Frank Merriwell, Jr.'s, Helping Hand; Or, Fair Play and No Favors
Date: 2020-06-18T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Adventure stories; Dime novels; Arizona -- Juvenile fiction; Merriwell; Frank; Jr. (Fictitious character) -- Juvenile fiction

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Frank Merriwell, Jr.'s, Helping Hand; Or, Fair Play and No Favors

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Title: Frank Merriwell, Jr.'s, Helping Hand; Or, Fair Play and No Favors

Author: Burt L. Standish

Release date: June 18, 2020 [eBook #62421]
Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

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Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRANK MERRIWELL, JR.'S, HELPING HAND; OR, FAIR PLAY AND NO FAVORS ***

Transcriber’s Notes

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations in hyphenation and accents have been standardised but all other spelling and punctuation remains unchanged.

The author has used the phrase ‘chip of the old block’ several times and the more usual ‘chip off’ once. This has not been changed.

BOOKS FOR YOUNG MEN

MERRIWELL SERIES

ALL BY BURT L. STANDISH

Stories of Frank and Dick Merriwell

Fascinating Stories of Athletics

A half million enthusiastic followers of the Merriwell brothers will attest the unfailing interest and wholesomeness of these adventures of two lads of high ideals, who play fair with themselves, as well as with the rest of the world.

These stories are rich in fun and thrills in all branches of sports and athletics. They are extremely high in moral tone, and cannot fail to be of immense benefit to every boy who reads them.

They have the splendid quality of firing a boy’s ambition to become a good athlete, in order that he may develop into a strong, vigorous, right-thinking man.

ALL TITLES ALWAYS IN PRINT

- 101—Frank Merriwell’s Nomads
- 102—Dick Merriwell on the Gridiron
- 103—Dick Merriwell’s Disguise
- 104—Dick Merriwell’s Test
- 105—Frank Merriwell’s Trump Card
- 106—Frank Merriwell’s Strategy
- 107—Frank Merriwell’s Triumph
- 108—Dick Merriwell’s Grit
- 109—Dick Merriwell’s Assurance
- 110—Dick Merriwell’s Long Slide
- 111—Frank Merriwell’s Rough Deal
- 112—Dick Merriwell’s Threat
- 113—Dick Merriwell’s Persistence
- 114—Dick Merriwell’s Day
- 115—Frank Merriwell’s Peril
- 116—Dick Merriwell’s Downfall
- 117—Frank Merriwell’s Pursuit
- 118—Dick Merriwell Abroad
- 119—Frank Merriwell in the Rockies
- 120—Dick Merriwell’s Pranks
- 121—Frank Merriwell’s Pride
- 122—Frank Merriwell’s Challengers
- 123—Frank Merriwell’s Endurance
- 124—Dick Merriwell’s Cleverness
- 125—Frank Merriwell’s Marriage
- 126—Dick Merriwell, the Wizard
- 127—Dick Merriwell’s Stroke
- 128—Dick Merriwell’s Return
- 129—Dick Merriwell’s Resource
- 130—Dick Merriwell’s Five
- 131—Frank Merriwell’s Tigers
- 132—Dick Merriwell’s Polo Team
- 133—Frank Merriwell’s Pupils
- 134—Frank Merriwell’s New Boy
- 135—Dick Merriwell’s Home Run
- 136—Dick Merriwell’s Dare
- 137—Frank Merriwell’s Son
- 138—Dick Merriwell’s Team Mate
- 139—Frank Merriwell’s Leaguers
- 140—Frank Merriwell’s Happy Camp
- 141—Dick Merriwell’s Influence
- 142—Dick Merriwell, Freshman
- 143—Dick Merriwell’s Staying Power
- 144—Dick Merriwell’s Joke
- 145—Frank Merriwell’s Talisman
- 146—Frank Merriwell’s Horse
- 147—Dick Merriwell’s Regret
- 148—Dick Merriwell’s Magnetism
- 149—Dick Merriwell’s Backers
- 150—Dick Merriwell’s Best Work
- 151—Dick Merriwell’s Distrust
- 152—Dick Merriwell’s Debt
- 153—Dick Merriwell’s Mastery
- 154—Dick Merriwell Adrift
- 155—Frank Merriwell’s Worst Boy
- 156—Dick Merriwell’s Close Call
- 157—Frank Merriwell’s Air Voyage
- 158—Dick Merriwell’s Black Star
- 159—Frank Merriwell in Wall Street
- 160—Frank Merriwell Facing His Foes
- 161—Dick Merriwell’s Stanchness
- 162—Frank Merriwell’s Hard Case
- 163—Dick Merriwell’s Stand
- 164—Dick Merriwell Doubted
- 165—Frank Merriwell’s Steadying Hand
- 166—Dick Merriwell’s Example
- 167—Dick Merriwell in the Wilds
- 168—Frank Merriwell’s Ranch
- 169—Dick Merriwell’s Way
- 170—Frank Merriwell’s Lesson
- 171—Dick Merriwell’s Reputation
- 172—Frank Merriwell’s Encouragement
- 173—Dick Merriwell’s Honors
- 174—Frank Merriwell’s Wizard
- 175—Dick Merriwell’s Race
- 176—Dick Merriwell’s Star Play
- 177—Frank Merriwell at Phantom Lake
- 178—Dick Merriwell a Winner
- 179—Dick Merriwell at the County Fair
- 180—Frank Merriwell’s Grit
- 181—Dick Merriwell’s Power
- 182—Frank Merriwell in Peru
- 183—Frank Merriwell’s Long Chance
- 184—Frank Merriwell’s Old Form
- 185—Frank Merriwell’s Treasure Hunt
- 186—Dick Merriwell Game to the Last
- 187—Dick Merriwell, Motor King
- 188—Dick Merriwell’s Tussle
- 189—Dick Merriwell’s Aero Dash
- 190—Dick Merriwell’s Intuition
- 191—Dick Merriwell’s Placer Find
- 192—Dick Merriwell’s Fighting Chance
- 193—Frank Merriwell’s Tact
- 194—Frank Merriwell’s Puzzle
- 195—Frank Merriwell’s Mystery
- 196—Frank Merriwell, the Lionhearted
- 197—Frank Merriwell’s Tenacity
- 198—Dick Merriwell’s Perception
- 199—Dick Merriwell’s Detective Work
- 200—Dick Merriwell’s Commencement
- 201—Dick Merriwell’s Decision
- 202—Dick Merriwell’s Coolness
- 203—Dick Merriwell’s Reliance
- 204—Frank Merriwell’s Young Warriors
- 205—Frank Merriwell’s Lads
- 206—Dick Merriwell in Panama
- 207—Dick Merriwell in South America
- 208—Dick Merriwell’s Counsel

In order that there may be no confusion, we desire to say that the books listed below will be issued during the respective months in New York City and vicinity. They may not reach the readers at a distance promptly, on account of delays in transportation.

To be published in January, 1929.

209—Dick Merriwell, Universal Coach
210—Dick Merriwell’s Varsity Nine

To be published in February, 1929.

211—Dick Merriwell’s Heroic Players
212—Dick Merriwell at the Olympics

To be published in March, 1929.

213—Frank Merriwell, Jr., Tested
214—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Conquests
215—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Rivals

To be published in April, 1929.

216—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Helping Hand
217—Frank Merriwell, Jr., in Arizona

To be published in May, 1929.

218—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Mission
219—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Iceboat Adventure

To be published in June, 1929.

220—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Timely Aid
221—Frank Merriwell, Jr., in the Desert

Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Helping Hand

OR

FAIR PLAY AND NO FAVORS

By
BURT L. STANDISH
Author of the famous Merriwell Stories.

STREET & SMITH CORPORATION
PUBLISHERS
79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York

Copyright, 1912
By STREET & SMITH

Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Helping Hand

All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign
languages, including the Scandinavian.
Printed in the U.  S.  A.

FRANK MERRIWELL, JR.’S, HELPING HAND.

CHAPTER I.
THE HOUSEBREAKER.

In one of the residence streets of Gold Hill, Arizona, stood—and no doubt still stands at this moment—a rather pretentious, two-story dwelling. Six low-growing, broad-leaved palms were marshaled in two rows before the front door, and to right and left of the palms were umbrella and pepper trees. Extending from one corner of the house, almost to the pickets that fenced in the premises, was a rank growth of oleanders.

This was the home of Colonel Alvah G. Hawtrey, an ex-army officer. In the service of his country Hawtrey had chased and fought the murderous Apaches all over that part of the Southwest; and now, at the age of sixty, the colonel, with an honorable discharge from the service, was giving his attention to various mining enterprises and was reputed to be a very wealthy man.

He was broad-minded and public-spirited, and the prosperity of Gold Hill owed more to the old colonel than to any other citizen. He had built the Bristow Hotel and several brick business blocks; he had founded a social club, a cattlemen’s association, and a miners’ relief society. It was known that he paid, out of his own pocket, the salary of one of the local ministers; he owned a bank, and, last but not least, he had organized and brought into successful operation the Gold Hill Athletic Club. For nothing was the colonel more honored than for his love of manly sports, and for his zeal in seeing that the youth of Gold Hill received proper physical training.

On a night in late October a spectral figure crept along the fence in front of Colonel Hawtrey’s house. The house was dark, and apparently deserted. After surveying the house carefully for a few moments, the figure leaped the fence noiselessly and gracefully and faded into the deep shadow of the oleanders.

Very carefully the prowler made his way through the bushes to the corner of the house. Here again he paused and listened. Seemingly satisfied that the coast was clear, he glided to the nearest window, opened the thin blade of a pocketknife, climbed to the sill, forced the blade between the upper and lower sash, and deftly opened the lock. Another moment and he had raised the lower half of the window and dropped through into the dark room beyond.

Evidently this prowler was not on unfamiliar ground. Without striking a light, he groped his way to a door and into a hall; through the hall he passed, and to a stairway, then up the stairs to the hall above, and down the corridor to a room at the rear of the house. He had a key to the door of the room, and he opened it. Once across the threshold, he scratched a match, stepped to an electric-light button, and touched it with his finger. Instantly the room was flooded with a glow of light from incandescent bulbs.

It was a small room, with banners and pennants on the walls. Several of the flags bore the letters, “G.  H.  H.  S.”—official emblems of Gold Hill “High.” Others bore the initials “G.  H.  A.  C.” and had once figured in athletic-club events. Foils were also crossed on the wall, boxing gloves hung from pegs, a catcher’s mask lay on a shelf, and a breast protector hung beneath it. On the same shelf with the mask stood a tarnished silver cup, bearing an inscription to the effect that it had been presented to one Ellis Darrel for winning a two-hundred-and-twenty-yard dash under the auspices of the Gold Hill Athletic Club. Dumb-bells and Indian clubs stood on the floor close to the wall.

Thick dust covered everything. The prowler stood in the center of the room as though in a trance, and slowly allowed his eyes to wander about him.

He was a young fellow, not much over seventeen, slender and with a body remarkably well set-up. His hair was light and curly, his eyes blue, and his face was handsome and winning, although clouded with melancholy and a certain haunting sadness.

The long, wavering survey of the room seemed to overcome the intruder. Suddenly he sank down into a dusty morris chair, bowed his head, and covered his face with his hands. As suddenly, he roused himself again, shook his shoulders as though to free them of a grievous burden, and made his way toward the door of a closet.

From the closet he removed a suit case, lettered with the initials “E.  D.,” and followed with the address, “Gold Hill, Ariz.” Kneeling beside the bit of luggage, he opened it and took out a sleeveless shirt, a pair of running pants, and a pair of spiked shoes. A couple of cork grips rattled around in the suit case as he removed the other contents, but he left them, closed the grip, and returned it to the closet. Then he carefully closed the closet door.

Rolling his sprinting outfit into a compact bundle, the intruder rose to his feet and started for the hall door. On his way he paused. Below the cross foils hung a picture, turned with its face to the wall.

A flash of white ran through the lad’s bronzed cheeks. With his bundle under his arm, he put out one trembling hand to the picture and turned it around.

It was a framed photograph of a young fellow in running costume, taken on a cinder path. The lad in the photo was holding a silver cup—the same cup that stood on the shelf in that room. And it was more than evident that the youngster in the picture was the very same lad who had entered that house like a thief in the night, and was now staring at a kodak testimonial of a former track victory.

Why was the photograph turned to the wall? Why was the dust lying thick upon every object in the room? The cause was no mystery to the intruder. His lip quivered and a mist rose in his eyes as he turned the photograph to the wall once more.

He peered around to make sure that he had left nothing which might prove a clew to his presence in the room, then turned off the light, passed into the hall, and shut and locked the door behind him. As he had come gropingly to the upper floor, so now he felt his way down the stairs and to the opened window. To climb through the window and lower the sash from the outside required but a few moments.

He tried to relock the sash, but found it impossible. Hesitating a moment by the unlocked window, he turned finally and made his way through the oleanders to the fence; then, leaping the pickets as he had done before, he vanished along the gloomy street.

He had come from Nowhere, this mysterious lad who had come prowling by night into the house of Colonel Hawtrey; but he was going Somewhere, and, for the first time in months, he had a destination and a fixed object in mind. Although he believed that he had left no clews behind him, and that he had not been seen coming or going from the house, yet he was mistaken.

Some one, leaving the dwelling by the front door, had passed along the walk between the shadowy palms just at the moment the intruder was standing by the fence. At the very moment the prowler leaped the pickets, this other person was at the gate and had caught sight of the figure disappearing into the oleanders.

The person who had left the house repressed a cry of alarm and stood, for a few moments, leaning over the gatepost. It had seemed to him as though, in the starlight, he had recognized the form that had leaped the fence. A gasp escaped his tense lips, and it was plain that he was gripped hard with astonishment and dismay. While he stood there, slowly recovering control of himself, he heard muffled sounds from within the house; then, leaving the gate, he passed through the oleander bushes and found the open window. He was on the point of following the intruder into the house when a glow of light shone out from the second floor. Hurrying to a pepper tree that grew near a rear corner of the building, the spy climbed swiftly upward until he was on a level with the window through which came the light. The prowler had not drawn the shade, so all that went on in the upper room came under the eyes of the spy.

One look at the lad in the house, under the electric light, convinced the person in the tree that the prowler was really the one whom he had at first supposed him to be. The spy gritted his teeth and his hands clutched the tree limbs convulsively. When the intruder had left the house and vanished down the street, the spy came down from the tree, hurried around to the front door, and let himself into the building. Quickly he turned on the lights and made his way to the room, through the window of which the intruder had gained entrance into the house.

This room was the colonel’s study. A desk stood in the center of it, the walls were lined with books, and in one corner was a massive iron safe.

In the light it could be seen that this second youth was not more than two years the senior of the lad who had come and gone. But the face of this second youth was dark and sinister, and the puzzled light in his shifty eyes was gradually taking on a cunning gleam.

“What is he back here for?” he was asking himself, half aloud. “Just getting his old running suit, eh?” and there was something of a sneer in the voice. “There’s money in the safe, and I thought——” Just what the lad thought did not appear. A look at the safe showed it had not been tampered with. “Has he returned to soft soap the old gent and get back into his good graces? That’s what he has on his mind, and I’ll bet on it! He stole in here like a thief—just to get his old track clothes! I wonder——”

The youth paused, the cunning light growing in his eyes. On the floor, below the window, lay an open pocketknife. He picked it up and looked at it. On a piece of worn silver in the handle was marked, “E.  D., from Uncle Alvah.”

“By Jupiter,” whispered the lad, “I’ll do it! Here’s a chance to cinch the situation—for me. I can make it impossible for that soft-sawdering beggar to get back into Uncle Alvah’s confidence. I’ll fix him, by thunder!”

Swiftly the schemer darted to the safe. Kneeling before it, he turned the knob of the combination back and forth for a few moments, and then pulled open the heavy door. The inner door was drawn out easily, and a package of bills, wound with a paper band and marked “$1,000” was removed. The boy hesitated, the package of bills in his hand.

“Hang it,” he muttered, “it’s now or never. There’s nothing else for it!”

