CHAPTER XI.

A BOY’S REVENGE.

"Can you see them?"

"Sure thing."

"Are they practising?"

"Yes."

"Frank Merriwell there?"

"Yes; he is coaching."

Jabez Lynch was standing beneath the tree which Uric Scudder had climbed, and he was the one who asked the questions. Uric had managed to draw himself up to a somewhat perilous position near the end of a bending branch, where he clung as he gazed away beyond the narrow fringe of woods.

In a clearing beyond that fringe of woods the Fardale team was hard at work in secret practise. Having no fenced field, from which unwelcome spectators could be excluded, it became necessary for the eleven to retire to this spot when it was decided to get in practise, for Frank Merriwell did not care to have witnesses outside the regular players and a few chosen and trusted substitutes.

Although Fardale had defeated Rivermouth, the most loyal and enthusiastic cadet was obliged to confess that the result was brought about principally through the splendid and amazing work of Dick Merriwell. Rivermouth had seemed far too strong for Fardale, and honest ones acknowledged that the cadets would not have scored once had Merriwell been out of the game.

This filled Dick’s enemies with bitterness and envy, but they dared say very little openly against the remarkable boy from the West. But both friends and foes united in saying it was unfortunate when a team showed up so weak that it could be seriously, perhaps fatally, crippled by the loss of a single man.

While he was proud of his brother, Frank Merriwell quickly decided that there must be less individual playing and more team-work. Fardale must be put in such condition that the loss of a star player would not surely defeat her.

Up to this time Frank had been content to drill Fardale in the simple lines of the game; but the team had made such progress in learning these things that he now determined to resort to more difficult plays.

Aware that Dick’s success had aroused a spirit of jealousy at home, and knowing there might be traitors in camp, Frank decided on some secret practise. Never before had Fardale started off so brilliantly in football, and Merry was determined that the school should make a great record that season, if possible.

So the eleven and the choice substitutes were taken out for practise in this field, a long distance from the academy, where it was believed there existed little danger from spies or traitors.

The players had gone off quietly, in order to avoid attention; but Uric Scudder was on the watch, and his suspicious soul awakened. Before long he had communicated his suspicions to Jabez Lynch, who found an opportunity to slip away with Scudder and strike across lots in the direction it was supposed the football team had gone.

Just what he hoped to accomplish, the chief rascal did not himself know, but he wished to be fully informed concerning the plans and progress of the eleven.

"Can you tell me what they are doing?" asked Lynch, with some eagerness. "Can you make out their plays from there?"

"Yes, I can see them plainly," answered the fellow in the tree. "I take it that Merriwell is drilling them in some new formation."

"I must see that!" exclaimed Jabez, starting to pull off his coat. "I’m coming up."

"This limb won’t hold us both," said Uric.

"Then you had better come down. If Merriwell is putting the team up to some new stunts, I’m going to find out what’s doing."

At this moment, however, came a sound that caused Jabez to pause. Not far away somebody whistled sharply in the woods.

"What’s that?" exclaimed Scudder, startled. "Somebody’s coming."

"Keep still!" advised Lynch, in a guarded tone, although he looked somewhat alarmed and quickly drew on his coat.

The whistle sounded nearer, and then a dog barked. Jabez Lynch stopped for nothing, but scudded softly away, disappearing into the bushes.

"Hold on!" cried Uric, in alarm at thus being deserted. "Wait for me! Don’t run off like that! Hold on!"

His cries seemed to bring some one hurrying toward the spot, and he began descending the tree in great haste, making not a little noise in doing so.

Then a huge dog came bounding into view, setting up a savage barking. At that moment Scudder lost his hold, clutched wildly at a branch, turned, and fell crashing through the limbs toward the ground, a yell of terror escaping his lips.

It seemed that Scudder was in danger of landing on the ground with sufficient violence to break his bones, and the fear that clutched his heart when he felt himself falling was something he did not soon forget.

Fortunately for him, the sharp prong of a strong limb pierced his trousers, and his downward flight was arrested with such suddenness that he nearly lost his breath. There he hung, not more than twelve feet from the ground, perfectly helpless.

