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Updated: May 15, 2025
"Thank you, Mis' Bascomb, p'raps it'll come to-morrow," and Tony turned away with a sigh and moved towards the door. A group of men were gathered around the stove, smoking and exchanging the gossip of the town. These greeted him kindly as he passed and he returned the greetings half absently. Before opening the door, the old man stopped to give his woolen muffler one more turn around his neck.
"Our friend is not quite so gracious as he has been on former meetings," thought Tom, as he led the way inside. "I wonder if he is going to get cranky?" Inside was a little office room, as in the foremen's barracks. "Any decent cigars here?" questioned Mr. Bascomb, after exploring his own pockets and finding them innocent of tobacco. "No, sir," Tom answered. "No one here smokes."
He stepped toward the big fellow, but Bascomb leaped to his feet, shrieking: "Don't touch me! You are dead dead! Go away!" And then, before another word could be said, before anybody could do a thing to prevent it, Bascomb turned and fled through the woods fled as if pursued by fiends, shrieking forth his terror. "After him!" cried Frank. "Don't let him get away!
Times without number, as he had sat meditating over the fire on a winter's night, or had sprawled among the hay or upon the sandy beach on a summer evening, had visions of just such lands and just such enchanting scenes as Marshall and Bascomb described come floating to him like vague and distant but cherished memories.
The big fellow struck twice, and both blows were met by a ready guard. Biff! biff! biff! First with the right, and then twice with the left Frank struck the big plebe. None of them were heavy blows, but they all stung, and the angry blood surged to Bascomb's face, as he saw Merriwell leap back beyond his reach, laughing a bit. "Mosquito bites!" said Bascomb, derisively. "But they count."
Then, under the joint supervision of the Captain and Stukely, the sick were led or carried along the deck and handed gently down over the side, the whole of them being sent ashore in the first boat that left the ship, with Bascomb, the master, in charge, his duty being to see that no unwholesome fruit or poisonous berries were eaten unwittingly.
"Well," said Bascomb, as he sat down on a stool, "what do you think of Merriwell?" "I think he is a mighty hard fellow to beat at anything," growled Paul. "But he can be beaten eh?" "How?" "There are ways." "What do you mean? Speak plainly." "You ought to know what I mean," said Bascomb, doggedly, keeping his eyes on the floor. "It isn't always the best trotter that wins a race."
"Have I your word, most illustrious, that no evil shall befall me if I put myself into your hands?" asked the man. "You have," answered Bascomb. "You may trust yourself to us without fear; indeed you are like to be a great deal more safe with us than elsewhere during the next few hours."
The distance which they had to pull, in order to reach the wharf indicated by Pacheco, was about three-quarters of a mile, and as they neared the landing-place they perceived that a good many people had gathered, and were watching them curiously; but of soldiers there was not one to be seen, which Bascomb confessed he regarded as rather a bad sign, as the absence of any visible inclination to resist their landing seemed to him to point to the preparation of a trap somewhere on the road.
At dinner the conversation was almost entirely about the tumultuous events of the night, and, by keeping eyes and ears open, Frank sought to discover who knew the most concerning those things which had taken place. Bascomb seemed in high spirits.
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