“I reckon he’s in the same class as Stovebridge,” the Texan said emphatically. “I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw a yearling by the tail.”
Jack Niles came up briskly at that moment.
“Well, fellows, let’s make ourselves comfortable outdoors,” he said. “You don’t want to stand on that leg of yours more than you can help for a while, old chap.”
“It’s feeling pretty comfortable just now,” Dick returned, with a smile. “Your bandages are all to the good.”
At the same time he was not sorry to sit down in one of the big wicker chairs, soon becoming the centre of a laughing, joking crowd of men, all bent on showing their admiration for the Yale athlete who had given such an exhibition of nerve and pluck as few of them had ever seen.
Merriwell thoroughly enjoyed himself, and was so taken up with the discussion and talk that he had no time to give to the problem which he had set himself to solve. At length, as the afternoon wore on, the fellows began to drop away. One by one, or in parties of two or three, they left the club in motor cars, runabouts, or on horseback, and by six o’clock there were only about a dozen left on the veranda, who were either stopping at the club or taking dinner there.
Then Dick remembered Jim Hanlon, and turned to Buckhart who sat beside him.
“Say, Brad,” he said in a low tone. “Do you think you could find that dumb fellow and bring him into the clubhouse? You know I wanted to straighten him out about who ran over the little girl. He seems to have an idea that I did it.”
The Texan got up readily.
“Sure thing. He ought to be around somewheres—maybe in the kitchen.”