With that, he pushed the bills into his pocket and got up.

“It will look like a clear case,” he went on. “The old gent will come here to-morrow morning, find the safe open, the window unlocked, the money gone—and Darrel’s knife on the floor! I’ll bet a row of ’dobies,” he added fiercely, “that will fix Darrel for good. What did he want to come back here for, anyhow? He ought to have had better sense. Lucky thing I had to run into town from Mohave Cañon, in order to fix up a scheme to knock Frank Merriwell out; and it’s lucky I was leaving the house and saw Darrel, and spied on him instead of giving a yell and facing him down. Oh, I reckon things are coming my way, all right! But Darrel—here! Who’d have dreamed of such a thing? There’ll be merry blazes when the old gent gets home to-morrow!”

Chuckling to himself, the plotter put out the lights, made his way to the front door, and was soon clear of the house and in the street. He had laid an evil train of circumstantial evidence, designed to benefit himself at the expense of Darrel.

CHAPTER II.
A STRANGER IN CAMP.

Frank Merriwell, junior, and his two chums, Owen Clancy and Billy Ballard, were camping at Tinaja Wells with the football squad of the Ophir Athletic Club. Besides Frank and his friends there were fifteen campers in the grove at the Wells, enumerated by Ballard as one professor, one Mexican, one Dutchman, and twelve knights of the pigskin.

The professor was Phineas Borrodaile. He hailed originally from a prep school in the middle West, had come to Arizona for his health, and, aided by the two Merriwells, senior and junior, had found wealth as well. The professor was now being retained as instructor by young Frank and his chums, thus enabling them to keep up with their studies while “roughing it” in the Southwest.

The Mexican was Silva, the packer. Silva had a burro train, and had packed the equipment of the campers over the fifteen miles separating Ophir from Tinaja Wells. For ten miles the trail was a good wagon road; but from Dolliver’s, at the mouth of Mohave Cañon, up the cañon to Tinaja Wells, the trail was a mere bridle path, and only pack animals could get over it. Hence the lads had found it necessary to make use of Silva and his burros.

The Mexican had hired out as cook, as well as packer; but two days of Silva’s red-hot Mexican cooking, with garlic trimmings, made it necessary for the boys either to line themselves with asbestos or get another cook. Clancy was sent in to Ophir and he came back with Fritz Gesundheit, the Dutchman. Fritz had presided over a chuck shanty in the cattle country, and carried recommendations which highly extolled his sour-dough bread, flap jacks, and crullers.

Fritz was nearly as broad as he was high, but he proved a chef of rare attainments. He would roll around between the stove and the chuck tent, and play an errorless game in his cooking and serving; but let him waddle out of his culinary environment and he was as full of blunders as a porcupine is of quills. For a lot of skylarking boys, he was an everlasting joy and a perpetual delight.

Silva resented the loss of his cooking job. He burned to revenge himself on the fat gringo chingado who had kicked the red peppers and the garlic out of camp and preëmpted the culinary department. Less than an hour after Fritz had evolved his first meal for the campers and covered himself with glory, the Mexican’s dark plots came to a head. Placing the professor’s mule, Uncle Sam, between two clumps of cholla cactus, he smilingly invited Fritz to take a ride.

“Carrots,” as Fritz had instantly been christened by the lads on account of his hair, accepted the invitation and climbed to Uncle Sam’s hurricane deck. Thereupon the vengeful Silva twisted Uncle Sam’s tail with direful results. Carrots made a froglike leap over the mule’s head into one clump of cactus, and Silva, caught by the mule’s heels before he could get out of the way, sat down in another clump.

The campers were not long in finding out that Carrots was the subject of weird hallucinations. His latest delusion concerned buried treasure. It cropped out in the afternoon of his second day in camp. Merry had taken the football players out for a “breather”—down the cañon to Dolliver’s, and back. Silva was out with a shovel and hornspoon, somewhere in the hills, hunting a placer, and incidentally nursing his grievances. The professor was reading in the shade of a cottonwood. In the shade of another cottonwood, Carrots was mooning over a pipe of tobacco.

“Brofessor,” called the Dutchman, knocking the ashes out of his pipe and putting it carefully away in his pocket, “vill you told me someding?”

The professor looked up from his book and over his spectacles at Fritz.

“What is it that you desire to know?” he asked.

“Ask me dot.”

The professor showed signs of impatience.

“Simpleton! Am I not putting the query? What shall I tell you?”

“Py chiminy Grismus! Oof I know vat you vas to told me, for vy should I make der rekvest for informations?”

Borrodaile gave a grunt of disgust and hunted the shade of another cottonwood. Fritz was persistent, however, and followed him up.

“I hat a tream mit meinselluf der oder night, brofessor,” continued Fritz, coming up from behind, “und you bed my life it vas der keveerest tream vat I know. Iss treams someding or nodding? Tell me dot, oof you blease. Ballard, he say it iss; aber you know more as anypody, so tell me, iss it?”

“Go away,” said the professor severely; “you annoy me.”

“I peen annoyed like anyding mit dot tream,” went on Fritz, not in the least disturbed by the professor’s ill humor. “Dis iss der vay I ged it: Fairst, I valk along der moonlight in, mit der dark around, und I see a shtone mit a gross on der top. Yah, so hellup me, I see him so blain as nodding; und I pull oop dot shtone, und I tig, and vat you dink?”

“I am not interested at all in your foolish delusions!” came tartly from the professor. “If you have business anywhere else, do not let me detain you a moment.”

“Make some guesses aboudt dot!” persisted Fritz. “Vat you dink is der shtone under mit der gross on, hey? Shpeak it oudt.”

The professor, goaded to desperation, merely glared.

“Py shinks!” cried Fritz, “I findt me so mooch goldt dot shtone under mit der gross on dot I cannot carry him avay!” He leaned down and whispered huskily, his eyes wide with excitement: “Puried dreasure it vas, brofessor, so hellup me! Come, blease, und hellup me look for der shtone mit der gross on. Ven I findt me der dreasure, I gif you haluf.”

With an explosion of anger, the professor leaped to his feet, flung his book at Fritz, and dove head-first into a tent. Fritz turned away wonderingly.

“Vat a foolishness,” he muttered, “for der brofessor to gif oop haluf der dreasure like dot! Vell, I go look for der goldt meinselluf, und ven I findt him, I haf him all.”

Now, Fritz might have walked his legs off looking for a stone “mit a gross on,” had not Silva grown tired of hunting a placer and returned suddenly to the Wells. He saw Fritz in close converse with the professor, crept to a point within earshot, and listened. Creeping away as silently as he had approached, he showed his teeth in a smile of savage cunning as he pulled a half-burned stick from the smoldering fire and dogged the Dutchman down the gulch.

Apparently there was not a doubt in the mind of Fritz but that he would find what he was looking for. With a shovel over his shoulder, he puffed, and wheezed, and stumbled along the trail, eying the rocks on each side of him and singing as he went.

Silva, chuckling with unholy glee, made a detour from the trail and got back into it ahead of Fritz; and then, with the burned stick, he marked a rough cross on one of the bowlders and retired behind a screen of mesquite bushes to enjoy the sight of his fat enemy, working and sweating to such little purpose.

When Fritz saw that marked rock, he let go a howl of delight and triumph that echoed far down the cañon. It reached the ears of Merry and his friends, who, in their running clothes, were strung out in a long line on their way back from Dolliver’s.

The lads halted, bunched together, and made up their minds that the noise they had heard should be investigated. Proceeding cautiously forward, they peered around a ridge of bowlders and saw Fritz digging into the hard ground like mad. So feverishly did the fat Dutchman work that one could hardly see him for the cloud of sand and gravel he kept in the air.

Not more than ten feet away from the sweating Fritz was the Mexican, Silva. He was in a flutter of delight.

“What the deuce is going on, Chip?” inquired Clancy.

“I can tell you, Clan,” spoke up Ballard, stifling a laugh. “Fritz had a dream last night that he found a rock with a cross on it, and that he rolled away the rock, dug up the ground, and found more gold than he could carry. He told me about it. I’ll bet a farm he thinks he’s found the rock. Silva’s in on the deal somewhere, although Carrots doesn’t know it.”

“This is rich!” gulped Hannibal Bradlaugh, shaking with the fun of it. “Say, Chip, can’t you ring in a little twist to the situation and turn the tables on the greaser?”

“Throw your voice, Chip!” suggested Clan. “Make Carrots think he’s digging up more than he bargained for. Go on!”

“All right,” laughed Merry. “Let’s see what happens.”

The boys, caught at once with the idea, suppressed their delight, and peered over the top and sides of the ridge. Suddenly a nerve-wracking groan was heard, and seemingly it came from the depths of the shallow hole in which Fritz was working. The Dutchman paused in his labor, mopped the sweat from his face, and looked around.

“Vat iss dot?” he puffed. “Vat I hear all at vonce? Who shpoke mit me?”

Again Merry caused a hair-raising groan to come from the hole. A yell of fear escaped Fritz. Dropping his shovel, he pawed out of the hole, and got behind a rock a dozen feet away. From this point of vantage he stared cautiously back at the hole and, his voice shaking with fear, inquired:

“Who shpoke mit me? Vat it iss, blease? I don’d hear nodding like dot in der tream, py chiminy grickeds!”

“How dare you disturb my bones, looking for treasure?” came a hollow voice from the ragged opening in the earth. “I am the big Indian chief, Hoop-en-de-doo, and I will haunt you and take your scalp! I shall call all my braves from the happy hunting grounds, and we will dance the medicine and go on the war trail; we will——”

Merry was interrupted by a wild shriek that went clattering up and down the gulch in terrifying echoes. Fritz was not the author of it, for he seemed stricken dumb and rooted to the ground. It was the Mexican who had given vent to the blood-curdling cry. Frightened out of his wits, Silva, still emitting yell after yell, bounded like a deer for the trail and the home camp.

Fritz did not see Silva, but the fierce howling, coming nearer and nearer, must have given him the idea that Chief Hoop-en-de-doo and all his shadowy band of warriors were after him. Fritz awoke to feverish activity in less than a second. He whirled, and, with remarkable speed considering his size, scrambled for Tinaja Wells. Silva chased him clear to the camp, where Fritz, utterly exhausted, dropped in a heap and rolled into the chuck tent. The Mexican vanished into some other spot that he considered safe.

When the boys, roaring with laughter, finally reached the grove, they were met by the professor and a young fellow with blue eyes and light, curling hair. There was a stranger in camp, it seemed, and Merry and his companions smothered their merriment to give Borrodaile a chance to free his mind.

“Merriwell,” said the professor, “this hilarity is most untimely. This young gentleman, I fear, will think you are a lot of hoodlums. Allow me to present Mr. Ellis Darrel, who has just arrived from Gold Hill and is earnestly in search of information respecting the Gold Hill Athletic Club. Darrel, Frank Merriwell, junior.”

Darrel was smiling. There was something about him which, at the very first glance, appealed to Merry. The two shook hands cordially.

CHAPTER III.
A FRIEND IN NEED.

“Well, fellows,” said Ellis Darrel, after Merry had introduced him to all the other fellows, “it looks a whole lot as though I had dropped into the wrong pew. If I haven’t forgotten the country hereabouts, this is sure Tinaja Wells.”

“Surest thing you know, Darrel,” smiled Frank.

“I was told in Gold Hill that a bunch of athletes belonging to the Gold Hill Athletic Club had gone into camp here.”

“Some one got mixed,” put in Clancy. “It’s an Ophir outfit that’s taken over the Wells.”

“Blamed queer,” muttered Darrel, “and I’ll be hanged if I can sabe the layout at all. The man in Gold Hill who gave me the information is an officer of the club there. It’s a cinch that he ought to know.”

“We’ve been here for four days,” observed Ballard, “and we haven’t seen a thing of the Gold Hill chaps.”

“Live in the town, Darrel?” asked Frank.

“Used to,” was the answer. “Don’t live much of anywhere now. Home’s wherever I hang my hat. I——” He broke off abruptly, hesitated, then recovered himself and went on. “I trained with the Gold Hill crowd something like a year ago. When I drifted into town last night and heard the gang was off in Mohave Cañon, I kind of warmed up on the subject of athletics, bundled up my track clothes, and moseyed in this direction.”

Darrel’s announcement that he was, or had been, a member of the Gold Hill club, caused the Ophir fellows to draw back into their shells somewhat, and to eye him with distrust. Their altered demeanor was so plain that Darrel noticed it.

“What’s the trouble?” he asked, looking blankly into the faces that surrounded him. “Have I stepped on the tail of somebody’s coat, or trampled on somebody’s toes?”

“Never mind, Darrel,” laughed Frank. “Professor,” he added, to Borrodaile, “take Darrel to our wickiup and make him comfortable. I’ll have a talk with him as soon as we take a dip in the pool.”

The professor led the puzzled Darrel away, while Merry and his companions hurried off for a short swim after their dusty run.

“Don’t like the way this Darrel is shaping up,” grumbled Spink, splashing around in the water.

“Nor I,” seconded Handy. “How do we know but that the Gold Hill crowd have steered him this way to spy on us?”

“If he’s a spy, Handy,” said Frank, “then he’s a good deal of a fool. Would a spy talk like he did?”

“He would not!” declared Ballard.

“The last time we went up against Gold Hill at football,” remarked Bradlaugh, “we found that they had all our signals down pat. Maybe they’re making another play of that kind.”

As hurriedly as he could, Frank gave himself a rub-down and got into his clothes.

“Take it from me, Brad.” said he, “Darrel isn’t that kind of a chap. He’s straight goods, and I’ll bet on it.”

When he got back to the camp he found Darrel sitting on a blanket just within the open front of the tent. He was peering off across the cañon, with a thoughtful, almost a sad, look on his face. He turned his head quickly when he heard Frank, and the thoughtfulness and the sadness vanished in a bright smile.

“You needn’t have rushed things on my account, Merriwell,” said he.

“All I wanted was a plunge,” answered Frank, dropping down beside him. “If you were in Gold Hill, even as long as a year ago,” he proceeded, “you must have known that there is a hot rivalry between the athletic club in that town and the one in Ophir.”

A grim expression flashed through Darrel’s eyes.

“Haven’t they got over that, yet?” he asked. “Why can’t they act like good sports instead of a lot of kids? I had a notion that Uncle Alvah——” He bit his words short. “I had a notion,” he finished, “that they’d see what a rotten exhibition they were making of themselves, and get together and play the game as it ought to be played.”

“Probably they will, some time. Just now, though, if you mention Gold Hill in an Ophir crowd, it’s like a spark in a powder magazine. That’s why the fellows suddenly got back of their barriers when you said that you were a Gold Hiller, and had once trained with the Gold Hill Athletic Club.”

“Well, strike me lucky!” grinned Darrel. “It’s plain enough, now. They’re afraid I’m here to do a little dirty work, eh? ’Pon honor, Merriwell, such a thought never entered my noodle. As far as that goes, I doubt whether I’m on very good terms with the Gold Hill bunch. My half brother, Jode Lenning, is a big, high boy among the Gold Hillers, and—and—well, Jode hasn’t much use for me,” Darrel flushed. “Haven’t seen Jode for a year—nor any of the other fellows, for that matter—and I was bound for their camp to see what sort of a reception they’d give me.”

A strained silence fell over the two boys. Darrel was touching upon personal matters, and he was doing it in a way that made Merry uncomfortable.

“You see,” Darrel went on, a touch of sadness again showing in his face, “it’s been a year since I had a home. For more than twelve months I’ve been knocking around the West, and—and——”

“You don’t have to dig down into your personal history, Darrel,” said Frank, “in order to convince me that you’re straight goods. I’ll take your word for it.”

“Much obliged, Merriwell. Not many fellows would take the word of a perfect stranger—especially as you’re from Ophir, and I was from Gold Hill—once.”

“I’m only temporarily from Ophir.” laughed Frank. “Mr. Bradlaugh asked me to coach the Ophir eleven for the Thanksgiving Day game with Gold Hill, and we’re doing a certain amount of practice work every afternoon up on the mesa back of camp.”

