et's get down to business."

"Business?" said Frank, questioningly. "I thought this was a case of
sport?"

"It is. You mustn't be so quick to catch up a word."

The table was cleared, and the boys gathered round it, Hodge producing
a pack of cards, the seal of which had not been broken.

"You'll notice that those papers are all right," he said,
significantly. "Nobody's had a chance to tamper with them."

"What do you play?" asked Frank, to whose face a strange look had come
on sight of the cards.

"Oh, we play most anything--euchre, seven up, poker----"

"Poker?"

"Yes; just a light game--penny ante--to make it interesting. You know
there's no interest in poker unless there's some risk."

The strange look grew on Frank Merriwell's face. He seemed in doubt,
as if hesitating over something.

"I--I think I will go back to the room," he said.

"What's that?" exclaimed several, in amazement. "Why, you have just
got here."

"But I am not feeling--exactly right. What I have eaten may give me a
headache, and I have a hard day before me to-morrow."

"Oh, but we can't let you go now, old man," said Harris, decidedly.
"You must stop a while. If your head begins to ache and gets real bad,
of course you can go, but I don't see how you can get out now."

Frank did not see either. He had accepted Harris' hospitality, had
eaten freely of the good things Harris had provided, and the boys would
vote him a prig if he left them for his bed as soon as the feast was
finished. It would seem that he was afraid of being discovered absent
from his room--as if he did not dare to share the danger with them.

Frank was generally very decided in what he did, and it was quite
unusual for him to hesitate over anything.

There is an old saying that "He who hesitates is lost."

In this case it proved true.

"Oh, all right, fellows," said Frank, lightly. "I'll stop a while and
watch you play."

"But you must take a hand--you really must, you know," urged Harvey
Dare. "Our game is small. We'll put on a limit to suit you--anything
you say."

"I do not play poker, if that is your game."

"Don't you know how?"

"Well, yes, I know a little something about it, but I swore off more
than a year ago."

"Nobody ever swears off on anything for more than a year. Sit in and
take a hand."

Still he refused, and they finally found it useless to urge him, so the
game was begun without him, and he looked on.

The limit was