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FRANK MERRIWELL’S ENDURANCE.
CHAPTER I
L’ESTRANGE.
On the way East with his athletic team Frank Merriwell accepted the invitation made by Hugh Morton to stop off at Omaha and visit the Midwestern Athletic Association.
Morton, a young man of twenty-five, was president of the Midwestern. He and Merriwell, the former Yale athlete, had met and become acquainted by chance in Los Angeles some weeks before, and there seemed to exist between them a sort of fellow feeling that caused them to take unusual interest in each other.
Merry and his friends were invited by Morton to witness the finals in a series of athletic events which were being conducted by the club. These contests consisted mainly of boxing and wrestling, although fencing, which was held in high esteem by the association, was one of the features.
In explanation of the rather surprising fact that fencing was thus highly regarded by an athletic association of the middle West, it is necessary to state that a very active member of the club was M. François L’Estrange, the famous French fencer and duelist, whose final encounter in his own country had resulted in the death of his opponent, a gentleman of noble birth, and had compelled L’Estrange to flee from his native land, never to return.