CHAPTER XI—A TRAITOR AND A SPY
“Steady! steady!” roared a commanding voice. “Stroke, keep at it, and pick it up quicker on the beginning.”
The eight oarsmen in the boat were doing their level best, their oars flashing in the sunlight as they came dripping from the water to disappear again, sending the light craft flying along.
On the shore, which at this point was a high bank, the coach watched them as they skimmed past, and shouted his commands.
“Drive your legs at it, four! What are you in the boat for? Carry it through all the way. Up, now! Long swing! Great Scott! don’t think you’ve got to break your neck to recover because you pull hard on the stroke.”
He was a young fellow with a beardless face that plainly indicated his firm conviction that what he did not know was not worth finding out. His lips were red and full, and his entire bearing plainly betokened unlimited self-conceit.
He was dressed in a flannel outing suit, and wore a straw hat, about which was a bright red ribbon. His necktie, also, was bright red. On his feet were well-polished russet shoes. There was a diamond in his tie, and diamonds set in the rings on his fingers.
It seemed at a glance that this lad had “money to burn.” His swell appearance was enough to make almost any ordinary boy regard him with envy and admiration. And his manner would impress an ordinary boy with his astonishing knowledge and importance in the world.
“Oh, say!” he shouted; “what do you chaps think you are doing? Feel for the water. Be delicate and gentle when you are coming forward. This is not a question of bull strength. If it was, a crew of longshoremen and freight handlers could row all around you.”
Not a word from the sturdy, sun-browned young fellows in the boat. They were there to obey, and to stand such abuse as this insolent, overbearing coach saw fit to heap upon them.
“Great Scott!” cried the coach, once more. “You chaps make me sick! Will you never get onto yourselves? There you go, five! Can’t you see what you’re doing? You’re pulling out, and you are wasting the end of your stroke. You are finishing ahead of four every time. It would take a club to beat anything into your head! Vast, turn around, coxswain.”
Then this important person fell back a step, and spoke to another lad, who was concealed by some bushes, from which he was peering at the crew in the boat.
“A lot of lubbers,” said the coach, contemptuously. “You fellows needn’t worry about them. You’ll show them clear water from the start.”
These words were uttered in a low tone, so they could not be heard by the rowers.
The boy hidden in the bushes laughed softly.
“You are playing them for suckers, all right, Harlow,” he said; “but it does seem to me that they are improving under your coaching. Look out and not make them so good that they will stand a show of winning over A. A. C.”
“If they didn’t improve, they wouldn’t keep me as coach,” returned the other; “but I’ll knock the stuffing out of them at the last moment by advising the removal of a good man and the substitution of a poor one. I want them to have enough confidence in me by that time so they will do exactly as I say.”
Two other lads, in bicycle suits, unseen by the treacherous coach and the spy in the bushes, having left their wheels near the highway that ran some distance from the river, had come down and stopped near enough to hear all this conversation.
They were Diamond and Frank.
Diamond had brought Merriwell to that point in order to show him the pretty view of the Potomac River, and not till they had advanced more than two-thirds the distance from the road did they hear the shouted cries of the coach, and see him standing on the bluff.
The curiosity of the boys was aroused, and they came forward quietly to see what was taking place.
The coach, and the spy in the bushes, were so absorbed in the movements of the crew that neither saw Merriwell and Diamond, and so, without thinking of playing eavesdroppers, the Yale lads heard something that was not intended for their ears.
Jack clutched Frank’s arm.
“What do you think of that?” he hissed, his dark face growing still darker.
“Think,” said Frank, scornfully. “I think that coach should be ducked in the river!”
“And I think the spy should be ducked with him!” came fiercely from the lips of the young Virginian.
“Look here, Jack!” said Frank, “there is something familiar about that fellow in flannels. I’ve seen him before.”
“His voice sounded familiar to me,” nodded Diamond.
At this moment, as if he had heard their voices, the coach looked in their direction, and saw them. He gave a violent start, seemed a bit confused, and then cried:
“What are you doing there—playing the spy? Don’t you know you have no right there?”
In another instant Frank was bounding toward the spot, followed by Jack.
“No, we are not spying,” said Merriwell, “but we know a chap that is! Here he is!”
Then he pounced on the startled youth in the bushes and dragged him forth, for all of his resistance.
“Let me go, hang you!” came from the fellow Frank had exposed. “If you don’t let me go, you will be sorry!”
“I’ll let you go when I have shown you to the gentlemen in that boat down there,” declared Frank. “I have dealt with sneaks like you before.”
