Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Helping Hand

FAIR PLAY AND NO FAVORS

By
BURT L. STANDISH
Author of the famous Merriwell Stories.

STREET & SMITH CORPORATION
PUBLISHERS
79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York

All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign
languages, including the Scandinavian.
Printed in the U.  S.  A.

FRANK MERRIWELL, JR.’S, HELPING HAND.

[CHAPTER I.]
THE HOUSEBREAKER.

In one of the residence streets of Gold Hill, Arizona, stood—and no doubt still stands at this moment—a rather pretentious, two-story dwelling. Six low-growing, broad-leaved palms were marshaled in two rows before the front door, and to right and left of the palms were umbrella and pepper trees. Extending from one corner of the house, almost to the pickets that fenced in the premises, was a rank growth of oleanders.

This was the home of Colonel Alvah G. Hawtrey, an ex-army officer. In the service of his country Hawtrey had chased and fought the murderous Apaches all over that part of the Southwest; and now, at the age of sixty, the colonel, with an honorable discharge from the service, was giving his attention to various mining enterprises and was reputed to be a very wealthy man.

He was broad-minded and public-spirited, and the prosperity of Gold Hill owed more to the old colonel than to any other citizen. He had built the Bristow Hotel and several brick business blocks; he had founded a social club, a cattlemen’s association, and a miners’ relief society. It was known that he paid, out of his own pocket, the salary of one of the local ministers; he owned a bank, and, last but not least, he had organized and brought into successful operation the Gold Hill Athletic Club. For nothing was the colonel more honored than for his love of manly sports, and for his zeal in seeing that the youth of Gold Hill received proper physical training.

On a night in late October a spectral figure crept along the fence in front of Colonel Hawtrey’s house. The house was dark, and apparently deserted. After surveying the house carefully for a few moments, the figure leaped the fence noiselessly and gracefully and faded into the deep shadow of the oleanders.

Very carefully the prowler made his way through the bushes to the corner of the house. Here again he paused and listened. Seemingly satisfied that the coast was clear, he glided to the nearest window, opened the thin blade of a pocketknife, climbed to the sill, forced the blade between the upper and lower sash, and deftly opened the lock. Another moment and he had raised the lower half of the window and dropped through into the dark room beyond.

Evidently this prowler was not on unfamiliar ground. Without striking a light, he groped his way to a door and into a hall; through the hall he passed, and to a stairway, then up the stairs to the hall above, and down the corridor to a room at the rear of the house. He had a key to the door of the room, and he opened it. Once across the threshold, he scratched a match, stepped to an electric-light button, and touched it with his finger. Instantly the room was flooded with a glow of light from incandescent bulbs.

It was a small room, with banners and pennants on the walls. Several of the flags bore the letters, “G.  H.  H.  S.”—official emblems of Gold Hill “High.” Others bore the initials “G.  H.  A.  C.” and had once figured in athletic-club events. Foils were also crossed on the wall, boxing gloves hung from pegs, a catcher’s mask lay on a shelf, and a breast protector hung beneath it. On the same shelf with the mask stood a tarnished silver cup, bearing an inscription to the effect that it had been presented to one Ellis Darrel for winning a two-hundred-and-twenty-yard dash under the auspices of the Gold Hill Athletic Club. Dumb-bells and Indian clubs stood on the floor close to the wall.

Thick dust covered everything. The prowler stood in the center of the room as though in a trance, and slowly allowed his eyes to wander about him.

He was a young fellow, not much over seventeen, slender and with a body remarkably well set-up. His hair was light and curly, his eyes blue, and his face was handsome and winning, although clouded with melancholy and a certain haunting sadness.

The long, wavering survey of the room seemed to overcome the intruder. Suddenly he sank down into a dusty morris chair, bowed his head, and covered his face with his hands. As suddenly, he roused himself again, shook his shoulders as though to free them of a grievous burden, and made his way toward the door of a closet.

From the closet he removed a suit case, lettered with the initials “E.  D.,” and followed with the address, “Gold Hill, Ariz.” Kneeling beside the bit of luggage, he opened it and took out a sleeveless shirt, a pair of running pants, and a pair of spiked shoes. A couple of cork grips rattled around in the suit case as he removed the other contents, but he left them, closed the grip, and returned it to the closet. Then he carefully closed the closet door.

Rolling his sprinting outfit into a compact bundle, the intruder rose to his feet and started for the hall door. On his way he paused. Below the cross foils hung a picture, turned with its face to the wall.

A flash of white ran through the lad’s bronzed cheeks. With his bundle under his arm, he put out one trembling hand to the picture and turned it around.

It was a framed photograph of a young fellow in running costume, taken on a cinder path. The lad in the photo was holding a silver cup—the same cup that stood on the shelf in that room. And it was more than evident that the youngster in the picture was the very same lad who had entered that house like a thief in the night, and was now staring at a kodak testimonial of a former track victory.

Why was the photograph turned to the wall? Why was the dust lying thick upon every object in the room? The cause was no mystery to the intruder. His lip quivered and a mist rose in his eyes as he turned the photograph to the wall once more.

He peered around to make sure that he had left nothing which might prove a clew to his presence in the room, then turned off the light, passed into the hall, and shut and locked the door behind him. As he had come gropingly to the upper floor, so now he felt his way down the stairs and to the opened window. To climb through the window and lower the sash from the outside required but a few moments.

He tried to relock the sash, but found it impossible. Hesitating a moment by the unlocked window, he turned finally and made his way through the oleanders to the fence; then, leaping the pickets as he had done before, he vanished along the gloomy street.

He had come from Nowhere, this mysterious lad who had come prowling by night into the house of Colonel Hawtrey; but he was going Somewhere, and, for the first time in months, he had a destination and a fixed object in mind. Although he believed that he had left no clews behind him, and that he had not been seen coming or going from the house, yet he was mistaken.

Some one, leaving the dwelling by the front door, had passed along the walk between the shadowy palms just at the moment the intruder was standing by the fence. At the very moment the prowler leaped the pickets, this other person was at the gate and had caught sight of the figure disappearing into the oleanders.

The person who had left the house repressed a cry of alarm and stood, for a few moments, leaning over the gatepost. It had seemed to him as though, in the starlight, he had recognized the form that had leaped the fence. A gasp escaped his tense lips, and it was plain that he was gripped hard with astonishment and dismay. While he stood there, slowly recovering control of himself, he heard muffled sounds from within the house; then, leaving the gate, he passed through the oleander bushes and found the open window. He was on the point of following the intruder into the house when a glow of light shone out from the second floor. Hurrying to a pepper tree that grew near a rear corner of the building, the spy climbed swiftly upward until he was on a level with the window through which came the light. The prowler had not drawn the shade, so all that went on in the upper room came under the eyes of the spy.

One look at the lad in the house, under the electric light, convinced the person in the tree that the prowler was really the one whom he had at first supposed him to be. The spy gritted his teeth and his hands clutched the tree limbs convulsively. When the intruder had left the house and vanished down the street, the spy came down from the tree, hurried around to the front door, and let himself into the building. Quickly he turned on the lights and made his way to the room, through the window of which the intruder had gained entrance into the house.

This room was the colonel’s study. A desk stood in the center of it, the walls were lined with books, and in one corner was a massive iron safe.

In the light it could be seen that this second youth was not more than two years the senior of the lad who had come and gone. But the face of this second youth was dark and sinister, and the puzzled light in his shifty eyes was gradually taking on a cunning gleam.

“What is he back here for?” he was asking himself, half aloud. “Just getting his old running suit, eh?” and there was something of a sneer in the voice. “There’s money in the safe, and I thought——” Just what the lad thought did not appear. A look at the safe showed it had not been tampered with. “Has he returned to soft soap the old gent and get back into his good graces? That’s what he has on his mind, and I’ll bet on it! He stole in here like a thief—just to get his old track clothes! I wonder——”

The youth paused, the cunning light growing in his eyes. On the floor, below the window, lay an open pocketknife. He picked it up and looked at it. On a piece of worn silver in the handle was marked, “E.  D., from Uncle Alvah.”

“By Jupiter,” whispered the lad, “I’ll do it! Here’s a chance to cinch the situation—for me. I can make it impossible for that soft-sawdering beggar to get back into Uncle Alvah’s confidence. I’ll fix him, by thunder!”

Swiftly the schemer darted to the safe. Kneeling before it, he turned the knob of the combination back and forth for a few moments, and then pulled open the heavy door. The inner door was drawn out easily, and a package of bills, wound with a paper band and marked “$1,000” was removed. The boy hesitated, the package of bills in his hand.

“Hang it,” he muttered, “it’s now or never. There’s nothing else for it!”

With that, he pushed the bills into his pocket and got up.

“It will look like a clear case,” he went on. “The old gent will come here to-morrow morning, find the safe open, the window unlocked, the money gone—and Darrel’s knife on the floor! I’ll bet a row of ’dobies,” he added fiercely, “that will fix Darrel for good. What did he want to come back here for, anyhow? He ought to have had better sense. Lucky thing I had to run into town from Mohave Cañon, in order to fix up a scheme to knock Frank Merriwell out; and it’s lucky I was leaving the house and saw Darrel, and spied on him instead of giving a yell and facing him down. Oh, I reckon things are coming my way, all right! But Darrel—here! Who’d have dreamed of such a thing? There’ll be merry blazes when the old gent gets home to-morrow!”

Chuckling to himself, the plotter put out the lights, made his way to the front door, and was soon clear of the house and in the street. He had laid an evil train of circumstantial evidence, designed to benefit himself at the expense of Darrel.

[CHAPTER II.]
A STRANGER IN CAMP.

Frank Merriwell, junior, and his two chums, Owen Clancy and Billy Ballard, were camping at Tinaja Wells with the football squad of the Ophir Athletic Club. Besides Frank and his friends there were fifteen campers in the grove at the Wells, enumerated by Ballard as one professor, one Mexican, one Dutchman, and twelve knights of the pigskin.

The professor was Phineas Borrodaile. He hailed originally from a prep school in the middle West, had come to Arizona for his health, and, aided by the two Merriwells, senior and junior, had found wealth as well. The professor was now being retained as instructor by young Frank and his chums, thus enabling them to keep up with their studies while “roughing it” in the Southwest.

The Mexican was Silva, the packer. Silva had a burro train, and had packed the equipment of the campers over the fifteen miles separating Ophir from Tinaja Wells. For ten miles the trail was a good wagon road; but from Dolliver’s, at the mouth of Mohave Cañon, up the cañon to Tinaja Wells, the trail was a mere bridle path, and only pack animals could get over it. Hence the lads had found it necessary to make use of Silva and his burros.

The Mexican had hired out as cook, as well as packer; but two days of Silva’s red-hot Mexican cooking, with garlic trimmings, made it necessary for the boys either to line themselves with asbestos or get another cook. Clancy was sent in to Ophir and he came back with Fritz Gesundheit, the Dutchman. Fritz had presided over a chuck shanty in the cattle country, and carried recommendations which highly extolled his sour-dough bread, flap jacks, and crullers.

Fritz was nearly as broad as he was high, but he proved a chef of rare attainments. He would roll around between the stove and the chuck tent, and play an errorless game in his cooking and serving; but let him waddle out of his culinary environment and he was as full of blunders as a porcupine is of quills. For a lot of skylarking boys, he was an everlasting joy and a perpetual delight.

Silva resented the loss of his cooking job. He burned to revenge himself on the fat gringo chingado who had kicked the red peppers and the garlic out of camp and preëmpted the culinary department. Less than an hour after Fritz had evolved his first meal for the campers and covered himself with glory, the Mexican’s dark plots came to a head. Placing the professor’s mule, Uncle Sam, between two clumps of cholla cactus, he smilingly invited Fritz to take a ride.

“Carrots,” as Fritz had instantly been christened by the lads on account of his hair, accepted the invitation and climbed to Uncle Sam’s hurricane deck. Thereupon the vengeful Silva twisted Uncle Sam’s tail with direful results. Carrots made a froglike leap over the mule’s head into one clump of cactus, and Silva, caught by the mule’s heels before he could get out of the way, sat down in another clump.

The campers were not long in finding out that Carrots was the subject of weird hallucinations. His latest delusion concerned buried treasure. It cropped out in the afternoon of his second day in camp. Merry had taken the football players out for a “breather”—down the cañon to Dolliver’s, and back. Silva was out with a shovel and hornspoon, somewhere in the hills, hunting a placer, and incidentally nursing his grievances. The professor was reading in the shade of a cottonwood. In the shade of another cottonwood, Carrots was mooning over a pipe of tobacco.

“Brofessor,” called the Dutchman, knocking the ashes out of his pipe and putting it carefully away in his pocket, “vill you told me someding?”

The professor looked up from his book and over his spectacles at Fritz.

“What is it that you desire to know?” he asked.

“Ask me dot.”

The professor showed signs of impatience.

“Simpleton! Am I not putting the query? What shall I tell you?”

“Py chiminy Grismus! Oof I know vat you vas to told me, for vy should I make der rekvest for informations?”

Borrodaile gave a grunt of disgust and hunted the shade of another cottonwood. Fritz was persistent, however, and followed him up.

“I hat a tream mit meinselluf der oder night, brofessor,” continued Fritz, coming up from behind, “und you bed my life it vas der keveerest tream vat I know. Iss treams someding or nodding? Tell me dot, oof you blease. Ballard, he say it iss; aber you know more as anypody, so tell me, iss it?”

“Go away,” said the professor severely; “you annoy me.”

“I peen annoyed like anyding mit dot tream,” went on Fritz, not in the least disturbed by the professor’s ill humor. “Dis iss der vay I ged it: Fairst, I valk along der moonlight in, mit der dark around, und I see a shtone mit a gross on der top. Yah, so hellup me, I see him so blain as nodding; und I pull oop dot shtone, und I tig, and vat you dink?”

“I am not interested at all in your foolish delusions!” came tartly from the professor. “If you have business anywhere else, do not let me detain you a moment.”

“Make some guesses aboudt dot!” persisted Fritz. “Vat you dink is der shtone under mit der gross on, hey? Shpeak it oudt.”

The professor, goaded to desperation, merely glared.

“Py shinks!” cried Fritz, “I findt me so mooch goldt dot shtone under mit der gross on dot I cannot carry him avay!” He leaned down and whispered huskily, his eyes wide with excitement: “Puried dreasure it vas, brofessor, so hellup me! Come, blease, und hellup me look for der shtone mit der gross on. Ven I findt me der dreasure, I gif you haluf.”

With an explosion of anger, the professor leaped to his feet, flung his book at Fritz, and dove head-first into a tent. Fritz turned away wonderingly.

“Vat a foolishness,” he muttered, “for der brofessor to gif oop haluf der dreasure like dot! Vell, I go look for der goldt meinselluf, und ven I findt him, I haf him all.”

Now, Fritz might have walked his legs off looking for a stone “mit a gross on,” had not Silva grown tired of hunting a placer and returned suddenly to the Wells. He saw Fritz in close converse with the professor, crept to a point within earshot, and listened. Creeping away as silently as he had approached, he showed his teeth in a smile of savage cunning as he pulled a half-burned stick from the smoldering fire and dogged the Dutchman down the gulch.

Apparently there was not a doubt in the mind of Fritz but that he would find what he was looking for. With a shovel over his shoulder, he puffed, and wheezed, and stumbled along the trail, eying the rocks on each side of him and singing as he went.

Silva, chuckling with unholy glee, made a detour from the trail and got back into it ahead of Fritz; and then, with the burned stick, he marked a rough cross on one of the bowlders and retired behind a screen of mesquite bushes to enjoy the sight of his fat enemy, working and sweating to such little purpose.

When Fritz saw that marked rock, he let go a howl of delight and triumph that echoed far down the cañon. It reached the ears of Merry and his friends, who, in their running clothes, were strung out in a long line on their way back from Dolliver’s.

The lads halted, bunched together, and made up their minds that the noise they had heard should be investigated. Proceeding cautiously forward, they peered around a ridge of bowlders and saw Fritz digging into the hard ground like mad. So feverishly did the fat Dutchman work that one could hardly see him for the cloud of sand and gravel he kept in the air.

Not more than ten feet away from the sweating Fritz was the Mexican, Silva. He was in a flutter of delight.

“What the deuce is going on, Chip?” inquired Clancy.

“I can tell you, Clan,” spoke up Ballard, stifling a laugh. “Fritz had a dream last night that he found a rock with a cross on it, and that he rolled away the rock, dug up the ground, and found more gold than he could carry. He told me about it. I’ll bet a farm he thinks he’s found the rock. Silva’s in on the deal somewhere, although Carrots doesn’t know it.”

“This is rich!” gulped Hannibal Bradlaugh, shaking with the fun of it. “Say, Chip, can’t you ring in a little twist to the situation and turn the tables on the greaser?”

“Throw your voice, Chip!” suggested Clan. “Make Carrots think he’s digging up more than he bargained for. Go on!”

“All right,” laughed Merry. “Let’s see what happens.”

The boys, caught at once with the idea, suppressed their delight, and peered over the top and sides of the ridge. Suddenly a nerve-wracking groan was heard, and seemingly it came from the depths of the shallow hole in which Fritz was working. The Dutchman paused in his labor, mopped the sweat from his face, and looked around.

“Vat iss dot?” he puffed. “Vat I hear all at vonce? Who shpoke mit me?”

Again Merry caused a hair-raising groan to come from the hole. A yell of fear escaped Fritz. Dropping his shovel, he pawed out of the hole, and got behind a rock a dozen feet away. From this point of vantage he stared cautiously back at the hole and, his voice shaking with fear, inquired:

“Who shpoke mit me? Vat it iss, blease? I don’d hear nodding like dot in der tream, py chiminy grickeds!”

“How dare you disturb my bones, looking for treasure?” came a hollow voice from the ragged opening in the earth. “I am the big Indian chief, Hoop-en-de-doo, and I will haunt you and take your scalp! I shall call all my braves from the happy hunting grounds, and we will dance the medicine and go on the war trail; we will——”

Merry was interrupted by a wild shriek that went clattering up and down the gulch in terrifying echoes. Fritz was not the author of it, for he seemed stricken dumb and rooted to the ground. It was the Mexican who had given vent to the blood-curdling cry. Frightened out of his wits, Silva, still emitting yell after yell, bounded like a deer for the trail and the home camp.

Fritz did not see Silva, but the fierce howling, coming nearer and nearer, must have given him the idea that Chief Hoop-en-de-doo and all his shadowy band of warriors were after him. Fritz awoke to feverish activity in less than a second. He whirled, and, with remarkable speed considering his size, scrambled for Tinaja Wells. Silva chased him clear to the camp, where Fritz, utterly exhausted, dropped in a heap and rolled into the chuck tent. The Mexican vanished into some other spot that he considered safe.

When the boys, roaring with laughter, finally reached the grove, they were met by the professor and a young fellow with blue eyes and light, curling hair. There was a stranger in camp, it seemed, and Merry and his companions smothered their merriment to give Borrodaile a chance to free his mind.

“Merriwell,” said the professor, “this hilarity is most untimely. This young gentleman, I fear, will think you are a lot of hoodlums. Allow me to present Mr. Ellis Darrel, who has just arrived from Gold Hill and is earnestly in search of information respecting the Gold Hill Athletic Club. Darrel, Frank Merriwell, junior.”

Darrel was smiling. There was something about him which, at the very first glance, appealed to Merry. The two shook hands cordially.

[CHAPTER III.]
A FRIEND IN NEED.

“Well, fellows,” said Ellis Darrel, after Merry had introduced him to all the other fellows, “it looks a whole lot as though I had dropped into the wrong pew. If I haven’t forgotten the country hereabouts, this is sure Tinaja Wells.”

“Surest thing you know, Darrel,” smiled Frank.

“I was told in Gold Hill that a bunch of athletes belonging to the Gold Hill Athletic Club had gone into camp here.”

“Some one got mixed,” put in Clancy. “It’s an Ophir outfit that’s taken over the Wells.”

“Blamed queer,” muttered Darrel, “and I’ll be hanged if I can sabe the layout at all. The man in Gold Hill who gave me the information is an officer of the club there. It’s a cinch that he ought to know.”

“We’ve been here for four days,” observed Ballard, “and we haven’t seen a thing of the Gold Hill chaps.”

“Live in the town, Darrel?” asked Frank.

“Used to,” was the answer. “Don’t live much of anywhere now. Home’s wherever I hang my hat. I——” He broke off abruptly, hesitated, then recovered himself and went on. “I trained with the Gold Hill crowd something like a year ago. When I drifted into town last night and heard the gang was off in Mohave Cañon, I kind of warmed up on the subject of athletics, bundled up my track clothes, and moseyed in this direction.”

Darrel’s announcement that he was, or had been, a member of the Gold Hill club, caused the Ophir fellows to draw back into their shells somewhat, and to eye him with distrust. Their altered demeanor was so plain that Darrel noticed it.

“What’s the trouble?” he asked, looking blankly into the faces that surrounded him. “Have I stepped on the tail of somebody’s coat, or trampled on somebody’s toes?”

“Never mind, Darrel,” laughed Frank. “Professor,” he added, to Borrodaile, “take Darrel to our wickiup and make him comfortable. I’ll have a talk with him as soon as we take a dip in the pool.”

The professor led the puzzled Darrel away, while Merry and his companions hurried off for a short swim after their dusty run.

“Don’t like the way this Darrel is shaping up,” grumbled Spink, splashing around in the water.

“Nor I,” seconded Handy. “How do we know but that the Gold Hill crowd have steered him this way to spy on us?”

“If he’s a spy, Handy,” said Frank, “then he’s a good deal of a fool. Would a spy talk like he did?”

“He would not!” declared Ballard.

“The last time we went up against Gold Hill at football,” remarked Bradlaugh, “we found that they had all our signals down pat. Maybe they’re making another play of that kind.”

As hurriedly as he could, Frank gave himself a rub-down and got into his clothes.

“Take it from me, Brad.” said he, “Darrel isn’t that kind of a chap. He’s straight goods, and I’ll bet on it.”

When he got back to the camp he found Darrel sitting on a blanket just within the open front of the tent. He was peering off across the cañon, with a thoughtful, almost a sad, look on his face. He turned his head quickly when he heard Frank, and the thoughtfulness and the sadness vanished in a bright smile.

“You needn’t have rushed things on my account, Merriwell,” said he.

“All I wanted was a plunge,” answered Frank, dropping down beside him. “If you were in Gold Hill, even as long as a year ago,” he proceeded, “you must have known that there is a hot rivalry between the athletic club in that town and the one in Ophir.”

A grim expression flashed through Darrel’s eyes.

“Haven’t they got over that, yet?” he asked. “Why can’t they act like good sports instead of a lot of kids? I had a notion that Uncle Alvah——” He bit his words short. “I had a notion,” he finished, “that they’d see what a rotten exhibition they were making of themselves, and get together and play the game as it ought to be played.”

“Probably they will, some time. Just now, though, if you mention Gold Hill in an Ophir crowd, it’s like a spark in a powder magazine. That’s why the fellows suddenly got back of their barriers when you said that you were a Gold Hiller, and had once trained with the Gold Hill Athletic Club.”

“Well, strike me lucky!” grinned Darrel. “It’s plain enough, now. They’re afraid I’m here to do a little dirty work, eh? ’Pon honor, Merriwell, such a thought never entered my noodle. As far as that goes, I doubt whether I’m on very good terms with the Gold Hill bunch. My half brother, Jode Lenning, is a big, high boy among the Gold Hillers, and—and—well, Jode hasn’t much use for me,” Darrel flushed. “Haven’t seen Jode for a year—nor any of the other fellows, for that matter—and I was bound for their camp to see what sort of a reception they’d give me.”

A strained silence fell over the two boys. Darrel was touching upon personal matters, and he was doing it in a way that made Merry uncomfortable.

“You see,” Darrel went on, a touch of sadness again showing in his face, “it’s been a year since I had a home. For more than twelve months I’ve been knocking around the West, and—and——”

“You don’t have to dig down into your personal history, Darrel,” said Frank, “in order to convince me that you’re straight goods. I’ll take your word for it.”

“Much obliged, Merriwell. Not many fellows would take the word of a perfect stranger—especially as you’re from Ophir, and I was from Gold Hill—once.”

“I’m only temporarily from Ophir.” laughed Frank. “Mr. Bradlaugh asked me to coach the Ophir eleven for the Thanksgiving Day game with Gold Hill, and we’re doing a certain amount of practice work every afternoon up on the mesa back of camp.”

“Wow! And I came right along and jumped into the thick of you! Well, anyhow, there’s something about you that makes a big hit with me; and it’s been so long since I’ve had a friend I could trust that I’d like to have a heart-to-heart talk with you. You see, I’ve been in a heap of trouble, and now that I’m back from Nowhere, I’m guessing a lot as to which way the cat’s going to jump. I’d like to get a little of that trouble out of my system, and, if you don’t mind, I’ll begin to unload.”

“Go ahead,” said Frank. “I’m sure you’re the right sort, and if I can help you any I will be glad to do it.”

“Shake!” exclaimed Darrel, reaching out his hand.

The professor was under a cottonwood with his book, and the rest of the campers, seeming to realize that Merriwell’s talk with Darrel was of a private nature, kept away from them. Darrel pushed farther back into the tent and sat on a cot. Merriwell fallowed him and took possession of a camp stool.

“I’ve been over a good bit of the country during the past year,” said Darrel, “but in all my wanderings I’ve never let out a whisper of what I’m going to tell you. I said that Jode Lenning was my half brother. My father, John Darrel, died, when I was a little shaver, and a year later my mother followed him. Darrel was my mother’s second husband, and David Lenning, Jode’s father, was her first. I’m over seventeen, and Jode’s close to twenty. My mother’s maiden name was Hawtrey, and after her death, Jode and I went to live with her brother, Colonel Alvah Hawtrey.”

“Why,” exclaimed Frank, “Colonel Hawtrey is a big man over in Gold Hill! There’d be nothing to the Gold Hill Athletic Club if you took the colonel out of it. At least,” he added, “that’s what I’ve heard over in Ophir.”

“Well, that about hits the thing off. Uncle Alvah is a fine old chap. He saw to it that Jode and I got our share of physical training. I was just a little bit better than Jode at pretty nearly everything in the athletic line, although he could give me cards and spades in book learning, and then leave me at the quarter post. The colonel insisted that our mental and physical training should go on side by side, but he’s got a sportsman’s love for athletics, and I think he was secretly pleased because of my good showing on the field and track. While he tried to be impartial in his dealings with Jode and me, yet it became pretty clear that I was his favorite nephew. Jode didn’t like that at all; and when the colonel took us to an athletic meet in Los Angeles, and I won a silver cup in the two-twenty dash, Jode was soured completely.

“I reckon I hadn’t ought to talk like this, Merriwell, and it may look to you like mighty poor policy for me to run my half brother down, but I can’t put this business up to you in a way that you’ll understand if I’m not frank in telling what I know.”

“I guess I understand how you feel,” said Frank, “so push ahead.”

“Just after winning that silver cup,” proceeded Darrel, “I made the mistake of my life. Jode was drinking a little and gambling a whole lot on the sly, and I was young and foolish and thought I’d have a little of the same fun on my own hook. I hadn’t savvy enough to understand that by keeping away from drink and tobacco, while Jode was taking them aboard a little on the q.  t., I’d been able to do a fair amount of successful work in athletics. That’s where I had the best of Jode, you see, but didn’t realize it. Well, I got into Jode’s crowd, went from bad to worse, and woke up one day to find that I’d forged the colonel’s name to a check for five hundred dollars. Anyhow, that’s what they said I’d done, and as I had been rather hazy from liquor at the time the forging was done, I couldn’t deny it. I wish I could forget the bad half hour I had with the colonel when he found it out!”

Darrel shivered.

“Uncle Alvah’s notions of honor are pretty high,” he continued, “and he had always prided himself on the fact that Jode and I never smoked, or drank, or gambled. The blow was a tough one for him. He used to be in the army, and he’s as bluff and stern as any old martinet you ever heard of. When he told me to clear out and never let him see my face again, I—I cleared. That was a little over a year ago, and I’ve been running loose all over the Pacific slope ever since, earning a living at whatever turned up, and was honest and square. But I’d had my lesson; and drink, cards, or tobacco couldn’t land on me again. I’m physically more fit than ever I was in my life, for the batting around I’ve had has toughened me a heap. What’s more, I’ve had a year to think over that forgery business, and I’ve got a notion that I didn’t—that I couldn’t—have done such a thing, no matter how hazy I was. It was up in Spokane that I was struck with the idea that I’d better stop drifting, come back to Gold Hill, and look into matters a little. I don’t know what I can find, nor what I can do, but, if it’s possible, I’m going to prove to the colonel that I didn’t put his name to that check for five hundred. The first thing I wanted to do was to see Jode. I was told that he had come to Tinaja Wells, with a camping party, so I——”

Footsteps, approaching quickly, were heard outside the tent, and Darrel suddenly ceased speaking. The next moment Clancy, his freckled, homely face filled with excitement, showed himself at the tent opening.

“Say, Chip,” he cried, “here’s a go! A crowd of Gold Hillers have just reached the Wells, bag and baggage, and claim that they’re entitled to this camping site and are going to have it. It’s an ugly mess, and I’m looking for all kinds of trouble. Better come out and see what you can do.”

Without a moment’s delay, Merriwell jumped up from his seat and hurried out of the tent.

[CHAPTER IV.]
A CLASH OF AUTHORITY.

The sight that met Merriwell’s eyes, as he came out of the tent and followed Clancy toward the edge of the camp, was vastly disturbing. A train of pack animals was being unloaded in the grove, while fifteen or twenty saddle horses were being stripped of their gear, watered in Mohave Creek, and staked out in the “bottoms” among the picketed Ophir stock.

A swarm of youngsters overran the flat, some looking after the horses, some helping the packer, and some beginning the erection of tents. Merry judged that there were at least twenty members in the party that had just arrived.

