CHAPTER XXVII.

WHO WON THE FIGHT?

How and when Mason and Hodge disappeared from the field Ready never knew; but disappear they did, and Jack went about wildly seeking to learn in which direction they had departed.

“Oh, lud! oh, lud!” he moaned. “I wouldn’t miss the circus for two dollars in real money!”

“What circus?” asked Frank Merriwell.

“Why, the mill,” said Jack.

“What do you mean by the mill?”

“The scrap.”

“Hey? A scrap? Who----”

“Hodge and Mason.”

Merriwell grasped Ready by the arm, demanded to know all about it, and Jack told him what had happened.

“It must be stopped!” exclaimed Frank, who fancied he saw no end of trouble on the nine arising from such an encounter. “We must find out which way they have gone.”

But though they tried to do so, they did not learn until it was almost dark that the two young men had been seen walking swiftly toward Edgewood Park.

Neither of the enemies was found. When they returned to college Hodge was not in his room. Some time later he had arrived, but his door was locked and no one gained admittance.

All the following day Hodge and Mason kept to their rooms. Of course, Frank gained admission, although both fellows were reported “ill.”

Mason was wearing a beefsteak poultice over both eyes, while Hodge was making liberal applications of witch-hazel and arnica and soap liniment.

Mason would not say a word about the fight. Nor would Hodge.

When Merry tried to draw Mason out he closed up like a clam. Hodge did the same. Neither man would speak of the other.

Of course, it was known by this time that there had been some kind of an encounter between these two, and the students generally were interested to learn how it had resulted.

Finding Merriwell had obtained admission to Bart’s room, Jack Ready sought it. His second knock on Hodge’s door caused Bart to turn the key in the lock.

“Important, dear boy,” declared Jack, as he rushed right in. “Refuse me! Awfully dark here. Why don’t you run up your curtain?”

Ready was about to lift the curtain when Hodge harshly growled for him to let it alone.

“Refuse me!” exclaimed Jack again. “Are you ill?”

“Bad headache,” said Bart. “What in thunder do you want? You’re enough to make a well man sick!”

“Thanks, awfully,” chirped Ready. “I don’t mind if I do sit down.” He took a chair. “Now, what I wanted to see you about is this: You and I agree on one point--Mason is N. G. on the nine. He lacks sand.”

“Who said so?” demanded Hodge.

“Why, I though somebody told me you said so.”

“Think again.”

“Well, he is not the man we want for center field.”

“Are you managing the nine?”

“No, but----”

“Then you’d better dry up and let other people run it.”

“Ye gods!” gasped Ready. “I fail to understand you. Anyhow, you cheated me out of my just dues. I was to see that scrap. I suppose you licked him?”

Hodge did not answer.

“I say I suppose you thrashed the cad?” repeated Jack.

Still Bart was silent.

“But,” Ready continued, “I didn’t think you’d shut yourself up and go into mourning over it. Was it a hard job?”

“If you have anything you wish to see me about, come to the point. If you haven’t, get out. You make my headache worse.”

“My! my! how touchy you are!” murmured Jack. “You need some spring bitters.”

“You’re an ass!” snapped Bart.

“Thanks!” smiled Jack. “So am I. There are lots of us to keep you company. Where did you fight?”

“Will you go?”

“By me soul!” cried Ready; “I have a suspicion that you did not fight at all! You have shut yourself in your room to avoid meeting him. You are afraid of him, Hodge.”

But even this did not lead Bart to assert that the fight had taken place.

“It is insinuated around the campus,” lied Ready, “that Mason thrashed you. Will you give me authority, as a particular friend, to contradict the report?”

“I will give you authority to mind your own business.”

“Great gash!” whooped Jack. “You don’t mean to confess that he did thrash you?”

Bart opened the door.

“You get out,” he said fiercely, “or I’ll throw you out!”

“La! la!” said Ready. “Isn’t it too bad? Just to think that a cad like him should thrash a man like you! Oh, luddy me! how could it be!”

Bart strode over to Jack, whom he seized by the collar.

“There’s the door!” he growled.

“Nothing remarkable about it that I can see,” said Ready. “Just a plain, ordinary door.”

Bart yanked him over to it.

“But a first-rate door to go out of,” he said, as he ejected Jack. “Come round again--when you’re invited.”

Slam!--the door closed in Ready’s face, and the key turned in the lock.

“Isn’t it sad!” sobbed the queer fellow to himself. “Just to think that a good man like Hodge should be thrashed by a fellow like Mason! Oh, me! oh, my!”

Then he sought Mason’s room, but Hock would not admit him at all.

Late that evening Mason escaped from his room and visited the little store of a man who “decorated black eyes.” There Hock had his eyes painted in a most artistic manner, and the next morning he did not wash his face when he rose from his bed, though he took a cold sponge bath and brushed and combed his hair.

In some manner Hodge had managed to hide traces of the conflict, and the two students put up a great bluff. This simply served to make every one all the more anxious to learn the particulars of the fight.

“It must have been a corker,” said Ready. “I feel that I have missed one of the greatest events of the century.”

Ready knew something about Bart’s fighting-abilities, and, for all of the talk he had made to Hodge, something convinced him that Hodge had come out the victor. Never, however, could he induce Hodge to confirm this belief.

After a time it became apparent to all that the two men must have agreed to say nothing about the result of the encounter, no matter what it was. Without doubt this agreement had been made before the engagement began.

Who whipped? That question remained unanswered to the end of time, for, true to any agreement they may have made, neither youth would speak of it. They would not even acknowledge that there had been a fight.

But Mason played center field in the next ball-game. Only one chance was given him, and he accepted it prettily. His batting was good, as he got two clean singles. He ran bases well, but did nothing sensational.

All this proved neither one thing nor the other, for the game was regarded as sure for Yale from the start, the team pitted against the blue being from one of the minor colleges. In a game of that sort the weak man may show up well, as he has plenty of confidence. Against a strong team the weak man may lose his courage and go all to pieces, believing defeat is almost certain.

Merriwell, however, was well satisfied with Mason’s work. He found an opportunity to quietly tell the Southerner so, and Hock’s eyes showed that he appreciated this.

“Thank you, sah,” he said. “I did as well as I could. But I ought to have had another hit. I tried to drop the ball behind second, but made a misjudgment, so the baseman got it.”

“I noticed,” said Merry, “that you were trying to place all your hits. That’s the way to do. Men who simply try to hit the ball out any old place never make as good batters as place-hitters.”

“But sometimes,” said Hock, with a bit of a smile, “I find I’m up against a pitcher that I’m right glad to hit out to any old place. Pitchers are not all alike.”

Frank laughed.

“That’s quite true; but a bunting-team can make the slickest pitcher work hard. The trouble with most teams is that they never practise bunting. I’ve seen a game won off a clever pitcher after the seventh inning by a team turning to on finding they could not hit the ball out and going to bunting man after man as they came up. It rattled the pitcher and broke the luck of his side.”

Hodge made no further protests against Mason. He knew it was quite useless to do so as long as Merry had decided to keep the Southerner in defiance to popular clamor.

But still, deep in his heart, Bart continued to think Frank had made a mistake in judgment.