Frank Merriwells Reward

Frank Merriwell's Reward, by
Burt L. Standish

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Title: Frank Merriwell's Reward
Author: Burt L. Standish
Release Date: September 28, 2006 [EBook #19402]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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FRANK MERRIWELL'S REWARD
BY

BURT L. STANDISH
Author of "Frank Merriwell's School Days," "Frank Merriwell's
Chums," "Frank Merriwell's Foes," etc.

PHILADELPHIA DAVID McKAY, PUBLISHER 604-8 SOUTH
WASHINGTON SQUARE
Copyright, 1900 By STREET & SMITH

FRANK MERRIWELL'S REWARD.
CHAPTER I.
A RUNAWAY AUTOMOBILE.
"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