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\

.

Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Gridiron Honors;

Or, SNATCHING VICTORY FROM DEFEAT.

By BURT L. STANDISH.

CHAPTER I.
A CLOUD ON THE HORIZON.

“Dis Fardale elefun is oop against it, und don’d you pe-
lieve me!” :

This croak came from Villum Kess. Sadly and regret-
fully, he relieved himself of his forebodings for the bene-

- fit of Hoover, the quater back.
“This Fardale eleven is up against White Academy next

Thanksgiving Day,” returned Hoover,
White squad aren’t so much.”

“Ve vas Oop against more as dot, oat you listen vat I
say, Hoover.”
- “Well, what is it, Dutch? Get it off your chest.”

“Ve got der vorst hootoo to fighdt vat = efer heardt

“but I guess the

af of, “by shinks !”

“Floodoo? You're crazy!” and Hoover gave a jeering

- Young Frank Merriwell was hurrying past at that mo-
ment. He had twisted the spray attachment from a tin

“sprinkling can, and, with half a dozen others, was chas-

ing up and down and freshly liming the marks with

whitewash.

Frank paused and looked sharply at Villum. He had,
by chance, overheard the Dutch youth’s remark about a

hoodoo.

“Cut out that sort of bunk, Villum,” he snapped. “If

_ -you’re so soft as to believe in hoodoos, you can give

others credit for having more sense, anyhow.”
Villum was not abashed. His convictions might be wild,

 

 

 

  
 
 
  
 
 

  

nd a grin at Hoover.

 

but he always had the courage to stand by them.

“ee

ji know vat I know, Chip,” said the, “und dot’s all

 aboudt it.”

“You're a calamity howler,” went on Frank, with a wink

“Maype I vas.”

“And White Academy isn’t going to be in it with Far-
dale.”

“T hope you vas righdt, aber I got my doubts.”

“Then sidetrack your doubts and make a stagger at being
hopeful, anyway. Don’t be a wet blanket, Villum.”

“Dere is plood der moon on,” insisted Villum, “und I
shpeak oudt vat I tink.”

“It's better for you, and for everybody else, to keep
such crack-brained ideas under cover.”

With this final admonition, Frank raced away with his
sprinkling can, and, true as a die, ran out the little white
trail to the side line.

Red-headed Clancy came breezing along at that mo-
ment, caught a glimpse of Villum’s long face, and halted,
grinning.

“Little bunch of gloom, who are you?” he inquired.

“He’s the boob that put the ‘mis’ in misfortune,”
laughed Hoover.

“T don’d!” protested Villum. “T vould like it fine,
dough, to put some crimps in der hard luck vat iss com-
ing to der Fardale elefun.”

“Don’t cast any asparagus on the Fardale eleven, Old
Sour Face,” answered Clancy.

Just then the whistle of the coach called the Le ers
for scrimmage practice. .

“Shuck your blanket, Villum,” went on the red-headed
chap, “and play end on the scrub. Lively, now. We're
going to make things mighty intetesting for the regular
bunch.”

:

Clancy was captain of the second team, having stesscd
into Merriwell’s shoes when the latter had been promo‘ed
to the first squad. And he was a good captain, and in
every way satisfied Dowd, the coach.

  
  

“Don’t crowd too close.

Binal,

igh tone,

 

Those were hard, grueling days for the “grid” players
at Fardale Military Academy. The most important game
of their football schedule was eight days away, and the
regulars had not been showing up as they should in the
practice work.

Merriwell, for one reason and another, had not been
as active on the football field for a couple of weeks as
he should have been or as he wanted to be. Special
duties had devolved upon him, and had claimed his atten-
tion to the exclusion of a sport which was his joy and
delight.

Now that the game with White Acadekey was looming
up large in the near future, the “grid” enthusiasts were
going wild, and Dowd, the coach, and’ Presbery, the cap-
tain of the school eleven, were putting the men through
for all they were worth.

Following scrimmage practice up and down the field,
regulars and scrubs confronted each other for a five-minute
period ‘of snappy play. The scrubs, right at the begin-
ning, proved almost. too snappy.

The regulars had the kick-off. The scrubs took it in,
and, by unexpectedly brilliant work, brought the ball
back for a gain of forty yards. Clancy, with the pig-
skin, would have completely demoralized and humiliated
the first eleven by making a touchdown had Merriwell
not outsprinted him and laid him low.

- Dowd smothered a groan. Presbery said things. The
scrubs chuckled and exulted, for the moment, but when
they reflected upon the way their prowess had caught
the first team napping, and what might have happened
if the White players had been on the field, they frowned
and looked worried.

“Get into this, now!” cried Dowd. “Get into it with
some life! You regulars are acting like a bunch of dead
ones. Wake up, for the love of Mike!”

Then and there Presbery’s men woke up. Their de-
fense strengthened like steel against the flinty onsets of
the scrubs—and the sparks of real playing began to fly.

Presently the fortunes of war turned the other way.

_ Hoover opened brilliantly with a tackle shift, and Pres-
' bery tore through the scrub line for six yards.

Lowe,
the right half, went past scrub tackle for five more, and
it was first down. Hoover’s try around left end was
killed by doughty Villum Kess, and the regulars elected
to punt.

It was a poor punt, and Bingham, scrub quarter, worked
a pass for five yatds and an end run for three more, and

punted. A hot two minutes of scrappy football followed,

at the end of which the whistle sounded for cessation of
play.

Hoover, his face white and wan, was lying crumpled
on the ground. An anxious group surrounded him.

“What is it, old man?” asked Presbery.

“Shoulder,” the quarter answered, wincing.

“Which one?”

“Right.”

“Let me see,” said Dowd, pushing through the ring

' of. players and kneeling to make an examination.

“Get back, fellows,” urged Frank to his teammates.
Where’s the water?”

_ Some one brought the pail, and Merry splashed a little
of the cool water in the white, drawn face of the quarter
Dowd got up, scowling over the hard luck.
“How bad is it, Dowd?” aon Presbery, in a low

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_ thing like wonder and incredulity appeared in the faces of

to be licked by White Academy this year.”

  
   

“Bad enough to keep him out of the line-up next week,”
was the response. “Collar bone—lI’m afraid it’s broken.”

Presbery’s face went Jong, at that. Fardale needed
Hoover in the coming set-to with White, and just how —
badly they needed him the coach and the captain alone
knew.

A couple of substitute players supported Hoover off
the field, vanishing with him in the direction of the parade
ground and the doctor’s office. A crushing blow had been
dealt the Fardale hopes.

“Ach, du lieber!” murmured Kess in Clancy’s ear. “Vat
I say pefore der practice began, huh? Dot hootoo iss
gedding in its vork.”

“Stow the chatter, Villum!" exclaimed the worried
Clancy. “Quit your croaking and look on the bright side.”

“Dere don’d vas a pright site,” groaned Villum. “I
vish dere vas, aber ve might as vell look dis t’ing righdt
in der face. I peen sorrier as anypody, und it don’d do
any goot,” and Villum heaved a sigh and looked as though
he wanted to weep. “Der vorst iss yet to come, Glancy.
It iss a rupy, hootoo.”

Clancy jumped, at that.

“A ruby hoodoo?” he demanded.
chief do you mean by that?” ;
But Villum only shook his head gruesomely and looked

wise.

Merriwell, it was well known, could fill Hoover’s position
at quarter with credit to himself and advantage to the
team. But he was sorely needed at end. What would

    
     
     
     
     
    
   
   
   
  
  
  
   
  
   
  
 
 
   
  
   
  
   
  
  
   
  
  
 

 

14
iE
TP

———

ee it a

oe ee

“Now what the mis-

 

Dowd do? Would he transfer Merriwell, or would he © ee E
leave Merriwell in the position he had been playing so et
remarkably well? wi 3

Dowd, off to one side, was chewing at an unlighted
cigar and casting speculative eyes over the dusty war-
riors surrounding him.

“Bingham,” said he presently, “go in at quarter on the
first eleven. Clancy, pick another man for Bingham’s
place. Lively, now.”

The coach was a master hand at springing surprises. Me i
A flush of pleasure overspread Bingham’s face, and some-_

the other, players.
all pleased.
Clancy dug up the most likely of the second- -string men
for scrub quarter, and the practice work proceeded. But -
the accident to Hoover had dampened the ardor of the
players. All were beginning to reflect on what Hoover’s
absence from the Fardale squad was going to mean to ©
Fardale hopes when the big clash came with White.
Speculations along this line were distinctly depressing, pe
and the playing suffered. :
Dowd, Presbery, Merriwell, and Clancy did all they —
could to inject ginger and enthusiasm into the afternoon
work, but their efforts were only partly successful. The
practice came to a close with a spirit of worry and dis-
content rampant in the football ranks. Lag
“See you at the gym this evening, Presbery,” snapped —
the coach. “Something’s got to be done if we’re not to.
let White walk all over us next week Thurgday.”

“T’ll be on hand, Dowd,” said the captain; “but we'll get 3
together,” he added hopefully, “and old Fardale isn’t going

 

Presbery, it was evident, was not at

    
       
       
       
       
 
      
       
         
     
       
     
  

 
 

Dowd nodded approval of the sentiment, even ‘Weligh
he could not see the logic back of it, and walked at: the
field.

        
      
   
   

“What's biting Villum?” Merriwell inquired of Clancy,
as they walked together in the direction of the gymnasium.

“Search me,” replied the red-headed chap moodily. “He
has taken the lid off those superstitious notions of his,
a and he hasn’t sense enough to keep his foolish ideas to
| himself.”

“But why are his superstitious notions taking hold >
him just now?”

This was more than Clancy could tell.
“a cause, or no cause at all,
FC sboodings.

a “He says it’s a ‘ruby hoodoo,’ whatever that is, Chip,”
; said Clancy.

-Merriwell looked at his chum blankly for a moment, and
then laughed queerly.

  
     
 

 

There might be
for Villum’s sudden fore-

 

en ee

x

CHAPTER II.
CONCERNING THE RUBY.

Before Frank and Owen had left the gym dressing
room, young Hawley tore into the big building, fairly
i) bursting with excitement. Somehow, whenever anything

a of importance happened at the academy, Hawley was
| the first to find it out and to spread the news.
¢ “What do you think, fellows?” cried Hawley.
tg a _. Turk who stole old Garner’s ruby got away!”
y Everybody within hearing of this announcement was
interested at once—Frank particularly so. The precious
: a stone in question, however, was not “old Garner’s ruby.”
Professor Garner, of the faculty, was an Egyptologist of
note. He had delved deep into the mystic lore of the
ancient peoples of the Nile, and was an authority upon
mummies and pyramids, amulets and scarabei, and obe-
 lisks and hieroglyphs. Whenever anything about ancient

Egypt bothered the heads of antiquarians or others, the
question was often referred to Garner for solution. That
is the way the Ruby of Allah had come to him.

A wealthy New Yorker, who had strayed up the Nile
as far as the first cataract, had secured the red stone.

He did not secure it up the river, however, but in the
city of Cairo.

The gem had been unearthed in the ruins of Karnak,
had been taken to the Egyptian Museum, and had later
_ found its way into a Turkish mosque, where the faith-

ful prized it as a “drop of Allah’s Blood.”

Just how the wealthy New Yorker secured the ruby was
not generally known. The supposition was that he had
_ bribed a mosque attendant to take the gem from its case
and turn it over to him.

_ As a precious stone the ruby was not very valuable. It
was veined with too many flaws. Its value lay in the
fact that it was a so-called “message gem.” That is, the

 

“That

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- order that the message might be interpreted the ruby had
been turned over to Professor Garner.

_ About the time the Ruby of Allah came into promi-
-nence at Fardale Academy, Owen Clancy had begun to
_ have—what might be called—‘“spells.”. He would suddenly
do the most outlandish things, and in his lucid intervals
would remember nothing at all about his queer actions.
‘It finally developed that Owen was under the hypnotic
influence of Malim Bey, a Turko-Egyptian, who had come
‘to America to recover the ruby and restore it to its place
in the mosque. Malim Bey used Clancy as a.tool in secur-
ing the red stone from Garner, and Merriwell and Pres-

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

  

 

 

    

‘stone had been so cut that its facets told a story, and in

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bery captured the Turk, found the ruby in his pocket, and °\
turned the thief and his booty over to Colonel Gunn, the

principal of the school. Incidentally Owen was also freed
of the Turk’s baleful influence.

Merriwell was conscious of a sympathetic interest in this
Malim Bey. The fellow was a rascal, no doubt, but he was
acting strictly according to his heathen lights. And very
likely he had a much better right to the Ruby of Allah
than the rich New Yorker.

The law, however, was on the New Yorker’s side. If
Malim Bey had had a legal right to the gem he could
have brought suit. and gained possession through the
courts.

But a moral right and a legal right are not always
one and the same. They should always be the same, it is
true, but unfortunately they are riot.

Frank had hoped that the capture of the Turk and
the recovery of the ruby had ended the matter; but here
came Hawley, with fresh news that stirred up the whole
affair again. \

It appeared, from what Hawley said, that a deputy
sheriff had taken Malim Bey out of the Fardale lock-up,
and had brought him to the academy for further question-
ing by Colonel Gunn. The Turk was handcuffed, and the
deputy had brought him in an automobile. The Turk, the
deputy, and the colonel had then gone into executive ses-
sion behind closed doors.

Just what happened during that executive session no
one, not even the colonel or the deputy sheriff, seemed to
know. Professor Skagley, who chanced to be handily by,
had seen the Turk emerge from the colonel’s private room,
climb blithely into the deputy’s automobile, and. motor
away. The handcuffs were gone from his wrists.

Skagley, considerably wrought up, investigated. He
found the deputy and the colonel each wearing a handcuff,
and the chain separating the two steel bracelets had been
passed through the wheel of a heavy iron letter press.

Furthermore—as it appeared from Hawley’s account—
both Colonel Gunn and the deputy sheriff were in more
or less of a trance,'and only stared blankly whenever
any questions were asked them.

A duplicate key was found in the deputy’s pocket and
the steel bracelets removed. An hour later the deputy
and the colonel revived; and the officer, chagrined and
enraged, borrowed a horse from the academy stables and
started in pursuit of the fleeing Turk.

All this had happened during football practice, that
Wednesday afternoon. The doctor who had been called
to look after Hoover had been summoned from the colo-
nel’s house, where he had been giving attention to Gunn
and the deputy.

Hawley’s remarks claimed the absorbed interest of all
the football players. And Villum Kess was right on deck
and uncorking his little vial of superstitions.

“Vat could you expect?” he asked, shaking his head
ominously. “Anyt’ing iss liable to habben mit dot Rupy
oof Allah aroand der agadémy. Sooch tings iss pad meti~
cine, I bed you.”

“Oh, cut it out, Villum, cut it out!” said Frank.

“That’s what I say,” spoke up Owen. “Villum, you rattle
like a box of pills.”
remarked
“That ruby is powerless to work any hocus-

“Strikes me you're a little bit wild, Kess,”
Pfesbery.

pocus around these diggings.

It’s about as potent for good
    

 
 
      
 
   
  
    
    
    
  
  
  
  
   
  
  
     
         
     
     
       
     
     
     
     
     
     
       
           
         
     
       
     
     
     
       
     
       
       
    
       
       

in their own room in plebe quarters,
pened to Gunn and the law officer.”

a.
or evil as any ele you could nee up on the parade
ground.”

“Lisden vonce,” asserted Villum. “So long as dot .rupy
iss aroundt, der Fardale elefun has got a hootoo, Der
hogus-pogus iss begun alretty, yes. Hoofer got him his
collar pone proke, und vy? I ask you dot.”

“Why?” retorted Presbery, flashing a look at the rest of
the fellows. “That was a plain case of accident, and noth-
ing more.”

“It vas a plain case oof too mooch Rupy oof Allah,
und dot’s all aboudt it,” asserted Villum Kess.

A laugh, half-hearted from some quarters, greeted this

wild statement.

“Look here, Kess,”’ went on Presbery, “are you foolish
enough to think that a common little red stone, in Profes-
sor Garner’s study, was responsible for what happened to
Hoover?” _

-Merriwell grabbed Kess by the drm and marched him
toward the door of the gym.

“He’s foolish enough to think almost anything, Pres,”
Merry called over his shoulder. “I’m going to walk him
over to barracks and give him a combing on the way.”

With Clancy on one side and Merry on the other, Villum
proceeded in the direction of quarters.

“This talk of yours has gone far enough, Villum,” said
Frank. “A few of the football squad may get to think-
ing the ruby really is bad medicine, and that alone might
cook our goose for us when we line up against White
Academy.” .

“I only say vat I t’ink,” protested the Dutch youth.

“Well, it isn’t always policy to say what you think. Bottle
up. Go as far as you like in thinking the ruby is raising
hob with the Fardale eleven, but keep your foolish thoughts
to yourself.”

“Der vay to dodge drouple iss for Garner to send dot
rupy avay.” ; .

“We'd look nice, wouldn’t we,” put in Owen, “going to
Garner and asking him please to send the ruby away, be-
cause it had broken Hoover’s collar bone and was going
to double cross us in the game with White. Villum,” he
finished, with a disgusted snort, “you’re the limit.”

By the time the three friends reached barracks Villum
had promised to say nothing more about the ruby being
a hoodoo. But the conviction still remained in his mind,

that was evident.

“Of course,” Frank said to Owen, as soon as they were
“we know what hap-

“That’s easy,” Owen answered, dropping into a chair
and becoming thoughtful. “The Turk hypnotized them.”

“Yes,” chuckled Frank, “and made the deputy take oft
the come-alongs and fasten himself and the colonel to
the letter press!”

“Jupiter!” muttered Owen incredulously, “that’s no

- doubt what happened, and yet, Chip, it's darned hard to
believe.”

“Hard to believe? Why, hypnotism is a scientifically

demonstrated fact, Red.”

The other nodded.

“I was used for a demonstration,” said ,he, “and I’m

‘, forced to believe that what you say is exactly what hap-
- pened. For all that, though, it’s a hard thing to swallow.”

_ “Say, * Trank laughed, “it would be a great thing for
rade if he baal aoe ie the Turk. He could do about

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consequences.”

. agin clear over ae gym.”

    
  

as he pleased, then throw a spell over Gunn and dodge

Owen grinned.

“It would be more fun than a box of monkeys,” he a
agreed, “but it would knock discipline higher than Gilde- J)
roy’s kite. What do you suppose set Villum to thinking 9
that ruby is a hoodoo?” - 2

“That point has just come to me. It’s the Turk’s pe- af
culiar power. See? Villum can’t separate Malim Bey
from the ruby, and he thinks that if one is uncanny the
other ought to be. That's where the ignorance and the
superstition come in,’ Wee

Owen’s face straightened. | aaa

“In a way,” he returned, “we'll have to admit there is
something like logic in that. To some fellows it might —
sound plausible.” m_

“Splash !” ;

“T’ll bet a picayune that if anything else goes wrong with —
our football team, more than one of the players will begin
to take stock in Villum’s foolish notions.” ae

“There’s always somebody to believe anything,” assented ipso
Frank, “and that’s why I wanted to shut Villum up and oo
stop his talk. I don’t think, though, he’s done any great  §
harm, so far.”

“Unless we continue to have hard luck.”

“Well, maybe. There’s a class of intellect that always —
hunts a cause for misfortune everywhere but in the right
place. Mostly. I guess, a fellow is responsible for his
own good or bad luck. If it’s good tuck, he’s willing —
enough to take all the credit; if it’s bad, he wants to Put
the blame on some one or something else.”

“Correct,” said Clancy. “I’m not going to bother my —
red’ head over what may happen. What’s already hap-
pened is enough to put me in a taking. Too darned bad
Hoover had to get it, just at this stage of the game. We,
certainly need him next week Thursday. It is pretty
late in the day to begin changing the line-up.”

“Oh, we'll toe the scratch, all right,’ said Frank cheer-
fully. “Nothing is ever so bad but that it might be
worse.” eee

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER III. i
ANOTHER ACCIDENT.

Thursday morning, as soon as they could pile out of bed, —
dress, and put their room in order, Merriwell and eh
hurried to the athletic field.

Study, recitations, and drills left little time for football
practice, and the squad had to utilize every available quar-
ter hour. Between the reveille gun and breakfast forma-
tion there were fifteen or twenty minutes for trotting
around the cinder path, if a fellow was diuicle with his.
room work and his dressing.

Villum Kess clattered down the barracks stairways oie
behind Merry and Clancy. The) three of ee jogged
across the parade ground together.

There was a, crisp tang to the air that sent aie blood
bounding through the veins. The frosty turf crinkled
underfoot and seemed to give an unwonted spring ad the
knees.
“Whoop !” jubilated Clancy, pee a long breath, “ut
it’s good to be alive!” a

“On a morning like this,” said Merry, Shoo iigh a an
spring, “I feel as though r could take a set ‘start an

 
 

   
 
    
  

      
     
    
      
    
      
      

  

 
 

  

  
  

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“Dere i iss preakers aheadt,” cautioned Kess. “Don’t feel
e so goot mit yourselitits dot you forget dot.”

a “Here, now,” said Clancy, “you said you’d bottle up on
3 ~—Ss that subject.”

“Vell, I chust shpeak it oudt mit you und Chip, Owen.
I don’d pass der forebodings aroundt any more.”

“I’m not anxious to hear ’em, Villum,” returned Frank.
“{ don’t take any stock in your hoodoo talk, but it’s
; mighty unsettling, just the same. Keep it to yourself,
yw  ~—will you?”
oe “T vas vorried more as I can tell,” went on Vitae,
maype I oxplode oof I don’d talk.”

“Then explode, old Snickelfritz,” said Clancy unfeelingly.
“You're no good to yourself or to anybody else when you're
loaded to the guards with imag#mary troubles. How’s
Hoover? Have you heard?”

“Der doctor say dot he vill be in bed for a few tays,
ok. und dot he can’t play some more footpall dis season.
He iss oudt oof it.
e _ der vorst iss yet to come.”

At that moment the three friends came out upon the
cinder path and joined the fellows who were trotting
around the oval with Presbery as pacemaker. There was
the usual amount of joking and hilarity among the as-
 pirants for “grid” honors, but that morning some of it
struck Frank as being a trifle forced. Was there really
a false note in the bantering, Frank questioned himself,
or did he only imagine it?

After two or three rounds of the path Presbery asked
Joe Gordon to lead the crowd. then stepped to the track
_ gide and beckoned to Merriwell. The latter joined the
captain of the eleven.

_ “Notice anything wrong, Merry?” Presbery asked.

“Wrong?” echoed Frank, startled.

“Yes—with the squad.”

Frank’s eyes studied the captain’s face and found there
a few vague signs of doubt and anxiety.

 

‘und

 

 
   
   
   
  
    
  
 
   
  

-terfeit ring to some of the gay talk. I was just wonder-
ing if that was really the case, or if I was only imagin-
ing a

“Same thing was bothering me. Knew you'd catch onto
it, if any one would, and that’s why I put it up to you.
_ Merriwell, this bunch is getting stage fright, or buck fever,
or something. Hanged if I don’t believe that hoodoo talk
of Villum’s is having an effect. Seems foolish, I know,
but I can’t figure it out any other way.”
“There'll be no more of the talk, Pres,” declared Frank.
.“Villum has promised to cork.”

 “That’s good, but he has already said enough to set some
of the fellows to thinking. Guess the uneasy feeling will
disappear when common sense has a chance to get in its
work, Hope so, anyway. Let’s get into the running again.”

