Frank Merriwell's Setback; Or, True Pluck Welcomes Defeat

by Burt L. Standish

Merriwell darted to the next horse. The harness of that horse was also severed. He saw beyond this horse a sleigh which had recently been driven up, as was evidenced by the fact that the horse seemed blown. This animal was unblanketed, and all those brought to the lake earlier in the afternoon had been heavily blanketed to protect them from the wind and cold.

“The fellow came out in that sleigh!” he thought.

Seeing that the harness was intact, he sprang toward the vehicle, at the same time glancing down the road where the sleigh holding Inza and her abductor was vanishing.

Hodge and Browning had jumped toward carriages with the intention of taking the first they came to and joining in the chase, but the harnesses were so cut and slashed that they could not be used.

Merriwell leaped into the sleigh and turned the horse toward the road. Then he reached over, took the whip, and gave the animal a cut. It started down the road at a speedy gait.

Frank’s mind was in as much of a whirl as Dashleigh’s. He did not know what Dashleigh had seen on Whitney Avenue, but he had heard of the infatuation of Amos Belton for Inza. He had learned, too, that Belton had dropped behind in his studies and was likely to be forced out of Yale on that account. The report which had reached him accounted for Belton’s low grade on the theory that the junior’s mind was so taken up by thoughts of Inza that he could not study.

But Merriwell had never dreamed that Belton would do what he now seemed to be doing, and the only theory on which he could build for a possible solution was that the junior had suddenly become insane.

Filled by this fear, Merriwell gave the horse another cut, and sent it down the road at a racing gallop.

With the horse going at top speed, Merriwell gave a moment to the removal of his skates; then again took up the whip.

Back by the lake students were engaged in frantic efforts to tie and splice the cut harnesses, while most of the great crowd was streaming on foot down the road. In the midst of these ran Danny and Bink, whose shrill voices Merriwell could hear amid the din.