Then his eyes fell on the girls. Bart had found Elsie and was talking to her, his dark face flushed, his eyes glowing. She smiled and nodded as he was speaking.
“They are happy,” said Frank, to himself.
He did not know that at that moment Hodge was praising him to the skies, telling what a remarkable game he had played and how he had covered himself with glory in the battle against Harvard. He did not know that somehow such praise was the pleasantest thing Elsie Bellwood could hear.
He saw Inza, and she looked toward him. She smiled, and he felt his heart throb.
Home! Yes, Yale had been his home; but now before his vision there seemed to rise the picture of another home and he hastened to Inza’s side.
CHAPTER II.
ANTON MESCAL.
A dark-faced, Spanish-appearing man stopped Roland Packard on the steps of the Tontine Hotel.
“Get out of the way!” snarled Roland, who had been drinking.
“Wait,” said the man, in a soft, not unpleasant voice. “I wish to speak to you. It is important.”
Roland was in anything but a pleasant mood. He had seen Frank Merriwell cover himself with glory in the game against Harvard, and, having foolishly bet that the Cambridge men would win the championship, he had taken to drink immediately after the game.