Something like a grating imprecation escaped Harlow’s lips, and it seemed that he would leap for Frank’s throat.

But the revolver was still in Merriwell’s hand, and, somehow, its muzzle wandered around, and stopped when it covered Rolf.

The accused lad literally gnashed his teeth.

The others were aghast for a moment, and then Kent Spencer seriously said:

“Look here, sir, you will have to prove that charge. Otherwise, you will find you have made a big mistake in accusing a gentleman of being a blackguard.”

“I can prove it without a struggle,” assured Frank.

“How?”

“In several ways. To begin with, I am a student at Yale myself. It was in New Haven I first met this crook. I exposed him when he was bleeding some of my friends by playing poker with them and using marked cards.”

“A lie!” Harlow almost screamed; “a vile lie!”

“It is the truth,” asserted Jack Diamond. “I was in that game. Harlow beat me, and he would have beaten me worse but for Mr. Merriwell.”

“Mr. Who?” Spencer shouted.

“Merriwell.”

“Who is Mr. Merriwell?”

“That is Mr. Merriwell right there,” said Jack, nodding toward Frank.

“Frank Merriwell—Frank Merriwell, the ball player and all-around athlete?” questioned Spencer, excitedly.

“That’s who he is,” assured the Virginian.

“Then Mr. Harlow should be very well acquainted with him,” said the stroke of the crew, “for he has said that Frank Merriwell is his particular friend.”

“Yes,” spoke up another, “he referred us to Frank Merriwell when he applied for the position to coach our crew.”

“My eyes! what a crust!” shouted Diamond. “I never heard of such cheek! He referred you to Merry because he thought you could not reach him by letter as he knew Merry was somewhere out West on a bicycle tour.”

“All of us had heard of Mr. Merriwell,” said Spencer. “We saw his name in the papers often. A sporting magazine spoke of him as the destined leader in baseball and football at Yale. Besides that, I know a person who is personally acquainted with him. Naturally, when Mr. Harlow declared that Frank Merriwell was a particular friend of his we were inclined to regard him with favor, and I am greatly astonished to discover that he has been deceiving us.”

Harlow looked disgusted.

“I presume you are ready to take the word of these strangers against me!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t think that of you, but——”

“If this is Frank Merriwell, why shouldn’t we take his word?”

“How do you know he is Frank Merriwell?” demanded Rolf.

“I can prove that with ease,” smiled Frank, thrusting his hand into his pocket and pulling forth some letters. “Here is some of my correspondence, here is my card, and here is my name and address on this key check. If you want further proof, gentlemen, I can show you my name marked upon my clothes.”

“That is quite enough,” assured Spencer. “We are satisfied that you are what you represent yourself to be. And now will you be good enough to tell us the meaning of this struggle here on the bank?”

“With pleasure,” bowed Frank. “My friend here, Jack Diamond, a Virginian born and bred, asked me to leave the road over yonder and come here, where he could show me a pretty view of the Potomac. We locked our bicycles to a tree, where it was not likely they would be seen, and came this way. As we approached, we saw this chap in flannels standing on the bank and shouting his orders to your crew. Curiosity brought us nearer, and then we heard him talking with another chap who was hidden in the bushes where he could watch your work. From what we overheard——”

It was getting too hot for Harlow, and he interrupted Frank.

“It is plain to me,” he cried, “that you are ready to take the word of a stranger instead of mine, and that is too much for me to stand. That being the case, I’ll leave you with your new friends.”

He was about to hurry from the spot, but Frank checked him.

“Hold on, Harlow,” he said, suavely. “I have your revolver, you know.”

“Then give it to me!”

“Come take it.”

Although thus invited, Rolf did not hasten to obey, for the muzzle of the weapon was looking straight at him.

“I thought you would wait a while,” nodded Frank. “You shall have the gun directly.”

