The time approached for Merry to start for the train. He came down from his room, escorted by his most intimate friends. Browning was helping him downstairs. They saw a crowd was waiting outside.
“Let me alone, Bruce!” cried Frank, who had tried to discourage the giant from offering assistance. “This is what I’m on my feet for. Give me a chance to make my bluff.”
So he walked out at the head of the party, straight as an Indian, stepping off with a brisk pace, apparently as well as ever. His appearance created unbounded astonishment, for it had been believed that he was entirely “done up.”
“Somebody has been playing a slick game!”
These were the exclamations. One fellow cried:
“Fellows, the cat is out! Merriwell wasn’t hurt at all! The whole business was a fake to fool Harvard! He’s fooled her, too, and Yale will win to-day!”
Frank laughed outright. Everything was moving finely.
“Talk about your clever tricks!” shouted a voice. “This beats ’em all! Hurrah for Frank Merriwell!”
They cheered, and Frank walked steadily through their midst to the cab, which he entered, his grip and overcoat being tossed in after him. Diamond, Browning, and Rattleton followed, and the cab rolled away.
“If we can keep it up,” said Frank, “we may change the complexion of things.”
All Boston seemed football crazy, for the time, at least. Blue and crimson were the colors everywhere. At noon people began turning toward Soldiers’ Field, that colossal rectangle where the battle was to take place. The work of the ticket-takers began as the spectators came dribbling in. It was a tiny rivulet at first, then a brook, then a stream, then a river, then a rushing, roaring flood.
Inside the seats of the stadium gradually became covered with all sorts of wraps and all colors of ribbons. There were pretty girls in crimson sweaters, and just as pretty ones wearing Yale blue. There were men with flags and with their colors pinned to their coats. By one-thirty it seemed that the great stand was filled, but there was not the slightest decrease in the steady flow of people rolling inward from the four corners of the field.
The college men poured in and gathered in compact masses, Yale on the east and Harvard on the west. They were exuberant and overflowing with life, and they were armed with megaphones.