“Take a fool’s advice, son, and don’t.”
“I’m going to talk with the colonel. If you won’t put the gear on a horse for me, I reckon I can manage it myself.”
“Oh, I’ll do it, if ye’re bound ter ride. But wait a couple o’ hours. It’s plumb in the heat o’ the day, and ridin’ ’ll come a heap harder for you now than it will later.”
An hour or two would make little difference, and Darrel laid down on his bed for a short rest before taking the ride. He fell asleep almost immediately, and was awakened by a familiar voice trying to get some one over the telephone. It was his uncle, there in the room with him, asking for Bradlaugh’s office. Bradlaugh was not in, evidently.
“Tell him,” said Colonel Hawtrey, “that I’ll talk with him from here late this afternoon. This is mighty important—don’t neglect to tell him that.”
Colonel Hawtrey had just ridden down the cañon after his talk with Merriwell. He was still red and wrathful. As he whirled from the telephone, he was confronted by Darrel.
The boy’s face was as white as the bandage that swathed his arm, but he stood resolutely between his uncle and the open outside door.
“Colonel,” he began, “I want you to listen to me. I’m not talking for myself, but for Merriwell. Don’t think that I——”
“Not a word,” snapped the colonel. “You haven’t anything to say that I care to hear.”
He strode around Darrel. The boy stepped forward to lay a detaining hand on his arm. Roughly the colonel shook him off, hurried from the house, vaulted into the saddle of his waiting horse, and spurred for the cañon. He did not so much as look back.