“You recognize that, don’t you?” he asked harshly.
“Why,” murmured Lenning, “it’s the knife you gave Ellis years ago.”
“It is,” was the grim rejoinder, “and I found it under the unlocked window in my study.”
Lenning seemed stunned and incapable of words.
“But that isn’t all,” preceded the colonel. “I hunted up Hawkins, who happened to be in town, and together we learned that a fellow answering Darrel’s description had been in Gold Hill the night before I got home. He had called on Haff, our club secretary, and asked for me, and about you. Haff told him that you were camping, with some of our lads, at Tinaja Wells. Supposing that Darrel had come here, Hawkins and I secured a couple of mounts and made a quick trip down the cañon. Have you seen anything of Darrel?”
“Then it’s true, it’s true!” Lenning was muttering, as though to himself.
“What is true?” demanded his uncle. “Don’t try to shield the fellow, Jode. Your first duty is to me, not to him.”
“There is a fellow here—Merriwell seems to be looking after him—who says he is Ellis Darrel.” Lenning spoke with apparent reluctance. “I believed him to be an imposter. How could I think anything else after the report we had of that Colorado wreck? The fellow seemed bent on proving that he was really my half brother, and challenged me to run a race with him. You see——”
“What folly!” cut in the colonel.
“I’m pretty fast in a sprint, uncle, but El was a shade faster. And you know he had a queer way about him when he was running. I think he is counting on that race to make his identity known to me and the rest of the Gold Hill fellows.”