“Here’s a pretty fair-sized bunch of Indians, Chip,” said Clancy, “and they’ve got their tomahawks out. Well,” he added grimly, “while we’re not looking for trouble, you can bet we won’t dodge any.”

A worried look crossed Merriwell’s face.

“With the two clubs at loggerheads, like they are,” said he, “it would be a mighty bad move, all around, for the Gold Hillers to camp so close to us.”

“Bad?” echoed Clancy. “Say, Chip, how the mischief could we do any practice work with the fellows we’re to fight hanging around and looking on?”

“We couldn’t,” was the answer.

The Ophir contingent was drawn up in compact formation, at the edge of the flat, watching angrily while the Gold Hillers went calmly on with their preparations for a permanent camp at Tinaja Wells. Bradlaugh, whose father was president of the O.  A.  C., was stumping up and down and spouting wrathfully.

As Merriwell and Clancy walked toward the Ophir fellows, a youth approached Bradlaugh from the direction of the Gold Hill crowd. He was ragged out in gray corduroy riding breeches, tan shoes and leggings, Norfolk jacket, and a fancy brown sombrero with carved leather band and silver ornaments jingling at the brim. He carried a riding crop under his arm and was removing a pair of gauntlet gloves.

“Look here, Lenning,” shouted Bradlaugh, plunging straight at this rather startling figure, “what are you trying to do here, anyhow? What business have you got bringing a Gold Hill crowd to Tinaja Wells?”

Lenning turned a pair of shifty, insolent eyes upon Bradlaugh.

“We’ve a right here,” said he sharply, “or we shouldn’t be here. Pull in your horns before you make a fool of yourself. Bradlaugh—that’s my advice to you. Where’s this big chief, Merriwell?” A sneer there was no mistaking came with the words “big chief.” “Trot him out,” Lenning finished, “and it won’t take two minutes for me to show him where you Ophirites get off.”

Lenning’s manner was insulting, to the last degree. A bitter partizan spirit was already flaming in the Ophir ranks, aroused by the plain determination of the Gold Hillers to take possession of the camping ground. Brad’s temper had been strained to the breaking point even before the appearance of Lenning, and now, under the weight of Lenning’s insolence, it gave way utterly.

“You pup!” shouted Brad, leaping at Lenning with clenched fists. “It’s a cinch you’ve got some dirty trick up your sleeve or you wouldn’t blow in here in this high-and-mighty fashion. I’ve a notion to punch your head on general principles.”

Lenning jumped back and lifted the riding crop.

“Try it on,” he snarled, “and I’ll rip off some of your hide!”

A number of Gold Hillers, scenting trouble, hastened to run out of the grove and line up back of their champion. The Ophir fellows pressed forward to back up Bradlaugh. Fritz Gesundheit, who loved excitement in any form, showed himself for the first time since being chased up the cañon by the spook of old Chief Hoop-en-de-doo. Rolling out of the chuck tent, he waddled toward Bradlaugh.

“Gif him fits mit himselluf, Prad!” he called. “I bet you someding for nodding he iss some pad eggs.”

The Gold Hill packer was a Mexican, and already he and Silva had come to blows. They could be heard screeching and floundering around in the underbrush. It was a moment rife with many disagreeable possibilities, and only quick and judicious action on Merriwell’s part could prevent a general row.

“Clan,” said he, “you and Ballard go over and separate those greasers before they get to knifing each other. I’ll take care of this end of the ruction. Do your best to smooth things out, or we’ll all be in hot water.”

While Clancy grabbed Ballard and hustled away with him, Merriwell jumped in between Brad and Lenning.

“Cut it out, Brad!” said he sharply, giving the fiery youngster a push backward. “All you fellows,” he added, to the Ophir crowd, “are carrying too much sail. Double reef your tempers and we’ll weather this squall without much trouble.” He whirled on Lenning. “I’m Merriwell,” said he. “I believe I heard you asking for me as I came up.”

“That’s what you heard,” was the answer. “I’m Jode Lenning, and Colonel Hawtrey, of Gold Hill, is my uncle. The colonel——”

“What has this to do with Colonel Hawtrey?” interrupted Merry.

Remembering what Darrel had just been telling him, Frank was taking Lenning’s measure with a good deal of interest. His comparison of the two half brothers gave Darrel no end the best of it.

“My uncle,” drawled Lenning, running his eyes over Merry in an impudent up-and-down stare, “has a lot to do with our athletic club but he’s not mixed up in this camping expedition. He has been out of town for a week, but I expect him back to-day, and——”

“Let us hope that he gets back safely,” said Merry, with just a touch of sarcasm in his voice. “Are you intending to camp here, Lenning?”

“Not intending only, but we’re going to.”

“Allow me to suggest that we have already occupied the flat, and that I don’t think the grove is big enough for an outfit of Gold Hillers and Ophirites. You ought to know that as well as I do. Move on and find some other place.”

“You’ve got a rind!” grunted Lenning. “We’re out here for fun and work, and we need the mesa for an athletic field. I’ve leased the ground, and I want you fellows to pack up and clear out at once.”

This was staggering. Merriwell supposed that Brad’s father had leased the ground. In that section of the country there were very few places so adapted to the needs of the Ophir fellows as was the grove and mesa at Tinaja Wells.

“We’ve leased the ground ourselves!” shouted Brad, “and we’ve got it down in black and white.”

“He’s shy a few,” said Lenning, and drew a paper from the pocket of his coat and showed it to Merriwell.

It was a written memorandum of agreement. In consideration of twenty dollars, in hand paid, one Lige Struthers had given the Gold Hill Athletic Club exclusive camping privileges at Tinaja Wells.

“This appears to be all right, Brad,” said Merriwell, bewildered.

“Who leased the ground to Lenning?” demanded Brad.

“A man named Struthers; Lige Struthers.”

Brad laughed ironically.

“Struthers doesn’t own the ground,” said he. “Newt Packard is the owner, and he’s the one that gave us our lease. Hold your bronks a minute.”

Brad turned and hurried off to one of the tents. When he came back, he brought a paper showing that Bradlaugh, senior, had secured the site exclusively for the Ophir club.

“Great Scott!” exclaimed Merriwell. “How could two different men execute leases on the same plot of ground? There’s a hen on, somewhere.”

“It’s Packard’s ground,” declared Brad. “Right at this minute Struthers is fighting Packard for it in the courts, but Struther’s claim is a joke—he hasn’t a legal leg to stand on. Everybody says so. This is a scheme of Lenning’s, Chip, to drive us from Tinaja Wells.”

“Scheme or not,” cried Lenning, “we’ve got our rights and we’re going to stand up to them!”

“Even if Struthers has a just claim on the place, Lenning,” said Merry, “your right here isn’t any better than ours. If Struthers happens to win the lawsuit, then we have to get out, for our leave isn’t any good; but if Packard wins, then that paper of yours isn’t worth a whoop, and Tinaja Wells is ours.”

“You’ll make tracks from here,” stormed Lenning, “or we’ll drive you out! We’ve got a big enough crowd to do it.”

Merry’s dark eyes flashed dangerously.

“You’ll not drive us out,” said he calmly, “as long as we have a right here. And we’ll not be able to force you to leave so long as the lawsuit is hanging fire.”

“Bossession iss nine points oof der law,” clamored Fritz truculently, “und ve vas here fairst, py shinks. I haf reasons for vich I don’d vand to ged oudt, und I don’d vant more fellers as is necessary aroundt.”

Nobody paid much attention to Fritz just then. The Ophirites were keeping their eyes on Merriwell, smothering their hostility as best they could and letting him cut the pattern they were to follow.

Clancy and Ballard, a little while before, had returned from the chaparral with Silva. The Mexican was fairly boiling with rage, but the lads were managing to hold him in check.

“Carramba!” hissed Silva. “Dat odder Mexicano he move my burro, to give his burro best place. I lick him for dat, bymby!”

Merry was filled with forebodings as to what might happen if both parties went into camp at the Wells; and yet, considering the peculiar condition of affairs, there seemed no possible way to avoid a division of the camping privileges. Both sides held a lease of the ground; and, not until the lawsuit between Struthers and Packard was settled, would it be known which side was entitled to the exclusive use of Tinaja Wells.

“I’ll give you fellows half an hour to begin packing.” blustered Lenning. “If you don’t show symptoms of leaving by that time, there’ll be a fight!”

“I think not,” said Frank, still holding his temper in check. “For the present, Lenning, we’ll both camp at the Wells, and both have the use of water and forage. You and your crowd will keep away from us, however, and we’ll do our best to keep away from you. There’s no sense in having a mix-up.”

“Half an hour,” threatened Lenning. “I’m banking on Struthers. This is his water and his ground, and he’s the only one that has a right to give a lease. We’ve got a bigger crowd than you have, and it won’t bother us much to run you out.”

Here was a complication of the tangle which Merriwell did not relish a little bit. Nevertheless, he knew he was within his rights and he had no intention of backing down and letting Lenning have his way.

Lenning had spun around on his heel with the intention of returning to the spot where his own camp was being put in shape, when Ellis Darrel hurried forward.

“Don’t be in a rush, Jode,” called Darrel. “I want a word with you.”

[CHAPTER V.]
A CHALLENGE.

The sound of Darrel’s voice caused Lenning to whirl as though a rattlesnake had suddenly buzzed its warning behind him. The look on the fellow’s scowling face was one of stunned astonishment. For a brief space, the two half brothers stared at each other; then Lenning, seeming to get a grip on himself, demanded contemptuously:

“Who the devil are you?”

Darrel peered at him in amazement.

“Well, strike me lucky!” he muttered. “You can’t run in a bluff like that, Jode. You know me, all right. I’ve changed a heap in a year, I know, but not in the way that would keep you from recognizing me.”

A gasp of astonishment escaped Brad’s lips. His surprise was echoed by at least half a dozen others among the Ophir crowd, and by practically all the Gold Hillers.

It was to be presumed that a former member of the Gold Hill club could not have dropped entirely out of remembrance during the absence of a year; and it was but natural that some of the Ophir fellows should have been acquainted with Darrel. That the Ophir lads had not recalled Darrel before, seemed strange to Merriwell. And he was even more astonished now, when recognition seemed almost general, at the queer twist which had entered into the situation.

While plainly discovering in Darrel something that was familiar to them, a general acceptance of the “boy from Nowhere” as the person he purported to be, was hanging fire. Darrel himself seemed as much perplexed about this as Merriwell was.

“I don’t recognize you,” said Lenning, “and that’s all there is to it.”

“Well, if you don’t,” answered Darrel, “some of the other fellows from Gold Hill have better memories. How about it, boys,” he asked, appealing directly to the crowd behind Lenning.

“You look a lot like Ellis Darrel,” said one of the Gold Hillers.

“He’s a dead ringer for El,” averred another.

“But he can’t be my half brother!” cried Lenning. “He’s an imposter, by thunder! Why are the Ophir fellows springing him on us? What’s your scheme, Merriwell?” he demanded, turning on Frank.

“No scheme about it,” Frank answered. “This chap is Ellis Darrel. If he looks like Darrel, and says he’s Darrel, what in thunder’s the reason you don’t accept him as Darrel?”

“Because Ellis Darrel is dead,” said one of the Gold Hillers who had spoken before.

“That’s news to me,” returned Darrel whimsically.

“It’s a fact; whether it’s news to you or not,” said Lenning.

“When did I die?” inquired Darrel, with a short laugh.

“Three or four months ago,” went on Lenning. “The papers were full of it. You can’t run in any rhinecaboo on us, just because you happen to look like my half brother.”

“No rhinecaboo about it, Jode. If the papers reported my demise, then the report was slightly exaggerated. I never felt better in my life, nor more like living and making life worth while. How was I taken off, eh?”

“Darrel was killed in a railroad wreck in Colorado. He was identified by something in his coat pockets. Uncle Alvah sent on enough to bury him, and some of the authorities had him decently planted. I don’t know what your real name is, but I’ll gamble a thousand against a chink wash ticket that this railroad accident is no news to you. You’ve come on here to bluff the thing through, make the colonel believe you’re his wandering nephew, and then put you in his will along with me. But the scheme won’t work. When the real Darrel forged that check, he killed all his hopes of ever connecting with any of Uncle Al’s money. Didn’t know about that forged check, eh? Well, you’d better skip if you don’t want to get yourself in trouble.”

With a contemptuous fling of his shoulders, Lenning whirled again as though he would leave. Darrel, his face convulsed with anger, leaped at him and jerked him around.

“You don’t get away from me like this, Jode,” he cried. “There’s been a big mistake, but I think I can understand how it happened. While I was working at a mine in Cripple Creek some one stole my coat. I think it was a hobo. If there was a railroad smash-up, then the hobo was killed and supposed to be me from something found in the stolen coat. I never heard of that wreck, or that I was supposed to have been a victim of it. I don’t know whether I should have set the matter right, even if I had heard of it; but I can correct the mistake now, and you can bet your bottom dollar I’m going to!”

Lenning, held against his will, shook Darrel’s hand roughly from his arm.

“You’ve got your scheme all framed up, I reckon,” said Lenning angrily, “but it won’t work. My half brother’s dead, and you can’t palm yourself off as Ellis Darrel. You’ll find yourself behind the bars if you try it. The colonel won’t stand for any monkey business of that sort.”

“I didn’t come back to get any of the colonel’s money,” went on Darrel. “What I came back for was to prove that I’m not a forger. First, I’ll offer evidence that I’m Ellis Darrel, and then I’ll make the other part of it plain.”

“How’ll you prove that you’re my half brother?” asked Lenning mockingly.

“Who was the best sprinter in the Gold Hill Athletic Club?” returned Darrel. “Who won the two-twenty dash at Los Angeles?”

“Darrel,” answered one of the Gold Hillers.

“Who was the next best sprinter in the club?”

“Jode Lenning.”

“Now you’re shouting,” went on Darrel. “If I run against Lenning, and beat him, I’ll bet a pack of pesos that every member of the Gold Hill club will agree that I’m the fellow I say I am. If I look like Darrel, and am trying to run in a bluff on you because of it, is it at all likely that I could run like Darrel? You’ll see, if you give me the chance to show it, that I have the same form and the same speed.”

“You’re a rank counterfeit,” scoffed Lenning, “and I’ll not have a thing to do with you.”

But the rest of the Gold Hillers, as Frank could see, were not disposed to have the matter brushed lightly aside in that way. Perhaps there were some among them who had known and liked Darrel, and felt that this newcomer should have every chance to make good his pretensions.

Merriwell, facing a difficult situation because of the dispute regarding the camping site, saw a chance to shift the attention of the rival clubs to a foot race, and thus, for the time, patch up their other differences. Not only that, but the “boy from Nowhere,” while helping out the general situation, would be making a logical attempt to prove his identity.

Personally, Merriwell did not doubt Ellis Darrel in the least; but he was beginning to have ugly misgivings regarding Jode Lenning.

“Is that a challenge, Darrel?” Frank asked.

Darrel nodded. “Jode wants to believe that I have kicked the bucket,” said he, “and he’s afraid to run against me. He knows, if he does, that I’ll beat him, and that the Gold Hill fellows will wipe out that foolish railroad accident and take me at my word.”

“You’re a fake,” scowled Lenning, “and I tell you I’ll not run against you. What I’m going to do, though, is to send to Gold Hill after the sheriff and have you locked up. The colonel will deal with you, my festive buck!”

Again Lenning started to leave the scene. This time, however, he was halted by one of his own crowd.

“Don’t be in a hurry, Jode,” said the fellow who had stepped in front of him. “I reckon this here’s a case that’s not to be passed up in any offhand way like you’re doin’. Hey, fellers?”

There was a chorus of approval of the Gold Hill chap’s words from the rest of his companions.

“You can prove he’s a fake, Jode!” said one.

“Give him a chance, anyhow!” cried another.

“It’s no more than a fair shake to run against him,” chimed in a third.

All the others had more or less to say in favor of Lenning’s accepting the challenge. Lenning, because of this, was placed in a most uncomfortable position. If he still refused to run, it would appear as though he was anxious not to do the fair thing; on the other hand, if the race was run, and Darrel came out ahead, this might convince the Gold Hillers that he was all he claimed to be.

Lenning stood for a moment, thinking the matter over; then, suddenly, his face cleared.

“All right, Bleeker,” said he to the fellow who had stepped in front of him. “I’m not afraid to run against the fellow. Even if he wins, and if he proves that he’s really Ellis Darrel, he’ll be sorry for it. My half brother disgraced himself, and was ordered by the colonel to clear out. If this chap wasn’t a fool, he’d prefer to drop the matter right here and make himself scarce, rather than to try to prove that he’s Darrel, the forger.”

“Then you accept the challenge, do you, Lenning?” inquired Merriwell.

“You heard me,” was the snarling response.

“What’s the distance, and when do you want to pull off the race?”

“Hundred yards; and we’ll run ’em off to-morrow afternoon. Now, if you’re all satisfied, I’ll go back and boss the operation of getting our camp in shape.”

The acceptance of that challenge put an altogether different complexion upon the situation, so far as it concerned differences regarding the camping ground. A spirit of sportsmanship had been aroused, and the animosity that had long existed between the rival clubs had, for the time, been pushed into the background. Merriwell was greatly pleased over the outcome.

“This hundred-yard dash is a good thing, all around,” said he to Darrel. “Until to-morrow afternoon, anyhow, we’re going to have peace at Tinaja Wells. Already Lenning’s threat to run us off the flat if we weren’t packing up in half an hour has been forgotten. I’m hoping that something will happen, soon after the race, to show whether Struthers or Packard owns this camping site. Have you kept in training during the past year, Darrel?”

“As well as I could,” was the answer. “I’d like to practice starts a little, this afternoon. Will you help me?”

“Sure,” answered Merriwell heartily. “We’ll go up on the mesa right away, and begin. Bring the pistol, Brad. Get into your speed togs, Darrel. I’ll be waiting here for you.”

Brad went after the starter’s pistol and Darrel, securing his roll of clothes from the place where he had left it, disappeared inside of Merriwell’s tent.

While waiting, Merriwell saw two horsemen coming down the cañon and heading toward Tinaja Wells. One was a tall, soldierly appearing man with a white mustache, and the other was a roughly dressed, businesslike-appearing fellow, with a hatchet face.

A shout went up from Bleeker, of Gold Hill, who was the first of his party to catch sight of the approaching riders.

“Whoop!” he shouted, “here comes the colonel! Call Jode, somebody.”

[CHAPTER VI.]
PUZZLING DEVELOPMENTS.

A thrill ran through Merriwell’s nerves. Colonel Hawtrey had come to Tinaja Wells and had ridden his horse hard in making the trip. Why was he there, and why was he in a hurry?

The colonel’s presence in camp would not have taken on such a momentous aspect had Frank not instantly recognized the colonel’s companion. This man’s name was Hawkins. He was a good friend of Frank’s; but, as it also happened, he was a deputy sheriff.

Hawtrey had come to the camp hurriedly, and had brought with him an officer of the law. Merriwell’s mind circled vainly about these two facts. His heart sank as he thought the developments might portend some fresh disaster for Darrel.

At the edge of the grove the colonel and the deputy dismounted. Jode Lenning appeared, seemingly nervous and ill at ease, and stumbled forward to grasp his uncle’s hand. The two, talking earnestly together, disappeared in the direction of one of the Gold Hill tents.

Hawkins, catching sight of Merriwell, smiled and greeted him with a friendly wave of the hand; then, leading the two horses, he went down over the edge of the flat and into the cañon.

Frank would have liked to follow him, and to learn, if possible, the reason why he and the colonel had come to Tinaja Wells. Just at that moment, however, Darrel appeared in his track clothes and Brad came up with the starter’s pistol.

Fritz was already busy with supper preparations, and Darrel would have no more than an hour for practice, at the outside. Merry, leaving the puzzling developments to take care of themselves, joined Darrel and Brad, and the three made their way up a low slope beyond the flat to the mesa.

This little plateau was at least two acres in extent, as flat as a floor, clear of obstructions in the form of bowlders and desert plants, and with a surface almost as hard and springy as a cinder path. It was a natural athletic field, and its proximity to Tinaja Wells was what made the place so desirable as a camping ground for a club that intended to give sports a large share of its outing.

Darrel, in his track clothes, was a splendid specimen of physical development. To Merriwell’s practiced eye, however, he seemed built for a sprinter, and perhaps could have done well as a long-distance man, but could hardly distinguish himself as an all-round athlete.

“The Gold Hill camp has a visitor, Darrel,” said Frank. “Did you see him arrive?”

“No,” was the answer, “I was busy getting into my togs. Who is it?”

“Coloney Hawtrey.”

A touch of white ran through Darrel’s face. He halted abruptly and half turned as though to retrace his way to the camp; then, apparently changing his mind, he faced about and went on into the mesa.

“The colonel thinks I’ve crossed the divide,” said he, “and he wouldn’t have any use for me if he was convinced that I’m alive and kicking. Time enough to pay my respects to him after I dig up proof that I didn’t forge his name to that check. Did he come alone, Merriwell?”

“Hawkins, a deputy sheriff, came with him.”

“Strike me lucky! Say, I’ll bet a bunch of dinero that my precious little half brother has put up some sort of a dodge on me.” He halted once more, and, with deep earnestness in voice and manner, turned to Merriwell and added: “I want you to promise that you won’t go back on me, no matter what happens.”

“I believe you’re straight,” said Merriwell promptly, “and you can bank on me to stand by you.”

“And lend a hand, if I need it?”

“Sure.”

“Count me in on that, too, Darrel,” put in Brad.

“You fellows are pretty good to a stranger,” said Darrel, his voice husky with feeling. “I won’t forget it, either. Now, changing the subject a little and coming down to this race of mine against Jode, I might be an impostor, and, at the same time, happen to have the speed to beat him over that hundred yards; but any one that ever saw Ellis Darrel run knows that he has a form of his own—a few individualities that crop out on the track and could not be copied. That is going to do more than just winning the race to put me in right with the Gold Hill fellows. See what I mean, Merriwell?”

Frank nodded understandingly.

“Jode has a few peculiarities himself,” Darrel went on, “and one of them is beating the pistol.”

“That’s mighty crooked,” said Frank. “A fellow that makes a practice of it is bound to be found out, sooner or later, and made to take his medicine.”

“Starters, as you know, don’t all wait the same length of time between the order to get set and the ‘crack’ that starts them over the course; but, almost invariably, each starter has his own habit, and clings to it. Some starters may wait two seconds, and some four, and if a sprinter knows his man, he can get off with the pistol, and not after he hears it. If a sprinter is clever at it, it’s mighty hard to detect him; and if he is detected occasionally he can plead nervousness, and get off without much trouble. Now, Jode’s pretty slick at the game; and if Beman, one of the boys in the Gold Hill crowd, fires the pistol, Jode will know exactly what to do.”

“We’ll see to it that Beman doesn’t act as starter,” declared Brad.

“You get me wrong, Bradlaugh,” returned Darrel. “If Jode makes the request, I want you to let Beman act. Then watch Jode, both of you. If he beats the pistol, then you’ll understand that I know what I’m talking about. It will be a little proof that I’m playing square; and, whatever happens, I don’t want you to doubt me.”

“If a man gains half a second at the start, Darrel,” protested Frank, “you ought to know what it means in a hundred-yard dash. It’s the same as leading you at the start by anywhere from ten to twenty feet. A fairly good runner will cover twenty-five feet of ground in a second.”

Darrel smiled cheerfully.

“Let Jode have his lead,” said he; “unless he has picked up wonderfully in the last year I won’t be taking his dust for many yards.”

With his heel, Darrel traced a line on the ground.

“Here’s the starting point, Merriwell,” he observed. “If you’re ready, I am.”

Frank took the pistol from Brad and placed himself behind Darrel.

“On your mark!” he called out, then watched critically to see Darrel place himself.

If the “boy from Nowhere” had any eccentricities in his sprinting, none showed in the way he dropped to the line and began gouging into the earth with the toe of his left foot.

“Set!” called Frank.

The muscles began to twist under the white skin of Darrel’s legs and arms like so many coiled springs. Up came the right knee while the toe of the right foot ground out its own little pocket in the soil. The weight of Darrel’s body was thrown on his fingers and over the starting line.

Frank, admiring the sprinter’s ease, which spoke volumes for the amount of hard practice he had undergone, purposely waited an inordinate length of time before snapping the pistol. An alert mind is as necessary in a good sprinter as a pair of speedy legs; and there must be good nerves, to hold the clamoring muscles in leash until exactly the right moment to let them go.

Bang! went the signal, and on the instant Darrel flung from the line as though shot from a cannon. He ran for perhaps twenty yards before he halted, and came trotting back.

“Did you see how I do my running?” he asked.

“You slide,” answered Frank; “there’s not much waste motion in lifting your feet.”

“And the way you handle your arms,” said Brad. “You’re a daisy, old top, believe me!”

“Not many sprinters go the way I go, and I’ve a hunch that the Gold Hill fellows will recognize Ellis Darrel from that alone. A lot of that crowd have seen me run dozens of times.”

“I can’t understand what in thunder’s biting those fellows, anyway,” grunted Merriwell. “Suppose there was a railroad accident, and they’ve been under the impression for months that you got your gruel in the smash-up; why don’t they believe you, when you explain about the coat, and tell them who you are?”

“They’re a lot of boneheads!” declared Brad; “or else,” he qualified, “they’re taking their cue from Lenning.”

“That’s the size of it,” said Darrel. “The colonel’s a pretty big man, over in Gold Hill, and some of that crowd would lick Jode’s shoes if he told ’em to. But,” and Darrel grinned, “you seemed rather anxious to have the race come off, Merriwell?”

“It was the best thing that could happen, right at that stage of our dispute with the Gold Hillers,” Merriwell answered. “We needed something to ease up the tension, and turn our thoughts to something else beside the camping site. This race dropped in pretty pat. But we’ve got to cut out this chin-chin and practice a few more starts. On your mark!”

For perhaps a dozen times Merriwell got Darrel away from the line. The last two or three times constituted about as finished a performance as Merriwell had ever seen.

“You’re all the mustard, Darrel,” said Frank. “I don’t think there’s any chance for improvement. I’ve started you from ‘set’ all the way from an eye wink to ten seconds, and you haven’t made a bobble. You’re in the way of becoming a crack man at this game.”

Darrel’s fine face flushed with pleasure.

“Coming from you, old chap,” said he, “that’s a fine compliment. You’re giving me a helping hand, and I’m hungry to show you that I deserve it.”

“Don’t fret about that. My dad is a master hand at reading character, and he has passed the knack on to me. One look at you was enough. But,” he added suddenly, tossing the pistol to Brad, “Carrots will be yelling his Dutch head off if we don’t hustle to the chuck tent. Have you any sort of an idea,” he asked, as they started together toward the camp, “why the colonel and the deputy sheriff should ride out here?”

“No,” and Darrel shook his head in a puzzled way, “but you’re liable to find out. Here’s the deputy sheriff, and he seems to have his eyes on you.”

Hawkins had strolled up over the edge of the mesa and was walking toward the three boys. When he was close to them, he nodded in a friendly way.

“I’d like to powwow with you, Merriwell,” said he, “for a couple of minutes, more or less. Suppose you let your friends go on, while we trail them in, and palaver on the way?”

Merriwell, with a feeling that something of importance was coming, dropped behind Brad and Darrel and fell into step with the deputy sheriff.

[CHAPTER VII.]
THE WILES OF A SCHEMER.

Jode Lenning was alone in the tent, which had been erected for his use, when Mingo, a Mexican distance runner, who belonged to the G.  H.  A.  C., thrust his head through the flap and announced that Colonel Hawtrey had arrived in camp.

Lenning, at the moment, had his back to the opening and was wrapping a long, flat package in his handkerchief.

“What?” he gasped, throwing a startled look over his shoulder at Mingo.

The other repeated his announcement.

“The devil!” gulped Lenning, in a flurry. “He’s found out what happened at the house, and put for here on the jump. Now for merry blazes, and a little slick work by yours truly.”

His hand shook a little as he crowded the handkerchief-wrapped package into the breast of his Norfolk jacket; then, getting up, he hurried out of the tent and ran to meet the tall man with the gray mustache.

“Ah, my boy!” exclaimed Colonel Hawtrey, making no effort to conceal the pleasure the meeting gave him. “You’re looking fit, I must say, so there’s not much use asking how you feel.”

“Fine as silk, uncle,” said Lenning, clasping the colonel’s hand. “How did you find everything at the mines?”

“The mines are all right,” was the answer, “but it was something I discovered after I got home this morning that has rather shaken me. Take me to a place where we can be by ourselves and talk.”

“My tent will fill the bill.” They walked together in the direction of Lenning’s headquarters. “Was that Hawkins I saw leading away the horses?” Lenning asked.

“Yes, that was Hawkins.” That there was a load of some sort on the colonel’s mind was evidenced by his tone and manner. “It’s possible,” he added, “that I am going to need Hawkins in—er—an official capacity.”

“This sounds pretty warlike!” exclaimed Lenning.

“I suppose so,” and the old soldier stiffened a little. “I have made some discoveries, Jode, which will astonish you. They nearly carried me off my feet. By the way, what started you on this camping trip?”

“I thought it would be a good thing for our eleven,” Lenning explained. “This Merriwell chap took the Ophir team out into the hills, and I reckoned we’d follow suit. And, say! We bumped into the Ophir outfit right here at Tinaja Wells. How’s that for a coincidence?”

“Queer, to say the least,” answered the colonel. “I hope all you fellows will remember that you are true sportsmen, which is only another term for gentlemen, and avoid any unpleasantness.”

“You can depend upon us to prove a credit to you, colonel!” said Lenning, with a fine show of admiration for the erect, soldierly old fellow beside him. “I have a lease from Struthers, and Merriwell has one from Packard. Now,” and Lenning laughed, “which of us has the right of it?”