His first feeling was one of intense relief and thankfulness. His hands and face smarted from the stinging blows of the smaller branches, received as he crashed through the tree, but he minded that not at all, for had he not been saved from more serious injury by the abrupt checking of his flight?

Then, directly beneath him, the dog began to leap and bark, showing a shining lot of very savage-looking teeth.

Of a sudden Uric began to fear his trousers would not prove strong enough to sustain him, and that he would fall into the waiting jaws of the animal below. He tried to squirm about and get hold of the limb, but found this was a difficult or impossible thing to do. He heard a boyish voice crying:

"Tige—here, Tige!"

The dog barked still more fiercely, if possible.

"Hey, you Tige!" called the voice. "What are you doing there?"

"Help!" cried Uric. "Come quick and call your old dog off! Help! Help!"

"Hello!" shouted the boy, as he crashed nearer. "Tige’s got something treed."

Then into view came a ragged, freckled, snub-nosed chap of fourteen, carrying an old-fashioned muzzle-loading shotgun. The youngster stopped and stared at Uric in amazement, holding the gun as if ready to shoot.

"Jiminy!" he ejaculated.

"What ails you?" snapped Uric angrily. "Take your dog away, will you?"

"Oh, golly!" cried the boy. "What you doin’ up there—hung yourself out to dry?"

"You saucy monkey!" shouted Scudder. "Don’t you dare talk to me that way! Oh, my trousers are tearing—oh! oh!"

"Oh! oh!" whooped the boy, in delight and derision. "You’ll be off in a minute!"

"Please take that dog away!" begged Scudder. "He’ll pounce on me the minute I drop! He’ll bite me!"

"If he does," said the youngster with the gun. "It’ll p’isen him, and then you’ll have to pay damages."

"You young wretch! Don’t you see I’m in danger? Why don’t you do something to help me? Do you want to see me killed? Do you want to see me chewed up by that beast?"

"Perhaps I do," carelessly answered the boy, without a sign of sympathy.

"Why, you heartless young brute! You ought to be——"

"Now, don’t you go to callin’ too many names!" exclaimed the lad. "If you do, you’ll wish you hadn’t. I’ve seen you before, an’ I ain’t forgot about it, either. I made up my mind I’d remember you, and I have. I guess you know what happened the last time we saw each other?"

"I don’t remember anything about it. Can’t you climb up here and help me somehow? I’ll pay you for it. I’ll——"

"Oh, yes!" cried the boy, in great sarcasm. "I know you—I know how you’ll pay me! The same way you paid me for the apples I brought you out of our orchard two weeks ago. I ain’t forgot that; have you? You said you’d give me five cents to bring you a hatful of apples, and I brought them. Then you kicked me, and when I follered you and asked for my five cents you throwed my hat in the brook and pushed me in after it. Oh, I’m the same feller you done them things to, and I kinder think it’s my turn to do a few things to you, mister."

Uric remembered all these things with some alarm, and he quickly said:

"Oh, I was just fooling with you, kid. Can’t you stand a joke?"

"Sure thing," chuckled the boy. "I’m the greatest feller to stand a joke you ever saw. And this is the kind of a joke I like to stand."

Scudder was furious.

"If I can get my hands on you again," he thought, "I’ll break your back!"

Aloud he said:

"Can’t you get a ladder somewhere and help me down? I’ll give you ten cents if you do."

"Will ye, honest?" exclaimed the boy, with pretended eagerness.

"Honest."

"All of ten cents?"

"Yes."

"To keep you from droppin’ and breakin’ your neck?"

"Yes, to keep me from——"

"It ain’t worth it," grinned the boy; "but I guess I’ll do it. Just you hang on there till I come back. Old Eb Jones lives over here on the road a piece, and there’s a ladder right by his barn. I’ll be back in a hurry, an’ I’ll leave Tige right here to watch you. Hey, Tige, keep your eye on him, boy."

"Bow-wow!" barked Tige, glaring at Uric in a vicious way, as if longing to rend him with his keen teeth.

"Oh, take your dog away!" cried the unfortunate boy in the tree. "Don’t leave him here!"

