The work in the cage went on regularly day after day, and each day the poorer men were weeded out from the great mass and dropped. From nearly a hundred men the squad thinned down to fifty, to forty, to thirty.
Still Dade Morgan remained, though Defarge had been dropped. The latter could not understand it. Apparently Merriwell had made not the slightest move after receiving the confession. One day Bertrand ventured to ask Hodge if he had given the confession to Frank, but Bart snarled at him furiously and would not answer.
Indeed, Hodge was in a most disagreeable humor, kept so by the manner in which Morgan hung on. Fully believing the fellow a wretch of the most dastardly dye, Bart could not understand Merry’s laxity in not forcing Dade to get out, and this served to put Hodge in anything but an agreeable temper.
Many times Frank had studied the confession of Defarge. He did so while quite alone in his own room, and he found something about it that convinced him of falseness and insincerity.
At least ten more men would be dropped before the team would start on the Southern trip, and out of the eighteen or twenty men who were to play during the Easter holidays would come the regular nine.
There was still time enough to drop Morgan, but Frank did not wish to drop him without being satisfied of the absolute justice of such a move. He had watched Morgan closely, and saw there was good baseball-material in the lithe, supple youth. More than that, he saw that Morgan might develop into a clever pitcher, and Frank greatly needed assistance in the box, for he could not pitch all the games.
One night, while sitting alone and meditating over the remarkable confession, Frank began to think of the time he had quelled and controlled Defarge by the power of his eyes. He remembered that the French youth had seemed absolutely helpless beneath his influence.
All at once, Merry sprang to his feet, exclaiming:
“It’s worth trying!”
Two minutes later he had left his room. He found Hodge and said: