Stovebridge gave a slight start as he turned back to his friends.
“I was wondering who those fellows are that just drove up,” he said carelessly. “They’re talking to old Clingwood.”
Fred Marston turned with an effort and surveyed the newcomers.
“Don’t know, I’m sure,” he drawled sinking back in his chair. “Never saw them before.”
For some reason the strangers seemed to interest Stovebridge extremely, and he continued to watch them furtively. There were four of them. The one who had driven the car, and with whom Roger Clingwood was doing the most talking, was tall and handsome, with dark hair and eyes, and the figure of an athlete. The fellow who stood near him was good-looking, too, and much more heavily built. Behind them, a short, wiry youth was talking to a tremendously stout fellow with a fat, good-humored face.
Presently Stovebridge left his friends and wandered along the veranda, pausing now and then to exchange a remark with some acquaintance, and before long he had reached the vicinity of the strangers, where he leaned carelessly against a pillar and looked out across the golf links.
“Very glad you could get here this morning, Merriwell,” Roger Clingwood, an old Yale graduate was saying. “You’ll be able to look around a bit before the race this afternoon.”
“Merriwell!” exclaimed Stovebridge under his breath. “I wonder if that can be Dick Merriwell, of Yale.”
Suddenly a hand struck him on the shoulder and a voice exclaimed heartily:
“Hello, Brose, old boy! Wearing your old brown cap, I see. What’s the matter with the one you got at the governor’s shop yesterday?”