"Li, there! Hook out!" shouted Harry Rattleton.

"Hi, there! Look out!" echoed Bart Hodge, getting the words straight which Harry had twisted.

"Get out of the way, fellows!" warned Jack Diamond.

"The juice that it's loaded with must be bug juice!" squealed Danny Griswold. "It's crazy drunk!"

"Tut-tut-tut-turn the cuc-crank the other way!" bellowed Joe Gamp.

"This crank," said Bink Stubbs, giving Gamp a twist that spun him round like a top.

"I've always believed that more than half of these new-fangled inventions are devices of Satan, and now I know it!" grumbled Dismal Jones.

"You'll be more certain of it than ever if you let it run over you!" Frank Merriwell warned, stepping to the sidewalk, and drawing Dismal's lank body quickly back from the street.

"Huah! It's worse than a cranky horse!"

Bruce Browning reached down, took Danny Griswold by the collar, and placed the little fellow behind him.

"Unselfishly trying to save your bacon at the expense of my own!" Browning suavely explained, as Danny began to fume. "Do you want that thing to step on you?"

An electric hansom, which had sailed up the street in an eminently respectable manner, had suddenly and without apparent reason begun to act in an altogether disreputable way. It had veered round, rushed over the crossing, and made a bee-line for the sidewalk, almost running down a party of Frank Merriwell's friends, who were out for an afternoon stroll on the street in the pleasant spring sunshine.

The motorman, who occupied a grand-stand seat in the rear, seemed to have lost control of the automobile. He was excitedly fumbling with his levers, but without being able to bring the carriage to a stop.

The street was crowded with people at the time, and when the electric carriage began to cut its eccentric capers there was a rush for places of safety, while the air was filled with excited cries and exclamations.

Merriwell could see the head of a passenger, a man, through the window of the automobile.

"She's cuc-coming this way again!" shouted Gamp. "Look out, fellows!"

The front tires struck the curbing with such force that the motorman was pitched from his high seat, landing heavily on his head in the gutter.

Bruce Browning was one of the first to reach him.

"Give him air!" Bruce commanded, lifting the man in his arms and stepping toward a drug-store on the corner.

Some of the crowd streamed after Browning, but by far the greater number remained to watch the antics of the automobile.

The man inside was fumbling at the door and trying to get out. The misguided auto climbed the curbing and tried to butt down the wall of a store building.

"Give it some climbin'-irons!" yelled a newsboy.

The automobile, with its front wheels pressed against the wall, began to rear up like a great black bug, determined apparently to scale the perpendicular side of the building and enter through one of the open windows above. As soon as he saw the motorman pitched into the gutter, Merriwell moved toward the carriage.

"Time to take a hand in this!" was his thought. "There will be more hurt, if I don't!"

He leaped to the step, but before he could mount to the high seat the auto was butting blindly against the wall.

"He's goin' ter shut off the juice!" squeaked the newsboy.

What the trouble had been with the levers Merry did not know. When he took hold of them, the hansom became manageable and obedient. He shut off the electricity, and the front wheels dropped down from the wall. The next moment he swung to the ground and opened the door.

To his surprise, the man who emerged from the carriage was Dunstan Kirk, the leader of the Yale ball-team.

"Glad to see you!" gasped Kirk. "I couldn't get out, and I was expecting the thing to turn over! I believe I'm not hurt."

"The motorman is, though! He has been carried into the drug-store."

Frank looked toward the drug-store, and saw an ambulance dash up to convey the injured man to the hospital.

"Glad you're all right!" turning again to the baseball-captain. "These things are cranky at times. I've had some experience with one."

A policeman pushed forward to take possession of the automobile until the company could send another motorman.

The ambulance dashed away, and Browning, Diamond, and Rattleton came across the street hurriedly from the apothecary's. Bink and Danny, Gamp and Dismal—other friends of his—were already crowding round Merriwell. Back of them was a pushing, excited throng.

"Which way did that carriage go?" Kirk demanded.

"Which carriage?"

"The one that was just ahead of us. I was chasing it in the automobile?"

"With a driver in a green livery and a bay horse?" asked the newsboy, who had pushed into the inner circle.

"Yes. Which way did it go?"

"Turned de first corner."

"Let's get a cab!" said Kirk. "Come, I want you to go with me!"

He caught Merriwell by the arm. A cab had drawn up near the curbing, and toward this they moved, Merriwell reserving his questions until later.

