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

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He had scarcely done this when he felt a crushing blow on the back of the head which tumbled him half-senseless on his face. As he rose, staggering, and felt of his head, he found blood trickling down over his fingers.

The ball that had struck him had “exploded,” and, noticing it at his feet, he saw that in its center there had been a ragged rock.

The air was filled with flying snowballs. Nevertheless, feeling wofully faint and dizzy, he turned squarely round, cowering meanwhile behind the snow embankment, and looked over the freshmen.

“Morgan did that!” he thought. “I’d bet anything Morgan did that!”

Yet it seemed strange that a commander should want to knock out one of his own men.

Starbright picked up the rock and looked at it. Then he thrust it into his pocket and again felt of his cut and bleeding head.

“Hello!” said Dashleigh, seeing blood on Starbright’s fingers and the stain of it on the snow.

“Hit with this!” said Dick, producing the rock. “It came near laying me out.”

The big fellow was reeling sick, but he tried to conceal it. And as there was no possibility of telling who threw the stone, he gathered himself together, tied up his head with his handkerchief, and again went into the fight.