“That’s hard to tell, my boy, until the lawsuit is decided. What sort of a character is young Merriwell? Anything like his father?”

“I don’t know much about his father, sir; but young Merriwell seems to be trying to make himself the whole thing. Of course,” Lenning added, “I tried to smooth matters over, and it looks as though I had succeeded. As you see, we’re both camped on the same ground.”

“I’ll have a talk with Merriwell myself, and see what I can do with him. All that, however, must wait on the important business that brings me here. I have never had anything make such an impression on me. Is this your tent, Jode?”

“Yes, uncle. Walk inside and make yourself comfortable.”

When Colonel Hawtrey had seated himself comfortably on a camp stool, and Lenning had dropped down facing him on a pile of blankets, the colonel lighted a cigar—possibly to soothe or cover his nervousness—and began.

“You remember, Jode,” said he, “that I drew a thousand dollars from the bank on the forenoon of the day I left town, expecting to pay it out to Judson for an interest in that promising claim of his.”

Lenning nodded.

“You drew the money,” said he, “and Judson didn’t show up; then you were called from town in a hurry, and locked up the money in your safe. I remember all that very distinctly.”

“You knew the combination, and were to give Judson the money if he called for it.”

“Yes, sir; but he didn’t call.”

“I know that. I had scarcely reached town when I saw him, and he said he’d be around this afternoon to get the thousand. Then I went home—and found that I had been robbed!”

“Robbed!” gasped Lenning, starting up.

“Yes, my boy, robbed! Of course, a thousand dollars isn’t very much to me, but it’s losing the money in such a way as that that gets under my skin. The safe in my study was open, the window had been unlocked, and the thousand was gone!”

“Had the safe been blown open?”

“No. Some one had worked the combination and——”

“Uncle!” exclaimed Lenning, in consternation. “You and I are the only ones who know the combination. You were away from home, and I—I——”

The colonel leaned forward and dropped an affectionate hand on his nephew’s shoulder.

“Tut, tut!” said he brusquely. “You know I trust you as I would myself. There is some one else who knows the combination, and who at one time had as free access to that safe as you or I. I refer to—to your half brother, Darrel.”

“But Ellis perished in that train wreck!”

“Supposed to, but I have always had a feeling that there might be some mistake. That graceless young scamp wasn’t born to shuffle off in any such way as that. What I should have done, I suppose, was to have the combination changed. But I did not. This is the result.”

“I wouldn’t be in too much of a hurry to judge Ellis, Uncle Al,” pleaded Lenning. “You’re only working on a theory, you know, and——”

There was sorrow in the fine old face of the colonel, but over all was the sternness of an iron will.

“I have evidence,” he interrupted; “much as it grieves me to tell it, Jode, yet I have evidence which cannot be denied. It is like you, boy, to plead for the rascal who has disgraced our blood; but, as for me, I shall not be victimized a second time without making him pay the penalty. I—— You are pale!” exclaimed the colonel, leaning forward to stare into his nephew’s face; “and you are trembling, too! What ails you, Jode? Brace up; don’t take this too much to heart.”

“I have something to tell you, uncle,” answered Lenning; “but, first, let me hear your evidence.”

The colonel took a knife from his pocket and handed it to Lenning.

“You recognize that, don’t you?” he asked harshly.

“Why,” murmured Lenning, “it’s the knife you gave Ellis years ago.”

“It is,” was the grim rejoinder, “and I found it under the unlocked window in my study.”

Lenning seemed stunned and incapable of words.

“But that isn’t all,” preceded the colonel. “I hunted up Hawkins, who happened to be in town, and together we learned that a fellow answering Darrel’s description had been in Gold Hill the night before I got home. He had called on Haff, our club secretary, and asked for me, and about you. Haff told him that you were camping, with some of our lads, at Tinaja Wells. Supposing that Darrel had come here, Hawkins and I secured a couple of mounts and made a quick trip down the cañon. Have you seen anything of Darrel?”

“Then it’s true, it’s true!” Lenning was muttering, as though to himself.

“What is true?” demanded his uncle. “Don’t try to shield the fellow, Jode. Your first duty is to me, not to him.”

“There is a fellow here—Merriwell seems to be looking after him—who says he is Ellis Darrel.” Lenning spoke with apparent reluctance. “I believed him to be an imposter. How could I think anything else after the report we had of that Colorado wreck? The fellow seemed bent on proving that he was really my half brother, and challenged me to run a race with him. You see——”

“What folly!” cut in the colonel.

“I’m pretty fast in a sprint, uncle, but El was a shade faster. And you know he had a queer way about him when he was running. I think he is counting on that race to make his identity known to me and the rest of the Gold Hill fellows.”

“We don’t need any proof of his identity, Jode! We can take his word, and then confront him with this damning evidence of his rascality!”

Lenning put out his hand and rested it on his uncle’s arm.

“Colonel,” said he, his voice shaking, “let us have this race to-morrow afternoon. Don’t interfere. There’s a chance that, after all, the fellow is not Darrel.”

“There’s not a shadow of a doubt, not a shadow!”

“But you needn’t hurry about arresting him, need you? Let’s find out how far Merriwell will go in trying to shield him. Wait until after the race; and then—well,” and Lenning drew a long, regretful sigh, “do what you think you have to—what you think you must.”

“If Darrel knows I am here with Hawkins he may suspect something, and clear out,” demurred the colonel. “It isn’t well, my boy, to dally too much with an affair of this kind.”

“Have Hawkins watch him,” suggested Lenning.

“True,” said the colonel, “I could probably do that. It’s impossible, though, that Young Merriwell is mixed up, in any way, with Darrel’s wrongdoing. He has been deceived in the fellow. I know of the elder Merriwell, and a straighter man or a better all-round athlete the world never produced.”

“I hope young Merriwell is square, and a real chip of the old block, as I understand his friends mean to suggest when they call him ‘Chip’—but, well, I don’t like the way he has been acting. To-morrow afternoon, uncle, we may know a lot more about him and about Darrel, too.”

“Very well,” said the colonel, though reluctantly, “we’ll leave the matter, Jode, as you desire.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Lenning gratefully.

Why was Lenning so anxious to have his uncle defer action against Darrel? Had the packet, wrapped in his handkerchief and stowed in the breast pocket of his Norfolk jacket, anything to do with his wish to delay proceedings? In view of what happened later, this seemed like the logical explanation.

[CHAPTER VIII.]
A JOKE—WITH RESULTS.

Hawkins, the deputy sheriff, had not much to say to Merriwell during their walk from the mesa back to the camp. Hawkins was an admirer, and in many ways had shown himself a true friend, of Frank’s; and, out of the kindness of his heart and, without divulging any secrets, he strove to warn him against Darrel.

“They’re talkin’ a heap, down in the camp,” said Hawkins, “of what a big hit this Darrel person has made with you. Don’t cotton to him too strong, Merriwell. He isn’t wuth it.”

“What do you mean?” Frank demanded.

“Between ourselves—the thing not to go any further, you understand—this Darrel’s nothin’ more than a plain thief.”

“You’re mistaken, Hawkins,” said Frank, with spirit. “I can’t believe it.”

“Well, son, you’ll have the proof before you’re many hours older.”

“Then I’ll wait for the proof, Hawkins; and it will have to be copper-riveted before I turn against Ellis Darrel.”

“Jest a warnin’ I’m handing you, Merriwell,” grinned Hawkins. “And you’re to keep what I said to yourself, mind.”

“Of course, Hawkins. I’m obliged to you for taking all this trouble, but you’re mistaken, and will find it out. It’s the colonel’s business, isn’t it?”

“Now, I’m not sayin’ another word,” answered the deputy, “and maybe I’ve let out more’n I ought to, as it is.”

That ended the brief conversation, and, while it did not shake Merriwell’s confidence in Ellis Darrel, nevertheless it left him with vague forebodings of fresh disaster hanging over the head of the “boy from Nowhere.”

The members of the rival athletic clubs were carefully avoiding each other. There was no display of ill feeling, perhaps because the bad blood had no chance to show itself, or because the presence of the colonel in the Gold Hill camp was a restraining influence. Be that as it may, yet the topic of conversation in both camps was the hundred-yard dash to be run on the following afternoon. The object of the race, unique in the annals of sport, lent the event a fascination which nothing else could have done. Until ten o’clock the affair was discussed by the Ophir fellows, and then, agreeable to schedule, lights went out and the Ophir lads sought their blankets.

By an arrangement, enforced from the very first night that Frank and his companions went into camp, a watch of three was posted to look after the live stock and other property during the night. A trio of lads went on sentry-go from seven to eleven; when their duty was finished, they aroused three others to do guard duty from eleven to three; and these, in turn, awoke three more for the morning watch from three to seven. On this night, the first to be passed on the flat with the Gold Hillers, Ballard was one of the three who had the midwatch of four hours around midnight. Ballard’s post was in the cañon, just below the flat, where the saddle and pack stock had been gathered.

He had a lonely vigil for an hour. Somewhere in the neighboring hills the coyotes were howling—a noise, by the way, not calculated to soothe a person’s nerves. While Ballard was listening to the coyotes, and thinking more or less about the next day’s race, he heard a sound as of some one sliding down the slope from the flat. Alert on the instant, Ballard started up and peered into the gloom and listened. Some one was breathing heavily and floundering and stumbling through bushes and over stones.

“Can’t be a prowler,” murmured Ballard, “for he’s making too much noise. I’ll just lay hands on the fellow and make him give an account of himself.”

Creeping forward, and screening himself as well as he could in the shadows, Ballard was able to rise up suddenly and seize the wabbling figure.

“Himmelblitzen!” wheezed a voice. “Oof you peen vone oof der Inchun shpooks, den I bet you I faint fits righdt on der shpot! Whoosh!” and the voice died away with a suggestion of chattering teeth.

“Carrots!” laughed Ballard. “Say, you crazy chump, what are you fooling around the gulch for at this time of night?”

“Oh, Pallard!” puffed Fritz, in great relief. “Vell, vell, vat a habbiness! Dere vas t’ings vich ve don’d know till ve findt dem oudt, hey? I vas looking for you, Pallard, yah, so helup me!”

“Looking for me?” echoed Ballard; “what for?”

“Meppyso I gif you haluf oof dot dreasure oof you go along und hellup me get him.”

“Oh, blazes!” chuckled Ballard. “I thought you’d got over that treasure notion, Carrots.”

“Lisden, vonce, und I told you someding.” Fritz dropped his voice to an explosive whisper. “Vat you dink? Py shiminy, so sure as nodding I findt me dot shtone mit der gross on. Yah, you bed my life! It vas so blain as I can’t tell, Pallard. Aber ven I roll avay der shtone und tig mit der shovel, I hear me some voices oof an Inchun chief. Dot shkared me avay. Haf you got der nerfs to go mit me to der blace back, Pallard? I peen shaky all ofer, und my shkin geds oop und valks on me mit coldt feet, yet I bed you I go back, und I findt der dreasure. You come, und so hellup me I gif you haluf!”

The excitement at the Wells, incident to the arrival of the Gold Hillers and following hard upon the rapid return of Fritz and Silva to the camp, had temporarily closed the fun Merry and his friends had had in the cañon. More important events had claimed the attention of the lads who had participated in the joke, and no one had explained matters to Fritz or the Mexican. So it chanced that the Dutchman was still laboring under his delusion.

Ballard wondered whether he had better set Fritz right, or keep the joke going. He finally decided that the stock would not suffer if he played out the Dutchman a little, and watched his antics in the supposedly spook-haunted gulch.

“When an Injun goes to the happy hunting grounds, Carrots,” remarked Ballard gravely, “it’s just as well not to stir him up. I’d hate to have a red spook get a strangle hold on me—there wouldn’t be treasure enough in the whole of Arizona to pay a fellow for an experience of that kind.”

“Haf you no chincher?” demanded Fritz. “Iss it not vort’ a leedle shcare chust to load oop mit goldt dot vill make you a rich mans for life, hey? Vell, I bed you! I t’ink him all oudt, und I arrife py der gonglusion dot a shpook iss nodding more as a shadow in der sun, oder der moon. Vat a shpook does makes no odds aboudt der tifference. Ve go, ve ged der goldt, und ve come back. Dot’s all aboudt it. I got me a shovel in vone handt, und a glub in der odder. Mit vone, I tig oop der goldt; mit der odder, I knock ofer der shpooks. Und dere you vas. Ve shall be gompany mit each odder, Pallard.”

“I don’t see how I can back out, Carrots,” said Ballard, “the way you put it up to me. You’re an awful persuader. How much gold is there?”

“I see it in der tream dot dere iss more as ve can carry, yes.”

“Maybe that dream is just fooling you, Carrots.”

“You say yourselluf dot treams iss somet’ing, Pallard.”

“Did I? Well, maybe they are something. You go first, will you, Carrots? I’ve got a weak heart, and if I should run onto a spook without any warning it would knock me stiff.”

“I vill go fairst,” agreed Fritz, generously and valiantly, “und you precede. I vill vatch aroundt carefully, und oof ve don’d make some noises, den meppy der shpooks von’t hear, und ve gif dem der slip.”

Fritz waddled off into the darkness, and Ballard, enjoying himself hugely, trailed after him. Suddenly, without the least warning, Fritz dropped the shovel and the club, whirled in his tracks, and took Ballard in a convulsive embrace.

“Ach, du lieber!” he whimpered. “I hear me someding, py shiminy! Lisden, vonce, Pallard! Vat it iss, hey?”

“Coyotes,” answered Ballard, in a smothered voice. “Brace up, Carrots. Don’t lose your nerve.”

“Sooch dreasure hundings I don’d like,” mumbled Fritz, slowly untangling himself from Ballard and cautiously groping for his shovel and club. “I vish der plame’ coyotes vould go to shleep. Ach, vat a nervousness I got all droo me. I shake like I hat some agues. Sooch a pitzness iss vort’ all der dreasures vat ve findt.”

Suddenly Ballard, clapping a hand over Fritz’s mouth, whispered a hissing warning for him to keep still, and pulled him out of the narrow trail and in between a couple of huge bowlders.

“V-v-vat iss der drouple!” inquired Fritz feebly. “You see a shpook yourselluf, Pallard? I bed you——”

Again Ballard clapped a hand to his companion’s mouth.

“Sh-h-h!” he murmured. “There’s some one coming, right behind us. Not a word, now; not so much as a whisper.”

Somehow, Ballard got it into his head that the man who was following them was Silva. The Mexican, he remembered, was also mixed up, rather vaguely, with Fritz in the treasure hunting. Ballard had it in mind to give Silva a bit of a scare, and so make the most of that midnight experience.

Peering out from their dark retreat, Fritz and Ballard saw a dark figure gliding toward them along the trail. It was impossible for them to discover who the man was. He was in a hurry, that was evident, and a peculiar, musical jingling accompanied him as he came on. The sound was not loud, but more like a tinkling whisper, and barely distinguishable.

But Silva—if Silva it was—did not pass the two behind the bowlders. He halted, so close that Ballard could have reached out and touched him, went down on his knees, and worked at something in the dark. Even with the fellow so near, the heavy gloom successfully hid his identity.

Ballard’s desire for fun was lost in a mighty curiosity. The fellow took something white from his pocket, and, apparently, pushed it under a stone; then, rising, he sped away in the direction from whence he had come.

“Vell, vell!” muttered Fritz. “Vat you t’ink iss dot, Pallard?”

“That’s a conundrum, Carrots. How many fellows are looking for that treasure of yours, eh?”

“No vone but me und you, Pallard.”

“Wait here for a couple of shakes, Fritz. I want to explore.”

Ballard crept to the place where the mysterious figure had been at work, groped under a stone, and pulled forth a package wrapped in something white. Lighting a match, he examined his find. Fritz could hear him muttering excitedly as the match dropped from his fingers.

“Vat it iss, Pallard?” quavered Fritz.

“I’ve had enough treasure hunting for one night,” answered Ballard, in a strange voice. “I’m going back to the live stock, Fritz. Come on!”

Fritz protested, but Ballard stood firm. Fritz would not continue on without company, and so they returned to the camp—Ballard with the white packet snugly stowed in his pocket.

[CHAPTER IX.]
THE RACE.

Most of the forenoon, every day except Sunday, Merriwell, Clancy, and Ballard had to give up to the “grind.” Professor Phineas Borrodaile rigidly insisted on certain hours for study and recitation, and would not temper his discipline even on the day that notable race was to be run between Lenning and Darrel.

Following breakfast, each camp continued to flock by itself. The live stock belonging to each party was picketed in widely separated grazing grounds, so there was no opportunity for Silva and the other packer to wind up their disagreements in a final clash. Peace hovered over the region adjacent to Tinaja Wells, but to Merry it suggested a calm preceding a storm.

Hawkins buried himself among the Gold Hillers, and seemed very careful not to overstep the “dead line” which had been drawn between the two camps. Colonel Hawtrey also appeared content to remain in seclusion among the members of his own party.

About eleven o’clock in the forenoon, Frank and his chums, and the professor and Darrel overheard a brief address which the old soldier was making to the young athletes of the Gold Hill club. Only scraps of the colonel’s little speech floated to the fellows in the Ophir tent, but what they overheard made a deep impression on them.

“Sports of the right kind, properly indulged in, are of vastly more benefit to the upbuilding of character, my young friends, than to your muscles and bodily endurance. Understand me, I do not say that physical development is of less importance than mental development. Both of these should proceed hand in hand; but if, over all, the moral and manly qualities do not grow as they should, all your training in the class and on the track and field will have been in vain. Try, my lads, to develop the faculty of being good losers, and to admire and applaud in others those abilities, natural or acquired, which you possess, but not in the same degree.”

As these words, spoken in a deep and earnest voice, wafted themselves from the rival camp, the professor softly clapped his hands.

“Noble sentiments most nobly expressed, young gentlemen,” he murmured. “This Colonel Hawtrey must surely be a man of splendid character.”

“He is,” said Darrel, in a low voice. “The colonel is one of the finest men that ever lived.”

“Listen!” whispered the professor.

Again the colonel’s words drifted into the rival camp:

“If an amateur athlete is not a true sportsman, which is but another term for gentleman, he is not fit to compete with other true sportsmen. Your real gentleman, if you please, has courage; but, more than that, he is so imbued with the spirit of fair play and so completely captain of his own soul, that the stings of honorable defeat leave him unscathed.”

These were fine words, and well calculated to inspire a spirit of high emprise.

“I hope Jode is taking that in,” whispered Darrel to Merriwell; “but, I’ll gamble my spurs, he’s going to beat the pistol, just the same.”

Ballard, all that morning, had been preoccupied to an extent that had drawn some criticism from the professor. The interesting events of the night, which he had not only kept a secret himself but had likewise warned Fritz to keep in the background, probably had a good deal to do with his poor showing at the problems put up to him by Borrodaile.

At eleven-thirty, when the studious ones were allowed a breathing spell before dinner, Ballard hooked onto Merriwell and led him to a secluded place for a talk. Fritz had to call them three times to “grub pile,” and when the two finally arrived, their faces were flushed with excitement, and there was an air about them that suggested mysterious things.

At two-thirty in the afternoon a general movement set in toward the mesa. Both camps emptied themselves upon the little plateau, so that nearly forty spectators assembled to watch the race between Darrel and Lenning.

The course had already been marked off by Brad, Spink, and Handy. Beman, for Lenning, had looked it over and pronounced it O.  K. On one side of this course the Gold Hill men were grouped, and on the other side the fellows from Ophir.

Colonel Hawtrey and Hawkins stood together, and Merriwell, for the first time, got a good look at the colonel. He was much impressed with his soldierly bearing, but in his face could be read sternness and determination—and a sadness which did not, in the least, diminish the more Spartan qualities.

Bleeker, of Gold Hill, crossed the course and stepped up to Merriwell.

“There ought to be a judge and a starter, I reckon,” said he. “I don’t see any need of makin’ this event top-heavy with officials. Do you?”

“Not at all,” Frank answered. “I’d suggest that Colonel Hawtrey act as judge of the race.”

“He says he won’t have a thing to do with it.”

“Then how about Hawkins, the deputy sheriff?”

“Suits Lenning to a t, y, ty. Lenning would like to have Beman for starter.”

Merriwell was expecting this, and yet it came to him with something like surprise. It pointed to crookedness on the part of Lenning—and after that fine talk the colonel had given his fellows that morning, too!

“Let Beman act as starter, then,” assented Frank, keeping to the plan broached by Darrel.

Bleeker hurried away to inform Hawkins and Beman of the work laid out for them; and a few minutes later Darrel and Lenning, in sprinting costumes, came trotting up from the camp.

Merriwell watched Darrel and the colonel. As the old soldier fixed his eyes on his discredited nephew, a queer play of emotions showed in his face. In Darrel’s look was a wistfulness and affection which caused his uncle to turn abruptly and gaze in another direction.

Beman, a round-shouldered, lanky chap, stepped out back of the starting line, pistol in hand.

“All ready, you two?” he called.

Darrel and Lenning answered by stepping to the line. Not a sound of approval or disapproval went up from the gathered throng. Silence reigned on the mesa.

“This is about as cheerful as a funeral procession, Chip,” muttered Clancy.

“Everybody’s mightily interested in the race, for all they have bottled up their feelings,” Merriwell answered.

“Maybe,” was the skeptical response, “but it takes a lot of rooters to stir up the enthusiasm. This looks about as sporty as the track event of a deaf-and-dumb school. That Lenning carries himself well. He walks with a spring that leads you to think he ‘feels his feet.’ But I don’t like the cut of his jib a little bit.”

“Nor I. His eyes are shifty, and his face doesn’t inspire much confidence.”

“The old colonel is about as hilarious as he would be trying to hunt up a nephew in the morgue. Whoo! I’ll go dippy in a minute if somebody doesn’t yell. Guess I’ll tear off a whoop myself.”

He suited his action to the word, but it was a melancholy effort. No one joined in with him, not even Merry or Ballard. From across the course, the Gold Hillers gave him a startled look of disapproval.

“Once will do, thanks,” muttered Clancy. “I’m frosted so badly I’ve got chilblains. Why doesn’t that starter set ’em off?”

The words were hardly out of Clancy’s mouth before Beman shouted: “On your mark!”

Both sprinters dropped in well-nigh perfect style.

“Set!”

With that word, and the tense preparations of the sprinters for the start, Merry and Brad began watching Lenning keenly. Merry ticked off the seconds in his mind—one, two, three—and then intuitively he sensed the forward plunge of Lenning, coming a fraction of a second before the crack of the pistol. Lenning had not waited to hear the pistol, and had got away at the explosion.

“He did it, by thunder!” whispered Brad. “Darrel had the skunk dead to rights. Eh, Chip?”

“No doubt about it, Brad!”

Further talk just then was out of the question. The first stride of the race had taken Lenning into the lead, and Darrel, waiting honorably for the signal to start, was rushing to overhaul his competitor.

“Dig, you kid from Nowhere!” whooped Clancy. “The race isn’t done till you breast the tape.”

“Go to it, Darrel!” Merriwell shouted. “You’ll pass him at the eighty-yard line!”

“Wow!” yelped Ballard; “I’ll bet the boy from Nowhere gets Somewhere before he’s many seconds older.”

A murmur went up from the Gold Hill side of the course. The peculiar form in which Darrel was racing was recognized. Various little mannerisms connected with his sprinting were recalled. They were all here, in this clean-cut athlete whom Lenning had declared an impostor! Gold Hill sentiments, it was plain, were undergoing a change.

Not the least interested observer in the Gold Hill crowd was the colonel. He leaned forward, the joy of wholesome sport temporarily brushing aside the sterner proceedings which were to wait upon the finish of that hundred-yard dash. The object of that race—the “boy from Nowhere’s” attempt to prove his identity—did not concern Colonel Hawtrey. He knew Lenning’s competitor was Ellis Darrel, race or no race. What flamed up in him, as he gazed spellbound, was a pure love of track athletics, aroused by a contest that was superb.

In about four seconds after the start the Gold Hillers had loosened up. There were cries of, “Go it, Darrel!” and, “This looks like old times, Curly!” which proved that Darrel was already winning the recognition he coveted, no matter whether he won or lost the dash.

At the eighty-yard line, just as Merry had prophesied, Darrel drew ahead of Lenning. The latter called on his reserve powers for a final spurt, but Darrel also had speed in reserve. In ten seconds, or a trifle more or less, Darrel tore away the tape at the finish, a full stride in the lead.

A roar went up from all sides. The enthusiasm, which had been held in check, rushed forth like a tidal wave. A rush was made toward Darrel, but Hawkins, the deputy sheriff, grim and relentless, waved the throng back. Stepping to the side of the victor, he dropped an official hand on his shoulder.

“Youngster,” said he crisply, “I’m sorry a heap to come down hard on you at a time like this, but you’re under arrest.”

“Arrest?” echoed Darrel, recoiling. “For what?”

“For openin’ your uncle’s safe an’ stealin’ a thousand in cold cash. Don’t make a fuss, bec’us’ it won’t do you any good.”

Then, amid the dead hush that fell over the mesa, Darrel’s eyes sought only one face in all the crowd surrounding him. And that face was Merriwell’s!

[CHAPTER X.]
A HELPING HAND.

The explosion of a bomb could not have caused greater consternation among the throng on the mesa than that official action of the deputy sheriff. Hawtrey, erect and with a soldierly stride, passed out of the stunned crowd and placed himself beside Hawkins.

Merriwell, giving Darrel a reassuring look, also advanced. He had a sweater on his arm, and began pulling it over Darrel’s head and shoulders.

“You’d better keep out of this, Merriwell,” Hawkins murmured in Frank’s ear. “I warned you. The kunnel means biz, and no mistake.”

“So do I,” Frank answered, with a flash of his dark eyes. “Keep your nerve,” he added, in a low tone to Darrel; “we’ve got a few cards of our own to play.”

“You are Frank Merriwell?” inquired Colonel Hawtrey, leveling his gaze at Frank.

“Yes, colonel.”

“The son of Frank Merriwell, of Bloomfield, and the T-Bar Ranch, in Wyoming?”

“Yes.”

“You are also seeking to befriend this misguided young man, here?”

“I am Darrel’s friend,” said Merry, with spirit, “right from the drop of the hat.”

“Then, my lad, your father will some time hear of it with regret. What Hawkins said is the truth. This fellow opened my safe and took from it a thousand dollars in cash night before last. I have the proof.”

“Pardon me, colonel,” returned Frank respectfully, “but inasmuch as I am Darrel’s friend, will you let me handle this case for him in my own way?”

“If you mean to defend him,” frowned Hawtrey, “you will have your trouble for your pains. He has no defense!”

“Will you let me try and see if I cannot make one, and one that will command your attention and best judgment?”

“Sufferin’ centipedes, Merriwell!” broke in Hawkins. “I never reckoned you’d be tryin’ to save the scalp of a plain, out-and-out thief!”

The white ran into Darrel’s face and his hands clenched. Merry laid a soothing hand on his arm.

“This isn’t a time for any snap judgments, Hawkins,” said Frank. “First,” and he turned to the Gold Hillers, “I want to ask if this boy from Nowhere has proved that he is Ellis Darrel, of Gold Hill?”

“Yes!” came a chorus of responses.

Merry partly turned to face Lenning. The latter, a sneering smile on his dark face, was standing at a little distance, keenly alive to everything that was said and done.

“How about you, Lenning?” queried Frank.

“He’s my half brother, all right,” was the answer. “I reckon there’s not a shadow of doubt about that.”

“You agree, too, colonel?”

“I knew the fellow was Darrel before the race,” answered Hawtrey. “If he had proved to be an impostor, this accusation of theft might not have carried. Now it is absolutely proven—ab-so-lutely.”

“Darrel has been accused here, before all his old friends,” Frank continued, marshaling all his wits to acquit himself creditably of the task of clearing Darrel, “and it’s only a fair shake that he should be proven innocent before them. Colonel, will you please tell us of the robbery, and show your proofs?”

Hawtrey was visibly annoyed. Nevertheless, he was a great stickler for fair play, and he had to acknowledge that the position taken by Merry was logical.

“I have been away from Gold Hill for a week,” said he, “visiting some of my mining properties. Before I went, I drew a thousand dollars in cash from the bank to pay to a man from whom I was purchasing an interest in a ‘prospect.’ I was called from town hurriedly, before the payment was made. The money was locked up in the safe in my study, at home. Jode, here, who knows the combination of the safe, was to pay over the money if the man presented himself during my absence. The man did not come, and Jode started off on this camping trip, three days ago. When I reached home yesterday morning, I found the window of my study unlocked, the safe door swinging open, the thousand dollars gone, and this knife lying under the window, inside the room. Hand the knife to Darrel, Merriwell, and see if he recognizes it.”

The colonel seemed averse to having any direct dealings with Darrel. He gave the pocketknife to Frank, and the latter presented it to Hawkins’ prisoner.

“It’s mine,” admitted Darrel huskily.

“Haff, an official of our athletic club, told Hawkins and me,” the colonel proceeded, “that a fellow answering Darrel’s description had been in town the night before I got home, that he had made inquiries about me, that he had told the fellow I was away from home, and that Jode was off on a camping trip, and that Darrel started down the cañon to join the Gold Hill campers. Hawkins and I got horses and hurried on to Tinaja Wells. Ask Darrel, Merriwell, if he denies being in my house night before last?”

“No, colonel,” spoke up Darrel, without waiting for Merriwell to put the question, “I do not deny it. I was there. I pushed open the sash lock with this knife, and went in through your study and up to my old room. I had the key to my room—have had it in my pocket for a year. All I wanted to get was my running suit. After I had taken that, I locked up the room and left by the window. Naturally, I could not relock the window from the outside. That’s all, sir. I did not tamper with your safe.”

A sneer of incredulity crossed Lenning’s face. It faded into a sorrowful look, however, as the colonel gave him a swift glance.