  
   
   
  
  
  
  
  
   
   
 
   
  
  

_ The two joined the men as they came around the track
again, and the work was kept up until the drums at
arracks sounded assembly. ,

“Fellows,” announced Presbery, as the squad moved off
toward quarters, “faculty is doing a fine thing for us.
rom now until the day of the game with White Academy
we're to have every afternoon for practice, and——”

   
  
   
    

 

 
 

  

they seemed hearty enough.

  

‘there any one of you who would rather take his

“Be on the field at three o’clock,” Presbery continued

TOP

Dot iss galamity numper vone—und |

“Well,” said Frank slowly, “strikes me there is a coun- |

he captain was interrupted by a volley of cheers—and

 

‘pital.

WEEKLY. :

Thanksgiving leave than stay at the academy for the clash
with White?”

“No!” came the unanimous yell.

Presbery looked pleased. Some of the cadets, with few
demerits and a good class standing, were entitied to a
four-days’ furlough. Among these was Joe Gordon.

“Tell you what, Pres,” Gordon) laughed, “there’ll be no
turkey and cranberry sauce for me unless we can clean
up on White Academy.”

“Same here!” shouted the others.

“Fairst,” piped Villum, “dere iss vone Turk mit granperry
sauce vat must “gi serfed oop in chail pefore any games
iss von, und

Clancy grabbed Kess by the arm.

“There you go again, Villum!” he whispered angrily.
“You've got a memory about an inch long.”

“Dot vas a choke,” explained Villum, with a_ sickly
smile.

Villum’s “joke” was received in gloomy silence. It was
fortunate, perhaps, that the football players just then joined
the assembling cadets in front of barracks.

“Do you know,” said Presbery confidentially to Merri-
well,-“I wish we were going to play next Thursday’s game
on White’s home grounds?”

“Why ?”

“Because that plan would take us miles away from that
confounded Ruby of Allah!”

The, cadet captain frowned, turned on his heel, and

 

took his place at the head of his company. Merry knew

that Presbery was too practical to take any stock in the
hoodoo talk concerning the message gem, but that he was
practical enough to wish to avoid possible effects on the
team,

But a hard fate was. directing the destinies of the first
eleven. Another blow was about to fall, and so make
a bad matter worse.

Immediately after dinner, that day, a detachment went
to the riding hall for instruction in troop maneuvers. Joe
Gordon and two or three more of the “grid” squad porns
part of this detachment.

While Merry and Clancy were getting into their foot-
ball gear for the afternoon practice, Bingham burst sud-
denly into their room. His eyes were almost popping from
his head with excitement and consternation.

“Say, did you ever hear of such luck?” he cried,

“Luck!” exclaimed Clancy. “Are we having some luck,
Bing? If so, what is it?”

“Gordon’s horse was fractious, the saddle slipped, Se
and—— Well, Gordon. fell, and his leg was badly —
wrenched.”

“You don’ t mean to say it puts him out of next week's
game?” gasped Merry.

“Looks like it now. Gordon could hardly stand, and
four of the fellows carried him out of the riding hall.
That makes two of the squad who have gone to the hos-
And that’s the kind of luck we’re having!”

Frank and Owen slumped into chairs and stared at —
each other.’ This was awful! It was more than that—
it was demoralizing.

Gordon’s position on the regulars was at ‘cotter. It.
was as hard to lose him as it was to get along without
Hoover.

Owen drew down his brows and muttered savagely:
“Johnny Hard Luck seems to have it in for us, and

 
    
     
    
     
   
Pes s ~NEW TIP TOP WEEKLY.

no mistake,” he growled. ‘“If this keeps up, we'll be play-
ing White with second-string men entirely.”

“Maybe it isn’t so bad,” said Frank, in an attempt to
be hopeful. “It doesn’t seem possible that a fall from a
horse would put Gordon out of it completely.
from me, he’ll shape around for practice and be in the
line-up well this side. of next Thursday.”

Bingham shook his head doubtfully.

“Not the way the thing looks now,” he answered. “That
leg, they say, is badly wrenched. Darned if I can ac-
count for all this rough sledding we're having, just now.
Unless——

Bingham broke off his words and looked at Merriwell
rather sheepishly.

“Unless what, Bing?” urged Frank.

“Why, unless that blamed ruby is really working a
hocus-pocus——”

“Oh, pickles!” yelped Owen.
too ?”

“No,” mumbled Bingham apologetically, “but what’s
going on seems mighty strange.”

When Frank and Owen reached the football field, the
blanketed players were grouped in twos and threes, dis-
cussing latest developments. The gloom was so thick it
could have been cut with a knife.

“Heard the latest, Merriwell?” asked Bascomb, the regu-
lar full back.

“About Gordon?” queried Frank.

“Ves” \

“Too bad, and no mistake,” said Frank, “but maybe he’ll
come along. Gordon is as hard as nails, and a spill like
that ought not to put him on the retired list.”

“Here come Dowd and Presbery,” observed Bascomb. “I
guess they can give us the latest.”

The coach and the captain, talking earnestly, were ap-
proaching the footbaJl men. Dowd very rarely allowed
his feelings to be reflected in his face, and he seemed
now to have a firm check on his real emotions. His
expression was sphinxlike.

Presbery, on the other hand, was trying so. hard to be
cheerful that he rather overdid the matter.

“How’s Gordon, Pres?” inquired Bascomb.

“Out of it,’ was the answer. “Nothing ‘serious, so
far as Gordon is physically concerned, and he'll be as well
as ever within a short time. But he'll not be in shape
for the big game.”

Silence dropped over the crowd.

“Two men don’t make a team,” spoke up Dowd; “there
are nine more in the playing. We'll patch up the gaps
and go on. Bascomb, you played on the regulars last
year. Go back there this afternoon. Clancy, you'll go
in as full back.” 3

Bingham scowled. He was dropped to the scrub again.

“We're hoodooed,” he muttered, “and all this shifting
and jumping around isn’t going to help.”

“What’s that?” demanded Dowd, whirling squarely on
Bingham.

“Nothing,” mumbled Bingham, evading the coach’s sharp
eyes:

*

“Are you falling for that,

CHAPTER IV.
WORSE, AND MORE OF IT,
_ Thursday evening |the big \room in the gymnasium was

: given over entirely tb the football squad. Signal practice

was the program, and it was common report that Dowd

abs
Mp
fre

Take it -

was wild to secure a quarter who would more nearly
measure up to the requirements than either Bascomb or
Bingham. For reasons of his own—and, no doubt, they
were of the best—he was not considering Merriwell for
field captain, which is virtually what a quarter-back posi-
tion calls for. ;

Presbery was in his last year at Fardale. And no plebe
ever had a better friend than Merriwell had in this upper
classman.

Presbery was the idol of the school, and Merriwell’s
popularity outdistanced that of any other plebe who had,
in recent years, attended the academy. There were those
who said that Presbery, in his friendship for Merry, went
farther than an upper classman should go with a plebe.

The football captain, however, had his own ideas, and -—

held to them rigidly.

Call to quarters was sounding through barracks when
Frank and Owen started for the gymnasium. On the steps
of barracks they found the captain waiting to walk with
them, and to chat about matters which had just come to
his attention.

“White is coming to Fardale with a faster and heavier
crowd than we ever faced in past years,” said Presbery.

“And we’re worse off than ever before,” said Clancy.

“T’m not saying that. I’m the captain of the eleven,
and I’m an optimist. Just now our team is in hard luck,
but I believe we'll weather the storm and make good.
We've got to have the old invincible Fardale spirit~ in the
ranks, though. The boys must be up to snuff.”

“They'll show the right stuff before the game,” declared
Merriwell confidently.

“They've got to. Something has leaked out about that
Ruby of Allah, however, which is mighty disquieting.
Dowd got next to it. By to-morrow the story will be all
through barracks, and I’m trying to guess the result.”

“What’s the story, Presbery?” Merry inquired curi-
ously.

“More foolishness.”
grimly. “The fellah—I think that is what they call an

The captain laughed. shortly and

Egyptian peasant—who pulled the red stone out of the i

ruins of Karnak tumbled into the Nile from a dahabiyeh
while he was carrying his ‘find’ to Cairo. The poor fellah ©
was drowned. I wish the ruby had gone to the bottom —
of the Nile with him. But it didn’t. Somehow, the gem
was rescued.”
“Where did that yarn come from?” asked Frank.
“Give it up. That’s only part of the yarn that’s floating

around the academy. The dahabiyeh, up-bound, ran into

a Cook’s excursion steamer bound for the first cataract, —
and was wrecked. The Ruby of Allah, however, was —
saved once more,
a glass case in the museum. Then things began to happen
to the museum. There was a fire, which was extinguished |
just in time to save the institution. The curator died sud-
denly.
with the gem, and was killed in the attempt. Then the
museum officials gladly gave-up the ruby to the priests of
a neighboring mosque in order to get rid of the evil that
seemed to follow in its wake. How’s that for a cock-

and-bull story, Merriwell?” fit

“Fairy tale!” Merriwell aousumeanh ,

“Who the mischief started all that gammon?” growled
Clancy. i

“Wish I knew,” answered Presbery. “All the dread d
tails are being whispered around, and, if you'll excuse me

 

‘Finally it got to Cairo, and was put in ney

An Arab broke the glass case, tried to get away _
     
     
        
       
   
 
   
   
  
    
   
   
  
 
    
  
 
       
       
       
     
         
         
   
     
   
   
     
     
   
   
   
           
      
    
        

Vt ets

for getting philosophical, superstition grows by what it
feeds upon. That story will get bigger and bigger as
it spreads. In‘a day or two it is liable to sweep everything
before it.”
“I don’t believe the ‘grid’ squad will take any stock in
it,” said Merry.

Pe “Chip,” returned the captain soberly, “don’t you know

. a that, in the best of us, there’s a streak of superstition?

 /- Some fellows have it harder than others.”

“It’s a yellow streak,” averred Clancy, “and I don’t be-
lieve the team, as a whole, is yellow enough to let such
idiotic yarns shake their nerve.”

“Neither do I, All the same, we don’t want to lose sight

“of possible results.”

“Nothing has happened to Garner, aside from that rob-

 

Fee ee

marked Merriwell. “If the stone really brings hard luck
—which it doesn’t, of course—lightning would strike the
old ‘Gyp’ prof before it hit any one else.”

“Now you've said something, Merriwell,” said Presbery.
“That's the logic of an illogical situation, Why should
the baleful influence of the ruby affect the football squad
BI in when Garner is the one to suffer?’ He laughed’ shortly.
f “To go farther, when the White Academy fellows come
eed here to play, won't they be just as much under the ban
, as we are? Start that line of talk. If there are those
it who really think the Ruby of Allah is double-crossing the
| -—s- Fardale eleven, maybe the argument will have a good
f effect.”

The whole idea of the ruby being the catise of troubles
_ to the eleyen was so far-fetched and absurd that Merri-
well halted beside the gym steps to laugh. Clancy joined
in the mirth.

“It would be funny, all right,” said Presbery, “if results
were not apt to be serious. Fate, or destiny, or whatever

you call it, works in a queer fashion. Troubles, they say,

never come singly. One bit of hard luck is apt to be fol-
lowed by a whole crowd of misfortunes. There’s no
explaining why, but that’s often what happens, and at
times when there’s no Ruby of Allah of anything else on
which to lay the blame.”

During the signal practice that evening there was a
tense, indefinable something hovering in the air. Mer-
tiwell, although he could not describe it, or analyze it, yet
felt it keenly. —

Bascomb stumbled again and again in giving his signals.

Bingham was substituted for Bascomb, but did little better.
- O'Day, a second-string man, rather light for the line and

 

 

place and acquitted himself with more credit than either
Bingham or Bascomb.

It began to look, before the evening’s work was over,

as though an unexpected “find” had been made in “Tunk”

ee O’Day. Then, as a little brightness was being shed upon

f the prevailing gloom, a cadet orderly arrived with a tele-
gram for Ames, right end.

- Ames read the message and his face paled.

“Anything wrong, old man?” queried Presbery.
“Sickness at home,” was the stifled answer. “I’ve got to
leave Fardale on the midnight train.”

“Serious?”

it don’t know, but I hope not.
‘me to come at once.”

3 With trembling hands, Ames put on his sweater coat
and eee left the gymnasium. All the eres were

 
 

 
 

The telegram just tells

 
 

 
 
   

NEW TIP TOP WEEKLY. | , ee

 

' Hoover, next Gordon, and now Ames.

bery, since he has had the ruby in. his possession,” re- ,

rather slow in his movements, was called in Bingham’s .

  

   

sorry and sympathetic; and then another angle of the situa-
tion struck them, and they exchanged significant glances.

There went the third man from the first eleven! First
Where was this. .
hard luck going to end?

In the silence that followed the departure of Ames,
Presbery stepped to the front. He thought it was time
he said something bearing on the general situation. He
looked at the coach, and the latter, divining his purpose,
nodded approval.

“Fellows,” said Presbery, his voice a-thrill with ear-
nestness, “we are having a run of hard luck. In two
days we have lost three of our best men. But it is one
of those things that cannot be helped. That is the way
luck breaks occasionally, and I hope you are all sensible
enough not to blame anything for it but the natural course
of events. There is nothing supernatural in it at all.”

“What about this Ruby of Allah?’ put in Bingham.
“T’ve heard that ‘hard luck follows it wherever it goes.”

Villum Kess wanted to say something, but he remembered
his promise to Merriwell and held his peace.

“That’s all gammon!” declared Presbery, in a tone of
deep disgust. “Since the robbery, Garner hasn’t had any
particularly bad luck, has he? He is closer to that ruby
than anybody else, and if it was ‘bad medicine’ he’d be the
first to suffer misfortune. You fellows are too intelligent
to believe in fetiches, and such rot.”

“Suppose the stone was a hoodoo,” spoke up Merriwell,
“it doesn’t stand to reason that it would double cross the
whole academy. It would be taking a lot of trouble,
strikes me, if it went out of its way to throw a crimp
into our football squad.” ae

Two or three laughed at the idea as Merriwell baldly oo
put it up to the “grid’ men. The folly of considering
the Ruby of Allah as anything more than a rich man’s
hobby seemed to be taking hold of the players.

“And another thing,” went on Frank, recalling his recent
conversation with Presbery, “if the ruby is going to hoo-
doo everything on the place, the fellows from White Acad-
emy ought to come in for their share, hadn’t they?” He
smiled as he added: “Maybe we could get Garner to slip
the red stone into the pocket of White Panay Ss SR
and, in that way, win the game for us.’ { A

A roar of laughter followed this remark. Ridicule will.
often kill a false idea where every other argument fails.
Frank’s words were something of a master stroke, in this
respect.

“The notion that the ruby is a hoodoo is all bally rot!”
declared Bascomb.

“No sense in laying our run of hard ick. up against
a little red stone!” said another.
“Tm willing to wear it for a scarfpin if the New Yorker
wants to give it away,” chuckled some one else. :

 

 

“Now you're showing the right spirit, men,” said Dowd
approvingly. “We're going to win this game with White
Academy. It is not going to be an easy job, though, for —
those chaps are coming here with the strongest aggrega-
tion they’ve gotten together in years. It’s the old Fardale
spirit of never say die that’s going to carry us through.
Whenever your confidence sort of catches its breath and —
gets wabbly, just remember what Fardale has done in the —
past, and have a heart. We beat Franklin. White has
beaten Ei ranklit since then, but, on the face oF it, honors
are easy.”

- Right i in the face of the third staggering boi the foot-

    
     
 
 
  
ae APR ae NEW

ball squad were rallying in splendid style. There were
cheers for Dowd and Presbery, and for Merriwell, and
the gym resounded with nine exultant “Fardales” and the
school yell.

“Chip,” said Clancy, when he and Merriwell were on
their way back to barracks, “that was making headway
squarely in the face of the biggest pall of gloom that ever
dropped over the Fardale eleven. I wouldn’t have thought
it possible if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”

“Snatching victory from defeat,” said Merry, with a
laugh. “I’ll bet a farm we do it yet, Red. We're up
against it hard, but if the Fardale spirit holds its own just
as we've seen it ,to-night, White isn’t going to have a
chance.”

“Right-o, Chip, but I hope to thunder we don’t run into
any more hard luck. When Ames got that telegram and
left the gym I began climbing on the toboggan. If any-
thing more goes wrong I’m going to have a hard time to
keep from going to pieces.”

CHAPTER V.
A LAST, STAGGERING BLOW.

Friday afternoon there. was fierce, grueling practice.
Dowd drove the players as they had néver been driven
before. The slightest pause in the furious pace found him
jumping into the breach and hounding the bruised and
weary team on to fresh endeavors.

The warriors battled until they were half blind from
fatigue and every bone in their bodies ached. The coach
continued to push them relentlessly.

When it was all over, and the showers had refreshed
the tired limbs and the rubbers had smoothed out the stiff-
ening kinks, there was leisure for a summing up of re-
sults.

With three new men in the line-up ‘it was apparent that
Dowd was hammering the eleven parts into a single
smooth-running machine. It had been a great “get-to-
gether” drive in which the new cogs had begun finding
their places.

But the big surprise of ‘the afternoon was the clear-
headed, snappy work of Tunk O’Day. Formations which

Dowd had worked out with suspender buttons on a marked-,

off board took shape and substance most brilliantly under
the: directing brain of the new quarter.

Dowd was more than satisfied with O’Day. He did not
say so, for he had a way of keeping such things to him-
self, but instinctively all the fellows realized that O’Day
had found his niche and was going to stick.

“Blamed if he isn’t almost as good as Hoover!” de-
clared Bascomb.

“Or Merriwell,” added Lowe. “To my mind, Merriwell,
at quarter, has better judgment in the pinches than Hoo-
ver.”

“Merriwell is more useful somewhere else; if he wasn’t,
Dowd would have dropped him into Hoover’s shoes

mighty quick. Little old Dowd knows his business. He

pounded the life out of us to-day, but it was all for the
glory of Fardale. Funny,” Bascomb added, with a grin,
“but no one has said a word about the ruby hoodoo.”
“Der vorst iss yet to come,” remarked Villum Kess, in
heaviness of spirit. :
‘He spoke under his breath and no one heard him. He
clung to his convictions of calamity like a dog to a bone.
: _ A whole day had passed with no more misfortunes com-

TIP TOP WEEKLY.

ing the way of, the suffering team.’ The squad took heart,
and the.sun of hope shone faintly through the clouds.

“And it’s Friday, fellows,” said Bingham. “Don’t over-
look that. If we can pass Friday without losing any more
of our men I guess we’re good for all the other days of
the week.”

“More superstition,” said Lowe.
lucky than Thursday or Saturday.”

O’Day was a yearling. He had been in the scrub line-up
during his plebe year, but he had never done anything at
all notable. This was because he had not found his place.
Now a series of accidents had conspired to bring him to
the front.

Saturday afternoon, the practice, if it were possible, was
even harder and more relentless than it had been on the
preceding day. The second team, with the loss of Clancy
and some of its more promising material, was hopelessly
outclassed. The eleven fellows did their best to make
things interesting for the regulars, but they had no hope
of scoring, and merely tried to see how well they could
hold their opponents.

Again and again Presbery’s men rushed at their plucky
foes. The second stringers fought like heroes, but the
enemy tore holes in their line and trampled over them to
victory. .

Dowd gave the second team the ball on the first team’s
ten yards. “Now show the regulars what you’re made of,
you fellows,” he Said; “take it over!”

But he might as well have told the scrubs to carry the
pigskin through the side of a brick building. The regu-
lars stood like a granite wall in defense of their goal.

Dowd wanted more opposition for the regular eleven.
He called in some fresh players from the side lines and
put them on the scrub, and he sent O’Day to the second
team as quarter, and put Bingham in his place with the
regulars. With these changes, he once more hurled the
two elevens at each other. My

Bingham was anxious to show what he could do;) in
fact, he was hungry to put up a performance which
would compare favorably with O’Day’s. A shout from
Dowd was the last thing necessary to put Bingham on
his mettle. —

“Friday is no more un-

“Let us see how much football you really know, Bing- ne

ham! MHere’s a chance for you to do something—im-
prove it.”

The plebe’s face set in hard, determined lines, He
snapped out his signals rapidly, and, in the main, used
fairly good judgment. But he was not O’Day. That
fact was more than evident. cae 3

A hurricane quarter was now engineering the second —
eleven.
line, and, had it not been for heroic work on the part of
Presbery, Clancy, and Merriwell, the goal of the regu-
lars would several times have been in (danger.

“Going to sleep, you regulars?” called Dowd sarcas- eae

tically. “ls a new quarter on the other side making all
this change? Hold them!”
\“O’Day is fighting like a demon,” panted Presbery,
“and it’s hard to tell what he’s going to do next.” 3
The coach chuckled, and his eyes brightened. He fore ss
got himself so far as to shout: 4
“Good work, O’Day! Merriwell, that’s the stuff! Now, —
then, all together. This looks like a real fight.” ; ‘
A whole series of terrific plays followed. The scrubs —
had the ball, and they were creeping up and up on their

“

 

Here and there the scrubs found gaps in the
NEW

enemies. O’Day barked a signal, and the result was a
smashing assault between center and guard.

The opposing elevens crashed in a wild scramble. The
regulars’ back field, anxious only to stem the tide of pos-
sible disaster, forgot what a runner might do if he
cleared the weltering press, and piled head-on into the
mix-up.

In the midst of the noise and confusion there arose
a warning cry. Some one was struggling to check the
riot.

“Stand back, fellows! Somebody’s hurt.”

Dowd’s quick ear caught the husky, breathless words.
A whistle rang out, and regulars and scrubs began to
disentangle themselves.

Presbery was stretched out on the ground, his face
twisted with pain. The sweating, panting football men
stared at the captain uncomprehendingly. It was hard for
them to realize that the captain of the Fardale eleven
could be hurt. It seemed impossible that he should be
lying there, writhing with pain, but gamely keeping back
the groans that rose to his lips.

“What is it, Presbery?” asked Dowd, kneeling on the
faded turf.

“My—my ankle,”
“the—the left one.”
Merriwell dropped down and began unlacing and re-
-moving the shoe. He was too bewildered, at the mo-
ment, for rational thought. He realized only that the
captain was hurt, and beyond that, his thoughts failed to
carry him.

Presbery dug his nails into his palms as the shoe
was withdrawn. It was not a dislocation, as Dowd
had feared at, first. It might be a sprain or a break.

A profound silence fell over the field. . Slowly the
players began to realize something of what all this might
mean.

“J—I don’t think it’s so blooming bad, Dowd,” said
Presbery, between his teeth. “I'll lie here for a minute,
and then maybe I ¢an limp back to quarters.”

Without a word, the coach drew back. His expression
was sphinxlike, but a heavy disappointment ‘gleamed. in
his Syxs-

The ‘captain threw out his arms, closed his eyes, and
relaxed. ‘Under his canvas jacket, his breast could be
seen to rise and fall fitfully. He was fighting pain, that
was clear.
Some of the fellows began walking aimlessly up and
down in the near vicinity. No two of them walked to-
gether, and there was no talking. Each knew what the
other was thinking, and talking would have been wasted
_ effort.

If Presbery was seriously hurt—if he was to be out
of the big game——

This surmise suggested a result at which every mind
balked. None of the squad dared to think of what might
be in store for the Fardale team.

“Help me up, somebody,” said Presbery at last.
see if I can get tq barracks on my own feet.”

-Merriwell, on one side, and Dowd, on the other,’ gently
helped him erect. His left foot no sooner touched ground
than a stifled groan was wrenched from him.

- “V’m—I’m in for it!’ he gasped.

“We'll carry you, old man,” said Merriwell.

“If I get anywhere,” was the faint response, “I. guess
; you'll have to.”

came whisperingly from the captain;

“Let’s

}

TIP TOP WEEKLY. | 9

“that it was a particularly bad sprain.

ness and disappointment in ‘its train.

