gue."

Harry regarded Frank in a queer manner, slowly shaking his head, but
saying nothing more. For all that they had been friends and roommates
for a year and a half, Rattleton was forced to confess to himself that
there still remained many things about Merriwell that he could not
understand.

That Frank was shrewd Harry knew, and yet Merriwell sometimes seemed to
deliberately deceive himself by thinking that certain fellows were
honest when he should have known better. It seemed the hardest thing in
the world for Frank to be convinced that any fellow was thoroughly bad,
even though that person might be an enemy who had endeavored in
numerous ways to do him an injury.

"Merriwell seems to come out all right in everything," thought
Rattleton; "but it would not be the luck of any other fellow who dared
take the chances he does."

CHAPTER XXIV.

TWO WARNINGS.

The morning after the evening when Frank saw the mysterious stranger in
front of Traeger's he received a warning note through the mail. It read
as follows:

"Be constantly on your guard. Your enemies are plotting to do you
serious injury. I shall do what I can to foil them, but you had better
watch out."

It was unsigned, and the handwriting was cramped and awkward, as if the
person who wrote it was not accustomed to handle a pen.

"Well, I wonder what sort of a game this is!" cried Frank, in disgust.
"It is a fake, pure and simple!"

Rattleton was at his side.

"What is it?" asked Harry.

"Read that!" invited Frank, thrusting the anonymous warning into the
ready hands of his friend.

Harry glanced it over and then whistled softly.

"Rot!" he cried. "Anybody can see that's lot on the nevel--I mean not on
the level."

"But what sort of a game is it?" questioned Frank, in perplexity. "If it
was an appointment to meet somebody somewhere, or even a warning to stay
away from some place, I could see something in it; but the mere
statement that enemies are plotting to injure me doesn't indicate much
in this case."

"It seems to indicate that somebody fakes you for a tool--no, takes you
for a fool!" spluttered Rattleton.

Frank's face grew scornful.

"That somebody may find out that it is not entirely healthy to try
crooked games with me," he grimly said. "I believe I see through the
trick."

"What is it, then?"

"This bogus warning will be followed by another. The other will go a
little further than this. Then will come the third, whi