"Charge!"

Like a tornado they bore down on the men near the gate, toward which the timber was directed.

With cries of amazement the alarmed soph.o.m.ores broke and scattered before the oncoming freshmen.

Crash!

The timber struck the gate, bursting it open instantly, and the triumphant freshmen swarmed into the park, cheering wildly.

"Hurrah for 'Umpty-eight!" yelled Bandy Robinson, turning a handspring.

"We are the boys to do 'em!"

"Hurrah for Frank Merriwell!" shouted Harry Rattleton, his face beaming with joy. "It was his scheme that did it."

"Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!" roared the freshmen. "'Rah! 'rah! 'rah!"

Then Frank felt himself lifted to the shoulders of his enthusiastic admirers and carried to the home plate of the ball ground, where the freshmen cheered again and again.

The soph.o.m.ores were filled with rage and chagrin.

"That was the blamedest trick I ever heard of in all my life!" declared Andy Emery. "We weren't looking for anything of the kind."

"And we have Merriwell to thank for it!" snapped Evan Hartwick. "He's full of tricks as an egg is full of meat."

"By Jawve!" said Willis Paulding, who had managed to keep out of harm's way during the entire affair. "I think somebody ought to do something to that fellaw--I really do, don't yer know."

"Suppose you try to see what you can do with him," grinned Tad Horner.

"You ought to be able to do something."

"Aw--really you will hawve to excuse me!" exclaimed Willis in alarm. "I hawdly think I could match his low cunning, don't yer understand."

"Oh, yes, I understand," nodded Horner, significantly. "It takes a man to go up against Merriwell."

"I hope you don't mean to insinuate--"

"Oh, no!" interrupted Tad. "I have said it."

"Eh? I hawdly think I understand, don't yer know."

"Think it over," advised the little soph as he turned away.

It is probable that Bruce Browning was more thoroughly disgusted than any of his friends.

"Confound it!" he thought. "If I'd stuck to that fellow and done him up anyway he wouldn't have been able to carry out this trick. If he is given any kind of a show he is bound to take advantage of it."

Bruce felt like fighting.

"I'm going in there and lick him," he declared. "I will settle this matter with Merriwell right away."

But some of his friends were more cautious.

"It won't do," declared Puss Parker.

"Won't do?"

"No, sir."

"Why not?"

"It might be done under cover of a rush, but a single fight between a soph and a fresh under such public conditions would be sure to get them both in trouble."

"I don't care a continental! I've stood him just as long as I can! If I can give him a good square licking I'll stand expulsion, should it come to that!"

They saw that Browning was too heated to pause for sober thought, and so they gathered close around him and forced him to listen to reason.

It took no small amount of argument to induce the king to give over the idea of going onto the ball field and attacking Merriwell, but he was finally shown the folly of such a course. However, he vowed over and over that the settlement with Merriwell should come very soon.

CHAPTER XV.

ON THE BALL FIELD.

The soph.o.m.ores went in to watch the freshmen practice and incidentally to have sport with them.

Two nines had been selected, one being the regular freshman team and the other picked up to give them practice.

As Merriwell had been given a place on the team as reserve pitcher, his services were not needed at first, and so he went in to twirl for the scrub nine.

Walter Gordon went into the box for the regular team, and he expected to fool the irregulars with ease. He was a well-built lad, with a bang, and it was plain to see at a glance that he was stuck on himself. He had a trick of posing in the box, and he delivered the ball with a flourish.

The scrub team did not have many batters, and so it came about that the first three men up were disposed of in one-two-three order, not one of them making a safe hit or reaching first.

Rattleton had vainly endeavored to get upon the regular team. He had played pretty fast ball on a country nine, but he was somewhat out of practice and he had not made a first-cla.s.s showing, so he had failed in his ambition.

He went into catch for Merriwell, and they had arranged a code of signals beforehand, so that they were all prepared.

There was no affectation about Frank's delivery, but the first man on the list of the regulars found Merriwell's slow drop was a hard ball to hit. He went after two of them before he saw what he was getting. Then he made up his mind that he would get under the next one and knock the peeling off it.

He got under it all right, for instead of being a drop it was a rise, and the batter struck at least eighteen inches below it.

"Well, say," laughed Gordon, who had been placed second on the list at his own request. "I'll go you something he doesn't work that on me."

He was full of confidence when he walked up to the plate. The watching soph.o.m.ores were doing their best to rattle Merriwell, and it seemed that he must soon get nervous, even though he did not seem to hear any of the jolly that was being flung at him.

The very first ball seemed to be just where Gordon wanted it, and he swung at it with all his strength. It twisted in toward him and pa.s.sed within two inches of his fingers.