Chapter 12

AGNEW'S TRICK.

When the Westerner saw Agnew again they were in one of the college lecture-rooms and an examination was in progress. Of course, they did not speak to each other. Badger believed that Agnew had kept away from him since their warlike encounter of the night before. The fact that Agnew was also a sophomore had long been a disturbing thought to the Westerner. Badger had class pride. He sometimes declared that he was a sophomore of the sophomores, but there were a number of sophomores with whom he could not and would not mix.

His seat was now close to the one occupied by Agnew, though somewhat in front of it, and he had the unpleasant feeling that a hole was being bored through the back of his head by Agnew's eyes. When the conductor of the examination looked down that way Badger could not tell whether the professor's gaze was fixed on him or on Agnew. Professor Barton had fiercely penetrating eyes, anyway, and the peculiar manner in which he looked at students in the classroom had always been especially irritating to the Kansan.

Printed questions were used, and Badger found some of them pretty hard.

"I wish Barton wouldn't look me through and through!" he muttered, noticing again and again that the professor's eyes were fixed on him. "It makes me feel like a cat under the paw of a mouse, or a calf watched by a coyote. I allow there are things pleasanter than Barton's eyes."

But Barton continued to look down that way.

"Is he watching me, or is he watching Agnew?" Badger grumbled, as he dug away at the work cut out for him. "Hanged if I can tell. Perhaps it's just a way he has. Maybe every poor devil in the room is feeling just as I do. Whoever got up these questions must have lain awake of nights trying to see how hard he could make them. I reckon the chances are about two to one that I'll flunk."

In an interval when Barton's attention was turned in another direction, Morton Agnew crumpled a piece of paper, and, with a deft toss, which he made sure was not seen by any one, he threw it beneath Badger's desk. Badger did not know it was there, but the keen eyes of Barton saw it as soon as they were again turned in that direction.

Now, Barton was really not watching Buck Badger, but he was watching Morton Agnew. Slips of the printed questions had been stolen by some member of the sophomore class the day previous, and Agnew was suspected of the theft. That was why the keen eyes of the professor were so constantly turned toward that part of the room. He hoped to discover some evidence of Agnew's guilt, if, indeed, Agnew was guilty, as was believed.

When his eyes fell on the piece of paper which Morton had tossed so cleverly beneath Badger's desk, he knew in an instant that it had not been there a moment before. The natural conclusion was, therefore, that the Kansan had dropped it.

Its discovery was very suggestive. He began to watch Badger as well as Agnew. In a little while Badger saw the paper also, and stooped to pick it up.

"I will take that piece of paper!" came in the calm, even voice of the professor, as the Westerner's fingers closed on the crumpled slip.

Badger, who had intended to open it, wondering what it contained, and vaguely thinking it might be a note which some member of the class had tried to get to him, flushed in a manner to arouse the professor's suspicions. He was almost tempted to tear it open and possess himself of its contents, but Barton was moving toward him, with his eyes glued on the paper.

"I will take that piece of paper," the professor repeated, and Badger reluctantly gave it to him.

Agnew looked down at his work to veil the look of triumph that had come into his face. Badger anxiously watched Barton as he opened the slip and glanced it over.

"That is your handwriting, I believe?" in an ominous voice.

He held it for Badger to read, and, to the Kansan's intense astonishment, he saw that the paper was scribbled over with answers to the questions used in the examination, and that the handwriting seemed to be his own. He was so bewildered he could not say a word. Answers were there to only a part of the questions, however.

There was a strange look on Barton's bearded face. He had seen Badger fishing in his right vest pocket for a stub of a pencil awhile before. He thought, as he remembered this, that it was the left pocket of the vest.

"What is in that left pocket of your vest?" he asked, in a voice that fairly made Badger jump.

Barton believed the slip he held in his fingers had come from that left pocket, and he thought it possible more like it might be concealed there.

"Not a thing!" said the Westerner, the angry flush in his face extending to the roots of his dark hair, for he was not accustomed to being spoken to in that suspicious tone, and it enraged him.

"Will you see if there is not?" Barton asked, striving to maintain his calm, though his suspicions were growing. Badger confidently thrust in his fingers and--drew out a slip of paper like the others, which was also scribbled over with answers to questions!

He could not have regarded it with more surprise and bewilderment if it had been a snake. Barton took it from his shaking fingers, and saw that the handwriting seemed to be the same.