Dunstan hurriedly gave instructions to the driver, and climbed in after Merriwell.

"Now, what does this mean?" Frank demanded, as the cab started with a lurch. "What sort of a wild-goose chase are you on?"

"What made that auto-carriage do that way?"

"There was something the matter with it, I suppose."

"It struck me that the motorman may have been in the pay of the fellow I was chasing."

He lowered his voice, even though the rattling of hoofs and wheels and the noises of the street rendered it wholly improbable that the driver or any one else could hear what was spoken inside.

"Frankly, Merriwell, the chap I was chasing looked like Morton Agnew! I was in Mason & Fettig's, five or six blocks above, when some one came into the other room and passed a counterfeit ten-dollar bill on the proprietor. He discovered it while the fellow was going through the door, and gave a call. I ran to the door and saw the rascal—not well, you know, but a side glance—not much more than a flash—and I thought he was Agnew. Of course, I couldn't swear to it. I may have been mistaken. But to satisfy myself, I jumped into that automobile and gave chase. He saw I was pursuing him and he sprang into a cab. I was determined to overhaul the scamp and satisfy myself on that one point. Perhaps I ought not to mention the name, as I am so uncertain, and I shall not mention it to any one else."

Dunstan Kirk, the athletic and capable captain of the baseball-team, had come to admire and trust Frank Merriwell. He had seen enough to know that Frank could be trusted in any way and in any place.

"What do you think of it?" he asked.

"That there is no chance now of discovering whether your suspicions were true or false. Unless"—hesitatingly—"you should cause Agnew's arrest, and have him taken before the man who was cheated. Or you might tell the man your suspicions, and let him act in the matter."

"I am not certain enough!" said Kirk. "It's too bad he got away! The motorman couldn't have been in his pay?"

"If so, he has received his pay!" said Merry meaningly. "He went out of that seat on his head and struck hard. I think the motorman simply found the hansom unmanageable, for some reason. Those carriages take freaks at times."

"And your opinion about Agnew?"

"He isn't too good to do such a thing, and I have had reason to believe lately that he is hard up. He used to hold himself up by his winnings at cards, but he has cheated so outrageously and boldly that the students fight pretty shy of him."

"We're just wasting our time, I'm afraid!" Kirk grumbled, as the cab rattled on down the street.

"Hold on!" said Merriwell, looking through the window. "There is your green-liveried driver and your bay horse!"

Though the cab in question was standing by a curbing, Frank saw at a glance that the horse was sweaty and showed other signs of recent fast driving.

"Empty, and the bird has flown!" he observed, as the cab they were in stopped and they got out. "Whoever he was—Agnew, or another man—he has had time to escape!"

The green-liveried driver was questioned, but no information of value was obtained, and when it was seen that there was no chance of settling the question which had moved Dunstan Kirk to the pursuit, Kirk settled with the driver of the cab that had brought them thus far, and he and Merriwell went into the nearest restaurant.

"I understand you don't smoke, or I might be tempted to order cigars," he said, as a waiter came forward for their orders, after they had taken seats at a table in one of the small side rooms. "I wanted to have a talk with you about certain matters. Not about Agnew, but concerning Buck Badger!"

When the waiter had gone he continued:

"I am interested in Badger's pitching. The fellow has good pitching ability. But he is erratic. Sometimes he pitches wonderfully. Then the very next time he will fall away down. I am convinced that what he needs as much as anything else is the right kind of encouragement."

"I consider him one of the very best of the new men who have come up with pitching ambitions," said Merriwell. "I have noticed the things you say."

"You were kind enough some time ago to recommend him to my notice," Kirk went on, as if feeling his way. "You would be glad to help him, perhaps."

"I shall be very glad to help him, if I can, and to serve you in any way, Kirk. But you know he doesn't like me very well. There must be a willingness on both sides, you see—just as it takes two to make a quarrel!"

"I haven't sounded him, but I fancy he would be willing. He isn't doing any good lately. You may have noticed that, too?"

"Yes."

The waiter brought the things ordered, and went away again.

"That Crested Foam affair is the cause, I fancy," Dunstan Kirk went on, breaking a cracker and helping himself to some cheese.

Frank Merriwell had thought the same, but he did not wish to say so.

"He hasn't acted right since then. And by right, I mean natural, you understand! I suppose it grinds him to know that such a fellow as Barney Lynn could drug and rob him in that way."

