CHAPTER XI
A NEW COMPLICATION
"Oh, hang it all!" burst out Phil Clinton, as he tossed aside his trigonometry.
"What's the matter?" inquired Tom, looking up from his Latin prose.
"Have you got the dink-bots?" was Sid's gentle question, as he kept on carefully mounting a butterfly, one of the specimens he had captured during the summer, and had laid aside until a leisure moment to care for properly.
"I don't know what it is, but I can't get my mind down to study," went on the quarter-back.
"You never could," declared Tom, fortifying himself behind the sofa in case Phil should turn violent.
It was the evening after the Freshman game, and the three chums were in their study, after the meeting with the big Californian, as Frank Simpson had at once been dubbed. He had been directed to his room, which was on the floor above the apartment of our heroes, and he had gone off thanking them warmly.
"What's the main trouble?" asked Tom.
"Oh, nothing in particular; but I guess I'm thinking of too many other things. There's that little run-in I had with Langridge, seeing the game to-day, worrying about the clock and chair mystery, and wondering how our eleven is going to make out."
"It's enough to drive you to—cigarettes," admitted Tom. "But I"
"Say, I'll tell you what let's do," broke in Sid. "Let's invite that Simpson chap down here. He must be sort of lonesome, being a stranger here. I saw him going off to his room after grub, and none of the fellows spoke to him. Now, Randall isn't that kind of a college. True, we don't know much about him, but he looks the right sort. It won't do any harm to have him down here and talk to him."
"Sure not," agreed Phil at once.
"Good idea," declared Tom. "Shall we all go and invite him down, as a committee of three, or will one be enough?"
"Oh, one," replied Phil. "You go, Tom, you're the homeliest. Have it as informal as possible."
"I like your nerve!" exclaimed the end. "However, I will go, for I like Simpson. I wish he was on the eleven. Wonder if he was any good at Stanford?"
"Never heard of him setting the goal posts on fire," came from Sid, a but you never can tell. If he has any football stuff in him Lighton will bring it out. We can tell Simpson to get into practice, anyhow."
"Randall needs just such material as he looks to be," went on Tom, as he arose to go to the room of the Californian. "I rather hope he makes the 'varsity."
Frank Simpson very much appreciated the invitation he received, and a little later he was accorded a seat of honor on the sofa, and made to feel at home by our heroes, who plied him with questions about his native State, and what sort of a college Leland Stanford was. The newcomer at Randall answered genially, and, in turn, wanted to know many things. Particularly he was interested in football, and in response to Tom's urging that he practice, he said that he would.
"You fellows have quite a place here," went on Frank, as his gaze roved admiringly about the room. "Quite a tidy shack."
"You don't see the best part of it," spoke Sid.
"How's that?" inquired Frank.
"Our old easy chair was mysteriously taken, and in place of a clock whose tick, while an aggravation, made us all feel at home, that timer was left in its place," remarked Phil, before his chum had a chance to answer. And then the story of the queer happenings was told again.
"Somebody's rigging you, I guess," was the opinion of the lad from Stanford. "I wouldn't let 'em see that I was worried."
"Oh, we're not, but we'd like to get our chair back," replied Tom.
"Something like that happened out in our college, when I was a freshman," went on the newcomer, who, it developed, was in the Randall sophomore class. "We fellows missed things from our rooms and made quite a row about it, thinking a thief was busy. But it developed that there was a secret society of seniors whose sworn duty it was to furnish up their meeting-room with something taken from every fellow's apartment in the college. Jove! But those fellows had a raft of stuff, every bit of it pilfered, and when we got next to it we stripped their meeting place as bare as a bone, and got our things back. Maybe that's what's happened here."
"It's possible," admitted Phil, "but we haven't heard of any senior secret society like that. It's worth looking up."
There was a knock on the door, and Holly Cross and Dutch Housenlager entered. They were introduced to Frank, and the congenial little party of lads talked of various matters, mostly football, until the striking of the new clock warned them that it was time for the proctor to begin his nightly rounds of discovery.
