h his thumb and finger on Frank's wrist, "I
thought so! Pulse irregular--flutters like an old rag in the wind--flesh
hot and dry, eye changing and unsteady, dryness in your throat and
general vacancy in your stomach. What you need is a tonic--and you need
it bad. You should take whiskey, it may be the only thing that will save
you from an utter breaking up of the nervous system or premature death.
The premature death will happen if you try to jolly me any more. I shall
carry a gun with me constantly hereafter, and it will not cost too much
of an effort to point it in your direction and pull the trigger."

Frank laughed.

"I know you are almost too lazy to draw your breath," he said, "and I
also know that the best thing that could happen to you would be just
such an expedition as I have proposed. However, I suppose it is useless
to waste my breath talking to you, and so I will drop it."

But for all of Browning's refusal to be one of the party, Frank did not
give up the project of a trip across the continent from ocean to ocean
during the summer vacation.

But almost immediately other matters occupied his attention.

One night he was spending an evening in town with a jolly party of
students. The others were drinking beer and ale, while Merriwell took
nothing but ginger ale or bottled soda.

As they were leaving Traeger's, Frank caught a glimpse of the face of a
man who seemed to be waiting for them to come out.

For one moment Merriwell stopped as if turned to stone, and then, with
a hoarse shout of recognition, he leaped after the man, who had slipped
away.

The others followed Frank, and they soon pursued him around a corner,
where they found him standing still and staring about in a disappointed
manner.

"What is it, old man?" asked Paul Hamilton. "Why did you give that whoop
and then chase yourself around here in such a lively fashion?"

"It was not myself I chased," declared Frank. "It was quite another
party, I assure you; but he has given me the slip, for I can see nothing
of him."

"Who was it?"

"The man who tried to bribe me to throw the last ball game to Harvard!"

"That fellow?" exclaimed all the lads, excitedly. "Are you sure?"

"Dead sure," asserted Frank, confidently. "I saw his face fairly in the
light in front of Traeger's when we came out."

"Then he was not killed in the leap from the train!" cried Diamond. "How
did he escape?"

"Ask me something easy!" exclaimed Frank. "I never ex