“Yes, beyond question we shall encounter Richard Merriwell at Fardale. It will be a surprise to him, Abe. I know that he will palpitate with joy when he beholds our beaming countenances.” “And Frank is coming soon?” “As soon as he can. He said it was possible he might arrive almost as soon as we did. I have in a secret chamber of my cranium a conviction that Frank Merriwell himself will soon again be seen upon the baseball field. Abe, he is a wiz! He is the greatest pitcher this grand and glorious country has ever produced. When he sends the sphere whirling through the atmosphere and causes it to cut curious capers, the batter who faces him invariably hits nothing solider than the empty ozone.” “Frank has been kind to me,” murmured Abe. “But I did fear I might never see him again when those men seized me and carried me away in Kansas City.” “There was where Little Walter got in his fine work. I trailed them to their lair and then sicked Merry on them. It was a fine piece of business he did. There was but one fizzle to the affair. The gent named Jarvis, who was at the bottom of the infamous plot, managed to escape. Either he or one of his tools in the house turned off the lights. In the darkness he shot Bill; but when the lights flared again luminously, he had vanished like a spook into thin air. With the assistance of Bial Keene, Frank is doing his best to again get track of Mr. Jarvis and to learn why you were kidnapped. He will do it, too, my boy; mark that!” “It’s so different here in this part of the country,” said the hunchback, as he gazed from the car window at the flying landscape. “It doesn’t seem like the country I know. There are such fine houses and such big towns! I am afraid in the cities, cap’n. There are so many, many people. I didn’t think there could be half so many people in the whole world.” “And I don’t think you have seen half the people there are in this little old world,” said Wiley with a smile. In the car with them the youthful members of the baseball team joked, and laughed, and sang. Just ahead of them sat two young chaps, who were earnestly discussing baseball; and now Wiley became interested in their conversation. “If we win to-day,” said one, “it will be the first time Fardale has been defeated this season by a school team.” “Oh, we are going to trim them to-day, Andy!” confidently asserted the other. “It’s all settled.” “You think it is all settled, Paul,” said Andy. “But the game is not so easily settled with Dick Merriwell against us.” “My dear fellow,” chuckled Paul, “we have everything on our side this day. Even the umpire will be with us; but keep it quiet—keep it quiet!” Wiley pricked up his ears and listened more intently. “How do you know the umpire will be with us?” “That’s all right. Nort Madison is out for Fardale’s scalp on this occasion, and he has left no stone unturned to accomplish the trick. We even know Merriwell’s system of signals from the box.”