CHAPTER III.
PIKE'S LITTLE PLAN.
Donald Pike was in a nagging mood.

He walked up and down the room a few times, finally stopping in front of his chum, Buck Badger.

They had been talking about the Saturday ball-game, and both were in bad humor.
"I don't know what's the matter with you, Badger! I'm disgusted with you!" The Westerner shifted his feet nervously, but said nothing.
"Perhaps you consider it an honor to receive that invitation from Merriwell?
I don't! I am surprised that he sent it." Badger shifted his feet again, and shrugged his thick shoulders.

His face was flushed and his eyes looked troubled.
"I am, too!" "He had a motive, of course!" Badger tossed a leg over the arm of his chair, and looked out of the window.
"It has been his boast all along that he would have you in his flock by and by! You have always sworn by all that's good and bad that you would never become a friend of his!" "I'm not a friend of his!" Pike laughed sneeringly.
"What do you call it?
If I say a word against Frank Merriwell you want to eat me up.

It's come to that! You were ready to fight him any minute, at first; now you're ready to lick the polish off his shoes, just like the rest of those fellows." "Nothing of the kind!" Badger hotly declared.
"Well, you're going to pitch for his picked team Saturday!" "Kirk asked me to." "And Merriwell sent him ?" "Yes!" "And they have become such friends that they're almost chums.