“That’s a sentiment you’d better side-step. You’ll have your hands too full straightening yourself out to get even with anybody.”
“I reckon you’re right; I’ve got a job on my hands if ever a fellow had. But Shoup’s crazy, plain crazy. I’m glad I’m rid of him. I—I guess that’s about all.” He got up from the bowlder where he had been sitting. “You’ve done more for me than my own uncle would do. I’ll not forget it, Merriwell. You have less reason to help me than the colonel had. I say you’ve acted white, and you can bet I’m going to see to it that you never have any reason to be sorry for it.”
“Let it go at that, Lenning. I guess the best of us make mistakes. You’re to be night watchman at the cyanide plant?”
“Yes. It’s a responsible place. I have to watch the valves, regulate the flow of solution, and do a lot of other things connected with the plant. They’re just finishing a clean-up this afternoon, and will be running the bullion into bars this evening. The gold will have to be kept in the laboratory safe until morning—and I’ll be a guard as well as night watchman. I’m beginning at sixty a month.”
It was odd to hear Jode Lenning talk of work, and of getting “sixty a month.” When he was in favor with Colonel Hawtrey, he had had no work to do worth mentioning, and a liberal allowance had been given him for spending money. Now he had to buckle down, and earn less than his allowance had been, with his own hands.
There was something vaguely disturbing to Merriwell in that mention of the clean-up, and of the gold which was to be put in the laboratory safe for the night, with Lenning for guard. That bullion might prove a temptation, right at the beginning of Lenning’s attempt to be honest and to turn over a new leaf. Frank mentally resolved that he would visit the cyanide plant that night, and stick around for a while to see how matters were going.
“Sixty a month is a whole lot of money,” Frank remarked.
“It’s a whole lot when you make it yourself,” said Lenning. “I reckon I’ll have to mosey back. The super is going to show me the ropes before it’s time for me to go on duty, and I was to report to him at four-thirty.”
“You’ve got plenty of time,” said Frank.
As he got up, he looked southward along the trail. A cloud of dust was moving northward, and, while he watched, three riders broke out of it—one of them trailing a led horse with an empty saddle.