The spy struggled desperately, furious at the thought of exposure and disgrace.
“You shall suffer for this!” he grated.
Then the coach advanced quickly on Merriwell, speaking in a low tone, although his voice quivered with passion:
“Let him go—let him go! If you don’t——”
“What then?” said Jack Diamond, placing himself in the path of the treacherous coach. “What do you think you will do about it, my fine fellow?”
“I will—— Great Scott! It is Jack Diamond!”
The coach staggered from the shock of the discovery, for up to that moment he had been too excited to recognize either of the boys. Now he looked at the other, adding, hoarsely:
“And that’s Frank Merriwell! Satan take the luck!”
This attracted Frank’s attention, so he turned and took a square look at the coach, in whose appearance he had fancied there was something familiar from the very first.
“Great Jove!” he cried. “Rolf Harlow!”
The name and the sight of its owner awakened a host of unpleasant memories in Frank’s heart.
Harlow, expelled from Harvard for gambling and cheating at cards, had come to New Haven in search of “suckers” among the Yale students. He had been introduced by a student by the name of Harris, and Frank, whose one great failing was his strong inclination to play cards for a stake, had been drawn into the game in his endeavor to pull Rattleton out of it.
In the end it had proved fortunate that Frank was led into the game, for he had detected Harlow in his crooked dealing and exposed him, compelling him to give up certain of Diamond’s promises to pay, and thus saving Jack from disgrace.
Harlow was revengeful, and he had tried to “get square” with Frank, but each attempt had rebounded disastrously upon him. When last seen, Rolf was following a circus through the State of Missouri, and working a shell game on the country people.
Now he was in Virginia, coaching a crew of oarsmen who were practicing for a race!
And, as usual, he was playing a crooked game.
The crew in the boat saw the struggle on the shore, and wondered what it meant. There was a landing near, and toward it the coxswain directed the boat, saying:
“Pull, fellows! We must go up there and investigate this affair. We have been watched.”
Harlow turned very pale when he recognized Frank, for he had learned to fear our hero. He had not dreamed they would meet in Virginia.
As soon as Diamond could recover from the astonishment of the discovery, he scornfully cried:
“Harlow it is, and he is up to his old tricks!”
The spy, whom Frank had captured, made a savage attempt to thrust Merriwell from the edge of the bluff into the river, seeing the crew was coming, and he soon would be face to face with a lot of angry lads who might not have any mercy on him.
“Easy, my fine chap!” laughed the Yale athlete. “What’s the use! You can’t do it, you know!”
“Help, Harlow!” appealed the spy. “The Blue Cove fellows are coming, and they’ll be awfully mad!”
Harlow hesitated, and then a desperate light came into his eyes. Young ruffian that he was, he always went armed, and now he decided to make an attempt to bluff Frank.
With a quick movement, Rolf produced a revolver, which he pointed straight at Merriwell, crying:
“Let him go—let him go, or I’ll shoot!”
The expression on his face seemed to indicate that he really meant it, and Diamond shivered a bit, knowing Harlow as he did, and thinking him desperate and reckless enough to do almost anything in a burst of passion.
Jack crouched to move aside, so he could spring at Rolf, but Harlow saw the movement, and hissed:
“Stand still there, or I’ll shoot you first!”
“You don’t dare——” began Jack.
“Don’t I?” interrupted the desperate lad with the revolver. “You’ll find I do! I’ve been jumped on by you fellows till I can’t stand any more of it! This is a case of self-defense, and I can prove it so. You attacked us! I have a right to defend my life!”
It was plain that Harlow was trying to convince himself that he was in the right, and, could he do so, hating Frank Merriwell as he did, it was certain that he might shoot on the slightest provocation.
Jack stood still; for the moment he knew not what to do.
“Come here, Diamond,” called Frank, sharply. “Come quick! Don’t mind that fellow! If he does any shooting, I won’t leave much of a job for the lynchers! I believe they string people up down in this State in a hurry!”
“Stand where you are, Diamond!” shouted Harlow.
But Jack obeyed Frank, and Harlow did not shoot.
“Now, hold this spy, and I will deal with that crook,” said Frank, turning the lad he had captured over to Jack.
As soon as he had done this, Merriwell started to walk straight toward Harlow, who still had him covered with the revolver.
“Stop!” shouted Rolf, fiercely; “stop! or by the Lord Harry, I will shoot!”
“Oh, no, you won’t,” answered Merriwell, with the utmost confidence, as he calmly continued to advance, apparently as unconcerned as if it were a toy pistol in the hand of his enemy.
