CHAPTER XX.

DICK’S CONFIDENCE.

The following day Earl Gardner was ill in bed. Among the others, although more serious results had been anticipated, no one was laid up. True, some of them were stiff and lame, but all were up and about.

Late in the afternoon, while Dick was alone in his room, there came a knock on his door, and Darrell entered.

“Hello, Hal!” cried Dick. “Sit down, old man.”

Darrell seemed strangely awkward and ill at ease.

“They tell me Gardner is in bed,” he said.

Dick nodded.

“Yes; I am afraid he is in for a sick spell. It’s lucky none of the rest of us are in bed. How’s your head, old man?”

“Oh, I’d hardly know anything had happened to it. Just cut my scalp a little, that’s all.”

“It looked pretty serious for you when I found you covered with blood in that mess, Hal.”

“I came to speak about that, Merriwell. They tell me you crawled back into that wreck after every one save me was out of it. You did that for me, and yet you must have known——”

He stopped, biting his lip.

“Go ahead, Hal,” urged Dick. “I must have known—what?”

“Well, you know what happened in that baseball game. You saw the kind of a game I put up, didn’t you?”

“Of course.”

“What did you think of it?”

“You were out of practice.”

“Oh, you know I didn’t play like that just because I was out of practice. See here, Merriwell, I am disgusted with myself! You’re a white man, and I feel like a cur!”

“That’s a bad way to feel, Darrell,” said Dick.

“But that’s just the way I do feel. You must know that it is a blamed hard thing for me to come here and tell you this, but I have thought it all over, and I made up my mind to do it, no matter how hard it was. Merriwell, I was sore on you Saturday. I can’t explain just why, but I was dead sore. I didn’t expect to stay in that game long enough to lose it for you. I thought you would take me out. Frankly and squarely, I was looking for trouble. Had you put me out of the game it would have given me the excuse I sought.”

“I am sorry to hear you say this, Darrell. Why should you have to pick up trouble with me? There was a time when we did not pull together very well, but I fancied that time was passed.”

“So did I.”

“But now——”

“I tell you I can’t explain it, for certain reasons,” said Hal; “but I frankly confess I acted the part of a cheap duffer. I am thoroughly ashamed of myself, and that’s why I came to you to ask your pardon. But for that shower I would have lost the game for Fardale. And to-day I’d be in the depths of remorse. I am conscience-stricken as it is. What can they think of me? I know the fellows are not all fools. They must have seen through my wretched work. I am certain they did, for some of them have given me the scornful eye. They have no confidence in me. You can have no confidence in me.”

Dick arose and advanced to Hal’s side. The latter was sitting now, with his elbows on the table and his head on his hand.

“You’re mistaken, old man,” said Dick gently. “I still have confidence in you.”

Darrell looked up quickly.

“Is it possible?” he asked.

“Why shouldn’t I?” exclaimed Dick. “A fellow who has manhood enough to confess a mistake or a fault is just the sort to win my confidence. You come here like a man and acknowledge your mistake. I suspected you before that, and yet I hated to believe.”

“I knew you couldn’t help suspecting me. I am always doing some confoundedly foolish thing! I have a miserable disposition, Merriwell. I can’t seem to control it at times.”

“A chap who recognizes his own weaknesses and fights against them stands a good chance to win. The one who can’t see his failings, or refuses to see them, is the fellow who fails.”

“Perhaps that is right.”

“I know it is right, Darrell.”

“Still, even now you wouldn’t give me another show? You say you have confidence in me; but, knowing as much as you do, would you dare put me into the game against Fairport?”

Dick stood squarely before his visitor.

“Darrell, you can play baseball, and I know it. I was sorry when you refused to come out with the others this spring. We lost a good man in you. Gardner is ill, and it seems likely now he will not be able to play Wednesday. Do you want to fill his place?”

Instantly Hal sprang to his feet.

“Do I?” he exclaimed. “You bet your life I do! But you won’t use me? It isn’t possible.”

“Come out for practice to-morrow,” urged Dick. “We will have Monday and Tuesday to practice, and you may be able to improve some in that time. If you can get into your old form you will be all right.”

“And Wednesday?” questioned Hal.

“If Gardner is not in condition to play Wednesday you shall fill his place.”

Hal seized Dick’s hand.

“Merriwell,” he chokingly exclaimed, “you’re the whitest fellow in the world! I will never again believe any gossiping lies about you.”

“So you have been hearing gossip of some sort, have you?” questioned Dick. “Well, never mind; I don’t wish to hear it myself. The quickest way to kill gossip is to scorn it.”

“Not always,” asserted Hal. “In some cases a fellow has to find where it started and choke it off there.”

There was no small surprise among the cadets when Darrell appeared on the field the following afternoon in a baseball suit. Already it had been whispered about that, through his deliberate crookedness, Fardale had nearly lost the game at Fairport. If Darrell observed the indignant glances bestowed upon him he made no sign.

That night Anson Day stopped Dick near the gymnasium.

“See here, Captain Merriwell,” said the chairman of the athletic committee, “I have a question to ask you.”

“All right,” smiled Dick. “Ask away.”

“You used Darrell in practice to-day, I observed.”

“Yes.”

“Do you trust him?”

“Yes.”

“You do?”

“Yes.”

“But, great Scott! you’re not blind, and the boys are saying that Darrell tried to throw the game at Fairport. Didn’t you see anything suspicious?”

“No matter what I saw, Day, I am satisfied that Hal Darrell is loyal to Fardale and will do his level best to win if he plays Wednesday.”

“Then you mean to play him, do you?”

“Some one must fill Gardner’s place.”

“There are others.”

“No other man as good as Darrell.”

“I am afraid you’re making a mistake, Merriwell,” said Day, seriously shaking his head. “I am not the only one who thinks so.”

“Wait. Wednesday you shall see that I am making no mistake. Darrell will prove it.”