“Talk to my uncle,” snarled Lenning, “and you’ll get the biggest calling-down you ever had in your life. Furthermore, Bleeker, if you and Hotch don’t get out of Camp Hawtrey before sun-down, I’ll see that you’re properly kicked out. Come on, fellows,” he added to his three stand-bys, whirling on his heel.
The angry, sullen quartette walked to a little distance, and Lenning stooped down and picked up the dynamite cartridge from the place to which Merriwell had thrown it. Bleeker turned to Frank.
“He’s a pup, that’s all,” grunted Bleeker. “He has ordered Hotch and me out of camp, but we were about ready to go, anyhow. We’ve been having merry blazes at Camp Hawtrey for some time. A few of us Gold Hillers won’t lick Lenning’s boots—not so you can notice—and we think Ellis Darrel hasn’t been having a square deal. That’s put Lenning down on us, and he has been taking most of his spite out on Hotch and me. I reckon this is about the finish.”
“I’m plumb satisfied,” grinned Hotchkiss. “If it hadn’t been for you, Bleek, I’d have hit the trail for Gold Hill several days ago.”
“I’ve hung on,” continued Bleeker, “hoping we could do a little to make a better feeling between our club and the Ophir fellows. But there’ll never be anything but scraps and bitterness between the rival athletic clubs as long as Jode is king-bee of the Gold Hill crowd. That’s straight. Colonel Hawtrey lets Jode wind him around his fingers. I should think,” Bleeker added hotly, “that the old colonel would have sense enough to see through that measley, two-faced nephew of his. I know him, by thunder, from a to izzard, and he’s plumb yellow.”
“Clancy and I,” said Merriwell ruefully, “came over here as a games committee to arrange for a visit of the Ophir fellows to Camp Hawtrey, but when we saw Jode and his friends torturing that dog, it stirred us up so that we jumped into them.”
“Don’t blame you,” said Bleeker. “Hotch and I saw it all, Merriwell. We were behind another pile of rocks, and if you hadn’t interfered, we would. Pestering a dog like that is mean business. The brute has been hanging around the camp, stealing provisions, and has been no end of a nuisance, but he didn’t have to be tortured when he could have been shot out of hand. Parkman has been laying for that coyote dog for a couple of days. He got a chance at him this afternoon and dropped a rope over his head. Jode fixed up that dynamite cartridge, and when he and his mates started off with the cartridge and the dog, Hotch and I followed along, expecting some kind of deviltry. This is the outcome of it. I wish Hawtrey had been behind the rocks with us. I’ll bet a bunch of dinero what he would have seen would have been an eye opener for him.”
“I’m sorry as blazes about this flare-up,” muttered Merriwell. “It certainly puts a crimp into all our plans for getting the two clubs together on a friendly basis. But Clan and I couldn’t hold in when we saw Jode abusing that cur dog. What do you suppose Hawtrey will say?”
“He’ll take Jode’s part, sure as shooting. I could tell Hawtrey a few things, but he wouldn’t believe them. Jode was right when he said that the colonel would give me a big calling down if I tried to open up on his favorite nephew.”
“I left O. Clancy’s private mark on Jode’s chin,” chirruped Frank’s red-headed comrade, “and I can’t remember when anything has happened that made me feel so good. Be hanged to the rest of it. Things will work out all right, Chip, so don’t fret.”