CHAPTER VI.
ANTON MESCAL STRIKES.
Roland Packard had fancied he might be forced to destroy the original oilskin envelope in removing the message from it, and for that reason he had secured a duplicate. When he succeeded in getting the message out without destroying the original envelope, he decided that the best thing to do was to place the blank paper in that same envelope, as the clean newness of the other might betray the trick. Then he was seized by a desire to put the message in the other envelope and copy as accurately as possible the writing upon it, which he did.
The villainous student chuckled gleefully as he thought how his brother had been deceived.
“I have the message safe in my pocket,” he muttered, “while Oll is taking the fake to Merriwell. But must I give up this genuine article in order to get the five hundred from Mescal?”
He was not at all pleased by the thought. In fact, he quickly decided not to give up the message, if he could help it. He set to thinking the matter over, and it was not long before he had decided on his course of action. He left the club-room and skulked away to his own room, taking care to attract as little attention as possible.
The following morning Roland secured another oilskin envelope. Knowing Oliver would be off to the exercises of the day, he sought his own room and prepared the envelope there.
When he came out the seniors, in caps and gowns, were assembling at the chapel, into which a crowd of visitors was flowing.
“Merriwell will be there in all his glory!” muttered Packard to himself. “He will be the cynosure of all eyes. Oh, he’ll feel proud and fine, but little he’ll dream that it is my hand that will send him forth from Yale a pauper.”
The chapel was thronged with visitors when the exercises began, and Packard was right in thinking that Merriwell would be the center of attraction.
In the meantime Packard had sought Anton Mescal, whom he finally found in a room at the Tontine. Mescal had a bottle of wine on the table at his elbow, and was smoking a Spanish cigarette. His face was flushed and his eyes gleamed wolfishly when Roland entered. He did not rise, but regarded the student grimly.