Secretly, Harding was elated. He was not at all unwilling to quit New London. He had seen Barrows, and there was nothing to cause him to stay. Moreover, he saw that the two Yale men thought that he was at the head of whatever plot they thought was stirring, and he saw a chance to throw them off their guard, and, through them, to remove any suspicions that Dick Merriwell had formed. Altogether, he decided, the luck had turned. So long as he got his revenge, he didn’t care at all whether he got it himself or whether some one else did the work. It was the result, not the method, that interested him.
So they saw him off, and got a mocking laugh as the train went out.
CHAPTER XXX
CAPTURED BY THE ENEMY.
“I think we’ve checkmated that lad for once,” said Bill Brady, with much satisfaction. “Good thing I thought to come ashore and see what happened. Not that you needed any help—you’re a pretty handy lad in a scrap, James. But if I hadn’t been on hand, there wouldn’t have been any witness to the assault, and I don’t suppose we could have had him arrested just on your complaint, without some sort of evidence to back you up.”
“I guess not,” said Jim. “I’m certainly glad you came along. I can’t make out what his game is, but I don’t believe he can do much of anything without being here himself. And, if he comes back, we can have him locked up and get rid of him that way. We want to keep our eyes open, though, so that he can’t sneak back without our seeing him.”
In the morning they reported their adventure with Harding to Dick Merriwell. The universal coach was thoughtful, but he was very pleased.
“It seems to me he quit too easily,” he said. “Harding usually puts up a pretty good fight—a better, longer one than that. However, I suppose he thought it would rather spoil his reputation among his friends, who have peculiar standards for judging their associates, if he landed in jail, even on such a charge. The only law those people observe is the one about not being found out. They don’t mind breaking all the Ten Commandments themselves, and they don’t care how often their friends break them, as long as they don’t give any one else a chance to punish them for it. I’m glad he’s gone, anyhow.”
“We ought to be able to tell something after the men get out and row to-day,” said Brady. “I understand, of course, that there won’t be any regular time trials, but the shells could speed up a bit, I suppose, and see how it went.”
That test was eminently satisfactory for both Harvard and Yale. There was a representative from each college in the other’s launch when the crews went out, and the shells swept along at high speed for a while or so of hard rowing, enough to show that whatever had made the trouble before was not any longer in evidence.