“Wow! And I came right along and jumped into the thick of you! Well, anyhow, there’s something about you that makes a big hit with me; and it’s been so long since I’ve had a friend I could trust that I’d like to have a heart-to-heart talk with you. You see, I’ve been in a heap of trouble, and now that I’m back from Nowhere, I’m guessing a lot as to which way the cat’s going to jump. I’d like to get a little of that trouble out of my system, and, if you don’t mind, I’ll begin to unload.”

“Go ahead,” said Frank. “I’m sure you’re the right sort, and if I can help you any I will be glad to do it.”

“Shake!” exclaimed Darrel, reaching out his hand.

The professor was under a cottonwood with his book, and the rest of the campers, seeming to realize that Merriwell’s talk with Darrel was of a private nature, kept away from them. Darrel pushed farther back into the tent and sat on a cot. Merriwell fallowed him and took possession of a camp stool.

“I’ve been over a good bit of the country during the past year,” said Darrel, “but in all my wanderings I’ve never let out a whisper of what I’m going to tell you. I said that Jode Lenning was my half brother. My father, John Darrel, died, when I was a little shaver, and a year later my mother followed him. Darrel was my mother’s second husband, and David Lenning, Jode’s father, was her first. I’m over seventeen, and Jode’s close to twenty. My mother’s maiden name was Hawtrey, and after her death, Jode and I went to live with her brother, Colonel Alvah Hawtrey.”

“Why,” exclaimed Frank, “Colonel Hawtrey is a big man over in Gold Hill! There’d be nothing to the Gold Hill Athletic Club if you took the colonel out of it. At least,” he added, “that’s what I’ve heard over in Ophir.”

“Well, that about hits the thing off. Uncle Alvah is a fine old chap. He saw to it that Jode and I got our share of physical training. I was just a little bit better than Jode at pretty nearly everything in the athletic line, although he could give me cards and spades in book learning, and then leave me at the quarter post. The colonel insisted that our mental and physical training should go on side by side, but he’s got a sportsman’s love for athletics, and I think he was secretly pleased because of my good showing on the field and track. While he tried to be impartial in his dealings with Jode and me, yet it became pretty clear that I was his favorite nephew. Jode didn’t like that at all; and when the colonel took us to an athletic meet in Los Angeles, and I won a silver cup in the two-twenty dash, Jode was soured completely.

“I reckon I hadn’t ought to talk like this, Merriwell, and it may look to you like mighty poor policy for me to run my half brother down, but I can’t put this business up to you in a way that you’ll understand if I’m not frank in telling what I know.”

“I guess I understand how you feel,” said Frank, “so push ahead.”

“Just after winning that silver cup,” proceeded Darrel, “I made the mistake of my life. Jode was drinking a little and gambling a whole lot on the sly, and I was young and foolish and thought I’d have a little of the same fun on my own hook. I hadn’t savvy enough to understand that by keeping away from drink and tobacco, while Jode was taking them aboard a little on the q.  t., I’d been able to do a fair amount of successful work in athletics. That’s where I had the best of Jode, you see, but didn’t realize it. Well, I got into Jode’s crowd, went from bad to worse, and woke up one day to find that I’d forged the colonel’s name to a check for five hundred dollars. Anyhow, that’s what they said I’d done, and as I had been rather hazy from liquor at the time the forging was done, I couldn’t deny it. I wish I could forget the bad half hour I had with the colonel when he found it out!”

Darrel shivered.

“Uncle Alvah’s notions of honor are pretty high,” he continued, “and he had always prided himself on the fact that Jode and I never smoked, or drank, or gambled. The blow was a tough one for him. He used to be in the army, and he’s as bluff and stern as any old martinet you ever heard of. When he told me to clear out and never let him see my face again, I—I cleared. That was a little over a year ago, and I’ve been running loose all over the Pacific slope ever since, earning a living at whatever turned up, and was honest and square. But I’d had my lesson; and drink, cards, or tobacco couldn’t land on me again. I’m physically more fit than ever I was in my life, for the batting around I’ve had has toughened me a heap. What’s more, I’ve had a year to think over that forgery business, and I’ve got a notion that I didn’t—that I couldn’t—have done such a thing, no matter how hazy I was. It was up in Spokane that I was struck with the idea that I’d better stop drifting, come back to Gold Hill, and look into matters a little. I don’t know what I can find, nor what I can do, but, if it’s possible, I’m going to prove to the colonel that I didn’t put his name to that check for five hundred. The first thing I wanted to do was to see Jode. I was told that he had come to Tinaja Wells, with a camping party, so I——”

Footsteps, approaching quickly, were heard outside the tent, and Darrel suddenly ceased speaking. The next moment Clancy, his freckled, homely face filled with excitement, showed himself at the tent opening.

“Say, Chip,” he cried, “here’s a go! A crowd of Gold Hillers have just reached the Wells, bag and baggage, and claim that they’re entitled to this camping site and are going to have it. It’s an ugly mess, and I’m looking for all kinds of trouble. Better come out and see what you can do.”

Without a moment’s delay, Merriwell jumped up from his seat and hurried out of the tent.

CHAPTER IV.
A CLASH OF AUTHORITY.

The sight that met Merriwell’s eyes, as he came out of the tent and followed Clancy toward the edge of the camp, was vastly disturbing. A train of pack animals was being unloaded in the grove, while fifteen or twenty saddle horses were being stripped of their gear, watered in Mohave Creek, and staked out in the “bottoms” among the picketed Ophir stock.

A swarm of youngsters overran the flat, some looking after the horses, some helping the packer, and some beginning the erection of tents. Merry judged that there were at least twenty members in the party that had just arrived.

“Here’s a pretty fair-sized bunch of Indians, Chip,” said Clancy, “and they’ve got their tomahawks out. Well,” he added grimly, “while we’re not looking for trouble, you can bet we won’t dodge any.”

A worried look crossed Merriwell’s face.

“With the two clubs at loggerheads, like they are,” said he, “it would be a mighty bad move, all around, for the Gold Hillers to camp so close to us.”

“Bad?” echoed Clancy. “Say, Chip, how the mischief could we do any practice work with the fellows we’re to fight hanging around and looking on?”

“We couldn’t,” was the answer.

The Ophir contingent was drawn up in compact formation, at the edge of the flat, watching angrily while the Gold Hillers went calmly on with their preparations for a permanent camp at Tinaja Wells. Bradlaugh, whose father was president of the O.  A.  C., was stumping up and down and spouting wrathfully.

As Merriwell and Clancy walked toward the Ophir fellows, a youth approached Bradlaugh from the direction of the Gold Hill crowd. He was ragged out in gray corduroy riding breeches, tan shoes and leggings, Norfolk jacket, and a fancy brown sombrero with carved leather band and silver ornaments jingling at the brim. He carried a riding crop under his arm and was removing a pair of gauntlet gloves.

“Look here, Lenning,” shouted Bradlaugh, plunging straight at this rather startling figure, “what are you trying to do here, anyhow? What business have you got bringing a Gold Hill crowd to Tinaja Wells?”

Lenning turned a pair of shifty, insolent eyes upon Bradlaugh.

“We’ve a right here,” said he sharply, “or we shouldn’t be here. Pull in your horns before you make a fool of yourself. Bradlaugh—that’s my advice to you. Where’s this big chief, Merriwell?” A sneer there was no mistaking came with the words “big chief.” “Trot him out,” Lenning finished, “and it won’t take two minutes for me to show him where you Ophirites get off.”

Lenning’s manner was insulting, to the last degree. A bitter partizan spirit was already flaming in the Ophir ranks, aroused by the plain determination of the Gold Hillers to take possession of the camping ground. Brad’s temper had been strained to the breaking point even before the appearance of Lenning, and now, under the weight of Lenning’s insolence, it gave way utterly.

“You pup!” shouted Brad, leaping at Lenning with clenched fists. “It’s a cinch you’ve got some dirty trick up your sleeve or you wouldn’t blow in here in this high-and-mighty fashion. I’ve a notion to punch your head on general principles.”

Lenning jumped back and lifted the riding crop.

“Try it on,” he snarled, “and I’ll rip off some of your hide!”

A number of Gold Hillers, scenting trouble, hastened to run out of the grove and line up back of their champion. The Ophir fellows pressed forward to back up Bradlaugh. Fritz Gesundheit, who loved excitement in any form, showed himself for the first time since being chased up the cañon by the spook of old Chief Hoop-en-de-doo. Rolling out of the chuck tent, he waddled toward Bradlaugh.

“Gif him fits mit himselluf, Prad!” he called. “I bet you someding for nodding he iss some pad eggs.”

The Gold Hill packer was a Mexican, and already he and Silva had come to blows. They could be heard screeching and floundering around in the underbrush. It was a moment rife with many disagreeable possibilities, and only quick and judicious action on Merriwell’s part could prevent a general row.

“Clan,” said he, “you and Ballard go over and separate those greasers before they get to knifing each other. I’ll take care of this end of the ruction. Do your best to smooth things out, or we’ll all be in hot water.”

While Clancy grabbed Ballard and hustled away with him, Merriwell jumped in between Brad and Lenning.

“Cut it out, Brad!” said he sharply, giving the fiery youngster a push backward. “All you fellows,” he added, to the Ophir crowd, “are carrying too much sail. Double reef your tempers and we’ll weather this squall without much trouble.” He whirled on Lenning. “I’m Merriwell,” said he. “I believe I heard you asking for me as I came up.”

“That’s what you heard,” was the answer. “I’m Jode Lenning, and Colonel Hawtrey, of Gold Hill, is my uncle. The colonel——”

“What has this to do with Colonel Hawtrey?” interrupted Merry.

Remembering what Darrel had just been telling him, Frank was taking Lenning’s measure with a good deal of interest. His comparison of the two half brothers gave Darrel no end the best of it.

“My uncle,” drawled Lenning, running his eyes over Merry in an impudent up-and-down stare, “has a lot to do with our athletic club but he’s not mixed up in this camping expedition. He has been out of town for a week, but I expect him back to-day, and——”

“Let us hope that he gets back safely,” said Merry, with just a touch of sarcasm in his voice. “Are you intending to camp here, Lenning?”

“Not intending only, but we’re going to.”

“Allow me to suggest that we have already occupied the flat, and that I don’t think the grove is big enough for an outfit of Gold Hillers and Ophirites. You ought to know that as well as I do. Move on and find some other place.”

“You’ve got a rind!” grunted Lenning. “We’re out here for fun and work, and we need the mesa for an athletic field. I’ve leased the ground, and I want you fellows to pack up and clear out at once.”

This was staggering. Merriwell supposed that Brad’s father had leased the ground. In that section of the country there were very few places so adapted to the needs of the Ophir fellows as was the grove and mesa at Tinaja Wells.

“We’ve leased the ground ourselves!” shouted Brad, “and we’ve got it down in black and white.”

“He’s shy a few,” said Lenning, and drew a paper from the pocket of his coat and showed it to Merriwell.

It was a written memorandum of agreement. In consideration of twenty dollars, in hand paid, one Lige Struthers had given the Gold Hill Athletic Club exclusive camping privileges at Tinaja Wells.

“This appears to be all right, Brad,” said Merriwell, bewildered.

“Who leased the ground to Lenning?” demanded Brad.

“A man named Struthers; Lige Struthers.”

Brad laughed ironically.

“Struthers doesn’t own the ground,” said he. “Newt Packard is the owner, and he’s the one that gave us our lease. Hold your bronks a minute.”

Brad turned and hurried off to one of the tents. When he came back, he brought a paper showing that Bradlaugh, senior, had secured the site exclusively for the Ophir club.

“Great Scott!” exclaimed Merriwell. “How could two different men execute leases on the same plot of ground? There’s a hen on, somewhere.”

“It’s Packard’s ground,” declared Brad. “Right at this minute Struthers is fighting Packard for it in the courts, but Struther’s claim is a joke—he hasn’t a legal leg to stand on. Everybody says so. This is a scheme of Lenning’s, Chip, to drive us from Tinaja Wells.”

“Scheme or not,” cried Lenning, “we’ve got our rights and we’re going to stand up to them!”

“Even if Struthers has a just claim on the place, Lenning,” said Merry, “your right here isn’t any better than ours. If Struthers happens to win the lawsuit, then we have to get out, for our leave isn’t any good; but if Packard wins, then that paper of yours isn’t worth a whoop, and Tinaja Wells is ours.”

“You’ll make tracks from here,” stormed Lenning, “or we’ll drive you out! We’ve got a big enough crowd to do it.”

Merry’s dark eyes flashed dangerously.

“You’ll not drive us out,” said he calmly, “as long as we have a right here. And we’ll not be able to force you to leave so long as the lawsuit is hanging fire.”

“Bossession iss nine points oof der law,” clamored Fritz truculently, “und ve vas here fairst, py shinks. I haf reasons for vich I don’d vand to ged oudt, und I don’d vant more fellers as is necessary aroundt.”

Nobody paid much attention to Fritz just then. The Ophirites were keeping their eyes on Merriwell, smothering their hostility as best they could and letting him cut the pattern they were to follow.

Clancy and Ballard, a little while before, had returned from the chaparral with Silva. The Mexican was fairly boiling with rage, but the lads were managing to hold him in check.

“Carramba!” hissed Silva. “Dat odder Mexicano he move my burro, to give his burro best place. I lick him for dat, bymby!”

Merry was filled with forebodings as to what might happen if both parties went into camp at the Wells; and yet, considering the peculiar condition of affairs, there seemed no possible way to avoid a division of the camping privileges. Both sides held a lease of the ground; and, not until the lawsuit between Struthers and Packard was settled, would it be known which side was entitled to the exclusive use of Tinaja Wells.

“I’ll give you fellows half an hour to begin packing.” blustered Lenning. “If you don’t show symptoms of leaving by that time, there’ll be a fight!”

“I think not,” said Frank, still holding his temper in check. “For the present, Lenning, we’ll both camp at the Wells, and both have the use of water and forage. You and your crowd will keep away from us, however, and we’ll do our best to keep away from you. There’s no sense in having a mix-up.”

“Half an hour,” threatened Lenning. “I’m banking on Struthers. This is his water and his ground, and he’s the only one that has a right to give a lease. We’ve got a bigger crowd than you have, and it won’t bother us much to run you out.”

Here was a complication of the tangle which Merriwell did not relish a little bit. Nevertheless, he knew he was within his rights and he had no intention of backing down and letting Lenning have his way.

Lenning had spun around on his heel with the intention of returning to the spot where his own camp was being put in shape, when Ellis Darrel hurried forward.

“Don’t be in a rush, Jode,” called Darrel. “I want a word with you.”

CHAPTER V.
A CHALLENGE.

The sound of Darrel’s voice caused Lenning to whirl as though a rattlesnake had suddenly buzzed its warning behind him. The look on the fellow’s scowling face was one of stunned astonishment. For a brief space, the two half brothers stared at each other; then Lenning, seeming to get a grip on himself, demanded contemptuously:

“Who the devil are you?”

Darrel peered at him in amazement.

“Well, strike me lucky!” he muttered. “You can’t run in a bluff like that, Jode. You know me, all right. I’ve changed a heap in a year, I know, but not in the way that would keep you from recognizing me.”

A gasp of astonishment escaped Brad’s lips. His surprise was echoed by at least half a dozen others among the Ophir crowd, and by practically all the Gold Hillers.

It was to be presumed that a former member of the Gold Hill club could not have dropped entirely out of remembrance during the absence of a year; and it was but natural that some of the Ophir fellows should have been acquainted with Darrel. That the Ophir lads had not recalled Darrel before, seemed strange to Merriwell. And he was even more astonished now, when recognition seemed almost general, at the queer twist which had entered into the situation.

While plainly discovering in Darrel something that was familiar to them, a general acceptance of the “boy from Nowhere” as the person he purported to be, was hanging fire. Darrel himself seemed as much perplexed about this as Merriwell was.

“I don’t recognize you,” said Lenning, “and that’s all there is to it.”

