“Nothing,” answered Burke. “Some coyote was yelping in the hills. The yelp of a prowling brute like that, when it gets mixed with the noise of the stamps, gives a queer impression sometimes.”
“Well,” said Frank doubtfully, “maybe you are right, Burke, but I don’t think so.”
“If you really heard a cry,” was the skeptical rejoinder, “why couldn’t you find the person that gave it?”
“I may have missed him in the dark.”
“That’s possible, too, but not probable.”
“Another thing,” went on Merriwell, “I think Lenning was honest in his intentions, and that he meant to do the right thing here. He came to the hotel to see me, in the afternoon, and we walked out on the trail a short distance and had a talk. He wanted to thank me for helping him get a job here. He said he was going to make good, and that I’d never be sorry for what I’d done.”
“Oh, he’s smooth,” said Burke. “If he hadn’t been, how could he have pulled the wool over his smart old uncle’s eyes for so long? He had an object in going to town—and his object wasn’t to thank you for helping him. That was merely a makeshift to cover his real purpose.”
“What do you think his real purpose was?”
“That’s a poser. Maybe, though, he wanted to get word to his confederate—to tell him that he’d got the job, and that the work could be pulled off to-night.”
“That’s a guess, Burke, and maybe a wild one.”