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<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER X. THE TELL-TALE KNIFE.</h2></div> Filled with wonder and speculation over his unexpected and thrilling adventure, Don returned to the dressing-room where the desperate encounter had taken place. The knife he had closed and slipped into his pocket, and he wound a handkerchief around his cut and bleeding fingers. “I’d give something to know what this fellow was up to,” he muttered, pausing outside the open door and shuddering as he thought of what had lately taken place within that room. “He fought like the very Old Scratch, but I don’t think he tried to strike me with the knife till I got him down and choked him. Wish I had a match.” But another search through his pockets failed to bring forth the article he desired, and so, not without a slight shiver and drawing back, he again stepped into the darkness of the dressing-room. Knowing exactly where his clothes were hanging on a peg against the wall, it was not difficult for him to find them. Having hurriedly gathered them and flung them over his arm, he lost little time in leaving the dressing-room, for he could not cast off the feeling that he might again be attacked in the darkness of that place. Outside he paused long enough to close the door, which[85] fastened with a spring lock, after which he walked swiftly from the inclosure, shutting the gate behind him. As he reached the road, he heard the sound of voices, causing him to pause and listen, upon which he made the discovery that several persons were approaching from the direction of the village. The voices sounded natural, too, and he decided that, for some reason, a number of boys were coming toward him. Not wishing to be seen by them, he hurried across the road and crouched behind a clump of bushes, which, together with the darkness, completely hid him from view. As the party approached, he recognized the voices and learned that it was made up of Sterndale, Mayfair, Murphy and Chatterton. Listening to their conversation, he heard Mayfair say: “You’re right about this thing, Sterndale, and it was a good thought of yours, for we can take care of the stuff at the club-rooms now, and everything will be safe.” “It’s mesilf that nivver left anything up here at all, at all,” declared the voice of the Irish lad. “And he was so bub-bub-blamed mad over it that there’s no tut-tut-telling wh-what he might do,” stuttered Chatterton. “I ru-ruther think you’ve got a right to tut-try somebody else in his pup-pup-pup-position, Sterndale.” “I’ve had my eye on Carter for some time,” the hidden lad plainly heard the captain of the eleven declare. “He doesn’t mingle with our crowd much, but he’s a strong, hearty fellow, and he may prove to be a good man.” [86]They passed on and proceeded straight to the gate of the fenced-in grounds. A moment later the sound of their voices told they had entered by the gate and were within the grounds, upon which Don rose from his place of concealment, reached the road and hastened toward home. “They were talking about me!” he grated. “So they’re going to put Harry Carter in my place! He’s a fellow who never seemed to take much interest in baseball or anything else of the sort, yet they think he’ll be as good a man as I am!” From the disconnected and incomplete bit of conversation that had reached his ears, he reasoned that the boys must have been speaking of him; but just why they were visiting the ball ground at that hour was a question he could not answer. He had permitted all the suspicion, selfishness and jealousy of his nature to be aroused, and he fancied his erstwhile companions were ready to do anything to “spite” him. His nerves were far from steady, which was not at all strange, taking into consideration the unexpected and violent struggle from which he had recently emerged. The mystery of that encounter continued to bewilder him, but he decided that the unknown must have been a common thief who had entered the dressing-room for the purpose of securing whatever plunder he could discover there. Under any condition, Don thanked his lucky stars that he had escaped with his life, for the fellow had been fierce in his final efforts to strike with the open knife, having[87] found the athletic boy was more than a master for him. Up to that time it appeared that his sole desire was to break from Don’s grasp and escape; but, on being thrown down and choked, he had used the knife. Don wondered when the unknown had drawn and opened the knife. It seemed that the rascal had scarcely been given time to accomplish such an action after Don’s entrance, for the boy had kept him busy, and he had struggled madly to free himself and escape. “I believe he had that open knife in his hand when I came in on him,” Don finally decided. So busy was he with his thoughts that he did not observe his handkerchief had slipped from his wounded fingers. He was nearly home when he made the