"We’ll find out what the matter is, if possible," said Frank grimly. "Perhaps a doctor can tell us what ails you."
Then once more Dick was seized by the fear that he would not be permitted to take part in the football-game that day, and he struggled weakly to be put down.
"I can walk," he said. "I’m all right, Frank! Anybody’d think me a baby, to see you fellows carrying me this way."
"Whoa-up!" came from Buckhart, who was one of the party bearing Dick. "Don’t you go to bucking, my boy. Your brother is running this here drive, and he’s the boss of the whole outfit. I allow you’ll have to do as he says."
In the hospital Frank whispered a few words in the ear of the doctor.
"There is something queer about this business, doctor," he said. "I wish you would see if my brother has been poisoned, or drugged. I have reasons to fear that he has. If he has been drugged, don’t say a word of it to anybody but me—at present."
The doctor nodded.
So it came about that, on his return to the academy, Uric Scudder found the cadets gathered in groups, earnestly talking of what had happened. Scudder heard them expressing opinions concerning the result of the game if Merriwell did not participate, and he stared. Then he heard a fellow say that it was pretty certain Dick would not be able to play, and that gave him a shock. Straightway he began to ask questions, and soon learned what had happened.
"I suppose you’re glad of it, Eggs?" said Ned Stanton.
Uric’s face flushed as he heard this opprobrious name, and he snarled: