“Well,” said Frank bluntly, “I wasn’t sure how he’d be treated at Camp Hawtrey. And then, too, I thought it was foolish of him to try and get you to change your mind regarding me.”
“Ah!” A queer smile crossed the colonel’s face as he bent down to rub the knee that had lately been pinned under the bowlder. “You didn’t have much confidence,” he finished, “in my ideas of fair play?”
“Not when you were banking on information furnished by Jode. I couldn’t——”
“Darrel’s coming around, Chip,” broke in Clancy.
Merriwell stepped close to Darrel’s side. The lad’s eyes were open and he was staring up into the faces that bent over him.
“Gee, what a mix-up!” were Darrel’s first words. “I must have stepped out for a few minutes, I reckon. Who sic’d that coyote dog on Jode?”
“The dog was among the rocks, Curly,” Frank answered. “When the bowlder fell, it scared him out. He tried to get over the top of the gulch wall, but Pink, Clan, and I were there, and so he whirled and rushed for the place where Lenning was holed up. How do you feel?”
“I feel as though I’d been too darned ambitious for a sick man. What the dickens are you doing here, anyway?”
Clancy chuckled.
“We just moseyed along behind you to try and keep you out of trouble,” he laughed. “And we didn’t make out.”