"Go on about Morgan," urged Frank.

"There isn't a great deal to tell. The cards turned on him. He struck the toboggan and he went down with an awful thump. All he had made was wiped out at a single swipe. He followed it up, and in less than a week he was dead broke. Had to give up his rooms at the Imperial. Came down to a cheap hotel, and he's there now. He plays the bucket shops with every dollar he can get, hoping the tide will turn. I don't think he eats enough to keep a sparrow alive. The only thing that keeps him from drinking is that he spends all the money he can get gambling."

"How does he get money?"

"Why, he--he--he gets it somehow--I don't know--just--exactly--how."

Frank felt that he could forgive the big fellow the fib. He knew well enough that Dade Morgan was getting his money from Richard Starbright, who, in order to earn anything, was working like a dog on a newspaper.

The fact that he was helping Morgan along Starbright wished to conceal.

Instantly Merry knew the situation was one to be investigated.

Starbright had told him enough for him to realize that Morgan was on the road to ruin and very near the brink.

In the old days at Yale, Dade had been for a time Frank's bitterest enemy, having been taught from early boyhood by his uncle and guardian to loathe the very name of Merriwell; but in the end Merry's manliness, bravery, generosity, and n.o.bility had conquered Morgan's hatred and had finally made the fellow Frank's friend.

Starbright was right in saying Dade Morgan was proud and high-strung. He was not the fellow to long endure poverty and humiliation without doing something desperate.

"Take me to him right away, d.i.c.k," urged Merry.

Suddenly Starbright seemed to hesitate.

"I don't know as Dade will ever forgive me for showing him up in his poverty," he said. "He hasn't let any of his friends at home know of his reverses. Keeps writing to them in the most cheerful manner, and I'll bet they think he has New York at his feet."

"I'll make it all right with him," a.s.sured Merry. "Don't worry about that, d.i.c.k. Let's get to him without the loss of a moment."

They had now reached Third Avenue, and they boarded a car southward bound, which at that hour was comparatively empty, while the cars bound in the opposite direction were packed.

While they were on the car Merry told Starbright something of his great plan to build a railroad in Sonora that should tap his mining property, and of his battle with Porfias del Norte and Alvarez Lazaro.

"Whew!" exclaimed d.i.c.k. "But you have been engaged in strenuous affairs."

"Rather," nodded Merry. "But the sky is pretty clear now, and I feel like taking a little relaxation. I have a plan that I will unfold after we find Morgan. Inza Burrage, Elsie Bellwood, Bart Hodge, Bruce Browning, and Harry Rattleton are in town, and they----"

"Great Scott!" palpitated the young reporter. "This is great! I'll have to see them all if it takes me away from the paper long enough to get me fired. Here we are. We get off here."

They had reached the Bowery.

Leaving the car, Starbright led the way to one of the cheapest downtown hotels, over the door of which was a sign which stated that rooms could be secured there for fifty cents a night, beds for fifteen and twenty-five cents.

They mounted a flight of dirty stairs and came into the office, where a number of poverty-stricken men were sitting about, reading papers, smoking, and talking. Some of the men looked like hobos, and all wore on their faces the stamp of blighted lives. A single glance made it plain that drink had caused the downfall of nearly all of them.

Merriwell shrugged his shoulders as his eyes ran swiftly over the hotel office and the loungers gathered therein.

"Dade Morgan stopping here!" he mentally exclaimed. "The immaculate, almost aesthetic, Dade in such a wretched place! It seems impossible."

There was no clerk behind the desk.

"Come on," said Starbright. "I know how to find Morgan's room. This way."

They turned from the office and mounted another flight of stairs, darker and dirtier than the first. There was no carpet on the bare floor of the corridor above, where a weakly flaring gas jet made a sickly break in the gloom. There was a peculiar smell about the place that was distinctly offensive. The door of a room stood open. Inside two filthy-looking men, minus their coats, were arguing loudly and drunkenly about "labor and capital," while a third man lay sleeping on a dirty bed.

A man shuffled along the dark corridor and stared at Frank and d.i.c.k with suspicious, resentful eyes. He was low-browed, sullen, and vicious in appearance; just such a man as one would not care to meet alone on a dark street late at night.

From another room came the sound of maudlin singing, and in still another a man was swearing horribly.

Merry grasped d.i.c.k's arm.

"Haven't you made a mistake?" he asked.

"A mistake? Why----"

"Dade Morgan can't be stopping in a place like this."

"I know it doesn't seem possible," said d.i.c.k. "But he is here--at least, he was last night."

They came to a door, which d.i.c.k unhesitatingly pushed open.

A sickly gas jet was burning within the room. Stretched across a wretched bed lay a dark, silent figure.

CHAPTER XXVII.

A DUEL OF EYES.

Starbright leaped forward and bent over the form on the bed, clutching at it.

"Dade!" he called, his voice full of alarm.

The figure stirred, and the big, yellow-haired youth drew a breath of relief.

"What's the matter?" asked a dull, mechanical voice. "Oh, is it you, Starbright, old man? G.o.ds! I'm glad you came! Been getting some bad fancies into my head. If I'd had money enough to buy a pistol, or even a little poison----"

"What in the world are you talking about, Dade? Have you gone daffy?"

"No; but what's the use? This is the limit, and---- Who's that?"

Morgan saw Frank for the first time.

"I think you know me, Dade," said Merry, advancing.

The young man on the bed leaped up.

"Merriwell!" he gasped.

"Yes," said Starbright. "I ran across him by accident and brought him here to see you."