CHAPTER II.
A STRONG ARM.
Hull did not pause to make any kind of a bluff, but he turned out with remarkable alacrity, for Merriwell’s eyes were fastened upon him and seemed to go through him like knives. Those eyes seemed quite enough to turn any one aside.
Seeing Tilton make that abrupt swerve, Veazie and Lord looked for the cause, and beheld Merry within two strides of them. They nearly fell over each other in their haste to get away, and they went clean off the sidewalk into the gutter.
Chickering pretended not to see Merry, although he could not help swerving aside the least bit. Ives suddenly became busy with his bang, and Skelding was the only man of the whole lot who ventured to give Frank one savage glance. But Merry paid no heed to Skelding, who was not in his path at all, and walked on. Gene was mad.
“Well, I swear, you are like a lot of frightened sheep!” he snarled, regarding the rest with scorn. “You make me sick, the whole of you!”
“What is the matter?” asked Rupert, with pretended surprise. “What made everybody dodge aside so?” Then he looked back and saw Frank. “Can it be?” he said, in great disgust. “Really, it’s too bad!”
In disgust Skelding left the sidewalk and started to cross the street. The others flocked after him stragglingly.
Then there was a great rumpus and uproar down the street. Men shouted and ran for the sidewalks, teams got out of the way in a hurry, and the electric car at the crossing slid over barely in time.
And right down on the Chickering set bore two runaway horses attached to a bounding, rocking, reeling carriage. The driver was gone from his seat, the reins were flying loose, and the two ladies in the carriage were quite helpless. At any moment they might be thrown out and killed. At any moment the mad horses might crash into another carriage, a car, a stone post, the curbing, or something that would cap the catastrophe.