This exciting dialogue was beginning to attract attention, and many eyes were turned in that direction, which made the Kansan get even redder in the face. Badger thrust a hand into one of the upper pockets of his vest and drew out another paper of the same kind.

"What does this mean?" he growled.

He dived frantically into other pockets. He knew that his position was one hard to explain away, but, with a sort of recklessness, he was determined to know if there were more papers of that kind anywhere about him. He could not imagine how they came there, and the rather wild idea occurred to him that he might have scribbled them over that way in his sleep, for the coming examination had disturbed him and made his nights a bit restless.

There were no other incriminating slips.

"I should like to know what it means myself," said Barton.

He looked sternly at Agnew, but the latter had now obtained control of his countenance, and met the professor's suspicious look with an air of innocent confidence. Agnew felt safe. The paper he had crumpled and thrown under Badger's desk was the only one he had secreted about him. So he knew that even if a search was forced, nothing of an incriminating character could be discovered on him.

"I think I have put you in a mighty tight box, Mr. Buck Badger!" was his gloating thought.

And again that look of triumph returned with such force that he could hide it only by lowering his eyes, and did not raise them throughout the rest of the hour.

That evening, while Morton Agnew was amusing himself with a game of solitaire, and chuckling with glee over the clever manner in which he had put Buck Badger in a "box," a rap sounded on the door of his room that made him jump.

"Come in!" he said.

And Frank Merriwell walked in!

Agnew half-rose out of his chair.

"Sit down!" Merriwell urged, closing the door behind him.

Then he turned the key in the lock and dropped the key into his pocket.

"What do you mean by that?" starting to his feet in an agitated way.

"Sit down!" Frank again commanded, in a smooth, quiet tone, which, however, sounded very ominous. Agnew looked toward the closed window, and then dropped limply into the chair.

"It's two stories down, and a hard pavement below that window. I'd advise you, Agnew, not to pitch yourself out of that on your head. It would probably give the undertaker a job."

Agnew pushed the cards about, without knowing what he did, and stared at Merriwell, his face white and his eyes anxious. He was afraid of Merriwell. Of all the men at Yale, Merriwell was the one he most feared. And his heart told him that there was something serious back of this unexpected call.

"I'm glad to find you in," said Frank, "for I want to have a talk with you. I will take this chair, with your leave. You won't mind if I come to the point at once?"

"I don't know what you're driving at, and I think you must be drunk or luny to come into a fellow's room and lock him in! If you have an idea that there is anything funny about this, I'm pleased to tell you that there isn't."

"I was afraid you might be so uncivil as to desert me. I shall not try to take anything away with me but a bit of your writing. You're a good penman, Agnew, and I shall want a sample, after we've had a friendly chat."

The cold sweat came out on Agnew's brow.

"I don't intend to beat about the bush at all. It is not needed. You know what I think of you, for I've given you abundant opportunity. Twice within my knowledge you have tried to murder me--once when you slipped a ball cartridge into Badger's musket in 'A Mountain Vendetta,' hoping and believing that I would be killed, and again on the grounds of the gun club, when you slipped some prepared shells into my box, thinking I would get hold of one of them, and that I would be killed by the explosion of my gun!"

Agnew's face grew as white as writing-paper. He opened his lips to reply, but Frank went on:

"Of course, you are ready to deny these things. But I have some proofs. You thought you could get all the 'fixed' shells when you knocked Rattleton over in the crowd, pretending you were shot. But one of them you failed to get. I have had its contents analyzed by one of the professors of chemistry, and he says that in place of powder, the shell contained a sort of gun-cotton, and that he does not see why the gun was not torn into splinters."

"This----"

"Just keep still, Agnew, until I am through! I have found the dealer of whom you purchased those shells, and I have found the dealer of whom you procured that gun-cotton!"

Again Agnew opened his mouth to protest. He had stopped pushing the cards about.

"Once you tried to ruin my right arm by injecting into it a preparation that would produce atrophy of the muscles. I can produce evidence of that, too!"

"It's a lie!" Agnew finally gasped. "There is not a word of truth in these accusations!"

"I have been accumulating evidence against you for some time. You have struck at me and at my friends time and again. It is my time to strike now, and I shall strike hard."