“Well, if you don’t,” answered Darrel, “some of the other fellows from Gold Hill have better memories. How about it, boys,” he asked, appealing directly to the crowd behind Lenning.

“You look a lot like Ellis Darrel,” said one of the Gold Hillers.

“He’s a dead ringer for El,” averred another.

“But he can’t be my half brother!” cried Lenning. “He’s an imposter, by thunder! Why are the Ophir fellows springing him on us? What’s your scheme, Merriwell?” he demanded, turning on Frank.

“No scheme about it,” Frank answered. “This chap is Ellis Darrel. If he looks like Darrel, and says he’s Darrel, what in thunder’s the reason you don’t accept him as Darrel?”

“Because Ellis Darrel is dead,” said one of the Gold Hillers who had spoken before.

“That’s news to me,” returned Darrel whimsically.

“It’s a fact; whether it’s news to you or not,” said Lenning.

“When did I die?” inquired Darrel, with a short laugh.

“Three or four months ago,” went on Lenning. “The papers were full of it. You can’t run in any rhinecaboo on us, just because you happen to look like my half brother.”

“No rhinecaboo about it, Jode. If the papers reported my demise, then the report was slightly exaggerated. I never felt better in my life, nor more like living and making life worth while. How was I taken off, eh?”

“Darrel was killed in a railroad wreck in Colorado. He was identified by something in his coat pockets. Uncle Alvah sent on enough to bury him, and some of the authorities had him decently planted. I don’t know what your real name is, but I’ll gamble a thousand against a chink wash ticket that this railroad accident is no news to you. You’ve come on here to bluff the thing through, make the colonel believe you’re his wandering nephew, and then put you in his will along with me. But the scheme won’t work. When the real Darrel forged that check, he killed all his hopes of ever connecting with any of Uncle Al’s money. Didn’t know about that forged check, eh? Well, you’d better skip if you don’t want to get yourself in trouble.”

With a contemptuous fling of his shoulders, Lenning whirled again as though he would leave. Darrel, his face convulsed with anger, leaped at him and jerked him around.

“You don’t get away from me like this, Jode,” he cried. “There’s been a big mistake, but I think I can understand how it happened. While I was working at a mine in Cripple Creek some one stole my coat. I think it was a hobo. If there was a railroad smash-up, then the hobo was killed and supposed to be me from something found in the stolen coat. I never heard of that wreck, or that I was supposed to have been a victim of it. I don’t know whether I should have set the matter right, even if I had heard of it; but I can correct the mistake now, and you can bet your bottom dollar I’m going to!”

Lenning, held against his will, shook Darrel’s hand roughly from his arm.

“You’ve got your scheme all framed up, I reckon,” said Lenning angrily, “but it won’t work. My half brother’s dead, and you can’t palm yourself off as Ellis Darrel. You’ll find yourself behind the bars if you try it. The colonel won’t stand for any monkey business of that sort.”

“I didn’t come back to get any of the colonel’s money,” went on Darrel. “What I came back for was to prove that I’m not a forger. First, I’ll offer evidence that I’m Ellis Darrel, and then I’ll make the other part of it plain.”

“How’ll you prove that you’re my half brother?” asked Lenning mockingly.

“Who was the best sprinter in the Gold Hill Athletic Club?” returned Darrel. “Who won the two-twenty dash at Los Angeles?”

“Darrel,” answered one of the Gold Hillers.

“Who was the next best sprinter in the club?”

“Jode Lenning.”

“Now you’re shouting,” went on Darrel. “If I run against Lenning, and beat him, I’ll bet a pack of pesos that every member of the Gold Hill club will agree that I’m the fellow I say I am. If I look like Darrel, and am trying to run in a bluff on you because of it, is it at all likely that I could run like Darrel? You’ll see, if you give me the chance to show it, that I have the same form and the same speed.”

“You’re a rank counterfeit,” scoffed Lenning, “and I’ll not have a thing to do with you.”

But the rest of the Gold Hillers, as Frank could see, were not disposed to have the matter brushed lightly aside in that way. Perhaps there were some among them who had known and liked Darrel, and felt that this newcomer should have every chance to make good his pretensions.

Merriwell, facing a difficult situation because of the dispute regarding the camping site, saw a chance to shift the attention of the rival clubs to a foot race, and thus, for the time, patch up their other differences. Not only that, but the “boy from Nowhere,” while helping out the general situation, would be making a logical attempt to prove his identity.

Personally, Merriwell did not doubt Ellis Darrel in the least; but he was beginning to have ugly misgivings regarding Jode Lenning.

“Is that a challenge, Darrel?” Frank asked.

Darrel nodded. “Jode wants to believe that I have kicked the bucket,” said he, “and he’s afraid to run against me. He knows, if he does, that I’ll beat him, and that the Gold Hill fellows will wipe out that foolish railroad accident and take me at my word.”

“You’re a fake,” scowled Lenning, “and I tell you I’ll not run against you. What I’m going to do, though, is to send to Gold Hill after the sheriff and have you locked up. The colonel will deal with you, my festive buck!”

Again Lenning started to leave the scene. This time, however, he was halted by one of his own crowd.

“Don’t be in a hurry, Jode,” said the fellow who had stepped in front of him. “I reckon this here’s a case that’s not to be passed up in any offhand way like you’re doin’. Hey, fellers?”

There was a chorus of approval of the Gold Hill chap’s words from the rest of his companions.

“You can prove he’s a fake, Jode!” said one.

“Give him a chance, anyhow!” cried another.

“It’s no more than a fair shake to run against him,” chimed in a third.

All the others had more or less to say in favor of Lenning’s accepting the challenge. Lenning, because of this, was placed in a most uncomfortable position. If he still refused to run, it would appear as though he was anxious not to do the fair thing; on the other hand, if the race was run, and Darrel came out ahead, this might convince the Gold Hillers that he was all he claimed to be.

Lenning stood for a moment, thinking the matter over; then, suddenly, his face cleared.

“All right, Bleeker,” said he to the fellow who had stepped in front of him. “I’m not afraid to run against the fellow. Even if he wins, and if he proves that he’s really Ellis Darrel, he’ll be sorry for it. My half brother disgraced himself, and was ordered by the colonel to clear out. If this chap wasn’t a fool, he’d prefer to drop the matter right here and make himself scarce, rather than to try to prove that he’s Darrel, the forger.”

“Then you accept the challenge, do you, Lenning?” inquired Merriwell.

“You heard me,” was the snarling response.

“What’s the distance, and when do you want to pull off the race?”

“Hundred yards; and we’ll run ’em off to-morrow afternoon. Now, if you’re all satisfied, I’ll go back and boss the operation of getting our camp in shape.”

The acceptance of that challenge put an altogether different complexion upon the situation, so far as it concerned differences regarding the camping ground. A spirit of sportsmanship had been aroused, and the animosity that had long existed between the rival clubs had, for the time, been pushed into the background. Merriwell was greatly pleased over the outcome.

“This hundred-yard dash is a good thing, all around,” said he to Darrel. “Until to-morrow afternoon, anyhow, we’re going to have peace at Tinaja Wells. Already Lenning’s threat to run us off the flat if we weren’t packing up in half an hour has been forgotten. I’m hoping that something will happen, soon after the race, to show whether Struthers or Packard owns this camping site. Have you kept in training during the past year, Darrel?”

“As well as I could,” was the answer. “I’d like to practice starts a little, this afternoon. Will you help me?”

“Sure,” answered Merriwell heartily. “We’ll go up on the mesa right away, and begin. Bring the pistol, Brad. Get into your speed togs, Darrel. I’ll be waiting here for you.”

Brad went after the starter’s pistol and Darrel, securing his roll of clothes from the place where he had left it, disappeared inside of Merriwell’s tent.

While waiting, Merriwell saw two horsemen coming down the cañon and heading toward Tinaja Wells. One was a tall, soldierly appearing man with a white mustache, and the other was a roughly dressed, businesslike-appearing fellow, with a hatchet face.

A shout went up from Bleeker, of Gold Hill, who was the first of his party to catch sight of the approaching riders.

“Whoop!” he shouted, “here comes the colonel! Call Jode, somebody.”

CHAPTER VI.
PUZZLING DEVELOPMENTS.

A thrill ran through Merriwell’s nerves. Colonel Hawtrey had come to Tinaja Wells and had ridden his horse hard in making the trip. Why was he there, and why was he in a hurry?

The colonel’s presence in camp would not have taken on such a momentous aspect had Frank not instantly recognized the colonel’s companion. This man’s name was Hawkins. He was a good friend of Frank’s; but, as it also happened, he was a deputy sheriff.

Hawtrey had come to the camp hurriedly, and had brought with him an officer of the law. Merriwell’s mind circled vainly about these two facts. His heart sank as he thought the developments might portend some fresh disaster for Darrel.

At the edge of the grove the colonel and the deputy dismounted. Jode Lenning appeared, seemingly nervous and ill at ease, and stumbled forward to grasp his uncle’s hand. The two, talking earnestly together, disappeared in the direction of one of the Gold Hill tents.

Hawkins, catching sight of Merriwell, smiled and greeted him with a friendly wave of the hand; then, leading the two horses, he went down over the edge of the flat and into the cañon.

Frank would have liked to follow him, and to learn, if possible, the reason why he and the colonel had come to Tinaja Wells. Just at that moment, however, Darrel appeared in his track clothes and Brad came up with the starter’s pistol.

Fritz was already busy with supper preparations, and Darrel would have no more than an hour for practice, at the outside. Merry, leaving the puzzling developments to take care of themselves, joined Darrel and Brad, and the three made their way up a low slope beyond the flat to the mesa.

This little plateau was at least two acres in extent, as flat as a floor, clear of obstructions in the form of bowlders and desert plants, and with a surface almost as hard and springy as a cinder path. It was a natural athletic field, and its proximity to Tinaja Wells was what made the place so desirable as a camping ground for a club that intended to give sports a large share of its outing.

Darrel, in his track clothes, was a splendid specimen of physical development. To Merriwell’s practiced eye, however, he seemed built for a sprinter, and perhaps could have done well as a long-distance man, but could hardly distinguish himself as an all-round athlete.

“The Gold Hill camp has a visitor, Darrel,” said Frank. “Did you see him arrive?”

“No,” was the answer, “I was busy getting into my togs. Who is it?”

“Coloney Hawtrey.”

A touch of white ran through Darrel’s face. He halted abruptly and half turned as though to retrace his way to the camp; then, apparently changing his mind, he faced about and went on into the mesa.

“The colonel thinks I’ve crossed the divide,” said he, “and he wouldn’t have any use for me if he was convinced that I’m alive and kicking. Time enough to pay my respects to him after I dig up proof that I didn’t forge his name to that check. Did he come alone, Merriwell?”

“Hawkins, a deputy sheriff, came with him.”

“Strike me lucky! Say, I’ll bet a bunch of dinero that my precious little half brother has put up some sort of a dodge on me.” He halted once more, and, with deep earnestness in voice and manner, turned to Merriwell and added: “I want you to promise that you won’t go back on me, no matter what happens.”

“I believe you’re straight,” said Merriwell promptly, “and you can bank on me to stand by you.”

“And lend a hand, if I need it?”

“Sure.”

“Count me in on that, too, Darrel,” put in Brad.

“You fellows are pretty good to a stranger,” said Darrel, his voice husky with feeling. “I won’t forget it, either. Now, changing the subject a little and coming down to this race of mine against Jode, I might be an impostor, and, at the same time, happen to have the speed to beat him over that hundred yards; but any one that ever saw Ellis Darrel run knows that he has a form of his own—a few individualities that crop out on the track and could not be copied. That is going to do more than just winning the race to put me in right with the Gold Hill fellows. See what I mean, Merriwell?”

Frank nodded understandingly.

“Jode has a few peculiarities himself,” Darrel went on, “and one of them is beating the pistol.”

“That’s mighty crooked,” said Frank. “A fellow that makes a practice of it is bound to be found out, sooner or later, and made to take his medicine.”

“Starters, as you know, don’t all wait the same length of time between the order to get set and the ‘crack’ that starts them over the course; but, almost invariably, each starter has his own habit, and clings to it. Some starters may wait two seconds, and some four, and if a sprinter knows his man, he can get off with the pistol, and not after he hears it. If a sprinter is clever at it, it’s mighty hard to detect him; and if he is detected occasionally he can plead nervousness, and get off without much trouble. Now, Jode’s pretty slick at the game; and if Beman, one of the boys in the Gold Hill crowd, fires the pistol, Jode will know exactly what to do.”

“We’ll see to it that Beman doesn’t act as starter,” declared Brad.

“You get me wrong, Bradlaugh,” returned Darrel. “If Jode makes the request, I want you to let Beman act. Then watch Jode, both of you. If he beats the pistol, then you’ll understand that I know what I’m talking about. It will be a little proof that I’m playing square; and, whatever happens, I don’t want you to doubt me.”

“If a man gains half a second at the start, Darrel,” protested Frank, “you ought to know what it means in a hundred-yard dash. It’s the same as leading you at the start by anywhere from ten to twenty feet. A fairly good runner will cover twenty-five feet of ground in a second.”

Darrel smiled cheerfully.

“Let Jode have his lead,” said he; “unless he has picked up wonderfully in the last year I won’t be taking his dust for many yards.”

With his heel, Darrel traced a line on the ground.

“Here’s the starting point, Merriwell,” he observed. “If you’re ready, I am.”

Frank took the pistol from Brad and placed himself behind Darrel.

“On your mark!” he called out, then watched critically to see Darrel place himself.

If the “boy from Nowhere” had any eccentricities in his sprinting, none showed in the way he dropped to the line and began gouging into the earth with the toe of his left foot.

“Set!” called Frank.

The muscles began to twist under the white skin of Darrel’s legs and arms like so many coiled springs. Up came the right knee while the toe of the right foot ground out its own little pocket in the soil. The weight of Darrel’s body was thrown on his fingers and over the starting line.

Frank, admiring the sprinter’s ease, which spoke volumes for the amount of hard practice he had undergone, purposely waited an inordinate length of time before snapping the pistol. An alert mind is as necessary in a good sprinter as a pair of speedy legs; and there must be good nerves, to hold the clamoring muscles in leash until exactly the right moment to let them go.

Bang! went the signal, and on the instant Darrel flung from the line as though shot from a cannon. He ran for perhaps twenty yards before he halted, and came trotting back.

“Did you see how I do my running?” he asked.

“You slide,” answered Frank; “there’s not much waste motion in lifting your feet.”

“And the way you handle your arms,” said Brad. “You’re a daisy, old top, believe me!”

“Not many sprinters go the way I go, and I’ve a hunch that the Gold Hill fellows will recognize Ellis Darrel from that alone. A lot of that crowd have seen me run dozens of times.”

“I can’t understand what in thunder’s biting those fellows, anyway,” grunted Merriwell. “Suppose there was a railroad accident, and they’ve been under the impression for months that you got your gruel in the smash-up; why don’t they believe you, when you explain about the coat, and tell them who you are?”

“They’re a lot of boneheads!” declared Brad; “or else,” he qualified, “they’re taking their cue from Lenning.”

“That’s the size of it,” said Darrel. “The colonel’s a pretty big man, over in Gold Hill, and some of that crowd would lick Jode’s shoes if he told ’em to. But,” and Darrel grinned, “you seemed rather anxious to have the race come off, Merriwell?”

“It was the best thing that could happen, right at that stage of our dispute with the Gold Hillers,” Merriwell answered. “We needed something to ease up the tension, and turn our thoughts to something else beside the camping site. This race dropped in pretty pat. But we’ve got to cut out this chin-chin and practice a few more starts. On your mark!”

For perhaps a dozen times Merriwell got Darrel away from the line. The last two or three times constituted about as finished a performance as Merriwell had ever seen.

“You’re all the mustard, Darrel,” said Frank. “I don’t think there’s any chance for improvement. I’ve started you from ‘set’ all the way from an eye wink to ten seconds, and you haven’t made a bobble. You’re in the way of becoming a crack man at this game.”

Darrel’s fine face flushed with pleasure.

