudge against me."
"It looks that way," responded Rowe.
"Who do you suppose it could be?"
Before Frank could answer there was a knock at the door and Baker hurried in.
"Ah!" he said, in a tone of relief, "I see you"ve got through all right.
There was something I meant to tell you, Rowe, and I forgot all about it."
"What was it?" asked Rowe.
"Why," answered Baker, "Browning came in, you remember, just before we started in on Merriwell"s essay?"
"Yes. I wondered what he wanted."
"Well, he came in to say how he had heard that Miller, the cigar dealer, had it in for Frank, and that we"d better look out lest Miller take advantage of the initiation to put up some dirty job. Of course I meant to tell you about it before you took the neophyte to the street, but Prof. Adler"s interruption drove it clean out of my mind. I didn"t think of it until I was half through with Rattleton, who was the neophyte in my party.
"I see you"ve got through to-night all right, but it"ll be just as well to look out----"
Baker stopped, for there was something in the expression of the faces before him that aroused his curiosity.
"What"s the matter?" he asked, suddenly.
They told him and he listened with growing indignation.
"It must have been Miller!" he exclaimed, at last. "Didn"t any of you fellows recognize him?"
Now that Miller"s name was mentioned the students thought that they did recognize him, but they could not be sure of it.
"We must find out about it!" said Baker, earnestly. "This thing has not only endangered a student"s life, but it has put all secret societies at Yale in danger of their existence.
"If Frank had been seriously hurt the faculty would surely hear of it and nothing would convince them that we weren"t to blame for it. Miller must be prevented from doing anything of this kind again."
"Probably he won"t try it again," Frank remarked, "for if he saw how successful his trick was, he must be convinced at this minute that I was maimed for life, if not killed."
"Merriwell insists on going on with the initiation," said Rowe, "and I have told him that, under the circ.u.mstances, we would erase all the black marks against him."
"That"s right," responded Baker, solemnly. "I think we"d better go on with the initiation just as usual, and meantime some of us will look up Miller and see what we can do about him."
"I rather wish," suggested Frank, "that you could wait on that until the initiation is over, so that I can take a hand in it."
"It won"t do to lose any time," returned Baker. "You go to bed, Merriwell, for you"ll probably find that you need rest; the rest of us will go and have an interview with Miller."
As Frank was bound to obey, he made no further objection to this plan, and accordingly went to his room. Baker and Rowe and the others proceeded to the little shop where Miller did a cigar business.
They found it closed. Usually it was open until after midnight. By patient inquiry they learned where Miller lived and they went there.
Miller was not at home.
The students rather wished that they could report the matter to the police, but that would have brought the Pi Gamma affairs into public notice and so they decided not to do so.
It might be said right here that during the rest of the week of initiation they made vain efforts to get track of Miller. He had disappeared.
An a.s.sistant was in charge of the shop, who pretended to be very much mystified at his employer"s absence. Whether he was telling the truth or not could not be proved.
The main fact was clear; Miller had played his trick so successfully on Frank that he was afraid of the consequences and was keeping out of sight.
Frank was a little lame on the following day, but not sufficiently so to be kept from going about as usual. The initiation, therefore, proceeded during the week according to regular custom.
During the daytime Frank attended lectures and recitations with regularity, and as he afterward said, did rather more studying than at any other week during his college career.
Every evening there was a meeting of the "Pigs" in the room of some senior member, where exercises of a more or less ridiculous nature, similar to those already described, were had. Usually, too, there was an excursion upon the street, but in these instances the neophyte was not blindfolded.
Frank had had to do numberless small errands, and one evening was devoted almost wholly to sending him from house to house to ask for a piece of cake or a slice of bread.