An hour after Merry and Brad had left the office of the general manager of the Ophir Mining Company, Merry was sitting alone on the veranda of the Ophir House, waiting for his chums to arrive from the camp in the gulch. He was wondering, a little dubiously, whether he had done right by setting his judgment against the colonel’s in the matter of Jode Lenning.
In matters of sentiment, and quite apart from ordinary business, Merriwell knew that Colonel Hawtrey was far from infallible. The colonel himself had mentioned the fact that he had been wrong and Merriwell right in affairs connected with Ellis Darrel. The same sort of a “hunch” that had led Merry to befriend Darrel was now spurring him on to help Lenning. If it was right in one case, he felt in his bones it must be right in the other.
And then, too, Lenning was absolutely friendless. In this sorry plight, he had smothered his pride and appealed for aid to a fellow whom he considered an enemy. This touched Merry, as he might have expressed it, pretty close “to where he lived.” Lenning had asked for help, and Merry would have felt like a cur if he had turned him down.
The lad on the veranda was unable to find any fault with himself for his generous action. He did not mix any hard-headed logic in his reasoning, but considered the affair almost entirely from the standpoint of doing the right thing by a chap who was down and had every man’s hand against him.
Frank started at the sound of the voice. Looking up, he saw a lad leaning over the veranda rail not more than a couple of yards away. His face was haggard, and his clothes, although of good quality, were dusty and rumpled. A pair of eyes, by nature of the shifty sort, were fixed with some steadiness upon Merry’s face.
“Oh, hello, Lenning,” said Frank, with a certain amount of constraint in his voice and manner. “I thought you were out at the mine.”
“I was there,” came the answer, “until I heard a little while ago that I was to have a job as night watchman, and that I owed the job to you. That sent me to town. Can you give me a little of your time? I—I’ve got something I want to say to you.”
“Sure! Come up here and take a chair. We’ll palaver as long as you please.”
“I’d rather not do my talking here. If you’re agreeable, suppose we walk out along the road to the mine. I’ll feel more like loosening up if I knew there’s no one around to overhear.”