“What can we expect,” burst out Brad indignantly, when the recital was finished, “while such a measly pup as Lenning bosses the Gold Hill crowd? So long as he’s the king-pin over there, you couldn’t foster a friendly spirit between the two clubs in a thousand years.”
“That dynamite cartridge gets my goat,” growled Ballard. “That pleasant habit Lenning has of trying to assassinate the fellows he doesn’t like will put him behind the bars one of these days. Thunder! Why, it doesn’t seem possible he could be such a reckless fool.”
“He’s dangerous,” said Merriwell quietly, “but I don’t think he’s exactly responsible when his temper’s roused.”
“Take it from me,” observed Handy, “there’s something on the fellow’s conscience. Fear of being found out is goading him to desperate things. He can’t go on like this; something has got to be done to stop him before he commits a sure-enough crime.”
“What’s to be done?” asked Frank. “Tell the colonel?”
“The colonel!” exclaimed Ballard. “Why, Chip, Lenning has got the colonel under his thumb. You can’t do a thing with Hawtrey. Just breathe a whisper against Lenning to the colonel and there’ll be fireworks. It beats creation the way Lenning is able to pull the wool over his uncle’s eyes. Darrel, now, is worth a dozen fellows of Lenning’s stripe. I’ve been with Darrel for three days at Dolliver’s place, and I’ve got to know him pretty well. He’s a prince, that’s what he is; and yet that confounded old muttonhead of a colonel won’t have a thing to do with him. When I think about it, sometimes, I get so mad I feel as though I’d explode.”
“We’d better sleep over this, fellows,” suggested Merriwell, “and see if we can’t think out some move that will be right and proper. Things are mighty unsatisfactory, as they are. It’s been a long time since I’ve had anything bump me so hard as what happened this afternoon.”
It was in this way that the important matter was dismissed temporarily. During supper, and for the rest of that evening, the boys tried to forget it. When they crawled into their blankets, at ten o’clock, Merriwell’s mind got busy with the far-reaching subject in spite of himself.
A guard of three was posted every night. Frank heard the guards changed at eleven o’clock. Fritz Gesundheit, the Dutch boy who did the cooking for the camp, was to be one of the midwatch. It took all of ten minutes for one of the lads who was going off duty to get Fritz out of the land of dreams and into a fitting realization of the fact that it was his turn at sentry-go.
Ghost stories had been indulged in around the camp fire during the evening. Fritz had listened to the wild yarns with both ears, while washing and putting away the supper dishes. More than once the cold shivers had crept up his backbone, and he had felt the carroty hair rising straight up on his head. When called for guard duty, he was snoring away with his head under the blankets.