Frank Merriwell's Reward

by Burt L. Standish

But a score of hands outstretched to grasp him, and he, too, went down, screeching lustily. Another knife flashed and another shirt-tag was neatly severed.

Lew Veazie, who had been with Rupert and Gene, started to run, deeming discretion the better part of valor. But he took only a step when he, too, went down. And again an amputating knife did its work. As soon as a shirt-tag was cut off, the amputator, flourishing it on the blade of his knife, like an Indian flaunting a scalp-lock, made a dash for the elm, where it was pinned up as a trophy.

Then it was found that a "taste" for shirt-tags had been created by this exciting bit of experience, and other men, who had been loudly laughing and cheering over the discomfiture of Chickering and his inane friends, found themselves suddenly on the ground, with wicked-looking knives flashing before their eyes, and their shirts being mutilated by the pressure of keen knife-blades.

In the midst of this "fun," Buck Badger arrived on the campus from his stolen interview with Winnie Lee. Though his face wore a perplexed expression, it had lost its gloom. There might be trouble for him in the future, but Winnie's words had for the present driven the blackest of the shadows out of his heart. The desire uppermost in his mind just then was to meet and whip Donald Pike. He had sworn to himself that he would do that the first thing, and he meant to keep the oath.

Nevertheless, reaching the elms of the campus at this exciting moment, he was willing to cease temporarily his search for Pike and view the fruit-gathering. It would be rare sport, provided, of course, that his own shirt was not forced to yield "fruit."

To prevent this, and that he might see better, he grasped a low-hanging limb and swung up into one of the elms.

"Fruit!" was being shouted everywhere, and the indications were that scores of trophies would adorn the old elm the next morning, if some stop was not put to the thing by the college authorities, which was not likely. "Society week" is expected to be noisy, and things are winked at which on ordinary occasions would bring reprimands.

Another person had invaded the branches of the elm but a minute before the ascent of the Westerner. That other person was Donald Pike, who looked down now on the man he felt instinctively to be his mortal foe with a little shiver of dread. More than once Pike had regretted making that revelation to Fairfax Lee, for the chances that discovery would come and that Badger would fiercely summon him to answer, seemed very great, when he gave himself time to reflect. And he feared Badger.

All might have gone well on this evening with Pike, however, if his fear of discovery had not made him try to climb farther up the tree. The Kansan heard the low scraping sound, in spite of the din in the campus, and glanced upward, and when he did so he saw and recognized the man he was looking for. A calcium-light was sending its rays through the higher branches, and Pike's white, scared face was as plainly revealed to Badger as if the two were facing each other in a lighted room.

The hate which Badger had been nursing swelled to the point of bursting. He forgot the search for "fruit," in which he had been interested, seeing only the enemy whom he had sworn to whip as soon as they met.