“Coming from you, old chap,” said he, “that’s a fine compliment. You’re giving me a helping hand, and I’m hungry to show you that I deserve it.”

“Don’t fret about that. My dad is a master hand at reading character, and he has passed the knack on to me. One look at you was enough. But,” he added suddenly, tossing the pistol to Brad, “Carrots will be yelling his Dutch head off if we don’t hustle to the chuck tent. Have you any sort of an idea,” he asked, as they started together toward the camp, “why the colonel and the deputy sheriff should ride out here?”

“No,” and Darrel shook his head in a puzzled way, “but you’re liable to find out. Here’s the deputy sheriff, and he seems to have his eyes on you.”

Hawkins had strolled up over the edge of the mesa and was walking toward the three boys. When he was close to them, he nodded in a friendly way.

“I’d like to powwow with you, Merriwell,” said he, “for a couple of minutes, more or less. Suppose you let your friends go on, while we trail them in, and palaver on the way?”

Merriwell, with a feeling that something of importance was coming, dropped behind Brad and Darrel and fell into step with the deputy sheriff.

CHAPTER VII.
THE WILES OF A SCHEMER.

Jode Lenning was alone in the tent, which had been erected for his use, when Mingo, a Mexican distance runner, who belonged to the G.  H.  A.  C., thrust his head through the flap and announced that Colonel Hawtrey had arrived in camp.

Lenning, at the moment, had his back to the opening and was wrapping a long, flat package in his handkerchief.

“What?” he gasped, throwing a startled look over his shoulder at Mingo.

The other repeated his announcement.

“The devil!” gulped Lenning, in a flurry. “He’s found out what happened at the house, and put for here on the jump. Now for merry blazes, and a little slick work by yours truly.”

His hand shook a little as he crowded the handkerchief-wrapped package into the breast of his Norfolk jacket; then, getting up, he hurried out of the tent and ran to meet the tall man with the gray mustache.

“Ah, my boy!” exclaimed Colonel Hawtrey, making no effort to conceal the pleasure the meeting gave him. “You’re looking fit, I must say, so there’s not much use asking how you feel.”

“Fine as silk, uncle,” said Lenning, clasping the colonel’s hand. “How did you find everything at the mines?”

“The mines are all right,” was the answer, “but it was something I discovered after I got home this morning that has rather shaken me. Take me to a place where we can be by ourselves and talk.”

“My tent will fill the bill.” They walked together in the direction of Lenning’s headquarters. “Was that Hawkins I saw leading away the horses?” Lenning asked.

“Yes, that was Hawkins.” That there was a load of some sort on the colonel’s mind was evidenced by his tone and manner. “It’s possible,” he added, “that I am going to need Hawkins in—er—an official capacity.”

“This sounds pretty warlike!” exclaimed Lenning.

“I suppose so,” and the old soldier stiffened a little. “I have made some discoveries, Jode, which will astonish you. They nearly carried me off my feet. By the way, what started you on this camping trip?”

“I thought it would be a good thing for our eleven,” Lenning explained. “This Merriwell chap took the Ophir team out into the hills, and I reckoned we’d follow suit. And, say! We bumped into the Ophir outfit right here at Tinaja Wells. How’s that for a coincidence?”

“Queer, to say the least,” answered the colonel. “I hope all you fellows will remember that you are true sportsmen, which is only another term for gentlemen, and avoid any unpleasantness.”

“You can depend upon us to prove a credit to you, colonel!” said Lenning, with a fine show of admiration for the erect, soldierly old fellow beside him. “I have a lease from Struthers, and Merriwell has one from Packard. Now,” and Lenning laughed, “which of us has the right of it?”

“That’s hard to tell, my boy, until the lawsuit is decided. What sort of a character is young Merriwell? Anything like his father?”

“I don’t know much about his father, sir; but young Merriwell seems to be trying to make himself the whole thing. Of course,” Lenning added, “I tried to smooth matters over, and it looks as though I had succeeded. As you see, we’re both camped on the same ground.”

“I’ll have a talk with Merriwell myself, and see what I can do with him. All that, however, must wait on the important business that brings me here. I have never had anything make such an impression on me. Is this your tent, Jode?”

“Yes, uncle. Walk inside and make yourself comfortable.”

When Colonel Hawtrey had seated himself comfortably on a camp stool, and Lenning had dropped down facing him on a pile of blankets, the colonel lighted a cigar—possibly to soothe or cover his nervousness—and began.

“You remember, Jode,” said he, “that I drew a thousand dollars from the bank on the forenoon of the day I left town, expecting to pay it out to Judson for an interest in that promising claim of his.”

Lenning nodded.

“You drew the money,” said he, “and Judson didn’t show up; then you were called from town in a hurry, and locked up the money in your safe. I remember all that very distinctly.”

“You knew the combination, and were to give Judson the money if he called for it.”

“Yes, sir; but he didn’t call.”

“I know that. I had scarcely reached town when I saw him, and he said he’d be around this afternoon to get the thousand. Then I went home—and found that I had been robbed!”

“Robbed!” gasped Lenning, starting up.

“Yes, my boy, robbed! Of course, a thousand dollars isn’t very much to me, but it’s losing the money in such a way as that that gets under my skin. The safe in my study was open, the window had been unlocked, and the thousand was gone!”

“Had the safe been blown open?”

“No. Some one had worked the combination and——”

“Uncle!” exclaimed Lenning, in consternation. “You and I are the only ones who know the combination. You were away from home, and I—I——”

The colonel leaned forward and dropped an affectionate hand on his nephew’s shoulder.

“Tut, tut!” said he brusquely. “You know I trust you as I would myself. There is some one else who knows the combination, and who at one time had as free access to that safe as you or I. I refer to—to your half brother, Darrel.”

“But Ellis perished in that train wreck!”

“Supposed to, but I have always had a feeling that there might be some mistake. That graceless young scamp wasn’t born to shuffle off in any such way as that. What I should have done, I suppose, was to have the combination changed. But I did not. This is the result.”

“I wouldn’t be in too much of a hurry to judge Ellis, Uncle Al,” pleaded Lenning. “You’re only working on a theory, you know, and——”

There was sorrow in the fine old face of the colonel, but over all was the sternness of an iron will.

“I have evidence,” he interrupted; “much as it grieves me to tell it, Jode, yet I have evidence which cannot be denied. It is like you, boy, to plead for the rascal who has disgraced our blood; but, as for me, I shall not be victimized a second time without making him pay the penalty. I—— You are pale!” exclaimed the colonel, leaning forward to stare into his nephew’s face; “and you are trembling, too! What ails you, Jode? Brace up; don’t take this too much to heart.”

“I have something to tell you, uncle,” answered Lenning; “but, first, let me hear your evidence.”

The colonel took a knife from his pocket and handed it to Lenning.

“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.”

“We don’t need any proof of his identity, Jode! We can take his word, and then confront him with this damning evidence of his rascality!”

Lenning put out his hand and rested it on his uncle’s arm.

“Colonel,” said he, his voice shaking, “let us have this race to-morrow afternoon. Don’t interfere. There’s a chance that, after all, the fellow is not Darrel.”

“There’s not a shadow of a doubt, not a shadow!”

“But you needn’t hurry about arresting him, need you? Let’s find out how far Merriwell will go in trying to shield him. Wait until after the race; and then—well,” and Lenning drew a long, regretful sigh, “do what you think you have to—what you think you must.”

“If Darrel knows I am here with Hawkins he may suspect something, and clear out,” demurred the colonel. “It isn’t well, my boy, to dally too much with an affair of this kind.”

“Have Hawkins watch him,” suggested Lenning.

“True,” said the colonel, “I could probably do that. It’s impossible, though, that Young Merriwell is mixed up, in any way, with Darrel’s wrongdoing. He has been deceived in the fellow. I know of the elder Merriwell, and a straighter man or a better all-round athlete the world never produced.”

“I hope young Merriwell is square, and a real chip of the old block, as I understand his friends mean to suggest when they call him ‘Chip’—but, well, I don’t like the way he has been acting. To-morrow afternoon, uncle, we may know a lot more about him and about Darrel, too.”

“Very well,” said the colonel, though reluctantly, “we’ll leave the matter, Jode, as you desire.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Lenning gratefully.

Why was Lenning so anxious to have his uncle defer action against Darrel? Had the packet, wrapped in his handkerchief and stowed in the breast pocket of his Norfolk jacket, anything to do with his wish to delay proceedings? In view of what happened later, this seemed like the logical explanation.

CHAPTER VIII.
A JOKE—WITH RESULTS.

Hawkins, the deputy sheriff, had not much to say to Merriwell during their walk from the mesa back to the camp. Hawkins was an admirer, and in many ways had shown himself a true friend, of Frank’s; and, out of the kindness of his heart and, without divulging any secrets, he strove to warn him against Darrel.

“They’re talkin’ a heap, down in the camp,” said Hawkins, “of what a big hit this Darrel person has made with you. Don’t cotton to him too strong, Merriwell. He isn’t wuth it.”

“What do you mean?” Frank demanded.

“Between ourselves—the thing not to go any further, you understand—this Darrel’s nothin’ more than a plain thief.”

“You’re mistaken, Hawkins,” said Frank, with spirit. “I can’t believe it.”

“Well, son, you’ll have the proof before you’re many hours older.”

“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.

“Himmelblitzen!” wheezed a voice. “Oof you peen vone oof der Inchun shpooks, den I bet you I faint fits righdt on der shpot! Whoosh!” and the voice died away with a suggestion of chattering teeth.

“Carrots!” laughed Ballard. “Say, you crazy chump, what are you fooling around the gulch for at this time of night?”

“Oh, Pallard!” puffed Fritz, in great relief. “Vell, vell, vat a habbiness! Dere vas t’ings vich ve don’d know till ve findt dem oudt, hey? I vas looking for you, Pallard, yah, so helup me!”

“Looking for me?” echoed Ballard; “what for?”

“Meppyso I gif you haluf oof dot dreasure oof you go along und hellup me get him.”

“Oh, blazes!” chuckled Ballard. “I thought you’d got over that treasure notion, Carrots.”

“Lisden, vonce, und I told you someding.” Fritz dropped his voice to an explosive whisper. “Vat you dink? Py shiminy, so sure as nodding I findt me dot shtone mit der gross on. Yah, you bed my life! It vas so blain as I can’t tell, Pallard. Aber ven I roll avay der shtone und tig mit der shovel, I hear me some voices oof an Inchun chief. Dot shkared me avay. Haf you got der nerfs to go mit me to der blace back, Pallard? I peen shaky all ofer, und my shkin geds oop und valks on me mit coldt feet, yet I bed you I go back, und I findt der dreasure. You come, und so hellup me I gif you haluf!”

The excitement at the Wells, incident to the arrival of the Gold Hillers and following hard upon the rapid return of Fritz and Silva to the camp, had temporarily closed the fun Merry and his friends had had in the cañon. More important events had claimed the attention of the lads who had participated in the joke, and no one had explained matters to Fritz or the Mexican. So it chanced that the Dutchman was still laboring under his delusion.

Ballard wondered whether he had better set Fritz right, or keep the joke going. He finally decided that the stock would not suffer if he played out the Dutchman a little, and watched his antics in the supposedly spook-haunted gulch.

“When an Injun goes to the happy hunting grounds, Carrots,” remarked Ballard gravely, “it’s just as well not to stir him up. I’d hate to have a red spook get a strangle hold on me—there wouldn’t be treasure enough in the whole of Arizona to pay a fellow for an experience of that kind.”

“Haf you no chincher?” demanded Fritz. “Iss it not vort’ a leedle shcare chust to load oop mit goldt dot vill make you a rich mans for life, hey? Vell, I bed you! I t’ink him all oudt, und I arrife py der gonglusion dot a shpook iss nodding more as a shadow in der sun, oder der moon. Vat a shpook does makes no odds aboudt der tifference. Ve go, ve ged der goldt, und ve come back. Dot’s all aboudt it. I got me a shovel in vone handt, und a glub in der odder. Mit vone, I tig oop der goldt; mit der odder, I knock ofer der shpooks. Und dere you vas. Ve shall be gompany mit each odder, Pallard.”

“I don’t see how I can back out, Carrots,” said Ballard, “the way you put it up to me. You’re an awful persuader. How much gold is there?”

“I see it in der tream dot dere iss more as ve can carry, yes.”

“Maybe that dream is just fooling you, Carrots.”

“You say yourselluf dot treams iss somet’ing, Pallard.”

“Did I? Well, maybe they are something. You go first, will you, Carrots? I’ve got a weak heart, and if I should run onto a spook without any warning it would knock me stiff.”

“I vill go fairst,” agreed Fritz, generously and valiantly, “und you precede. I vill vatch aroundt carefully, und oof ve don’d make some noises, den meppy der shpooks von’t hear, und ve gif dem der slip.”

Fritz waddled off into the darkness, and Ballard, enjoying himself hugely, trailed after him. Suddenly, without the least warning, Fritz dropped the shovel and the club, whirled in his tracks, and took Ballard in a convulsive embrace.

“Ach, du lieber!” he whimpered. “I hear me someding, py shiminy! Lisden, vonce, Pallard! Vat it iss, hey?”

“Coyotes,” answered Ballard, in a smothered voice. “Brace up, Carrots. Don’t lose your nerve.”

“Sooch dreasure hundings I don’d like,” mumbled Fritz, slowly untangling himself from Ballard and cautiously groping for his shovel and club. “I vish der plame’ coyotes vould go to shleep. Ach, vat a nervousness I got all droo me. I shake like I hat some agues. Sooch a pitzness iss vort’ all der dreasures vat ve findt.”

Suddenly Ballard, clapping a hand over Fritz’s mouth, whispered a hissing warning for him to keep still, and pulled him out of the narrow trail and in between a couple of huge bowlders.

“V-v-vat iss der drouple!” inquired Fritz feebly. “You see a shpook yourselluf, Pallard? I bed you——”

Again Ballard clapped a hand to his companion’s mouth.

“Sh-h-h!” he murmured. “There’s some one coming, right behind us. Not a word, now; not so much as a whisper.”

Somehow, Ballard got it into his head that the man who was following them was Silva. The Mexican, he remembered, was also mixed up, rather vaguely, with Fritz in the treasure hunting. Ballard had it in mind to give Silva a bit of a scare, and so make the most of that midnight experience.

Peering out from their dark retreat, Fritz and Ballard saw a dark figure gliding toward them along the trail. It was impossible for them to discover who the man was. He was in a hurry, that was evident, and a peculiar, musical jingling accompanied him as he came on. The sound was not loud, but more like a tinkling whisper, and barely distinguishable.

But Silva—if Silva it was—did not pass the two behind the bowlders. He halted, so close that Ballard could have reached out and touched him, went down on his knees, and worked at something in the dark. Even with the fellow so near, the heavy gloom successfully hid his identity.

Ballard’s desire for fun was lost in a mighty curiosity. The fellow took something white from his pocket, and, apparently, pushed it under a stone; then, rising, he sped away in the direction from whence he had come.

“Vell, vell!” muttered Fritz. “Vat you t’ink iss dot, Pallard?”

“That’s a conundrum, Carrots. How many fellows are looking for that treasure of yours, eh?”

“No vone but me und you, Pallard.”

“Wait here for a couple of shakes, Fritz. I want to explore.”

Ballard crept to the place where the mysterious figure had been at work, groped under a stone, and pulled forth a package wrapped in something white. Lighting a match, he examined his find. Fritz could hear him muttering excitedly as the match dropped from his fingers.

“Vat it iss, Pallard?” quavered Fritz.

“I’ve had enough treasure hunting for one night,” answered Ballard, in a strange voice. “I’m going back to the live stock, Fritz. Come on!”

Fritz protested, but Ballard stood firm. Fritz would not continue on without company, and so they returned to the camp—Ballard with the white packet snugly stowed in his pocket.

CHAPTER IX.
THE RACE.

Most of the forenoon, every day except Sunday, Merriwell, Clancy, and Ballard had to give up to the “grind.” Professor Phineas Borrodaile rigidly insisted on certain hours for study and recitation, and would not temper his discipline even on the day that notable race was to be run between Lenning and Darrel.

