Walter bit his tongue to keep back the fierce words which arose to his lips.  He felt himself quivering with anger.

“All right! all right!” he said, his voice unsteady.  “I am glad you are satisfied!  But wait till the race is over.  Rattleton’s glory will be gone then.  Don’t think that he will pull his heart out.  A man who smokes as much as he does can’t pull.”

“Smokes!  Rattleton does not smoke at all.  I observed him at the turkey roast.  He absolutely refused to smoke.”

“Because you were present; but I know for a fact that he smokes behind your back, and he smokes almost constantly.”

“I cannot believe it.  Merriwell would tell me.”

“Would he?  Ha! ha! ha!  You don’t know Frank Merriwell yet, but you will find him out.  That fellow will go to any extreme to injure me, and so it is not likely he would tell anything on his chum that would cause you to give me his place.”

“I am sure you do Merriwell an injustice.  He is a man who does not smoke himself, and he would not allow his roommate to injure himself smoking.  However, I will find out about this.”

“Do so; but I have found out about it already.  I have certain means of obtaining information.”

“So have the sophs, and they have obtained a great deal,” Putnam shot at Walter as he turned away.

Putnam collared Merriwell at the first opportunity and demanded to know the truth about Rattleton’s smoking.

“I know you will tell me the truth, Merry,” said Burnham, “and it is important that you should.”

“Some one has been telling you he is smoking?”

“Yes.”

“Well, he is not smoking now.  I had a talk with him and he swore off.  He is not touching tobacco in any form, and I give you my word on that.”

“That’s all I want,” said Putnam, quite satisfied.

After this the freshman crew took to practicing nights, and it was said that they worked as no crew of freshies every worked before.  One night they ran up against the regular ’Varsity crew, and gave it a hot pull, but finally seemed to be beaten.

The report of this brush spread abroad, and the men on the regular crew were rather complimentary toward the freshmen.  They said the youngsters worked together in a most surprising way, and it was predicted that they would give their rivals a hard pull.

The sophs were inclined to regard this as a jolly, and they continued confident of winning over the freshmen with the greatest ease.

CHAPTER XXV.

The traitor discovered.

“I say, Merry,” said Rattleton, the day before the race was to come off, “you can’t guess who Gordon is chumming with lately.”

“I don’t know as I can.  Who is it?”

“Ditson.”

“Get out!”

“That’s on the level.”

“But Ditson the same as suggested outright that Gordon was the traitor who had told the sophs so much.”