Frank Merriwell's Reward

by Burt L. Standish

Suddenly there came a cry for help from within the house, followed by the sounds of a struggle. Fairfax Lee, unable to sleep and wandering as restlessly about within the house as the Westerner had upon the outside, had come unexpectedly upon the first burglar at the upper landing of the rear stairway. The burglar looked so marvelously like the crazy office-hunter, Bill Gaston, that Lee believed him to be Gaston, and that Gaston had invaded the house for purposes of assassination.

Though Lee had dreaded a meeting with Gaston, and would have gone far out of his way to avoid anything of the kind, he was by no means a coward. He expected a shot from Gaston's pistol, and to prevent this, he hurled himself on the burglar with a suddenness and boldness that took the latter by surprise.

The cry for help did not come from the lips of Fairfax Lee, but from those of the burglar. Badger, however, fancied that the call had come from Lee. Without waiting to consider the danger, or to ask himself how he was to account for his presence in the grounds and in the house, Buck Badger ran toward the open window.

As he did so, he saw two of the other burglars leap through. They were going to the assistance of their pal. Then a shot sounded.

Badger crossed the intervening distance at a sprinting pace, and found himself suddenly confronted by the burglar who was still on guard at the window. A pistol gleamed in the dim light. Badger knocked it aside, struck the man a blow that would have felled an ox, and went through the window with a flying leap that took him to the foot of the stairway.

He saw the two burglars on the stairs near the top. One held a dark-lantern and the other a heavy jimmy. Above, the sounds of the fight continued, and the burglar attacked by Lee was still bawling for help.

Fairfax Lee felt that he was fighting for his life, and he still believed that he was fighting Bill Gaston. He did not hear the burglars on the stairs. He was trying to get the supposed Bill Gaston by the throat and choke him into subjection. The burglar's shot, fired almost pointblank at Lee, had done him no injury, and now the weapon was on the floor.

"Help!" bellowed the burglar.

He got his throat free, but he could not throw off those clutching hands. Visions of striped clothing and prison officials loomed before him, for he had once done time. His anxious ears heard what Lee did not—the calls of the ruffians who were hurrying to his assistance—and he fought like a tiger.

Buck Badger went up the stairway in quick leaps. If the burglars heard him, they must have fancied he was the guard left at the window, for they did not look round. But before the Kansan could reach the upper landing, the three scoundrels were on Lee.