“This is certainly a peach of a place for a camp,” said young Merriwell. “In some ways it has our own camp at Tinaja Wells beaten a mile. The sight of those canoes down there makes me hungry for a paddle!”
“And to think,” went on Clancy, “that this is nearly the middle of November, and that back home the snow is beginning to fly, and overcoats are trumps, and folks are hunting up their galoshes! Wow! It hardly seems possible. Down here in southern Arizona a fellow can have his out-door sports all the year ’round. So that’s Camp Hawtrey, eh? Well, it’s a bully place, if you ask me.”
“The only thing these Gold Hill fellows haven’t got is a good athletic field. I hear they’ve cleaned up a patch of desert back of the gulch, and are using that for sports and practice. But that slice of raw ground isn’t in it with our mesa, Clan.”
“You’re right there, Chip. Our camp at Tinaja Wells has certainly got it over this one so far as a field is concerned, but I wish we had a nice stretch of river like that for canoeing. Where’s Lenning? Can you see him down there in that bunch of swimmers?”
The boys above studied carefully the ones below, but failed to discover Lenning.
“He’s not there, Clan,” said Merriwell, “and I can’t see Bleeker, Hotchkiss, and several more of the Gold Hill Athletic Club whom we know tolerably well.”
“Jode Lenning, I guess, is the main squeeze of that outfit, and he’s the one we’ll have to talk with.”
“I hate to have anything to do with him,” muttered Merry, “but he’s Colonel Hawtrey’s nephew, and the colonel is the backbone of the Gold Hill club, and if our fellows and the Gold Hillers have any more friendly competitions, we’ll have to arrange with Lenning.”
“Lenning’s a skunk,” growled Clancy. “If it hadn’t been for him we know mighty well that Ellis Darrel, his own half brother, wouldn’t be laid up at Dolliver’s with a broken arm. We know, I say, that Lenning cut the rope that dropped Darrel over the cliff, and——”
“Cut it, Clan!” interrupted Merriwell. “We promised Darrel we’d keep that to ourselves.”