“What did you want to capture Guffey for, Chip?” queried Clancy. “What was the idea?”
“I suggested that on the spur of the moment,” Frank answered. “It was like a blow in the face when I recognized the fellow, from the description I had had of him. What I wanted was to learn what he was here for. Now I’ve pretty well decided that he wasn’t in his right mind when he crawled into the box. He was crazy for some of that drug. Strikes me, fellows, that’s about all there is to his being there.”
Just at that moment the breakfast gong sounded.
“There goes the chuck signal,” chirped Ballard. “Come on, you two.”
They piled downstairs, hung their hats on the rack by the dining-room door, and went in to their accustomed seats at the table. Here a fresh surprise awaited them.
The fellow who had been on the subject of their recent debate upstairs was in the dining room calmly eating his breakfast. He did not sit at the same table where Frank and his chums had their places, but at another farther toward the center of the room.
All three of the boys stopped, hands on the backs of their chairs. Clancy nudged Merriwell with his elbow.
Guffey’s appearance had undergone a very decided change for the better. His clothes had been smoothed out and brushed, his black hair neatly combed, and he looked quite as respectable as any coach ought to look. He was completely master of himself, too, and he met the gaze of the three chums leveled at him with perfect self-control. He smiled pleasantly, got up from his chair, and stepped toward Merriwell.
“Frank Merriwell, isn’t it?” he asked, in a voice low and well modulated. “I thought so,” he went on, as Frank nodded. “My name is Guffey, and I’m the new coach over at Gold Hill. We are coaching rival teams, Merriwell, but we’re true sportsmen, eh? We can be on friendly terms for all that?”
“Of course,” Frank answered, a little dazedly. “Glad to meet you, Guffey. My friends, Owen Clancy and Billy Ballard.”