In an hour, the doctor’s work was finished. The broken arm had been set and bandaged with splints, and there was an odor of drugs around Dolliver’s and much relief and satisfaction in the minds of Frank and his chums. There were no internal injuries, so far as the doctor could see, and, in a month or so, Darrel was promised that he should be as well as ever.
It was growing dark, by that time, and, as Frank knew the lads at the camp would be wondering over the absence of most of those left on guard duty, he and Clancy started back to Tinaja Wells shortly after Mr. Bradlaugh had whirled away toward town with the doctor. Ballard was to remain behind and look after Darrel.
It was eight o’clock when Merriwell and Clancy rode up on the flat and got wearily down from their horses. As Silva hurried up and took the mounts, a throng of lads surrounded the latecomers.
“Where the dickens have you fellows been?” demanded Hannibal Bradlaugh. “Fritz has been howling his Dutch head off trying to get you to come to supper. And that was all of two hours ago. The last seen of you, you were on your way down the cañon to help Clancy and Ballard get that football that Silva had kicked over the cliff. Some of us went down there looking for you, but all we could find was a rope hanging from a stunted tree on the cliffside. It was the biggest kind of a mystery. And it only got deeper and deeper when Silva discovered that mounts belonging to you, Ballard and Clancy had vanished from the herd. Come across with the news, Chip. We’re all of us on tenterhooks.”
“Can’t we eat while we’re palavering?” wailed Clancy. “I feel as though I hadn’t hit a grub layout for a week.”
“Come on mit yoursellufs,” said Fritz, “und haf a leedle someding vich I peen keeping hot. Dit you get der pall?”
“Hang the ball!” answered Clancy, “we’ve had something else to think of.”
While they ate, the two chums told of the accident to Darrel, and how they had taken him to Dolliver’s and left him there with Ballard. There was general regret expressed on every hand, for Darrel, greeted with distrust when he had first reached the camp, was fast becoming a prime favorite.
“While we were hiking back down the cañon,” said Handy, “we met Hawtrey. We talked with him for a spell, and he batted up that proposition of competing in a friendly way with the Gold Hillers. He said you favored it. When we reached camp we found Lenning and Bleeker, from Camp Hawtrey, waiting for us. They proposed a football game for to-morrow afternoon, and I took them on for two fifteen minutes of play. Didn’t think it best to tire the boys for a full game. I reckon, though, that I’d better send over to their camp and call it off.”
“Don’t you do it, Handy,” protested Merriwell. “Let ’em come. I’m particularly anxious to get better acquainted with Jode Lenning.”