The colonel arose from his chair and stepped to the side of the cot. For a moment uncle and nephew gazed into each other’s eyes.
“I have wronged you, my lad,” said the colonel. “Are we going to let bygones be bygones?”
“If you want it that way, colonel,” Jode answered.
And then their hands met in one long, lingering clasp. Merriwell stepped out of the bunk-house door, and stood in the clear, bright sunshine.
“At last!” he murmured.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
CONCLUSION.
Jode Lenning’s experience with Shoup and Geohegan, his recovery of the stolen mail bags, and his rescue of Colonel Hawtrey from the runaway ore car were topics of discussion in that part of Arizona for a good many days.
Geohegan, it developed, was the cracksman who, on a former occasion, had helped Shoup break into the safe at the cyanide works and make off with four bars of bullion. Hawkins had been hunting for Shoup and Geohegan on the score of that attempted robbery, and he had about given up finding the rascally pair, when they dropped into his hands through that holdup in the cañon.
Shoup, although a young fellow, was a drug fiend. He had gone from bad to worse, until now he had committed a crime which, in all likelihood, would have to be expiated in some government prison.