Frank Merriwell's Athletes Part 31

He followed hastily, and, catching up with her, said:

"Inza, please do not act in this manner. I have an apology to make."

He pa.s.sed his hand through her arm, and they went out on the veranda.

The moon was over the mountains again, and its silver light glinted the waves of the sea.

Frank and Inza paused in the shadow of the vines. For some moments he did not speak, and then, his voice quivering, he talked long and earnestly. What he said is neither here nor there. He had an apology to make, and he made it in a manly way. He acknowledged his mistake and freely expressed his contrition.

Inza heard him in silence to the end, then she burst into tears. In a moment both of Frank's arms were about her, and she was sobbing with her head against his breast.

The following morning Bart Hodge, who had appeared greatly troubled since the race, sought out Frank.

"I want to ask you a question," he said, earnestly. "Do you think I tried to keep you from winning that race, Frank?"

"Not much, Bart," replied Merry, cordially. "I know you better than that. But--"

"Yes?"

"Perhaps you were asked to."

Hodge flushed.

"We won't say any more," continued Frank, grasping his companion's hand.

"Let it be buried in the past. I have been a fool, and I deserve all I got. Here comes the rest of the fellows. We'll talk over our next move with the Combination."

CHAPTER XVI-THE ARRIVAL AT EMBUDO

"Embudo! Embudo!"

A brakeman shouted the name at the open door of a pa.s.senger car northward bound on the Denver and Rio Grande. The train was stopping at a small station in Northern New Mexico, some fifty miles north of Santa Fe.

"Embudo! Embudo!"

Another brakeman shouted the name at the open door at the other end of the car.

"Embudo! Hurrah!"

Several healthy young voices uttered the cry, and there was a general bustling within that car.

"Here's where we leave the railroad and civilization behind, Inza,"

laughed Frank, who had been chatting with Inza Burrage, who occupied a seat with a stern, hard-faced woman.

"Hurrah!" cried the girl, enthusiastically. "We're off to the land of the Aborigines! What a jolly adventure it's bound to be!"

"Goodness!" said the hard-faced woman, reprovingly. "Any one would think you a boy to hear you cheer like that, Inza. Don't do it again! It isn't proper."

"Oh, what's the use to be so awfully proper all the time, Aunt Abby!"

laughed the girl, with a little pout. "How can a person help being enthusiastic with the prospect of such adventures ahead! You'll see things you never saw before, aunt."

"And goodness knows we shall all be scalped! I suppose I'm foolish to accompany you on such a foolish expedition."

"Oh, Frank says there is not the least danger of anything like scalping, and St. Geronimo Day is the great holiday with the Pueblo Indians. I wouldn't miss it for anything."

"I a.s.sure you, Miss Gale, there is no danger of being scalped or troubled at all by the Indians," said Frank, who with his friends were bound for the Pueblo of Taos, where they were going to witness the Indian celebration which takes place there each year on St. Geronimo Day.

Inza had communicated with her maiden aunt, who lived in Sacramento, after arriving in Santa Barbara, and Miss Gale had been so wrought up by the girl's letter, which told how her father had tried to force her into a marriage with a "horrid English reprobate," that she had packed a trunk and hastened to Santa Barbara.

She found Inza had already "shaken" the Englishman, but Bernard Burrage was such a physical wreck that the good-hearted spinster determined to accompany Inza on the trip East and look out for her.

Mr. Burrage had stopped at Santa Fe, hoping the climate might agree with him.

Frank had heard much about the affair at the Pueblo of Taos on St.

Geronimo Day, and he took a vote of the Yale Combine about attending.

The club was unanimously in favor of it, and thus we find them leaving the train at Embudo, the nearest railway station to the Pueblo.

Frank had worked hard to make a favorable impression on Miss Abigail Gale, and had succeeded very well, so he had induced her to take Inza to witness the Indian celebration.

No one but Frank could have succeeded in this, for the spinster detested and feared redskins, but Merry seemed to have some hypnotic influence over her.

Hodge a.s.sisted Inza from the train, while Frank aided Miss Abigail to alight, doing so with as much gallantry and grace as if she were a girl of sixteen.

Indeed, her hard face seldom relaxed at all save when she looked at Frank, and then, at times, an expression of positive gentleness would soften her features somewhat.

Frank had not won her good will by aid of a flattering tongue. He believed actions spoke louder than words, and he had taken pains to study her peculiarities that he might know what to do to please her. In this manner he had been remarkably successful with her, although it was Miss Abagail's firm belief that the entire male s.e.x "didn't amount to nothing nohow."

"Look at Frankie, b'ys!" chuckled Barney, giving Ephraim and Hans each a nudge. "It's a shlick lad he is. If it wasn't fer him, Inza'd nivver git anywhere at all, at all; but he makes th' ould hen think she's a p'ach, an' she'll be afther doin' onnything he loikes fer her to do."

"By gum! he's slick," grinned the boy from Vermont. "I ain't never seen no female gal ur woman that he wasn't able to chop ice with when he sot out."

"Yaw," nodded Hans, gravely; "he peen aple to chop ices mit der girls ven I lets 'em alone. Uf course he don'd stood no show mit me against."

"Nivver a bit!" agreed Barney. "It's yersilf thot's a great masher.

Ye're a perfict Apollo."

"You pet my poots!" said the Dutch boy proudly. "I don'd bother Vrankie mit pecause he vos a coot feller, und his feelings I don'd vant to hurt."

"Go on!" snorted Ephraim, in disgust. "Ye make me sick! Whut sort of a fool noshun hev yeou got inter your fat head? Do you think yeou could cut Frank Merriwell aout with any girl?"

"Say, you peen careful how you talks to me!" said Hans, menacingly. "Uf you don'd, I may be sorry for it! I know vot I can do mit der girls."

"Thot's roight, Ephraim," put in Barney, with a sly wink at the Yankee boy; "he knows phwat he can do. Av he says he can cut Frankie out it's himsilf thot can do th' same."

"Yaw; sometimes I done id shust to shown you."