Harlow hesitated, and gasped. Reckless though he was, intensely though he hated Frank, he had not the nerve to shoot the cool lad down.
Through Harlow’s head flashed a thought. What if he should pull the trigger, and the revolver failed to go off? He knew Merriwell would be on him like a furious tiger. He knew Merriwell would have no mercy.
He dared not try to shoot. The eyes of the Yale athlete were fastened steadily upon him, and there was something in their depths that made him falter.
One, two, three seconds, and then Frank’s hand grasped the revolver and firmly turned it aside. Harlow seemed incapable of resistance, and, to his own astonishment, as well as to the unutterable amazement of the witnesses of the act, Frank took the revolver away without being resisted.
Diamond was paralyzed by the nerve of his friend. Although he had known Frank long, and thought he knew him fully, this act was a revelation to him.
Then it was, while Diamond was staring and muttering, that the spy suddenly struck him a terrific blow behind the ear, sending Jack to grass.
For an instant Diamond was stunned, and when he recovered, the spy was far away, running as if his very life depended on it.
Jack scrambled up as quickly as he could, and would have followed, but Frank called:
“Let him go! It’s useless to chase him.”
“Well, that was a fool trick of mine!” growled the Virginian, disgusted with himself. “I ought to have a leather medal!”
The boat’s crew had made a landing, and now they came toward the spot on a run. Handsome, manly young chaps, from sixteen to nineteen, they were.
“Genuine Virginians, they are!” muttered Jack, admiringly. “They don’t grow anything better anywhere!”
Harlow seemed cowed by what had taken place.
Since being disarmed without a struggle, all the spirit seemed to have left him. He stood still, looking sullen and uncertain, as if not quite sure what to do.
Up came the oarsmen, a solid-looking, brown-eyed lad in the lead.
“What’s all this about, anyway?” he sharply asked, addressing Rolf. “Who are these chaps, and what are they doing?”
An idea came to Harlow; he grasped at it.
“They are spies—enemies!” he quickly declared. “They were watching here in the bushes. They must be connected with the Alexandria fellows.”
Then the rowers, sunburned and brawny appearing, gathered about Frank and Jack, regarding them with anything but pleasant looks.
“Give it to ’em!” shouted Harlow, hoping to set the boys on Frank and Jack before any explanation could be made. “See here—don’t you see one of them threatening me with a revolver? They are desperadoes!”
“In that case, gentlemen, perhaps it would be well enough not to push us too hard,” coolly observed Frank, as he moved the muzzle of the revolver about in a careless manner. “Just give us time to say something for ourselves.”
“Don’t listen!” cried Rolf, wildly. “They will try to lie out of it, but I saw them spying!”
“Who was the chap that ran away?” asked the leader of the oarsmen, the stroke, whose name was Kent Spencer.
“He was one of them,” asserted Harlow.
“In that case, it is odd we didn’t run away with him,” smiled Frank. “We might have done so, you know.”
“Well, why didn’t you?” asked Spencer.
“Because there was no reason why we should run, and several reasons why we should stay. We can tell you a few things that may surprise you.”
“Don’t listen to their lies!” shouted Harlow. “Pitch them into the river! It’s what they deserve!”
For a moment it seemed that the young oarsmen would obey him. They seemed about to precipitate themselves on the strangers. Again Frank’s coolness caused a delay.
“If you want to souse us in the river after we have made our explanation, you can do so,” he smiled; “but isn’t it well enough to hear what we have to say first?”
“I don’t see that it can do any harm,” admitted Spencer. “Give the fellows a show, boys, but don’t let ’em get away.”
This did not suit Rolf Harlow at all, but he saw it was useless to try to urge the oarsmen on. They were inclined to obey Spencer.
“All right!” he grated; “listen to their lies, if you like. You’ll be disgusted when you hear what they have to say.”
Spencer eyed Harlow closely, wondering why he should be so eager to keep the strangers from speaking. He seemed to fear something that he knew would be said.
“As for lies,” said Frank, “if I am not mistaken, I fancy you will hear a few from this fine gentleman who has been coaching you, but who is a traitor to you at the same time.”
“A traitor!” cried Spencer. “Be careful! Mr. Harlow is a gentleman and a student of Yale College.”
“A what?” shouted Diamond.
“A what?” echoed Merriwell. “Why, the nearest this fellow ever came to the inside of Yale College was Jackson’s poker joint in New Haven. If he has represented himself as a student of Yale, it shows he began by lying to you right off the reel. This fellow was expelled from Harvard, and was drummed out of New Haven for cheating at cards! That’s the kind of a bird he is!”