.

In grim silence the captain was borne from the field.
By the time he had reached his room, the doctor was
there and waiting.

“What sort of a crippling institution have you got, out
there on the gridiron?” the doctor inquired.

Dowd made some response, but what it was Merriwell
could not hear. With a heavy heart, Merry had turned
and left the room. Accompanied by Clancy and Kess, he
made his way to the gymnasium for a shower and a rub-
down.

The football squad was still loath to talk. They seemed
afraid to express their’ views. Their tongues loosened,
however, as they emerged from the dressing rooms.

“This is the last straw,’ muttered Bascomb.

“Something has happened that we can’t get over,” said
Lowe.
“We might stand it to lose Hoover, and Gordon, and
Ames,” put in Bingham wearily, “but there’s no Fardale
team if Presbery isn’t in it.”

“We don’t know, yet,” said Frank, “that he won’t be
in it. Don’t be in a rush with your croaking, you fellows.
Wait till the doctor hands in his report.”

“Merriwell,”. returned Bascomb, “you’re talking to keep
up our courage. That’s all well enough, but when a stag-
gering thing like this happens, we’ve got to look it square
in the eyes. Presbery’s no weakling. He must have been
hurt good and plenty to peg out like he did. You can
take that for granted. I don’t need any doctor’s report
to let me know that he’ll be out of the line-up for a long
time. This coming game with White has played the
deuce with us.”

“Something else may have played the- deuce with us,”
observed Bingham darkly, “and it may keep right on play-
ing the deuce.”

“You mean——’
_ “That’s another thing we might just as well look square
in the eyes, I mean that Ruby of Allah. If one man, or
two, had fallen out of the ranks, we might lay it to natu-
tal causes, but to lose four in three days is something
unheard of. We’re under a ban, that’s what we are, and
we might as well acknowledge it.” .

So suddenly had sentiment veered from one extreme to
the other, that even Bascomb, who had laughed incredu-
lously at the hoodoo talk the evening before, had now |
nothing to say in Tesponse to Bingham.

3?

“Come on, Clancy,” said Merriwell grimly; “let’s get
back to barracks,”
The two chums, saddened and depressed, left the gym-

nasium together,

CHAPTER VI.
A CONFERENCE.

Presbery had sprained his ankle, and the doctor said
There would be
no walking on that left foot for some time. The appalling
news spread through the academy, and carried hopeless-

It was no use to fight against the inevitable. Fardale
could not win against White, handicapped, as she was,
by this last accident. The game might as well be called
off.

This was the verdict among the cadets in the first flush
of their dejection and downheartedness. Dowd, sorely

 
  
  
   
  
    
  
 
 
    
   
   
   
  
    
  

pushed though he was, lost no time in putting himself
squarely on record.

“Is this Fardale crowd a bunch of quitters?” he de-
manded. “Not while I’m doing the coaching! Where’s
yout nerve? Where’s the old Fardale spirit? We're go-
ing to play White Academy next Thursday. That’s flat.”

“Bully for Dowd!” said Merriwell, when the coach’s
words were reported to him and Clancy that evening.

Bascomb and Lowe had made a surreptitious visit to
the room of Merry and Clancy for the purpose of discuss-
ing the deplorable situation. They were the ones who
reported what Dowd had said.

“That’s the kind of a coach to have!” declared Clancy
admiringly. “I like his grit, I’m telling you.”

“We can all like his grit,” said Bascomb,
deplore his judgment.”

“You don’t mean to say that you think the game with
White ought to be called off?” asked Merriwell.

“Tt ought to be postponed till our team is in better
shape. Plain suicide to go against that other crowd now.
They'll wipe us off the field. If it was a close score, I
wouldn’t mind it so much, but it—it will be a walk-away.”

“Now you’re running a guessing contest, Bascomb,” re-
turned Merriwell. “You might favor the home folks a
little, while you’re about it.”

“No use trying to smooth the hard facts over, Merri-
well,” said Lowe. “We may as well face the music, and
call a spade a spade. Let’s all go to Dowd and insist that
the big game be postponed.”

“Then you'll have to postpone it until next year, or
play it in the snowdrifts—that is, if you’re intending to
wait until Ames gets back, and Gordon, Hoover, and
Presbery are fit to be in the line-up.”

_ Merriwell spoke caustically. He had no patience with
Bascomb and Lowe for nursing stich sentiments.
“After a while,” persisted Bascomb, “maybe that blessed
ruby will be back in New York.”

_ “More hoodoo talk, eh?” sniffed Clancy. “Cut it short,
“Bascomb. I’m begining to- feel as though I wanted to
fight, whenever I hear it.”

“The talk is everywhere, Clancy,’ averred Lowe.
“Something is responsible—something must be responsible

—for all these disasters. We—er—we are facing a con-
_ dition, and not a theory. If the fellows have a sneaking
idea the ruby is at the bottom of our troubles, we—well,
we've got to take the case as we find it. You can’t argue
_ against a thing when the thing has actually happened.
— You know you can’t.” 7
The door opened at that moment, and Dowd stepped
into the room. Bascomb and Lowe appeared distressed.
- Perhaps they thought the coach might report them for
being out of quarters. Dowd, however, had other matters
on his mind.

“Merriwell,” said he, “I want you to come with me for
a little while. It’s all right. Colonel Gunn i is favoring the
football squad, and he has given me authority to do what-
ever I think “best.”
— “Pm with you,’
He grabbed his cap and accompanied the coach down-
stairs to Presbery’s room. The captain was lying in bed,
_as comfortable as he could be in the circumstances. He
held out a hand to Merriwell.

“ “Chip ,’-said he, “this is tough luck. You don't know

’ answered Frank promptly.

 
 
 

 
  

 

NEW TIP TOP WEEKLY.’

“while we

* that should prompt it.”

how it oles me to have to be retired at this stage of pro- our run of hard luck than | so) Kohinoor, or Acad Ki ig

Fo tac osiegad ® A mist rose in his eyes, but he
atorse- y

 

        

fought down his rising emotion. “You see,” he continued,
“T don’t want our crowd 'to be a lot of quitters, I know
you will stick, and Clancy, and some more. Something _
must be done to put heart into the squad. You are a
plebe, but I have more confidence in you than I have in
anybody else in the eleven. Stand by Dowd.”

“T will” answered Merriwell, with emphasis.

“Go in for all you are worth,” continued Presbery.
“Show White Academy a trick or two. You can do it.
Look what your father and your uncle did while they
were at Fardale. You're a chip of the old block, and
are just the sort to capture a lot of ‘grid’ honors. I—I
want you to take my place, Merriwell.”

“T can’t do that, Pres,” said Merriwell, a choke in his
throat; “nobody could do that. Whatever I can do,
though, I will do, You and Dowd can count on me right ©
from the drop of the hat.”

“That’s all anybody could ask, Chip.” Presbery turned
his eyes to the coach. “Go on with the rest of it, Dowd,”
said he. “I’m sure it’s the right move. So long, fellows.”

The captain’s wide, wistful eyes followed his visitors
as they left the room. Merriwell’s heart was sore for the
stricken captain. Never, until that moment, had he felt
so keenly all that Presbery’s loss was to mean.

“Where are we going, Dowd?” he asked. |

“To call on Colonel Gunn,” "was the answer, “and make
a foolish request.”

The coach would not go into details, and Frank, for the
present, was left in the dark as to what that “foolish re-
quest” might be.

The colonel was at the office, going over some papers.
He seemed surprised to see the coach and the plebe.

“Ah, Mr. Dowd, and Mr. Merriwell,” said he, in his
usual ponderous style. “Is your—ah—business connected _
with the football prospects? The team is certainly ex-
periencing a series of—ah—deplorable misfortunes. Per-
sonally, I may say that I dislike exceedingly the rough-
ness of this modern game. Three of the Fardale eleven
are candidates for the hospital. Too bad, too bad!” Fast

The colonel whirled around in his chair, and frowned. 2

“Gordon was injured in the riding hall, and not on the
football field, colonel,” remarked Dowd dryly. 5 Stale

“To be sure, but he is—ah—just as effectively out Oba Ses
the game as though he had been hurt in a scrimmage.” oh

Dowd nodded. It was perfectly evident to Frank that poe.
the coach disliked the errand that had brought him to the Va,
office. However, he went right to the point. ,

“Colonel,” said he, “will you oblige us by having that
Ruby of Allah removed from the academy grounds et
the next few days ?”

Gunn floundered in his chair. His astonishment was
profound. Merriwell was hardly less surprised. a

“Have the ruby—er—removed from the academy?” ©
gulped the colonel. “Mr. Dowd, is that not~ah—a most —
peculiar request? [ cannot conceive of any—ah—reason i

 

 

 

 

 
   
     
 
      
       
      
         
        
 
        
        
      
     
   

       
    

“There’s a reason,” said Dowd, “and there’s no cease ee
Some of the fellows have an idea thas the ruby is oy ‘
cause of all our football troubles——~

“Pon my soul!” murmured the startled soinueh “How
—ah—is it possible that the Ruby of Allah could Sees
these misfortunes?” %

 
        
   
   
      
   

    
 
 

“Tt isn’t possible. The stone has no more to do.

  

    

of ee Hey eA
NEW TIP .TOP WEEKLY.

\, “Then why—why—I am blessed, Mr. Dowd, if I—ah—

comprehend your meaning.”

“As I said,” proceeded the coach, “the idéa seeins to be
gaining headway among the superstitious cadets that the
ruby is, in some occult manner, responsible for what is
happening to the football team. I don’t consider the case
in that light for a minute. “But the morale of the team
is threatened. And what is a team of football players, or
of any other players, without morale? We must have it.
Presbery suggests that we defer to superstition, and have
the ruby removed to Fardale, and placed for safe-keeping
in the bank, until after the game with White Academy.”

The colonel’s eyes twinkled. He seemed suddenly to
enjoy the situation. His manner was distinctly puzzling.

“This is—er—a remarkable example of—ah—occult
foolishness,” said he. “I will not deny that I have heard
some of the—ah—wild'and glittering yarns that have been
floating about regarding the Ruby of Allah. The Egyptian
drowned while taking the gem to Cairo, the boat on which
he traveled wrecked on the Nile, the—ah—museum at
Cairo almost destroyed by fire while the stone was in the
institution, and——”

The colonel fell back in his chair, dropped his double
chin on his breast, and: shook with inward laughter. It
was several moments before he could proceed—~and they
were most uncomfortable moments for Dowd and Merri-
well. Frank, for one, felt as though he had been caught
stealing plums in a neighbor’s orchard. Certainly it was

an oddly disagreeable sensation that he experienced. The

coach looked as though he wanted to bow stiffly, and hide
his humiliation by striding out of the room.

“T—I beg your—ah—pardon,” wheezed the- colonel.
“Mr. Dowd, I think I understand and can appreciate the
—ah—sentiments that animate you in this peculiar mat-
ter. You are too—ah—sensible to have any belief in the
monstrous conceptions of addle-pated- young men who
claim that the ruby has malignant powers. Merriwell,
you are—ah—not concerned in this wild folly, either, are

you?”

“T hope not, sir,” said Frank.

“He is with me here because it was Presbery’s wish,”
spoke up Dowd. “We want the ruby removed for its
effect on the football fellows. If it is out of the way,
they won’t have it to blame for our troubles.”

“And their—ah—morale will improve?”

“That is the supposition, colonel.”

“Then, Mr. Dowd, you might—ah—gently, but emphat-
ically, convey to the superstitious students of this acad-
emy the—ah—intelligence that the Ruby of Allah is not
now at the school, and has not been since—ah—Professor
Garner came so near losing it.
to the bank for safe-keeping, directly after the gem was
recovered from the person of the Turk, Malim Bey.” |

Both Merriwell and Dowd were dumfounded. As soon

_as their astonishment passed, they began to laugh. Super-

stition certainly had carried some of the cadets pretty far
afield! They had blamed the ruby—when there was no
ruby to be blamed!

“Colonel,” said the coach, “you may rest assured that I
will convey the intelligence gently and emphatically, and

_ without very much loss of time. I think that will be all,

‘sir. Merriwell,” he added, “let us make our escape.”
They did so, returning from the door the wheezy laugh

the colonel flung after them.

We had it taken at once |

CHAPTER VII.
CORRECTING AN ERROR.

“Tf I look as cheap as I feel,” said Dowd, when he and
Merriwell were outside the building, “then I must be a
picture. All this fuss about the Ruby of Allah, and it
isn’t at the academy—and hasn’t been for a week! Holy
mackerel !” I

“It’s a wonder some of these fellows wouldn’t make
sure about that red gem before they begin abusing it,”
said Frank. . ao

“They didn’t make sure about anything, Merriwell.
They jumped at. the conclusion that it was still in Gar-
ner’s hands, and proceeded to load it up with all the hard
luck in sight. I’ve slopped over in nice shape, and given
faculty something to laugh about for a month. And
yet, no one is to be blamed. Presbery’s idea was all right.
If a lot of fellows are bound to make fools of themselves
over a ruby, the only way to bring them to’ time is to get
rid of the ruby. When it’s generally understood that
there isn’t any ruby, and hasn’t been any ruby, everything
will be shaken down to a normal, common-sense basis.”

“Are you going over to tell Presbery?” asked Frank.

“T’{l tell him in-the morning. Spread the news far
and wide, Merriwell, that the ruby hasn’t been around
during all our run of hard luck. Make the whole affair
look as ridiculous as you can. We'll have these super-
stitious’ chaps laughing at themselves and their folly.
Good night.”

The coach left Frank, and made his way toward Pro-
fessor Skagley’s house, where he had a room. Frank,
chuckling to himself over the result of the conference
with Colonel Gunn, proceeded back to plebe quarters.

“Look as though you were happy about something,
Chip,” remarked Clancy, the moment his chum had en-
tered the room. “What business have you got to be happy
while the football team is in such a hard row of stumps?”

“Just got wise to a pretty good joke, Clan,” Merriwell
answered, hanging his hat over the muzzle of his gun in
the gun rack, and smiling, as he dropped into a chair.

“Pass it along,” sdid the red-headed chap. “I’m in

need of something to liven me up.”
“ Before Merry could tell his roommate about the talk
with Colonel Gunn, the door suddenly opened. Both
plebes, thinking an inspector was upon them, jumped to
their feet, and came to attention. Their disgust was
hearty when’Villum Kess walked into the room.

“Mooch opliged for der salute,” said Villum, grinning.
“Such a fine attentions vat you gif me I don’d know.
But be at ease mit yoursellufs.”

“If it wasn’t for making a racket,” observed Clancy, “I'd
beat you up, you lobster.”

“Fairst, you vould shpell ‘aple’ Cut oudt der funny
pitzness, blease. I don’d come here to choke. Ditn’t I —
tell you der yorst vas to habben? Ve keep chumping der
fire into der pan oudt mit dis hardt luck.”

“Sobbing won’t help matters any, Villum,” suggested
Owen.

“Maybe nod, aber it makes me some reliefs,” said Vil-
lum sadly.

“Are you still of the opinion,” asked Frank, “that the —
ruby is double crossing our football squad?”

“Tt don’d vas a case oof opinion; it iss a case oof fect.
Dere iss no doubt aboudt it, Chip. So long as dot rupy
iss on der agademy groundts, chust so long vill der elefun —

 
a Re ee Wy

haf hardt luck. I don’d like to shpeak aboudt it, aber der
_trut’ iss somet’ing ve can’t dodge.”

“The only way to keep you from talking like a crazy
house,' Villum,” said Owen, “is to put a gag between your
teeth. Will you quit that line of talk, or have I got to
muzzle you?”

“Wait a minute, Clan,” interposed Frank.
all at sea, and doesn’t know it.”

“There’s a whole lot he doesn’t know,” returned the red-
headed fellow. ‘“He’s a nice’ sort of a chum—I don’t
think, Why, Villum is the one who started all this hoo-
doo talk, and it’s doing more to wreck our chances in the
game with White than the loss of Presbery, Hoover,
Ames, and Gordon!”

“TY can’t hellup dot,” said Villum obstinately. “I know
vat I know, und der trut’ has got to come oudt, no mad-
der who vas hurt mit it.”

“Say, Villum,” chimed in Frank, “you feel pretty sure,
do you, that the Ruby of Allah is on the Tampage, and
making all this tough sledding for us?”

“It iss a skinch.”

“Our missing teammates would still be in the line-up
if it hadn’t been for that little red mee:

“Yah, so hellup me.”

“Have you any idea,” said Frank, with difficulty keep-
ing a straight face, “how the ruby went to work to do all
this ?”

“Villum is

An expression of ludicrous earnestness settled over the

Dutch boy’s moonlike face. His eyes grew big and owl-
ish, and he ‘proceeded to explain.

“Vell, I don’d tell it like some brofessor mighdt shpeak
it oudt, aber I go a cheneral itea oof der vay der hootoo
_vorks. Fairst, der rupy iss madt pecause it vas foundt.
You see, it tought it vas lost for goot, und ven it iss
foundt, it has.some annoyances, yes. It pegins to show a
pad nature by tropping der feller vat found it der Nile
in, und so it keeps oop der pad vork righdt along. Ver-
efer it iss dere, you bet my life, iss a hogus-pogus. So
long as it iss here at der agademy, der footballers vill
haf deir drouples, same as dey haf hat.” J

“Oh, for the love of Mike!” gasped Owen. “The ruby
got mad because it was found, and it won’t be happy until
it is lost again. Police!”

Villum began to bristle, and to show resentment.

“You make fun oof plain reasoning,” he growled,
dot iss vere you show your iknorance.”
_ “Where I show my ignorance! What do you think of
that, Chip?”
“Look here, Villum,” went on Frank. “If there wasn’t
any tuby, there wouldn’t be any hoodoo, would there?”
_ “Sairtinly nod.”
“You've missed one little bet in this business, old chap,

“and

and I’m going to put you wise. The Ruby of Allah isn’t

at the academy, and it hasn’t been at the academy for
a week.” .

Villum stared and blinked. Owen likewise sat up and

took notice.

“Hey?” said Villum blankly.

“Ts that right, Chip?” demanded Owen.

“T’m giving you the straight of it, fellows. After the

gem was stolen and recovered, Professor Garner was

afraid to keep it in his study. He sent it over to the
bank in the village for safe-keeping. It has been there
all the time our football squad have been having their
hard luck. What is your idea about that, Villum?”

Just then Villum did not seem to have any very clear
ideas about anything. He was flabbergasted. Rubbing i
chin with gne hand, he looked into vacancy,

Owen began to chuckle. Then, as the thing grew upon
him, he drifted slowly into an abandon of mirth. He
gasped and kicked and squirmed in his chair; then he
fell off upon the floor, and rolled and sputtered.

“This is rich!” he gurgled. “This is the richest thing
I ever heard of! All the crack-brained chumps in school
have been blaming that ruby for a run of bad luck—and
there wasn’t any ruby! Oh, oh, oh—wow!”

“Chust vy dit it habben makes no odds aboudt der tif-
ference!” fumed Villum, suddenly finding his tongue.
“Oof it vasn’t der rupy, den, by shinks, it vas somet’ing
else. For vy vas der rupy took avay mitoudt telling der
school? I don’d like dot. Dere vas some gonspiracy to
make a fool oof me!”

“It didn’t take much of a conspiracy, either,”
Owen, sitting upon the floor, and wiping his eyes.

“You shpeak a Jot und don’d say mooch,” flared Villum.

He whirled, jerked open the door, shot a glance of vio-
lent disapproval at Clancy, and disappeared into the hall. .

“He’s a wiser Villum than he was when he came here,”
laughed Merriwell.

“That joke on the hocus-pocus boys is certainly a bun,”
snickered Clancy, getting up and resuming his chair.
“Where did you get next to the fact that the ruby was
over in Eardale, Chip?”

“Colonel Gunn. Dowd and I called on the colonel.
Presbery wanted us to. The poor old captain had an idea
that if the ruby could be removed from the school, it
would help the team, and he wanted Dowd and me to go
to Gunn and request that he have the stone taken away.”

“And you went to old Gunn with that line of dope?”

“Ves,”

“Whoop! This gets funnier and funnier. And after
you had put yourselves on record, you found that it was —
all ery and no wool, that you had had your trouble for
your pains, and that the ruby wasn’t at the school, and
hadn’t been at the school. How did you feel when Gunn
batted that up to you?” . hie

“You can imagine, Red. I don’t want to describe it.”

“Yes,” grinned Clancy,
of these other doughheads are going to feel,
be any hoodoo to bother us in getting together and doing a
our best with what’s left of the team.”

“Joking aside, Clan,” ‘i
has a mighty hard row to hoe. We've had four blows, —
and the last one comes close to being a knockout.
bery is taking it deuced hard. All season he’s been count-
ing on this game with White Academy, and now he’s out
of it, and the future is about as dark as it can be. This
is Presbery’s last whack at White—next year, he won't
be at Fardale—and I happen to know that he was hungry
to give that other school a trimming.”

Frank began walking up and down the room, showing
more nerves than Owen ever knew he possessed.

“Well, Chip,” said Owen, “calm down, It won’t do any
good to be in a taking. Dowd will patch up the team 3
somehow, and we'll make a showing. t
White doesn’t give us such a terrible walloping.”

Frank paused, and whirled on his chum. There was
fire in = eyes any ae in shis Voice, as ae answered:

gulped

 

“and I can imagine how some
There won't

said Merriwell soberly, “our even es

Pres-

I'll bet a farm
NEW TIP TOP WEEKLY. Pi eee

\ “You don’t think for a minute,” cried Clancy, “that our
_ ctippled team can clean up on that visiting bunch? Why,
White is heavier and faster than they have ever been.
That has come to us pretty straight.”

“What’s that thing about nil desperandum, Clancy?”
Merry inquired. “And that other thing about snatching
victory from defeat? We'’re-going to win, because we've
got to, that’s all, In spite of our hard luck, we’re going
to do better than just make a showing.”

-Admiration mounted slowly into Clancy’s homely face.

“Anything is possible, Chip,” said he, “when you begin
to act like that. I know a few things about you, and that
is one of them,”

CHAPTER VIII,
IN SECRET CONFERENCE.

The next day was Sunday, and brought a relief from
recitations and drills. Like wildfire the news had spread
‘through the school that the Ruby of Allah was in Far-
_ dale, had been in Fardale for a week, and that its sup-
posedly fateful influence was a joke.

There were some of the cadets who had not the heart
_ to discuss the situation, but looked sheepish whenever the
_ ruby hoodoo was mentioned. These fellows came in for
a merciless ragging from others who had not expressed
themselves as to the possibility of the message gem work-
ing a hocus-pocus on the eleven.

Tt was clear to the most skeptical that superstition at
_ the academy had received a body blow. There would be
no more hoodoo talk. .

Speculation was rife on all hands as to what Dowd
_ would, or could, do with what was left of the first eleven.
Winning from White seemed out of the question; the
most that was hoped for, among the majority of the
cadets, was to have Fardale hold White to as small a
score as possible.
és Frank overheard some of this dejected talk. At once
he took a vigorous part in it. |
“Look here, fellows,” he said crisply, “you want to cut
out the gloom, White isn’t going to trample all over us,
mind that. Fardale is going into that game to win.”

“You—you’re too blamed hopeful, Merriwell!”

- “Well, I’m confident, as well as hopeful. Dowd is a

‘wonder. You all know that. Keep your eye on him,

and see what happens.”

"You don’t really think we haye a chance, do you?
‘Come, now, and let’s have the straight of it.”

_ “Sure we have a chance, and a mighty good one.

