"Still, it seems that three of them ought to have crushed him into the ground."
"Not if he had any back at all. You could have stood up under it."
"Thanks!" said Harris, dryly. "I don't care to try."
"But Merriwell carried them right along on his back."
"Wasn't that something? He scarcely seemed to slacken his speed in the least, for all of their weight."
"Rot! They came upon him from behind, and when they leaped on him they hurled him forward still faster than he was going, if anything."
"It's a wonder they didn't hurl him forward on his face."
"Wonder--nothing! Are you stuck on that fellow?"
"Well, I should say not! I have no reason to admire him."
"Nor I! I despise him, and I am willing he should know it. Wait till my ankle gets well."
"I am making no talk about what I'll do," said Marline, lowering his voice and hissing forth the words; "but Frank Merriwell had better steer clear of me."
"He is a bad man to have for an enemy," said Harris, "I know, for he is my enemy."
"How does he happen to be your enemy?" asked Marline. "You are not in athletics. What made him your enemy?"
"Some time ago he wrongfully accused me of cheating at cards. I have hated him ever since."
A sudden change came over Marline. He remembered now. He had heard something about it at the time, but it had slipped his mind. He remembered that he had heard from a reliable source that Merriwell had exposed Harris in a crooked game.
Involuntarily, Marline drew away from Harris. The lad from South Carolina had very high ideas of honor, and he could feel nothing but contempt for a card sharp. Sometimes he played cards himself, but he would have died rather than do a crooked or dishonorable thing. A moment before, he had seemed to feel a bond between himself and Sport, as they were both enemies to Merriwell, but now there was a feeling of repulsion.
No matter what Rob Marline's faults might be, and he had many of them, there was not a dishonest streak in him.
Harris seemed to see the change come over the other, and regretted that he had told the truth, for he knew Marline was "encumbered" by a fine sense of honor. He tried to set himself right by fiercely declaring he had been unjustly accused by Merriwell.
"That's what makes me hate the fellow so," he said. "He has injured me by leading some fellows to think I was crooked, and that is the worst injury he could do anybody."