Frank Merriwell’s Champions

ue Ridge Hotel when two visitors were announced. They pr

d one, speaking to Merriwell, who had risen from his piazza chair to greet them.

. Tetlow," answered Merriwell, who then proceeded t

f seventeen or eighteen-keen-looking, int

those cottages down there, with the flag flying over them, and hardly anybody in the

help you occupy them

do up the Blue M

rry Rattleton hitche

woods up on the mountain?" asked Barney. "B

ich we must back down from unless your party is willing to join in and aid us. You see, we had sixteen boys in the camp at that time

he Blue Mountain Club?"

their leader. They are already crowing over us in a way

er visitors?"

untains. He hasn't a very good name, though, and is not well liked. I've been told that he's related by blood to some of these fighting mo

him!" grunt

t is their character?"

o-morrow, with a swimming match on the lake the next day

fully at Merriwell

in this hotel, and we need you! We want you to join our club. It is perfectly legitimate, for we're allowed to recruit from

" questioned Merriwell, tu

upon the hill!" exc

well

at, by thutter!" dec

a bicnic!" asserted Hans Dunner

d, each after his

t us to come dow

therto maintained a grave silence. "It's lonesome as a graveyard down there

ne enthusiasm, and his delight was so manife

lready registered here, and he may interpose objections to our summary leave-

Yale Combine were snugly installed in th

drawn over him, he reclined in a hammock and looked across the water toward the village. "I guess I shall

of mock anxiety at t

id that other time, you'll have your cot put out under the tre

house down on myself, like old Samson, it will de

tleton, "why is Browning like a member of a

" begged Bruce. "I'm already sick,

ause he's

and turned his fa

dly kill that idiot

room, holding a handsome lance

ow," he said, surveying the lounging group, "it strikes me that it would be well f

to leave the room, with the exception of Bruce Browning, who shi

eensward. Here a target had been set up, and th

imbed to the archery ground on the wooded crest of Blue Mountain they felt that they would be able to give Ward Hammond and his friends a hard contes

by wooded slopes. Near at hand were the cottages of the Blue Mountain Club. They were handsomer and more expensive than those of the other club, but not more comf

dy on the ground, and Hammond was looking

he declared, with a sneer, snapping the gold cas

ed and pulled out

spare, if my watch i

ch is right!" was t

turned my watch back for any reason," sai

a thing against any member of the Lilywhites?" H

target. It was a thirty-pound lancewood bow, with horn notches at

aw, four feet in diameter, and it was faced with cloth, on which was painted a central yellow disk, called the gold.

he subject, for he did not like the look that had come into Diamond's dark face. "A hit in the

arned thing altogether?" d

w somewhere down there in t

mate friend and admirer, stepped forward with drawn bow and placed

ting the action and again glancing toward the

you came," said Hammo

ors can happen, you know, and as the rules call for sixty yards and we have been pr

ssential it is in archery shooting to know

municate itself to other members o

" Hammond commanded, a

ttage he was seen to rush into another and then another, and came back in a few moments with the announcement t

y drew a tape measure f

milingly passing it to Hammond. "Stretch it across the ground

itically eying the tape. "You

oward the target, and Hammond put the other on the groun

short," Rattleton announced, whe

t," declared Hammond,

hen," said Merriwell. "A dozen if you l

e," fumed Hammond, who had hoped to take a mean advantage,

chances of himself and his friends in the contest, for they had done nearly all of thei

d to shoot. He held himself easily and gracefully

-r-r

r than the top of the target, but dropped lower just before it

out from behind the tree where he had screened

do better than tha

members of the two clubs, and he

ward confidently an

five!" announ

way!" said Diamond, wi

it might be!" drawled Gallup. "I think I'd stand a heap sight

Blue Mountain Club, came next, and t

as he advanced and spat on his hands before taking u

om the Blue Mountain boys, and even the

u don't laugh on der oder side your mouts uf pime-py. Ged avay oudt! I vas goi

one eye and squinted along the arrow. Then h

pow veigh dirty pounds, yet alretty? Vy

weigh thirty pounds. It takes a thirty-pound pull to

e bow over curiously. "Id dakes dirty pounds to bent

the arrow and the bowst

ts, who dropped to the ground and be