Frank Merriwell, Jr.'s, Helping Hand
Fair Play and No Favors
9781465647351
200 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
In one of the residence streets of Gold Hill, Arizona, stood—and no doubt still stands at this moment—a rather pretentious, two-story dwelling. Six low-growing, broad-leaved palms were marshaled in two rows before the front door, and to right and left of the palms were umbrella and pepper trees. Extending from one corner of the house, almost to the pickets that fenced in the premises, was a rank growth of oleanders. This was the home of Colonel Alvah G. Hawtrey, an ex-army officer. In the service of his country Hawtrey had chased and fought the murderous Apaches all over that part of the Southwest; and now, at the age of sixty, the colonel, with an honorable discharge from the service, was giving his attention to various mining enterprises and was reputed to be a very wealthy man. He was broad-minded and public-spirited, and the prosperity of Gold Hill owed more to the old colonel than to any other citizen. He had built the Bristow Hotel and several brick business blocks; he had founded a social club, a cattlemen’s association, and a miners’ relief society. It was known that he paid, out of his own pocket, the salary of one of the local ministers; he owned a bank, and, last but not least, he had organized and brought into successful operation the Gold Hill Athletic Club. For nothing was the colonel more honored than for his love of manly sports, and for his zeal in seeing that the youth of Gold Hill received proper physical training. On a night in late October a spectral figure crept along the fence in front of Colonel Hawtrey’s house. The house was dark, and apparently deserted. After surveying the house carefully for a few moments, the figure leaped the fence noiselessly and gracefully and faded into the deep shadow of the oleanders. Very carefully the prowler made his way through the bushes to the corner of the house. Here again he paused and listened. Seemingly satisfied that the coast was clear, he glided to the nearest window, opened the thin blade of a pocketknife, climbed to the sill, forced the blade between the upper and lower sash, and deftly opened the lock. Another moment and he had raised the lower half of the window and dropped through into the dark room beyond. Evidently this prowler was not on unfamiliar ground. Without striking a light, he groped his way to a door and into a hall; through the hall he passed, and to a stairway, then up the stairs to the hall above, and down the corridor to a room at the rear of the house. He had a key to the door of the room, and he opened it. Once across the threshold, he scratched a match, stepped to an electric-light button, and touched it with his finger. Instantly the room was flooded with a glow of light from incandescent bulbs. It was a small room, with banners and pennants on the walls. Several of the flags bore the letters, “G. H. H. S.” official emblems of Gold Hill “High.” Others bore the initials “G. H. A. C.” and had once figured in athletic-club events. Foils were also crossed on the wall, boxing gloves hung from pegs, a catcher’s mask lay on a shelf, and a breast protector hung beneath it. On the same shelf with the mask stood a tarnished silver cup, bearing an inscription to the effect that it had been presented to one Ellis Darrel for winning a two-hundred-and-twenty-yard dash under the auspices of the Gold Hill Athletic Club. Dumb-bells and Indian clubs stood on the floor close to the wall.
