“Ho, hum!” yawned Owen Clancy, stirring drowsily in his chair on the veranda of the Ophir House, “this is certainly the easy life. Trouble is, fellows, it’s too darned easy. About all the exercise we get is when we mosey out to the athletic club and boot the pigskin around. I’m getting sluggish.”
“Come over and slug me,” Billy Ballard invited, from the other end of the veranda. “Feeling kind of sluggish myself, Red, and if you’re pining for exercise, here’s your chance.”
“Tush, tush!” scoffed the red-headed chap. “Taking a fall out of you, Pink, wouldn’t be exercise, but a walk-away. Everything’s too deuced humdrum around here to suit me. Say, Chip, can’t you mix us up something with real snap and ginger in it? Nothing has happened for a week—not since Ballard and I got back the bullion that had been stolen from the Ophir Mine. That livened up things a whole lot.”
Young Merriwell looked up from the paper he was reading.
“Ten yards in four downs,” he remarked absently. “The new football rules this year will bring a revival of the old smashing line drives of the past. I wish we’d got this news before Ophir played the Gold Hillers.”
Merry showed a disposition to become absorbed once more in the article he was reading. Clancy headed him off.
“Bother the new rules! I asked you if you couldn’t fix up a little excitement for us, Chip. Life in southern Arizona is becoming flat, stale, and unprofitable. Every morning the prof makes us grind to the limit; every afternoon we loaf around until four, and then go out to the club field and punt, tackle the dummy, or fall on the ball. It’s getting mo-no-to-nious.”
“I guess the climate is playing hob with you, Clan,” grinned Merry, throwing aside the paper. “Early December, and here we are in our shirt sleeves, loafing in the shade and trying to be comfortable. But buck up. It won’t last forever. It won’t be long now before we’ll be pulling up stakes and hiking toward the ice and snow.”
“What’re we waiting for?”
“The prof’s mining deal is hanging fire. Almost any mail from the East may bring the letter that winds it up.”