Frank Merriwell's Reward

by Burt L. Standish

"And am ready to do so again. I feel more certain now than I did then that Winnie is not in danger of throwing herself away on you. Pardon me for speaking so plainly."

"Oh, it's all right!" the Westerner admitted, though his face colored. "I used to be a dog when I boozed round, and that's what Fairfax Lee has against me now, of course. He thinks I am the same. But I've sworn off on the stuff, and you know it."

"I'll have a talk with the girls, and well see then how the land lays, and what can be done."

"It will be a favor—the biggest favor, I reckon, that any man ever received."

A number of voices were shooting Merriwell's name in the campus.

"You'll have to go, I allow," said the Westerner, gripping Merriwell's hand. "But the first news you get send it to me. Don't stop for expense, or anything else. Send it along—cab, telephone, telegraph, special messenger, or a dozen, if there's danger one may not reach me—anything, just so you whoop the news to me. I'll be walking barefooted on cactus spines every minute from now until you make some kind of a report."

Merriwell returned to the campus, where Yale tradition was gathering the members of the junior class back of the fence, near Durfee Hall.

The ceremony of "slapping" is peculiar in many respects. No official announcement is made of the fact that this formal and queer manner of announcing elections to the senior societies is enacted. No announcement of the coming event is given to the public. The members of the junior class are not notified by any one that they are expected to appear on that spot by the fence at a certain time to be ready to be "slapped," if they have been lucky enough to be chosen for membership in the great senior societies. Nevertheless, the entire junior class, with half the college, and hundreds of spectators from the city, gather there on the third Thursday afternoon in May, between the hours of four and six o'clock, and witness or participate in the spectacle.

"Slates" had been made up weeks before, and shrewd guesses given as to who would be chosen to this society and to that, though it was all mere guesswork. Nearly every one had agreed, however, that Merriwell would go to "Bones," as the leading society is called, and that "Bones" would be glad to get him, and would be receiving an honor as well as conferring one. Buck Badger, restless as a wolf, stood back and gloomily watched this gathering, and heard the buzz of talk and conjecture without really comprehending a word. Often he was not aware that he saw the things that were transpiring directly under his eyes.

But at length he aroused himself. Elsie and Inza had suddenly come within the range of his vision, and the sight of them stirred him out of his moody trance. He moved in their direction, but before he could come up with them, to his great disappointment, the pushing crowd swallowed them. Then he went in search of Merriwell, whom he found without trouble, for Merriwell was with the expectant juniors.