“Well, I’m not blowing it around, am I? The way Hawtrey snuggles up to Lenning and hands Darrel, his other nephew, all the hard knocks makes me pretty darn tired.”
“Hawtrey will be all right when he finds out that Darrel didn’t forge his name to that check more than a year ago.”
“Yes, when he finds it out—and that’s never. Lenning, I’ll bet a peck of dollars, was at the bottom of that forgery, and you can’t bring forward any proof against Lenning that the colonel will consider. You know that as well as I do, Chip.”
“Something will turn up, Clan,” asserted Merriwell confidently. “When a fellow gets in wrong it’s bound to come out unless he changes his ways. And Jode Lenning isn’t changing—that is, not so you can notice it. Luck is going to turn Darrel’s way—I’ve got a pretty good hunch to that effect. The old colonel will find out for himself just which of his nephews is the more reliable. Wait, that’s all.”
“I can’t see anything rosy in Darrel’s future,” growled Clancy, “so long as Jode has his big stand-in with his Uncle Alvah. But there’s no use chinning about that now. We’re over here from our camp as a games committee to fix up a schedule of sports with Gold Hill, and we’re supposed to be loaded to the gunnels with peaceable sentiments and loving regards for Ophir’s athletic rivals. Oh, slush! I’m in such an amiable mood, right this minute, that I’d like to take a crack at Lenning with my bare knuckles.”
“Lenning’s only one of that Gold Hill crowd, old man,” said Chip soothingly. “Bradlaugh, president of the Ophir club, and Hawtrey, who backs the Gold Hillers, are both tired of having the rival organizations at loggerheads. They want peace and friendship between the two camps, and I don’t blame them. We’re going to do what we can to make the rivalry more sportsmanlike, and less bitter. ‘Fair play and no favor,’ that’s our motto. When we find Lenning, Clan, just hold yourself in and don’t bite.”
“All right,” assented Clancy, although with a show of some reluctance. “Let’s go down there, find Lenning, and get the business over with.”
Before they could start down the long slope that led to the bottom of the gulch, both lads were suddenly startled by the sudden note of a firearm. The report came from a considerable distance, evidently, yet was perfectly clear and distinct.
“What’s that?” demanded Clancy, wheeling about and staring at his chum.
“Sounded like a revolver,” was the reply. “Somebody trying a hand at target practice, more than likely.”