Then he continued his story:

“From what we overheard, we learned that your coach and the spy in the bushes were in league with each other. Evidently, the spy belongs to a rival crew, and he was watching to get points from your work.”

Exclamations of anger broke from the rowers, and it was plain they were greatly incensed.

Harlow fidgeted uneasily. A short time before, he had been very popular among these fellows, but now they regarded him with distrust and positive contempt.

All through Frank Merriwell! How he hated Merriwell!

“It was one of the A. A. C. fellows!” cried a red-headed fellow, whose name was Fred Dobbs. “I thought I recognized him from the river.”

It was plain that Spencer was loath to believe such a thing about any person.

“Why should Mr. Harlow betray us?” he asked, in an undecided way.

“That’s it!” cried Rolf, catching at this as a drowning person might catch at a floating chip. “Why should I do such a thing?”

“He’ll do anything for money!” scornfully exclaimed Jack Diamond.

“And the Alexandria fellows have money to burn,” came from Fred Dobbs. “They are furious because we won the championship of the Potomac last year, and they mean to win it back this year by fair means or foul. I can understand why they should buy up our coach.”

“But Harlow has seemed to work for our interest thus far,” said another. “Surely we have improved under his coaching.”

“If you hadn’t you would not have confidence in him as a coach, would you?” asked Jack.

“No, of course not.”

“Well, that’s just where he has been playing his card shrewdly. He wanted you to have enough confidence so you would make up your crew at the last minute just as he directed. That would settle it.”

Harlow saw the case had gone against him.

“Settle it to suit yourselves!” he cried. “This is the first time ever I was treated like this! I fancied they raised gentlemen down here in Virginia!”

“And so they do!” came sternly from Kent Spencer; “but we have found they are not always all gentlemen who come down here from the North. Mr. Harlow, you shall be given a fair show. A meeting of the Blue Cove Academy Athletic Club shall be called, and the charges against you shall be impartially investigated. If they are proven, we shall publicly proclaim you a scoundrel. But you will be given a good opportunity to disprove them. You can ask for nothing more.”

Rolf braced up.

“I do not ask for anything more,” he declared. “I will be on hand at the meeting, and I will prove that I have been defamed and lied about by these fellows. I did think Frank Merriwell was my friend; but he is never a friend to a rival in athletics and sports, so he has turned against me, and is trying to down me.”

This came near being too much for Jack Diamond to stand. Knowing Frank as he did, and thinking how generous Merriwell always was in dealing with a rival, Jack felt like slapping Rolf across the mouth.

Frank seemed to divine the feelings and thoughts of his comrade, for he caught Jack’s arm, saying, swiftly but quietly:

“Never mind that, my boy. If it’s a lie, these fellows will find it out in time, and it will harm nobody but the one who told it.”

Jack growled a bit, but he always obeyed Frank, so Rolf escaped.

“Here, Mr. Harlow,” said Merriwell, reversing the revolver and handing it to its owner, “here is the gun you pulled on me. I have no further use for it.”

Sourly, the exposed rascal accepted the weapon, and put it in his pocket. Then he said:

“I am going now, and I leave you fellows to listen to the lies these chaps may tell about me. I don’t care! They don’t cut any ice. I’ll be on hand at the investigation, and I’ll show you what monumental liars they both are.”

Then he walked away, not a hand being lifted to stop him.

“Mr. Merriwell,” said Kent Spencer, when Rolf had vanished, “I am pleased to meet you, but sorry that the meeting should be under such unpleasant circumstances.”

“Don’t mention it,” smiled Frank. “I am glad to be of service to you in helping expose a rascal like Harlow.”

“If the charges against Harlow stand, we’ll need a new coach,” quickly put in Fred Dobbs.

“That’s right,” nodded Spencer; “and I don’t know where we will get one, unless we can induce Mr. Merriwell to serve us.”