Merriwell flashed Dunstan Kirk a quick look. It was evident that the captain of the Yale baseball-team did not know that Buck Badger was intoxicated when he was lured aboard the excursion steamer, Crested Foam.

A similar imperfect knowledge of the true condition of affairs at that time had been noticed by Merriwell in the conversation of others. The newspapers in the notices of the burning of the steamer had given attention chiefly to Lynn, merely stating briefly that Badger had been drugged and robbed by the ex-boat-keeper.

"I shouldn't think it would be a pleasant reflection," Frank answered.

"Very humiliating to a man of Badger's character. And it has just taken the heart out of him. Until that time he was one of the most promising of the new pitchers at Yale. I was expecting good things from him. Now he seems to be nothing but a blighted 'has-been!'"

Merriwell smiled.

"And of all the sad words of tongue or pen,The saddest are these: 'It might have been!'"
"Just so," assented Kirk. "It's too bad to see a capable fellow go to the bone pile! I don't like it. I talked with him and tried to encourage him, but it had no permanent effect. He braced up for a little while, and then slumped again."

"At heart, Badger is very proud!" Frank explained. "He wouldn't admit it, perhaps, even to himself. He craves popularity, too, though he affects not to care at all for the opinions of others. It has been his misfortune not to be popular. His disposition is against it. This has made him very sore at times, though he has tried to conceal the fact. Now you can see that to a man of his disposition the things that happened on the Crested Foam would be tremendously depressing."

The captain of the ball-team would have seen even more clearly how depressing they were if he had known all that Merriwell knew.

"Somehow, he seems to me like a man who is under the impression that he has lost all of his friends," said Kirk. "He needs to be assured that such is not the case—that his friends and acquaintances have no desire to cut him. I think if that could be done he would come out of the slough of despond and be worth something. We may need him this summer; or a man who has his pitching ability ought to develop into something worth while."

Frank saw that Dunstan Kirk was edging toward some kind of a request.

"If there is anything I can do!" he invited.

"Well, as your picked nine is to play Abernathy's nine, of Hartford, on the ball-grounds here next Saturday, I wondered if you would be willing to let Badger pitch. It is an unheard-of sort of request to make, I know, and it leaves me under the suspicion of wanting to see you beaten by the Hartford fellows. But I hope you know me well enough to understand that such cannot be the case."

"Sure! I'd never thought of it, if you hadn't!"

"I've thought of asking this of you for a day or two. You see, if you, who are not particularly Badger's friend, show such a disposition to recognize and honor his pitching abilities, it ought to brace him up!"

Merriwell drummed thoughtfully on the table.

"Perhaps it can be done! If it will brace him up any and put him on his feet, I shall be glad to show Badger all the consideration I can."

"I was almost afraid to mention it," explained Kirk, "for I know that he has not felt just right toward you. But if you will?"

"I intended to pitch that game myself, for Abernathy's men are not the easiest things on the planet. Of course, if Badger falls down, I should be compelled to go into the box and do my best to save the day. And with a fellow like Badger, that might not work well. It would be just like him to think that I did it to humiliate him and show myself the better pitcher! You see the possibility?"

"Yes, I see it!"

There were other considerations, which Frank did not desire at the moment to mention.

"I'll have a talk with Badger, and see what I can do!" Kirk went on. "When he was so wildly ambitious, a little while back, a word from me might have settled it; but I suppose I shall have to show him by argument that he ought to accept your friendly offer. You authorize me to make that as an offer?"

"Yes. I'm willing to try to help Badger. He has good stuff in him, and, as you say, it would be too bad for him to get into the dumps and neglect to develop it. I can arrange it, I think, and, if he will pitch for us Saturday, he may. With the clear understanding that I am at liberty without question to take the pitcher's box at any time I see fit!"

"Of course!"

The captain's face had brightened. He was not a partisan of Buck Badger, nor of any man. He cared only for the recognition and development of the best Yale players and the triumph of the Yale nine. And because he recognized in Frank Merriwell these same unselfish qualities he had come to him with this request.

"I doubt much if Badger will accept the offer," said Frank.

"I shall take the offer to him, anyway. I believe it will brighten him to receive it, even if he refuses it. That desire for popularity which you mentioned will, I think, make him accept. He may tell himself and all his friends that he doesn't care for your opinion, but he does, just the same! He can't help caring for the opinion of any man who is a gentleman. I shall approach him carefully!"