Читать книгу Frank Merriwell's Setback; Or, True Pluck Welcomes Defeat онлайн

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Ready grinned.

“That blacksmith will be tearing mad in the morning. His sign hadn’t been hanging there long.”

“Confound you! Don’t I know it hadn’t? That blacksmith never saw that sign in his life, and he never will!”

“It had a beautiful steed on it!” Ready purred.

“A sort of transfer picture! I transferred it to my coat!”

Then they adjourned to Traeger’s and buried the hatchet, after which Ready betook himself to the dinner which Starbright was giving to the sophomores.

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The first of the “entertainments” was given that night in the gymnasium. It was a roping-contest between Bill Higgins, of Badger’s ranch, and Tom Bludsoe, a cowboy from the neighborhood of El Paso, who had been traveling with a “Wild West” exhibition and had somehow become stranded in New Haven. Drink may have had something to do with Bludsoe’s loss of position and his consequent poverty; but he was a fine roper, nevertheless, and in arranging to put Higgins against him for the amusement of the students, Merriwell was not at all sure that his friend from Kansas would be able to win out and cover himself with glory.