_ up. Root for the old school, and help out the team!” -
 Merriwell felt a hand on his shoulder. Turning, he saw
he coach at his elbow. For once, Dowd’s face wore an

approving smile. |
_ “With eleven fellows like you, Chip,” said he, “Fardale

Id beat any team on earth. Come over to my room

fter dinner—I want to have a confab.”
“TU be there,” answered Frank.

Agreeably to promise, as soon as his company trarched

back to barracks after dinner, and broke ranks, he hur-

ied to Professor Skagley’s. Dowd sat at a table in his
room with two sets of buttons—one white, and the other
black—tranged over a marked board in front of him. With
1im was Arthur Lowe, an upper classman, and one of the

Chirp —

“Hello, Merriwell,” said Dowd.
make yourself comfortable.”

Lowe nodded smilingly to Frank as the latter seated
himself.

“We're holding a council of war,” went on the coach,
“and doing what we can to make the best of a bad busi-
ness. I have Presbery’s ideas, and I am only sorry that
he cannot be present to counsel with us, but for several
reasons that is impossible. It is Presbery’s desire, Merri-
well, that you step into his shoes at left half. There has
got to be some shifting, and as you have shown remark-
ably well as an all-around player, I see no reason why
Presbery’s wish should not be granted.”

Frank experienced a thrill of surprise and pleasure. To
play at half was the position he had desired ever since
he had reported for football practice. But it had not been
for him to choose, and circumstances had dropped him in
other positions in the line-up.

Playing half back had been a sort of institution in the
Merriwell family. Young Frank, in order to be true to
traditions, had longed for a try at the place. Now it was
dropping into his hands, as the especial request of Cap-
tain Presbery!

“You ought to do well at left half, Merriwell,” went on
Dowd, “if you are really a chip of the old block. Pres-
bery declares that you are, and, from what I’ve seen of
your work, I am rather inclined to that belief myself.”

“Thank you, Dowd,” said Frank. “Ill do my best.”

“Your best is mighty good,” said Lowe. “I guess no
one will find any fault with you, if you stack up in that
way.” .

“Lowe,” continued the coach, “is to be captain pro tem.
L have studied out the line-up. The list, as I have it,
leaves something to be desired here and there, but I have
done as well as I could with the material on hand. The
bright spot in the ranks is O’Day. That fellow is coming
like a house afire.”

“His showing is wonderful,” agreed Lowe. “He has
been hiding his light under a bushel for the last year.
Beats all we never got wise to his abilities before.”

“An accident has been the making of many a football
star, Lowe. We have had four backsets, and they are.
enough to take the heart out of any team: Hoover, Gor-
don, Ames, and Presbery—all out of it at just the time
we need them most. We must face the music, however.
O’Day will fill the bill nicely in Hoover’s position. Ames
will be missed at right end.”

“Perhaps the sickness that called him away is not so
serious as he imagined,” suggested Frank. “He may re- |
turn in time for the game.” :

“No,” said Dowd. “I have a telegram from him say-
ing that, while he had found things at home better than
he had expected, it would be impossible for him to re-
turn to school: until after Thanksgiving.
Wilkinson for his place.”

“Wilkinson is not Ames, by a long shot,”
Lowe.

“That may be, but Wilkinson’s work has been extra
good this season. He'll shape around, I’m sure, during
the next two days. Our other end, of course, is Barr.”

“Barr is Class A.”

“Plant and True will be the tackles, Harker and Pruitt ¥
the guards, and, Jakes will fill es position PR
center.” Zee

Lowe had not much to’ say.

“Pull up a chair, and

commented —

The conch: was s. suprein

 

I have drafted Ess
Bete NEW TIP TOP, WEEKLY.

\
and Lowe was backward aut expressing himself frankly.
He felt, and rightly, that his new position demanded a
certain amount of reserve.

“With you and Merriwell for halves, and Clancy at
full,’ went on Dowd, “the line-up is complete. Monday
and Tuesday, I intend to work you for all there is in
you, but Wednesday, we will-take it easy, and have only
light signal practice. Then, on Thursday-———”

The coach’s voice trailed off into silence. His face grew
thoughtful, and his eyes wandered to the board and the
buttons on the table top.

“On Thursday,” finished Lowe,
prises on White.”

“It is as foolish to be overconfident as it is to have
no confidence at all,” said Dowd. “The White Academy
fellows, I hear from good authority, have been informed
‘of our hard luck, and are half expecting us to cancel the
game. They think, with our patched-up eleven, they can
slam us around, walk over us, and have things their own
way. They are so overconfident that their attitude
amounts virtually to an asset for Fardale. Don’t offset
that advantage by lack of confidence in our own ranks.
We must neither be weak with foreboding nor recklessly
certain. There’s a golden mean. Let us cultivate it.”

“No danger of our being reckless with certainty,” re-
marked Lowe. “The whole school acts as though we were
cornered.”

Dowd nodded grimly.

“T understand the prevailing sentiment,” he said; “that
is wrong, and, if it doesn’t change, it will have a bad ef-
fect. White is coming over here strong, and sure of
victory. They are heavier than we are, and alertness
and headwork are the qualities we are to depend on. The
other crowd have a number of trick plays. I saw their
clash with Franklin, and I know their caliber. Watch the
ball. That’s our cue. Watch the ball every second it is
in play. Don’t let them fool us.

“Another thing, do all you can to arouse a feeling that
approaches confidence. This line-up,”
the paper containing the names and positions of the Far
dale eleven, “is not a battered, inefficient team. Handi-
capped though we are, and pestered with doubtful backing
and a run of evil luck, there’s material in this list for a
victory—a hardly bought victory, it is true, yet still a
victory. .

“T tell/you, fellows, it is something to jump into what
seems a losing fight, and win out. That is the game that
is worth while. Dogged perseverance, a determination to
fight it out in the last’ditch, and a clear-headed firmness
in refusing to be bluffed or cowed, has pulled many a
‘team out of a hole, and brought success. It is a great
thing never to know that you are beaten until the whistle
sounds and the score board tells the tale.”

Merriwell had never imagined that Dowd could be so
frank and confidential as he was showing himself during
that interview. Usually, on the field, he was crabbed,

“we'll spring some sur-

uncommunicative, and not given much either to praise

His feelings were to be interpreted through his

|

or blame.
orders and actions.

When the young plebe left Professor Skagley’s house,
he was wonderfully heartened for what lay ahead. He
was not overconfide t, but he was, nevertheless, doggedly
. deternfined that Fardale should win.’

“What's the line-up, Merriwell?” inquired Hawley, hail-
ing Frank as he was) on his way back to barracks,

instead of omens of disaster.

and Dowd held up

Hawley was prying, in his customary style. He had /a ts
way of wedging in and nosing out important information
ahead of every one else. It was his desire to be a sort
of information bureau for the school, and he usually made
good in that capacity. But he got little satisfaction from
Frank.

“You'd better talk with the captain, pro tem, Hawley,”
Frank answered.

“Who's the pro tem captain?”

“Art Lowe.”

“Well, by ginger! Is that the best Dowd can do? Nice
apology for Presbery, I must say. Right here is where
I begin to see Fardale’s finish and—— Quit! What’s
biting you?”

With a quick move, Merry had flung himself on Haw-
ley and grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking ‘him.
roughly. i

“Nothing is biting me,” snapped Frank, “but I'll be bit-
ing you in a minute. Where’s your loyalty to Fardale?
Chuck that gloomy talk! Help out the eleven with a lit-
tle rooting. Be hopeful. Understand?”

“Yes, but——” ;

“No buts about it. Get the Fardale spirit, Hawley.
You’re a great little news spreader. Carry tidings of joy,
Do that, you oes runt, or
V’ll make it a point to be real harsh with you.”

“T’m not blind, Merriwell! !” protested Hawley.
see——”

“You're going to be blind to everything but Fardale’s :
success,” cut in Frank. “Sing it, talk it, act it, If you /
don’t, Hawley, you will wish you had.” pea

Frank flung the cadet from him, and stood eying him
fixedly. yf

“Are you going to do it?” he demanded. ;

“Why, yes,” was the response. “When you come’ at a
fellow like that, what else is there for him to do?”

Frank laughed grimly, spun around on Ais heel, and
moved off toward barracks.

“TL can’

CHAPTER IA,
BEFORE THE BIG GAME.

There was no doubt about it, Fardale was football —
crazy. Lessons suffered, drill suffered, and the faculty
could only shrug their shoulders, and wait patiently for
the madness to pass.. Many a student with Thanksgiving
leave had counted on eating turkey at home, only to catch
the football fever, and stay at the school for the game
with White. ae + :

The uncertainties of the eles: doubled and quad-— gt
rupled by the evil fortune of the Fardale eleven, merely
contributed to the excitement. On Monday, a change in
the sentiment of the school was noted, and by Tuesday —
it had waxed strong, and was sweeping all before it.
Doubt was giving way to confidence; and this confidence —
grew, as the cadets watched the practice Monday and |
Tuesday afternoons.

The patched-up eleven went at the scrub with a sup-_
pressed fury that tore all opposition to pieces, And the
scrub was braced well for the shock, too, and doing all,
and more, than could be expected of second-string men.

O’Day hurled the regulars at the second team in one
formation after another, and it seemed as though the first
team was able to score almost at will. O’Day covered
himself with glory, but the big feature of those grace

$

 
baseball teams.

-. marked.

NEW TIP TOP WEEKLY. : | 15

games was the splendid work of Chip Merriwell. Merry
became the talk of the school.
Krom his window in barracks, Presbery, bolstered up in
bed with pillows, followed the work on the “grid” through
a pait of binoculars. He smiled happily.
“It’s just as well I’m out of it?’ he muttered. “Merri-
well is a caution. With two good feet under me, I
couldn't match his work. By Jove, he’s a wonder.”
The cogs in the Fardale machine fitted together in ad-
mirable style. The teamwork was a little ragged on);Mon-
day, bution Tuesday it had improved. It was not all that
it should be, of course—two days formed a short enough
period for welding new men into a smooth-running
machine—but Dowd was satisfied. He had exercised ad-
mirable judgment in selecting and placing the new men,
and he followed their work with approval.

“We're ready for White,” he said to Lowe Wednesday
evening, after signal drill. “I wish we had another week
for practice, but we haven’t. We go into the clash as we
are, and I know we'll give a xood account of ourselves.”
Thursday dawned bright and cheerful. White reached

. town in mid-forenoon, and went to the hotel. A trainload
of rooters came with them, and the overconfidence that
‘might prove their undoing was manifest in the talk and
actions of both players and rooters.

_ The air in the vicinity of the village hostelry was full
of boasting. Backus, the White captain, had not much
to say, but his men were loud in their talk.

_ “Thought the Fardale bunch would cancel the game,”
said Raymond, one of the visiting ends. “They've a
_ chopped-up eleven, and they. haven’t a thing to hope for.
_ They won’t have a look-in.’
“Oh, I don’t know,” answered one of the villager.
“The academy turns out some mighty slick football and
Mebby you won’t have no such walk-over
as you think.”

_ “Nothing to it,” said the end. “We cleaned up Franklin
to the tune of thirty-six to get-some, and when Fardale

_ played Franklin, she won by a scratch. And say, friend,
- Fardale had the invincible Presbery in her line-up then,

-and Gordon, and the others who are now among the miss-

- jng. We're stronger than when we played Franklin, and

Fardale is weaker. Read the signs, read the signs.”

“Chip Merriwell coppered that Franklin game for Far-
dale,” said the villager. “I seen him do it, in the last five

minutes of play.”

The White end began to show some interest.

“We've been hearing a lot about this Merriwell,” he re-

“It can’t all of it be true, of course. I guess he

ain’t such a much.”

“Wait and see,” chuckled the villager.

_ The end reflected faithfully the cocksureness of the
whole White contingent. To hear the visitors tell it,
Fardale’s scalp was lalready taken. The playing was a

ao formality.

. It was a beautiful day, the thin November sunshine

; besting down on the lime-marked field, and the air crisp

and tingling. All Fardale turned out to see the game,

for it was a holiday, and the contest would prove a pleas-

; ant diversion after a big dinner.

The big grand stand at the field began early to fill up
with spectators and cheering partisans of the two teams.
the minutes passed, the crowd grew and grew, until it
illed over the ends of the grand stand, and fotmed,
on rank, against a ropes that guarded the side Behe

In some manner, all the fuss and pother about the ruby
hoodoo had become known to the White detachment.
From their place in the grand stand, the visiting rooters
adverted time and again to the Ruby of Allah.

“Fardale can’t win! She’s hocus-pocussed!”

“Ruby, ruby, who’s got the ruby?”

“Where’s the Turk with the hypnotic eye?”

“Watch out for the double cross, White! Don’t let the.
Fardale bunch slip that red stone in your pocket!”

This language had a somewhat depressing effect upon
the cadet onlookers. They realized only too well that they
had given White plenty of cause for the merciless nag-
ging.

Gordon had come to the grand stand, with the help of
a crutch and a cane. Seated among the cadet detachment,
he acted as spokesman for his crowd now and again.

“You fellows have got it wrong,” said he. “The ruby’s
a mascot.”

“You're going to need an army of mascots,”
answer.

“Give ’em the yell, fellows!” yelled Gordon, pounding
‘with his crutch. “Now, then, all together!”

The grand stand rang with:

“Ha, ha, ha! ’Rah, ’rah, ’rah! Rigger-boom! Zigger-
boom! All hail—Fardale! Fardale! Fardale!’

White was prepared for that, and they came back mock-
ingly, and with a vengeance:

“Ha, ha, ha! Bah, bah, bah!
gloom! Good night—Fardale !”

“Gosh,” mumbled Hawley, “I guess that’s more than we
bargained for. I wish that consarned Ruby of Allah had
never been heard of!”

The game was called for two-thirty. Shortly after two
the Fardale team came trotting upon the field from the
direction of, the gym. ,

This was the signal for the home rooters and the people
from town to go wild. There were cheers upon cheers.
Merriwell, in some manner, came in for the first demon-
stration.

“Merriwell, Merriwell, Chip, Chip Merriwell!” howled
the enthusiasts.

was the

Ruby-doom! Ruby-

“Merriwell is in his first year at Fardale, isn’t he?”
asked one of the White fellows.
“He’s a plebe, a raw plebe,” answered some one.
“Hanged if he looks very raw. Queer, strikes me, that

a plebe should be singled out for all this fuss. Where

vare’ the old-timers, the Fardale veterans?”

“Merriwell has a father and an uncle who did things,”
came the ugly and ungenerous comment. “They say he
has sailed into favor on their popularity.” _ \

“T don’t believe it,” declared the visitor. “Young: Merri-
well looks to have the goods in his own right.”

\ At that moment the White squad came surging toward ©
the field. They certainly looked formidable.

The visiting spectators broke forth in wild acclaim.
Hats and handkerchiefs were waved, and megaphone:

were used deafeningly. ‘

“See the conquering heroes come!” piped a White rooter
shrilye yt os ‘

“T guess they look good, what?” .

“They won't do a thing to Fardale, oh, no!
"em, watch ’ em.”

Wate ; ; ;
The home eleven was warming up, kicking the nigalan

around, and falling on it. They were spry and ginger
‘ ; i : 2 Be

 
be, if he’s a chum of Chip Merriwell’s.

NEW TIP TOP WEEKLY.

there was no doubt about that. The White fellows were
also chasing the ball around, and getting limbered up for
the coming fray. But they worked leisurely, as though
there was not much need of effort for the easy work
ahead.

The captains presently gathered their teams around
them, and the substitutes crawled into their blankets and
- went to»-their benches. Dowd, from a point of vantage,
chewed at an unlighted cigar» and kept an eagle eye on
proceedings. His last advice to the Fardale players had
been: “Watch the ball.”

Lowe stepped toward Backus, the opposing captain. A
coin gleamed brightly in the air. Fardale won the toss.

The uproar in the grand stand was tremendous all dur-
‘ing the preliminary maneuvers. Merlin, the Fardale
banker, with his wife and daughter, Maizie, had good seats
and a clear view of the field.

The town was loyal to the last man to the military acad-
emy. The school was Fardale’s pride, as it was her most
flourishing institution, and only bid for glory. The hopes
of the village were completely wrapped Ri in the academy
eleven.

“T do hope, dad,” murmured Maizie,
be beaten.”

_ “You mustn’t hope for victory,” answered the banker,
“but you must believe in it completely. You’re not waver-
ing, Maze?” i

“Oh, no; still,’ doubtfully, “the team has had such hard
luck, you know, and new players have had to be put in
almost at the last minute, and—and——”

“One of the men filling a new position is Merriwell,”
said her father slyly.

The girl flushed rosily.

“I’m sure Mr. Merriwell will come out of the game
with many honors,” said she. oH only the others do as
well, Fardale is bound to win.’

“That’s the talk!” laughed the banker. ;

The line-up of the opposing elevens was as follows:

Fardale: Clancy, full back; Lowe, captain, right half
back; Merriwell, left half back; O’Day, quarter back;
Wilkinson, right end; True, right tackle; Pruitt, right
guard; Jakes, center; Harker, left guard; Plant, left
tackle; Barr, left end.

White: Lee, full back; Tomlinson, left half back;
Backus, captain, right half back; Bayard, quarter back;
Raymond, left end; Orcutt, left tackle; Lester, left guard;
Brown, center; Sully, right guard; Archer, right tackle;
Smooks, right end.

“Which side won the toss, dad?” queried Maizie Mer-
lin, straining her blue eyes toward the players.

“Fardale,” was the answer. '“You see that red-headed
chap, Maze?” /

“Oh, yes, yes! That is Mr. Clancy, Mr. Merriwell’s
roommate and chum.”

“Well, he’s going to boot the pieekin for Fardale.
There, we’ re off!”

Amid the yells and cheers of spectators, réd- heeded
Owen Clancy kicked the ball far down the field. It was
a beautiful kick- off.

“He's a good one, that fellow,” murmured Merlin, more

to himself than to anybody else; “I guess he’d have to
‘Ah, now for

“that our side won't

business.”
ae ‘Tae game was on.

CHAPTER X
THE FARDALE SPIRIT.

Tomlinson took in Clancy’s kick-off with a beautiful
catch. Barr and Wilkinson, the Fardale ends, were rac- 5
ing like mad down the field. They got past the inter-
ference with little trouble, and Tomlinson was dam with
a gain of five yards.

“Who was it said White would make a uchaaae in
the first minute of play?” howled a voice from the Far-
dale side of the grand stand. “Somebody must have mis-
placed that touchdown, I guess. I can’t see it.” |

This had really been the boast of the overconfident
visitors. Certainly it was not, to be realized. White paid

| her respects to the Fardale center, hoping, with her beef

and brawn, to smash through. The play was nipped in ~
the bud, and the first of the surprises was, brought home
to the visitors. y

“Oh, we're not so easy!” yelled Gordon, carried away
with the good work of his teammates. “Bully work, Far-
dale!”

“Wait, wait!’ shouted a White rooter.
hasn’t fairly started.”

White was merely testing the mettle of her opponents.

“The game |

| They did not really think the test was necessary, you

know, but——

White punted.

The ball dropped almost into O’Days arms, and he eee
it back for six beautiful yards before the enemy downed
him.

‘“Who’s that little squirt?” asked a White partisan.

“O'Day,” was the answer, “one of Dowd’s eleventh-
hour pick-ups.” |

‘“He’s a hornet If that’s a sample of his work, he's
going to give White something to think about.”

“Bosh! When the sample is gone, he’s all in. He’s
only pee in the grind for four days, and he'll not stand
the pace.”

O’Day, cool and collected, began hunting weak places
in the White line. He had found out that looks were
deceiving, and that the big fellows were not so formid-
able, after all. Merriwell, all springs and flashlike action,
bucked through for a good gain; and then Clancy, with
a spectacular rush, helped on the good work.

Sheer weight told against the Fardale assault, pad
White’s weak spot had not yet been found. On third ©
down, Fardale had to punt. A

Backus, for White, fumbled the ball, much to his
chagrin, and the amazement of the White rooters, and
Barr, for Fardale, swept the ball off the ground on the |
keen run. While the other end blocked a tackler, Barr:
started for White’s goal.

The visitors were stymned by the swiftness and clever-

ness of the locals’ work. Was this the patched-up eleven
which they were to beat with hardly an effort?

All the Fardale fellows were whooping crazily, jumping
up and down, and waving the class colors.

“Go on, Barr! Take it over, take it over!”

“Hold ’em! Hold ’em!” begged the White partisans.

Barr fell.a long way short of “taking it over.” He had
made a splendid effort, however, and deserved applause.
Suddenly a- White half snapped him off his feet, and |
White’s turn came to cheer.

ee was buried under a mass of players, and then the

ap disintegrated, and the rival teams lined a ,

 
NEW TIP TOP WEEKLY. Sears 17

‘By that time White had ceased to think of having a
“wilk-away.” They were puzzled to account for the
provess that met and baffled them, but they recognized it
as a tact, ahd began to display more judgment.

Jake’ snapped the ball to O’Day, and he passed it to
Merriwell. The left half started like a streak toward the
end of the White line. Twisting, turning, dodging, Merri-
well shook off the tacklers and made a gain of ten yards
before he was smothered and brought to earth.

“Nobly done, Merriwell, nobly done!” said Dowd to
himself. |

He recognized, as no one else, the terrible odds that
faced his team. It seemed impossible that his light-grey-
hounds could smash through that living wall of weight
and brawn: And yet accidents were liable to happen.

“Give ‘ern the hocus-pocus, White!” yelled a visitor.
“They seem to like it over here.”

Following a few minutes of hard, straight play, White
began shaking out her box of tricks. This came at a time
when Fardale was expecting anything but what really hap-
pened,

Brown snapped the ball to Bayard, and Bayard made
a lightninglike pass to Lee. Lee, with interferers ahead
and beside him, hurled himself toward the end of Far-
dale’s line. They were moving like an irresistible force,
and seemed able to crush everything that dared get in
their way.

Just one of the Fardale men saw Tomlinson take the

_ ball from Lee; and, while Fardale was massing to resist
the advance in force, Tomlinson whooped it up all by
his lonesome toward the other end of the Fardale line.

It was not new, that trick, but it was amazingly well
done.
ing on, and angled across after Tomlinson.

It looked as though Tomlinson would score, as though
he must score. Between him and the Fardale goal there
seemed a clear field.

“Tomlinson, Tomlinson!” howled White. “Come on,
Tom! Now’s your chance! Touchdown, touchdown!”

Fardale gasped when she discovered how she had been
caught napping, and there was a vision of a lithe, clean-
limbed lad leaping after the fleeing Tomlinson, coming
closer and closer to him at every bound.

“Merriwell!” roared the grand stand.
edt x. a swelling shout for Frank to save the day, to
do his best and prevent a score. And right splendidly did
Frank answer the call.

In a few breathless moments he had overtaken Tom-
linson, and, by a magnificent tackle, had brought him
down. Merriwell alone, by his quick wit and tremendous

_ speed, had balked White’s brightest chance in that first
half.

A cry of relief from the cadets mingled with a shout

of disappointment from the other side of the grand stand.
Dowd, out along the side lines, slapped his hand de-

_ lightedly.

- “T knew Merriwell had it in him!” he muttered. “He's

the only one that watched the ball. Bravo, you chip of
the old block!”

The cadets began to sing in celebration of their narrow
escape, and wild cheers for the left half ran all through
the husky melody.

“How do you like it, White?” yelled Gordon.

“The son of his dad is some punkins, believe me!”

‘boomed a rural voice, high over the bedlam of noise.

Merriwell was’ the one who divined what was go-,

But that was only one trick. White had others up her
sleeve. It seemed strange that, with so much weight in
her line, she should resort to tricks, when smashing, tear-
ing plunges appeared to be her long suit against the lighter
Fardale aggregation. But White was getting afraid. Yes,
there was no doubt on that head. The work of Fardale
was filling White with apprehension and anxiety.

