"That's all right," said Hull; "but he's a bad man to try that on. I fear we'd not make a success of it alone."
"If we had a good man to go with us-a fighter."
"But we haven't," sighed Lord; "and Merriwell is a fighter."
"Oh, you're all afraid of him!" sneered Skelding.
"I don't suppose you are?" asked Ives, sarcastically,
"No! He's an athlete, and I'm no match for him. I know that, but I'm not afraid of him. I'd like the chance to crack him with a club."
"Will you take a hand in this, Chickering?" asked Hull.
Chickering looked nervous.
"You don't suppose," he said, "that we might fail and that he would-he would-ah-serve us all the way he served Veazie?"
It was ludicrous, but not one of them smiled. The fear that Merriwell might spank them all in turn seemed to settle on them, Skelding was the only man that ridiculed it.
"But," said Chickering, "I think Skelding is right in saying we need a fighter to go with us. Where can we find one? If you think it is absolutely necessary to administer chastisement to Merriwell, let's go about it in the right way."
"There's Badger," said Lord.
"He called me a hypocrite," said Chickering.
"He called me a puppy!" squawked Veazie.
"He insulted me," said Hull, with attempted dignity.
"And he said I was sickening!" murmured Chickering.
"Said I was crooked," grated Skelding.
"But he can fight," they all admitted.
Then they looked at each other in silence. After a time Hull added:
"And he hates Merriwell."
"He came to us after that," said Ives, "and wanted us as witnesses against Merriwell when he thought he had the fellow in a snap."
"And we gave him the slam down when we found he was off his trolley on the affair," muttered Skelding. "We told him he was too cheap for us to associate with. I think that settles it as far as Badger is concerned."
"I don't know," murmured Rupert, "Lots of time has elapsed since then. He hasn't too many friends, and he may be ready to join with us again. Let's try him."
They talked it over, and finally decided to approach Badger. Thus it happened that Buck was stopped by them that day on the open campus, and he listened to them in grim silence, while they proposed to back him in anything against Merriwell. When they had finished, he gave them a shock.
"You're an ornery set of scabs, the whole bunch of you!" said the Westerner with scorn. "I've had my fill of you and your like! If I knew you could do Merriwell, I'd not join you. Instead of that, I'd go to him and warn him to look out for you, you set of snapping, mongrel curs!"
Skelding ground his teeth together.
"I knew it!" he hissed. "Badger's been broken by Merriwell, and he's turned crawler. He'll be wiggling round after Merriwell with the others after this."
"You're a liar!" said Badger, coarsely. "I have no more to do with Merriwell than with you! You can bet your pile on that!"
"Then," said Ives, "it's because Merriwell will have nothing to do with you."
"You're another!" retorted Buck, "It's because I don't choose."
"You're afraid of him!" sneered Skelding. "I know you've been keeping still lately. He's taken all the nerve out of you. You don't dare open your face."
"I dare knock the stuffing out of you if you don't close yours! Dry up!"
"Come away, fellows," urged Chickering.
"We don't want a fight with the low ruffian. He's been cowed by Merriwell, and all the college is talking of it. I've heard twenty men declare that Badger doesn't dare say his soul's his own while Merriwell is round."
Then they walked away, leaving Badger in a very unpleasant frame of mind.
"I wonder if that is what the men do think," speculated Buck, when he was alone in his room. "I suppose it is. It must seem queer that I keep so still. I'm in the habit of expressing any mind. I can't stand it long."
He walked up and down, fancying that the students were saying all sorts of things about him behind his back. He could not endure being regarded as a coward; nothing could gall him more than that.
"I'll show them!" he finally muttered, mopping the sweat from his face. "I did think I'd keep still and let Merriwell alone. After I thought the whole thing over, I began to believe I was in the wrong, and it made me fancy I'd change my course; but I'm in so deep that I can't turn back now without being called a coward. Somehow, it seems that I've got to fight Merriwell or knuckle to him, and a Badger never knuckles to any man."
So the spanking of Veazie caused a change in Badger's course of action.
CHAPTER IX.
A MISHAP TO RATTLETON.
Frank was starting for a walk out into town when Harry Rattleton overtook him.
"Hold on, Merry," he cried, "and I'll wake a talk with you - I mean take a walk."
"If you get your feet tangled the way you do your words, you'd not be able to walk," laughed Frank.
It was a crisp mid-winter day, and the air was exhilarating. They walked along with swinging steps, their shoulders thrown back and chests expanded.
"This is the sort of weather to put ginger into a man," said Merry. "Fill your lungs, Harry."
"I'm, doing it," assured Rattleton. "This air is great-simply great."
"It is," nodded Merry, "I don't see how any fellow can round up and let his chest sink in such days."
"Lots of them do."
"I know it. Whenever I see one, I feel like going up to him and giving him a lecture. There are lots of fellows who never fill their lungs with good fresh air. Some of the air cells are never expanded. Those cells need exercise in order to remain healthy, just as much as any part of the body. Without proper exercise, they become weak and useless. When they are weakened, they cannot resist disease, and then the fellow gets a bad cold, and it settles on his lungs. He begins to cough and he finds he cannot throw the cold off. His vitality is weakened, and then follows consumption. All this comes about because he does not walk with his shoulders back, his chest expanded, and give his lungs the proper exercise."
"There are some fellows in college who need to be told this."
"That's right, and some fellows have been told so by me. College men will spend all their time plugging make terrible mistakes. I do not object to any man because he is a grind, but I feel like telling him, 'My poor fellow, you are losing more than you are winning.' To-day, it has become understood generally that work of body and work of mind must go together in order to accomplish the best results."
"That's all right."
"Neglect either body or mind, and the result is a failure. The man who makes himself a grind and neglects his body comes out of college weakened physically, possibly with shattered health."
"Then what's he good for?"
"He is not fitted to fight the battle of life, for I am satisfied that life is a battle. A man can't step out of college and into a fine paying position just because he happened to stand at the head of his class."
"He may have a pull."
"That's different. I mean a man without influence. Therefore, the fellow whose body is weakened is easily buffeted about when he gets into the battle