“You admit being in the house,” said the colonel harshly, “so why not admit the rest of it?”

“Because it is not the truth,” Darrel answered, with spirit.

“Did you know the combination of the safe, Darrel?” asked Frank.

“Yes—that is, if it hasn’t been changed during the past year.”

“It hasn’t,” put in the colonel. “That was my fault, I suppose.”

“Then, three of you knew the combination,” went on Frank, “yourself, colonel, and Darrel and Lenning.”

“That is the way of it.”

The crowd on the mesa was listening with absorbed attention to the talk which was going forward over the hapless head of the “boy from Nowhere.” Nearly all, perhaps, felt that Darrel’s admission that he had gone to the house for his running suit was a trivial excuse to cover a design on the safe. Dark looks were thrown at Darrel, and only here and there was anything bordering on sympathy shown for him.

“Now,” said Frank, keeping the points he wanted to make well in mind and working toward them with all the skill he could muster, “you said, colonel, that Lenning and his camping party left Gold Hill three days ago?”

“Yes.”

“Less than half a day would be required to make the trip from Gold Hill to Tinaja Wells, for a mounted party with pack animals. How does it happen, then, that the Gold Hillers only reached the Wells yesterday afternoon?”

Colonel Hawtrey seemed puzzled. He turned to Lenning.

“Explain that, will you, Jode?” he requested. “Why didn’t you reach the Wells day before yesterday?”

“Well, sir,” Lenning answered, “we were about halfway between town and Tinaja Wells when we found out that Merriwell and his crowd were camped at the place we wanted.”

“Ah! And what did you do then?”

“I had the boys make temporary camp in a side cañon while I—er—went back to Gold Hill.”

“That,” said Frank, “would bring you in Gold Hill night before last—the night of the robbery?”

Lenning reddened and looked confused.

“Why,” he faltered, “I reckon it would.”

“What was your business in Gold Hill, Lenning?”

“I don’t know,” snapped Lenning, “that you’ve got any call to pump me.”

“Answer his question, Jode,” put in the colonel.

“Well, if you want to know,” scowled Lenning, “I went back to the Hill to lease Tinaja Wells from Struthers.”

A growl ran through the ranks of the Ophirites. Frank silenced the growing indignation with a quick glance.

“That was hardly fair,” he went on to Lenning. “We were in peaceable possession of the camping ground, and you deliberately set about getting a lease and kicking us out.”

“Tut, tut, Merriwell!” interposed Hawtrey. “Jode is not that sort of a lad. I am sure he would not intentionally inconvenience you.”

“Ouch!” cried Clancy, and the colonel stared sternly at him in rebuke.

“Well,” went on Frank, “we’ll not tangle up with that part of the proposition. The fact remains that, on the night of the robbery, two persons who knew the combination of your safe were in Gold Hill. As soon as Lenning got his lease, he came on to Tinaja Wells—which brought him here yesterday afternoon. Now, colonel, why do you suspect Darrel, and not Lenning?”

“Because,” and the colonel’s voice showed that he was nettled. “Jode is worthy of my confidence, while Darrel has proved that he is not. Were you at the house, Jode, during the time you were in Gold Hill after the lease?”

“No, sir,” answered Lenning.

“There you have it,” said the colonel, in a tone of finality. “All this talk, Merriwell, is getting us nowhere. I have excused Darrel once, but I cannot do it a second time. Although he is my sister’s son, he must bear the consequences of this piece of wrongdoing. I feel it a duty to press the matter to an issue. Where will he end if he keeps on as he is going?”

There was a triumphant look on Lenning’s face. Darrel, on the other hand, seemed utterly crushed.

“There’s no use, Merriwell,” breathed Darrel, in a broken voice. “The plot is too deep, and you are only injuring yourself by trying to defend me.”

“Kunnel,” spoke up Hawkins, who had been following every angle of Frank’s work with closest attention, “don’t you lay anythin’ up agin’ Merriwell. He’s sized Darrel up wrong, but he’s the clear quill, as I happen to know.”

“I have only the highest respect for Merriwell,” said the colonel. “He tries to stand by his friends to the utmost of his ability—and his ability, let me tell you, is of no mean order. But, my lad, you can accomplish nothing in the face of the facts,” he added, in a kindly voice, to Frank.

“Let us see,” Frank went on. “Pink,” he said to Ballard, “just step up and show the colonel what you have in your pocket.”

Then another surprise was sprung. Ballard, taking a package of bills from his pocket, handed it to the colonel.

“Is that the stolen money, colonel?” he asked.

[CHAPTER XI.]
A PARTIAL VICTORY.

The colonel started back from the package of bills as though from a coiled and striking serpent. A breath of icy air seemed to cross the hot mesa, bringing a weird shiver to more than one of the crowd surrounding the actors in that little drama of check and countercheck. Necks were craned forward, and fascinated interest showed in every face.

But there was something more than interest in the face of Jode Lenning. A flicker of consternation, and of wild despair, pulsed through his features—but only for a moment. He was quick to get himself in hand.

“It—it’s the same package of bills which I drew from the bank,” murmured the distracted colonel, taking the bundle from Ballard and looking at the inclosing band. “Where did you get it, young man?”

“He’s a chum of Merriwell’s,” spoke up Lenning, with ugly significance, “and Merriwell is helping Darrel. It’s easy to guess where Ballard got the money.”

Ballard jumped for Lenning with a savage exclamation.

“You mealy-mouthed runt,” he cried, “you can’t plaster me with the same pitch you’ve got on yourself. I’ll——”

Merriwell leaped in between Ballard and Lenning.

“Now, Pink,” said Merry, “just stow your temper. We’ve got to keep our heads, you know, if we pull Darrel through. It’s Colonel Hawtrey we want to convince, not Jode Lenning.”

Ballard, with a fierce, warning glance at Lenning, drew back.

“Fritz!” called Frank.

“On teck, you bed you,” boomed the Dutch boy.

“Where were you last night, Carrots?” inquired Frank.

“Hunding puried dreasures mit Pallard,” beamed Fritz. “I haf a tream mit meinselluf dot I findt more goldt as I can tell a shtone under mit a gross on. Pallard goes mit me, last nighdt, to get der dreasure. Ve go down der gulch, und ven ve vas a leetle vays from der camp, along comes a feller pehind us alretty. Ve hite, und dot feller hites der money under a rock. Ve get him oudt, und Pallard takes him, und ve keep it on der q. ts., excepting dot it vas toldt to Merrivell. Dot’s all aboudt it.”

“What foolishness is this?” demanded the colonel.

Merry smilingly explained Fritz’s delusion about buried treasure, and how a joke had been played upon him and Silva, in the cañon. Then Ballard, dipping into the details, recited his midnight adventure with Fritz. Ballard threw so much fun into his account that more than one laugh went up from the bystanders. A little merriment, dropped into a serious situation, is an excellent thing occasionally.

“Merriwell,” said the colonel, “you could not be the son of your father and be anything else but trustworthy. I do not know your father personally, but I have seen him pitch many a game of ball, and I honor him as a man, and as one of the greatest wizards of the national game that ever lived. All this nonsense about the German youth and his buried treasure makes not the least impression on me; but, if you say that this money came into Ballard’s hands in the manner just described to me, I will believe it.”

“You have heard the exact truth, colonel,” answered Frank, thrilled at this expression of the colonel’s confidence in him.

“Very good,” went on Hawtrey. “Now, Ballard,” he continued, facing Pink, “who was the man you and the German youth saw hiding the money in the cañon?”

“Neither of us was able to recognize him, colonel,” Ballard answered.

“What?” cried the colonel. “You could not recognize the fellow when you, by your own statement, were close enough to reach out and touch him?”

“Remember, sir, that it was midnight, and that the walls of the cañon make the trail pretty dark. I couldn’t tell who the fellow was from Adam, and that’s the truth.”

“Why didn’t you spring upon him and capture him?”

“You forget, colonel,” put in Frank, “that the fellow was gone before Ballard and Fritz found out what he had cached. And you also forget that, at that time, none of us knew that Darrel was suspected of robbing your safe—or, for that matter, that any robbery had occurred. Another thing: Last night Darrel was sleeping in our tent, in a blanket bed between Clancy and me. He could not have stirred without wakening us. From ten o’clock last night until six this morning Ellis Darrel never left that tent.”

“Then, of course,” deduced the colonel, “he could not have been the one who hid the money.”

“Nor the one who took it from your safe, sir,” added Merriwell; “for the one who did the stealing must certainly have kept the money in his hands until he attempted to secrete it in the cañon.”

“That,” said the colonel, “is plausible, but not conclusive. Darrel might have given the money to some one to take care of for him, and that some one may have been the person who hid it under the rock. I do not say that this is so,” he added, “but that it might have happened. As the matter now stands, the whole thing is a mystery. By your excellent work, Merriwell, you have thrown doubt upon my suspicions of Darrel. Possibly—I may say probably—he had no hand in taking the money from my safe. But who did commit the robbery?”

“I reckon Merriwell’s right,” spoke up Hawkins, his face glowing with delight over the way Frank had conducted the defense of Darrel. “You never could send this feller up, kunnel, agin’ the showing Merriwell has made for him.”

“I shall not try to,” said Hawtrey. “I am happier than I know how to express over the outcome of this little conference here on the mesa.”

Impulsively Darrel started toward his uncle with outstretched hand.

“Uncle Alvah,” said he, his voice tremulous with emotion, “I thank you for giving me any consideration at all. I——”

The colonel, giving Darrel a stern look, put his hands behind him.

“Thank Merriwell,” said he curtly, “and not me. You are freed of this charge of robbery, but you are just where you were before, in my estimation—just where you were when that railroad accident was reported to us, and everybody believed you had been a victim of it. I have tried to forget you, for that thing you did, more than a year ago, is something I cannot overlook, or forgive. However, I am not willing that you should be penniless; I feel that I should make up to you, in some way, for the unpleasant position in which my suspicions placed you. Take this thousand dollars, Darrel, and try, from now on, to be a true sportsman. Cultivate Merriwell—he will point you along the right road. But as long as you are under that cloud—you know what I mean—there can be nothing in common between you and me. That is all.”

The colonel’s form was bowed, as he turned away, and there were lines of suffering in his face. He had flung down the packet of bank notes, but Darrel caught it up and ran after him.

“Your money is of no use to me, colonel,” he said, with a touch of pride, “and I want none of it. I can work and earn my own way, just as I have done for the last year.”

There were tears in his eyes as he thrust the money into the colonel’s hand and came back to Merriwell.

“Chip,” said Clancy, “here’s where you win and lose, both at the same time. You’ve kept Darrel out of Hawkins’ hands, but you haven’t been able to win over that high-strung old boy to Darrel’s side.”

“Maybe,” said Frank, taking Darrel’s hand, “that will come later. We——”

“Look!” called Ballard, pointing off toward the edge of the mesa. “There’s a man on horseback just riding up from the flat and handing something to Hawtrey. What’s this? Another knock for Darrel?”

“I reckon,” returned Darrel, with a wan smile, “that I’ve had about all the knocks I’m entitled to. Merriwell, you’re a friend worth having!”

“Whoosh!” laughed Frank. “I’m a pretty bum lawyer, Darrel, and only won out because we had such a clear case. Surprised you, didn’t we?”

Before Darrel could answer, Colonel Hawtrey was seen to turn back from the edge of the mesa and start toward the crowd that still lingered about the scene of the race. He held an open letter in his hand.

“Here’s where the lightning strikes again,” muttered Clancy.

[CHAPTER XII.]
THE DOVE OF PEACE.

“Friends,” said the colonel, as those on the mesa clustered around him, “a messenger has just arrived from Gold Hill bringing me a note from Struthers. He has lost his lawsuit against Packard, and consequently his claim to Tinaja Wells is null and void. Inasmuch as our party holds a lease from Struthers, there is nothing left for the Gold Hill campers but to pack up and look for some other camping ground. I do not think, Merriwell,” the colonel added, thrusting the letter into his pocket, “that this can be done before to-morrow, but Jode and his friends will leave at the earliest possible moment.”

“Take your time about it, colonel,” Frank answered; and then he went on to Darrel, Clancy, and Ballard: “And so, fellows, the dove of peace swoops down on Tinaja Wells.”

“I’m glad as blazes Jode is getting out of here,” said Darrel. “I reckon, though, that I’ll have to pick up and begin drifting again.”

“No, you don’t,” returned Frank; “that is,” he laughed, “not unless you’re tired of this Ophir bunch and want to get away from us.”

“I don’t want to stick around and sponge a living off you fellows.”

“Never mind that, Darrel. If you’re around, we’ll make you work. Perhaps we can do something to wipe out that forgery business.”

“That’s a large order,” said Darrel gloomily. “I doubt if I ever get to the bottom of that.”

“Well, consider this,” pursued Merry. “Isn’t it possible that the skunk who put up that robbery dodge on you may have had something to do with the forging of that check?”

“Why, yes, it’s possible. But who was back of the robbery? Ballard and Fritz couldn’t see who the fellow was.”

“We didn’t produce all our evidence, in clearing you, for the good and sufficient reason that we didn’t want to bear down too hard on Jode—just at present. We may need him in our business later.”

“Jode?” echoed Darrel wonderingly. “What has he to——”

“When the money was found by Ballard,” broke in Frank, “it was wrapped in a handkerchief. That handkerchief had been to the laundry, and there were two initials marked on the hem. Show him the initials, Pink.”

Ballard took the soiled handkerchief from his pocket, ran the hem through his fingers, and then showed a section of it to Darrel. The initials, “J.  L.,” were in plain evidence.

“Well, strike me lucky!” muttered Darrel. “So it was Jode! Still,” he added, “you wouldn’t call that evidence conclusive, would you?”

“Mighty strong,” put in Ballard, “even if not conclusive. But there’s other evidence, Darrel. Lenning knew the combination of the safe and was in Gold Hill on the night of the robbery. He said he wasn’t at the house, but—well, maybe that was a lie.”

“Suppose,” remarked Merry, “Lenning was at the house, and saw you there? That’s possible, isn’t it? Then suppose that he hatched up this little scheme of taking the money, after finding the knife you carelessly left behind. There’s the colonel’s evidence against you—mighty good evidence, and all manufactured!”

“Those are suppositions,” said Darrel, “and it’s evidence in black and white that we ought to have, in a matter of this kind.”

“Sure,” agreed Merry, “and that’s the reason we didn’t show the handkerchief to the colonel, or spout any of our theories. He’s all wrapped up in Lenning, and wouldn’t believe anything against him.”

“There’s something else that makes me feel positive that it was Lenning who brought the money into the gulch last night,” said Ballard. “As the fellow came along, Fritz and I heard a sort of tinkling sound like bits of metal striking together. It was mighty faint, but we heard it. Now, that fancy hat of Lenning’s, I noticed yesterday, has bits of silver dangling from the brim, allee same Mexicano. Don’t you think——”

“Pink,” cried Merry enthusiastically, “you’re a born detective! By thunder, this last clew of yours is the best of the lot. It was Lenning who worked that game on Darrel, no two ways about it. Eh, Darrel?”

“Looks that way,” answered Darrel cautiously, “but we can’t be sure. Jode may have learned that I had come back, and possibly that scared him, so he tried to do me up with that supposed robbery.”

“Why was he scared?” demanded Merriwell. “It was because he evolved the notion that you were back to look into that forgery matter. And that wouldn’t scare him unless he had had a finger in it. Jode Lenning is our mark! We’ll keep after him until we clear you, Darrel. While we’re getting the football squad in shape here, we’ll do a little gum-shoe work on the side, and see if we can’t give you a clear title to the colonel’s friendship. How’s that?”

“I don’t know what I can ever do to square things with you fellows,” murmured Darrel, “but it was certainly a lucky day for me when I found Ophirites, instead of Gold Hillers, at Tinaja Wells!”

“Can that!” grunted Clancy. “You’re one of us, Darrel, and, like the Musketeers, with Chip and his chums, it’s ‘one for all, and all for one.’ And Darrel’s a chum, eh, Chip?”

“Just as long as he wants to be,” answered Merriwell heartily.

[CHAPTER XIII.]
GERMANY VERSUS MEXICO.

“I say, Chip! For the love of Mike come up on the mesa! There’s something going on up there that would give a cast-iron cat a conniption fit.”

It was afternoon in the camp at Tinaja Wells. All the Ophir squad of football players had been taken up Mohave Cañon by Handy, the captain, on a hike. Only a camp guard consisting of Merriwell, Ballard, Clancy, and their new chum, Ellis Darrel, had been left behind. Fritz Gesundheit, the fat German cook, and Silva, the Mexican packer and camp roustabout, had not gone up the cañon, having nothing to do with the Ophir eleven, but they had vanished from the flat soon after a dozen lads, in running togs, had trotted out of sight. Professor Phineas Borrodaile, whose duties as tutor for Merry and his chums were over for the day, had gone off somewhere on a geological excursion. Clancy also had strolled off, but suddenly he reappeared in camp, his freckled face red with suppressed mirth. He was scarcely able to talk, but as he reeled around and gasped for breath he managed to make his request for the others to go back with him to the mesa.

Merriwell, Ballard, and Darrel jumped up from the shade of the cottonwood where they had been sitting and stared at the red-headed chap in amazement. Clancy, unable to control himself, leaned weakly against the trunk of the cottonwood and laughed until he choked.

“What the mischief ails you, Clan?” demanded Merry.

“Where’d you get the funny powder, anyhow?” inquired Ballard.

“Pass the joke around, pard,” urged Darrel.

With a violent effort Clancy managed to smother his hilarity.

“Carrots and Hot Tamale have got the athletic bug,” explained Clancy, “and the stunts they’re doing on the mesa would bring tears to a pair of glass eyes. One is trying to make a better showing than the other, and, if I’m any prophet, they’ll get to slugging before they’re many minutes older.”

The campers had not only given Fritz the nickname of “Carrots” but they had also dubbed Silva the “Hot Tamale.”

“We don’t want those two fellows to get to hammering each other,” Merriwell remarked. “Ever since Carrots took the Mexican’s place as cook there’s been bad blood between those two.”

“What would we do for our meals,” asked Ballard anxiously, “if Hot Tamale put Carrots in the hospital?”

“You’re always thinking of the eats,” grinned Clancy. “But never mind that, Pink. Come on up, all of you, and see the circus. We’ll hide and watch ’em, and if they get to using their fists, we can interfere.”

The lads started forthwith for the low bank of the mesa, just back of the camp, hurrying along after the excited Clancy.

“Fat Fritz must have another delusion,” observed Ballard. “Yesterday it was buried treasure, and to-day it’s athletics. But who’d ever have thought that Silva could catch the athletic fever?”

“I thought he was too much of a mañana boy to catch anything but the measles,” laughed Darrel. “I’ll bet a bunch of mazuma Hot Tamale is going in for athletics just because he wants to beat out Carrots at the same game.”

“That’s the only reason,” Merriwell answered. “One of them can’t bear to see the other try anything without trying it himself.”

Carefully the lads crept up the slope of the mesa and, from behind a screen of rocks, looked out on the athletic field. They took one long look and then doubled down behind the bowlders to laugh.

Fritz and Silva had raided the camp equipment for a couple of gymnasium suits. Probably they had not been able to choose their costumes with discrimination, but had been obliged to annex the first outfits that came to hand. Yet, be that as it might, each presented a picture that, to use Ballard’s words, would have made “a horse laugh.”

The Dutch boy was too big around for his clothes and too short the other way, while in Silva’s case the matter was exactly the reverse: the running pants flapped distressingly about his bony shanks, while the sleeveless shirt failed to connect with the pants by a good six inches.

Fritz was sweating and grunting and trying to do a pole vault. The bar was about four feet from the ground, and, from the looks of things, seemed some three feet too high.

Silva was doing a Nautch dance in a seven-foot ring and trying to throw a hammer. He would whirl around a dozen times or so, and then, when he tried to let the hammer fly, was so dizzy he fell on it.

With dismal regularity Fritz would knock his shins against the bar, and Silva would stagger and fall. Sometimes the vaulting pole would come down and crack the Dutch boy on the head; and, as a general thing, the Mexican would forget to let go of the hammer, and the wire would wrap around his body and the weight would hit him in the small of the back. These accidents, naturally, were hardly warranted to sweeten the temper of the would-be athletes. Fritz was exploding choppy remarks, and Silva was hissing maledictions in liquid Spanish. Finally, the inevitable happened, and during a period of rest the two began saying things about each other.

Fritz, sitting on the ground and more or less tangled up with the pole and the bar, looked over at Silva. The latter had just thrown himself to his knees, and the weight had drummed into his back with a thump that had drawn Fritz’ attention.

“Vat you try to do mit yourselluf, you greaser lopster?” shouted the scornful Fritz. “Dot veight iss for drowing, und not for pounding yourselluf your ribs on. You will not make an athletic feller in a t’ousant years.”

“Ay de mi!” flung back Silva, through his teeth. “You make big talk, but you not so much. I t’row de weight before you jump de bar, dat is cinch. Caramba! You one tub, one gringo rhi-rhi-no-cer-oos! Si, dat is all—rhi-rhi-no-cer-oos!” Silva pushed out a hand and pointed an insulting finger at Fritz. “Rhi-rhi-no-cer-oos!” he repeated, in a burst of fury and contempt.

“By shiminy grickeds,” fumed Fritz, “no greaser feller iss going to call me someding like dot! I take it your hide oudt, py shinks!”

He floundered about on the ground until he had succeeded in getting to his feet. Silva, scenting a resort to fisticuffs in the Dutch boy’s move, likewise arose. The two, separated by perhaps a dozen feet, stood glaring at each other.

“Lopster!” taunted Fritz, “greaser lopster!”

“Gringo chingado!” screeched Silva. “Rhi-rhi-no-cer-oos!”

Fritz picked up the bar and started toward the Mexican. Somehow, the bar got between his fat legs and he tripped himself and again went down. Silva, still holding the hammer, made a defensive movement with it, and the weight swung back against one of his knees. With a howl of pain he dropped the hammer and fell to rubbing his kneecap.

“I tell you vat I do, py shiminy Grismus!” wheezed Fritz, once more getting erect and kicking the bar angrily to one side. “I kick you mit der footpall. Der vone vat kicks der pall farder as der oder feller iss der pest man, hey?”

“I keek, or I fight, or I t’row de weight, or I jump,” yelled Silva. “What I care, huh? I beat you at ever’t’ing.”

“Talk,” returned Fritz, “iss der cheapest ding vat iss. Ve kick each odder mit der footpall, und I send him sky-high und make you feel like t’irty cents. Fairst I kick, den you. I peen der pest kicker vat efer habbened. Vatch a leetle.”

Merry and his friends, behind the pile of rocks at the edge of the mesa, had been enjoying themselves hugely. They had thought, for a few moments, that the time had come for them to interfere and stop a fight, and it was with a good deal of satisfaction that they saw a personal encounter give way to a kicking match.

“Great Scott!” exclaimed Merriwell, watching while Fritz stepped to one side and picked up a football, “they’ve got our best five-dollar pigskin. Those fellows must be given to understand that they can’t tamper with our football equipment.”

“See this out first, Chip,” pleaded Ballard. “Don’t interfere until the kicking match is over with. Look at Fritz, will you. From the preparations he’s making you’d think he was going to kick the ball clear into the middle of next week.”

Very carefully Fritz was heaping up a little pile of sand; then, still with the same elaborate care, he stood the ball on this mound, drew back, and swung his foot. Once, twice, the foot went back and forth; the third time, Fritz nerved himself for a supreme attempt. One would have thought he was making ready to kick in the side of a house. Forward flew the foot, missed the ball altogether, and the kicker came down on his back.

A cackle of insulting laughter came from the Mexican. “Rhi-rhi-no-cer-oos!” he taunted. “Dat is not de way I make de keek. Watch, and you see.”

With that Silva ran at the ball and lifted it high and far. No doubt it was an accident, but it made Fritz green with envy.

“I can do petter as dot!” he shouted. “Vait, now, vile I haf some shances mit it!”

Silva, however, wouldn’t wait. Fired with his initial success, he ran after the ball and lifted it again before Fritz could come near enough to kick. The ardor of the Mexican took him and the ball off the mesa and southward along the high, steep wall of the cañon, below Tinaja Wells. Fritz was in hot pursuit, and Frank and his chums came out from behind the bowlders and hurried along after the Dutch boy in order to see the outcome of the one-sided “match.”

Silva, the bounding ball, and Fritz were lost in the rough country adjacent to the cañon’s brink; and when the trailers had come up with the Dutchman and the Mexican they found the two locked in a deadly struggle.

Silva, it seems, had kicked the ball into the cañon, and while he was peering over the rim looking for it, fat Fritz had overhauled him and, in his wrath, had gone for him hammer and tongs.

While Merriwell, Ballard, and Darrel were separating the combatants, Clancy was kneeling on the rim rock and peering downward in an attempt to locate the ball. Suddenly he got up and whirled around.

“Here’s a go!” he exclaimed. “A five-dollar ball has gone to blazes, Chip. It’s about thirty feet down a sheer wall, on a bit of a shelf. We’ll have to sprout wings before we ever get hold of that ball again. You’ll have to dock Carrots’ and Hot Tamale’s wages for the price of it.”

A howl of protest went up from Fritz and Silva.

[CHAPTER XIV.]
AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR.

“Keep these scrappers apart, Pink, you and Darrel,” said Merry, moving over to Clancy’s side. “If that ball is only thirty feet away, Clan,” he added to his red-headed chum, “we’ll be able to get it, all right.”

“I don’d pay for nodding,” puffed the enraged Fritz. “Dot greaser feller kicked him ofer, und you vill take der money oudt oof der pay vat comes py him.”

“Diablo!” snapped Silva. “Dat Dutchmans get de ball from de camp—I no get him. Take dat dinero out of me, and I quit muy pronto.”

“You peen some pad eggs,” wheezed Fritz, “und I preak your face in!”

“Yah, yah, yah!” taunted the Mexican. “You not able to break de face in.”

Ballard and Darrel, enjoying the situation more than they cared to show before Fritz and Silva, clung to the two would-be sluggers and held them apart. Merriwell, on his knees at the rim of the cañon, turned to look around at the Dutch boy and the Mexican.

“Cut out this fighting,” said he sternly. “The one that strikes the first blow will have the five dollars taken out of his pay. Keep hands off of each other and neither of you will have to pay a cent if the ball is lost. Understand that, Fritz? And you, Silva?”

The warlike ardor of the two was appreciably lessened. Fritz ceased his floundering struggles to get at the Mexican, and Silva suddenly grew docile. Merry’s threat was a master stroke.

“Let them go, fellows,” went on Merry, smothering a desire to laugh. “You and Silva go back to camp, Fritz, and if you’re not peaceable, just remember that your pay will be docked. And hereafter leave our athletic equipment alone. I don’t object to your doing a little training—in fact, I think it would be a good thing for each of you—but when you go at it again you’d better have an instructor. I’ll be glad to put you through a course of sprouts any time you feel the need of it.”

Without indulging in any remarks, Fritz and Silva started off in the direction of the mesa and the camp. They did not travel in company but straggled along at a distance from each other. As soon as they were out of sight, Ballard turned around with a laugh.

“That five-dollar play of yours, Chip,” said he, “was a winner. Fritz is a tightwad, and Silva pinches a dollar till he makes the eagle squeal. They’ll be peaceable for a while, take it from me.”

“How about the ball, Chip?” inquired Darrel, hastening to join the two on the edge of the cañon wall.

“There it is,” Merry answered, pointing downward.

The wall was a sheer drop, and the ball could be seen lying on a narrow shelf at least thirty feet below. A small bowlder lay near the edge of the shelf, and the oval had been caught between that and the clifflike wall from which the shelf projected. Below the shelf was another fall of thirty or forty feet to the bottom of the cañon.

“How the mischief do you suppose the ball happened to lodge there?” inquired Clancy. “If it had been kicked over the cliff, I should think it would have fallen too far out to hit the shelf.”

“Probably,” Merriwell suggested, “it just rolled over the rim and dropped straight down. Anyhow, there it is, and it’s up to us to get it.”

Darrel straightened on his knees and looked around him at the lay of the land adjacent to the brink.

“It’s easy enough to get the ball, fellows,” said he. “There’s a paloverde, just back of us, growing in the edge of that clump of greasewood. We can splice a couple of reatas, hitch one end to the paloverde, and I can shin down and be back with the ball in no time.”

“Where’ll we get the reatas?” returned Clancy. “I’ve got one, but it’s a scant thirty feet long. Fritz—darn him!—cut off a piece of it the other day to use for something or other.”

“As far as that goes,” put in Merry, “I guess we could pick up an extra piece of rope around the camp. But maybe we won’t have to try this reata business. Get some sticks and let’s see if we can’t dislodge the ball and knock it into the bottom of the cañon.”

They gathered pieces of dried timber and rained them down on the shelf. Several clubs reached the ball, but the bowlder held it firmly.

“No earthly use,” said Ballard. “The pigskin is wedged there as though it was in a vise.”

“Thou art so near, and yet so far!” hummed Clancy, staring down at the ball. “I wonder,” he continued, “if we couldn’t come up from below? The cliff doesn’t seem so steep under the shelf.”

“I was thinking of that, Clan,” Merry answered.

“It won’t take me more than half an hour to scare up that reata and an extra piece of rope,” said Darrel. “I reckon the spliced ropes are our best bet, Chip.”

Merry had been taking stock of the cliff face above the shelf. Wind and weather had worn it smooth and slippery, and there was not a projection in the whole thirty feet from the brink to the shelf which a climber could use in getting back to the top of the wall.

“Strikes me,” said Merry, “it’s a difficult job, not to say dangerous. How are you on the climb, Darrel?”

“Well,” he admitted, “I can throw a rope a heap better than I can climb one, but I’ll gamble my spurs I can come over that thirty feet of wall without much trouble.”

