after, and it will not cost too much of an effort to point it in your direction and pull the trigger."
Frank laughed.
"I know you are almost too lazy to draw your breath," he said, "and I also know that the best thing that could happen to you would be just such an expedition as I have proposed. However, I suppose it is useless to waste my breath talking to you, and so I will drop it."
But for all of Browning's refusal to be one of the party, Frank did not give up the project of a trip across the continent from ocean to ocean during the summer vacation.
But almost immediately other matters occupied his attention.
One night he was spending an evening in town with a jolly party of students. The others were drinking beer and ale, while Merriwell took nothing but ginger ale or bottled soda.
As they were leaving Traeger's, Frank caught a glimpse of the face of a man who seemed to be waiting for them to come out.
For one moment Merriwell stopped as if turned to
stone, and then, with a hoarse shout of recognition, he leaped after the man, who had slipped away.
The others followed Frank, and they soon pursued him around a corner, where they found him standing still and staring about in a disappointed manner.