CHAPTER I. THE CATASTROPHE.

A glorious midsummer morning, clear, balmy and bracing. An ideal stretch of macadam, level as a floor and straight as a die for close onto two miles, with interminable fields of waving wheat on either side. A new, high-power car in perfect running order.

It was a temptation for speeding which few could resist, certainly not Brose Stovebridge, who was little given to thinking of the consequences when his own pleasure was concerned, and who had a reputation for reckless driving which was exceeded by none.

With a shout of joy, he snatched off his cap and flung it on the seat beside him. The next instant he had opened the throttle wide and advanced the spark to the last notch. The racing roadster leaped forward like a thing alive and shot down the stretch—cut-out wide open and pistons throbbing in perfect unison—a blurred streak of red amidst a swirling cloud of dust.

Stovebridge bent over the wheel, his eyes shining with excitement and his curly, blond hair tossed by the cutting wind into a disordered mass above his rather handsome face. The speedometer hand was close to the fifty mark.

“You’ll do, you beauty,” he muttered exultingly. “I could squeeze another ten out of you, if I had the chance.”

6 The horn shrieked a warning as he pulled her down to take the curve ahead, but her momentum was so great that she shot around the wide swerve almost on two wheels, with scarcely any perceptible slackening.

The next instant Stovebridge gave a gasping cry of horror.

Directly in the middle of the road stood a little girl. Her eyes were wide and staring, and she seemed absolutely petrified with fright.

The car swerved suddenly to one side, there was a grinding jar of the emergency and the white, stricken face vanished. With a sickening jolt, the roadster rolled on a short distance and stopped.

For a second or two Stovebridge sat absolutely still, his hands trembling, his face the color of chalk. Then he turned, as though with a great effort, and looked back.

The child lay silent, a crumpled, dust-covered heap. The white face was stained with blood, one tiny hand still clutched a bunch of wild flowers.

The man in the car gave a shuddering groan.

“I’ve killed her!” he gasped. “My God, I’ve killed her!”

He would be arrested—convicted—imprisoned. At the thought every bit of manhood left him and fear struck him to the soul. He knew that every law, human or divine, bound him to pick up the child and hurry her to a doctor, for there might still be a spark of life which could be fanned into flame. But he was lost to all sense of humanity, decency, or honor. Maddened by the fear of consequences, his one impulse was to fly—fly quickly before he was discovered.

In a panic he threw off the brakes, started the car and ran through his gears into direct drive with frantic haste. The car leaped forward, and, without a backward glance at the victim of his carelessness, Stovebridge7 opened her up wide and disappeared down the road in a cloud of dust.

The child lay still where she had fallen. Slowly the dust settled and a gentle breeze stirred the flaxen hair above her blood-stained face.

Then came the throbbing of another motor approaching, a deep-toned horn sounded, and a big, red touring car, containing four young fellows, rounded the bend at a fair speed.

Dick Merriwell, the famous Yale athlete, was at the wheel, and, catching sight of the little heap in the roadway, he stopped the car with a jerk and sprang out.

As he ran forward and gathered the limp form into his arms, he gave an exclamation of pity. Then his face darkened.

“By heavens!” he cried. “I’d like to get my hands on the man who did this. Poor little kid! Just look at her face, Brad.”

As Brad Buckhart, Dick’s Texas chum, caught sight of the great gash over the child’s temple, his eyes flashed and he clenched his fists.

“The coyote!” he exploded. “He certain ought to have a hemp necktie put around his neck with the other end over a limb. I’d sure like to have a hold of that other end. You hear me talk!”

Squeezing past the portly form of Bouncer Bigelow, Tommy Tucker leaned excitedly out of the tonneau.

“Is she dead, Dick?” he asked anxiously.

Merriwell took his fingers from the small wrist he had been feeling.

“Not quite,” he said shortly. “But it’s no thanks to the scoundrel who ran her down and left her here.”

His eyes, which had been looking keenly to right and left, lit up as they fell upon the roof of a farm house nestling among some trees a little way back from the road.

8 “There’s a house, Brad,” he said in a relieved tone. “Even if she doesn’t belong there, they’ll make her comfortable and send for a doctor.”

With infinite tenderness he carried the child down the road a little way to a gate, and thence up a narrow walk bordered with lilac bushes. The door of the farm house was open and, without hesitation, he walked into the kitchen, where a woman stood ironing.