The visiting eleven had a way of shifting their whole
team from right to left, or vice versa, and hiding a run-
ner until the proper moment to hurl him out and stat
him on his course. i
maneuver was tried.

O’Day was puzzled by these tactics, and his bewilder-
ment would have been cosily, had not. Merriwell, by some
uncanny sixth sense of divination, solved the play in time
to block it, oftentimes by a brilliant, single-handed move.

There were forward passes from kick formation, and
from close formation, and other plays that tested the met-
tle of Fardale, and were blocked by an instinctive solving
of the riddle at almost the last moment.

O’Day came to build many of his own plays around
Merriwell, confident that they would be well taken care
of. The result was that Merriwell was overworked, and
Dowd watched him anxiously, and wondered if he was
going to last.

The half ended with no scoring on either side. For
the most of it, Fardale had played warily and on the de-
fensive, and they had pricked the bubble of White superior-
ity and found that it was mostly air.

The two teams trotted off the field, White startled and
wondering, and Fardale full of hope and confidence. '

In the gym, the rubbers got busy with the dusty, pant-
ing warriors.

“They’re a husky bunch, those White fellows, I don’t
think!” said Clancy. “Why don’t they sail in and chew
us up? Why don’t they use their beef, instead of their
trickwork ?”

“They're going to, this next half,” said Dowd, coming
in at that moment. “They think they’ve tired you out,
and they’re going to give you a good smashing. Good
work, O’Day! But don’t overwork our best men. Merri-
well, how do you feel?”

Frank looked up drowsily, completely relaxed, in the
hands of the rubber, who was prodding his tired muscles.
“Tiptop, Dowd,” he answered. :
“You're making a record—keep it up. Barr, that was a
fine’effort you made. Plant, what’s the matter with that

shoulder?” —

“Wrenched it a little, that’s all,” answered left tackle
wearily. :

The coach looked at the shoulder sharply, and then let
his eyes dwell on the tense, drawn face of the tackle.

“You've had enough, I think .

“T feel fit as a fiddle, Dowd, and - j

“You wouldn’t last two minutes, Plant. IT’ send in ~
Kess in your place, and—— No, wait a minute.”

Dowd turned thoughtfully to Merriwell.

“Wasn’t Kess the one who started this hoodoo talk,
Merriwell?” he asked.

“He didn’t mean anything by it,” said Frank. “Kess is
a stayer wherever you put him.” .

“We'll use Kess at left tackle, Lowe.
port to the referee.”

Lowe nodded.

“Fellows,” he said, as the squad scrambled back

rt
c
ns

During the second period, th

?

Have him re-—

into

 
“NEW Te ‘TOP WEEKLY.

their clothes, “this is going to be our game.” I’ve got a
hunch.- Just remember, all of you, that good old Presbery
is watching things with a pair of glasses from his win-
dow in barracks. Don’t disappoint him. White may try
to kill us, next half, but they'll find we have more lives
than a cat. I don’t have to say anything more to you.
The Fardale spirit is right on tap, and that’s enough.

“Just one thing more,” added Dowd. “Keep your eye
on the hall. Don’t let them juggle with it, and fool you.”

CHAPTER XI.
THE WINNING SCORE.

The second half opened in smashing style. It looked as
though Dowd had correctly forecasted White’s intentions,
and that the visitors were going to trample over their
foes in an attempt to get at the goal. In their reckless
eagerness, the visitors took a penalty for off-side play,
after holding Fardale for two downs; then secured the
ball again, well into the field.

Then began a furious assault, in which Backus and Lee
crashed into the Fardale line. The smashing drives were
begun, but Fardale tightened magnificently, and the two
backs got through for only short gains. Tomlinson, the
old reliable Tomlinson, broke around tackle and began
eating up the yards,

“It’s all off now!” joyfully shouted a White adherent
from the side lines. ‘“Here’s where we kill ’em!”

The big grand stand echoed with the delight of the
visitors, for the ball was down to the thirty yards. Far-
dale was yielding, little by little, fighting savagely, yet,

_ nevertheless, yielding.

“Hold ’em! Hold ’em!
cadets, chanting wildly.

“Touchdown!” urged the White rooters; “touchdown!”

Dowd looked troubled, and chewed more fiercely at the
end of his cigar. Here was the thing he feared. How
would Fardale withstand the onslaught?

On the twenty-five-yard line, the Fardale fighters braced
resolutely. The gains were shorter, much shorter. Two
yards, and then one yard.

_ It was third down, and seven to go. The tension was
terrific. Fardale was fighting for life, and, at the right
moment, the opposition went wrong.

White’s ball went wild on a forward pass, and before
the error could be rectified, the pigskin was grabbed by
Jakes. Wilkinson retreated as though about to kick. But
he didn’t. Merriwell came sprinting down back of the
line, grabbed the oval on a pass from O’Day, and went
around the end.

As White had fooled Fardale during the first half, so
Fardale was now returning the compliment with inter-
est. Merriwell was going like a limited express before
Waite guessed what was going on.

Bayard, White’s quarter, prepared to do business. If
e; ced failed, then the fat was in the fire.
It was Bayard against Merriwell, and Bayard had heard
_ so much of Merriwell, and had seen so much of him, dur-
ing that game, that the half back must have got on his
nerves.
“Stop him!” pki Weiter 653%

“Go over with it, Merry!” yelled Fardale.

Hold ’em!” implored the

It was near the thirty-five-yard line that half and quar-—

-Merriwell ducked. A hand
He twisted away from it, Bayard

o were due to connect.
gripped his sleeve. .

final period, to retrieve the fortunes of the day.

bigaa himself madly at Merriwell, and the latter dired
clear by a narrow margin.

The stand was in an uproar. The crowd along the gic
lines went into a frenzy. And during the howls ead the
cheering, Chip Merriwell went down the field like 1 comet.
White’s beef and brawn were trailing furiously pehind—
furiously and hopelessly. Merriwell went under the bar
for a touchdown!

The cadets broke loose.
through the grand stand.

“Oh, you Chip Merriwell!” they yelled, in av abandon
of joy.

“By George!” exclaimed Merlin, the banker, wiping the
perspiration off his forehead. “I never saw anything to
beat that. That chap is a whirlwind! How he can run —
and dodge!”

“He made a touchdown!” breathed Maizie happily, and
waved the Fardale colors wildly.

“Dear me!” exclaimed Mrs. Merlin.
pened, Philo?”

“What has happened, Mary?” returned the banker.
‘Why, Fardale has made the only score in the game.”

“But the game isn’t finished yet, is it?”

“Might as well be,” was the emphatic answer.
hasn’t scored, and won’t score—if I’m any prophet.”

Over in barracks, a white-faced cadet leaned over a
window sill, with a pair of binoculars to his eyes. He _
uttered a cry of joy and fell back on his pice, with the |
glasses on the bed beside him.

“Merriwell,” he whispered, “you're a brick!
you'd give a good account of yourself. It’s—it’s a family
trait, and in the blood!”

The cheer leaders, two of them, embraced each other, —
and began to tango. Caps were tossed in mid-air, hand-
kerchiefs were waved, and the Fardale field seemed to be
surrounded by a lot of maniacs.

“Well, ’ll be hanged!” exclaimed a White partisan rue-
fully. “Who'd have thought it? With a patched-up
eleven, too. I’m afraid our boys were overconfident.”

“Just an accident,” growled another of the visitors.
“Game ain’t over yet. Wait. Something else will drop
before the wind-up.”

Right after that, a beautiful goal was kicked, and rt
Fardale joy was even more complete.

‘The period ended, and, during the brief rest, Merriwell.
received the enthusiastic congratulations of his ‘team-
mates,

“Any one else could have done the same thing,”

They began to sing, aud march

“What has hap- —

said
Frank modestly, “if they had had the same chance.” _
“Not on your blessed tintype!” declared the battle-
scared Lowe, smiling brightly through his dust and grime.
“Only one fellow could have done that, and that was
Chip Merriwell.”
Desperately, indeed, did White endeavor, during the

‘The ©

visitors, from being overconfident, went to the other ex-

treme, and became overcautious. a
Fardale came within one of making another Sonmninak

The chance was nipped in the bud by the indefatigable Baad

Tomlinson, however, and up and down the field tte re
struggle raged. ;
White was plainly idourabed: as the slits oead
and they turned none of the plays to their profit; ee
finally, the whistle blew, and the game ended.
The cadets jumped the guard ropes and rushed “for ‘Mee

 

 

“White

I knew ~
NEW TIP TOP WEEKLY.

Dead and O’Day. Both wiiyots were ied up on uni-
formed shoulders and marched triumphantly around the
field,

Meanwhile, after the approved fashion, Fardale got to-
gether and cheered White, and White rounded up and
cheered Fardale.

“Darn you, Merriwell,” laughed Bayard ruefully, taking
Frank’s hand, “you’re some artful dodger, believe me.”

“Well,” laughed Frank, “a fellow has to be a dodger to
get away from you, Bayard. I thought you had me.”

“So did I, and that’s what made me all the trouble.”

The grand stand was emptying, and, as Frank started
wearily for the gymnasium, arm in arm with Clancy and
Kess, he was suddenly confronted by Mr. Merlin and
Maizie. ;

“Here is somebody who wants to congratulate you, Mer-
riwell,” said the banker.

Frank flushed, as his eyes met the bright, admiring eyes
of the girl. :

- “Tt was wonderful, Mr. Merriwell!” declared Maizie.
- “You snatched victory from defeat—and all for the glory
of Fardale.”

“The whole eleven had a hand in that, Miss Merlin,”
said Frank. “One fellow can’t do muth without the rest,
you seaow ss

“T wish your father and your Uncle Dick had been here
to see what happened,” said Merlin. “They'd have been
proud of you, young man.”

With these words ringing in his ears, Merriwell and his
chums went on to the gymnasium. They were tired and

bruised and sore, but the hearts of the Fardale eleven
were light and overflowing with happiness.

Handicapped as they had been, facing a team which
had beaten Franklin by a big score, Fardale had rallied,
and literally had snatched victory from defeat.

It was a day which the military academy would never

forget!

CHAPTER XII,

JOLLIFICATION.

A big bonfire blazed on the parade ground that evening.
‘There had been turkey and cranberry sauce in the mess
hall, and the football squad broke training, and gorged

themselves, and topped off the repast with pie. All the
football fellows were lionized, and made to march around
_ the big fire, and shake hands with their rejoicing school-
mates.

“White came, and saw, and—got left,” said Gordon,
limping through the crowd with crutch and cane. “I guess
it‘s a good thing that a few of us got crippled and dropped
out of the game. It put the rest of you fellows on your
mettle.”

“Nothing like being in the last ditch when you’ve got
to make a fight,” spoke up Jakes.

“Anybody saying anything about a hoodoo?” inquired
Clancy.

A laugh greeted the words.

“Where’s Kess?” asked somebody.

“Here, by shinks,” came promptly from Villum,
ground to) shpare.”

“Ts the worst yet to come, Vallacn? r

_ “So hellup me,” cried Villum, “it came, und vent past,
und nefer touched us.“ Oof course,” he added, “so long
as der rupy vasn’t aroundt, it vas a misdake to oxpect any

“mit

hootoo. Ven ve don’d know someding, und t’ink ve do,
den dere iss drouple mitoudt any oxcuse at all.”

“The Ruby of Allah is in the Fardale bank.”

“Keep your eye on dot pank. I bet you someding it
purns down.”

There was no use ‘eae to convince Villum that the
Ruby of Allah was not a hard-luck gem. He knew it
was, and that was all there was about it.

Dowd was entirely happy and content. He admitted
that he had looked upon’ losing the game almost as a
foregone conclusion, when Presbery was injured, but that
his hopes began to. revive with the good work of O’Day
and the splendid support of Merriwell and the others.

“Tt takes eleven men to make a team, fellows,” said he,
“and when there is a winning every man in the line-up is
entitled to a share in the glory.”

That was what Merriwell had said again and again.
And it was true. There was plenty of glory at Fardale
that day to pass around, and give each fellow his share.

As the big fire burned low, Merriwell suggested that
the football men. pay their respects to Hoover and Pres-
bery. The suggestion was greeted with cheers, and the
victorious warriors tramped away to call on the regular
quarter.

Hoover, his shoulder in bandages, was lying half asleep
in his bed. He roused up when his teammates crowded
in on him.

“What's the row, fellows?” he asked, looking around in
surprise at the many familiar faces.

“We've cleaned up on White Academy,” said O’Day.

“Why,” laughed Hoover, “that’s ancient history, O’Day.
I’ye rejoiced over that victory till I’m worn out. Great
work. I guess,” and a wistful look crossed Hoover's
face, “that you’re the best quarter, barring Merriwell, that
ever played on the Fardale ‘grid.’”

“Yes,” grinned O’Day, “barring Merriwell, Hoover, and
a few more. I was just a makeshift, old man. Next sea-
son, you'll be back on the job.”

Hoover greeted these generous and modest sentiments
with a grateful look.

“I wish to thunder I could have seen what was going
on,” said he. “It’s torture to lie here in bed, helpless,
while the big game of the season is being pulled off. But
the fact that we won did a whole lot to draw the sting.

‘It—it was glorious.”

He shook hands with all of the squad, as they cideled
around the bed, and the crowd filed out of the room for
a call on Presbery.

The captain was sitting up, bolstered by pillows, and his
cheery laugh rang out, as the fellows marched in.

“Here’s the whole gang, by Jove!” he exclaimed. “Say, I.
wonder if you know how good you look te me? Love and
kisses for the bunch. Wow, but it was fine. What do a
few cripples amount to, anyway? Trust the Fardale spirit
to get the whip hand of our troubles.”

“You saw the game?” asked Merry. _

“IT did, you know! I hung over that blooming window
sill till my arms ached. Merriwell, when you made that
touchdown, I wanted to jump out of bed, run over ‘to the
field, and infold you in a brotherly embrace. You're the
goods! So is O’Day. Hang it, so are all of you. I’m
pleased to death—tickled clear through. If there’s a hap-
pier invalid anywhere on this earth than I am, I’d like
his name and address. Shake, will you?’

They gave him their right hands loyally and sachin. 2
j 2

 
NEW TIP TOP WEEKLY.

ately. Then they scandalized barracks by almost raising
the roof with a cheer, in which Lowe took the lead.

“l’'m only the pro tem captain, you know, Pres,” said
- Lowe softly. “You're the real thing in that line, and your
good work made the victory possible.”

“Pleasant,” smiled Presbery, “but not strictly accurate.
However, old man, we'll let the remark stand. It’s enough
to know that old Fardale is still in the ring, and that
proud and boastful White hasbeen fittingly humbled. But
look out for that bunch next year. Merriwell, | am speak-
ing particularly to you and O’Day. You are both marked
up for something big on next season’s team, and I don’t
want you to lose any of your ‘grid’ honors.”

THE END.

' The Ruby of Allah and the mysterious man from the
East continue to play important parts in the story that
you will find in the next issue of this weekly, No. 71, out
December 6th. The story is entitled, “Frank Merriwell,
Junior’s, Winning Run; or, The Wonder of Fardale.”
White and Franklin,* Fardale’s two school rivals for
honors on the track and field, bitter at their defeat at the
hands of Fardale’s eleven, enter teams in a grueling cross-
country run, in which Fardale is also represented. It
proves to be a remarkable tace, and the telling is so won-
derfully done that to read it is almost as good as being
there to see it all, or even to have been among those who
ran it with Chip Merriwell and his chums.

DAVE MANNING, MIDSHIPMAN ;

By Ensign Lee Tempest, U. S. N.
CHAPTER f.

IN THE CARIBBEAN,

“Light ho!”

“Where away, Dave?”

“To starboard——”

“On that island?”

“Sure. A flash—all red-——just now shot up from it.”

“But, Dave, isn’t that peculiar?”

“Peculiar? Holy mackerel, Roddy, it’s mysterious, sin-
ister !”

Both were adi cunt athletic-looking young fellows.
They were midshipmen in the United States navy, as their
natty white uniforms evidenced. They stood on the main
deck of the U. S. S. Virginia, which, with fifteen other
United States men-of-war, was cruising southward
through the Caribbean Sea on a voyage around South
America. It had just gone one bell in the midwatch—

; half after midnight in land phrase—of a tropical moonlit

night,
Dave Manning and Roddy Seabright, the two middies,
had been standing their watch on the main deck. Of a
_ sudden their attention had been drawn to a red light
that flared up from an island on their right. A flash of
red light from a tiny, coral key far out in the Caribbean,
- at midnight, and just as the Atlantic fleet was passing.
_ Small wonder the boys were stirred and excited by it.
The two middies stood gazing at the key. It was the
—— of all those that dotted the Caribbean round about

the moving battleships. The Virginia came abreast of it.
Then another red bebe shot up from the palms in its
center,

“The second flash, Roddy!
hocus-poctis up the first.”

“No; I saw it with these here deadlights.
strange, don’t you think?”

Roddy started. “Great twelve-inchers!” he exclaimed.
He had seen something out of the tail of his eye, It was
another flash of light! ‘This time it was not red, or from
the key. It came from the quarter-deck of the Virginia—
a white light! *

The shipmates wheeled about. A second white streak
of light stabbed the night above the quarter-deck! ie

“Roddy,” said Dave, “there’s something in the wind.
We've seen four lights in five minutes—two red flashes
from that island, two white ones from ouf Own quarter-
deck!”

“What does it mean, Dave?”

“It’s signaling, and between some one on this. ship and
some one on that island.”

“But we haven’t any orders——” ‘

“Of course not! It’s signaling without orders, against
orders!”

“Signaling in secret?”

“Sure as shooting! It’s signaling by some one on board
who’s up to some deviltry!” a

Roddy whistled. “Let’s go aft and see about it.”

“All right.”

Dave led the way. He was tall,

I’m sure now we, didn’t

Confounded

gray-eyed, square-

jawed—spick and span in his white and natty uniform. on

Every inch of him looked a sailor and a fighter. Chubby- i
faced Roddy tiptoed at his heels. The two reached the
end of the superstructure. All the quarter-deck lay be-
fore them. They halted. . aay
Slowly and steadily, the orderly of marines paced his
beat back and forth across the deck before their eyes.
“He can’t have made that light,” whispered Roddy. a
“No; but look sharp! Do you see anything in the
shadow of the turret over there?” By

Roddy gazed toward the great superposed ithe turret |
of the Virginia—a monster steel box. In a moment, he —
shook his head. a

“Bilge me, if I can see anything,” he said, eh

But even as he spoke, from out the shadow into which.
he had been peering, there sprang up a glaring shaft of |
light! It emanated, the boys could see, from a powerful
electric torch. The torch was flashed by a man, short
and squat. His face was a brownish yellow, his eyes
black, and of the shape of almond nuts. He wore the —
white uniform of a mess attendant. te

“Pablo!” gasped both middies. ‘ Genre

Then Roddy turned to Dave. “Why, Davy,” he whis- —
pered, “it's _ the Filipino mess boy in the wardroom i:
mess.”

But Dave never so much as once removed his eye hie
the squat form of the signaler. And he noted in that
brief instant of light that Pablo was staring straight at
the coral key abeam. Then, when all was dark—the light
gone, and Pablo swallowed up by the shadow of the tur-
ret—slowly pacing across the deck came the marine on
sentry duty. He had seen ‘nothing of the light, if his
actions counted for anything: While he was pacing aw
from behind - from the turret’s shadow, pti flar

 
NEW TIP TOP WEEKLY.

Roddy breathed: “Dave, what can he mean by sig-

naling in secret like this?”

“He’s a spy!”

Dave quickly answered him: “What else can it mean?”

Seabright gasped. “A spy?” he hoarsely whispered. “A
spy on the Virginia?”

Dave was looking toward the island.

“Roddy! To starboard—the key—look !”

Roddy did so, and in time to see a red light burst
up from the palms. Expecting a move from Pablo, the
middies whipped about. Sure enough, before their eyes, a
dark figure glided out of the shadow. Silently and swiftly
as a snake, he made across the moonlit deck toward the

cvstern.

“It’s Pablo!”

“Sssh!” warned Dave. “Watch ¢losely.
ing leads up to something.” (

The middies sprang forward to the shadow of the tur-

_ ret. Pablo was at the stern. A red light shot up from
the key. The signal for him to proceed, Pablo lost no
time heeding it. Up went his hand above his head. It
‘clasped a black something that glistened in the moon-
light. This, with all his strength, Pablo hurled out into
the sea. Then he turned and raced up the deck. With-
out the sentry seeing him, and all in a moment, he gained
the shadow of the turret. Still he continued running.
Unknowingly, he was heading straight for the two mid-
dies in the darkness,

j

All this signal-

“Quick, Roddy, dodge!” cried Dave, and he leaped’ to

one side. ; .
Before Seabright could do likewise, Pablo struck him
full tilt. Both went down. The Filipino was the first
upon his\ feet, and with all haste he got away.

/

f

CHAPTER II.
A SWIM INTO TROUBLE.

_ Midshipman Dave Manning must now take the deck. It
was his trick at the wheel. Now was the time for him to
interfere, to take a hand, in the mysterious goings-on of
the night. He would regain the object Pablo, the Filipino,
had hurled into the Caribbean. He believed that object
contained secrets of the United States Pablo had stolen.
In any case, he knew that it was in some way important
to the Filipino, and that it was intended for his confeder-
_ ate on the key.

_ “But it will never reach him,” he determined. (

And he dashed across the deck. As he went, he hastily
dieaviled some of his clothing. He was clad in his shirt

and trousers only when he reached the stern. A good
half cable’s length to stern—gleaming in the moonlight,
bobbing on the waves—was the black object. Toward it
in a beautiful dive sprang Dave Manning.

“Great flying fishes, what can he mean?” exclaimed
Roddy, who reached the stern in time to see Dave bob
to the surface and take a few rapid strokes to clear him-

_ self of the sucking propeller.
Then Dave shook the water out-of his face and flashed
back a smile at his messmate. Dave was now in his
element. He had been one of the best swimmers in the
natatorium or “water gym” at Annapolis. There he had
1 for the pleasure of the thing and, occasionally, for

a9!

s. Now, however, he was launched on a swim for a
‘prize than any he had ever competed for. The

hen Dave descried it, was a good distance off.

capture me,

2r
It was just topping a wave, which the Virginia had stirred
up in its wake. As Dave watched it floated farther and
farther away from him.

“It’s being drawn along by some current,”
“Tll have to exert myself to overhaul it.”

He fell to swimming. With the clean, easy, machine-
like strokes of the expert swimmer, he cut the water.
His long, slim body glided along like a racing sheil, dis-
turbing only ripples. At every stroke, he gained slightly
upon the object. It was only a question of time, indeed,
when he would overhaul it. He swam and swam. At last,
after he knew not how long, he saw it bobbing just ahead. —
Then he redoubled his efforts. ‘He fairly shot through the
water. The little distance separating him from his quarry
dwindled rapidly. Ten feet; then seven, five, three—and
his extended hand grasped the object.

It was a bottle!

Up to this time, every action, every thought of Dave
had been intent on the pursuit. He had noticed neither
the distance nor the direction he had swum. Thus it
chanced that, at the very moment of his success, he
was startled by the grounding of his bare toes upon a
sandy beach!

His heart stopped beating for a moment. Scrambling
to his feet, he found he stood but waist-deep in the
water.

“Great guns, where am I?”

He looked about. Before him lay a stretch of white
sandy beach. Beyond that, a tiny clump of palms.

“An island!” he cried. “The island!”

