“Correct. Well, I’m powerful glad ye brought Barzy along. Ye’re the two fellers that chap asked for. ‘If ye can’t git Merriwell,’ says he, ‘git Blunt.’ Fust choice was you, an’ next was Barzy. Ye’re to leave yer ridin’ stock with me an’ travel up the cañon afoot. That’s all.”
“Where are we to go?” asked Frank, puzzled.
“Ye’re to keep goin’ till some un stops ye. I couldn’t tell ye a thing more if I was ter be hung fer it. Better be movin’, boys. I don’t know whether there’s any time ter waste or not, but I opine not.”
Without delaying further, Merry and Blunt left the cabin, crossed the main wagon road, and struck into the bridle path that led through the cañon. So far from clearing the mystery, Dolliver had only deepened it by his few remarks.
“I’d like to know what we’re up against,” grumbled Blunt, as he and Merry trudged onward between the high, rugged walls of the defile.
“I guess we’ll find out before we go very far,” Merriwell answered.
In this he was correct. They had hardly put more than a mile between them and Dolliver’s when a voice hailed them from behind a mass of bowlders at the foot of the clifflike wall on their left.
They halted, recognizing the voice that had called to them and yet wondering if their imagination was playing them a prank. But they were not mistaken. A form appeared around the edge of the pile of bowlders—a form that they recognized at once.
“Lenning!” Merriwell exclaimed.