Handy and Brad studied Frank’s face earnestly, for a minute, and then they both chuckled.
“I see your signal smoke, Chip,” grinned Handy. “You’re thinking of Darrel. All right, we’ll let them come; and I hope something happens, during the set-to, that will be of some benefit to Curly.”
[CHAPTER XIX.]
UGLY SUSPICIONS.
Before Spink, on a battered old bugle, sounded reveille for the camp, next morning, Merriwell and Clancy crawled out of their tent, took a dip in the swimming pool, hurriedly dressed, and went down the cañon. The object of their secret expedition was to recover the rope which had given way under Darrel’s weight, the preceding afternoon. This rope, it will be remembered, had been left tied to the stunted tree when Merriwell descended to the cañon bed after lowering the unfortunate Darrel.
Clancy, first to reach the trailing cable, examined the end of it and then flung it from him disappointedly.
“Hang the luck!” he exclaimed; “this is the wrong end, Chip.”
Merriwell laughed.
“Of course, it’s the wrong end,” said he. “The end that was tied to the paloverde is up close to the place where Darrel was hanging from the bowlder. You see, Clan, when the rope dropped, the end that had not been tied to the tree lay uppermost. One end was as good as another to me, so I lashed that to my waist and carried it up to Darrel. That, of course, was the end I made fast around Darrel’s body, and it came down with him, leaving the end we want to examine pretty much aloft.”
“Another climb has to be made in order to get it?”