“Then what I heard was true,” he muttered finally. “This makes it certain, my lad, that Gold Hill had a spy at your secret game. How could anything be known about the game if that had not been the case? Such work is reprehensible. I am as indignant over the matter as you could possibly be. There is nothing sportsmanlike about it. I can congratulate myself on the fact, however, that the spy was not a Gold Hill man but a stranger—or almost a stranger. I am positive that it was Guffey, the coach.”
“You think, then, that Guffey was sneaking around when we played that game, last week?” the boy demanded.
“I’m sure of it. Guffey left Gold Hill in the forenoon of Saturday, and he did not return until Sunday forenoon. He was in Ophir—he must have been.”
“I knew he was in Ophir Saturday night,” said Frank, and told of what happened in the rear of the hotel on Sunday morning.
The colonel muttered angrily to himself.
“That’s the sort of gentleman we have for a coach,” he growled, “a fellow who uses a ‘hypoderm’ and who sleeps in a box in a back yard. He’s a hobo, and a pretty poor stick of a hobo at that. This thing is working out just as I thought it would. Good may come of it, however.”
“Where does this man Guffey hail from, colonel?” Frank asked.
“I don’t know the first thing about him. Jode knows him, and he’s the one who sent for him. Guffey’s a good coach, and our eleven is in better shape than it has ever been before. I’m sorry that Guffey’s a scoundrel, but it is going to be the happiest day of my life if he pans out the way I hope and believe.”
Once more the colonel had Frank wondering. How was he expecting Guffey to “pan out?” In one breath the colonel was sorry Guffey was a scoundrel, and in the next he was going to be happy if the scoundrel panned out to be as bad as he hoped and believed. Frank was all twisted to account for the colonel’s motives and feelings.
“Now that you know Guffey’s a scoundrel,” Frank remarked, “are you going to let him come to Ophir with the Gold Hill fellows?”