Chapter 11

FRANK PREVENTS TROUBLE.

Badger's belief that Hodge had juggled the shell which exploded in the gun was not very strong when he left the grounds of the gun club, but his hatred of Hodge was not in any degree lessened thereby. Only by a supreme exercise of will-power had he been able to keep himself from rushing upon Bart when the latter made his bitter comments to Merry.

"Merriwell is all right, but Hodge isn't even a piece of a man!" he growled, as he made his way home, his thoughts in a chaotic state. "I shall have to punch his head for him. Merry wouldn't have beat me shooting if I had taken my own gun along! I reckon I was a fool for going into the thing. Hodge isn't any too good to slip that shell in on Merry! And if he didn't do it, who did? And I'd like to know what was in it? That's whatever!"

Bart's feelings against the Westerner were quite as bitter. He almost hated the ground on which Badger's shadow fell. It seemed unlikely that Frank could ever reconcile these two antagonistic characters.

Bart was sore also about the way Frank's friends were treating him. Nor was the feeling lessened by his own inner conviction that he had dealt rather shabbily with one who had been as true a friend to him as Merry had been, and that the other members of the "flock" had good grounds for looking on him with disfavor.

"I shall never crawl on my knees for the friendship and good-will of any of them!" was his thought, as he turned a corner on his way to the lighted campus, on the evening of the second day after the shooting. "And as for Badger----"

He ran violently against a man and was hurled backward. The man was Badger.

"What do you mean by that?" the Westerner demanded, for he, also, had been almost knocked from his feet, and he, too, had been feeding his hot anger with inflammatory thoughts against Bart. "You did that on purpose!"

Hodge lunged at the Kansan's face. But the blow did not fall. The fist was knocked down, and a strong grasp on his shoulder turned him half-round.

"Stop this!" came sternly from Frank Merriwell, who was also on his way to the campus.

"Let me get at him!" Bart panted, trying to wrench away. "He ran into me and tried to knock me down just now. I can't stand it! I won't stand it!"

"Oh, let him come on!" the Westerner grated. "I've been aching for a crack at him for a month! I'll polish him off in short order, if you will just let him come on! He thinks because he knocked me out once that he can do it again!"

"If you fellows are determined to fight, I'll arrange for you to get at each other some time, but you are not going to fight here, and that is flat!"

"Oh, well, let it go!" said Bart, with intense bitterness and disgust. "I'll not trouble him here. But if we ever do come up against each other, I'll hammer the life out of him!"

"I don't doubt you'd kill me if you could!" the Kansan sneered. "I rather think you tried it the other day."

"What do you mean?" Bart demanded, again bristling. "Do you mean the shell that blew up the gun?"

"It's strange you can guess so easy!" Badger insinuated.

"See here, Badger," said Frank, who had stepped between the belligerents. "You insult me when you intimate that Bart knew anything about that shell. That shell was slipped into my box by Morton Agnew. I have discovered enough already to convince me of that. I saw him do something to-day, too, which puts a big club into my hand!"

Badger's face changed, but he would not admit that he might be wrong in laying the dastardly deed at the door of Bart Hodge.

"When you've got the proof, I'll look at it," he doubtingly remarked, turning about.

"Oh, don't talk to him!" Hodge growled. "I wouldn't waste words on him."

"I'll hammer your face for this some day!" Badger panted, turning back.

"It's right here, ready for the hammering whenever you get ready to try it!" Hodge snapped, and then moved away with Merriwell. Seeing that they were heading toward the campus, the Westerner went now in a different direction.

"I don't know why I should let Merriwell come in and interfere in that way," he grumbled. "I allow that it really was none of his affair. But I permitted him to order me to stand back, and I stood back. Of course, I'm under obligations to him, and all that, and he said good words to Winnie for me when I seemed to need them--but, hang it all! he isn't my boss! Who made him my master? It's all right for him to lead Hodge around by the nose that way, but----"

"Hello!" came in an inquiring voice, and Badger, looking up, saw Morton Agnew. The Westerner's face took on an unpleasant look, and he did not answer the hail.

"Don't be surly!" said Agnew, coming boldly on.

"What do you want?" snapped the Kansan.

Then the thought came to him that it would be a good idea to treat Agnew with some consideration, for thereby it might be possible to get the inside facts about the shell that ripped the gun open and came so near mangling his arm.

"What do you want?" he asked again, toning down his gruffness.

"I know we're not friends," said Agnew, with the suavity of a confidence man, "but that is no reason why we should always remain foes. I saw you here, and you looked lonesome. I'm a rather lonesome bird myself to-night, so I whistled to you."

"I allow you've the most gall of any man I ever saw!" was Badger's thought.

Aloud, he said:

"We'll go down this way, then. Did I look lonesome? Well, I wasn't feeling any lonesome, I can tell you--none whatever!"

"Perhaps you object to my company?" drawing back.