“It’s as smooth as glass,” remarked Ballard. “All your weight would be on your arms from the moment you left the shelf—you couldn’t use your feet at all.”

“My arms would stand it.”

“Suppose you had the ball under one arm, Curly?” Clancy queried.

“What’s the matter with kicking the ball into the cañon?” returned Darrel. “I wouldn’t have to tote it back.”

“That’s right, too,” said Clancy.

“Before we try the rope trick, Darrel,” spoke up Merry, rising to his feet, “we’ll go back to camp; come down the cañon and see if the wall under the shelf can’t be scaled.”

“It can’t,” asserted Darrel, with conviction. “I can see enough of it from here to make me sure of that.”

“We’ll look over the ground from below, anyhow,” said Merriwell. “Come on, fellows; there’s no use hanging around here.”

“Wait a minute, Chip,” called Ballard, who was still standing at the cañon’s brink. “There’s a man on a horse coming up the gulch. Wonder if he’s bound for Tinaja Wells? I wouldn’t swear to it, but I’ve a notion the rider is Colonel Hawtrey.”

At this Darrel whirled with a muttered exclamation and peered down at the white streak of trail angling back and forth among the trees and masses of bowlders. The horseman was proceeding slowly northward, his head bowed in deep thought. In a few moments he would be abreast of the lads on the top of the wall, and almost under the shelf.

“It is the colonel!” muttered Darrel, in an odd, strained voice. “Why do you suppose he’s riding this way? I’ll take my solemn Alfred he’s bound for our camp.”

“Don’t be too sure of it, old man,” said Merriwell. “He pulled out with the Gold Hillers early this morning to see them safely settled in a camp of their own. That bunch went south, didn’t they? Well, it stands to reason that the colonel has to come this way in order to get back to Gold Hill.”

“No, Chip,” disagreed Darrel, “the colonel’s easiest course to Gold Hill from below Tinaja Wells would be by the other trail from Dolliver’s. He’s got business at our camp, and that’s the reason he’s coming this way. Maybe,” and Darrel’s face filled with foreboding, “what he’s got in mind has something to do with me.”

“Don’t be in a taking about it, Darrel,” Merriwell answered, laying a hand on his new chum’s shoulder. “It’s a cinch that anything the colonel may have in his mind can’t hurt you. If he’s going to be a visitor, we’d better go down and see what he wants.”

Without delaying further, the boys started on their return to camp. In spite of Merriwell’s reassuring words, however, the troubled look did not leave Darrel’s face.

[CHAPTER XV.]
TRUE SPORTSMANSHIP.

When Merriwell and his friends reached the flat they found Colonel Hawtrey sitting on a bench under a cottonwood. His horse, with reins hanging from the bit rings, stood a little way off. It was evident that the colonel intended making his visit brief.

As the boys approached, the colonel arose from the bench. His eyes met Darrel’s for a moment, and then swerved abruptly to Merriwell.

“I’d like a few words with you, Merriwell,” said he.

“Can’t you stay with us for a while, colonel?” Merry inquired. “We’d be delighted to have you take supper and——”

“I thank you for the invitation,” he broke in, “but I must be back in Gold Hill to-night. I came the cañon trail purposely to speak with you.”

The others withdrew, Darrel with a lingering look of apprehension at Merriwell.

“Sit down here,” invited the colonel, resuming his place on the bench. “You don’t smoke, of course,” he went on, taking a cigar from his pocket when he and Frank were seated, “for, if you did, you wouldn’t be following the footsteps of your father before you.” He scratched a match thoughtfully and applied it to the tip of the cigar. “‘Chip,’ they call you, eh?” he proceeded presently, with the hint of a smile under his gray mustache. “I suppose that means that you’re a ‘chip of the old block’?”

“That’s where the nickname comes from, colonel,” young Merriwell answered, with a laugh.

“I don’t know your father personally,” said the colonel, with some enthusiasm, “but I have seen him on several occasions, both in the East and at his T Bar Ranch in Wyoming. I have also heard a great deal about him. I reckon he typifies everything a man can express in the term true sportsmanship.”

“Thank you, colonel,” answered Frank. “Dad is all you think him—and more.”

“If you’re a chip of the old block, you ought to stand for all that your father stands for.”

“Why, yes,” said the puzzled youngster, “as well as I can.”

“Well,” continued Colonel Hawtrey, “I’ve stopped here this afternoon to appeal to you as a true sportsman, and as a son of the Frank Merriwell I have seen a few times and of whom I have heard so much.”

He paused. Frank was already over his head wondering what the colonel was trying to get at. He said nothing, but waited respectfully for the other to broach the subject he had in mind.

“As you doubtless know,” remarked the colonel, “I founded the Gold Hill Athletic Club, and have been its best patron during the few years it has been in existence. Some people say”—and he smiled slightly—“that I am cracked on the subject of athletics. It’s a hobby with me, for I believe that, rightly directed, sports of the track and field do more to develop properly a young man’s character than anything else in the world. On the other hand, if wrongly directed they are a source of much harm. Just at the present time, and much as I regret to say it, the club at Ophir and the one at Gold Hill are heading in the wrong direction.

“A bitter partisan spirit has crept into the competitions between the two clubs. Some of the members—I won’t say all of them—have proved that they are not good losers. Rancor has shown its ugly head, Merriwell. I think that you, more than any one else, can help to foster a different spirit between the clubs.”

Frank tried to speak, but the colonel lifted his hand.

“Just a moment, my lad,” said he. “I want to place the whole matter frankly before you, and then get your sentiments regarding it. You don’t belong in Ophir any more than you do in Gold Hill. As I understand it, you are in Ophir only temporarily, and Bradlaugh, president of the Ophir club, got you to coach the Ophir eleven for the coming Thanksgiving Day game with Gold Hill. This is all right, and Bradlaugh is to be congratulated. I believe that you will give Ophir a good team, perhaps a winning team. In the interests of true sport I wish you every success. For the past two years Gold Hill has had nearly everything its own way—too much so, for sharp competition is the life of athletic sports; it’s the only thing that brings out the best that is in us.

“I have heard, with much regret, that there was almost a clash between the two clubs when Gold Hill, by mistake, came here to claim this camping site. This is all wrong, and not at all as it should be. Sport is bound to suffer if the hard feeling is not done away with.

“Now, you have befriended Ellis Darrel. So far, Merriwell, it has been commendable in you to take his part as you have done. I am hoping that your friendship will do much for the boy. Although personally I am done with him, yet I cannot forget that he is my sister’s son. I confess an interest in him on that account. But I wish to warn you against letting Darrel prejudice you against his half brother, Jode Lenning. Jode is a dutiful nephew in every way, and, above and beyond that, he is a true sportsman.” The colonel paused, then added impressively: “I know Jode better than any one else, and I assure you that what I say is true. I am an old man, Merriwell, and I have been for years in the military service of my country. I want you to believe that my judgment is sound, and I want you to accept Jode as I know him, and not as Darrel may offer him to you.”

“Colonel,” said Merry, “Ellis Darrel has said nothing against his half brother that would cause me to take a different estimate of him than you wish me to have.”

“Then I am to presume that your estimate is favorable? If anything is done to wipe out the bitterness between the two clubs, there is the point where the work must begin.”

Merriwell’s estimate of Jode Lenning was a good way from being favorable. The sly trick by which Lenning had tried to get possession of the camping ground at Tinaja Wells was well known to Merry and to all the Ophir fellows. Had not the colonel been so completely dominated by Lenning’s influence, he would have seen and recognized that trick himself. Furthermore, it was Merry’s settled conviction that Lenning had tried to involve Darrel in that theft of the thousand dollars; and Merry had a belief that, when the bottom of the forgery affair was reached, Lenning would be found to have had a hand in that.

But what good would it have done to tell all this to Colonel Hawtrey? He would merely have thought that Frank had been influenced by Darrel against Lenning. Besides, Frank had no proof in black and white connecting Lenning with the robbery, and only a suspicion of him in the matter of the forgery.

“I have tried to do what I could to patch up the differences between Ophir and Gold Hill, colonel,” said Frank, “and I’m willing to keep on trying. I believe I can promise that the Ophir fellows will show the right spirit, if you and Lenning can induce the Gold Hill club to meet them halfway.”

“Ah,” exclaimed the colonel, with deep satisfaction, “there you have it! Now we’re getting together in the right sort of style. My lads have found a most excellent camp in a gulch leading off Mohave Cañon, below here. They have a mile of deep water which serves admirably for water sports, and all they lack is a mesa like yours for an athletic field. Some of them are now clearing brush from a patch of desert for their football practice. Now,” and the colonel gave a winning smile, “why can’t the Ophirites and the Gold Hillers be neighborly? Why can’t you visit back and forth and have pleasant little contests of one kind and another? That need not interfere very much with your football work, and ought to afford an agreeable change in the monotony of camp life. It’s about eight miles to Camp Hawtrey, as the boys call their place, if you go through the cañon and the gulch, but across country it’s hardly more than half that. How does the proposition strike you, Merriwell?”

“First-rate,” Frank answered. “We Ophir fellows wouldn’t like anything better. That stretch of water, over at Camp Hawtrey, would be a fine place for boat races—and we haven’t any such layout here.”

“Exactly!” beamed the colonel. “I should be delighted to come out from town and see some of your contests. A friendly rivalry, Merriwell, will go far toward inculcating a different spirit between the clubs. Eh? I’m more than obliged to you for meeting my advances in the matter so agreeably. Jode is coming over here this afternoon to get an expression from you relative to a football game for to-morrow, or next day. What are the prospects?”

“Good, I should say,” said Frank. “I’ll broach the matter to Handy as soon as he gets back from up the cañon.”

“That’s the talk!” cried the colonel enthusiastically.

Merriwell was more than pleased with Colonel Hawtrey’s suggestion for a series of competitions between the two camps. Incidentally, if the contests were conducted in the right spirit, they would go far toward healing old wounds. Mainly, however, Merriwell wanted to come into closer contact with Jode Lenning, and see what he could discover, if anything, that would prove a benefit to Ellis Darrel. These proposed contests could not but help him in this desire.

The colonel, having achieved the purpose that brought him to Tinaja Wells, got up from the bench in high, good humor.

“You are really a chip of the old block, Merriwell,” he laughed, “and it’s something for you to be proud of.”

Merry thought he might take advantage of the colonel’s amiable nature at that moment and do a little something for his new chum.

“Have you any word to leave for Ellis Darrel, colonel?” he asked.

The good humor left the other’s face. He straightened his shoulders stiffly and his eyes narrowed under a black frown.

“The one word I have for Darrel,” said he harshly, “is this: that he keep away from me. If he’s got it in him, he’ll live down the past; if he hasn’t, he’ll go to the dogs. I shall be glad to learn that he’s making something of himself, but—but I never want to see him again.”

There was sadness in the colonel’s voice as he spoke, but sternness and determination were there, as well. Frank’s heart grew heavy as he watched the colonel pull the reins over the head of his horse and swing up into the saddle.

“Good-by, Merriwell,” he called, waving his hat as he rode off the flat and headed northward along the cañon trail.

“Lenning has the old boy right under his thumb,” Merriwell muttered, as he turned away.

Ballard, Clancy, and Darrel had disappeared. Merry asked Fritz about them, and was told that Ballard and Clancy had gone down the cañon to see if they couldn’t get up to the shelf and recover the football; but where Darrel was, Fritz did not know.

“He’s probably with Ballard and Clancy,” said Frank. “Keep away from Silva, Fritz, if you don’t want to get fined!”

“Dot greaser feller,” answered Fritz scornfully, “ain’d vort’ fife cents, say nodding aboudt fife tollar. You bed my life I leaf him alone.”

Frank, hastily leaving the camp, made his way down the cañon to do what he could to help recover the lost football.

[CHAPTER XVI.]
A TERRIBLE MISHAP.

Merriwell found Ballard and Clancy surveying the cliff from a spot almost under the shelf where the football had lodged. That they were extremely dubious about recovering it from below was evident from their actions.

“Here’s Chip, Pink,” said Clancy; “perhaps his eagle eye can pick out a trail up the side of that wall.”

“If it can,” returned Ballard, “Chip’s entitled to a leather medal.”

“Where’s Darrel, fellows?” was Merriwell’s first question when he reached the side of his chums.

“Search me,” answered Clancy, in some surprise. “He was back there on the flat when Pink and I left.”

“Probably he ducked into one of the tents,” said Ballard. “The look Hawtrey gave him, there under the cottonwood, was enough to make almost anybody squirm away and get out of sight. Holy smoke, but that colonel’s a cold-blooded proposition!”

“Darn shame, too, the way he hands it to Darrel,” growled Clancy. “Jode Lenning’s a skunk—any one can see that with half an eye—yet here the old colonel coddles up to Lenning and throws a frost into Darrel every time he gets the chance. Hawtrey must be dippy. What was the chin-chin all about, Chip?”

Merriwell repeated the gist of the colonel’s remarks.

“Listen to that!” exclaimed Clancy. “So he thinks Lenning is a true sportsman, does he? How do you suppose Lenning manages to pull the wool over his eyes?”

“Because he’s slick, and hasn’t any scruples to amount to anything,” said Ballard; “that’s how.”

“I don’t think we ought to have anything to do with Lenning and that bunch of his, Chip,” declared the red-headed boy wrathfully. “Because Lenning has the colonel landed and strung, that’s no sign we should let him repeat the operation with us.”

“Why, you old lobster,” said Merry, with a laugh, “the landing and stringing is to be the other way around. How are we going to help Darrel unless we can get close to Lenning? Don’t be so thick, Clan. No matter what our convictions are, can’t you see that we haven’t an atom of proof against Lenning? It’s easy enough to call him a skunk, but the next thing is to prove it.”

“Chip’s right,” said Ballard, “we’ve got to get the goods on Lenning. That’s the only way we can help Darrel. And how are we to get the goods on him if we don’t have anything to do with him or the Gold Hillers? If we have a series of contests with that rival camp, it will give us a tiptop chance to find out a few things about Lenning.”

“Sure thing,” said Frank. “Furthermore, if we take up these contests in the right spirit, there’s no reason on earth why Ophir and Gold Hill can’t come to be friends as well as rivals.”

“But the colonel is off his trolley about one thing, Chip,” put in Clancy, “and that is that Lenning is a power for peace on the other side. Simmer the business right down, and I’ll bet you find that Lenning is the biggest trouble maker in the Gold Hill crowd.”

“I think so myself, Clan,” said Merry, “but I haven’t any cold facts to prove it. Let’s get the facts, and then we can talk to some purpose.”

“That’s the idea!” agreed Ballard. “I’m glad we’re going to have a little preliminary try-out with Gold Hill on the gridiron. We’ll be able to see just how good they are, and can go after some of their weak points.”

Merriwell grinned.

“Strikes me, Pink,” said he, “that they’re thinking exactly the same thing about us. But we’d better cut out this powwow and see what we can do to get our hands on that ball.”

Merry drew back and passed a swift, keen glance over the face of the cañon wall. What he saw was not at all reassuring. There were a number of projections, below that upper shelf where the ball had lodged, but at its base the cliff sloped inward instead of outward. To scale the lower twenty feet of wall a fellow would have to cling to the rocks, like a fly to the ceiling.

“We could use wings to better advantage from down here, Chip,” observed Clancy, “than from the top of the cliff.”

“If a fellow could get over that first stretch of twenty or twenty-five feet,” mused Merriwell, studying the wall, “he would have tolerably clear sailing from that point to the top shelf. There are plenty of bushes and projections to help in the climbing, and the wall has a bit of a slope in the right direction. By Jove!” he suddenly exclaimed, “I believe I see a way to make it.”

“Don’t take any chances, Chip,” urged Ballard anxiously. “The foot of the wall is covered with stones, and it would be a bad place to take a drop.”

“It would be a drop too much,” punned Clancy, “and you know what that does to a fellow, Chip.”

“I don’t intend to take a drop,” answered Merriwell, walking down the cañon for about twenty feet and then turning directly toward the cliff.

At that point the inward slope of the wall was not so pronounced, and there was a fissure, with a projecting lower lip, angling across the face of the rocks, its upper end clearing the bad bit of wall under the shelf which it was necessary to gain.

“Going to try to climb up that crack, Chip?” yelled Ballard.

“Why not?” was the cool response. “It leads to a place where climbing is easy.”

“Stop it!” whooped Ballard. “You’re crazy to think of such a thing! You’ll tumble off the rocks just as sure as the world.”

“Come on back, Chip!” called Clancy. “The pesky old ball isn’t worth it.”

“Keep your shirts on, both of you,” was the calmly confident reply. “I’m not such a fool as to risk my neck for a five-dollar ball.”

Nevertheless, to Ballard and Clancy that seemed exactly what Merriwell was about to do. They watched him, almost holding their breath.

With a little spring, Merriwell landed on the lower edge of the fissure. Less than three feet above him was the overhang. This overhang came close to the shelf below at a distance of four yards upward in its oblique course, and at that place the lower lip of the fissure began to jut out and afford a foothold.

Slowly, digging into crevices with his toes and reaching for others with his hands, Frank began traversing the crack in the wall. Once his foot slipped, and both lads who were watching gave vent to a yell of fright.

“My nerves are all shot to pieces, Chip,” shouted Clancy. “Next time you do a thing like that I’ll throw a fit.”

Frank clung to his place and turned to look smilingly down at his chums.

“Rot!” said he. “Why, fellows, this is as easy as pie.”

He climbed on, crouching lower and lower as the overhang descended toward the shelf below. Presently he was in the narrowest part, hanging to the steep slope of the lower lip of the crevice and compelled to drop on all fours in order to keep inside of it.

“You can’t make yourself thin enough to get through it,” shouted Ballard discouragingly. “Ten feet farther up, Chip, the crack isn’t wide enough for a chipmunk.”

“It looks a whole lot harder from down there,” Frank called back, “than it does from here. When I get to that narrow place, I’ll step out and walk around it.”

“Yes, you will! You’ll play the deuce trying that. I think——”

What Ballard thought did not appear. Just at that moment, he and Clancy heard a swishing sound which attracted their eyes to the wall above the shelf. Exclamations of astonishment escaped them. A rope had dropped its length downward from above, and there, on the very crest of the cliff, the rope in his hands, sat Darrel!

“What’s going on down there, pards?” yelled Darrel.

“Chip’s trying to break his neck walking a rock tight rope,” Clancy answered, making a trumpet of his hands.

“This is my job,” whooped Darrel, “and I don’t think it’s fair for Chip to cut me out of it. Tell him to come down. In about two shakes I’ll be kicking the ball off the shelf and right into your hands.”

“Is that Darrel up there?” Frank asked.

“Sure it’s Darrel, Chip,” replied Ballard. “He’s got a rope hitched to the paloverde, and is all ready to come down.”

“Tell him I can get the ball easier than he can, and for him to pull up the rope and give me a chance at it.”

Darrel heard the words, and did not put those below to the trouble of repeating them.

“No, you don’t, Chip!” he shouted. “If you’re climbing up to the shelf, go back down to the foot of the wall. I’ll have the ball before you can come anywhere near it.”

There was finality in Darrel’s voice, and Frank knew it was useless to argue with him.

“Wait!” he cried. “Don’t slide down, Darrel, until I get to the bottom of the wall. Will you wait?”

“Sure I’ll wait. I’ll give you all the chance you want to see the performance.”

Frank went down the fissure much faster than he had climbed up, and without a mishap of any kind had soon regained the bottom of the cañon. Making his way to where Ballard and Clancy were standing, he turned his eyes upward. Darrel waved his hat to him.

“So that’s what you were up to, eh?” called Frank. “Why didn’t you tell us what you were about and we could have helped you get the ropes.”

“I don’t think you would,” came the laughing reply from Darrel. “You thought the work was too dangerous. Here I come!”

He swung half around, preparatory to lowering himself.

“Better wait until a couple of us come up there, Darrel!” Frank called.

“Don’t need anybody. You can’t see the paloverde, as it’s screened by the greasewood, but you can gamble that I tied the rope good and hard. Now, watch!”

Thereupon Darrel lowered himself down and was presently swinging against the smooth wall. He was agile enough, and twisted one leg around the dangling rope and slid slowly toward the shelf. Then, when he was some ten feet above the shelf, a most horrifying thing happened. Before he could cry out, or make any move to save himself if that had been possible, he dropped like a stone to the ledge, struck heavily upon his side, lengthwise of his body, rolled off limply, fell sprawling to a jutting bowlder four or five feet below and lay there, silent and motionless. A scraggly tree, growing from a crevice among the stones, was all that held him from dropping to the foot of the cliff!

The rope, strangely separated at the loop which had coiled around the paloverde, fell writhing through the air, pulled itself out of Darrell’s nerveless hand, and dropped at the feet of the three horror-stricken lads below.

[CHAPTER XVII.]
A DARING RESCUE.

A yell of consternation broke from Clancy’s lips. Merriwell and Ballard were silent. With white, drawn faces and wide, staring eyes, all three of the boys stood as though rooted to the ground.

The accident had happened so suddenly that those below were stunned. It took them a few moments to realize the awful thing that had occurred. Frank was the first to break the thrall of inaction that bound them.

“He can’t be badly hurt, fellows!” he called. “It wasn’t much of a fall—about ten feet to the ledge and four or five feet from the ledge to the bowlder. He’s stunned, that’s all, but worse things are likely to happen if we don’t get him down before he begins to revive.”

“How in thunder did the rope break away from the paloverde?” cried Ballard. “Darrel said he was careful to tie it securely, and——”

“Never mind that now, Pink,” Merriwell interrupted. “As long as Darrel’s unconscious he won’t make a move, but when he begins to come to himself, he’s liable to stir around. If he does that, he’s going off that bowlder, sure!”

Certainly it was a gruesome situation for Darrel. His body hung over the projecting bowlder, face downward, and only the tree’s twisted and stunted trunk, rising at the bowlder’s edge, kept him from falling to the bottom of the wall. It was a precarious support at best, however, and the slightest move on Darrel’s part would dislodge him in spite of the tree.

“Get him down?” breathed Ballard. “How the blazes can we do that, Chip? The best way is to get more ropes and go down to him from the paloverde.”

“It would take too long.” Frank, his mind working swiftly, had picked up the end of the spliced rope and was making it fast around his waist. “I’m going up after him,” he finished briefly, and started for the lower end of the fissure.

If Ballard and Clancy had watched Merriwell with bated breath before, when only the recovery of a five-dollar football was to be the result of his dangerous climb, how much greater was their trepidation now, when the life of a chum was at stake?

The worst feature of the nerve-racking situation for Ballard and Clancy was this, that they were absolutely powerless to help Merriwell. No more than one could make the climb through the fissure, and no more than one could work around the jutting bowlder and the stunted tree. For the lads in the bottom of the cañon, a little active work would have loosened the tension of their taut nerves and made the situation more endurable. There was nothing for them to do just then, however, but to wait and watch.

The swiftness and precision with which Frank scaled the fissure aroused the admiration of his chums, even in that breathless moment. Frank’s brain was as cool and his nerves as steady as though life or death was not hanging on the result of his efforts.

“Good old Merry!” whispered Ballard huskily. “He’s going as steady as a clock, and doesn’t seem to have the least notion that Darrel may tumble down on him at any moment.”

“Talk about your true sportsmen,” returned Clancy, “if a piece of work like that doesn’t prove a fellow is one, then I don’t know what does.”

With the rope trailing after him and gradually paying out from the coil below as he climbed higher and higher, Merriwell continued his rapid ascent of the crevice. On reaching the narrow part, he shifted around it with an agility and skill that were wonderful to see. Getting back into the fissure again, at a point where it widened, he made his way on hands and knees to the place directly over the point where the wall sloped inward to the base, and began another inward slope to the shelf.

Getting out of the crevice and upon the slope was a hair-raising performance, but Frank accomplished it successfully. Then began the crawl from projection to projection and from one stunted bush to another, up the face of the cliff. At last the daring youth was directly under the bowlder and the stunted tree that supported the unconscious form of Darrel. With his left arm over the bowlder and his feet in crevices of the rocks, Frank began removing the rope from his waist with his right hand.

“Good work, Chip!” shouted Ballard. “What are you going to do now? How do you expect to get Darrel down? Can’t we do something to help?”

“Nothing you fellows can do, Ballard,” Frank answered. “I’ve got to hang on with my eye winkers and work with one hand.”

“If Darrel should make a move,” cried Clancy, in a spasm of fear, “he’d bring you both down!”

“I’ll have the rope around him before he moves,” was the reply.

Working with one hand, as Frank was obliged to do, it was a difficult task to manage the rope. If the cable were dropped, all Frank’s work would have gone for nothing, and before he could do it over again Darrel would probably revive and slip from the bowlder.

First, Frank passed the rope around the trunk of the stunted tree. A brief examination of the tree had convinced him that it was strongly wedged into the rocks and could be depended upon to support Darrel’s weight.

In getting the hempen strands around the tree, Frank was obliged to push the rope over the trunk, then hold it in his teeth while he withdrew his hand and passed it around the trunk a second time. Again taking the cable in his teeth, he withdrew his hand to lay hold of it once more. Thus he had made a half hitch around the tree and could control the rope under the pull of a heavy weight.

His next step was to make the end of the cable fast about Darrel’s shoulders, under the arms. This was not so difficult as the work with the tree had been, for Darrel hung from the bowlder with head and shoulders down.

After getting the cable about Darrel’s body, Frank used his right hand and his teeth and rove the end into a bowline knot. Scarcely had he accomplished this, when Darrel uttered a low groan and attempted to shift his position. The moment he did this, he slipped from the bowlder.

A yell of horror came from Ballard and Clancy. To their frightened eyes it looked as though both Darrel and Merriwell would be precipitated to the bottom of the cañon. The rope, however, and Frank’s quickness served to avert the catastrophe.

Releasing his left arm from the bowlder, Frank gripped the trailing rope under the tree with both hands. His weight, on one side of the dwarfed trunk, served to balance Darrel’s weight on the other side, and the two, for a few terrible moments, swung into mid-air. Then, carefully but as quickly as possible, Frank found fresh footholds, and so lessened the weight on his end of the rope. Just as he had planned, Darrel began slipping downward, the rope sliding through Frank’s hands and around the tree trunk.

Drooping limply in the noose that encircled his body, Darrel twisted and swayed in sickening fashion as he dropped foot by foot down the face of the cliff. In a few minutes he had been lowered into the outstretched arms of Ballard and Clancy, and the lads below sent up a cheer that reverberated loudly between the cañon walls.

Frank’s descent was made safely and speedily, for he knotted the rope around the trunk of the tree and slid down its length to the side of his chums. Ballard had Darrel’s head on his knee, and Clancy had gone to the creek for a capful of cold water. Merriwell, breathing heavily, dropped down on the rocks.

“You got that rope around Darrel just in the nick of time, Chip!” said the admiring Ballard. “If you had been a second later, Darrel would have brought both of you down in a heap. Gee, man, but it was a close call!”

“A miss is as good as a mile, Pink,” answered Merry.

Clancy arrived with the water and allowed it to trickle over the white, haggard face of the unconscious lad. Darrel’s eyes flickered open, and a haunting expression of pain was in them as they rested on his friends. He ground his teeth to stifle a groan.

“Are you badly hurt, Darrel?” queried Frank.

“My—my left arm,” panted Darrel, “it’s broken, I think.”

With a muttered exclamation, Frank threw himself to his knees close beside Darrel. As he lifted him by the shoulders, the left arm swung limply and a moan was wrenched from Darrel’s lips.

“The arm is broken,” said Frank, “there’s no doubt about that. Clan,” he added, “go to the camp for our mounts. You needn’t bring a horse for Darrel—he can ride behind me on Borak.”

“Going to take him to Ophir?” asked Clancy, bounding to his feet and starting up the cañon.

“No, to Dolliver’s. Hustle, old man!”

Clancy disappeared up the narrow trail at a keen run.

“I—I’ve made a monkey’s fist of this, all right,” muttered Darrel. “If I’d left you alone, Chip, you’d have got the ball with ground to spare. But I had to try to star myself, and this is what comes of it.”

“Don’t fret about that, old man,” said Merry. “The thing to do now is to have the arm attended to.”

“Why don’t you take him to the camp?” asked Ballard. “We could get there in a mighty small part of the time it would take to reach Dolliver’s.”

“Darrel has got to have a comfortable bed, for one thing, Pink,” Merry answered. “Mainly, though, we can use the phone from Dolliver’s and get the doctor out from Ophir by motor car. By going to the ranch at the mouth of the cañon, we’ll not only save time, but make Darrel more comfortable into the bargain.”

“What happened to me?” queried Darrel, smothering his pain with a heroic effort. “Did I drop all the way down the cliff wall? I can’t remember a thing after hitting the shelf.”

“You rolled off the shelf and lodged on a bowlder,” Frank answered. “We got you down by means of the rope.”

“‘We’ didn’t have a thing to do with it,” spoke up Ballard. “It was Chip did it all, Darrel. He swarmed up the side of the cliff with the rope, took a half hitch around a bit of a tree, and then lowered——”

“Don’t worry him with all that,” struck in Merry. “Just lie as quietly as you can, Darrel. Here, put your head on this.”

Jerking off his coat, he rolled it up for a pillow, and Darrel was gently lowered until he was lying at full length on the rocks. His eyes closed. Although he made no sound, yet the contracting muscles of his face showed that he was fighting hard with pain.

At last a clatter of hoofs announced the coming of Clancy with two led horses. Handy and the rest had not returned from up the cañon, and Clancy had seen nothing of Fritz, Silva, or the professor. Because of his failure to see anybody at the camp, he had been unable to report the accident.

“Everybody will know about it soon enough, Clan,” said Frank. “Now, you ride on to Dolliver’s as fast as you can and use the phone. Ask Mr. Bradlaugh to bring out the doctor in his motor car. Ballard and I will come on with Darrel.”

“On the jump,” answered Clancy.