“He’ll make a dandy for you!” cried Diamond. “The first year he was in Yale he coached the freshmen so that we beat the sophomores without a struggle, and we had the poorer boat, too. Oh, Frank can put you in shape all right.”

“We may not need a coach,” said a slender chap by the name of Bob Dean. “If Alexandria has resorted to such dirty tricks as putting spies on us and bribing our coach, I am for refusing to row with them.”

“And I!”

“Same here!”

“I’m another!”

The boys of Blue Cove Academy were aroused.

“Easy, fellows,” advised Spencer. “We must row with Alexandria. If not, with whom can we row?”

“Bristol Academy,” suggested one.

Kent shook his head.

“It won’t do,” he declared. “Bristol is not in our class. And everybody would say we were afraid to meet Alexandria. If there was another crew——”

Diamond struck Frank a slap on the shoulder.

“By Jove, Merry!” he cried; “we can turn out a crew ourselves. If we can get into this race, why not do so? Blue Cove Academy against the Yale Combine. That should be a better race than the other. It would attract more attention.”

The Blue Cove boys were interested immediately.

“What do you mean?” asked Bob Dean. “How could you row against us? Where is your crew?”

“The rest of them are stopping at a bicycle repair shop near Brooke,” Jack explained. “Merry and I rode out by ourselves for a spin, and that is how we happened to be here. Say, fellows, this is a great idea! Let us into this race, anyway. We are on a regular athletic tour, and have taken part in every event we could get into since leaving San Francisco. We’ve left a trail of glory all the way from California to Virginia.”

The Blue Cove boys looked at each other doubtingly. Bob Dean was the only one who seemed to snap at the scheme with eagerness.

“Let’s do it, fellows!” he cried. “Let’s leave Alexandria out and race with the Yale crowd!”

“I do not think we can leave Alexandria out now,” said Spencer, gravely. “We have agreed to meet them, and the time is set.”

“But think of the sneaking trick they have played on us! That ought to be enough to queer them.”

“It ought to, but we can’t be hasty in this matter. We’ll consider it at the special meeting that will be called to investigate the charges against Harlow. Mr. Merriwell, you and your friend must be present at that meeting.”

“If necessary, we’ll be there.”

“And if we were to decide to let you into the race, have you a boat?”

“If you decide to let us in, we’ll soon provide ourselves with a boat,” declared Frank.

“Anyway, you must come to Blue Cove Academy—all of you. The boys will make you welcome. Will you come?”

“Where is the academy?”

“Up the river about four miles.”

“Yes, we will come.”

“Good!” shouted the oarsmen. “We’ll give you a jolly reception.”

Then Kent Spencer drew Frank aside.

“Mr. Merriwell,” he said, “my knowledge of you has not been obtained entirely from the papers.”

“Indeed?” smiled Frank, lifting his eyebrows.

“No; I have heard much of you from a personal friend and admirer who is stopping at the Cove.”

“That is pleasant news. I shall be pleased to meet him. I am always glad to meet my friends. Is it a Yale man?”

“No,” said Kent, “it is not a Yale man. It is some one you have not seen in a long time. There is a little hotel down at the Cove, and you must bring your party there. This friend of yours is stopping at the cottage of a retired sea captain who lives at the Cove. My sister is also stopping at the same place.”

In vain Frank urged Spencer to tell the name of the mysterious person of whom he spoke. He declared that it was some one Merriwell would be delighted to see, and that was all Frank could get out of him.

“Well,” laughed Merry, “you have aroused my curiosity so that I am going down to Blue Cove immediately. I shall send Jack back to Brooke for the rest of the fellows, but I shall continue on to Blue Cove.”

This pleased Spencer.

“Do it!” he cried. “You won’t be sorry.”

Then Frank went back and told Jack of his decision.

“I will go on to Blue Cove and make arrangements for our party at the hotel,” he said, “while you are to go back for the fellows.”

Jack was not quite pleased with the idea of wheeling back to the others all alone, but he did not murmur much.