Frank Simpson began football practice with the scrub eleven the next day, and though he was sneered at by some, Tom and his friends on the 'varsity at once saw that the Californian knew the game. Mr. Lighton did not have to have his attention called to the work of the newcomer, for he picked him out at once, and kept his eyes on him during the warm-up play.
"I shouldn't wonder but what there'd be 'varsity material there," the coach confided to the captain after the practice game was over, when the scrub had rolled up two touchdows against their mates.
"The land knows we need something to brace us up," replied Kindlings, somewhat despondently. "Sam Looper is getting worse instead of better. They tore big holes through him to-day."
"I know it," admitted Mr. Lighton. "And what will happen when Boxer Hall tackles us can be more than imagined, unless there's a big improvement. But I'm going to watch Simpson."
The big Californian was of a genial temperament, and he endeavored to make friends with his fellows on the scrub, but, somehow or other, they rather resented his advances, and turned the cold shoulder to him. Hurt, but not despairing, Frank "flocked by himself" for a few days. He was becoming known as a "dig," for he did well in the classroom.
Then Tom, and his two mates, seeing how the wind was blowing, made a special point to invite the newcomer to their room more frequently. They took him to their bosoms, and their warm welcome more than made up for the coldness on the part of some of the others.
It was not an intentional slight by those who did not welcome Simpson. Don't get that impression, for there was a warm school spirit at Randall. Only, somehow, it took a little longer for a stranger to make friends, coming in after the term had started, than it did before. Then, too, the fact that he had not passed his freshman year there was a bit against him. But Tom, Phil and Sid minded this not in the least, and soon Frank was made to feel quite at home, for which he was duly grateful.
"It's mighty white of you fellows, to treat me this way, like a friend and a brother," he said, feelingly, one night, after a session in the room.
"Oh, get out! Why shouldn't we?" demanded Sid.
"Of course," spoke Tom.
"Well, lots of fellows wouldn't go to the trouble, and I appreciate it," went on the lad from the Golden Gate. "All I want now is to make the 'varsity, and I'll be happy!"
"You may be nearer getting on than you think," murmured Phil, for in practice that day Snail Looper had done worse than ever, while Frank was a tower of strength to the scrub, which had almost beaten the first team.
In spite of their work on the gridiron, our heroes did not forget to look for clews to the missing chair and clock. Only none developed, search and pry about as they did. The big Californian helped them by suggestions, but there proved to be nothing in his theory of a purloining secret society, and Tom and his chums did not know which way to turn next.
The date for the game with Newkirk was drawing closer, and practice was correspondingly harder. It was one afternoon, following a gruelling hour on the field, that as Tom, his two chums, and Frank were walking toward the gymnasium, they saw several members of the faculty entering the house of President Churchill.
"Hello! What's up?" exclaimed Tom.
"Something, evidently," answered Phil.
"Have any of you fellows been cutting up?" asked Sid, with suspicious looks at his companions. They quickly entered denials.
Clearly there was something extraordinary in the meeting that had evidently been called, for the professors wore grave looks as they entered the residence of the head.
"I hope none of the 'varsity crowd has been misbehaving himself, and will get laid off the team," went on Phil, who felt that he carried the weight of the eleven on his shoulders. "We're in bad enough shape now."
"Here comes Wallops, let's ask him," suggested Tom, and when the messenger approached they plied him with questions.
"I don't rightly know what it is," answered Wallops, "but it is something important and serious, so I heard Mr. Zane saying to Professor Tines, when he gave him word about the meeting. It has something to do with the title to the land on which the college is built. I believe some one has laid claim to it, on account of a cloud on the title, but I really don't understand legal terms."
"Do you mean that Randall College is in danger of losing some of the property?" gasped Phil, as he looked around at the fine campus, the athletic field, and the group of buildings.
"It's something like that," went on the messenger. "I heard Mr. Zane say the land might be taken by the heirs of some old man who once had a claim on it."
"Well, what would happen if he could make good his claim?" asked Sid.
"I don't know, but I suppose the heirs could say the college was theirs, being built on their ground, or they could tear it down. But I don't rightly know," concluded Wallops. "Probably it will be known after the meeting."
"More trouble for old Randall!" groaned Tom, as he and his chums watched the gathering of the solemn professors.