“Or make one!”
“Well, you know that you can count on our aid in anything you want to undertake.”
There were times when Dade Morgan despised these tools. He saw their innate cowardice, but often he felt forced to use them, for he knew he could not fight the battle he had undertaken against Merriwell alone.
When his pretended friends had departed, he sat for a long time alone, lost in thought, trying to plan some means to “even the score” with the big freshman.
“I wish Hector King were here!” he muttered finally, as he prepared to turn out his light. “But he has disappeared since Merriwell unmasked him. Given up the fight, probably. Well, I haven’t given it up! I’ll have to be careful, though, and strike in the dark. Merriwell and Starbright are too dangerous for me to fight them in the open.”
Then he extinguished his light and crept into bed, where he lay awake a long time, discarding plan after plan as impossible or impolitic, and listening to some freshmen singing in another part of the building.
The silver moon crept aloft in the cold sky and looked down on the snowy and deserted campus.
Dade’s heart burned when he heard the deep, rich voice of Dick Starbright join in the rollicking college songs. Bert Dashleigh was with the singers, gleefully thumping his mandolin.
By and by Dade slept.