discovery, finding his hand was wet and sticky with blood. “Let the old handkerchief go,” he muttered. “I’ll find out how much I’m cut.” He succeeded in entering the house quietly, and was hurrying up to his room, when his father called to him: “Is that you, Don?” “Yes, sir,” he answered. “I thought you were in bed.” “I am just going to bed now, sir.” “Good-night, my boy.” “Good-night, father.” He did not wish to stand before his father again that day, for he felt that he could not carry out his determination to make a confession of the truth, and a discovery of[88] his injury might lead Dr. Scott to ask him unpleasant questions. In his room, he flung his clothes over the back of a chair, hurriedly washed the blood from his hand, and examined his fingers, finding that three of them had been cut, but not seriously. “I can attend to them myself,” he said, and he proceeded to do so, taking from a drawer an old handkerchief, which he tore into strips to bind about the bleeding digits. When this was done, Don took off his coat and discovered in the left sleeve a long slit from the shoulder nearly to the elbow, made by the knife of his antagonist that now lay in his pocket. This wound in his shoulder proved to be scarcely more than a scratch, and he easily attended to that with some strips of plaster. “But he came near fixing that arm!” he exclaimed, picking up his coat and looking at the slit in the sleeve. “Jupiter! Just see that! My best coat, too! What can I tell Aunt Ella? It won’t do to tell her just how it happened.” Happening to glance at a mirror, he found his face was very pale and that he still showed signs of agitation. He also noted that his handsome red necktie was gone, having, without doubt, been torn off in the encounter. “I don’t want to lose that necktie,” he said. “I ought to go back, and look for it.” But at that moment he heard his father close and lock[89] the front door, and he knew the house was being shut up for the night. “I’ll look for it in the morning,” he decided. “It isn’t likely I could find it to-night, anyway.” Having flung himself down on an easy-chair, he fell to thinking the entire adventure over from start to finish, it being of a nature to take his mind for the time from his trouble with Renwood. When he had reviewed it up to the moment when he concealed himself behind the bushes on the approach of four members of the village eleven, he speculated again over the cause of their visit to the football field at that hour of the night. Then he remembered that Mayfair had spoken of their being able to take care of some “stuff” at the club-rooms, and all at once it dawned on him that they were proceeding to the dressing-room under the grand-stand with the intention of removing to the club-rooms the paraphernalia and suits of the football team. Then his face hardened, and he sprang to his feet as he thought of Chatterton’s words. “So they had an idea that, because I was angry, I might do some sneaky thing!” he snarled, his eyes flashing. “I wonder what they thought I’d do? Did they fancy I’d steal the football and suits? That little cub, Chatterton, said I was so mad there was no telling what I’d do! I’d like to wring his neck!” [90]The village stammerer might have been handled roughly had he been within reach of Don Scott at that moment. “I’d like to know what cause any one has to think such things of me?” the doctor’s son muttered, walking up and down the room with quick, nervous strides. “Even if I have a temper, I’ve never played the sneak, and no one has a right to even suspect that I’ll begin now!” For a time these outraged thoughts prevented his mind from reverting again to the encounter with the unknown, but at length he came back to that, and once more fell to wondering over the identity of his mysterious antagonist. Then he thought of the captured knife, being seized by a sudden hope that it might reveal to him what he wished to know, or, at least, serve as a clew. In a moment the knife was in his hand. It was covered with blood, and this Don proceeded to wash away, wiping the knife dry with a handkerchief. “By Jupiter! it’s a beauty!” he exclaimed, regarding it with admiration. “New, pearl-handled, four-bladed; don’t look as if it’d be carried for a deadly weapon by a ruffian; looks more like a gentleman’s knife. Hello! Here are the initials of the owner engraved on the plate in the handle. What are they? ‘R. G. R.’ Now, what do they stand for?” He was silent for a moment, staring at the handsome knife that lay in his uninjured hand. Of a sudden, he panted: [91]“By my life, I have it! Those initials stand for Randolph Grant Renwood, and this knife belongs to Dolph Renwood!” Then, seemingly bewildered by this startling discovery, he sat down and continued to stare at the tell-tale knife. <hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> <div class="chapter"> [92] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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