“You’ll be as bloodthirsty as Lenning, Clan, if you keep on,” grinned Merry.
“Lenning is at the bottom of all the bad blood between the two clubs,” asserted Clancy warmly, “just as he’s at the bottom of all Darrel’s troubles. The cub is too mean to live.”
“Speaking about coyote dogs,” said Frank, “that notion of Hotch’s is mighty interesting.”
“Hotch, and Bleeker, too, seemed to take a good deal of stock in the idea. But it’s pretty far-fetched, and——”
A startled expression crossed Clancy’s homely face. He came to a dead halt, the words died on his lips, and he lifted one hand quickly and pointed. Frank, following the direction indicated by his chum’s finger, saw a tawny form slipping like a specter among the rocks. The form paused, reared up on a bowlder, and stood peering over its front paws for a space at the two lads; then, like an ill-omened wraith, it dropped to all fours and disappeared as though by magic.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
“SPOOKS.”
When Merriwell and Clancy reached Tinaja Wells and the Ophir camp, late in the afternoon, it was with the disagreeable feeling that friendly rivalry between the two clubs had received a setback by recent events from which it could never recover. Merry at once sought Handy, captain of the Ophir team, Ballard and Hannibal Bradlaugh—the latter the son of the club’s president—and went into a star-chamber session with them.
All the unpleasant details of the afternoon were gone over, and Ballard, Brad, and Handy listened to them with absorbing interest.