The next moment he heard a crash, but it was not the crash of an explosion. A startled cry came from the colonel, and Darrel, thrilled with a weird premonition of disaster, rose to his knees and again looked out over the top of the rift. What he saw, there on the ledge of the gulch wall, caused him to gasp and close his eyes to shut out the horror of it.
[CHAPTER XXXIII.]
FOLLOWING DARREL.
Frank and his chums, in riding from Tinaja Wells to Dolliver’s, passed the mouth of the gulch only a few moments after Darrel had ridden into it. Had Frank encountered Darrel, there is no doubt but that he would have persuaded him against going on to Camp Hawtrey. In that event, some very pretty maneuvers of Fate, calculated to benefit Darrel, would have been effectually blocked.
But Merry and his two friends missed their new chum by a scant margin, and galloped on to Dolliver’s. Dolliver, smoking his short black pipe, was sitting in front of his little establishment, mentally considering uncles and nephews, and the foolishness of a kid with a broken arm trying to take a horseback ride before he was well able to be out of bed.
At sight of Merriwell, Ballard, and Clancy, Dolliver’s reflections went off at a fresh angle. He now began to concern himself with the contrariness of human affairs in general.
“Hello, Dolliver!” Frank called, pulling in his black mount, Borak. “How’s Curly?”
“Plumb locoed,” grunted the rancher.
“You don’t mean to say he’s out of his head?” gasped Frank.
“If he ain’t, then, by the jumpin’ hocus-pocus, I never see a feller that was.”