Merriwell took the reins of the led horses, and the red-headed chap dug in with his heels and vanished toward the mouth of the cañon.

[CHAPTER XVIII.]
QUICK WORK FOR DARREL.

“There’s a little ginger left in me, pards,” murmured Darrel, sitting up. “I’m not letting a busted wing put me down and out entirely.”

He got up slowly and stood beside Ballard.

“You’re to ride behind me, old man,” said Merriwell. “I’ll mount, Pink, and then you help him up.”

Frank swung into the saddle, pulled the restive Borak down sharply, and kicked a foot out of the stirrup for Darrel’s use. Darrel was game, if ever a boy was. With a little aid from Ballard, he succeeded in getting astride the horse, and held himself there with his right arm around Merriwell.

“Can you hang on, Darrel?” asked Frank.

“Sure,” was the reply. “Just hurry, that’s all.”

With a shouted request for Ballard to follow, Frank headed Borak down the gulch. Five miles lay between Tinaja Wells and the ranch at the mouth of the cañon known as Dolliver’s. There was no horse in that part of the country that could cover the ground more speedily than Borak. Knowing that the ride was plain torture for Darrel, Frank sought to get it over with as quickly as possible.

Although the broken arm swung cruelly during the rough ride, yet never once did so much as a whimper escape Darrel’s lips. In less than half an hour the treacherous trail was covered, and Frank drew up in front of the ranch building. Both Dolliver and Clancy were in front to receive the injured lad. It was well that they were there, and ready, for no sooner had Borak been drawn to a halt than Darrel pitched sideways from his back. He was caught in the outstretched arms of the rancher and Clancy, and swiftly borne into the house.

Ballard came up, a moment later, and he and Frank dismounted, secured their horses at the hitching post, and went in to learn what luck Clancy had had with his telephoning.

“The doctor’s on the way, Chip,” said Clancy. “I got Mr. Bradlaugh right off the reel. He said he knew the doctor was in town, and that he would be snatching him toward Dolliver’s in less than five minutes. That wasn’t so very long ago, though. You must have ridden like blazes to get here so quick.”

The agony of the rapid ride down the gulch must have been intense for Darrel. He had kept himself in hand pretty well until reaching Dolliver’s, and then a wave of weakness had blotted out his endurance.

A bed in the main room of the ranch was ready for him, and he was now lying in it, as comfortable as he could possibly be under the circumstances.

“I’m putting you fellows to a heap of trouble,” remarked Darrel weakly.

“Oh, bother that!” answered Merry. “It’s mighty good to know that you’ve come off with only a broken arm. You’ll not be laid up long, old man.”

“I’m wondering how that rope happened to give way. It——”

“Don’t wonder about a blooming thing, Darrel. Wait till you feel better.”

“I can’t get it out of my mind,” persisted Darrel. “Where did it break? Did you see?”

“It broke in the place where you had it looped around the paloverde,” said Ballard.

“Strike me lucky!” muttered Darrel, a puzzled look battling with the pain in his face. “Why, it couldn’t have broken there! That rope was Clan’s reata, and was as sound as any rope you ever saw.”

“That’s what happened, anyhow,” said Frank.

“I’m blamed if I can understand it!”

Frank and the other two were also at a loss to understand it. There was certainly something queer about the breaking of that rope.

A little later, the hum of a motor car was heard along the trail.

“Mr. Bradlaugh has come over the road for a record,” remarked Clancy, starting for the door. “But I knew he’d hit ’er up.”

When the boys reached the front of the house, the big car was just slowing to a halt.

“Nothing but a broken arm, eh, boys?” asked Mr. Bradlaugh, as the doctor tumbled out with his surgical case.

“That’s all, sir,” Frank answered.

“I didn’t catch the name over the phone. Whose arm was it? Not Hannibal’s?”

“No, Darrel’s.”

Bradlaugh’s face suddenly clouded.

“That young rascal, eh?” he muttered.

Frank was quick to catch the significance of Mr. Bradlaugh’s remark.

“You know something about Ellis Darrel, Mr. Bradlaugh?” he asked.

“I know that his uncle made a home for him, treated him indulgently in every way, and that he rewarded Hawtrey by forging his name to pay a gambling debt. I was sorry to hear that you’d taken up with the fellow, Merriwell, or that you were making room for him in the Ophir camp. He’s a wild one, and won’t do any of you much good.”

Here was an impression which Frank was determined to change for one of another sort. While Clancy and Ballard were helping the doctor set the broken arm, and while an occasional groan of pain echoed out through the open ranch door, Frank leaned against the side of the car and earnestly explained a few things to Mr. Bradlaugh.

He went into the details of that thousand-dollar robbery, just as he had done once before for the benefit of Colonel Hawtrey, and by the time he had finished his defense of Darrel, Mr. Bradlaugh was almost convinced that he had made a wrong estimate of “the boy from Nowhere.”

“Well, well,” smiled the president of the Ophir Athletic Club, “you’re a red-hot champion of Darrel’s anyhow. If you’re so positive that the boy has been a victim of some designing scoundrel, I can’t help but think there may be some mistake about that forgery matter. Hawtrey’s a very wealthy man, and the only ones he can leave his property to are Jode Lenning and Ellis Darrel. If Darrel is out of it, then it all goes to Lenning. There’s a point that demands consideration. I don’t know much about Lenning except that he’s a pretty good sprinter, and seems to be the apple of the colonel’s eye—now that Darrel appears to have gone to the bad. If you think you’re doing the right thing by taking up with Darrel, all right. I’m willing to trust to your judgment. And now, tell me, how’s everything at Tinaja Wells?”

“Fine as silk,” Frank answered. “This accident of Darrel’s is the first one we’ve had.”

“How did it happen?”

Frank recounted the details, in a general way, putting himself very much in the background.

“Own up,” smiled Mr. Bradlaugh; “you’re the one who picked Darrel off the shelf, and kept him from breaking his neck as well as his arm. Isn’t that the size of it?”

Merriwell dodged the question as well as he could, and began telling about Hawtrey’s visit to the camp, and his proposals. Mr. Bradlaugh was in hearty agreement with the colonel.

“It’s up to you, boys,” said he, “to wipe out this bitterness between the two clubs while you are out in the hills in neighboring camps. If that’s accomplished, it will be something worth while. Remember, too, all Ophir is counting on you to give us a winning eleven for the game with Gold Hill.”

“I’ll do my best,” Frank answered. “Won’t you come in, Mr. Bradlaugh, and meet Darrel?”

“He’s probably in no condition to make acquaintances now,” answered Mr. Bradlaugh, shaking his head; “and, besides,” he added, “I’d a good deal rather shake hands with him after you prove he’s innocent of forging his uncle’s name.”

In an hour, the doctor’s work was finished. The broken arm had been set and bandaged with splints, and there was an odor of drugs around Dolliver’s and much relief and satisfaction in the minds of Frank and his chums. There were no internal injuries, so far as the doctor could see, and, in a month or so, Darrel was promised that he should be as well as ever.

It was growing dark, by that time, and, as Frank knew the lads at the camp would be wondering over the absence of most of those left on guard duty, he and Clancy started back to Tinaja Wells shortly after Mr. Bradlaugh had whirled away toward town with the doctor. Ballard was to remain behind and look after Darrel.

It was eight o’clock when Merriwell and Clancy rode up on the flat and got wearily down from their horses. As Silva hurried up and took the mounts, a throng of lads surrounded the latecomers.

“Where the dickens have you fellows been?” demanded Hannibal Bradlaugh. “Fritz has been howling his Dutch head off trying to get you to come to supper. And that was all of two hours ago. The last seen of you, you were on your way down the cañon to help Clancy and Ballard get that football that Silva had kicked over the cliff. Some of us went down there looking for you, but all we could find was a rope hanging from a stunted tree on the cliffside. It was the biggest kind of a mystery. And it only got deeper and deeper when Silva discovered that mounts belonging to you, Ballard and Clancy had vanished from the herd. Come across with the news, Chip. We’re all of us on tenterhooks.”

“Can’t we eat while we’re palavering?” wailed Clancy. “I feel as though I hadn’t hit a grub layout for a week.”

“Come on mit yoursellufs,” said Fritz, “und haf a leedle someding vich I peen keeping hot. Dit you get der pall?”

“Hang the ball!” answered Clancy, “we’ve had something else to think of.”

While they ate, the two chums told of the accident to Darrel, and how they had taken him to Dolliver’s and left him there with Ballard. There was general regret expressed on every hand, for Darrel, greeted with distrust when he had first reached the camp, was fast becoming a prime favorite.

“While we were hiking back down the cañon,” said Handy, “we met Hawtrey. We talked with him for a spell, and he batted up that proposition of competing in a friendly way with the Gold Hillers. He said you favored it. When we reached camp we found Lenning and Bleeker, from Camp Hawtrey, waiting for us. They proposed a football game for to-morrow afternoon, and I took them on for two fifteen minutes of play. Didn’t think it best to tire the boys for a full game. I reckon, though, that I’d better send over to their camp and call it off.”

“Don’t you do it, Handy,” protested Merriwell. “Let ’em come. I’m particularly anxious to get better acquainted with Jode Lenning.”

Handy and Brad studied Frank’s face earnestly, for a minute, and then they both chuckled.

“I see your signal smoke, Chip,” grinned Handy. “You’re thinking of Darrel. All right, we’ll let them come; and I hope something happens, during the set-to, that will be of some benefit to Curly.”

[CHAPTER XIX.]
UGLY SUSPICIONS.

Before Spink, on a battered old bugle, sounded reveille for the camp, next morning, Merriwell and Clancy crawled out of their tent, took a dip in the swimming pool, hurriedly dressed, and went down the cañon. The object of their secret expedition was to recover the rope which had given way under Darrel’s weight, the preceding afternoon. This rope, it will be remembered, had been left tied to the stunted tree when Merriwell descended to the cañon bed after lowering the unfortunate Darrel.

Clancy, first to reach the trailing cable, examined the end of it and then flung it from him disappointedly.

“Hang the luck!” he exclaimed; “this is the wrong end, Chip.”

Merriwell laughed.

“Of course, it’s the wrong end,” said he. “The end that was tied to the paloverde is up close to the place where Darrel was hanging from the bowlder. You see, Clan, when the rope dropped, the end that had not been tied to the tree lay uppermost. One end was as good as another to me, so I lashed that to my waist and carried it up to Darrel. That, of course, was the end I made fast around Darrel’s body, and it came down with him, leaving the end we want to examine pretty much aloft.”

“Another climb has to be made in order to get it?”

“Sure, old man, unless you can think of another way for getting it down.”

This was more than Clancy had bargained for. He had thought that about all he and Merry would have to do would be to walk down the cañon, cut off the end of the rope they were interested in, then stroll back to camp and examine the section of hemp at their leisure. But Merry, as usual, had considered the matter more thoroughly.

“I nearly had heart failure,” said Clancy, “when you made the climb yesterday. Pass it up, Chip. It’s just a spasm of curiosity on our part, anyhow. It would be rank foolishness for you to risk your neck because we’re curious as to how the rope happened to break.”

“I’ve a notion, Clan,” returned Merriwell soberly, “that this breaking of the rope reaches deeper than we imagine.”

“How so?”

“There may be a plot back of it.”

“A plot?” The color faded from Clancy’s homely face and left the freckles standing out in prominent blotches. “You don’t mean,” he gasped, “that there was a plot to—to kill Darrel?”

“I haven’t said so, and just now I don’t want to go on record as thinking of such a dastardly thing. All the same, though, I’ll have a look at the other end of that rope if it takes a leg.”

“If that’s the way you feel about it,” said Clancy, “you can bet a ripe persimmon I’m not going to let you hog all the dangerous work. Uncle Clancy will do the climbing this morning, and work up an appetite for breakfast.”

“Not much you don’t,” was Merriwell’s decided answer, as he flung off his coat and laid hold of the rope. “Recovering the rope was my idea, and I’m going up there, cut off what I need, and come back with it.”

“We’ll draw straws,” urged the red-headed fellow. “The fellow that gets the short one goes up.”

“Just consider that I drew the short one,” chuckled Merry, and began to climb.

Clancy growled as he watched his chum hand over hand his way up the first twenty feet, then allow his legs to help his arms the rest of the distance. It was all so easily and so cleverly done that Clancy lost his apprehensions.

“You’re certainly all to the mustard, Chip,” he called. “Don’t linger too long, though. I’m hungry to have a look at the upper end of that rope myself.”

Frank, climbing to the bowlder which had caught Darrel in his fall, wedged himself comfortably between the stunted tree and the face of the cliff, swung his legs out over space and began an examination of the cable.

There were two ends to it, for it had been looped around the paloverde and had given away in the middle of the loop. What Frank discovered he did not make known to his anxious chum at that moment. Severing a four-foot section of the rope, he tied it about his waist, cautiously arose to his feet on the bowlder and began climbing again.

“Where the mischief are you going now, Chip?” bellowed Clancy.

Frank was too busy to answer. Presently the lad below saw him hang to the rocks and reach over the edge of the shelf. The next moment, the lost football came bounding down into the cañon.

“Darn!” roared Clancy. “I should think that confounded ball has caused trouble enough without making you take any more chances to get hold of it. I guess it wouldn’t bankrupt the O.  A. C to lose a five-dollar pigskin.”

“We’ll need that in the game this afternoon, Clan,” shouted Merry.

Then he slid back to the bowlder, sat down on it, swung off on the stunted tree, and came down the rope as easily as though it had been a ladder.

“You wanted to show off,” jeered Clancy, “and I guess you made out to do it. Now take that piece of rope from your waist and let’s look at it.”

Silently Merriwell untied the section of rope and handed it to Clancy. The latter took it in his hands, examined it, and looked up, startled.

“Well, what do you think?” Merriwell asked.

“It didn’t break, Chip.”

“No.”

“It was cut.”

“Yes,” nodded Merriwell. “The strands of hemp were severed with a sharp instrument of some kind. It was a clean stroke that separated Darrel’s lifeline from the paloverde, Clan.”

“What scoundrel——”

“Keep your shirt on, Red,” broke in Frank. “At this stage of the game there’s no use guessing about who did it or why it was done. We can suppose that somebody crept into the greasewood, watched Darrel as he lowered himself, and then struck the rope with the edge of a knife, or a hatchet. The rope would have cut easily. The loop was drawn taut against the paloverde by Darrel’s weight, and——”

Horror had been slowly rising in Clancy’s eyes.

“What wretch,” he whispered, “what infernal villain, would have dared to do a thing like that?”

“There you are again,” said Merriwell calmly, “trying to guess who it was might attempt such a devilish piece of work. If you keep that up, first thing you know you’ll be doing some one an injustice. After all, you know, Darrel’s fall might really have been due to an accident.”

“Maybe I’m thick, but I’ll swear I can’t see how it could have been an accident.”

“Suppose the reata, in kicking around the camp, had been accidentally cut into near that particular end? Suppose Darrel, in tying the rope about the paloverde, didn’t notice the weak spot?”

At first Clancy was impressed with this reasoning; then, when his wits had a little time to work, he believed he saw the fallacy of it.

“If it had been like that, Chip,” said he, “a few strands would have been left torn and ragged where they had broken. But that’s not the case. Every strand shows a keen, clear cut. Your argument won’t hold water.”

“Possibly not,” agreed Merriwell, his face hardening, “but I’d rather, ten times over, think this was an accident rather than a deliberate attempt on the part of some fiend to put Darrel out of the way. We may have our suspicions, ugly suspicions, but let’s keep them to ourselves until we get a little further light on this business. If no light ever comes—well, we’ll throw the piece of rope away and try to forget all about it. It’s an awful thing, Clancy, to think there was a deliberate plan to throw Darrel down the face of that cliff. There goes the bugle,” he added, getting into his coat. “Mum’s the word, Clan, when we get back to camp.”

Coiling up the piece of rope, Merry thrust it under his coat, where it could not be seen. Very thoughtfully the two lads returned to Tinaja Wells.

Professor Phineas Borrodaile was in front of the tent, jointly occupied by himself and Frank and his chums, carefully combing what little hair nature had spared him. A three-cornered piece of looking-glass, hung against the canvas-tent wall, aided him somewhat in making his toilet.

Fritz, moving toward the chuck tent with an armful of wood, sighted the ball under Clancy’s arm. He gave a whoop of delight, and dropped the wood.

“Py shinks,” he cried, “you got him! Vat a habbiness iss dot! Say, Merrivell, now I can lick dot greaser feller, don’d it, mitoudt gedding tocked der fife tollar?”

“Lay a hand on Silva,” answered Frank, glaring at Fritz and winking an off eye at Clancy, “and you’ll lose the five, ball or no ball.”

Fritz looked grieved, and slowly picked up his wood and waddled away with it. Clancy threw the ball into the tent and dropped down in the shade beside Merriwell.

“Merriwell,” said the professor, a troubled look in his face, “ever since I returned to camp yesterday afternoon I have found myself vastly concerned over this accident to Darrel—vastly concerned. In fact, I may say I have become obsessed with the idea that some one—I cannot say who—may be entangled in the affair in a—er—guilty manner. Tell me, if you please, do you consider that what happened to Darrel was an accident?”

The professor doubled up his pocket comb like a jackknife and stowed it away in his pocket. Then, adjusting his glasses, he peered over the tops of them at Frank.

“How could it have been anything else, professor?”

“You are beating about the bush, Merriwell,” reproved the professor; “you are not frank with me. Do you, sir, consider the breaking of that rope an accident, or not?”

“Not,” spoke up Clancy.

“From the facts at hand,” replied Merriwell, “it is hard to say what it was.”

“I speak in this manner,” went on Professor Borrodaile, “because, shortly before the supposed accident happened, I was among the rocks to the south of that particular part of the cañon. I heard high words from beyond a bit of chaparral, as of two men quarreling. I had no interest in the quarrel, if such it was, so I sought to avoid the men and proceed with my examination of the rocks adjacent to the cañon’s brink. And yet, I had a glimpse of the disputatious pair. One of them, I am sure, was Jode Lenning; the other was the young man called Bleeker.”

Clancy cast a startled look at Merriwell.

“Later,” went on the professor, “much later, Lenning and Bleeker appeared in this camp and spoke to Handy. Where were Lenning and Bleeker during the interim? I confess, Merriwell, that the thought annoys me. It certainly could not have taken the two Gold Hill young men an hour or more to come from the place where I saw them to Tinaja Wells. What do you think?”

Just then Fritz came forth and announced “grub pile” in his usual hearty manner, and Merry did not find it necessary to tell Professor Borrodaile what he thought.

[CHAPTER XX.]
A FRIEND FROM CAMP HAWTREY.

Darrel passed a restless night at Dolliver’s ranch. His arm, stiffly wrapped with splints and bandages, was swollen and feverish. The pain of it must have been intense.

Ballard did what he could to cheer Darrel up. The boy with the broken arm, however, had mental worries apart from his physical pains, and it was hard for Ballard to do anything with him. As the forenoon wore on, Darrel began to talk, and to reveal the troubles that lay at the back of his head.

“Pink,” said he, with an air of desperation, “I’ve got to do something to clear up that forgery matter. The colonel won’t have a thing to do with me until I prove that I didn’t sign his name to that check.”

“Chip’s going to look after that, old man,” returned Ballard. “Leave it to him. You’ve got enough to fret about, seems to me, without going into any of your family affairs.”

“It’s on my mind a whole lot, pard,” continued Darrel, gritting his teeth to keep back a groan. “I hate to be treated like a yellow dog by Uncle Alvah. If I had really forged the check, then I’m getting no more than what’s coming to me; but I didn’t—I’d take my oath I didn’t.”

“What’s that old saw about, ‘Truth, crushed to earth, will rise again’? Just keep your shirt on, and wait. In the end, everything will come out O.  K. Chip’s on the trail, and you can bet a pinch of snuff against a bone collar button that he’ll run it out. Take matters easy, Darrel, and wait for Merriwell to play his hand.”

“I can’t leave it all to him,” fretted Darrel.

“You’ve got to leave it to somebody until you can get up and around, haven’t you? A few days, or weeks, won’t make any difference. That forgery business has been hanging fire for more than a year, and I guess there isn’t any great rush about clearing it up right now.”

Darrel squirmed impatiently as he lay in the bed.

“It was different,” said he, “when I was drifting around in other parts of the West. Then I was among strangers, and nobody knew anything about me. Now that I’m back on this range, I can’t meet a soul but knows I’m the nephew that disgraced the colonel’s family, and I’m looked on with contempt. Even Dolliver acts as though he thought I was a criminal.”

“Gammon! Say, Darrel, your imagination is working overtime. Dolliver’s manner is all that can be desired. I haven’t seen a thing in his actions to suggest that he looks on you as a jailbird.”

“I can see it, Pink, even if you can’t,” insisted Darrel. “Things have got to be different, and they’ve got to change mighty soon.”

“Leave it to Merry. He, and all the rest of us, believe in you, and are working for you. Something will turn up, take it from me, and there’s no earthly use in your worrying yourself blue in the face because it doesn’t turn up right away.”

“The colonel thinks a heap of Jode,” murmured Darrel.

“Jode is a soft-sawdering beggar, and knows how to get around him. It gets my goat the way a man as smart as the old colonel allows himself to be taken in. But it can’t last. Hawtrey’s eyes are bound to be opened some time.”

“I don’t want to be the one that strips the mask away from Jode. In order to believe that Jode is a schemer, the colonel will have to find it out for himself.”

“You can’t be too ladylike about it. When you fight the devil, you know, you’ve got to use fire.”

Noon came, and the early hours of afternoon began drifting away. It was about two o’clock when a visitor dropped in at Dolliver’s. He came on horseback, left his mount at Dolliver’s hitching pole, and pushed a bulletlike head through the door of the front room.

“How’s the patient?” he asked of Ballard.

Ballard recognized the fellow as one Mark Hotchkiss, a Gold Hiller belonging with the rival camp.

“Come in, and ask him yourself,” Ballard answered.

A bony youth of seventeen projected himself through the door. Darrel turned his head on the pillow and looked at him.

“Hello, Hotch,” said he. “What’re you doing here?”

“Came to find out how you’re makin’ it,” grinned Hotchkiss.

“You Gold Hill chaps must be worrying a lot about me,” said Darrel sarcastically.

“There’s a few of us who don’t think you’ve had a square deal, El. Jode’s king bee at our camp, and there’s some of the junipers over there that ain’t got the nerve to call their souls their own. I’m my own boss, I reckon. Nearly all of our crowd have gone to Tinaja Wells for a football game this afternoon. Bleeker and me and one or two more was left behind.”

“Bleeker!” exclaimed Darrel. “Why, he’s one of the strongest men on the football squad!”

“Sure, but Jode’s hot at him, and Jode’s captain of the eleven, so he carries his grouch to the extent of orderin’ those he don’t like to stay behind.”

“Why is Jode hot at Bleeker?”

“That’s too many for me. They ain’t hardly spoke to each other since they got back from the Ophir camp yesterday. You see, them two went to the Wells to fix up the details of the game, and they was as chummy as you please when they left Camp Hawtrey, but they come back mad as blazes at each other.”

“Maybe,” suggested Ballard, “Bleeker’s beginning to find out some things about Jode that don’t set well.”

“Like enough,” grinned Hotchkiss. “The football players made for Tinaja Wells on foot, ‘cross country. Parkman was late in startin’, and just before he pulled out, Bleeker, with a face like a thundercloud, rushed from his tent with a note all sealed up in an envelope. He hands it to Parkman. ‘Give that to Lenning on the q.  t.,’ says Bleeker; ‘tell him it’s from me, and it’s about El Darrel,’ he says, ‘and about Merriwell a little, too,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to get myself in no trouble with Jode,’ says Parkman, half a mind not to have a thing to do with the note. ‘You’ll get yourself into a whole lot of trouble with me,’ Bleeker says, ‘if you don’t do as I want.’ So, with that, Park takes the note and slips it away some’r’s inside his uniform. I reckon Jode’ll get it, all right.”

Darrel was developing a strong interest in that note of Bleeker’s.

“What had Bleeker to tell Lenning about me,” he asked, “that he couldn’t bat up to him without putting it in a letter?”

“Kin savvy?” returned Hotchkiss, giving the local equivalent for the Mexican quien sabe—who knows? “A few of us what was left behind at Camp Hawtrey put our heads together and sort of made up our minds about somethin’. That’s mainly the reason I’m here, El. You see, the reason Jode’s down on a few of us is because we was stickin’ up for you. We told Jode flat that we didn’t take no stock in that forgery business, and reckoned you’d clear yourself some day. That made Jode madder’n hops. All those that kept their mouths shut Jode took to Tinaja Wells.”

Ballard was almost as deeply interested in Hotchkiss’ remarks as was Darrel. Here was a friend from the rival camp, and he brought news that might be of great value.

“Now,” pursued Hotchkiss, “us fellers that was left behind—barrin’ Bleeker—sort of made up our minds that the note Parkman’s totin’ maybe contains a clew about the forgery matter. Bleeker, as you know, El, has been mighty close to Jode for a couple o’ years or more. Them two was thicker’n two peas in a pod at the time the colonel turned you adrift. It looks to a few of us as though Bleek’s had an attack of conscience, or somethin’, and has put on paper a few things that may be pretty important to you. I was delegated to come over here, tell you about the note, and suggest a plan of action.”

“What plan?”

Darrel’s eyes were big and bright, and he rose on his right elbow and peered earnestly at Hotchkiss.

“Well, you got friends in the Ophir camp,” said Hotchkiss. “Have ’em get that note away from Parkman; or, if it’s too late to get it from Parkman, then have ’em take it from Jode.”

“It’s Lenning’s letter,” put in Ballard. “What business have Darrel’s friends with it?”

“If it comes to that, what business have Bleek and Len with evidence clearin’ Darrel of that forgery?”

“How do you know the letter contains anything like that?” demanded Ballard.

“I reckon us fellers in the Gold Hill camp ain’t deef, dumb, and blind,” bristled Hotchkiss. “We’ve kept our eyes and ears open, we have. A bunch of us is friends of El’s, here, and we allow he’s goin’ to clear himself. What Bleek knows about that forgery he’s put into that letter, more’n likely, and right here’s a chance for El to be cleared by a little snappy work. You see, Bleek’s so mad at Jode he won’t speak to him, and Jode’s so mad at Bleek he won’t take him to Tinaja Wells. Maybe he’s afeared, if Bleek was near Merriwell, that he’d split on the hull business.”

Darrel swerved his glimmering eyes to Ballard.

“Pink,” said he, deeply stirred, “I’m banking on Hotchkiss and the few friends I have in Camp Hawtrey. Meddling with correspondents that doesn’t concern the meddler is pretty bum business, but we have Bleeker’s word for it that the letter he sent Jode concerns me—and Merriwell, too. Doesn’t that give us the right to get hold of it, if we can?”

“That’s a pretty fine point,” frowned Ballard, “but I should say that you and Chip have a right to that letter.”

“Sure,” exploded Hotchkiss, “they have a right to it! The next thing is for some of you friends of El’s to get it. I’ve done all I can.” Hotchkiss got up, stepped to the side of the bed, and took Darrel’s hand. “Some of us Gold Hillers, pard,” he went on, “have pinned our faith to you. We can’t say much, or do much, because the colonel purty nigh owns the club, and because Jode stands ace high with the colonel. But we’ve put you wise to this letter, and it’s up to your Ophir friends to help you out. Somethin’ will have to be done pretty quick, I reckon, for that game’s due to come off before long. Some day, El,” and Hotchkiss dropped Darrel’s hand and started for the door, “I hope you’ll get Lenning on the mat for the count. He’s a two-faced coyote, and that shot goes as it lays. Adios!”

A few moments later, the hoofs of the Gold Hill boy’s horse could be heard drumming a diminishing tattoo up the cañon.

“Are my Ophir pards going to help me, Pink?” queried Darrel.

“You can bet your life they are, Darrel!” answered Ballard. “Think you can get along while I ride to Tinaja Wells, and put this up to Chip?”

“Sure I can,” and a look of happiness overspread Darrel’s face. “At last,” he murmured, “I think I’m on the right track.”

“Here’s hoping,” said Ballard blithely. “I’m off on the keen jump, old man,” and he rushed from the house to get his horse under saddle.

A little later, he flashed past the door, waved his hat in a parting salute to Darrel, and pushed at speed in the direction of Tinaja Wells.

[CHAPTER XXI.]
TRYING TO BE FRIENDLY.

During the forenoon of the day that was to witness the preliminary skirmish with Gold Hill, Frank’s mind was not wholly on his studies. He had been disturbed by his examination of the severed rope, and by the professor’s remarks concerning Jode Lenning and Bleeker. It was impossible for Frank to get away from the ugly suspicions of foul play that had taken hold of him. He felt relieved when Fritz sang out the dinner call, and books and recitations could be dismissed for the rest of the day.

Following the noon meal, Merry collected the football squad and started in to give them a little talk.

“Now, fellows,” said he, “we’re going to have thirty minutes of play with Gold Hill this afternoon, and I want every one of you to be right up on your toes. Gold Hill is going to watch you to see whether you have improved any over last year, and we’re going to keep our eyes peeled for weak points in the Gold Hill team. I don’t think they’ll find out any more about us than we will find out about them, so honors will be easy. Play the game, that’s all. The mesa isn’t quite so good as the O.  A.  C. athletic field, but it’s plenty good enough for this little try-out. I’m not at all particular whether you win a little sawed-off preliminary set-to like this one, but I am mighty particular that you don’t let Gold Hill win. Hold them.