“I found——” he began.

The woman turned swiftly, and as she saw his burden, her face grew ghastly white and her hands flew to her heart.

“Amy!” she gasped in a choking voice. “Is—she——”

“She’s not dead,” Dick reassured her, “but I’m afraid she’s badly hurt. I picked her up in the road outside. Some one in a car had run over her and left her there.”

For an instant he thought the woman was going to faint. Then she pulled herself together with a tremendous effort.

“Give her to me!” she cried fiercely, her arms outstretched. “Give her to me!”

Her eyes were blinded with a sudden rush of tears.

“Little Amy, that never did a bit o’ harm to nobody,” she sobbed. “Oh, it’s too much!”

“Careful, now,” Merriwell cautioned. “Take her gently. I’m afraid her arm is broken.”

“Would you teach a woman to be gentle to her child?” she cried wildly.

Without waiting for a reply, she gathered the little form tenderly into her arms and laid her down on a sofa which stood at one side of the room. Then running to the sink for some water, she wet her handkerchief and began to wipe off the child’s face.

9 “You mustn’t mind what I said,” she faltered the next moment. “I didn’t mean it. I’m just wild.”

“I know,” Dick returned gently. “A doctor should be called at——”

“Of course!”

She sprang to her feet and flew into another room, whence Dick heard the insistent ringing of a telephone bell, followed quickly by rapid, broken sentences. As the handkerchief fell from her hand he had picked it up and was sprinkling the child’s face with water.

Presently the girl gave a little moan and opened her eyes.

“Mamma,” she said faintly—“mamma!”

The woman ran into the room at the sound.

“Here I am, darling,” she said, as she knelt down by the couch. “Where do you feel bad, Amy dear?”

“My arm,” the child moaned, “and my head. A big red car runned right over me.”

“Red!” muttered Merriwell, his eyes brightening.

“My precious!” soothed the mother. “The doctor’ll be here right off. Does it hurt much?”

The child closed her eyes and slow tears welled from under the lashes.

“Yes,” she sobbed, “awful.”

Dick ground his teeth.

“It’s a crime for such men to be allowed on the road,” he said in a low, tense tone. “I’m going to do my level best to run down whoever was responsible for this, and if I do, they’ll suffer the maximum penalty.”

“I hope you do,” the woman declared fiercely. “Hanging’s too good for ’em! My husband, George Hanlon, ain’t the man to sit still an’ do nothing, neither.”

“They—wasn’t—men,” sobbed the child. “Only one.”

10 “One man in a red car of some sort,” Dick murmured thoughtfully. “He must belong around here; a fellow wouldn’t be touring alone.”

Then he turned to Mrs. Hanlon.

“I think I’ll be getting on,” he said quickly. “I can’t do anything here, and the longer I delay the less chance there’ll be of catching this fellow. I’ll call you up to-night and find out how the little girl is doing.”

“God bless you for what you’ve done,” the woman said brokenly.

“I wish it might have been more,” Dick answered as he walked quickly toward the door. “Good-by.”

As he hurried out he almost ran into a slim young fellow, who was running up the walk. He was bare-headed, and his long black hair straggled down over a pair of fierce black eyes that had a touch of wildness in them.

Catching sight of Dick he glared at the Yale man, and hesitated for an instant as if he meant to stop him. Then, with a curious motion of his hands, he brushed past Merriwell and disappeared into the house.

“I’ve found a clue, pard,” Buckhart announced triumphantly, as Dick reached the car.

“What is it?”

The Texan held up a cloth cap.

“Picked it up by the side of the road,” he explained. “Find the owner of that and you’ll sure have the onery varmit who did this trick. You hear me gently warble!”

Dick took it in his hand and turned it over. The stuff was a small black and white check and was lined with gray satin. Stamped in the middle of the lining was the name of the dealer who had sold it:

“Jennings, Haberdasher, Wilton.”

11 Wilton was a good-sized town they had passed through about four miles back.

“I thought he belonged around here,” Merriwell said as he rolled up the cap and stuffed it into his pocket. “Look out for a fellow without a hat, alone, in a red car of some sort, Brad. That’s all we’ve got to go by at present, but I shouldn’t wonder if it would be enough.”

He stepped into the car and started the engine, Brad sprang up beside him and they were off.

They had not gone a hundred feet when the black haired youth rushed out of the gate to the middle of the road. His eyes flashed fire, and as he saw the car moving rapidly away from him his mouth moved and twisted convulsively as if he wanted to shout, but could not.

