He drew up one foot with a wry face. As he did so Dean Ritchie gave a start and a stare.
"Why," he cried, "your stocking is dripping with blood."
"The sole of my foot feels like a raw beef-steak," said Bob.
One of the boys had gone after the shoes that Bob had thrown off a distance from the course.
"Ritchie," he said gravely, "feel there."
His leader took the shoe, ran his hand into it, and looked into it.
"Oh, shame! shame!" he exclaimed with a wrathy face. "Whoever did this deserves to be tarred and feathered."
"What is it?" inquired Frank.
"An old trick among touts and welchers. Just feel, Jordan--some one got into the gym last night and doctored these shoes."
"Doctored the shoes?" repeated Frank vaguely.
"Yes, they set in a light cushion sole, with a half dozen blade-pointed brads under it that would break through after a little use. It's a wonder that Upton's foot isn't ripped to pieces."
"It feels pretty near as if it was," said Bob, wincing. "Frank, I guess I'm crippled for a few days. You'll have to help me get to our room."
There were dark frowns of indignation and suspicion among the group. The Banbury crowd were making off with glum faces and uneasy haste.
"Stop!" sharply shouted Ritchie after them. "I accuse nobody, but I want to say right here and now, and I want everybody to hear me, that I'm going to ferret out the low sneak who put those brads in Bob Upton's shoes. When I do, he leaves this school or I do, and one of us will have reason to remember the drubbing of his life."
"They're a fine set, aren't they?" spoke Purtelle. "Fellows, I think this circumstance should be reported to the faculty."
"No," dissented Bob Upton decidedly. "The rascals will reach the end of their tether some time, and we can't prove who worked this mean trick."
They got Bob to his room. Ned did not go there with the crowd, but he appeared a little later with a box of salve and some strips of cloth. He fixed up Bob's injured foot so skilfully that Ritchie complimented him as an expert surgeon.
Frank stayed with his friend, reading to him for a time. All the others had gone away. Finally Bob fell asleep, and Frank strolled out on the grounds.
As he again entered the building bound for his room, he ran directly against Ned as he turned down a corridor near the reception-room.
"Why, Ned," he exclaimed, "what are you doing here?"
Ned Foreman was almost crouching in a dark corner. He was trembling, and his lips were white, and there was a marked terror in his eyes. Frank was profoundly startled, almost shocked at the strange appearance of his friend.
"That man is in there!" gasped Ned.
"In where?"
"The reception-room."
"What man do you mean?"
"Tim Brady."
"Oh!" uttered Frank, and a whole lot of light seemed to flood his mind in an instant. "How do you know that?"
"President Elliott send word to me that a visitor wished to see me in the reception-room. I just came down and looked in. That terrible man who calls me his relative is in there talking to the president."
"What is he after?" asked Frank.
"Can't you see?" spoke Ned in a tone of great agitation and excitement. "He has followed me clear here. He is going to drive me away from here, just as he has driven me away from other places. I can't meet him--the cold chills run all over me whenever my eyes light on him," and Ned shuddered.
"See here, Ned Foreman," said Frank, "you go right into that room. Brace straight up to that miserable wretch, and defy him. Don't be a bit scared at anything he may say to you. I'll do the rest."
"How--how can you?" stammered the terrified boy.
"Leave that to me. I know a lot I'll tell you afterward. Go ahead, now, and don't you show one particle of fear. Leave the door ajar a little, just as it is. I'm no eavesdropper, but on the present occasion I'm mightily interested in seeing and hearing all that's going on."
There was something unaccountable about Ned Foreman's dread of his professed relative. He passed into the reception-room, but he was trembling all over and his face was pale and frightened.
President Elliott sat near a table, and the tramp whom Frank knew as Tim Brady was standing up in front of him.
He did not look much like the fellow Frank had rescued Ned from at Tipton.
In his hand he carried a high silk hat. He was clean shaven, and his hair was combed and plastered down over his bullet head. His clerical-looking frock coat was buttoned up to the chin. His face was drawn in a hypocritical expression of great concern.
"Ah, my boy! my boy!" he exclaimed, jumping about and rushing at Ned, extending both hands as if about to greet some beloved friend.
Ned Foreman shrank from his obnoxious relative in horror.
CHAPTER XVIII
A DOLEFUL "UNCLE"
Frank, peering in at the doorway of the school reception-room, saw that President Elliott looked both grave and concerned. Judging from the expression of his face, Frank decided that the academy head was not very favorably impressed with either the words or the appearance of the visitor.
"You see, kind sir," said the repulsed Brady, turning to him and snuffling as if at the point of tears, "my own kin disowns me. Oh, sir, it is hard, hard, to have it happen so!"
Ned did not say a word. He simply kept at a safe distance.
"If I may ask," spoke Mr. Elliott, "what do you expect of this boy?"
"Forgiveness," whined the tramp. "Yes, sir, that is the word. I have wronged him cruelly. I admit it, to my shame. I was a worthless, shiftless man, and I abused him and drove him from my heart. Now I have reformed, and I seek to make atonement. He is my last living relative. To whom shall I go for sympathy, to whom shall I cling but my dead wife's brother?"
"Stepbrother," corrected Ned almost sharply. "You are no relative of mine."
"Boy, don't taunt me, don't make my sufferings more than they are," and Brady heaved a prodigious sigh. "I have given up drinking. It's this way: An old-time friend of mine, who has made eighteen million dollars in a diamond mine in Canada----"