“Another thing: There has been too much knock-down and drag-out in this rivalry between Gold Hill and Ophir. A petty feeling of partisanship has crept into all the contests between the two clubs, and it has reached a point where it has become a disgrace. It’s up to you, by your actions to-day, to wipe out the bitterness. Colonel Hawtrey is anxious to have an era of good feeling crop out between the rival clubs, and I guess it’s about time something of the sort did crop out if every contest doesn’t end in a free-for-all rough-house. The colonel says the Gold Hill fellows will meet us halfway in friendly sport, and I know that you will do your part to have everything pleasant and agreeable. Mr. Bradlaugh wants it that way, too. He told me so himself, and what he says ought to carry a good deal of weight. Let’s be true sportsmen, fellows, and when the other squad comes over here, just remember that bygones are to be bygones, and that, with this afternoon, we’re setting a new mark in the competitions with Gold Hill.”

A cheer, which tried to be hearty, greeted Merriwell’s remarks. Handy, the captain, stepped out to ease himself of a few words.

“Most of you were up the cañon with me yesterday afternoon,” said he, “and heard the talk I had with Colonel Hawtrey. The colonel’s as fine as they make ‘em, fellows, and he’ll do his part to keep the Gold Hillers in line. I reckon we’ll do ours. From now on, instead of being licked by Gold Hill, every clatter out of the box, we’re going to do some of the licking ourselves. It’s a fine thing to be a good loser, but it’s just as fine, according to my notion, to be a good winner, and show some consideration for the other fellow. Gold Hill never showed us much consideration, but we’re going to forget the habit they used to have of ‘rubbing it in.’ All we’re to remember is that we’re making a cut for a new deal to-day, and that we’re meeting on neutral territory— which is a good place to start the good work. We’re to play thirty minutes, with a fifteen-minute interval between the quarters. Be a credit to Ophir. That’s all.”

The cheering still lacked the vim and heartiness which Merriwell would like to have seen, but the Ophir fellows had a long string of bitter defeats to live down, and they were human, and the remembrance of their fights with the rival club could not be wiped out in a minute. It would take a good many friendly competitions, with both sides showing consideration and forbearance, to bring the relations of the clubs into the zone of true sportsmanship. But that would come, Merriwell felt certain, and to-day would mark the beginning.

It was one-thirty when Colonel Hawtrey rode into camp. He had been notified by telephone that the game was to be played, and he had come personally to help inaugurate the “era of good feeling.” Mr. Bradlaugh had also been notified, but business matters compelled him to remain away from Tinaja Wells. He sent his regrets, however, and warned the Ophir lads that he would expect them to prove that they were true sportsmen in every sense of the word.

The colonel was taken into camp with every expression of good will. Not one in the Ophir crowd had any fault to find with the big man from Gold Hill. For years he had tried his utmost to smooth out the differences between the rival clubs, but had found a mysterious influence working against him and upsetting all his plans. He had not the remotest idea that Jode Lenning was back of this evil influence, but had he given some attention to Jode he might have succeeded long before in bringing affairs of the two clubs to a more amiable basis.

When two o’clock came, ten Gold Hill men came trotting into the camp on the flat, Jode Lenning at their head. The colonel, after greeting Jode, passed his eye over the fellows behind him.

“Only ten!” he exclaimed. “What does this mean, my boy?”

“Parkman was late in starting,” Jode answered, “and we didn’t wait for him. He’ll be along soon.”

“Where’s Bleeker?”

“He has a grouch of some kind, colonel, and wouldn’t come.” Lenning laughed good-naturedly. “He’ll get over it, though,” he added. “You know how Bleek is!”

“I know he’s one of the best men on the team,” the colonel remarked, “and that you’re handicapped without him. You haven’t any substitutes.”

“We’re not going to need any, with this bunch.”

There was lofty contempt in Lenning’s voice. Here, at the very start of the new schedule of friendly rivalry, Lenning was giving vent to the spirit that had done so much to put rival athletic affairs in a bad way.

“Tut, tut!” said the colonel, with a look of annoyance, “these Ophir fellows are as fine a lot of players as I’ve ever seen, and we’ll find that we’re up against a pretty stiff proposition.”

Hooking his arm through Lenning’s, the colonel led him off to one side and began talking with him in low and earnest tones. Lenning could be seen to smile and put on his most agreeable manner.

“Did you hear that, Chip?” Handy asked, in a husky and angry whisper, of Merriwell.

“Never mind Lenning,” Frank answered. “Have the fellows circulate among the visitors and show them there’s no hard feelings. Because Lenning’s a cad, that’s no reason the rest of the Gold Hill team are cut on the same pattern.”

The Ophir lads went bravely at their task of inaugurating a new spirit of friendliness with the other team. Going among them, they drew them apart in groups, and before long there was considerably less frost in the atmosphere than there had been.

Presently the colonel and Lenning approached Merriwell and Clancy. Lenning wore a furtive smile which he no doubt intended to be genial and winning. He put out his hand to Merry.

“Hello, Merriwell!” said he. “I’m sorry we had that disagreement over the camping site. I was in the wrong entirely. You see, I had my heart set on this place, and when I learned that you Ophir fellows had it, it made me mad. I acted like a fool, and that’s no lie. But we’ve got a fine place, over at Camp Hawtrey, and I hope you and the Ophir fellows will return this visit, and give us a chance to convince you that we mean to be friends, and all the better friends because we are rivals.”

Frank took the offered hand, passing it on to Clancy, who came up at that moment.

“There’s no sense in being at loggerheads, Lenning,” said Frank. “You may be sure that we’ll soon visit your camp.”

Intuitively, Frank had felt that Jode Lenning’s clutching fingers reflected anything but a genial nature. He could not help but think that Lenning was acting a part, and for Hawtrey’s exclusive benefit.

“I’m going to make it a point, my lads,” put in the colonel jovially, “to be present at all your contests. And,” he added, “I’m looking forward to a little wholesome excitement.”

Just at that moment Parkman, the straggler, arrived in the camp. There was a queer expression on his face as he sidled up toward Lenning, turning away suddenly when he found the colonel’s eyes upon him.

“Got here at last, eh, Parkman?” observed Hawtrey pleasantly. “I suppose you were mending some of your gear. It’s a good thing to overhaul your football equipment occasionally and make sure that everything is in proper trim for use.”

A blank look crossed Parkman’s face, but vanished when he caught a significant glance from Lenning.

“That’s right, sir,” said Parkman, and walked away.

“I heard,” spoke up Lenning, “that Darrel met with an accident yesterday. I—I hope it wasn’t serious?”

He threw a doubtful look at the colonel as he put the question. The colonel seemed to be paying little attention to what was said, and yet Frank felt sure that he saw a glint of sudden anxiety rise in his eyes.

“Broken arm, that’s all,” replied Merry. “Darrel will be all right in a few weeks.”

“You’d better take your crowd out for a little signal practice, Jode,” suggested the colonel. “I’ll go with you. It will soon be time for the game,” he finished, looking at his watch.

“Good idea, sir,” assented Lenning; and called to the Gold Hill players.

With the colonel at his side, Lenning led the way toward the mesa. Parkman dodged along at their heels, seeking a chance for a word in private with Lenning, but finding none.

“Say, Chip,” said Clancy, when the Gold Hillers had vanished over the edge of the mesa, “when I took Lenning’s hand I felt as though I had a fistful of cold fish. Allow me to repeat what I said before—that Lenning person is strictly nig.”

“Let it go at that, Clan,” answered Merry. “The rest of the Gold Hillers are all right.”

“It’s a hard job, making friends with that outfit,” said Handy, coming up just then and mopping the sweat from his face. “Everybody’s under a good deal of a strain, and most of the Gold Hillers seem to be taking their cue from Lenning. He’s a pill.”

“Sugar-coated,” grinned Clancy, “when the colonel’s around.”

“He makes me sick,” grunted Handy bluntly. “We’ve taken the colonel on for referee,” he continued, to Merriwell, “by way of showing our good will. Let’s go up on the mesa and get busy. I’ll be glad as blazes when this game is over with.”

“Them’s my sentiments, too, old man,” added Clancy, dropping in beside Merriwell as the Ophir team started for the field.

Gold Hill won the toss. The wind was at its back, and a Gold Hill toe lifted the ball far into the field.

The game was on. From the side lines, Merriwell and Clancy were watching every move with keen, critical eyes.

[CHAPTER XXII.]
SHARP WORK.

“The Gold Hillers shape up well, Chip,” remarked Clancy. “So far as beef is concerned, they put it all over our lads.”

“Headwork does more than ‘beef’ to win a game, Clan,” replied Merriwell confidently. “Look at Brad, will you!”

Hannibal Bradlaugh, playing half back for the Ophir team, had caught the ball and run it back twenty yards before he was downed. In another moment came the first scrimmage. Neither Clancy nor Merry had any time for further talk, just then, so anxious were they not to miss a single detail of the play.

Brad tried to get through the center. He gained a little, and Handy, captain and full back, went around the end for a couple of yards. The Gold Hill line was putting up a good defense, and both Merriwell and Clancy were finding time to note the work of Lenning, at right guard.

“Remember how he beat the pistol in the race with Darrel?” Clancy said to Merriwell. “If Lenning was tricky in one thing you’ll find him tricky in all. He’ll try something or other here, if I’m any prophet, Chip.”

“Not while the colonel is watching him, Clan,” Merry answered.

Handy retreated, and kicked. The colonel, carried away by the game and perhaps forgetting that an impartial spirit was to be looked for in a referee, was shouting excitedly and urging the Gold Hillers to do their best, and applauding their resistance.

Merriwell was eager to learn whether the Ophir fellows could hold the rival eleven as well as Gold Hill had held their Ophir opponents. The players crouched, then, as though touched by an electric wire, flung into action. The result was a disappointment, for Gold Hill had gone through the Ophir line for five yards.

The colonel’s excitement increased. He was cheering his club frantically when he suddenly seemed to remember his official position, and put a damper on his ardor.

“Hold them, Ophir!” whooped Clancy. “You’re just as good as they are! Aren’t you going to hold ’em?”

This urging seemed to have no effect, for there was another play, and this time the ball went through for a seven-yard gain.

“Well, well!” muttered Merry. “What do you think of that?”

There followed a fierce drive at center, and Joe Mayburn let the runner get past him for ten yards. Clancy was dancing around like a wild man. Handy was doing all he could to steady the boys, but it was plain that they were badly rattled by the sharp work of the other team.

Another play was aimed at center, but Mayburn was on his mettle, and the attack was thrown off.

“Bully work, Mayburn!” roared Merry. “That’s the style!”

“I guess they don’t find Mayburn so easy as they thought,” chuckled Clancy. “There they go again,” he added.

And again Gold Hill failed. Confidence was returning to the Ophir men.

“They’re getting their nerve back,” commented Merriwell. “Oh, I guess we’ll show those fellows that Ophir is a different crowd to-day from what it was a year ago. Now let Gold Hill kick.”

The way Ophir came up the field was beautiful to see. Savagely Gold Hill fought for every yard of the way. After two downs and a total gain of twenty yards, Handy tried for a field goal and missed. The colonel waved his hat, and then calmed himself into the correct official impassiveness. A little later, he blew the whistle.

“Fifteen minutes?” cried Clancy. “Thunder, Chip, it seems more like fifteen seconds to me.”

“The colonel’s holding the watch,” laughed Merry, “so he must have it pretty nearly right.”

“We ought to have a full sixty-minute session out of this. Why the deuce did Handy stipulate that only two quarters were to be played?”

“His head was level. A little of this sort of thing is a great plenty—with the real game some three weeks off.”

Parkman moved over toward Lenning, who was walking from the field. The two sat down to rest on a heap of bowlders close to the edge of the mesa.

The colonel, his face beaming, made directly for Merriwell and Clancy.

“It’s as even a thing, Merriwell,” he exclaimed, “as you’d find anywhere! You’ve done wonders with this Ophir eleven. If I wasn’t so old and warped with rheumatism I’d take a hand in it myself. Why don’t you get into it?”

The colonel did not wait for an answer, but saw Handy coming up and turned in his direction.

“I’d like an hour of this, Handy,” he cried. “Why don’t you let ’em box the compass for the limit?”

Handy looked at Merriwell, and what he saw in the latter’s face convinced him that his stipulations were fully approved.

“I don’t want to work our boys too hard, just at the present time, colonel,” said he. “The first quarter ended with the ball in the center of the field, and with everything pretty well balanced, so far as I could make out.”

Merriwell, seeing Bradlaugh beckon to him, left Clancy and Handy talking with the colonel, and moved over to hear what Brad had to say.

“Chip,” whispered Brad excitedly, “there’s a hen on!”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that Lenning is up to some dirty move or other, that’s what I mean.”

“Bosh! I’ve been watching him like a weasel, and I——”

“I don’t mean during the play,” Brad interrupted, “but over there on that rock pile where he’s been talking with Parkman.”

“What’s happened?”

“I was over there myself, stretched out for a little rest. I was on one side of the bowlders, and those two came up and sat on the other side. Parkman handed Lenning something. ‘That’s from Bleeker,’ I heard him say, ‘and he says it contains some hot news about Darrel and Merriwell.’ That’s all that was said. Parkman sneaked off as though he was afraid some one would see him. I got up to move away, and looked back, to see Lenning reading a note. His face was savage. He made as though he’d tear up the note, then changed his mind and pushed it in between the lacings of his jacket. What do you suppose is going on?”

“Whatever it is, Brad,” answered Merriwell calmly, “it’s none of my business.”

“But Parkman mentioned your name and Darrel’s. Certainly it is some of your business.”

“I can’t figure it that way, or——”

Merriwell bit his words short. Ballard was just hurrying up over the edge of the mesa and laying a course in his direction. Merry’s first thought was that something had happened to Darrel, and he hastened to get close to Ballard.

“Game begun?” panted Ballard.

“Begun, and half over,” was the reply. “We’re only to play two quarters, and there’s a fifteen-minute interval between them. What’s the matter, Pink? Why are you here? Darrel all right?”

“Darrel’s getting along in good shape,” Ballard answered, “but there’s something up that ought to be attended to.”

“What?”

“It seems there’s a division of sentiment in the Gold Hill camp regarding Darrel. A few of the Gold Hill fellows think Darrel isn’t getting a fair shake. Lenning found it out, and made them stay behind when he and the rest came to Tinaja Wells for this game. He’d had a quarrel with Bleeker, I don’t know what about, and the two have hardly spoken since last night. Hotchkiss, one of Darrel’s Gold Hill friends, came to Dolliver’s a while ago and said Bleeker had given Parkman a letter to be delivered to Lenning, and that the letter contains evidence that will clear Darrel of that forgery charge.”

Merriwell jumped. Bradlaugh, too, was wildly excited.

“Jupiter!” muttered Brad, “I reckon we’re getting this down pretty fine.”

“How do you know the letter contains evidence of that sort?” asked Merriwell.

“Hotchkiss said so.”

“Well, how does Hotchkiss know?”

“He and one or two more of Darrel’s friends at Camp Hawtrey got their heads together and figured it out. Hotchkiss rode over to Dolliver’s to tell Darrel that some of his friends must get the letter away from Parkman.”

“Parkman has already delivered it,” put in Brad.

“Then, Hotchkiss said, it’s got to be taken away from Lenning.”

Merriwell’s dark eyes flashed. He believed fully in Darrel, and he had no confidence whatever in Lenning. In his own mind, Merry was convinced that Lenning had fabricated, and carried into effect, that dastardly plot to make it appear as though Darrel had looted the colonel’s safe of the one thousand dollars.

Was it possible that here, during this brief try-out with Gold Hill, evidence could be deduced proving Darrel innocent of that forgery charge?

Ballard, in his excitement, had not stated the case exactly as it was. Hotchkiss had qualified his assertions somewhat in saying that the communication from Bleeker to Lenning contained forgery evidence. Ballard had merely left out the qualifying words of the friend of Darrel from Camp Hawtrey.

This, at first blush, might seem like a trifling omission, and yet had Merriwell not believed absolutely that Hotchkiss knew what he was talking about, and that the note really contained evidence in the forgery matter, his action would have been vastly different from what it was.

It would soon be time to put the ball into play again. Merriwell, his eyes roving over the field and the scattered players, was thinking deeply.

“You think, Brad,” he asked, “that Lenning still has that note where you say he placed it?”

“It’s a cinch!” Brad declared.

“Keep this under your hats, both of you,” said Merriwell. “If that evidence concerns Darrel, and indirectly myself, we’re going to have it.”

He spun around and ran back to the field. Lenning was right guard for the Gold Hill team, and Spencer Dunn was left guard for Ophir.

“Spence,” said Merry, “I want some of your harness. If you’ve no objection, I’d like to take your place in the game for the second quarter.”

“Go to it, Chip!” answered Dunn cheerfully, and began shedding as much of his costume as Merriwell thought necessary and had time to take.

Colonel Hawtrey witnessed the proceeding.

“Couldn’t stand the strain, eh, Merriwell?” he laughed. “Well, I don’t blame you, my boy. Now I expect to see some real football.”

Merriwell smiled a little. “I wonder what Hawtrey would say,” he muttered to himself, “if he knew just what sort of a game within a game this was going to be?”

[CHAPTER XXIII.]
GETTING THE EVIDENCE.

Merriwell was not disposed to be at all considerate of Jode Lenning. Into Merry’s mind, again, came those ugly suspicions of the favorite nephew.

It was conceivable that Lenning, jealous of his half brother, had plotted to have him cast off and set adrift, just as he had, Merriwell felt sure, engineered that robbery plot against him. What had caused the accident on the cliff still remained a mystery; yet, terrible as that accident had been, if the result of a plot, then the plot was less heinous than the one by which it had been made to appear that Ellis Darrel was a forger. Through the first, life might have been lost; but, through the second, honor, which men of integrity hold dearer than life, hung in the balance.

The blood ran hot through Merriwell’s veins as all these thoughts trooped through his mind. Here was a chance to do something for Darrel, was the idea that filled him, to the exclusion of anything and everything else.

Taking his place on the field, opposite Lenning, Merriwell strove to note the exact place where the note from Bleeker had been stowed. His eyes, peering hawklike from either side of the rubber nose guard, sought the lacings of the other guard’s jacket. Between two of the crossed thongs he believed he caught a flash, the merest flash, of something white. Then, while Merriwell’s brain was still lashed with those ugly suspicions of Lenning, the playing began.

Ophir ran the kick-off back a bare seven yards. Line plunges, during which Merry sought in vain for a chance at that scrap of white, netted another gain of four yards. Then, as in some weird dream, Merriwell found himself crouching in the middle of the line, staring into the face of Lenning, with its shifty eyes and its overtopping mop of black hair. The swaying lines locked and clashed as the ball flew out of the scramble and into the arms of the Gold Hill half back.

Merry plunged forward in an attempt to break through. Lenning threw out a leg to trip him. Merry’s hands pawed at the jacket as he went down, but he was up again in a flash with something clutched in his fist.

“You’re not so much!” snarled Lenning.

Merriwell laughed. He could afford to. The evidence was in his possession now.

The playing went on, and gradually Merriwell began to take more interest in the battle and less in the scrap of evidence which had come into his hands.

Ophir had the ball and was going down the field with it, five yards through tackle, five more stolen through the guard, and then five more around the end. A tackle run netted ten yards, and a forward pass twenty, Brad grabbing the ball on a perfect throw.

Gold Hill’s confidence was oozing away steadily. Her men were rattled, and Clancy and Dunn and Ballard were doing their utmost from the side lines to make their confusion more complete. Before Ophir’s attack, the Gold Hill line slumped and gave way.

And then, when close to Gold Hill’s goal, Mayburn lost the ball on a distressing fumble. That nearly broke the center’s heart. Hawtrey hung over the scramble as the players disentangled themselves, and it was discovered that a Gold Hill man had the ball.

“Somebody kick me!” wailed Mayburn. “Oh, what a bobble!”

Gold Hill had no use for a scrimmage at that stage of the game, and immediately lifted the pigskin into safer quarters. Both sides were still without a score when, a few minutes later, the quarter ended.

Merriwell had smothered his desire to do his best. Ophir, he knew, had outplayed Gold Hill, and it was better for all concerned that there should be no scoring. On the face of it, the teams might be called evenly matched. As for the rest of it, the game Merriwell had played within the game had been entirely successful.

The best of good feeling prevailed. It was much easier for the right spirit to manifest itself over a scoreless game than if one side or the other had made a touchdown or had kicked a goal.

Led by the colonel, the Gold Hill fellows collected in a group and cheered the Ophir team, while Ophir, with Handy and Merriwell leading, returned the compliment for their opponents.

“This,” beamed the colonel, taking Merriwell and Handy off to one side, “starts our series of friendly competitions, and leaves nothing to be desired. I have enjoyed myself this afternoon, and it has been a pleasure to me to notice the utter absence of anything like ill feeling. Keep up the good work, boys. I’ll have to leave you now, for I want to get on my horse and ride over to the other camp. Jode and his teammates will make the trip ’cross country.”

Merriwell and Handy walked with the colonel to the camp. As he was about to mount his horse for the ride to Camp Hawtrey, the colonel turned and gave Merry his hand.

“I wish that some day you might come to town with Jode and have dinner with me,” said he. “I should esteem it a great pleasure, Merriwell.”

“Thank you, colonel,” Frank answered, “but I’m afraid I shall be too busy here to accept many social invitations.”

“You won’t forget to take the Ophir boys over to the other camp?”

“They can look for us over there almost any day.”

“Good!”

He swung into his saddle, waved his hand, and started at a gallop down the gulch.

“We could have scored,” mourned Handy, “we ought to have scored. Mayburn——”

“I’m glad he fumbled,” interrupted Frank. “As I told the boys before they went on the field, I wasn’t eager to have them win, but I was more than eager to have them keep Gold Hill from winning. We outplayed them, and that’s enough.”

“You got into it yourself in order to study the other team at close quarters?”

“That wasn’t my idea exactly,” Frank answered, “although the experience will probably be a help. Come on,” he added, suddenly shifting the subject, “and let’s take our plunge in the pool.”

Ballard and Bradlaugh were feverishly eager to have a few words in private with Merriwell. The opportunity did not offer until some time after Merriwell had had his swim and had got into his clothes; then, as he walked toward the camp, Ballard and Bradlaugh and Clancy joined him. Already Ballard had confided to Clancy, Merriwell’s real reason for getting actively into the football game.

“Did you win out, Chip?” asked Bradlaugh.

Merriwell nodded, and slapped his pocket.

“What’s the evidence?” queried Ballard. “Does it clear Darrel?”

“Haven’t looked at it yet,” was the reply.

Astonished exclamations came from the other three.

“Don’t mean to say you haven’t had time?” Clancy asked.

“I’ve had the time, Clan, but not the inclination. We’ll let Darrel look at the note first. Maybe,” and Merry grew thoughtful, “I jumped into this thing too quick. Suppose Hotchkiss was wrong? Suppose there’s no evidence in the note about the forgery? If that’s the case, I’ve done a measly trick.”

“You were justified in getting that note, Chip,” declared Ballard, “just on the strength of what I told you.”

“I hope so,” said Frank, “but that’s a thing we’ll leave to Darrel. Shall we ride down the cañon this afternoon?”

“I’ve got to go back,” returned Ballard, “and you fellows might as well go with me.”

Without delay, they started to get their horses ready. Half an hour later they were speeding along the narrow cañon trail in single file, Merriwell hardly knowing whether he ought to feel elated or depressed over his exploit on the football field.

The high ideas of honor, inculcated by his father, would not have pardoned his afternoon’s work unless it set right the great wrong that had been done Ellis Darrel. Merriwell felt that, in his eagerness to help his new chum, he might have committed a deed which he would later regret. He had acted on the impulse of the moment, and with implicit faith in what Ballard had repeated as coming from Hotchkiss.

A fine point of ethics was involved, and Merriwell believed that no eyes save Darrel’s should read the note unless it was really found to have an important bearing on Darrel’s affairs.

[CHAPTER XXIV.]
CONCERNING THE EVIDENCE.

When the four lads reached Dolliver’s, they found Darrel anxiously awaiting news from Tinaja Wells.

“Did you get that letter, pards?” were his first words, as the four from the camp trooped into the house.

“Yes,” said Frank. “Parkman had delivered the letter to Lenning, and Lenning was in a temper when he read it. He seemed on the point of tearing the note in pieces, then changed his mind and pushed it into the front of his jacket. Brad saw him.”

“How did you get it from Lenning?”

“During the football game. I got into the play and secured the note in a scrimmage.”

“Merriwell,” said Darrel, with deep feeling, “you’re a loyal friend, if a fellow ever had one.”

“It’s something I wouldn’t have done unless it seemed best,” answered Merriwell, “and I wouldn’t have done it, Darrel, if I had thought there was the slightest doubt that it’s not what Hotchkiss said.”

“Hasn’t it anything to do with me, or—or that trouble with the colonel?”

“I don’t know what the letter contains. I have brought it to you, Darrel, and you can read it. If it hasn’t any bearing on you, I’m going to take it back to Lenning and tell him how I got it.”

Clancy and Ballard were about to cry out against such a proceeding, but there was a look in their chum’s face which assured them that he had made up his mind as to the course he should follow, and would keep to it if the circumstances warranted.

“Let’s see the letter, Chip,” said Darrel huskily.

Merriwell removed the soiled and crumpled paper from his pocket and silently handed it to Darrel. The latter’s hand trembled as he took the folded scrap and slowly opened it. His eyes widened as he read the note’s contents; and then, when he had finished, his hand dropped nervelessly at his side and he stared at Merriwell with wide eyes.

“What is it?” asked Merry. “Has it anything to do with you?”

“Yes,” was the muffled response, “and with you, too. Read it. I think you have a perfect right to do so, Chip.”

Merry took the note and read as follows:

“Lenning: I know about your cutting the rope and dropping Darrel down the cliff. There are some things I won’t stand for, and that’s one of them. If you try any dirty work during the football game, I’ll blow the whole measly business to Merriwell.

Bleeker.”

Merriwell gasped. There was no further doubt about that supposed accident on the cliff. It was no accident at all, but the result of a fiendish design. It seemed hardly possible that Lenning, if in his right senses, could have attempted such a villainous deed.

Without a word, Frank handed the note to Clancy, and it went from one to the other until all had read it. No one spoke. The crumpled paper came back to Darrel again, and he held it thoughtfully in his trembling fingers.

Distant voices were heard outside the house. Through a window beside his bed Darrel could look into the mouth of the cañon.

Two horsemen had ridden out of the ragged entrance of the gulch and had halted, their mounts pulled close together. One of the riders was Colonel Hawtrey and the other was Lenning.

The colonel, it was evident, was on his way back to Gold Hill after visiting the camp of the Gold Hill Athletic Club. Lenning, it was equally evident, had ridden part way with him, and was now about to face the other way and return to the camp.

Through the window, all the boys in the ranch house looked at the horsemen. The colonel was smiling and happy. On his face could be seen a look of affection for the lad at his side. Taking Jode’s hand, he pressed it warmly, then used his spurs and rode off along the trail toward home.

Jode watched him for a few moments, shouted a last farewell, waved his hat, and then vanished at a gallop between the rugged cañon walls. A mist arose in the eyes of Ellis Darrel. He began tearing the paper to pieces, using his teeth and the one hand which was still serviceable.

“What are you doing that for, Darrel?” demanded Ballard.

“It would kill my uncle if he thought both his nephews were scoundrels,” Darrel answered. “I can’t have a hand in blackening Jode’s character like this. I’ve put up with a whole lot, and I can put up with a good deal more than I have, but this fight of mine is to prove that I didn’t sign the colonel’s name to a check. See what I mean? I—I can’t kill the colonel’s faith in Jode—not in this way. Don’t say a word about this, any of you. Promise me that you won’t.”

There was something fine and noble about Darrel’s act in destroying the evidence against Jode. It was not the evidence that Darrel wanted. The temptation to ruin his half brother was not so strong as his love for the misguided old colonel, or his desire to prove his own innocence.

Merriwell stepped to the bed and clasped Darrel’s hand.

“That’s right, old man,” said he, “exactly right. Say, Darrel,” and his voice quivered, “you’re a brick!”

[CHAPTER XXV.]
THE UNDER DOG.

“Great Scott, Chip! Say, I didn’t think there was a place like that in Arizona.”

Young Merriwell and his red-headed chum, Owen Clancy, stood on the crest of the long, sloping wall of a gulch and looked downward at a scene that filled them with wonder and admiration.

The gulch was perhaps a hundred and fifty feet deep, and a quarter of a mile from rim to rim. On either side the slopes fell away in a gentle descent, sparsely covered with pine trees, and with here and there a patch of flaming poppies touching the brown of the hillsides as with fire.

In the depths was a long, silvery vista of water, placid, and cool, and deep. At the foot of the slope on whose crest the two lads were standing, was a wide strip of clean yellow sand. Here there were half a dozen white canvas tents, pitched close to the water, with camping equipment scattered in all directions.

Four or five canoes were drawn up on the beach. On a float, a few yards from shore, several lads in “Nature’s raiment” were sitting and splashing their feet in the water; others were diving from the float, their white bodies flashing outward and downward like so many darts, disappearing under the smooth surface of the river and leaving a jet of spray and a quiver of silvery ripples; and still others were swimming, far up and down the stream. All were enjoying themselves to the utmost, if their laughter, echoing and reverberating between the slopes could be taken as an indication.

“This is certainly a peach of a place for a camp,” said young Merriwell. “In some ways it has our own camp at Tinaja Wells beaten a mile. The sight of those canoes down there makes me hungry for a paddle!”

“And to think,” went on Clancy, “that this is nearly the middle of November, and that back home the snow is beginning to fly, and overcoats are trumps, and folks are hunting up their galoshes! Wow! It hardly seems possible. Down here in southern Arizona a fellow can have his out-door sports all the year ’round. So that’s Camp Hawtrey, eh? Well, it’s a bully place, if you ask me.”

“The only thing these Gold Hill fellows haven’t got is a good athletic field. I hear they’ve cleaned up a patch of desert back of the gulch, and are using that for sports and practice. But that slice of raw ground isn’t in it with our mesa, Clan.”