Then, as the touring car disappeared around a turn in the road, he clenched one fist and shook it fiercely in that direction. The next moment he was following it as hard as he could run.

CHAPTER II. THE COWARD.

With pallid face and nervous, twitching fingers, which his desperate grip on the wheel scarcely served to hide, Brose Stovebridge flew along the high road between Wilton and the Clover Country Club.

Now and then he looked back fearfully; at every crossroad his eyes darted keenly to right and left, as he let out the car to the very highest speed he dared, hoping and praying that he might reach his goal without encountering any one.

All the time fear—deadly, unreasoning, ignoble fear—was tugging at his heart-strings.

He had gone through just such an experience as this little more than a year ago in Kansas City. How vividly it all came back to him! The unexpected meeting with two old school chums whom he had not seen in months; their hilarious progress of celebration from one café to another, which ended, long past midnight, in that wild joy ride through the silent, deserted streets.

He shuddered. He thought he had succeeded in thrusting from his mind the details of it all: The sudden skidding around a corner on two wheels; the man’s face that flashed before them in the electric light, dazed—white—terrified. The thud—the fall—the sickening jolt, as the wheels went over him. Then that wild, unreasoning, terror-stricken impulse to fly, to escape the consequences at any cost, which possessed him. He gave no thought to his unconscious victim. He only wanted to get away before any one came, and somehow he had done so.

A few days later, in the safe seclusion of his home13 near Wilton, when he read that the fellow had succumbed to his injuries in the Kansas City hospital, his first thought was one of self-congratulation at his own cleverness in eluding pursuit.

His two chums he had never seen since that morning. Only a few weeks ago one of them had declined an invitation to visit him. He wondered why.

Once in his prep school days, when the dormitory caught fire, he had stumbled blindly down the fire escape and left his roommate sleeping heavily. Luckily the boy was roused in time; but it was no thanks to Brose that he escaped with his life.

For Stovebridge was a coward. In spite of his handsome face and dashing manner; in spite of his popularity, his athletic prowess, his many friends—in spite of all, he was a moral coward.

Few suspected it and still fewer knew, for the fellow was constantly on his guard and clever at hiding this unpleasant trait. But it was there just the same, ready to leap forth in a twinkling, as it had done this morning, and stamp his face with the brand of fear.

As the great, granite gateposts of the club appeared in sight, Stovebridge breathed a sigh of relief. By some extraordinary luck he had encountered no one on his wild ride thither. He had passed several crossroads, any one of which he was prepared to swear he had come by, and for the present he was safe.

Slowing down, he turned into the drive, and as he did so he took out a handkerchief and passed it over his moist forehead. He must compose himself before encountering any of his fellow members.

He carefully smoothed his ruffled hair with slim, brown fingers, and reached over for his cap.

The seat was empty. The cap had disappeared.

14 The discovery was like a physical blow, and for an instant his heart stood still.

Where had he lost it?

The spot where he had run down the child was the only feasible one. The cap must have fallen out when he put on the emergency, and probably lay in plain sight, a clue for the first passerby to pick up.

For a moment he had a wild idea of going back for it, but he thrust this from him instantly. It was impossible.

Then the clubhouse came in sight. He must pull himself together at once; he would get something to steady his nerves before he met any one.

Instead of continuing on to the front of the clubhouse, where a crowd was congregated on the wide veranda, he turned sharply to the right and drove his car into one of the open sheds back of the kitchen. Then he dived through a side door into the buffet.

“Whisky, Joe,” he said nervously to the attendant.

A bottle, glass and siphon were placed before him, and even the taciturn Joe was somewhat astonished at the size of the drink which Stovebridge poured with shaking hand and drained at a swallow.

He followed it with a little seltzer and, pouring out another three fingers, sat back in his chair and took out a gold cigarette case.

As he selected a cigarette with some care, and held it to the cigar lighter on the table, he noticed with satisfaction that his fingers scarcely trembled at all.

“That’s the stuff to steady a fellow’s nerves,” he muttered, blowing out a cloud of blue smoke. “There’s nothing like it.”

He took a swallow and then drained the glass for the second time.

Presently his view of life became slightly more optimistic.

15 “It was a new cap,” he remembered with a sudden feeling of relief.

