“You did it, Merriwell,” he kept saying; “if it hadn’t been for you we couldn’t have won.”
When the colonel finally arrived with Jode and Ellis, Mr. Bradlaugh offered to give them a lift to the Ophir House in his car. Clancy and Ballard appeared just in time to form part of the load.
Merry’s chums had been wondering what it was that could have taken their chum off the field during the last half of that exciting game. Merriwell wouldn’t breathe a word on the ride into town, but told them to wait a little and the whole thing would be explained.
In less than fifteen minutes after leaving the clubhouse, Colonel Hawtrey, his two nephews, Merriwell, Clancy, and Ballard were ushered by Pophagan into a room where Hawkins was keeping watch over Shoup, alias Guffey.
Shoup had wrung out and dried off his clothes, and he had likewise washed his face and removed the rest of the color from his hair. The moment Jode Lenning saw him, he sank limply into a chair, white to the lips.
“I know you, you contemptible cur,” cried the colonel, shaking a finger in Shoup’s face. “You’re the fellow who, more than a year ago, brought a forged check to me and said my nephew, Darrel, gave it to you. I thought that Guffey and you might be one and the same person, and that’s why I was willing to bear with Jode for a while longer, and see what I could make out of his desire to get a new coach for Gold Hill. Tell me about that forgery, and do it quick. The truth, mind!”
“What will you do to me if I—I tell the truth?” quavered Shoup.
“Nothing, but if you lie I’ll see to it that you’re landed behind the bars.”
“And you’ll let that thirty dollars pass?” asked Shoup, looking toward Merriwell.
“I’ve already told you I would—if you tell the truth,” Merry answered.