Following breakfast, each camp continued to flock by itself. The live stock belonging to each party was picketed in widely separated grazing grounds, so there was no opportunity for Silva and the other packer to wind up their disagreements in a final clash. Peace hovered over the region adjacent to Tinaja Wells, but to Merry it suggested a calm preceding a storm.

Hawkins buried himself among the Gold Hillers, and seemed very careful not to overstep the “dead line” which had been drawn between the two camps. Colonel Hawtrey also appeared content to remain in seclusion among the members of his own party.

About eleven o’clock in the forenoon, Frank and his chums, and the professor and Darrel overheard a brief address which the old soldier was making to the young athletes of the Gold Hill club. Only scraps of the colonel’s little speech floated to the fellows in the Ophir tent, but what they overheard made a deep impression on them.

“Sports of the right kind, properly indulged in, are of vastly more benefit to the upbuilding of character, my young friends, than to your muscles and bodily endurance. Understand me, I do not say that physical development is of less importance than mental development. Both of these should proceed hand in hand; but if, over all, the moral and manly qualities do not grow as they should, all your training in the class and on the track and field will have been in vain. Try, my lads, to develop the faculty of being good losers, and to admire and applaud in others those abilities, natural or acquired, which you possess, but not in the same degree.”

As these words, spoken in a deep and earnest voice, wafted themselves from the rival camp, the professor softly clapped his hands.

“Noble sentiments most nobly expressed, young gentlemen,” he murmured. “This Colonel Hawtrey must surely be a man of splendid character.”

“He is,” said Darrel, in a low voice. “The colonel is one of the finest men that ever lived.”

“Listen!” whispered the professor.

Again the colonel’s words drifted into the rival camp:

“If an amateur athlete is not a true sportsman, which is but another term for gentleman, he is not fit to compete with other true sportsmen. Your real gentleman, if you please, has courage; but, more than that, he is so imbued with the spirit of fair play and so completely captain of his own soul, that the stings of honorable defeat leave him unscathed.”

These were fine words, and well calculated to inspire a spirit of high emprise.

“I hope Jode is taking that in,” whispered Darrel to Merriwell; “but, I’ll gamble my spurs, he’s going to beat the pistol, just the same.”

Ballard, all that morning, had been preoccupied to an extent that had drawn some criticism from the professor. The interesting events of the night, which he had not only kept a secret himself but had likewise warned Fritz to keep in the background, probably had a good deal to do with his poor showing at the problems put up to him by Borrodaile.

At eleven-thirty, when the studious ones were allowed a breathing spell before dinner, Ballard hooked onto Merriwell and led him to a secluded place for a talk. Fritz had to call them three times to “grub pile,” and when the two finally arrived, their faces were flushed with excitement, and there was an air about them that suggested mysterious things.

At two-thirty in the afternoon a general movement set in toward the mesa. Both camps emptied themselves upon the little plateau, so that nearly forty spectators assembled to watch the race between Darrel and Lenning.

The course had already been marked off by Brad, Spink, and Handy. Beman, for Lenning, had looked it over and pronounced it O.  K. On one side of this course the Gold Hill men were grouped, and on the other side the fellows from Ophir.

Colonel Hawtrey and Hawkins stood together, and Merriwell, for the first time, got a good look at the colonel. He was much impressed with his soldierly bearing, but in his face could be read sternness and determination—and a sadness which did not, in the least, diminish the more Spartan qualities.

Bleeker, of Gold Hill, crossed the course and stepped up to Merriwell.

“There ought to be a judge and a starter, I reckon,” said he. “I don’t see any need of makin’ this event top-heavy with officials. Do you?”

“Not at all,” Frank answered. “I’d suggest that Colonel Hawtrey act as judge of the race.”

“He says he won’t have a thing to do with it.”

“Then how about Hawkins, the deputy sheriff?”

“Suits Lenning to a t, y, ty. Lenning would like to have Beman for starter.”

Merriwell was expecting this, and yet it came to him with something like surprise. It pointed to crookedness on the part of Lenning—and after that fine talk the colonel had given his fellows that morning, too!

“Let Beman act as starter, then,” assented Frank, keeping to the plan broached by Darrel.

Bleeker hurried away to inform Hawkins and Beman of the work laid out for them; and a few minutes later Darrel and Lenning, in sprinting costumes, came trotting up from the camp.

Merriwell watched Darrel and the colonel. As the old soldier fixed his eyes on his discredited nephew, a queer play of emotions showed in his face. In Darrel’s look was a wistfulness and affection which caused his uncle to turn abruptly and gaze in another direction.

Beman, a round-shouldered, lanky chap, stepped out back of the starting line, pistol in hand.

“All ready, you two?” he called.

Darrel and Lenning answered by stepping to the line. Not a sound of approval or disapproval went up from the gathered throng. Silence reigned on the mesa.

“This is about as cheerful as a funeral procession, Chip,” muttered Clancy.

“Everybody’s mightily interested in the race, for all they have bottled up their feelings,” Merriwell answered.

“Maybe,” was the skeptical response, “but it takes a lot of rooters to stir up the enthusiasm. This looks about as sporty as the track event of a deaf-and-dumb school. That Lenning carries himself well. He walks with a spring that leads you to think he ‘feels his feet.’ But I don’t like the cut of his jib a little bit.”

“Nor I. His eyes are shifty, and his face doesn’t inspire much confidence.”

“The old colonel is about as hilarious as he would be trying to hunt up a nephew in the morgue. Whoo! I’ll go dippy in a minute if somebody doesn’t yell. Guess I’ll tear off a whoop myself.”

He suited his action to the word, but it was a melancholy effort. No one joined in with him, not even Merry or Ballard. From across the course, the Gold Hillers gave him a startled look of disapproval.

“Once will do, thanks,” muttered Clancy. “I’m frosted so badly I’ve got chilblains. Why doesn’t that starter set ’em off?”

The words were hardly out of Clancy’s mouth before Beman shouted: “On your mark!”

Both sprinters dropped in well-nigh perfect style.

“Set!”

With that word, and the tense preparations of the sprinters for the start, Merry and Brad began watching Lenning keenly. Merry ticked off the seconds in his mind—one, two, three—and then intuitively he sensed the forward plunge of Lenning, coming a fraction of a second before the crack of the pistol. Lenning had not waited to hear the pistol, and had got away at the explosion.

“He did it, by thunder!” whispered Brad. “Darrel had the skunk dead to rights. Eh, Chip?”

“No doubt about it, Brad!”

Further talk just then was out of the question. The first stride of the race had taken Lenning into the lead, and Darrel, waiting honorably for the signal to start, was rushing to overhaul his competitor.

“Dig, you kid from Nowhere!” whooped Clancy. “The race isn’t done till you breast the tape.”

“Go to it, Darrel!” Merriwell shouted. “You’ll pass him at the eighty-yard line!”

“Wow!” yelped Ballard; “I’ll bet the boy from Nowhere gets Somewhere before he’s many seconds older.”

A murmur went up from the Gold Hill side of the course. The peculiar form in which Darrel was racing was recognized. Various little mannerisms connected with his sprinting were recalled. They were all here, in this clean-cut athlete whom Lenning had declared an impostor! Gold Hill sentiments, it was plain, were undergoing a change.

Not the least interested observer in the Gold Hill crowd was the colonel. He leaned forward, the joy of wholesome sport temporarily brushing aside the sterner proceedings which were to wait upon the finish of that hundred-yard dash. The object of that race—the “boy from Nowhere’s” attempt to prove his identity—did not concern Colonel Hawtrey. He knew Lenning’s competitor was Ellis Darrel, race or no race. What flamed up in him, as he gazed spellbound, was a pure love of track athletics, aroused by a contest that was superb.

In about four seconds after the start the Gold Hillers had loosened up. There were cries of, “Go it, Darrel!” and, “This looks like old times, Curly!” which proved that Darrel was already winning the recognition he coveted, no matter whether he won or lost the dash.

At the eighty-yard line, just as Merry had prophesied, Darrel drew ahead of Lenning. The latter called on his reserve powers for a final spurt, but Darrel also had speed in reserve. In ten seconds, or a trifle more or less, Darrel tore away the tape at the finish, a full stride in the lead.

A roar went up from all sides. The enthusiasm, which had been held in check, rushed forth like a tidal wave. A rush was made toward Darrel, but Hawkins, the deputy sheriff, grim and relentless, waved the throng back. Stepping to the side of the victor, he dropped an official hand on his shoulder.

“Youngster,” said he crisply, “I’m sorry a heap to come down hard on you at a time like this, but you’re under arrest.”

“Arrest?” echoed Darrel, recoiling. “For what?”

“For openin’ your uncle’s safe an’ stealin’ a thousand in cold cash. Don’t make a fuss, bec’us’ it won’t do you any good.”

Then, amid the dead hush that fell over the mesa, Darrel’s eyes sought only one face in all the crowd surrounding him. And that face was Merriwell’s!

CHAPTER X.
A HELPING HAND.

The explosion of a bomb could not have caused greater consternation among the throng on the mesa than that official action of the deputy sheriff. Hawtrey, erect and with a soldierly stride, passed out of the stunned crowd and placed himself beside Hawkins.

Merriwell, giving Darrel a reassuring look, also advanced. He had a sweater on his arm, and began pulling it over Darrel’s head and shoulders.

“You’d better keep out of this, Merriwell,” Hawkins murmured in Frank’s ear. “I warned you. The kunnel means biz, and no mistake.”

“So do I,” Frank answered, with a flash of his dark eyes. “Keep your nerve,” he added, in a low tone to Darrel; “we’ve got a few cards of our own to play.”

“You are Frank Merriwell?” inquired Colonel Hawtrey, leveling his gaze at Frank.

“Yes, colonel.”

“The son of Frank Merriwell, of Bloomfield, and the T-Bar Ranch, in Wyoming?”

“Yes.”

“You are also seeking to befriend this misguided young man, here?”

“I am Darrel’s friend,” said Merry, with spirit, “right from the drop of the hat.”

“Then, my lad, your father will some time hear of it with regret. What Hawkins said is the truth. This fellow opened my safe and took from it a thousand dollars in cash night before last. I have the proof.”

“Pardon me, colonel,” returned Frank respectfully, “but inasmuch as I am Darrel’s friend, will you let me handle this case for him in my own way?”

“If you mean to defend him,” frowned Hawtrey, “you will have your trouble for your pains. He has no defense!”

“Will you let me try and see if I cannot make one, and one that will command your attention and best judgment?”

“Sufferin’ centipedes, Merriwell!” broke in Hawkins. “I never reckoned you’d be tryin’ to save the scalp of a plain, out-and-out thief!”

The white ran into Darrel’s face and his hands clenched. Merry laid a soothing hand on his arm.

“This isn’t a time for any snap judgments, Hawkins,” said Frank. “First,” and he turned to the Gold Hillers, “I want to ask if this boy from Nowhere has proved that he is Ellis Darrel, of Gold Hill?”

“Yes!” came a chorus of responses.

Merry partly turned to face Lenning. The latter, a sneering smile on his dark face, was standing at a little distance, keenly alive to everything that was said and done.

“How about you, Lenning?” queried Frank.

“He’s my half brother, all right,” was the answer. “I reckon there’s not a shadow of doubt about that.”

“You agree, too, colonel?”

“I knew the fellow was Darrel before the race,” answered Hawtrey. “If he had proved to be an impostor, this accusation of theft might not have carried. Now it is absolutely proven—ab-so-lutely.”

“Darrel has been accused here, before all his old friends,” Frank continued, marshaling all his wits to acquit himself creditably of the task of clearing Darrel, “and it’s only a fair shake that he should be proven innocent before them. Colonel, will you please tell us of the robbery, and show your proofs?”

Hawtrey was visibly annoyed. Nevertheless, he was a great stickler for fair play, and he had to acknowledge that the position taken by Merry was logical.

“I have been away from Gold Hill for a week,” said he, “visiting some of my mining properties. Before I went, I drew a thousand dollars in cash from the bank to pay to a man from whom I was purchasing an interest in a ‘prospect.’ I was called from town hurriedly, before the payment was made. The money was locked up in the safe in my study, at home. Jode, here, who knows the combination of the safe, was to pay over the money if the man presented himself during my absence. The man did not come, and Jode started off on this camping trip, three days ago. When I reached home yesterday morning, I found the window of my study unlocked, the safe door swinging open, the thousand dollars gone, and this knife lying under the window, inside the room. Hand the knife to Darrel, Merriwell, and see if he recognizes it.”

The colonel seemed averse to having any direct dealings with Darrel. He gave the pocketknife to Frank, and the latter presented it to Hawkins’ prisoner.

“It’s mine,” admitted Darrel huskily.

“Haff, an official of our athletic club, told Hawkins and me,” the colonel proceeded, “that a fellow answering Darrel’s description had been in town the night before I got home, that he had made inquiries about me, that he had told the fellow I was away from home, and that Jode was off on a camping trip, and that Darrel started down the cañon to join the Gold Hill campers. Hawkins and I got horses and hurried on to Tinaja Wells. Ask Darrel, Merriwell, if he denies being in my house night before last?”

“No, colonel,” spoke up Darrel, without waiting for Merriwell to put the question, “I do not deny it. I was there. I pushed open the sash lock with this knife, and went in through your study and up to my old room. I had the key to my room—have had it in my pocket for a year. All I wanted to get was my running suit. After I had taken that, I locked up the room and left by the window. Naturally, I could not relock the window from the outside. That’s all, sir. I did not tamper with your safe.”

A sneer of incredulity crossed Lenning’s face. It faded into a sorrowful look, however, as the colonel gave him a swift glance.

“You admit being in the house,” said the colonel harshly, “so why not admit the rest of it?”

“Because it is not the truth,” Darrel answered, with spirit.

“Did you know the combination of the safe, Darrel?” asked Frank.

“Yes—that is, if it hasn’t been changed during the past year.”

“It hasn’t,” put in the colonel. “That was my fault, I suppose.”

“Then, three of you knew the combination,” went on Frank, “yourself, colonel, and Darrel and Lenning.”

“That is the way of it.”

The crowd on the mesa was listening with absorbed attention to the talk which was going forward over the hapless head of the “boy from Nowhere.” Nearly all, perhaps, felt that Darrel’s admission that he had gone to the house for his running suit was a trivial excuse to cover a design on the safe. Dark looks were thrown at Darrel, and only here and there was anything bordering on sympathy shown for him.

“Now,” said Frank, keeping the points he wanted to make well in mind and working toward them with all the skill he could muster, “you said, colonel, that Lenning and his camping party left Gold Hill three days ago?”

“Yes.”

“Less than half a day would be required to make the trip from Gold Hill to Tinaja Wells, for a mounted party with pack animals. How does it happen, then, that the Gold Hillers only reached the Wells yesterday afternoon?”

Colonel Hawtrey seemed puzzled. He turned to Lenning.

“Explain that, will you, Jode?” he requested. “Why didn’t you reach the Wells day before yesterday?”

“Well, sir,” Lenning answered, “we were about halfway between town and Tinaja Wells when we found out that Merriwell and his crowd were camped at the place we wanted.”

“Ah! And what did you do then?”

“I had the boys make temporary camp in a side cañon while I—er—went back to Gold Hill.”

“That,” said Frank, “would bring you in Gold Hill night before last—the night of the robbery?”

Lenning reddened and looked confused.

“Why,” he faltered, “I reckon it would.”

“What was your business in Gold Hill, Lenning?”

“I don’t know,” snapped Lenning, “that you’ve got any call to pump me.”

“Answer his question, Jode,” put in the colonel.

“Well, if you want to know,” scowled Lenning, “I went back to the Hill to lease Tinaja Wells from Struthers.”

A growl ran through the ranks of the Ophirites. Frank silenced the growing indignation with a quick glance.

“That was hardly fair,” he went on to Lenning. “We were in peaceable possession of the camping ground, and you deliberately set about getting a lease and kicking us out.”