“I’ve never worn it here, and there’s an old one in my locker. All I’ve got to do is to swear I never saw it before if I’m asked about it—which isn’t likely.”

When the cigarette was finished he went into the dressing room and took a thorough wash. There was no one there but the valet, who gave his clothes a good brushing, so he had no trouble in getting the old cap out of his locker and placing it at a becoming angle on his freshly brushed hair. Then he strolled out onto the veranda.

Three or four fellows, lounging near the door, greeted him jovially as he appeared.

“Rather late, aren’t you, Brose?” one of them remarked, as he joined them.

“A little,” Stovebridge returned nonchalantly. “It was such a bully morning I took a spin along the river road.”

“Alone?” the other asked slyly.

Stovebridge laughed.

“Well, I happened to be—this time,” he answered, a little self-consciously.

Being very much of a lady’s man, it was rare for him to be unaccompanied.

“How I do love a hog!” drawled one of the fellows who had not spoken. “Why the deuce didn’t you ’phone me? I’ve been sitting here bored to death for two solid hours.”

Stovebridge was looking curiously at a big, red touring car which had just driven up to the entrance.

“Er—I beg pardon, Marston,” he stammered. “What did you say?”

“Really not worth repeating,” returned the other languidly. “You seem to have something on your mind, Brose.”

16 Stovebridge gave a slight start as he turned back to his friends.

“I was wondering who those fellows are that just drove up,” he said carelessly. “They’re talking to old Clingwood.”

Fred Marston turned with an effort and surveyed the newcomers.

“Don’t know, I’m sure,” he drawled sinking back in his chair. “Never saw them before.”

For some reason the strangers seemed to interest Stovebridge extremely, and he continued to watch them furtively. There were four of them. The one who had driven the car, and with whom Roger Clingwood was doing the most talking, was tall and handsome, with dark hair and eyes, and the figure of an athlete. The fellow who stood near him was good-looking, too, and much more heavily built. Behind them, a short, wiry youth was talking to a tremendously stout fellow with a fat, good-humored face.

Presently Stovebridge left his friends and wandered along the veranda, pausing now and then to exchange a remark with some acquaintance, and before long he had reached the vicinity of the strangers, where he leaned carelessly against a pillar and looked out across the golf links.

“Very glad you could get here this morning, Merriwell,” Roger Clingwood, an old Yale graduate was saying. “You’ll be able to look around a bit before the race this afternoon.”

“Merriwell!” exclaimed Stovebridge under his breath. “I wonder if that can be Dick Merriwell, of Yale.”

Suddenly a hand struck him on the shoulder and a voice exclaimed heartily:

“Hello, Brose, old boy! Wearing your old brown17 cap, I see. What’s the matter with the one you got at the governor’s shop yesterday?”

Stovebridge wheeled around with a sudden tightening of his throat and saw the grinning face of Bob Jennings, son of the haberdasher at Wilton, who had been in the store when he bought that wretched cap the day before. Here was the first complication.

Stovebridge forced himself to smile.

“Left it at home, Bob,” he returned carelessly. “This was the first one I picked up as I came out this morning.”

In the pause which followed Roger Clingwood stepped forward.

“I didn’t notice you were here, Stovebridge,” he said pleasantly. “I’d like you to meet my friend Merriwell, who has come up with some of his classmates to spend a day or two at the club.”

“Delighted, I’m sure,” Stovebridge said with an air of good fellowship. “I know Mr. Merriwell very well by reputation, but have never had the pleasure of meeting him.”

“Dick, this is Brose Stovebridge,” Clingwood went on. “We claim for him—and I think justly—the title of champion sprinter of the middle West.”

Merriwell smiled as he held out his hand.

“Very glad indeed to meet you, Mr. Stovebridge,” he said heartily.

Stovebridge gave a sudden gasp and faltered; then he took the proffered hand limply.

“Glad to meet you,” he said hoarsely.

Instead of meeting Merriwell’s glance, his eyes were fixed intently on the corner of a checked cap which protruded from the Yale man’s pocket.

It was the cap he had lost out of the car that morning, or one exactly like it. Apparently it did not belong to Merriwell, who held his own in his left hand.18 Where had he picked it up? Where could he have found it but in that fatal spot? Stovebridge’s brain reeled and he felt a little faint. Then he realized that Clingwood was speaking to him—introducing the other Yale men—and with a tremendous effort he forced himself to turn and greet them with apparent calmness.