Dick Merriwell's Trap; Or, The Chap Who Bungled

by Burt L. Standish

“It’s disgusting!” growled Crauthers. “Do you know, I have heard that these Merriwells always turn their enemies into friends.”

“I know one who will never become a friend to Dick Merriwell,” declared Stark.

Hogan said nothing, but down in his heart there was a guilty feeling, for in the past Dick Merriwell had befriended him, and he had once thought that never again could he lift a hand against Dick.

But Hogan was a coarse fellow, and he had found it impossible to get in with Dick’s friends. Dick treated him well enough, but Dick’s friends would have none of him. This had turned Hogan’s wavering soul to bitterness again.

These fellows were satisfied that it was only a matter of time when Merriwell and Arlington would become firm friends. That was because they had not sounded the depths of Arlington’s nature, had not realized that his hatred was of the sort that nearly always lived while life lasted.

Arlington had taken a fresh hand and was playing his cards in a new way. And he had resolved not to trust his most intimate friend. He, also, had learned that Dick Merriwell had a most wonderful faculty of turning enemies into friends without at all seeming to wish such a thing.

“The fellows here who pretend to be his enemies to-day may be fawning around him to-morrow,” Arlington had decided. “I must be careful and trust no one. I will fool them all.”

Be careful, Chester! There is such a thing as over-playing a part. You may fool many of them, but you will have to be very clever if you fool Dick Merriwell. You will find that those dark eyes of his have a way of reading secrets, of seeming to look straight through you, of piercing the dark corners of your heart and discovering your motives.

That night three dark figures stole away from the academy and made for a certain strip of woods in the heart of which lay a jungle of fallen trees that had been swept down by a tornado. Other trees had sprung up, bushes were thick, wild vines overran the mass in summer, fallen branches were strewn about; and still through this jungle a path had been made. It led to a secret retreat, where the Black Wolves had met many times to smoke and play cards and concoct plots. They knew the way well, and they followed it through the semi-darkness, for the moon was veiled by clouds.

At one place they were compelled to walk the trunk of a tree that had fallen against another tree. At an angle they walked upward along that often-trod tree trunk, coming to another fallen tree, lodged like the first against the one that remained standing. Down the second tree they made their way. Thus they passed over a thicket through which no path had been made, coming beyond it to what seemed almost like a tunnel, where the darkness was most intense. Creeping through this tunnel, they arrived in the Den, which had been formed originally by a number of trees that fell together, or were twisted together at their tops by the hurricane, in the form of an Indian wigwam. Inside, at the bottom the branches had been cleared away, boughs were spread on the ground, and in the center was a stone fireplace, about which the Wolves could sit in council.