“Did he say anything about what he intended to do?”
“No. But he did remark, I remember, that he had quite a long ride to make; and, last evening when he failed to return, the man in charge of our powder house told me that Lenning had given him a dollar for some dynamite, a length of fuse, and a cap.”
This merely intensified the mystery.
“What the deuce do you suppose he wanted of that dynamite?” muttered Mr. Bradlaugh.
“Lenning’s schemes go pretty deep sometimes,” frowned the colonel. “He’ll not come back, Burke. I don’t believe he intended to come back, when he left the mine. I’ll ride over in a day or two and give you a check for your horse and riding gear. I don’t consider that I’m in any way responsible for your missing property, understand, but Lenning is a relative of mine, and I don’t want any of my friends to suffer financial loss through him.”
“I believe he’ll come back,” said Burke. “All my opinions about that boy have changed since he’s been working at the mine. I think he’s trying to be square, and to clear his record.”
“I’d give fifty thousand dollars this minute,” declared the colonel, “if I could know that what you say is a fact. But,” he added, “actions speak louder than words. Before many hours have passed we’ll hear what Lenning has been up to. Maybe he just got tired of a life of honest endeavor and made a sudden break to get away from it. I was afraid that, sooner or later, the life out there would get too monotonous for him.”
“We’re going to give him the benefit of the doubt,” said Mr. Bradlaugh. “He was going to take a long ride, and may have met with an accident, or have been delayed in some other way. Just leave the mill hand on the work for a day or two, Burke, and we’ll wait for Lenning to show up, or to send us word.”
“Thought I’d better report the thing to you, Mr. Bradlaugh,” Burke remarked. “If any other hand had turned up missing, I’d not have bothered you with the matter, but I realize that Lenning is a sort of protégé of Merriwell’s, and I wanted to let him know what had happened.”
“I think the affair will come out all right, Merriwell,” said Mr. Bradlaugh to Frank, “and that there’s no need to do any worrying.”