“Tut, tut, Merriwell!” interposed Hawtrey. “Jode is not that sort of a lad. I am sure he would not intentionally inconvenience you.”

“Ouch!” cried Clancy, and the colonel stared sternly at him in rebuke.

“Well,” went on Frank, “we’ll not tangle up with that part of the proposition. The fact remains that, on the night of the robbery, two persons who knew the combination of your safe were in Gold Hill. As soon as Lenning got his lease, he came on to Tinaja Wells—which brought him here yesterday afternoon. Now, colonel, why do you suspect Darrel, and not Lenning?”

“Because,” and the colonel’s voice showed that he was nettled. “Jode is worthy of my confidence, while Darrel has proved that he is not. Were you at the house, Jode, during the time you were in Gold Hill after the lease?”

“No, sir,” answered Lenning.

“There you have it,” said the colonel, in a tone of finality. “All this talk, Merriwell, is getting us nowhere. I have excused Darrel once, but I cannot do it a second time. Although he is my sister’s son, he must bear the consequences of this piece of wrongdoing. I feel it a duty to press the matter to an issue. Where will he end if he keeps on as he is going?”

There was a triumphant look on Lenning’s face. Darrel, on the other hand, seemed utterly crushed.

“There’s no use, Merriwell,” breathed Darrel, in a broken voice. “The plot is too deep, and you are only injuring yourself by trying to defend me.”

“Kunnel,” spoke up Hawkins, who had been following every angle of Frank’s work with closest attention, “don’t you lay anythin’ up agin’ Merriwell. He’s sized Darrel up wrong, but he’s the clear quill, as I happen to know.”

“I have only the highest respect for Merriwell,” said the colonel. “He tries to stand by his friends to the utmost of his ability—and his ability, let me tell you, is of no mean order. But, my lad, you can accomplish nothing in the face of the facts,” he added, in a kindly voice, to Frank.

“Let us see,” Frank went on. “Pink,” he said to Ballard, “just step up and show the colonel what you have in your pocket.”

Then another surprise was sprung. Ballard, taking a package of bills from his pocket, handed it to the colonel.

“Is that the stolen money, colonel?” he asked.

CHAPTER XI.
A PARTIAL VICTORY.

The colonel started back from the package of bills as though from a coiled and striking serpent. A breath of icy air seemed to cross the hot mesa, bringing a weird shiver to more than one of the crowd surrounding the actors in that little drama of check and countercheck. Necks were craned forward, and fascinated interest showed in every face.

But there was something more than interest in the face of Jode Lenning. A flicker of consternation, and of wild despair, pulsed through his features—but only for a moment. He was quick to get himself in hand.

“It—it’s the same package of bills which I drew from the bank,” murmured the distracted colonel, taking the bundle from Ballard and looking at the inclosing band. “Where did you get it, young man?”

“He’s a chum of Merriwell’s,” spoke up Lenning, with ugly significance, “and Merriwell is helping Darrel. It’s easy to guess where Ballard got the money.”

Ballard jumped for Lenning with a savage exclamation.

“You mealy-mouthed runt,” he cried, “you can’t plaster me with the same pitch you’ve got on yourself. I’ll——”

Merriwell leaped in between Ballard and Lenning.

“Now, Pink,” said Merry, “just stow your temper. We’ve got to keep our heads, you know, if we pull Darrel through. It’s Colonel Hawtrey we want to convince, not Jode Lenning.”

Ballard, with a fierce, warning glance at Lenning, drew back.

“Fritz!” called Frank.

“On teck, you bed you,” boomed the Dutch boy.

“Where were you last night, Carrots?” inquired Frank.

“Hunding puried dreasures mit Pallard,” beamed Fritz. “I haf a tream mit meinselluf dot I findt more goldt as I can tell a shtone under mit a gross on. Pallard goes mit me, last nighdt, to get der dreasure. Ve go down der gulch, und ven ve vas a leetle vays from der camp, along comes a feller pehind us alretty. Ve hite, und dot feller hites der money under a rock. Ve get him oudt, und Pallard takes him, und ve keep it on der q. ts., excepting dot it vas toldt to Merrivell. Dot’s all aboudt it.”

“What foolishness is this?” demanded the colonel.

Merry smilingly explained Fritz’s delusion about buried treasure, and how a joke had been played upon him and Silva, in the cañon. Then Ballard, dipping into the details, recited his midnight adventure with Fritz. Ballard threw so much fun into his account that more than one laugh went up from the bystanders. A little merriment, dropped into a serious situation, is an excellent thing occasionally.

“Merriwell,” said the colonel, “you could not be the son of your father and be anything else but trustworthy. I do not know your father personally, but I have seen him pitch many a game of ball, and I honor him as a man, and as one of the greatest wizards of the national game that ever lived. All this nonsense about the German youth and his buried treasure makes not the least impression on me; but, if you say that this money came into Ballard’s hands in the manner just described to me, I will believe it.”

“You have heard the exact truth, colonel,” answered Frank, thrilled at this expression of the colonel’s confidence in him.

“Very good,” went on Hawtrey. “Now, Ballard,” he continued, facing Pink, “who was the man you and the German youth saw hiding the money in the cañon?”

“Neither of us was able to recognize him, colonel,” Ballard answered.

“What?” cried the colonel. “You could not recognize the fellow when you, by your own statement, were close enough to reach out and touch him?”

“Remember, sir, that it was midnight, and that the walls of the cañon make the trail pretty dark. I couldn’t tell who the fellow was from Adam, and that’s the truth.”

“Why didn’t you spring upon him and capture him?”

“You forget, colonel,” put in Frank, “that the fellow was gone before Ballard and Fritz found out what he had cached. And you also forget that, at that time, none of us knew that Darrel was suspected of robbing your safe—or, for that matter, that any robbery had occurred. Another thing: Last night Darrel was sleeping in our tent, in a blanket bed between Clancy and me. He could not have stirred without wakening us. From ten o’clock last night until six this morning Ellis Darrel never left that tent.”

“Then, of course,” deduced the colonel, “he could not have been the one who hid the money.”

“Nor the one who took it from your safe, sir,” added Merriwell; “for the one who did the stealing must certainly have kept the money in his hands until he attempted to secrete it in the cañon.”

“That,” said the colonel, “is plausible, but not conclusive. Darrel might have given the money to some one to take care of for him, and that some one may have been the person who hid it under the rock. I do not say that this is so,” he added, “but that it might have happened. As the matter now stands, the whole thing is a mystery. By your excellent work, Merriwell, you have thrown doubt upon my suspicions of Darrel. Possibly—I may say probably—he had no hand in taking the money from my safe. But who did commit the robbery?”

“I reckon Merriwell’s right,” spoke up Hawkins, his face glowing with delight over the way Frank had conducted the defense of Darrel. “You never could send this feller up, kunnel, agin’ the showing Merriwell has made for him.”

“I shall not try to,” said Hawtrey. “I am happier than I know how to express over the outcome of this little conference here on the mesa.”

Impulsively Darrel started toward his uncle with outstretched hand.

“Uncle Alvah,” said he, his voice tremulous with emotion, “I thank you for giving me any consideration at all. I——”

The colonel, giving Darrel a stern look, put his hands behind him.

“Thank Merriwell,” said he curtly, “and not me. You are freed of this charge of robbery, but you are just where you were before, in my estimation—just where you were when that railroad accident was reported to us, and everybody believed you had been a victim of it. I have tried to forget you, for that thing you did, more than a year ago, is something I cannot overlook, or forgive. However, I am not willing that you should be penniless; I feel that I should make up to you, in some way, for the unpleasant position in which my suspicions placed you. Take this thousand dollars, Darrel, and try, from now on, to be a true sportsman. Cultivate Merriwell—he will point you along the right road. But as long as you are under that cloud—you know what I mean—there can be nothing in common between you and me. That is all.”

The colonel’s form was bowed, as he turned away, and there were lines of suffering in his face. He had flung down the packet of bank notes, but Darrel caught it up and ran after him.

“Your money is of no use to me, colonel,” he said, with a touch of pride, “and I want none of it. I can work and earn my own way, just as I have done for the last year.”

There were tears in his eyes as he thrust the money into the colonel’s hand and came back to Merriwell.

“Chip,” said Clancy, “here’s where you win and lose, both at the same time. You’ve kept Darrel out of Hawkins’ hands, but you haven’t been able to win over that high-strung old boy to Darrel’s side.”

“Maybe,” said Frank, taking Darrel’s hand, “that will come later. We——”

“Look!” called Ballard, pointing off toward the edge of the mesa. “There’s a man on horseback just riding up from the flat and handing something to Hawtrey. What’s this? Another knock for Darrel?”

“I reckon,” returned Darrel, with a wan smile, “that I’ve had about all the knocks I’m entitled to. Merriwell, you’re a friend worth having!”

“Whoosh!” laughed Frank. “I’m a pretty bum lawyer, Darrel, and only won out because we had such a clear case. Surprised you, didn’t we?”

Before Darrel could answer, Colonel Hawtrey was seen to turn back from the edge of the mesa and start toward the crowd that still lingered about the scene of the race. He held an open letter in his hand.

“Here’s where the lightning strikes again,” muttered Clancy.

CHAPTER XII.
THE DOVE OF PEACE.

“Friends,” said the colonel, as those on the mesa clustered around him, “a messenger has just arrived from Gold Hill bringing me a note from Struthers. He has lost his lawsuit against Packard, and consequently his claim to Tinaja Wells is null and void. Inasmuch as our party holds a lease from Struthers, there is nothing left for the Gold Hill campers but to pack up and look for some other camping ground. I do not think, Merriwell,” the colonel added, thrusting the letter into his pocket, “that this can be done before to-morrow, but Jode and his friends will leave at the earliest possible moment.”

“Take your time about it, colonel,” Frank answered; and then he went on to Darrel, Clancy, and Ballard: “And so, fellows, the dove of peace swoops down on Tinaja Wells.”

“I’m glad as blazes Jode is getting out of here,” said Darrel. “I reckon, though, that I’ll have to pick up and begin drifting again.”

“No, you don’t,” returned Frank; “that is,” he laughed, “not unless you’re tired of this Ophir bunch and want to get away from us.”

“I don’t want to stick around and sponge a living off you fellows.”

“Never mind that, Darrel. If you’re around, we’ll make you work. Perhaps we can do something to wipe out that forgery business.”

“That’s a large order,” said Darrel gloomily. “I doubt if I ever get to the bottom of that.”

“Well, consider this,” pursued Merry. “Isn’t it possible that the skunk who put up that robbery dodge on you may have had something to do with the forging of that check?”

“Why, yes, it’s possible. But who was back of the robbery? Ballard and Fritz couldn’t see who the fellow was.”

“We didn’t produce all our evidence, in clearing you, for the good and sufficient reason that we didn’t want to bear down too hard on Jode—just at present. We may need him in our business later.”

“Jode?” echoed Darrel wonderingly. “What has he to——”

“When the money was found by Ballard,” broke in Frank, “it was wrapped in a handkerchief. That handkerchief had been to the laundry, and there were two initials marked on the hem. Show him the initials, Pink.”

Ballard took the soiled handkerchief from his pocket, ran the hem through his fingers, and then showed a section of it to Darrel. The initials, “J.  L.,” were in plain evidence.

“Well, strike me lucky!” muttered Darrel. “So it was Jode! Still,” he added, “you wouldn’t call that evidence conclusive, would you?”

“Mighty strong,” put in Ballard, “even if not conclusive. But there’s other evidence, Darrel. Lenning knew the combination of the safe and was in Gold Hill on the night of the robbery. He said he wasn’t at the house, but—well, maybe that was a lie.”

“Suppose,” remarked Merry, “Lenning was at the house, and saw you there? That’s possible, isn’t it? Then suppose that he hatched up this little scheme of taking the money, after finding the knife you carelessly left behind. There’s the colonel’s evidence against you—mighty good evidence, and all manufactured!”

“Those are suppositions,” said Darrel, “and it’s evidence in black and white that we ought to have, in a matter of this kind.”

“Sure,” agreed Merry, “and that’s the reason we didn’t show the handkerchief to the colonel, or spout any of our theories. He’s all wrapped up in Lenning, and wouldn’t believe anything against him.”

“There’s something else that makes me feel positive that it was Lenning who brought the money into the gulch last night,” said Ballard. “As the fellow came along, Fritz and I heard a sort of tinkling sound like bits of metal striking together. It was mighty faint, but we heard it. Now, that fancy hat of Lenning’s, I noticed yesterday, has bits of silver dangling from the brim, allee same Mexicano. Don’t you think——”

“Pink,” cried Merry enthusiastically, “you’re a born detective! By thunder, this last clew of yours is the best of the lot. It was Lenning who worked that game on Darrel, no two ways about it. Eh, Darrel?”

“Looks that way,” answered Darrel cautiously, “but we can’t be sure. Jode may have learned that I had come back, and possibly that scared him, so he tried to do me up with that supposed robbery.”

“Why was he scared?” demanded Merriwell. “It was because he evolved the notion that you were back to look into that forgery matter. And that wouldn’t scare him unless he had had a finger in it. Jode Lenning is our mark! We’ll keep after him until we clear you, Darrel. While we’re getting the football squad in shape here, we’ll do a little gum-shoe work on the side, and see if we can’t give you a clear title to the colonel’s friendship. How’s that?”

“I don’t know what I can ever do to square things with you fellows,” murmured Darrel, “but it was certainly a lucky day for me when I found Ophirites, instead of Gold Hillers, at Tinaja Wells!”

“Can that!” grunted Clancy. “You’re one of us, Darrel, and, like the Musketeers, with Chip and his chums, it’s ‘one for all, and all for one.’ And Darrel’s a chum, eh, Chip?”

“Just as long as he wants to be,” answered Merriwell heartily.

CHAPTER XIII.
GERMANY VERSUS MEXICO.

“I say, Chip! For the love of Mike come up on the mesa! There’s something going on up there that would give a cast-iron cat a conniption fit.”

It was afternoon in the camp at Tinaja Wells. All the Ophir squad of football players had been taken up Mohave Cañon by Handy, the captain, on a hike. Only a camp guard consisting of Merriwell, Ballard, Clancy, and their new chum, Ellis Darrel, had been left behind. Fritz Gesundheit, the fat German cook, and Silva, the Mexican packer and camp roustabout, had not gone up the cañon, having nothing to do with the Ophir eleven, but they had vanished from the flat soon after a dozen lads, in running togs, had trotted out of sight. Professor Phineas Borrodaile, whose duties as tutor for Merry and his chums were over for the day, had gone off somewhere on a geological excursion. Clancy also had strolled off, but suddenly he reappeared in camp, his freckled face red with suppressed mirth. He was scarcely able to talk, but as he reeled around and gasped for breath he managed to make his request for the others to go back with him to the mesa.

Merriwell, Ballard, and Darrel jumped up from the shade of the cottonwood where they had been sitting and stared at the red-headed chap in amazement. Clancy, unable to control himself, leaned weakly against the trunk of the cottonwood and laughed until he choked.

“What the mischief ails you, Clan?” demanded Merry.

“Where’d you get the funny powder, anyhow?” inquired Ballard.

“Pass the joke around, pard,” urged Darrel.

With a violent effort Clancy managed to smother his hilarity.

“Carrots and Hot Tamale have got the athletic bug,” explained Clancy, “and the stunts they’re doing on the mesa would bring tears to a pair of glass eyes. One is trying to make a better showing than the other, and, if I’m any prophet, they’ll get to slugging before they’re many minutes older.”

The campers had not only given Fritz the nickname of “Carrots” but they had also dubbed Silva the “Hot Tamale.”

“We don’t want those two fellows to get to hammering each other,” Merriwell remarked. “Ever since Carrots took the Mexican’s place as cook there’s been bad blood between those two.”

“What would we do for our meals,” asked Ballard anxiously, “if Hot Tamale put Carrots in the hospital?”

“You’re always thinking of the eats,” grinned Clancy. “But never mind that, Pink. Come on up, all of you, and see the circus. We’ll hide and watch ’em, and if they get to using their fists, we can interfere.”

