“Just a moment, my lad,” said he. “I want to place the whole matter frankly before you, and then get your sentiments regarding it. You don’t belong in Ophir any more than you do in Gold Hill. As I understand it, you are in Ophir only temporarily, and Bradlaugh, president of the Ophir club, got you to coach the Ophir eleven for the coming Thanksgiving Day game with Gold Hill. This is all right, and Bradlaugh is to be congratulated. I believe that you will give Ophir a good team, perhaps a winning team. In the interests of true sport I wish you every success. For the past two years Gold Hill has had nearly everything its own way—too much so, for sharp competition is the life of athletic sports; it’s the only thing that brings out the best that is in us.
“I have heard, with much regret, that there was almost a clash between the two clubs when Gold Hill, by mistake, came here to claim this camping site. This is all wrong, and not at all as it should be. Sport is bound to suffer if the hard feeling is not done away with.
“Now, you have befriended Ellis Darrel. So far, Merriwell, it has been commendable in you to take his part as you have done. I am hoping that your friendship will do much for the boy. Although personally I am done with him, yet I cannot forget that he is my sister’s son. I confess an interest in him on that account. But I wish to warn you against letting Darrel prejudice you against his half brother, Jode Lenning. Jode is a dutiful nephew in every way, and, above and beyond that, he is a true sportsman.” The colonel paused, then added impressively: “I know Jode better than any one else, and I assure you that what I say is true. I am an old man, Merriwell, and I have been for years in the military service of my country. I want you to believe that my judgment is sound, and I want you to accept Jode as I know him, and not as Darrel may offer him to you.”
“Colonel,” said Merry, “Ellis Darrel has said nothing against his half brother that would cause me to take a different estimate of him than you wish me to have.”
“Then I am to presume that your estimate is favorable? If anything is done to wipe out the bitterness between the two clubs, there is the point where the work must begin.”
Merriwell’s estimate of Jode Lenning was a good way from being favorable. The sly trick by which Lenning had tried to get possession of the camping ground at Tinaja Wells was well known to Merry and to all the Ophir fellows. Had not the colonel been so completely dominated by Lenning’s influence, he would have seen and recognized that trick himself. Furthermore, it was Merry’s settled conviction that Lenning had tried to involve Darrel in that theft of the thousand dollars; and Merry had a belief that, when the bottom of the forgery affair was reached, Lenning would be found to have had a hand in that.
But what good would it have done to tell all this to Colonel Hawtrey? He would merely have thought that Frank had been influenced by Darrel against Lenning. Besides, Frank had no proof in black and white connecting Lenning with the robbery, and only a suspicion of him in the matter of the forgery.
“I have tried to do what I could to patch up the differences between Ophir and Gold Hill, colonel,” said Frank, “and I’m willing to keep on trying. I believe I can promise that the Ophir fellows will show the right spirit, if you and Lenning can induce the Gold Hill club to meet them halfway.”
“Ah,” exclaimed the colonel, with deep satisfaction, “there you have it! Now we’re getting together in the right sort of style. My lads have found a most excellent camp in a gulch leading off Mohave Cañon, below here. They have a mile of deep water which serves admirably for water sports, and all they lack is a mesa like yours for an athletic field. Some of them are now clearing brush from a patch of desert for their football practice. Now,” and the colonel gave a winning smile, “why can’t the Ophirites and the Gold Hillers be neighborly? Why can’t you visit back and forth and have pleasant little contests of one kind and another? That need not interfere very much with your football work, and ought to afford an agreeable change in the monotony of camp life. It’s about eight miles to Camp Hawtrey, as the boys call their place, if you go through the cañon and the gulch, but across country it’s hardly more than half that. How does the proposition strike you, Merriwell?”
“First-rate,” Frank answered. “We Ophir fellows wouldn’t like anything better. That stretch of water, over at Camp Hawtrey, would be a fine place for boat races—and we haven’t any such layout here.”