The dangerous smile which friends and enemies alike had come to know so well rested on Merriwell's face. Agnew had seen it there before, and the sight of it made him shiver.

"Badger used that shell--or one of the shells, and only chance saved him from being killed or maimed for life. Not satisfied with that, you struck at him to-day again."

"You're crazy, Merriwell! There is not a word of truth in any of these things. You have fancied them all, and, because you do not like me, you are determined to ruin me."

"You have ruined yourself, Agnew. I have given you chance after chance to reform and change about. You get worse. You are a disgrace to humanity, to say nothing of Yale College. You struck at Badger to-day, as I said.

"I know all about it. Professor Barton fancies that he caught Badger cribbing in to-day's examination. The matter has already gone to the faculty. Badger will go out of Yale as sure as the sun rises if things are permitted to go on. I propose to see that they do not go on. No scoundrel like you, Agnew, shall treat a friend of mine in that way."

"So he has become your friend, has he?"

"No man shall treat one of my foes in that way, if I can help it!"

Agnew attempted a skeptical sneer, but it was a failure. He was shaking like a chilled and nervous dog.

"I have had a talk with Badger. He couldn't understand how the papers got into his pockets. But I knew as soon as he told me of your encounter in that saloon last night, for I had seen the slips purporting to be in his handwriting, and I knew they were forged, and I was sure you were the forger!"

"Quite a Sherlock Holmes!" said Agnew. "This is a very interesting little romance. The only trouble is that, like most romances, there isn't a word of truth in it."

"You are the man who stole the printed question slips. You wanted them for your own use, so that you might not fail in this examination. When you knew what they were, and had prepared answers, you planned to use them to throw Badger down, hoping that if the theft of the slips were discovered the blow would fall on Badger."

"You're away off, Merriwell!"

But Frank went remorselessly on:

"Last night, in the saloon, during that fight, which was of your own seeking, you contrived to put those forged answers, in imitation of Badger's handwriting, into his pockets, where Professor Barton found them to-day. You are a forger, Agnew, and you have lately been passing counterfeit money!"

"Not a word of truth in any of this!" Agnew shakily declared.

"Some of these things I might find difficulty in proving, though I am as sure of them as that you are sitting there. But of other things I have the proof. Now, I am going to give you your choice: Write at my dictation a confession that will clear Badger of the charge of stealing the question slips and using those answers, or I shall take steps at once which will land you in the penitentiary!"

Agnew grew sick and blind.

"I can't do what you say!" he begged. "My God, Merriwell, even if the things were true--which I deny--I couldn't do it! It would disgrace me forever!"

"The faculty and professors are not anxious to bring odium on the good name of Yale. Your confession, I am sure, will not be made public. You ought to have thought of the disgrace when you were doing those dastardly, cowardly things! It is too late now."

"But I can't!" Agnew wailed. He had ceased to deny his guilt.

"All right!" said Frank, his lips tightening firmly. "I shall clear Badger without this. I wanted to give you a last chance. I, too, am anxious that the good name of Yale shall not be smirched by publishing to the world the downfall and disgrace of a Yale student. But I shall not withhold my hand longer."

He pushed back his chair, and the look on his face was so terrible that it robbed the trembling wretch of his fictitious courage.

"Wait!" begged Agnew. "If I do what you say, you'll give me time to get out of town?"

"I shall not move against you at all. I shall simply turn the confession over to the faculty, and so clear Badger."

Again Agnew hesitated.

"Here are paper and ink on your table!"

The sweat was standing in drops on the brow of the card-sharp.

"I'll do it simply because I must!" he doggedly declared. "It is an outrage. I do not admit any of these other charges, but I did put those things in Badger's pockets, and I took the questions to help me out in the examination. Those are the only things I am willing to confess."

"They are all I ask you to confess."

With trembling fingers, Agnew drew pen and paper toward him. And then, at Merriwell's dictation, he wrote a complete confession of the wrong he had done Badger.

"That is all right!" Merry admitted, when he had looked it over.

He arose from the chair, folded the paper, and put it in a pocket.

"Get out of New Haven as quick as you can. I shall give this to the faculty in the morning. Good-by!"

He unlocked the door, with his face turned toward Agnew, let himself into the hall, and was gone.

Forbearance and mercy had ceased to be a virtue, and Frank Merriwell's hand was lifted to strike and crush a dastardly foe.