He waded ashore, and saw that he was, surely enough,
on the island whence had flashed the red signal lights.
Presently there reached his ears these words, called out
by some unseen person:

“Oyo san! Oyo san!”

The hail was uttered, Dave was almost certain, by the
man who had made those signals, Pablo’s confederate.
It came not from the island, but from somewhere out in
the Caribbean.

As he heard it, Dave stood tense and motionless. Then
he looked about. Out on the water lay a long yawl. In
it were four men, two working at the oars. It was headed
straight for the island and moving at a good clip.

“The dickens!” muttered Dave. “I’m in for it. Here
comes Pablo’s confederates—not one, as I thought, but
four.. Well, they'll want this bottle, of course—that’s
what they’re out there looking for—and they’ ll want to
know, too, what I’m doing here.”

The man in the bow of the approaching yawl rose to
his feet. Making a megaphone of his hands, he shouted
something in a peculiar tongue.

“Japanese!” Dave exclaimed, and whistled softly. “So
Pablo, our Filipino mess boy, and his four confederates,
are Japanese. ‘Yes, Japanese and spies!”

Several years before, while a “plebe” in the naval acad-
emy, the middy had studied the Japanese Janguage. Now
he was able to interpret the hail. It meant “We are
coming. Be patient.”

he reasoned,

Dave muttered: rt
say you’re welcome. For, great guns, what'll I do when
‘we’ come up? I’m caught here like a rat in a trap. If
I swim off, they'll overhaul me. If I remain here, they'll ue

little key. Well, it looks like it’s all up with Davy. e :
Again one of the men in the boat began to call out.

 

“We're coming, are we? Well, I can’t

And goodness knows, I can’t hide on this
pet 7 NEW TIP TOP WEEKLY.

“fn a minute we will reach you, O chief,” he shouted.
“De patient, Oyo san.”

Wi th startled eyes Dave looked at the Japs. “I’m a goat

they take me for some one else,” he said to himself.
‘Oyo is a man’s name in Japan. I'll be blowed if that’s
not Pablo’s real name. They take me for him. But
why? I can see them plain as day.”

The moonlight played full upon them. They were short,
squat fellows. All were well-nigh naked. Their brown
skins glistened with sweat, like scales of fish, in the
moonlight.

“Lucky for you, Manning,” murmured the middy, “that
the moon is at your back and your face is in shadow.
It’s because of that they think you are Pablo. To all
appearances, they expected him to come with his bottle.”

An idea struck the quick-witted lad. . And above his
head he raised the bottle. It glistened in the moonlight.
The yawl was quite near now. The man in the bow—
the one who had been hailing—could plainly make out
the bottle.

“Ah! you have it,” he cried. “Then you must have all.
We have outwitted the to-gins. Banzai!”

And he fairly crowed with delight.

“Tt’s full speed ahead!” said Dave.

And out he stepped boldly into the water. Without a
sign of hesitation or fear, he waded toward the onrushing
_ yawl. Now the boat seemed fairly to fly toward Dave,
the oars dipping quick and sharp over the sides, and the
rowers grunting out their wind after each stroke. As
the water reached to Dave’s armpits, the boat shot within
four yards of him. The rowers rested on their oars. The
Jap in the bow reached down over the gunwale to grasp
Dave.

Then Dave Miser of ie Virginia, acted! He made
a move for safety and the open sea. He dived in the
water. He skimmed headfirst beneath the onrushing yawl!
The Jap in the bow clutched at nothing. The men on the
thwarts, upon the point of backing water, dropped the
oars with a splash, and, in confusion, sprang to their
feet. As for the fourth, the one at the tiller, he must have
lost his head completely. For the yawl, following its
own sweet will, sped onward till it brought up upon
the beach.

Meantime, Dave was swimming Laue water. At last
he rose to the surface. He found he had put the key a
good space behind him. In one glance he took in the

lay of the land. He chuckled, then turned to swim away.

At that moment a roar of voices came from behind him.
He looked back. One of the Japs—he who had been
in the bow, and who appeared to be the leader—was
standing on the beach and pointing at the middy. The
rest were huddled together in the boat.

For a moment all were speaking Then all, save the
man on the beach, were silent. Dave gave ear.

“Nippon denji,” he heard. “Men of Japan, we have been
duped. This is not our chief, Oyo.
American, a spy!”.

“The trick’s up!” thought the middy. “But I face
now only what I faced at the outset, capture by these
Japs. And maybe, if I swim like sixty, I can escape
from them. They’ re stranded on that key.”

Dave began swimming. Just then came, like thé baying
of hounds at the kill, a cry from the rear.

“The spy is escaping, and with the bottle!”

It is a to-gin, an

The next instant a report sounded, and a something
spit by the middy’s head. Dave’s heart jumped into
his throat. He heard a second crack. A second ‘bullet
sang close by. Then he thought it time to disappear, so ©
he dived. When he bobbed to the surface, a short time
later, and the din left his ears, he became aware that all
firing had ceased. He glanced back for the cause. It
was apparent. The yawl was no longer grounded on
Signal Island. It was making toward him as fast as the
two rowers on the thwarts could propel it!

Dave fell to swimming as he had never swum before!
But quickly the yawl overhauled him. Shouts and com-
mands, the creaking and splashing of oars, and the loud
panting of men rang in his ears. And then, as the yawl
shot down to within six feet of him, the Jap in the bow
grasped an oar and leaped upon the prow. There he stood,
the oar poised in his hands, as the yawl rushed down upon
the gamely swimming middy.

CHAPTER III.
A STRANGE COMMISSION.

At this juncture happened the most unexpected of
things. A long beamy rowboat, manned by a dozen or —
more men in white, of a sudden flashed out from under
the lee of a coral key to port. It shot, swift as a torpedo,
across the intervening stretch of water. It crashed, bows —
on, plump into the side of the Japs’ boat!

The yawl staggered out of that collision a total wreck. —

Its port gunwale was completely stove in. Its port oars
were smashed to little bits. And the Jap in the bow—
he that had cut so. menacing a figure—was knocked heels
over head into the water. ‘4

“Well, I am in the lucky class,” murmured Dave, as ©
he was helped aboard the new-come boat. It was a life-
boat from the Virginia, with Roddy Seabright in com-
mand,

“Davy! Who are those fellows?” he cried. “What were
they doing? Putting over the Pablo trick, running you
down?”

But Dave, without a word, slumped down into the fore
sheets.

“Say, old fellow,” Roddy piped merrily on, “see sian
lambs they’ve become since we stove in their old scow.”

Dave had not strength to move a muscle, but had he ~
looked back he would have seen a sight well worth seeing.

The Japs’ yawl was returning to Signal Island. But it
looked doubtful if it could weather that far. It was well-_
nigh foundering. And its panic-stricken crew was having —
the time of its life trying to keep it afloat. 5
What with the fresh night air blowing and the colic a
spray dashing in his face, Dave gradually livened as —
they rowed back to the waiting fleet. By the time they _
slid up to the side of the Virginia, he was himself once”
more. j
He clambered to the deck unaided. Lining the ae
were most of his shipmates.
of Captain Salter. The captain was making toward him! nt
“Man your rails, Davy, old boy,” Roddy whispered, at
his elbow. “Here comes the Old Man,” .
The “Old Man,” as the captain is called by his oe
was smiling as he approached Dave. “So it was you that
fell overboard, Mr. Manning,” he said. “Well, you’
none the worse for the bath, I hope?”

 

Beyond Dave caught sight
NEW TIP TOP WEEKLY. cir aay

“All the better, sir,”
The captain gasped.
naked!” he exclaimed.

Dave could not deny it;

doing so.

“You didn’t fall in, sir”” The Old Man was jumping
at conclusions. “You went in of your own accord. Now,
. didn’t you?” . :

-. Dave did not reply. He saw, that the captain regarded
him with suspicion. He stepped nearer the commander.
“Captain,” he said, in a low voice, “things have hap-
- pened to me this night. Could I report to you in private
—in your cabin, say? It is important, sir!”

And so it was arranged. They were making across the
deck when a dapper little man broke from the group of
officers aft and blocked their way.

“Captain, you surely aren’t going to tow Mr. Manning
_ away without first allowing him to make a change—well,
of uniform,” said he.

And thus it chanced that Dave was instructed “to do

what the doctor says, Then report in the cabin.” Dave
saluted. He went below with Roddy Seabright, who was,
as he himself said, “just aching for the news!”
Practical and yet luxurious; that describes most Ameri-
can naval commanders’ cabins. Captain Salter’s was like
the run of them. The captain was seated, when Daye en-
tered, in a roomy swivel chair. A large mahogany table
_was before him. An electric lamp on the table furnished
the sole illumination. Dave saluted and waited for his
commander to speak.

“Why, Manning, you're half

besides, there was no need of

“Now, Mr. Manning, what of these unusual happen-

ings of to-night?”

The Old Man tilted the light full upon the middy. W
one hand grasping the edge of the table, the other holding
the bottle behind his back. his eyes gazing toward the
captain, Dave stood in silence for a moment. Then from
somewhere forward drifted, like a signal, the melodious
sound of “two bells”—and Dave began.

- “Mr. Seabright and I, sir, were on ‘the starboard side
f the main deck. It had just gone one bell. Suddenly
we saw a red light from a coral key abeam. Then an-
other. Then, sir, we saw a white light from our own

-quarter-deck !” .

Sas a clear, concise manner, Dave brought his story ica
o the present. The captain was violently moved. He
sked for the bottle. In a moment, such was his hurry,
¢ had extracted a tightly rolled cylinder of paper. He

ad no. more than glanced at this than he threw it upon

“Here's a pretty kettle of fish!” he daclaimned. oA

retty ES A paper with a lot of scrawls on it we can’t

tage was looking at the paper. “I can read it, sir,”

1e announced,

The Old Man was. surprised.
ee

Also, he was highly

With

“What might you call the meeaetice P” he.

napolis by his country to become a naval officer. Now, |
spreading the paper on the table, Dave studied it. Mo-
ments passed like minutes. Duily the engines throbbed
far down in the hold and the ship vibrated all over like
a living thing. Save for the beat of the waves on the
sides, and the occasional tread of a sentry on the deck
above, not a sound disturbed the stillness of the cabin.
Captain Salter was intently watching. He was jerking
at the ends of his mustache. It was a habit he had when
excited.
Dave snapped erect.
“Read, Manning, read!
And Dave read:

“On board the U. S. S. ‘Virginia’

“Matsu Yama: Am sending with this message copy -
of secret code of U. S. navy. A very important document.
Get it to Tokyo as soon as you can. Do not fail. Copy
is only one . a

“T have it, sir,” he reported.
And let us know the worst.”

“The secret naval code! Man, where is it?”

Dave was at a loss. He began shaking the bottle. “If
it’s there this will fetch it!”

The Old Man broke the bottle on the edge of the table.
A latge wad of paper was disclosed. One glance at its
contents, which were also in Japanese, sufficed to show
Dave that it was the copy of the secret naval code Pablo
referred to;

The captain breathed a sigh of relief. when he heard.
“Well, thank heavens, they didn’t get it,” he said. “Now
continue with the message, Mr. Manning.”

Dave read:

“Have all ready for me at Rio. I shall have no time
to spare when reach there. Intend to skip out with all
documents men are now collecting. One more order.
Mark it carefully. Fulfill to letter. Telegraph Kuri-no-
Kuroka, Callao, Peru, to await my coming, and be pre-
pared to do all necessary for me.

“Japanese spies are at work on our ships. They are
stealing our most important documents, our most vital
secrets. The safety, the security of a nation, depends upon
our stopping them!” It was Captain Salter who spoke.
He was addressing himself not so much to Dave as to
the cabin. He was thinking aloud, in other words, as he
paced up and down.

“What can we do, sir? We must do something !”
fore he was aware of it, Dave had broken in.

“That’s it!” cried the Olid Man. “We must do some-
thing. We must stop, outwit, balk these Japs and the
spy system behind them!”

“But how, sir?”

Through this very man, Oyo, I believe—we know who
he is——~

“A. fellow disguised as a Siti and serving in the
humble capacity of a mess attendant.”

“Yes, but the chief, the brains, of these men!” The
captain picked up the message as if to read it. “He says
here that he will gather together all the documents stolen _
by his men and skip out with them at Rio de pee
Isn’t that it?” ; ; -

“Yes, sir.” : ae

“Which means that iia we reach Rio, he will have all 5
the documents in his possession.

Be-

.

and save ae day.” y : m ter Lae

4 Er Ke

 

Now, if we capture him -
_ just as he goes to skip away, we will get all the documents
NEW. TIPS TOP “WEERLY.

“You plan, then——”

“To leave him go about free and unhampered, collect-
ing all the papers his men can steal.”

“But to have him watched?”

“Yeés, constantly under surveillance.”

“And then——”

“Then, when all is ready for him to slip his cable—why
then, Manning, we'll bag him and all the documents, and
turn defeat into victory in one stroke!”

And the Old Man thumped the table in his enthusiasm.

“But who are to carry out these plans?” asked Dave,
curious enough. The same moment he felt the captain's
hand on his shoulder.

“Why, you, my boy,” the Old Man said. “You who
have done most to unearth this plot. You will spy upon
this chief of spies!”

Dave saluted. A few more instructions and he left
the cabin.

CHAPTER IV.

BATTLE WITH A SHARK.

“Pablo.”

Pan me

“You wish to see me?”

“Si. Pablo, heem want to know, sar, what u’form——”

“Oh, the uniform for the reception.”

Dave looked down at the speakers. He was seated on
the superstructure deck overlooking the main deck. And
here Lieutenant Davis was talking with Pablo, the mess
boy.

The fleet lay at anchor in the harbor of Port of Spain,
Trinidad, the first port of call in the cruise. It had ar-
rived several days before. That afternoon it would put
' to sea-again not to stop till Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil, was
reached. Although the date was December 20th, the sun
was shining as warm and brightly as on a day in June.
It was so warm, in fact; that Manning had come up from
the steerage for a breath of fresh air. There was to be
a reception on one of the battleships early that afternoon.
And Pablo, in his capacity of mess attendant, wanted to
know the proper uniform to lay out for Lieutenant Davis.
“Hanged if I know,” said Davis. He turned to the
ship’s doctor, popularly known as “Microbes,” with whom
he had been conversing before Pablo had appeared. “Do
you know, doc?”

“Not I. You'll have to ask some other line officer,. or
consult the uniform circular.”

Davis looked at Pablo. “Can you read?” he asked.

' The spy started. “Read? Heem, Pablo?” He pointed
questioningly at himself.

Davis nodded.

“Ah, no, sar!” Pablo smiled broadly.

“Well,” muttered the middy on the deck above, “who
' would believe that this humble servant, this ignorant
Filipino that can neither read nor write, is the head of
the Japanese spies ‘aboard this fleet? He’s a consummate
rascal, that’s what!”

In the broad daylight Pablo now looked to Dave much
like an orang-utan—that huge monkey which is said to
most resemble man. His shoulders were disproportion-
ately broad for such a squat frame. And his arms flapped
down from these almost to his knees.

In the meanwhile the officers had resumed their conver-
sation. They had turned their back on the spy, com-
pletely ignoring him,

- thought Dave.

Said one: “There are some mighty mysterious go-
ings-on aboard this old tub.”

Said the other: “Yes, and it has Jeaked out that some
important documents have been lost, perhaps stolen.”

Dave started. “Great guns! this is what they shouldn’t
speak of in the presence of that spy.’ For Pablo had
pressed nearer the two officers. “Now I see it all,”

believe him only a faithful and ignorant Filipino who
knows nothing outside of his duties as a mess attendant.
So, in his hearing, they unguardedly speak of important
naval secrets. If he hears anything further about these
papers, it’ll be\all up with the captain’s plans.

on stealing the papers. We can never round them up,
if he escapes. I’d better warn them!”

Dave drew near the rail. The two officers and Pablo
were just below. Lieutenant Davis was saying:

“It looks stormy. The Old Man had him on the mat
in his cabin three nights ago.”

“You're all wrong, Davis,’ Microbes interposed.
ning isn’t in trouble. He’s a fine, upright lad-——”

“Yes, like him myself,” admitted the lieutenant.
doctor, can you explain?” -

“Well, ’'m no detective, but this I do know.”

“What’s that?”

“Dave Manning is in with the Old Man—in good and
confidential, mark me, for a middy.”

“Man-

“But,

Dave hesitated. At present the officers’ convention was _

dangerous, but hardly enlightening. Perhaps, he thought,

“He has these officers entirely duped. They

He'll be- g
come alarmed and leave instanter, while his men will go

s

it would be wise to let matters take their course and watch

what effect they would have on the spy. He listened.
“But why was he closeted with the Old Man after he
fell overboard——”
“But he didn’t fall. He jumped.”
“Jumped! But why, man?”
All unconscious of the dark, eager face a few inches ee

hind his head, of the interested listener at his back, the |

dapper little doctor said:

“Ym sure you'll laugh at me, Davis, because of what
I believe Manning went into the Caribbean for.” ats

“And what was that?”

Dave gripped the rail.
through his clenched teeth.
stop them.”

But before he could interrupt, Microbes burst out:

“Well, what he had in his hand when he came on board,
what he brought to the captain’s cabin was——” .
“A bottle!”

Strange, it was Pablo, the spy, who spoke!
fear and impatience the words had escaped him. If a 12-

“The old women!” he gritted,

“They'll spoil all if I don’t —

Through —

inch shell had dropped in their midst, the two officers ts

could not have been more startled.

They swung upon the spy.. He recoiled. The guard
rails were down! And he stepped backward off the deck,
shot head over heels downward, and, with a splash, clunget
into the water!

The harbor of Port of Spain, Trinidad, is notorious tor
its huge, man-eating sharks. In olden times one or two.
of these wolves of the sea were licensed by the British
government to stop sailors from deserting its ships” by
swimming ashore. For the past few days scores of them
had been darting about the American fleet on the look
for. refuse, or Bearer men.

A

 
. fin. It was cutting through the water with

NEW TIP TOP WEEKLY. | 25

So it fell that, no sooner had Pablo struck the water,
than Dave, on the superstructure deck above, saw signs
of a shark. All that was visible of it was its dorsal
the speed
‘of a locomotive not a hundred feet away. It was making
straight for the spot where the spy had gone down!

“In a minute he’s a goner!” thought Dave. “I must save
him.”

He pulled his jackknife from his pocket. Quickly he
-unclasped its longest and sharpest blade. Then with this
grasped in his right hand, amid resounding cries of
“Man overboard!” into the sea he leaped. The shark was
rushing toward him on its way to the Jap. He shot
below its path. As it flashed above his head, up he sprang
in the water and planted his knife full to the haft in its
white belly, its one vulnerable point.

A deep, long, ugly gash was ripped by its own impetus.
From this gushed forth black-red blood, which dyed the
water about. For some yards past the middy the man-
eater shot. Then it turned, a vicious, maddened, wounded
monster of the deep. It turned from its purpose of attack-
ing the Jap, only to come back like a thousand furies
against Manning.

To turn it upon himself and so give the spy a chance to
escape, that was Dave’s purpose in wounding the monster.
And so now he was ready for the rush of the shark to-
- ward him. He dropped down in the water, as, with jaws
snapping, the wounded wolf of the sea shot toward him.
Then up again he leaped as it streaked above him, and
once more planted his knife in its belly.

That won the fight for Dave. For the shark, with two
ugly seams in its belly, now dashed away from its strange
and powerful antagonist. Suddenly, it ceased its mad
scurry. It rose to the surface and there it floated, ex-

hausted and dying.

Meanwhile, Dave had risen to the surface and struck
out for an awning-covered launch, the craft nearest to him.
He, was eager to get out of the shark-infested water.

Pablo was holding to the side of the launch, when the
middy swam up. But the next moment he was gone. And
the next, Dave suddenly felt his leg grasped in a viselike
clutch!

_ “Great heavens, a shark!” he gasped.

He believed his leg was in the jaws of another man-
eater. He felt himself being pulled down. He held
tightly to the side of the launch. At that moment he
looked down. The water was clear. And what was his
astonishment, not to say relief, to see that he was in the
grasp of a man, That man was Pablo, the spy!
~ “Good Lord,” thought Dave, “what can he mean? Does
_ he want to drag me down and kill me beneath the surface,

where nobody can see?” :

‘The question was never answered. For just then a
number of jackies on the launch grasped Dave by the
shoulders and lifted him and Pablo, too, out of the water.

~ But the man for whom Dave had battled with a shark
Ss to save must have feared to enter the same launch with
the middy after his dastardly trick. For, once poor Dave
was out of his clutches, he turned from the launch and
swam away. !
Manning was totally exhausted. Otherwise, he would
have seen to it that the spy was put aboard the Virginia.
‘Dave certainly did not want him to get ashore and
escape, now that he knew all. But it so chanced, or rather
Pablo so fixed it, that a shore launch, one of several that

were about, picked him up. And he went chugging toward
Port of Spain, as Dave, a wet and crumpled figure, was
carried aboard the Virginia by the jackies of the launch.

CHAPTER V.
A RIOT IN THE STEERAGE,.

“Great Scott, Manning! What’s up?”

Dave had just staggered into the “steerage country;” as
the junior officers call their quarters. ‘Two middies, an
ensign, and an assistant surgeon—the room’s occupants—
had leaped to their feet at sight of him, Roddy Sea-
bright was one of them.

“Good lordy, Dave, what’s happened to you?” he asked.

Dave stuttered: “I fell in—I mean, I jumped into the
water.”

“Why, Davy, you certainly look it.”

“Weather too warm for you, Manning?” asked the
young surgeon, Garnet Holmes by name.

Dave feebly shook his head. “Shark,” was all he said.

The others looked at each other.

“He’s sick,” said one.

“You bet,” said another.

“He looks bad, Roddy,” from a third.

At this Seabright motioned Holmes, the assistant sur-
geon. “Sherlock,” said he, “let’s put him to bed.”

Every one present knew that Roddy spoke in all seri-
ousness. And so it was done. No sooner had Dave's
head touched<the pillow than he dozed off into a peaceful
sleep. His exertions of the morning had been too much
for him.

An hour or so later he awoke. For a few moments he
lay perfectly quiet, collecting his thoughts. He heard
shouts and laughter from the mess room. He wondered
whether Pablo was on board the Virginia. He got out
of bed and opened the door. Garnet Holmes met him.
The young surgeon had become filled with importance
over his new patient, he had so few. He shoved Dave
back into the room and closed the door.

“Why, Manning, you must rest yourself,” he said.
back to bed. You were hardly able to stand.”
“When I came in, Sherlock. Now I’m all over that.”

Holmes saw that the middy was determined to remain
out of bed. “All right,” he said, wisely enough. “Dress
up quickly and come into the mess room. The boys are
waiting for you.”

Dave arrayed himself in a fresh suit of white. Then,
spick and span as though nothing had occurred, he stepped
into the mess room.

“Ah, here the conquering hero comés!” assailed his
ears. “Dave Manning, the premier high diver and cham-
pion swimmer of old Ann, ladies and meal tickets, will
now tell why he took a — as we were about to leave
Trinidad.” f

It was Roddy Seabright, perched upon a center table,
and acting as master of ceremonies.

“Hear! Hear!” shouted some of his minions about.

And others: “Oyez! Oyez!”

Then every one of the four—two middies, one ensign,
and the assistant surgeon—burst out laughing. The funny
part of it was that each laughed at his own joke or near
joke.

Dave laughed with them.
marines, eh?” he said.

Master of Ceremonies Roddy Seabright was displeased

}

“Go

“You want to tell it to the

 
ee. Sit es ‘NEW TIP TOP WEEKLY.

at this. “Don’t you mind, younker, who we tell it to.
Just you tell it, that’s all.”