“You’re right there, Chip. Our camp at Tinaja Wells has certainly got it over this one so far as a field is concerned, but I wish we had a nice stretch of river like that for canoeing. Where’s Lenning? Can you see him down there in that bunch of swimmers?”

The boys above studied carefully the ones below, but failed to discover Lenning.

“He’s not there, Clan,” said Merriwell, “and I can’t see Bleeker, Hotchkiss, and several more of the Gold Hill Athletic Club whom we know tolerably well.”

“Jode Lenning, I guess, is the main squeeze of that outfit, and he’s the one we’ll have to talk with.”

“I hate to have anything to do with him,” muttered Merry, “but he’s Colonel Hawtrey’s nephew, and the colonel is the backbone of the Gold Hill club, and if our fellows and the Gold Hillers have any more friendly competitions, we’ll have to arrange with Lenning.”

“Lenning’s a skunk,” growled Clancy. “If it hadn’t been for him we know mighty well that Ellis Darrel, his own half brother, wouldn’t be laid up at Dolliver’s with a broken arm. We know, I say, that Lenning cut the rope that dropped Darrel over the cliff, and——”

“Cut it, Clan!” interrupted Merriwell. “We promised Darrel we’d keep that to ourselves.”

“Well, I’m not blowing it around, am I? The way Hawtrey snuggles up to Lenning and hands Darrel, his other nephew, all the hard knocks makes me pretty darn tired.”

“Hawtrey will be all right when he finds out that Darrel didn’t forge his name to that check more than a year ago.”

“Yes, when he finds it out—and that’s never. Lenning, I’ll bet a peck of dollars, was at the bottom of that forgery, and you can’t bring forward any proof against Lenning that the colonel will consider. You know that as well as I do, Chip.”

“Something will turn up, Clan,” asserted Merriwell confidently. “When a fellow gets in wrong it’s bound to come out unless he changes his ways. And Jode Lenning isn’t changing—that is, not so you can notice it. Luck is going to turn Darrel’s way—I’ve got a pretty good hunch to that effect. The old colonel will find out for himself just which of his nephews is the more reliable. Wait, that’s all.”

“I can’t see anything rosy in Darrel’s future,” growled Clancy, “so long as Jode has his big stand-in with his Uncle Alvah. But there’s no use chinning about that now. We’re over here from our camp as a games committee to fix up a schedule of sports with Gold Hill, and we’re supposed to be loaded to the gunnels with peaceable sentiments and loving regards for Ophir’s athletic rivals. Oh, slush! I’m in such an amiable mood, right this minute, that I’d like to take a crack at Lenning with my bare knuckles.”

“Lenning’s only one of that Gold Hill crowd, old man,” said Chip soothingly. “Bradlaugh, president of the Ophir club, and Hawtrey, who backs the Gold Hillers, are both tired of having the rival organizations at loggerheads. They want peace and friendship between the two camps, and I don’t blame them. We’re going to do what we can to make the rivalry more sportsmanlike, and less bitter. ‘Fair play and no favor,’ that’s our motto. When we find Lenning, Clan, just hold yourself in and don’t bite.”

“All right,” assented Clancy, although with a show of some reluctance. “Let’s go down there, find Lenning, and get the business over with.”

Before they could start down the long slope that led to the bottom of the gulch, both lads were suddenly startled by the sudden note of a firearm. The report came from a considerable distance, evidently, yet was perfectly clear and distinct.

“What’s that?” demanded Clancy, wheeling about and staring at his chum.

“Sounded like a revolver,” was the reply. “Somebody trying a hand at target practice, more than likely.”

“The sound didn’t come from below—the shooting is going on up here, somewhere. Maybe Lenning is mixed up in it.”

“We’ll mosey around and find out,” said Merry.

Another report was heard, and the two chums, laying their course by the sound, started along the top of the gulch wall. A third shot was followed by a sharp yelp, as of some animal in pain.

“Was that a dog, Chip?” queried Clancy.

“Strikes me it was,” said Merry. “This way,” he added, turning from the gulch and moving off into some low, rocky hills.

As they advanced, the boys heard voices and laughter. One of the voices they recognized as Jode Lenning’s. Presently, from behind a bit of a ridge, they looked out and discovered what was going on.

Lenning and three more of the Gold Hill crowd—fellows of about his same stamp—had tied a dog to an ironwood tree. At a distance of about fifty feet they were taking turns shooting at the poor brute—evidently seeing how close they could come without making a hit.

The dog was about as homely an animal as Merry had ever seen. His tawny hide was scarred in a dozen different places, and one eye was gone and a front leg was crooked—apparently the leg had been broken and Nature had healed it alone. There was some object tied to the dog’s tail by a section of stout twine—the lads behind the ridge could not make out exactly what the object was.

Bang! went the revolver. A flurry of dust was kicked up under the wretched brute, which almost turned a somersault at the end of the rope. Lenning and his companions laughed at the dog’s antics.

Clancy’s face went black as a thundercloud. His fists clenched and, with a muttered imprecation, he started to hurl himself around the end of the ridge. Chip caught him and held him back.

“Are you going to stand for this, Chip?” asked the red-headed fellow in a savage whisper.

“No,” said Merriwell; “we’ll interfere at the right time. Wait a minute.”

Clancy restrained himself and once more sank down behind the rocks. Parkman, one of Lenning’s companions, had begun to speak.

“I reckon we’d better stop shooting, Jode,” said he, “or the dog will hit the cap on the stones and set off the dynamite.”

“You’re right, Park,” answered Lenning. “We’ll pass up the shooting, touch off the fuse, and set the ki-yi adrift. When the cartridge goes off,” he chuckled, “I bet there won’t be enough of that tramp dog left to wad a gun. Lamson, you light the fuse. You can cut the rope, Park, when the fuse is going. Be quick about it or the whelp will take a piece out of you.”

Clancy’s eyes were fairly burning as he leaned toward Merry and gripped his arm.

“Do you know what those skunks are up to, Chip?” he whispered. “They’ve tied a dynamite cartridge to that brute’s tail, and they’re going to light the fuse and turn the dog loose!”

“No, they’re not,” said Merriwell decisively. “That’s what they’re aiming to do, Clan, but we’ll interfere with the game. They’re a fine crowd of cannibals, I must say,” he went on scathingly. “The colonel ought to be here and see that precious nephew of his in his real colors. Hang it, Clan, I’m so worked up I can’t see straight.”

Clancy gave vent to a gruesome laugh.

“Here we come from Tinaja Wells with an olive branch,” he chuckled, “and now we’re going out to lam Jode over the head with it. Come on. Lamson is getting ready to scratch a match and light the fuse.”

“Here we go,” answered Merriwell.

With a rush the two boys got out from behind the ridge. They were nearer the cowering dog than they were to Lenning, and, the first thing Lamson knew, Merriwell had tipped him over and knocked the blazing match from his fingers. Clancy, at the same time, had grabbed Parkman by the collar and pulled him back so quickly that the open jackknife fell out of his nerveless hand.

Jode Lenning, stunned into momentary inaction by the unexpected appearance of Merriwell and Clancy, suddenly recovered himself, gave an angry yell, and started toward the newcomers at a run.

[CHAPTER XXVI.]
BAD BLOOD.

As the only heir of a very rich and influential man, Jode Lenning had a number of followers of a certain sort. Parkham, Lamson, and “Klink” Hummer, who were bearing a part with Jode in his doubtful “sport” with the tramp dog, were three of these satellites; and they revolved around Jode and made his will their law, just for the favors which he could dole out to them. There was a community of interest among the four lads, but no real friendship.

As Lenning rushed toward Merriwell and Clancy, Hummer raced along at his heels. Finally the two halted close to the pair from the other camp. Lamson and Parkman, scowling over the rough treatment they had received, had regained their feet and stepped shoulder to shoulder with Lenning.

“What are you two butting in here for?” shouted Lenning, his shifty eyes a-gleam with anger.

“We think you’ve tortured that dog enough, Lenning,” replied Merriwell, smothering his own wrath and trying to use a persuasive tone. “You’d better cut away that dynamite cartridge and let the brute go.”

Here was a suggestion that thinly veiled a command. Although Merriwell’s voice was like velvet, yet it cut like steel, and Lenning’s temper boiled more briskly than ever.

“You’re a private little society for the prevention of cruelty to coyote dogs, eh?” Lenning sneered. “That cur has been snooping around our camp for days, stealing our grub. We’re going to put him out of business, and you chumps can’t come crow-hopping around here and meddle with our plans.”

“There are other ways of putting a dog out of business,” said Frank, “than singeing him with bullets and then blowing him up with dynamite.”

“It’s none o’ your put-in,” scowled Lamson, rubbing a blister on his hand where the match had burned him.

“I reckon we can do as we blame’ please in our own camp,” said Hummer.

Merriwell, stepping to the cowering brute, bent over to remove the string from his stump of a tail.

“Keep away from that dog, Merriwell!” stormed Lenning, taking a couple of threatening steps in Frank’s direction.

Clancy promptly jumped in front of Lenning.

“That will be far enough,” he said curtly. “Go on, Chip,” he added to Frank. “I’ll look after this duffer.”

The words were hardly out of Clancy’s mouth before Lenning struck him. The blow caught the red-headed chap in the shoulder and spun him half around. The next instant Clancy was going for Lenning, hammer and tongs. Before Lamson, Hummer, or Parkman could interfere, a stiff right-hander had put Lenning on his knees.

“That’s enough of that kind of work!” cried Merriwell, leaping up and tossing the dynamite cartridge into the bushes. “We didn’t come here to kick up a row. Hands off, you fellows!” he ordered, facing Lenning’s restive comrades.

“Go for ’em!” whooped Lenning, nursing a bruised chin with both hands. “If they want a rough-house, give ’em a-plenty. There are only two of them and three of you. What are you hanging back for?”

Probably Lamson, Hummer, and Parkman had no great amount of courage, and Merriwell and Clancy looked rather formidable to them. Be that as it may, yet when Lenning had dropped to his knees his three companions had held back.

Now, under their leader’s urging, Hummer threw himself toward Frank. The latter side-stepped a savage blow and turned suddenly to put out a foot and trip Lamson, who was making a headlong rush at him from the side. Lamson fell sprawling into Hummer, and both dropped in a tangle. Clancy laughed.

“A little ground and lofty tumbling by Lamson and Hummer,” he remarked. “Why don’t you get up, Jode, and take a hand in this set-to yourself? Where’s your ginger? You’re not going to leave all this to your friends, are you?”

“Just a minute,” put in Frank, as Lenning, muttering wrathfully, struggled erect. “This thing can stop right where it is. Clancy and I don’t want to stir up any hard feelings. We came over from our camp this afternoon to arrange for a competition of some kind with you Gold Hill chaps. Now, let’s drop this and——”

“I’ll drop that red-headed freak over there,” cut in Lenning, “if it’s the last thing I ever do! Who wants any competitions with that Ophir bunch of yaps? All we want you fellows to do is to stay away from Camp Hawtrey and leave us alone.”

He was edging slowly toward Clancy, his face contorted with rage. Lenning wasn’t a pleasant sight, and Frank wondered how a fellow could give away to his temper in such fashion.

“That will do you, Lenning!” said he sternly. “Keep your shirt on—if you don’t want to get more than you bargain for.”

The glint in Clancy’s eyes meant trouble, and Frank knew that his red-headed chum would go the limit with Lenning if the latter got close enough for a fight. At this stage of the affair, when a one-sided scrimmage seemed inevitable, Bleeker and Hotchkiss, of the Gold Hill crowd, stepped out from behind a pile of rocks and rapidly approached the scenes. Hotchkiss, on his way, halted to cut the dog adrift, and the harassed brute vanished among the low hills like a streak.

“This will be fine news for Colonel Hawtrey!” exclaimed Bleeker, coming close to his camp mates. “He’ll be tickled to death when he hears about this—I don’t think. You must be going bug house, Jode!”

Lenning whirled on Bleeker like a fury.

“Get away from here!” he flashed. “You’re a cheap skate, anyhow, and I reckon you know pretty well what I think of you!”

“I reckon I do,” returned Bleeker slowly. “We’ve hardly been on speaking terms for a week.”

“You attend to your own business,” snapped Lenning, “and I’ll take care of mine.”

“There’ll be no more fighting with Merriwell and Clancy,” asserted Bleeker firmly. “There are four of you and two of them, and if you try any more of this rough-house business, Hotch and I will jump into it ourselves and show you where you get off. You’re about as near a yellow pup, Lenning, as I know how to describe.”

This did not, in the least, tend to placate Lenning’s ugly mood.

“Why don’t you move over and join that Ophir crowd?” he taunted. “You’re stuck on El Darrel, and think he’s the whole thing. Why don’t you and Hotchkiss take your truck and emigrate to Tinaja Wells, so you can be with Darrel’s friends?”

“We’ll emigrate,” answered Hotchkiss darkly, “but it won’t be to the Wells. When we hike, by thunder, it’ll be for home. Eh, Bleek?”

“Surest thing you know,” Bleeker replied. “And when I see the colonel,” he added significantly, “I’ll have something to tell him.”

Lenning was a little startled at that; but his dismay was only temporary. He was too much enraged to consider the consequences of his own acts, or of anything else.

“Talk to my uncle,” snarled Lenning, “and you’ll get the biggest calling-down you ever had in your life. Furthermore, Bleeker, if you and Hotch don’t get out of Camp Hawtrey before sun-down, I’ll see that you’re properly kicked out. Come on, fellows,” he added to his three stand-bys, whirling on his heel.

The angry, sullen quartette walked to a little distance, and Lenning stooped down and picked up the dynamite cartridge from the place to which Merriwell had thrown it. Bleeker turned to Frank.

“He’s a pup, that’s all,” grunted Bleeker. “He has ordered Hotch and me out of camp, but we were about ready to go, anyhow. We’ve been having merry blazes at Camp Hawtrey for some time. A few of us Gold Hillers won’t lick Lenning’s boots—not so you can notice—and we think Ellis Darrel hasn’t been having a square deal. That’s put Lenning down on us, and he has been taking most of his spite out on Hotch and me. I reckon this is about the finish.”

“I’m plumb satisfied,” grinned Hotchkiss. “If it hadn’t been for you, Bleek, I’d have hit the trail for Gold Hill several days ago.”

“I’ve hung on,” continued Bleeker, “hoping we could do a little to make a better feeling between our club and the Ophir fellows. But there’ll never be anything but scraps and bitterness between the rival athletic clubs as long as Jode is king-bee of the Gold Hill crowd. That’s straight. Colonel Hawtrey lets Jode wind him around his fingers. I should think,” Bleeker added hotly, “that the old colonel would have sense enough to see through that measley, two-faced nephew of his. I know him, by thunder, from a to izzard, and he’s plumb yellow.”

“Clancy and I,” said Merriwell ruefully, “came over here as a games committee to arrange for a visit of the Ophir fellows to Camp Hawtrey, but when we saw Jode and his friends torturing that dog, it stirred us up so that we jumped into them.”

“Don’t blame you,” said Bleeker. “Hotch and I saw it all, Merriwell. We were behind another pile of rocks, and if you hadn’t interfered, we would. Pestering a dog like that is mean business. The brute has been hanging around the camp, stealing provisions, and has been no end of a nuisance, but he didn’t have to be tortured when he could have been shot out of hand. Parkman has been laying for that coyote dog for a couple of days. He got a chance at him this afternoon and dropped a rope over his head. Jode fixed up that dynamite cartridge, and when he and his mates started off with the cartridge and the dog, Hotch and I followed along, expecting some kind of deviltry. This is the outcome of it. I wish Hawtrey had been behind the rocks with us. I’ll bet a bunch of dinero what he would have seen would have been an eye opener for him.”

“I’m sorry as blazes about this flare-up,” muttered Merriwell. “It certainly puts a crimp into all our plans for getting the two clubs together on a friendly basis. But Clan and I couldn’t hold in when we saw Jode abusing that cur dog. What do you suppose Hawtrey will say?”

“He’ll take Jode’s part, sure as shooting. I could tell Hawtrey a few things, but he wouldn’t believe them. Jode was right when he said that the colonel would give me a big calling down if I tried to open up on his favorite nephew.”

“I left O. Clancy’s private mark on Jode’s chin,” chirruped Frank’s red-headed comrade, “and I can’t remember when anything has happened that made me feel so good. Be hanged to the rest of it. Things will work out all right, Chip, so don’t fret.”

“If Bradlaugh——”

Merry never finished what he was about to say, for, at that precise moment, Bleeker and Hotchkiss sprang into fierce action.

“Run!” shouted Bleeker, as he raced over the rocks; “run—for your lives!”

Over his shoulder Frank saw a hissing, sputtering object in the air, coming toward the point where he, and Clancy, and Bleeker, and Hotchkiss had been standing. Hotchkiss was already bounding after Bleeker, and in less than half a second Merry and Clancy were also hustling like mad to get out of the way.

The hissing object struck ground, and in a moment there was an explosion, and a little cloud of débris was flung high in the air.

[CHAPTER XXVII.]
THE BOY WHO DIDN’T CARE.

It was Lenning, of course, who had lighted the fuse and hurled that infernal machine in the direction of Merriwell and those he had been talking with. The hot-headed recklessness of the act made Merriwell gasp. Had Bleeker not seen the hissing bomb in the air, and shouted his warning, what would have happened?

A wave of indignation and anger rushed over Merriwell. He was running at top speed at the moment of the explosion, and he continued to run while the booming echoes reverberated among the hills—but he changed his course.

Lenning and his friends were clustered together in a compact group, staring sullenly at the place where the dynamite had “let go.” All at once they saw Merriwell, eyes flashing and face like a thundercloud, bearing down on them.

Perhaps Lenning would have stood his ground had not his three companions deserted him in a panic. His courage was of a sort that needed backing, and when his supporters fled, he whirled and made after them. He had not gone far, however, before Merriwell overhauled him, grabbed him by the collar, and jerked him roughly backward.

Clancy, even more furious than his chum, and Bleeker and Hotchkiss, both scowling fiercely, made haste to get to Merriwell’s side. Lenning had been thrown from his feet, and was lying on the rocks half lifted on one elbow. There was a look of ugly defiance in his face that did not match the glimmer of fear in his eyes.

“You crazy fool!” cried Frank. “Are you trying to kill somebody?”

“It’s not the first time!” panted Bleeker.

“He ought to be kicked from here plumb to the bottom of the gulch,” clamored Hotchkiss.

“Let’s pound a little sense into him!” suggested Clancy.

“I don’t care a whoop what happens to you junipers,” answered Lenning. “Don’t you dare lay a hand on me! The colonel will make it hot for you if you do.”

“That’s about what I’d expect of you,” came scornfully from Clancy. “As soon as you earn a good trouncing you begin whooping it up for your Uncle Alvah. Oh, you’re the limit, all right.”

“Suppose Bleeker hadn’t seen that lighted bomb coming toward us?” went on Frank. “What would have happened, eh?”

“I don’t care a tinker’s darn,” said Lenning. “You fellows keep your hands off or you’ll wish you had.”

With a roar of anger Clancy attempted to use his fists on Lenning, but Merriwell put out a restraining arm and pushed him back. Frank’s temper had had time to cool a little.

“Stow it, Clan!” said he. “We don’t want to make this matter any worse than it is, you know.”

“Hang it, Chip,” Clancy protested, “you’re not going to let this crazy chump try to blow us up and then get off without a pounding, are you?”

“He’ll get all that’s coming to him before long, and without any help from us. We’ve made a mess of the work that brought us to Camp Hawtrey, and it’s just as well not to complicate matters any more than they are.”

Frank turned from his chum and gave his full attention to Lenning.

“You’re a good deal of a puzzle to me, Lenning,” said he. “I don’t believe I ever saw a fellow who was just like you. The reckless way you have of robbing your uncle and then throwing the responsibility on some one else, cutting a rope, and dropping your half brother over a cliff, and lighting dynamite cartridges and throwing them around, is going to get you into a peck of trouble. I’ve got a hunch that you’re crazy. If that’s really the case, then you ought to be in a padded cell, for it’s a cinch it’s not safe to leave you at large. Now——”

Lenning had risen hastily to his feet. Something Merriwell had said had caused his face to go white.

“Look here,” he broke in, “I reckon you found something I lost on the mesa, over at your camp, during the football game our crowd had with yours. It was a note in which Bleeker, there, put down a lie for the purpose of getting me into trouble. You can’t make any capital out of what Bleeker says.”

Bleeker, red with anger, tried to get close to Lenning, but Hotchkiss held him back.

“What I wrote in that note,” cried Bleeker, “was the truth.”

“You can’t get even with me and help Darrel by any such talk,” sneered Lenning.

“I’ll finish what I want to say to you,” continued Merriwell sharply, “and then Clancy and I will be going. If you try any more desperate games, Lenning, you’ll be caught at it, sure as fate. If anything happens, we know where to look for the cause of it, and you can’t bank on Colonel Hawtrey doing anything to save your neck. That’s about all.”

He turned away. Lenning, scowling and muttering, hurried to join his friends, who had kept at a safe distance, and the four vanished on their way down into the gulch.

“Ain’t that about the worst ever?” murmured Hotchkiss. “Jode’s pretty near right when he says he don’t care what he does. He counts on his uncle’s faith in him to pull him out o’ any trouble he gets into.”

“I wish to thunder the colonel wasn’t such a fool,” blurted out Bleeker. “Why can’t he get next to the coyote?”

“He will, some time,” declared Frank. “Where did that dynamite come from, Bleeker? Do you know?”

“Yes, I know, although pretty nearly our whole camp is in the dark about it. When Hawtrey was out here, the last time, he and Jode took a walk along the south wall of the gulch. Now, the colonel’s got a scent for mineral-bearing ground same as a hound dog has for a rabbit. He found a place where he reckoned there might be gold, and on the q.  t. he sent out some hand drills, a sledge, some fuse, and a little dynamite, and told Jode to put down a hole. Jode’s been working with the drill and sledge, now and then, as he could steal away and find the time. The colonel told him to put the fuse and dynamite where it would be safe, and to leave ’em there until he—the colonel—came out with a box of caps and asked for the rest of the blasting material. Hawtrey intends to load and fire the hole himself, I reckon. It’s dangerous business, and he doesn’t want Jode, or any of the other fellows, mixed up in it. Jode got a cap somewhere, and fixed up that cartridge for the coyote dog.”

“I see,” Frank nodded.

“Jode has made a misplay,” said Hotchkiss. “If that coyote dog had been killed, I reckon he’d have been all right; but Merriwell stripped off the bomb the cur was trailin’ and I up and cut the rope. Gee, man, how that animile skedaddled!”

“How did Jode make a misplay, Hotch?” asked the puzzled Merriwell.

“Ain’t you ever heard about coyote dogs?” returned Hotchkiss. “Why, they’re that vengeful they hold a grouch for years until they pay it off. Abuse a coyote dog, by thunder, and he’ll make it a p’int to get even. How about it, Bleek?”

Bleeker nodded solemnly.

“Go on,” jeered Clancy; “you can’t make me swallow any such stuff as that.”

“You don’t know coyote dogs same as us fellows that live out in these parts,” persisted Hotchkiss. “Over at Sacatone a miner kicked one o’ those tramp curs and broke its leg. Six months after that the miner was found dead in the trail, all chewed to pieces.”

“Maybe it was a panther did that,” suggested Frank.

“Not on your life, Merriwell! The footprints around the miner were those of a dog. Lots o’ things like that have happened.”

“I’m glad, Chip,” chuckled Clancy, “that you and I are on the safe side. We did what we could for that homely brute, so he ought to feel sort of friendly toward us.”

“I guess, fellows,” said Chip, with a laugh, “that there’s a whole lot of superstition wrapped up in those yarns about coyote dogs. What’s a coyote dog, anyhow?”

“Just enough coyote in him to make him savage and wild, and just enough tame dog in him to make him want to be around where human bein’s congregate. People who know, treat an animile like that with consideration, but those who are ignorant make a big mistake when they try to shoot such a brute, or to hit it with a club.”

“Much obliged for the tip, Hotch,” grinned Frank. “Whenever I meet a coyote dog, after this, I’ll treat him with consideration. So long, fellows. Clancy and I have got to be going.”

Rather grimly, Bleeker and Hotchkiss said “good-by” to the two lads from Tinaja Wells and started for the camp where they knew they were unwelcome. Merry and Clancy turned their faces ’cross country and began retracing their way to their own headquarters.

Merriwell was in no very pleasant mood. He and Clancy had started out, that afternoon, with the intention of inaugurating a little friendly sport with the rival athletic organization, and the coyote dog had dropped into the equation and played havoc with their plans.

“I don’t know how the deuce we could have avoided that mix-up with Jode Lenning,” muttered Merry.

“Well, we could have side-stepped it all right,” returned Clancy.

“How?”

“Why, by letting them make a skyrocket of the dog, Chip.”

“Neither of us could stand for that.”

“Sure not, but that was the only way we could have kept on friendly terms with Lenning. So far’s I’m concerned, I’ll be hanged if I’d be on friendly terms with the chump if I could.”

“Lenning doesn’t amount to a whole lot, but Mr. Bradlaugh and Colonel Hawtrey both want the clubs to be on a friendly footing. We made a fair beginning with that football game, and now, while we were trying to keep up the good work, we’ve knocked what little true sportsmanship there was about seven ways for Sunday.”

“Lenning has too much influence with the Gold Hill crowd. He can’t domineer over Bleeker and Hotchkiss, and so they’ve got to get out. I wish to blazes that coyote dog would turn up and do business with Jode. But we can’t hope for any such good luck as that.”

“You’ll be as bloodthirsty as Lenning, Clan, if you keep on,” grinned Merry.

“Lenning is at the bottom of all the bad blood between the two clubs,” asserted Clancy warmly, “just as he’s at the bottom of all Darrel’s troubles. The cub is too mean to live.”

“Speaking about coyote dogs,” said Frank, “that notion of Hotch’s is mighty interesting.”

“Hotch, and Bleeker, too, seemed to take a good deal of stock in the idea. But it’s pretty far-fetched, and——”

A startled expression crossed Clancy’s homely face. He came to a dead halt, the words died on his lips, and he lifted one hand quickly and pointed. Frank, following the direction indicated by his chum’s finger, saw a tawny form slipping like a specter among the rocks. The form paused, reared up on a bowlder, and stood peering over its front paws for a space at the two lads; then, like an ill-omened wraith, it dropped to all fours and disappeared as though by magic.

Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Helping Hand

[CHAPTER I.]THE HOUSEBREAKER.

[CHAPTER II.]A STRANGER IN CAMP.

[CHAPTER III.]A FRIEND IN NEED.

[CHAPTER IV.]A CLASH OF AUTHORITY.

[CHAPTER V.]A CHALLENGE.

[CHAPTER VI.]PUZZLING DEVELOPMENTS.

[CHAPTER VII.]THE WILES OF A SCHEMER.

[CHAPTER VIII.]A JOKE—WITH RESULTS.

[CHAPTER IX.]THE RACE.

[CHAPTER X.]A HELPING HAND.

[CHAPTER XI.]A PARTIAL VICTORY.

[CHAPTER XII.]THE DOVE OF PEACE.

[CHAPTER XIII.]GERMANY VERSUS MEXICO.

[CHAPTER XIV.]AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR.

[CHAPTER XV.]TRUE SPORTSMANSHIP.

[CHAPTER XVI.]A TERRIBLE MISHAP.

[CHAPTER XVII.]A DARING RESCUE.

[CHAPTER XVIII.]QUICK WORK FOR DARREL.

[CHAPTER XIX.]UGLY SUSPICIONS.

[CHAPTER XX.]A FRIEND FROM CAMP HAWTREY.

[CHAPTER XXI.]TRYING TO BE FRIENDLY.

[CHAPTER XXII.]SHARP WORK.

[CHAPTER XXIII.]GETTING THE EVIDENCE.

[CHAPTER XXIV.]CONCERNING THE EVIDENCE.

[CHAPTER XXV.]THE UNDER DOG.

[CHAPTER XXVI.]BAD BLOOD.

[CHAPTER XXVII.]THE BOY WHO DIDN’T CARE.

[CHAPTER I.]
THE HOUSEBREAKER.

[CHAPTER II.]
A STRANGER IN CAMP.

[CHAPTER III.]
A FRIEND IN NEED.

[CHAPTER IV.]
A CLASH OF AUTHORITY.

[CHAPTER V.]
A CHALLENGE.

[CHAPTER VI.]
PUZZLING DEVELOPMENTS.

[CHAPTER VII.]
THE WILES OF A SCHEMER.

[CHAPTER VIII.]
A JOKE—WITH RESULTS.

[CHAPTER IX.]
THE RACE.

[CHAPTER X.]
A HELPING HAND.

[CHAPTER XI.]
A PARTIAL VICTORY.

[CHAPTER XII.]
THE DOVE OF PEACE.

[CHAPTER XIII.]
GERMANY VERSUS MEXICO.

[CHAPTER XIV.]
AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR.

[CHAPTER XV.]
TRUE SPORTSMANSHIP.

[CHAPTER XVI.]
A TERRIBLE MISHAP.

[CHAPTER XVII.]
A DARING RESCUE.

[CHAPTER XVIII.]
QUICK WORK FOR DARREL.

[CHAPTER XIX.]
UGLY SUSPICIONS.

[CHAPTER XX.]
A FRIEND FROM CAMP HAWTREY.

[CHAPTER XXI.]
TRYING TO BE FRIENDLY.

[CHAPTER XXII.]
SHARP WORK.

[CHAPTER XXIII.]
GETTING THE EVIDENCE.

[CHAPTER XXIV.]
CONCERNING THE EVIDENCE.

[CHAPTER XXV.]
THE UNDER DOG.

[CHAPTER XXVI.]
BAD BLOOD.

[CHAPTER XXVII.]
THE BOY WHO DIDN’T CARE.