“Then I’ll wait for the proof, Hawkins; and it will have to be copper-riveted before I turn against Ellis Darrel.”
“Jest a warnin’ I’m handing you, Merriwell,” grinned Hawkins. “And you’re to keep what I said to yourself, mind.”
“Of course, Hawkins. I’m obliged to you for taking all this trouble, but you’re mistaken, and will find it out. It’s the colonel’s business, isn’t it?”
“Now, I’m not sayin’ another word,” answered the deputy, “and maybe I’ve let out more’n I ought to, as it is.”
That ended the brief conversation, and, while it did not shake Merriwell’s confidence in Ellis Darrel, nevertheless it left him with vague forebodings of fresh disaster hanging over the head of the “boy from Nowhere.”
The members of the rival athletic clubs were carefully avoiding each other. There was no display of ill feeling, perhaps because the bad blood had no chance to show itself, or because the presence of the colonel in the Gold Hill camp was a restraining influence. Be that as it may, yet the topic of conversation in both camps was the hundred-yard dash to be run on the following afternoon. The object of the race, unique in the annals of sport, lent the event a fascination which nothing else could have done. Until ten o’clock the affair was discussed by the Ophir fellows, and then, agreeable to schedule, lights went out and the Ophir lads sought their blankets.
By an arrangement, enforced from the very first night that Frank and his companions went into camp, a watch of three was posted to look after the live stock and other property during the night. A trio of lads went on sentry-go from seven to eleven; when their duty was finished, they aroused three others to do guard duty from eleven to three; and these, in turn, awoke three more for the morning watch from three to seven. On this night, the first to be passed on the flat with the Gold Hillers, Ballard was one of the three who had the midwatch of four hours around midnight. Ballard’s post was in the cañon, just below the flat, where the saddle and pack stock had been gathered.
He had a lonely vigil for an hour. Somewhere in the neighboring hills the coyotes were howling—a noise, by the way, not calculated to soothe a person’s nerves. While Ballard was listening to the coyotes, and thinking more or less about the next day’s race, he heard a sound as of some one sliding down the slope from the flat. Alert on the instant, Ballard started up and peered into the gloom and listened. Some one was breathing heavily and floundering and stumbling through bushes and over stones.
“Can’t be a prowler,” murmured Ballard, “for he’s making too much noise. I’ll just lay hands on the fellow and make him give an account of himself.”
Creeping forward, and screening himself as well as he could in the shadows, Ballard was able to rise up suddenly and seize the wabbling figure.