“Tf it’s worth it,’ put in one middy, Cub Lawrence by
“name, “we may, yes, we may tell it to the Old Man him-

self.”

Dave lifted his hand. “Fellows, that’s just the person J
want to tell my story to first. 1 promise you, though, I'll

repeat it to you after——”

“What?” |

“Won't tell us?”

“Why it’s insubordination.”

“We'll court-martial you-——

“For disrespect to your superiors.”

The place was in an uproar. Everybody was talking
and all at the same time.

“And who’s the Old Man?” shouted Cub Lawrence,
“T repeat it, messmates, who’s the Old Man that he should
hear this story before us——” Ya)

“The pride of the navy-———”

“The gallant four——”

“The battle-scarred quartet that has won more battles
by its lonely than the Old Man ever had a hand in.”

“Sure,” said Dave, “sham battles, fist fights.”

And he turned to leave, amid a) gale of laughter at the
expense of Roddy Seabright, upon whom he had so clev-
erly turned tables by his little interposition.

Roddy was “sore.” “Fellows!” he cried,
escape!”

His idea was taken up instantly by the “bunch.”

“Guard the door,” cried one.

“We'll make him come through.” /

“Sherlock, you will cross-examine him.”

“At him, all hands, at him!” \

A rush was made to commarid the way to freedom
and every other way, in fact. What else might have hap-
pened is not known, for just at this interesting juncture,
the captain’s orderly thrust his head in the doorway.

“Midshipman Manning,” he: called.

“Here,” answered Dave, and. every one else.

“The captain wishes to speak to you, sir.”

Then followed a hurly-burly.

“Wishes to speak to a middy!”.

“Great flying fishes!”

“Oh, my Re

“Bilge me for a barnacle!”

But Roddy was still huffed hessne he had not heard

Dave’s story.

“You're an old sea cow,- evs Manning, that’s what
you are!” he blurted. —

“Sorry, boys, but I must be going,” smiled Dave.

And the “bunch” chorused: “No one’s a-stopping of
_ you, lad!”

”

“don’t let him

TO BE CONTINUED,

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A LANGUAGE

AND A DIALECT.

Without going into the question of the origin of lan-
guage, we find that whenever two human beings are

thrown together a spoken means of communication or lan-

guage grows up; that whenever a family is isolated a fam-
ily language is generated; that when the family sepa-
“rates into many distinct families they carry with them

some general and various particular forms of the original

_ family speech. Wars, especially civil wars, conquests, de-

\

feats, changes of environment due to immigration and
emigration, and contact with others sprung from a dif-_
ferent original family, produce harsher changes, till the —
groups become mutually unintelligible. It is at this point —
that the old dialects may be considered to become lan-
guages. Thus, dialects may be defined to be varieties of
speech which are usually mutually intelligible; while lan-
guages are the more widely differing varieties which are —
mutually unintelligible.

A DUST GUN.

A Japanese soldier has invented a gun which enables
the possessor to send “a cloud of blinding dust” into the
eyes of a foe at a distance of twelve feet. It is said that
the poor foe is thereby absolutely deprived of sight, and,
therefore, of course, at the mercy of his assailant.

THE LARGEST TOMBSTONE.

Probably the largest tombstone in the world is that of
the late Henry Scarlett, of Upson County, Georgia.

Scarlett was very wealthy, and noted for his misan- —
Why, no —

thropic tendencies. He led the life of a hermit.
one knew. : ee
Several years before his death he selected a monster
bowlder of granite, one hundred by two hundred and fifty —
feet in dimension for a tombstone, and had it appropri-—
ately lettered by a marble cutter. ‘
A cave fitted up as a roomy tomb was excavated under
the huge bowlder, Scarlett himself superintending the —
work. | | :
After his death, neighbors, relatives. and friends car-
ried the remains and deposited them under the rock, ace
cording to his directions.

SATURDAY BATHING.

Most barbarians, judged by modern standards, were |
anything but cleanly in their personal habits. In England, |
France, and Germany bathing was an almost unknown
custom until after the Crusades. The pilgrims from the —
East brought home with them ideas of the bath as help
in the treatment of disease, and bathrooms were gradu-
ally introduced into the hospitals. Fron the hospitals the
ideas of bathing spread generally. People who had been —
treated there saw the value of keeping the body clean, in
order to resist disease. The great plague that swept over
Europe in the early years of the fourteenth Seattry, Gee
to teach this lesson.

By the fifteenth century there was scarcely a taverns ay

‘that did not possess well-patronized public bathing estab-

lishments, although it was not until the seventeenth cen-
tury that the Turkish bath was introduced, and not ‘until
the eighteenth century that sea bathing, so common amon;
the American Indians, was tried experimentally,

Saturday was chosen as bathing time, and the reason.
not difficult to imagine. On Sunday everybody was com-
pelled to go to church, whether he would or not. As
Moslem in the East bathed before entering the mosque,
so did the medieval man before entering his church, onl
he must take his bath on Saturday afternoon, in order
to be clean the following day. There was even a dis.
tribution of bath money to the children whose pate
were unable to pay for their bathe —Exchange. rigs 3

 
ee eta ee a

NEW TIP TOP WEEKLY.

POWs Ireiio OF INTERES I.

 

Field of Fiery Opals Found in Nevada.

A valuable discovery of opals in Nevada is reported by
the United States geological survey. The opal field is in
Humboldt County, thirty-five miles from a post office or
town.

Douglas B. Sterrett, for the geological survey, visited
the field a few weeks ago, and reports that it has been
very slightly developed, but has probably yielded over
twenty thousand dollars’ worth of rough gems, a few
of them worth several hundred dollars each, and many
worth from fifty to two hundred dollars.

The clay in which the opals are found is sticky and

like gumbo, when moist, but on drying, it crumbles. Pick
and shovel, with horse scrapers, are required for surface
“mining, and probably the pick and shovel will also suf-
fice for underground mining.
- Sterrett declares that the best gem opal from Virgin
Valley is unexcelled in variety and brilliance of fire and
color by any opal known. The cut gems exhibit won-
derful flashes of green, blue, yellow, and red, of various
shades.

African Chief’s Son at Harvard.

Among the many interesting students who enter Harvard |

from foreign countries each year, the present freshman
class contains one whose case is entirely unique in the
annals of the college. .

The new student, who found his way to Harvard through
a strange train of circumstances, is Pienyano Gbe Wolo,
son of a savage African chieftain, whose tribe has no
written language. Wolo was first attracted from follow-
ing the ordinary semisavage life of his people three years
ago when his friend Dihdwe Two returned from a jour-
“ney to America with fascinating descriptions of its won-
derful complex cities, of Harvard University, and the city
of Boston.

Wolo’s friend also narrated the career of William H.
Lewis, the colored man who made himself famous a few
“years ago as a great football center on the Crimson team,
-and who has since been the first of his race to secure the
position of assistant United States district attorney. He
‘also described the success of other colored men who had
come to Harvard to seek education, and as Wolo caught
the inspiration of these achievements, he determined to
go to the great institution of learning in America and rise
through its means above the unpromising state of his sur-
-roundings.

He set out from his home with practically no resources
-and with only a vague idea of what difficulties lay before
him. He worked for weeks to accumulate sufficient money
to take him to a port in Germany, and from there he
came to New York-as cabin boy on a steamer.

_ On nearing his goal, he learned that a preparatory course
was necessary before he could enter Harvard, so he worked

‘in New York for several weeks, meanwhile making in-
“quiries about preparatory schools, and was eventually en-
\ rolled as a student at the Mount Hermon Academy. , There

took high honors while working his way, and assimi-—

' ated the English Jangrfage with eRrene ent rapidity.

vard, and is now established as a freshman, confident that
he, also, will be able to make his way.

The teachers at Mount Hermon regarded him as a men-
tal prodigy. He has withdrawn to a quiet house some dis-
tance from the “Yard,” and will give close attention to his
studies in the physics and chemistry department, during
the first year. He intends to specialize in these subjects,
and, when he graduates, will return to Africa and devote
himself to the education of his tribe.

He is not a man of large stature, as one might expect,
for the close attention which he has had to give to the
combined demands of his school work and of earning his.
living have prevented him from taking active part in ath-
letics. He hopes to be able to go out for the track team
if time permits him later in the year.

He has established himself in a partnership with two
other colored boys at Harvard in a cleaning and pressing
establishment, which attracts a large patronage from the
students.

One of his colleagues in the business venture is a fresh-
man from Barbados, who has a career which is almost
as interesting as that of Wolo. The Barbados boy has a
name quite English, however, Bertie W. H. Davis, and his
father is not a big chieftain, but an ordinary tailor, who
has taught his trade to his son. Davis worked his way
through Exeter, where he gained high scholastic honors,
and is now planning to work his way through both Har-
vard College and the law school. When he finishes his edu-
cation he intends to go back to Barbados and assist in
establishing educational institutions for the use of the com-
mon people who have no chance for study under the pres-
ent régime of a few private schools.

The two freshmen have for their partner, friend, and
adviser A. L. Jackson, of the senior class, a colored boy,
from Montclair, N. J., who has had an excellent career at
college following superlative success in prep school at And-
over. While at Andover, Jackson earned his own way,
won prizes in oratory, ran the quarter mile on the track
team, and took the four-year course in three years. Since
entering Harvard he has won his “H” on the varsity
track team and is now one of the best hurdlers in the uni-
versity. He expects to finish the four-year course at
Harvard in three years and a half, and will then go into —
the Southern States to teach. He has hosts of friends at
the university and will doubtless prove an inspiration to
the other two boys who have come from their homes in
Africa and Barbados to secure advancement under heavy
handicap.

Chicago’s Recent Purchase,

The Chicago National Club has purchased from the
champion Champaign Club, of the Illinois-Missouri
League, Catcher Tyson and Pitchers Eller and Harvey
Utrecht. The last named is a Cincinnati boy. Three years
ago the lad—nothing more than a green slip of a kid—

“went out” for the Hughes high-school baseball team. His _

teammates laughed at him because he was so “skinny” and
frail looking. But Harvey said nothing, and those same
scoffers soon changed their tune when they watched the

southpaw’s dazzling speed and his fancy assortment of |

 
and the government gives it to them as their right.

Bo oS ae I OR WEEKLY

benders. He was soon picked up by a good semiprofes-
sional club, and a few months later got an offer to pitch
for Champaign. It was due to Utrecht’s great work this
year that the Illinois town copped the gonfalon in its
league. The Queen City boy won eleven and. lost five
and batted .333 for the season.

Can’t Find Slums Here Like Eutope’s,

If anybody knows of any houses in New York that are
more unsanitary than typical houses along the Bowery and
certain Rivington and Orchard Street tenements, they
would confer a favor upon Doctor Bartholomew Neményi,
a searcher after such houses, by letting him know where
they may be found.

Doctor Neményi is a Hungarian, who has been sent
here by the Hungarian government to study American
houses in which workingmen live. He has been directed
by inspectors from the tenement house department for two
weeks, and has seen houses to which they took him in re-
sponse to his requests to be shown the worst houses in
the city. These houses he found so good, compared with
similar houses in Hungary, that he is incredulous about
their being typical of the worst New York: has to offer.

“Slums?” he said. “You don’t begin to know the mean-
ing of the word. Your houses for workingmen I find
vastly above similar houses in my own country and similar
houses in London and Berlin. Really, you have nothing
whatever of our worst classes of dwellings,”

From this point Doctor Nemenyi went on to rhapsodies
over the New York tenement laws, the New York fire-
prevention laws, the New York subways, and the houses
where the poorest workingmen dwell.

The purpose of his study, it was stated in credentials
from his own government, was to obtain data on which
the Hungarian government could proceed to abolish its
own slum district, and build sanitary and modern, homes
for its working population.

“We have already drawn liberally upon the United
States,” he said, “for our methods and ideals in dealing
with our social problems, We have in Hungary Balogh,
the minister of justice, who to us is what your Judge Ben
Lindsey is to you. He has copied for us and liberally
adapted to our needs your laws governing delinquent
children, And also your laws governing children of par-
ents too poor to rear them.

“I even think we are ahead of you now in this mat-
ter, for we do not leave such things to private charity.
We hold that every child is entitled to a good rearing,

do not know your private charity workers.

“What was the biggest marvel I found in looking over
your so-called slums—the houses of the lower East Side?
Why, I was most astonished to find a fire escape on every

. building. That was really a marvelous thing. We have

nothing to compare with it in providing safety.

“Next, I was astonished to find the low rents for the
number. of rooms provided, and astonished to find light
and air in every room—that, there were no dark interior
rooms with no windows and no contact with air shafts or
other source of fresh-air supply.

“Next to that, | was astonished to find how few people
were crowded into the flats. I had heard how high every-
thing was here, In Budapest, for instance, no working-
man could think of living in the heart of the city, its very
center, as

fine, sanitary rooms, and four or five of them,
Europe the same class of people for the same money gets

We |

as the workingmen do re pay $20 to $24 per.

flat for four and five rooms in the East Side. Now, it is
a mistake to think the rents are high here for what you
get. he

“I went, through the Bronx and Brooklyn’s more con-
gested districts. There the rent each family pays is about
equal to the rents our working families pay. But what a
difference in what is to be had for the money.

“Here your family, in the more modern houses, gets :
‘But in’

three or four rooms in antiquated, dark, unsanitary
houses. Your tenement-house inspector showed me a
room in which three persons lived. He said it was badly
crowded. We would say such a room was far above the
average. Such a room with us would contain, to be
crowded, six or seven people.

“I have searched in vain for slums here. I mean the
cellar rooms that are continuously dark, and the other
black horrors European cities know. If it is really true
that you do not have them, I am going to be quite aston-
ished. I hear there are Sule places in Chicago, and I.
shall hope to see them soon.”

Doctor Neményi was asked what houses he sondern
to be the best of all he had seen here.

“Some of the model tenements,” he answered; “but, un-
fortunately, the cost of them makes them out of the ques-
tion for the purposes we have in mind. The rents in them
are too high for the kind of working people whose condi-
tions we propose to alter.

“The new apartment houses in Brooklyn and the Bronx

are nearer to our idea of what we can imitate with suc-
cess. And to what do I attribute your better standards of |
living? Why, to nothing else than your wonderful sub-
ways, your splendid trolley lines, and your commuter trains. 4
We have nothing to compare with these.”

Doctor Neményi said that his government had built one —

experimental village of cottages for workingmen upon a

plan adopted from the English. It was to house railroad
employees working on government-owned roads, and had
cottage accommodations for 10,000 people.
hoped to see the government proceed to build more such 3
villages under the New York fire and tenement-hotse codes,
He said he was taking copies of all the tenement-house _
and fire regulations back with him, and would recommend:
their adoption.

Jail “Heto” Who Lost Arm in Corn Shtedder,

After receiving free lodging for three days, sumptuous
meals, automobile rides, and other features of entertain-—
ment, John Sullivan, alias Sherman Baldwin, common
vagrant, is resting in the county jail at Cheboygan, Mich.
John, one-armed and with every appearance of a vet-
eran, imposed on the hospitality of the local G. A, R,
and proceeded to go on a grand and glorious “eptae as
a fitting close to a festive week.
In court he admitted being a fake. He says he font his
arm in a corn shredder, instead of having it blown off in
the Civil War. ee, AB

actsed Cute Arcied Bates: 5"

Coach Sanford demonstrated recently to. the Lei
ball world that all the efforts of the rules commit
tee to eliminate mass play from the game have been
in vain. He has succeeded in planning a formation, d

ignated the Ratgera EoReuasiNy which does. not infrin

 

He said he je
NEW TIP TOP WEEKLY.

on the rules as they are at present.
it possible to utilize the heavy line of the Scarlet for all
that it is worth. Tackle and guard, reénforced by two of
the backfield, open up a passageway through the opposing
primary defense after the manner of the old “lift,” and
the third back “rides” with the ball through the lane thus
made. Toohey and Talman, Nash and McCloskey showed
up brilliantly in this method of attack, and will be called
upon to keep up the good work in Saturday’s game with
Union. Rutgers expects this year to heal the sore opened
last season by the New Yorkers, who defeated the Scarlet
3 to 0, although outplayed in every department. Captain
_ Elmendorf, having fully recovered from his injury, will
_ pilot his team. His return to the line-up will strengthen
the back field considerably.

Blind Girls Expert Telephone Operators.
Having learned what the blind, when gifted in other
ways, may do, the Maryland School for the Blind is spe-
cially training pupils for work on telephone switchboards.
Two years ago, a girl successfully passed the severe tests
and became an expert operator. Now the school has

turned out five other well-trained girls, and the man-

agers are convinced that they will be able to open this
field of work to many others.

The six sightless operators who are leading the way
for other blind girls are working with the regulation
_ switchboards, but efforts are being made to evolve a new
_ kind of board.

_ With the present switchboards, the girls, by the keen-
ness of their ears, are almost able to detect at once over
which wire the call may come by the falling of the little
drop. They always Slide their fingers along the board
to locate the drop, to be sure they have the right one.

_ They plug the trunk wires in the right holes by a fine,

acquired sense of location, although with this they can
always make sure of it by the quick use of their fingers.

Convicts Beaten to Death.

On account of cruelty to Mobile, Ala, County con-
victs, the Huxford Orvin Naval Stores Company’s con-
viet lease was canceled recently by Governor Emmett
O'Neal, and the thirty-four conyicts in the stockade of
the camp at Atmore, Ala., were ordered removed to Mo-
bile jail.

Prisoners in the camp made affidavits that men were -

_ whipped to death in two instances, and that every prisoner
was beaten, several of them until they were too weak
to stand.

Has to Sit on Sofa to Get Hair Cut.

_ “Happy” Everett, eighteen years old, Chambersburg, Pa.
who weighs six hundred and seventy-five pounds, has had
his hair cut for the first time in a barber shop. None of
the chairs was large enough for him, so he sat on a sofa.

te Her Fingets Make New Nose. ©

Miss Nellie Radigan, a patient in the Washington Asy-
lum Hospital, Washington, D,. C., will soon have a new
_ nose made from two of her fingers. The unusual opera-
ion has just been completed by physicians in the hospital.
Miss Radigan had a cancerous disease, which had eaten
. nose away.

This formation makes:

_he brought the tiger with him.
look up the sweetheart of the days before he was sent —

fingers, removed the bones and nails, and then, after cut-
ting out the cancerous tissue, fastened the fingers to her
face. The two fingers were pressed down tight on the
cavity, and a plaster cast was made to hold her arm and
hand in place while the fingers grow fast to the face.

This process will require weeks to complete, for the
flesh of the two fingers must join.to make the ridge of
the nose, and the under part must join to the face.

Bridge Strangely Stopped in Fall.

A big baptizing ceremony was in progress at Brown’s
Ford, on the Yankin River, near Moravian Falls, N. C.,
and with the banks of the stream lined with spectators,
it was difficult for late arrivals to see what was going on.
Nearly a hundred young people crowded onto the sus-
pension footbridge. All at once there was a. crashing
sound, and the bridge floor dropped a distance of ten
feet, then caught on the abutments, and stopped as sud-
denly as it had started, while its panic-stricken occupants
scrambled to the ends for safety.

‘That the bridge stopped on its downward plunge is re-
garded as little less than a miracle. Dozens of children
would probably have been drowned.

To the Pole by Aeroplane.

Tendets have been received at Paris, France, for the
construction of an aéroplane which Amundsen will use in
his next polar expedition. It is said that the explorer
will soon arrive in Paris to inspect the machine.

According to a Frankfort dispatch, Amundsen him-
self will take his place in the aéroplane for a final at-
tempt to reach the north pole.

Wettest Place in the World.
Baguio, in the Philippines, has been strengthening its

. claim to be the wettest place in the world. One day last

summer, the precipitation was 31.78 inches, which nearly
equals the world’s mean rainfall for a year.. But Baguio
has done better than that; it made a record in 1911, with
91.53 inches in four days, of which 33.70 inches fell in
one day. When 7% feet of water come down in one
storm, it is time to look after the shingling of the ark.

Pet ‘Tiger in Michigan Home.

A tiger for a pet!

A tiger, with murderous claws and long, white teeth,
curling up in the kitchen, snoozing on the spare-room
bed, napping on the plush sofa, or eating fresh meat un-
der the dining-room table, while the noonday meal is in
progress.

No wonder William Holcomb, of Stanton, Mich, feels
that his home is somewhat different from others. For in

it, a full-blood tiger, that measures four feet and one half

from tip of its nose to the tip of its tail, and stands nearly

two feet in height, is the family pet. To Holcomb, the

animal seems doubly valuable, because it won for him,
indirectly, the home that he is now master of.

Holcomb, while in the employ of the United States
government, was sent to Central America. One day he
shot and killed a tigress in a jungle, and took her cub
to camp. When he returned to the States this summer,
His first move was to —

to Central America. He found her in. a little Virginia
town, and during their chats, 7 ‘told her of his Bio's

 
30
pet. She insisted on seeing it, and immediately fell in
love with it, and declared she must have it.

Holcomb wanted to give the tiger to her, but he also
wanted very much to keep it. Finally he blurted out:

“If you want that tiger for a pet, you'll have to come
with me, where it can be my pet, too.”

The girl looked first at the tiger, and then at Holcomb.

Then, with a smile, she stretched one hand out toward
the tiger and the other toward Holcomb.

“T think, between the two,” she said,
very happy.”

A few days later, “the girl who loved a tiger” and the
master of the tiger that the girl loved were married. They
returned to Stanton, Holcomb’s home town, and settled
down for life.

The tiger holds forth in any part of their dwelling. It
is given full liberty, and it races about at will. The vil-
lagers have come to look upon it without fear, and it is
a favorite with every child in the neighborhood.

The dogs of Stanton, however, have no love for the
animal. Individually and collectively, singly and in the
aggregate, they hate it as much, if not more, than
they hate the poundmaster. The tiger will not
tolerate them,*either, and swift are its movements when
any mongrel shows a desire to “pick a fight.” The min-
ute a sctap is. promised, the big cat arches its back, shows
its white teeth, and spits out a fiery challenge. As a
rule, this display of spirit disposes of the opposition, but
once in a while a blooded dog will call the turn. Quite
recently, a bull terrier, endowed with a reputation as a
fighter that stood at the head of the list on the dog rec-
ords of Stanton, loped down the street in front of the
Holcomb home. The tiger was out for a roll in the
yard.

' The bulldog sniffed and growled.

The tiger arched, and clawed.

Immediately there was a series of sharp snarls and
growls, hisses, yips, and..wails, and the dog, bleeding
from a score of scratches, shook off the maddened tiger

“I can be very,

with an effort, and, with its tail between its legs, streaked.

it down the street and out of sight around a friendly
corner.

Count Boni Uses Heiress.

Count Boni de Castellane is credited with having staved
off some of the most importunate of his creditors by
permitting them to see him walking with the daughter of
a recently deceased American millionaire. The effect was
magical. The creditors thought the couple engaged.

Bulgaria Lost 44,892 Men.

Government returns show that 44,892 Bulgarians were
killed in the two recent wars in the Balkans. Of this
number, 30,024 were killed in the war of the allies with
Turkey, and 14,868 in the war between Bulgaria and the
Servians and Greeks. There were 104,586 Bulgarians
wounded in the two wars, and 7,824 are reported missing.

Zulu Prince Wins United States Bride.

Having won an education and a bride in America,
Prince Nadikano Q. Cele, junior, of Durban, Natal,
Southeast Africa, is arranging to sail as a missionary to
his people, the Zulus. He was married recently at Dan-
ville, Va., to Julia I. Smith, an American negro girl, who
was a student at Harmpton Institute. By picking a for-

}
}

‘

NEW TIP TOP WEEKLY.

eign spouse, the prince saves his father, who is governor
of a province, twenty-five or thirty cows, the cost of a
Zulu wife.

