All the lads whirled to give their attention to the man who had just spoken.
“Colonel Hawtrey!” exclaimed Merriwell.
CHAPTER XXVI.
A CHALLENGE.
How long the mining magnate from Gold Hill had been enjoying the performance on the veranda, the boys did not know. He had caught Clancy red-handed, however, trying to drive the mercury out of the top of the thermometer.
“It beats all,” laughed Clancy, “what a fellow can make people do just by fooling with a thermometer.”
“The power of suggestion is tremendous,” said the colonel, “if rightly handled. It is so in everything, my lads. Start a train of suggestions properly and, if they lead in the right direction, you can mold nearly any one to your will. But that isn’t what I came over here to talk about.”
The colonel had climbed the veranda steps while talking, and he now shook hands warmly with Merry and his chums. Ballard pushed out a chair for him, and he lowered himself into it with a genial smile, while his eyes roved from one to another of the glowing young faces in front of him.
In some things Colonel Hawtrey was a stern old martinet. The better part of his life had been spent in the military service of his country, and this may have developed the relentless side of his nature. He had a will of iron, backed by a judgment that was apt to make a mountain of errors out of a molehill of mere mistakes.
He was a lover of sports, however, and was the backbone and mainstay of the Gold Hill Athletic Club. He believed that, quite apart from physical prowess, the right spirit in athletics developed inevitably all a youth’s manly qualities. And he had no patience with any one in whom manliness and personal integrity were lacking in the slightest degree.