Badger knew that this was a piece of acting, and he wanted to crack Agnew on the jaw for it. But he held himself in check. Really Badger seemed to be gaining some self-control--a thing that was entirely foreign to him when he first knew Merriwell. He was enabled to hold himself in by the intense desire he felt to discover if Agnew slipped the "fixed" shell into the box. That was an important point just then.

"Come along!" the Westerner grunted. "You said that you were lonesome, if I am not. I'm not so hoggish as to want to run away from a man who thinks he can get good out of my company."

"I like to hear you talk that way," said Agnew, linking his arm in the Kansan's.

The touch made Badger's flesh creep, but he held this feeling in check, too.

"Here's a saloon!" said Agnew, after they had walked a considerable distance without saying anything of moment. "Let's go in. We can talk in there. I never like to chatter much on the street."

Looking up, Badger saw that they were in front of a well-known resort, which he had entered more than once, but of which he had recently fought shy. Winnie's face rose reproachfully before him as he stopped and looked at the entrance. It almost drove him back.

"We can talk better inside," Agnew urged.

The Westerner glanced hesitatingly up and down the street.

"All right," he agreed, again feeling a fierce desire to get at whatever knowledge Agnew possessed about the exploding shell.

The proprietor nodded familiarly toward him as he walked in.

"Glad to see you. Nice evening!"

Badger, who was not good at acting what he did not feel, mumbled a reply.

"Have something?" suggested Morton, moving up to the bar.

Badger pushed Agnew's arm away and turned toward a side room.

"No! I don't need a drink to talk."

"It greases a fellow's tongue," said Morton, with one of his persuasive smiles. "You won't have anything?" as a waiter appeared.

"Not to-night."

"Some whisky," said Agnew, and the waiter went away, returning shortly with a bottle and some glasses.

"Some cards!" said Agnew, and the waiter brought two unopened packs.

The Westerner's brow grew black. He fancied he saw through Agnew's little game. He believed that Agnew, who was a card-sharp, hoped to get him to talking, then to drinking, and finally into a game, and fleece him out of what money he had. Agnew's funds were low, and he was probably ready for any expedient.

"We can talk better over a game," Agnew urged, deftly opening a pack.

The Kansan pushed back. His blood was boiling. He could hold in no longer.

"I allow you're a big fool, Agnew, if you think you can do me up in that way!" he hotly declared. "I've been told that you tried to kill me the other day. Do you want to rob me, because you failed in that?"

Agnew grew white.

"What are you talking about?" he gasped. "Tried to kill you? What nonsense is that? I don't know what you mean."

However, there was a certain tell-tale shrinking in his manner which Badger could not fail to notice. It convinced the Westerner that Merriwell was on the right track, and his anger burned into deep rage.

"I can see from your manner that you did. Agnew, you've got the heart of a wolf! That's whatever!"

Agnew was truly playing a game, but it was not a card-game. He had learned to hate Badger. To strike the Westerner pleased him now almost as well as a stroke against Merriwell. He dropped the cards and pushed back, as if he feared the Kansan would leap at his throat.

"Wh-what do you mean?" he demanded.

"On the gun-club grounds!" said Badger, rising from the table. "You slipped some dynamite shells into Merriwell's box, and I got one of them. It came near tearing my hand and arm to pieces, and it might have killed me. No thanks to you that it didn't. Your intentions were good enough."

Agnew began to bluster, but in a low tone.

"I'm not used to being accused of such things. How do you know there was anything the matter with the shell? Are you hunting for trouble?"

"That was the trick of an Apache, Agnew!"

"Don't let the proprietor hear you," Agnew begged, and his voice was again as smooth as silk. "What is the use of rowing? I say that I did nothing of the kind, and you're a fool for thinking so. Whoever hinted that to you lied."

"I allow you might as well say that I lied!"

Agnew pushed toward the wall and put his hands into his pockets. Badger, thinking he meant to draw a weapon, gave him no further time, but leaped on him across the table with the rush of a cyclone. Agnew went down under that rush, but he clutched the Westerner, and began to struggle, at the same time sending up a sharp call for help. In a moment the proprietor and the bartender were on the scene.

"None of this!" cried the proprietor, grabbing Badger by the shoulders, and, with the bartender's assistance, bodily dragging him off the threshing, writhing form of Agnew. Morton did not seem in any hurry to be released or rescued, however, and hung to Badger's coat and vest with the tenacity of the under dog that fails to appreciate the fact that it is overmatched.

"No fighting in here!" panted the proprietor. "This ain't no boxing-club! See! I'm glad to have gents come in and make themselves to home, but I can't allow any fighting!"

Agnew slid toward the door, seeming anxious to escape. The next moment he was out in the barroom, and then he vanished into the street.

"I'll pay for the damages," said Badger, choking down his wrath. "He went to draw a gun on me, and I jumped on him, that's all. A man is a fool to let another get the drop on him, and I allow I don't intend to. You bet I don't. I'll see him again, and when I do I reckon we'll have a settlement."