The prince was sent to this country nine years ago by
his father, who had been converted to Christianity, and
who wanted to give one of his sons a Christian educa-
tion.

Would Let All Boys Try for Cadetship.

Colonel C. P. Townsley, superintendent of the West
Point Military Academy, in his annual report to the war
department, urged that appointments to fill vacancies in ©
the academy be made competitive instead of the present
system of appointment from Congress districts. E

Colonel Townsley offered figures for ten years to show -
that in these years there have been from twenty-eight to
one hundred and twenty-nine vacancies in the academy,
and he believes that by making appointments competitive, |
it would call out the best material available for the acad-
emy.

“The method needed to keep the corps of cadets up
to its authorized strength,’ his report reads, “I believe,
lies in a change in the method of selecting candidates. —
The laws provide that each Congress district, Territory,
District of Columbia, and Porto Rico is entitled to have
one cadet at West Point; each State at large, two cadets,
and the United States at large, forty cadets. .

“The secretary of war is also authorized to permit not
exceeding four Filipinos to be designated, one for each
class; also for each cadet who has completed successfully

three years at the academy, a successor may be appointed _ et

from his district, State, et cetera, under the law of 1910,
which is effective only till 1916. This law should be ex-
tended until 1933, when the probable increase in the num-
ber of congressmen will be such as to give a total of 700
or more cadets without the law of 1910.
“These cadetships belong to the people of the district,
State, Territory, et cetera, and should be open competitively
to all the boys eligible, and it is my recommendation that
a law be enacted requiring competitive examinations to

be held for each vacancy, that youth to be appointed who _

passes successfully the best mental examination, and who
is physically and morally qualified. es

“The examination questions should be prepared by, the
academic board, and a successful examination should qual-
ify a boy to enter, without other. mental examination. The
details of such an*examination should, I think, be left to _
the secretary of war.” aes

Colonel Townsley says that the present authorized mem- —
bership of the academy is 687 cadets, and that there are
at present 80 vacancies. He says that such a condition
shows the necessity of action to increase the number of
admitted cadets to more nearly equal the number ae
ized.

Aeroplane Hurls Girl to Death.

Lincoln Beachey, making his first flight since last March, :
when he announced he was through with aviation because ;
he believed his daring feats had been the indirect cause
of the death of many fellow birdmen, struck the top of —
a hangar recently at. Hammondsport, N. Y., from which
several persons were watching him, as he thade a sensa-
tional dip to earth.

His aéroplane struck Miss Ruth Hildreth and her si
Dorothy, hurling them to the ground. Miss Ruth

 
NEW iP TOP WEEKLY ie

killed, and her sister was so badly injured that her life
is despaired of.

_ Beachey was not seriously hurt, but when he realized
what had happened, he became hysterical. It was with
difficulty that he was kept from trying to take his own

life. He was unable to speak intelligently with those who ,

consoled him. He moaned, and was beside himself with
grief. The accident brought gloom upon the field, where,
through the day, a happy gathering of men and women
had been watching the aviator.
Beachey, known throughout the world as a daring avi-
ator, had been at Hammondsport for nearly a month,
watching the construction of a new machine. The mar-
r velous aérial accomplishments of Pegoud appeared to in-
spire him with the idea that a new era in aéroplaning
was dawning, and that he would be the American who
would rival the intrepid Frenchman. His new machine
was especially constructed upon the lines of strength and
speed. It was built at the Curtiss camp.

Farmer Tames Wild Geese.

“There is nothing as wild as a wild goose,” is an old
saying, subject to exceptions, for a family of wild geese
lives on the farm of E. O. and H. K. Hubbard, near
Bellefontaine, Ohio.. Their wings are not cropped, and
they are as tame as kittens, enjoying the freedom of the
fields and barnyard, and making occasional trips to a small
lake on the farm when they desire a dip.
When Father and Mother Goose were wild, their wings
were cropped, but in time, the feathers grew out again.
_ They have never shown any disposition to wander off.

Coal as Cause of Cancer.

_ The conclusion reached by Charles E. Green, of Edin-
burgh, Scotland, that there is a distinct relationship be-
tween the occurrence of cancer and the kind of fuel used
for domestic purposes was accepted as decisive by Sir
William H. Bennett, the eminent surgeon, in his presi-
dential address at the meeting of the Coal Smoke Abate-
ment Society, in London.
_ Sir William said that investigation had shown that the
ncidence of cancer was limited to those areas where coal
was the staple fuel, while it was almost nonexistent where

ordinary peat alone was used. The only exception yet dis-'

covered to this rule, declared, was in districts where the
peat was a hard, black substance, which crackled like
coal, and was quite unlike the smoldering, ordinary peat.
Sir William, in conclusion, spoke strongly in favor of
gas as a substitute for coal.

United States Has 29,499,136 Childten.

‘The children’s bureau of the department of labor has
ssued the first part of a handbook which shows the num-
ber of children in the country, with their sex, age, race,
nativity, parentage, and geographic distribution. The fig-

have been compiled from the eae of the 19010

side 15 years of age, and they made up almost one-third
f his entire family. Almost all these children were born
on his. own soil. The foreign-born white children num-

ee the native bhiidten are, of course, the children
igrants. The figures show that, in 1910, there were

7,225,569 native white children with one or both parents
foreign born. The native white with both parents na-
tive numbered 17,731,580, and formed 60.1 per cent of all
the children in the country. There were 3,665,107 negro
children, forming 12.4 per cent of the total number.

Big Drop in World Grain Crop.

The world’s crop of five grain staples for 1913 is esti-
mated by the Orange Judd American Agriculturist to be
10 per cent less than last year. The total shortage aggre-
gates about 1,250,000,000 bushels of the five grain staples. -

This authority emphasizes the fact that the four bread-
stuffs—wheat, oats, rye, and barley—will probably be 500,-
000,000 bushels less this year than in 1912, and that the
corn deficit amounts to about 750,000,000 bushels.

“Unless Russia and Argentina conclude the year with
much greater yields than now seems possible,” the Amer-
ican Agriculturist says, “the world’s wheat production will
be only about 100,000,000 bushels more than last year.”

There is a tremendous shortage in rye, oats, and barley.
The American Agriculturist says that natural conditions
justify a continuance of the fair prices to producers which
prevailed during September.

Owl Snared by Lily Stems.

A big horned owl,,swooping down for goldfish in the
fountain at the east entrance to the White House, at
Washington, D. C., became entangled in the water lilies
in its basin one night recently, and was drowned. The
next morning it was found floating on the water, sup-
ported ‘by its outstretched wings, which measured four
feet.

Owls have been heard frequently in the trees on the
White House grounds, but attendants said they never
had seen one before.

Leader in Fake Holdup Dies.

A holdup platined as a practical joke on a nervous friend
ended fatally at East Orange, N. J., recently for the youth
who led the make-believe highwaymen, when Walter Win-
teroll, nineteen years old, of 17 Telford Street, died in
the Orange Memorial Hospital. An autopsy performed by
Deputy County Physician M. Herbert Simmons showed
that the liver and intestines had been pierced.

Adolph Freytag, eighteen years old, who was the friend
to be “held up,” was arrested, and formally charged with
manslaughter. Bail was fixed at five thousand dollars,
which the youth’s relatives could not furnish. George
Ladue, Edmund Williamson, and Caughery York, all of
East Orange, the other members of the “highway party,”
were held as material witnesses. The four youths are
alleged to have “held up” Freytag in a spirit of fun, while
he was returning from a party. F reytag, it is said, °
plunged the large blade of a penkase in the abdomen of
Winteroll,

Boy Golf Chae True Sportsman,

Francis Ouimet, the young Boston amateur who won the ©

open golf championship of the United States from Harry

Vardon and Ned Ray, the English professionals, is the
sensation of the year on the links. His achievement is
one of the greatest in the history of golf.
At the Country Club, Brookline, Mass., he won the title
by no less than five strokes.
One of the L eaeaty messages that Ouiimet ees. 5:

 
Wa ee OE ee OP, WER

ceived was from no less a notable than John D. Rocke-
feller, of Standard Oil fame. It was sent from the oil
king’s home in Cleveland. Mr. Rockefeller has long been
an enthusiastic golfer.

In his message to Ouimet, Mr. Rockefeller said:

“Congratulate you upon your. American victory.
mire your ideas on temperance.”

The temperance reference, young Ouimet said, was
doubtless occasioned by the statement, sent out at the time
the Boston golfer won the title, to the effect that he was
a temperance advocate.

It has been persistently stated in golfing circles that
Ouimet plans to break into the professional ranks. This
has caused the new champion considerable annoyance. On
this point, Ouimet said somewhat emphatically :

“T intend to remain an amateur golfer. I know little
about the amount of money there is in the game for the
American professional golfers, but I know that I will de-
tive much more pleasure from the game if I remain an
amateur. It has never been my ambition to make money
by playing golf. I love the game for its own sake.”

Ad-

Hunger Strike Proves Fatal.

The hunger strike has claimed its first victim. A man
serving a term of imprisonment for theft at Bedford, Eng-
land, refused all food except a few mouthfuls of milk
daily. He was not fed forcibly, and died.

The coroner’s jury found a verdict of “death due to
natural causes.”

Biggest Dock for Boston.

The Hamburg-American, the Cunard line, and the White
Star Steamship Company have signed a eontract with the

directors of the port of Boston, under the terms of which
Boston will build a dry dock large enough to accommo-

date the largest ship afloat. The contract, after a few
minor changes, will be signed by the directors of the port.
The dock is to be the largest in the world.

The steamship companies agree to pay to the city fifty
thousand dollars a year, whether they use the dry dock or
not, or, if they use it more than the number of times
agreed upon, they will pay the regular dry-dock rates.
This rate is to be paid the city for twenty ‘years.

Forcible Feeding Will be Restmed.

‘Suffragettes in England charged with serious crimes are
no longer to be allowed to escape prison detention by
means of hunger strikes,

Home Secretary McKenna has decided that the women
charged with arson who refuse food in prison are not to
be released under the “cat-and-mouse” act. The prison
authorities are instructed to resort to artificial feeding, if
it is necessary.

Aeto Squadron for N. Y. N, G.

‘A. volunteer aviation squadron has been organized un-
der the auspices of the Aéro Club of America, with the
hope of being amalgamated eventually with the National
Guard of New York. It is the first volunteer military
organization of its kind in the world, but it is expected
that similar aéro squadrons will be organized in other
States.

Major General John F. O’Ryan, of the National Guard,
_ has approved the idea, but the details have not been de-

cided by the National Guard authorities. It is expected

PANY

that the members of the yahiiteens aviation squadron will
make application for commissions in the guard.

The work of organizing the squadron has been under
the direction of Mortimer Delano, secretary of the Aéro
Club of America, who has been elected lieutenant colonel. —
The most prominent airmen in the country have joined.
Mr. Delano hopes that every city in the State eventually —
will have an aviation squadron. Each squadron will con-
sist of two companies, commanded by a captain, with four oy
lieutenants, with eight mechanicians, and forty enlisted
men, with eight aéroplanes.

Canada’s Wild Horses.
The Peace River country in western Alberta and eastern

British Columbia has suffered so much from the depreda-

tions of wild horses that the Alberta minister of agricul-
ture has urged on the Dominion government the necessity
of some steps being taken. The Peace River country
has been one of the principal pioneering regions of west-
ern Canada during the last few years.

Wild horses have made raids on the ranches of new. ‘
settlers, killing many of the domestic horses, and leading

away a number of the well-bred, domestic mares, which

had been imported at a considerable cost, and which were

one of the principal assets of the new settlers.

$314,370,977 in Canal.

|The Panama Canal, now almost completed, has cost the
United States, so far, $314,370,977.86, according to the
report just issued by the Isthmian Canal Commission. The _
total cost of the canal, when the work is completed, will
be within the original estimate of $375,000,000. ’

The greatest cost has been, of course, in the department
of construction and. engineering, where $185,316,0905 has
beeri spent since 1902, the greater part of it in the cen- —
tral division, which embraced the Culebra Cut work, where
nearly $84,000,000 has been spent. 3

Next to the construction work, the sanitation depart- ~
ment has used the most money, $16,250,164 having been
spent in cleaning up the Canal Zone, keeping it healthy, vA
and building and maintaining the hospitals. g

The civil administration has cost $6,393,308, while the 4
department of law has cost $44,982. vs

So far, the fortifications at each end of the canal have a

cost $3,114,357, although nearly three times that amount —
has been appropriated by Congress, and will be spent be-—
fore the forts are completed. P

During the month of June, when tie last report was —
compiled, there were approximately 45,000 employees of —
the United States on the Isthmus, of whom 5,000 were |
Americans. The pay roll for the total number of em- —

- ployees that month amounted to $1,768,758.

The original purchase price of the HKrench rights - to!
the canal amounted to $40,000,000, and the purchase of the
Canal Zone rights from Panama in 1904 amounted to wie ey
000,000 more. ‘

From the sale of old material, for work done for va-
rious concerns, and for the water rentals from Panama, the
United States has collected nearly $10,000,000.

OBAGS A [Tvtisin sanyo
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trouble,no foul breath, no beart ean Begun ore
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Whether you chew; or emoke pipe.cigarettes, ae ee in-
teresting Tobacco Book. Worth its weight in gold ¢

\G, J. WOODS, 634 Sixth Av.230 6, New¥orint

 
 
SOME OF THE
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NUMBERS OF

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WEEKLY

SUPPLIED

 

686—Dick Merriwell in the Marathon.
687—Dick Merriwell’s Colors.
688—Dick Merriwell, Driver.
689—Dick Merriwell on the Deep.
690—Dick Merriwell in the North Woods.
691—Dick Merriwell’s Dandies.
692—Dick Merriwell’s Skyscooter.
693—Dick Merriwell in the Elk
tains.
694—Dick Merriwell in Utah.
695—Dick Merriwell’s Bluff.
696—Dick Merriwell in the Saddle.
697—Dick Merriwell’s Ranch Friends.
698—Dick Merriwell at Phantom Lake.
699—Frank Merriwell’s Hold-back.
700—Frank Merriwell’s Lively Lads.
701—F rank Merriwell as Instructor.
702—Dick Merriwell’s Cayuse.
703—Dick Merriwell’s Quirt.
704—Dick Merriwell’s Freshman Friend.
705—Dick Merriwell’s Best Form.
706—Dick Merriwell’s Prank.
707—Dick Merriwell’s Gambol.
7O8S—Dick Merriwell’s Gun.
709—Dick Merriwell at His Best.
Dick Merriwell’s Master Mind.
—Dick Merriwell’s Dander.
-Dick Merriwell’s Hope.
—Dick’s Merriwell’s Standard.
-Dick Merriwell’s Sympathy.
Dick Merriwell in Lumber Land.
Frank Merriwell’s Fairness.
Frank Merriwell’s Pledge.
Frank Merriwell, the Man of Grit.
Frank Merriwell’s Return Blow.
—Frank Merriwell’s Quest.
-Frank Merriwell’s Ingots.
os Frank Merriwell’s Assistance.
3—Frank Merriwell at the ‘Throttle.
4—Frank Merriwell, the Always Ready.
5—Frank Merriwell in Diamond Land.
26—Frank Merriwell’s Desperate Chance.
—Frank Merriwell’s Black Terror.
§—TFrank Merriwell Again on the Slab.
9—F rank Merriwell’s Hard Game.
\—F rank Merriwell’s Six-in-hand.
—Trank Merriwell's Duplicate.
—Frank Merriwell on Rattlesnake
Ranch.
—Frank Merriwell’s Sure Hand.
—Frank Merriwell’s Treasure Map.
Frank Merriwell, Prince of the Rope.
—Dick Merriwell, Captain of the Var-
sity.
ao Dick Merriwell’s Control.
Die k Merriwell’s Back Stop.
< Merriwell’s Masked Enemy.
< Merriwell’s Motor Car.
< Merriwell’s Hot Pursuit.
< Merriwell at Forest Lake.
< Merriwell in Court.
< Merriwell’s Silence.
Merriwell’s Dog.
< Merriwell’s Subterfuge.
< Merriwell’s Enigma.
< Merriwell Defeated.
< Merriwell's ‘‘Wing.”’
Merriwell’s Sky Chase.
< Merriwell’s Pick-ups.
< Merriwell on the Rocking R.
< Merriwell’s Penetration.
< Merriwell’s Intuition.
< Merriwell’s Vantage.
< Merriwell’s Advice.
< Merriwell’s Rescue.
Merriwell, American.
< Merriwell’s Understanding.
760—Dick Merriwell, Tutor.
761—Dick Merriwell’s Quandary,
haa Tee Merriwell on the Boards.
—Dick Merriwell, Peacemaker.
ona rank Merriwell’s Sway.
765—Frank Merriwell’s Comprehension.
766—Frank Merriwell’s Young Acrobat.
767—Frank Merriwell’s Tact.

; Sean Merriwell’s Unknown.
7 —Frank Merriwell’s Acuteness.

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rank Merriwell’s Young Canadian.
‘rank Merriwell’s Coward.
“rank Merriwell’s Perplexity.
‘rank Merriwell’s Intervention.
‘rank Merriwell’s Daring Deed.
2S ank Merriwell’s Succor.
rank Merriwell’s Wit.
‘rank Merriwell’s Loyalty.
rank Merriwell’s Bold Play.
‘rank Merriwell’s Insight..
‘rank Merriwell’s Guile.
‘rank Merriwell’s Campaign.
‘rank Merriwell in the
lorest.
788—Frank Merriwell’s Tenacity.
784—Dick Merriwell’s Self-sacrifice.
785—Dick Merriwell’s Close Shave.
786—Dick Merriwell’s Perception.
787—Dick Merriwell’s Mysterious Disap-
pearance,
7 7T88—Dick Merriwell’s Detective Work.
789—Dick Merriwell’s Proof.
790—Dick Merriwell’s Brain Work.
791—Dick Merriwell’s Queer Case.
792—Dick Merriwell, Navigator.
798—Dick Merriwell’s Good Fellowship.
794—Dick Merriwell’s Fun.
795—Dick Merriwell’s Commencement.
796—Dick Merriwell at Montauk Point.
797—Dick Merriwell, Mediators
798—Dick Merriwell’s Decision.
799—Dick Merriwell on the Great Lakes.
800—Dick Merriwell Caught Napping.
801—Dick Merriwell in the Copper Coun-
try.
802—Dick Merriwell Strapped.
803—Dick Merriwell’s Coolness.
804—Dick Merriwell’s Reliance.
805—Dick Merriwell’s College Mate.
806—Dick Merriwell’s Young Pitcher.
807—Dick Merriwell’s Prodding.
SO8—F rank Merriwell’s Boy.
809—Frank Merriwell’s Interference.
810—F rank Merriwell’s Young Warriors.
811—Frank Merriwell’s Appraisal.
812—Frank Merriwell’s Forgiveness.
813—Frank Merriwell’s Lads.
814—Frank Merriwell’s Young Aviators.
815—Frank Merriwell’s Hot-head.
816—Dick Merriwell, Diplomat.
817—Dick Merriwell in Panama.
818—Dick Merriwell’s Perseverance.
§19—Dick Merriwell Triumphant.
eae Dick Merriwell’s Betrayal.
1—Dick Merriwell, Rev aan
2—Dick Merriwell’s Fortitud
38—Dick Merriwell’s U ndoing.
24— —Dick Merriwell, Universal Coach.
»
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7
7
7

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National

9
9
6
9

5—Dick Merriwell’s Snare.
°6—Dick Merriwell’s Star Pupil.
27—Dic k Merriwell’s Astuteness.
328—Die Merriwell’s Responsibility.
59 ~Dick Merriwell’s Plan.
}O—Dick Merriwell’s Warning.
one Dick Merriwell’s Counsel.
32—Dick Merriwell’s Champions.
38—Dick Merriwell’s Marksmen.
34—Dick Merriwell’s Enthusiasm.
35—Dick Merriwell’s Solution.
36—Dick Merriwell’s Foreign Foe.
37—Dick Merriwell and_ the
Warriors.
888—Dick Merriwell’s Battle for the Blue.
339—Dick Merriwell’s Evidence.
$40—Dick Merriwell’s Device.
841—Dic k Merriwell’s Princeton
nents.
2__[Dick Merriwell’s Sixth Sense.
3—Dick Merriwell’s Strange Clew.
41—Dick Merriwell Comes Back.
)
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Carlisle

aye

Oppo-

—Dick Merriwell’s Heroic Crew.
—Dick Merriwell Looks Ahead.
7—Dick Merriwell at the Olympics.
848—Dick Merriwell in Stockholm.
849—Dick Merriwell in the
Stadium.
850—Dick Merriwell’s

4
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PDH PADNADW

Swedish

Marathon.

NEW SERIES.

New Tip Top Weekly

1-—Frank Merriwell, Jr.

2—F rank Merriwell, Jr., in the Box.

3—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Struggle.

4—F rank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Skill.

5—Frank Merriwell, Jr., in Idaho.

6—F rank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Close Shave.

7—Frank Merriwell, Jr., on Waiting Or-

ders.

8—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Danger.

9—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Relay

thon.

10—Frank Merriwell, Jr., at the Bar Z

Ranch.

—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Golden Trail.

2—Fre ink Merriwell, Jr.’s, Competitor.

~Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Guidance.
—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Scrimmage.
5—Frank Merriwell, Jr., Misjudged.

Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Star Play.
—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Blind Chase,
—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Discretion.
—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Substitute,

Frank Merriwell, Jr., Justified.

Frank Merriwell, Jr., Incog.

—Frank Merriwell, Jr., Meets the Issue.

—Frank Merriwell, me s, Xmas Eve.

—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Fearless Risk.

Frank Merriwell, ar, on Skis.

—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Ice-boat
_F rank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Ambushed

Foes.

28—F rank Merriwell, aa and the Totem.

29—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Hockey Game.

30—F rank Merriwell, 7 r.’8, Clew.

: Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Adversary.
—~Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Timely Aid.
Frank Merriwell, Jr., in the Desert.
—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Grueling Test.
Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Special Mission
—~Frank Merriwell, a a ace Bowman.
Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Task.

—Frank Merriwell, Tes Cross-Country
Race.
39—F rank Merriwell, ey Four Miles.
Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Umpire.
—lIrank Merriwell, Tr, Sidetracked.
Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Teamwork.
—Frank Merriwell, arse Step-Over.
Frank Merriwell, Jr., in Monterey.
Frank Merriwell, Jr.'s, Athletes.
—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Outfielder.
—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, “Hundred.”
—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Hobo Twirler.
~Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Canceled Game.

5 iF rank Merr iwell, Jr.’s, Weird Adven-

ture.

51—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Double Header.

52 ae Merriwell, Jr.’s, Peck of Trou-

ble.

53—Frank Merriwell, Jr., and the

Doctor.

oe ank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Sportsmansbip,

5

6-

Mara-

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bo IS ERie SSIS OS DONOR os te

Spook

-~Frank Merriwell, a *s, Ten-Innings
—Frank Merriwell, r.'S, Ordeal.

7 Wing.
58 Frank Merriwell, ee Cross-Fire.”

7—Frank Merriwell, Jr., on the
{ Team-

59—F rank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Lost
mate.
60—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Daring Flight.
61—F rank Merriwell, Jr., at Fardale.
62—Frank Merriwell, Jr., Plebe.
63—F rank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Quarter-Back.
64—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Touchdown.
Dated October 25th.
65—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Night Off.
Dated November 1st.
66—Frank Merriwell, Jr., and the
Black Box.
Dated November 8th.
67—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Classmates.
Dated November 15th.
68—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Repentant En-
emy.

Little

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