"Oh, he’s all right!" declared the boy. "He can’t reach you."

"But what if my trousers give? Take him away, I say! Please don’t leave him here!"

But the boy ran off, laughing, having left his old gun leaning against a crotched sapling.

"The young brat!" snarled Uric. "Wait till I get down! I won’t do a thing to him—not a thing! Oh, I’ll make him sick! If I can get my hands on his old gun I’ll shoot his dog, too!"

Then the dog growled fiercely, as if understanding Uric’s words.

"You mongrel!" grated Scudder. "If I can——"

He twisted about in another attempt to get hold of the limb, but again his efforts caused his trousers to give a little, with an ominous sound, and he quickly desisted from the trial.

"The boy’ll bring a ladder pretty quick," he said. "I can’t stand it hanging here much longer! My head is beginning to feel dreadfully bad."

The dog sat down beneath the tree, licking its jaws and turning its eyes upward toward the dangling figure.

It was a long and tedious wait for the return of the boy, but at last Uric heard him coming through the bushes.

"Hurry up!" cried Scudder.

"Be there in a minute," was the answer.

"Did you bring the ladder?"

"No; but I brought something else."

The lad came into view, carrying his old hat in both hands, and the hat was full of eggs.

Scudder’s head seemed to swim. Through a haze he saw that hatful of eggs, and he was dazed and bewildered.

"What have you got?" he gasped.

"Fruit!" chuckled the boy. "Found ’em over at Jones’ barn. I gave you a hatful of fruit once before and didn’t get anything for it, and now I’m going to give you another hatful. Oh, golly! Tige, ain’t we goin’ to have some fun!"

A feeling of despair seized upon Uric Scudder.

"Don’t you dare!" he gasped.

The boy carefully placed the hat on the ground.

"The most of this fruit is dead ripe," he grinned. "It’s been layin’ in an old nest under the barn till it ripened off fust-rate. Now this, for instance"—selecting one of the eggs—"is the real thing. Jest open your mouth and let me see how nigh I can come to it."

"If you throw that at me——" began Uric.

Whiz!—Spat!

The aim of the kid was excellent, and the egg struck the dangling boy on his breast, spattering in a slimy, yellow mass over the cadet’s shirt.

Oh, the smell that assailed Uric’s nostrils! It made him sick and faint!

"Stop it!" he hoarsely yelled.

The boy selected another egg.

"This one," he said, "is a better specimen than t’other. Bet I can hit you right in the left eye with it."

Whiz!—Spat!

Uric managed to move his head, so that the egg struck him where he wore his hat on ordinary occasions, filling his hair.

"He, he!" laughed the boy.

"Bow-wow!" barked Tige, prancing about beneath the tree.

"Ain’t it fun!" whooped the urchin. "Oh, dear me! I don’t believe I ever had so much fun!"

"I’ll kill you!" screamed Uric, kicking wildly, regardless of the danger of falling.

"Oh, I’m just foolin’ with you," said the freckled youngster. "Can’t you stand a joke?"

"If you throw another——"

Whiz!—Spat!

The third egg struck Uric on the forehead and spattered into his eyes. The dangling target yelled again, but his cries were choked, for the fourth egg hit him fairly in the mouth.

"He! he! he!" shrieked the boy. "This is more’n five cents’ worth of fun! Kicked me for a joke, didn’t ye? Pushed me into the brook for a joke, hey? Well, take that! and that! and that!"

The eggs flew thick and fast now, and hardly one missed the unfortunate wretch in the tree. The dog barked and the boy laughed, while Uric could scarcely groan.

Of a sudden, the dog pricked up its ears, faced off toward the north, and barked.

"Somebody comin’, Tige?" said the boy quickly. "Well, we’re pretty near done with this job. Here go the last two eggs. Can’t miss with them."

Spat! spat!—both eggs landed.

"Good-by," said the boy, catching up his gun. "Next time you kick a feller take somebody of your size. Hope you’ve had lots of fun. I have."

With these words he hurried away into the woods, the dog following, leaving the wretched boy in the tree to get down as best he could.