“You Gold Hill chaps must be worrying a lot about me,” said Darrel sarcastically.
“There’s a few of us who don’t think you’ve had a square deal, El. Jode’s king bee at our camp, and there’s some of the junipers over there that ain’t got the nerve to call their souls their own. I’m my own boss, I reckon. Nearly all of our crowd have gone to Tinaja Wells for a football game this afternoon. Bleeker and me and one or two more was left behind.”
“Bleeker!” exclaimed Darrel. “Why, he’s one of the strongest men on the football squad!”
“Sure, but Jode’s hot at him, and Jode’s captain of the eleven, so he carries his grouch to the extent of orderin’ those he don’t like to stay behind.”
“Why is Jode hot at Bleeker?”
“That’s too many for me. They ain’t hardly spoke to each other since they got back from the Ophir camp yesterday. You see, them two went to the Wells to fix up the details of the game, and they was as chummy as you please when they left Camp Hawtrey, but they come back mad as blazes at each other.”
“Maybe,” suggested Ballard, “Bleeker’s beginning to find out some things about Jode that don’t set well.”
“Like enough,” grinned Hotchkiss. “The football players made for Tinaja Wells on foot, ‘cross country. Parkman was late in startin’, and just before he pulled out, Bleeker, with a face like a thundercloud, rushed from his tent with a note all sealed up in an envelope. He hands it to Parkman. ‘Give that to Lenning on the q. t.,’ says Bleeker; ‘tell him it’s from me, and it’s about El Darrel,’ he says, ‘and about Merriwell a little, too,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to get myself in no trouble with Jode,’ says Parkman, half a mind not to have a thing to do with the note. ‘You’ll get yourself into a whole lot of trouble with me,’ Bleeker says, ‘if you don’t do as I want.’ So, with that, Park takes the note and slips it away some’r’s inside his uniform. I reckon Jode’ll get it, all right.”
Darrel was developing a strong interest in that note of Bleeker’s.
“What had Bleeker to tell Lenning about me,” he asked, “that he couldn’t bat up to him without putting it in a letter?”