The lads started forthwith for the low bank of the mesa, just back of the camp, hurrying along after the excited Clancy.

“Fat Fritz must have another delusion,” observed Ballard. “Yesterday it was buried treasure, and to-day it’s athletics. But who’d ever have thought that Silva could catch the athletic fever?”

“I thought he was too much of a mañana boy to catch anything but the measles,” laughed Darrel. “I’ll bet a bunch of mazuma Hot Tamale is going in for athletics just because he wants to beat out Carrots at the same game.”

“That’s the only reason,” Merriwell answered. “One of them can’t bear to see the other try anything without trying it himself.”

Carefully the lads crept up the slope of the mesa and, from behind a screen of rocks, looked out on the athletic field. They took one long look and then doubled down behind the bowlders to laugh.

Fritz and Silva had raided the camp equipment for a couple of gymnasium suits. Probably they had not been able to choose their costumes with discrimination, but had been obliged to annex the first outfits that came to hand. Yet, be that as it might, each presented a picture that, to use Ballard’s words, would have made “a horse laugh.”

The Dutch boy was too big around for his clothes and too short the other way, while in Silva’s case the matter was exactly the reverse: the running pants flapped distressingly about his bony shanks, while the sleeveless shirt failed to connect with the pants by a good six inches.

Fritz was sweating and grunting and trying to do a pole vault. The bar was about four feet from the ground, and, from the looks of things, seemed some three feet too high.

Silva was doing a Nautch dance in a seven-foot ring and trying to throw a hammer. He would whirl around a dozen times or so, and then, when he tried to let the hammer fly, was so dizzy he fell on it.

With dismal regularity Fritz would knock his shins against the bar, and Silva would stagger and fall. Sometimes the vaulting pole would come down and crack the Dutch boy on the head; and, as a general thing, the Mexican would forget to let go of the hammer, and the wire would wrap around his body and the weight would hit him in the small of the back. These accidents, naturally, were hardly warranted to sweeten the temper of the would-be athletes. Fritz was exploding choppy remarks, and Silva was hissing maledictions in liquid Spanish. Finally, the inevitable happened, and during a period of rest the two began saying things about each other.

Fritz, sitting on the ground and more or less tangled up with the pole and the bar, looked over at Silva. The latter had just thrown himself to his knees, and the weight had drummed into his back with a thump that had drawn Fritz’ attention.

“Vat you try to do mit yourselluf, you greaser lopster?” shouted the scornful Fritz. “Dot veight iss for drowing, und not for pounding yourselluf your ribs on. You will not make an athletic feller in a t’ousant years.”

“Ay de mi!” flung back Silva, through his teeth. “You make big talk, but you not so much. I t’row de weight before you jump de bar, dat is cinch. Caramba! You one tub, one gringo rhi-rhi-no-cer-oos! Si, dat is all—rhi-rhi-no-cer-oos!” Silva pushed out a hand and pointed an insulting finger at Fritz. “Rhi-rhi-no-cer-oos!” he repeated, in a burst of fury and contempt.

“By shiminy grickeds,” fumed Fritz, “no greaser feller iss going to call me someding like dot! I take it your hide oudt, py shinks!”

He floundered about on the ground until he had succeeded in getting to his feet. Silva, scenting a resort to fisticuffs in the Dutch boy’s move, likewise arose. The two, separated by perhaps a dozen feet, stood glaring at each other.

“Lopster!” taunted Fritz, “greaser lopster!”

“Gringo chingado!” screeched Silva. “Rhi-rhi-no-cer-oos!”

Fritz picked up the bar and started toward the Mexican. Somehow, the bar got between his fat legs and he tripped himself and again went down. Silva, still holding the hammer, made a defensive movement with it, and the weight swung back against one of his knees. With a howl of pain he dropped the hammer and fell to rubbing his kneecap.

“I tell you vat I do, py shiminy Grismus!” wheezed Fritz, once more getting erect and kicking the bar angrily to one side. “I kick you mit der footpall. Der vone vat kicks der pall farder as der oder feller iss der pest man, hey?”

“I keek, or I fight, or I t’row de weight, or I jump,” yelled Silva. “What I care, huh? I beat you at ever’t’ing.”

“Talk,” returned Fritz, “iss der cheapest ding vat iss. Ve kick each odder mit der footpall, und I send him sky-high und make you feel like t’irty cents. Fairst I kick, den you. I peen der pest kicker vat efer habbened. Vatch a leetle.”

Merry and his friends, behind the pile of rocks at the edge of the mesa, had been enjoying themselves hugely. They had thought, for a few moments, that the time had come for them to interfere and stop a fight, and it was with a good deal of satisfaction that they saw a personal encounter give way to a kicking match.

“Great Scott!” exclaimed Merriwell, watching while Fritz stepped to one side and picked up a football, “they’ve got our best five-dollar pigskin. Those fellows must be given to understand that they can’t tamper with our football equipment.”

“See this out first, Chip,” pleaded Ballard. “Don’t interfere until the kicking match is over with. Look at Fritz, will you. From the preparations he’s making you’d think he was going to kick the ball clear into the middle of next week.”

Very carefully Fritz was heaping up a little pile of sand; then, still with the same elaborate care, he stood the ball on this mound, drew back, and swung his foot. Once, twice, the foot went back and forth; the third time, Fritz nerved himself for a supreme attempt. One would have thought he was making ready to kick in the side of a house. Forward flew the foot, missed the ball altogether, and the kicker came down on his back.

A cackle of insulting laughter came from the Mexican. “Rhi-rhi-no-cer-oos!” he taunted. “Dat is not de way I make de keek. Watch, and you see.”

With that Silva ran at the ball and lifted it high and far. No doubt it was an accident, but it made Fritz green with envy.

“I can do petter as dot!” he shouted. “Vait, now, vile I haf some shances mit it!”

Silva, however, wouldn’t wait. Fired with his initial success, he ran after the ball and lifted it again before Fritz could come near enough to kick. The ardor of the Mexican took him and the ball off the mesa and southward along the high, steep wall of the cañon, below Tinaja Wells. Fritz was in hot pursuit, and Frank and his chums came out from behind the bowlders and hurried along after the Dutch boy in order to see the outcome of the one-sided “match.”

Silva, the bounding ball, and Fritz were lost in the rough country adjacent to the cañon’s brink; and when the trailers had come up with the Dutchman and the Mexican they found the two locked in a deadly struggle.

Silva, it seems, had kicked the ball into the cañon, and while he was peering over the rim looking for it, fat Fritz had overhauled him and, in his wrath, had gone for him hammer and tongs.

While Merriwell, Ballard, and Darrel were separating the combatants, Clancy was kneeling on the rim rock and peering downward in an attempt to locate the ball. Suddenly he got up and whirled around.

“Here’s a go!” he exclaimed. “A five-dollar ball has gone to blazes, Chip. It’s about thirty feet down a sheer wall, on a bit of a shelf. We’ll have to sprout wings before we ever get hold of that ball again. You’ll have to dock Carrots’ and Hot Tamale’s wages for the price of it.”

A howl of protest went up from Fritz and Silva.

CHAPTER XIV.
AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR.

“Keep these scrappers apart, Pink, you and Darrel,” said Merry, moving over to Clancy’s side. “If that ball is only thirty feet away, Clan,” he added to his red-headed chum, “we’ll be able to get it, all right.”

“I don’d pay for nodding,” puffed the enraged Fritz. “Dot greaser feller kicked him ofer, und you vill take der money oudt oof der pay vat comes py him.”

“Diablo!” snapped Silva. “Dat Dutchmans get de ball from de camp—I no get him. Take dat dinero out of me, and I quit muy pronto.”

“You peen some pad eggs,” wheezed Fritz, “und I preak your face in!”

“Yah, yah, yah!” taunted the Mexican. “You not able to break de face in.”

Ballard and Darrel, enjoying the situation more than they cared to show before Fritz and Silva, clung to the two would-be sluggers and held them apart. Merriwell, on his knees at the rim of the cañon, turned to look around at the Dutch boy and the Mexican.

“Cut out this fighting,” said he sternly. “The one that strikes the first blow will have the five dollars taken out of his pay. Keep hands off of each other and neither of you will have to pay a cent if the ball is lost. Understand that, Fritz? And you, Silva?”

The warlike ardor of the two was appreciably lessened. Fritz ceased his floundering struggles to get at the Mexican, and Silva suddenly grew docile. Merry’s threat was a master stroke.

“Let them go, fellows,” went on Merry, smothering a desire to laugh. “You and Silva go back to camp, Fritz, and if you’re not peaceable, just remember that your pay will be docked. And hereafter leave our athletic equipment alone. I don’t object to your doing a little training—in fact, I think it would be a good thing for each of you—but when you go at it again you’d better have an instructor. I’ll be glad to put you through a course of sprouts any time you feel the need of it.”

Without indulging in any remarks, Fritz and Silva started off in the direction of the mesa and the camp. They did not travel in company but straggled along at a distance from each other. As soon as they were out of sight, Ballard turned around with a laugh.

“That five-dollar play of yours, Chip,” said he, “was a winner. Fritz is a tightwad, and Silva pinches a dollar till he makes the eagle squeal. They’ll be peaceable for a while, take it from me.”

“How about the ball, Chip?” inquired Darrel, hastening to join the two on the edge of the cañon wall.

“There it is,” Merry answered, pointing downward.

The wall was a sheer drop, and the ball could be seen lying on a narrow shelf at least thirty feet below. A small bowlder lay near the edge of the shelf, and the oval had been caught between that and the clifflike wall from which the shelf projected. Below the shelf was another fall of thirty or forty feet to the bottom of the cañon.

“How the mischief do you suppose the ball happened to lodge there?” inquired Clancy. “If it had been kicked over the cliff, I should think it would have fallen too far out to hit the shelf.”

“Probably,” Merriwell suggested, “it just rolled over the rim and dropped straight down. Anyhow, there it is, and it’s up to us to get it.”

Darrel straightened on his knees and looked around him at the lay of the land adjacent to the brink.

“It’s easy enough to get the ball, fellows,” said he. “There’s a paloverde, just back of us, growing in the edge of that clump of greasewood. We can splice a couple of reatas, hitch one end to the paloverde, and I can shin down and be back with the ball in no time.”

“Where’ll we get the reatas?” returned Clancy. “I’ve got one, but it’s a scant thirty feet long. Fritz—darn him!—cut off a piece of it the other day to use for something or other.”

“As far as that goes,” put in Merry, “I guess we could pick up an extra piece of rope around the camp. But maybe we won’t have to try this reata business. Get some sticks and let’s see if we can’t dislodge the ball and knock it into the bottom of the cañon.”

They gathered pieces of dried timber and rained them down on the shelf. Several clubs reached the ball, but the bowlder held it firmly.

“No earthly use,” said Ballard. “The pigskin is wedged there as though it was in a vise.”

“Thou art so near, and yet so far!” hummed Clancy, staring down at the ball. “I wonder,” he continued, “if we couldn’t come up from below? The cliff doesn’t seem so steep under the shelf.”

“I was thinking of that, Clan,” Merry answered.

“It won’t take me more than half an hour to scare up that reata and an extra piece of rope,” said Darrel. “I reckon the spliced ropes are our best bet, Chip.”

Merry had been taking stock of the cliff face above the shelf. Wind and weather had worn it smooth and slippery, and there was not a projection in the whole thirty feet from the brink to the shelf which a climber could use in getting back to the top of the wall.

“Strikes me,” said Merry, “it’s a difficult job, not to say dangerous. How are you on the climb, Darrel?”

“Well,” he admitted, “I can throw a rope a heap better than I can climb one, but I’ll gamble my spurs I can come over that thirty feet of wall without much trouble.”

“It’s as smooth as glass,” remarked Ballard. “All your weight would be on your arms from the moment you left the shelf—you couldn’t use your feet at all.”

“My arms would stand it.”

“Suppose you had the ball under one arm, Curly?” Clancy queried.

“What’s the matter with kicking the ball into the cañon?” returned Darrel. “I wouldn’t have to tote it back.”

“That’s right, too,” said Clancy.

“Before we try the rope trick, Darrel,” spoke up Merry, rising to his feet, “we’ll go back to camp; come down the cañon and see if the wall under the shelf can’t be scaled.”

“It can’t,” asserted Darrel, with conviction. “I can see enough of it from here to make me sure of that.”

“We’ll look over the ground from below, anyhow,” said Merriwell. “Come on, fellows; there’s no use hanging around here.”

“Wait a minute, Chip,” called Ballard, who was still standing at the cañon’s brink. “There’s a man on a horse coming up the gulch. Wonder if he’s bound for Tinaja Wells? I wouldn’t swear to it, but I’ve a notion the rider is Colonel Hawtrey.”

At this Darrel whirled with a muttered exclamation and peered down at the white streak of trail angling back and forth among the trees and masses of bowlders. The horseman was proceeding slowly northward, his head bowed in deep thought. In a few moments he would be abreast of the lads on the top of the wall, and almost under the shelf.

“It is the colonel!” muttered Darrel, in an odd, strained voice. “Why do you suppose he’s riding this way? I’ll take my solemn Alfred he’s bound for our camp.”

“Don’t be too sure of it, old man,” said Merriwell. “He pulled out with the Gold Hillers early this morning to see them safely settled in a camp of their own. That bunch went south, didn’t they? Well, it stands to reason that the colonel has to come this way in order to get back to Gold Hill.”

“No, Chip,” disagreed Darrel, “the colonel’s easiest course to Gold Hill from below Tinaja Wells would be by the other trail from Dolliver’s. He’s got business at our camp, and that’s the reason he’s coming this way. Maybe,” and Darrel’s face filled with foreboding, “what he’s got in mind has something to do with me.”

“Don’t be in a taking about it, Darrel,” Merriwell answered, laying a hand on his new chum’s shoulder. “It’s a cinch that anything the colonel may have in his mind can’t hurt you. If he’s going to be a visitor, we’d better go down and see what he wants.”

Without delaying further, the boys started on their return to camp. In spite of Merriwell’s reassuring words, however, the troubled look did not leave Darrel’s face.

CHAPTER XV.
TRUE SPORTSMANSHIP.

When Merriwell and his friends reached the flat they found Colonel Hawtrey sitting on a bench under a cottonwood. His horse, with reins hanging from the bit rings, stood a little way off. It was evident that the colonel intended making his visit brief.

As the boys approached, the colonel arose from the bench. His eyes met Darrel’s for a moment, and then swerved abruptly to Merriwell.

“I’d like a few words with you, Merriwell,” said he.

“Can’t you stay with us for a while, colonel?” Merry inquired. “We’d be delighted to have you take supper and——”

“I thank you for the invitation,” he broke in, “but I must be back in Gold Hill to-night. I came the cañon trail purposely to speak with you.”

The others withdrew, Darrel with a lingering look of apprehension at Merriwell.

“Sit down here,” invited the colonel, resuming his place on the bench. “You don’t smoke, of course,” he went on, taking a cigar from his pocket when he and Frank were seated, “for, if you did, you wouldn’t be following the footsteps of your father before you.” He scratched a match thoughtfully and applied it to the tip of the cigar. “‘Chip,’ they call you, eh?” he proceeded presently, with the hint of a smile under his gray mustache. “I suppose that means that you’re a ‘chip of the old block’?”

“That’s where the nickname comes from, colonel,” young Merriwell answered, with a laugh.

“I don’t know your father personally,” said the colonel, with some enthusiasm, “but I have seen him on several occasions, both in the East and at his T Bar Ranch in Wyoming. I have also heard a great deal about him. I reckon he typifies everything a man can express in the term true sportsmanship.”

“Thank you, colonel,” answered Frank. “Dad is all you think him—and more.”

“If you’re a chip of the old block, you ought to stand for all that your father stands for.”

“Why, yes,” said the puzzled youngster, “as well as I can.”

“Well,” continued Colonel Hawtrey, “I’ve stopped here this afternoon to appeal to you as a true sportsman, and as a son of the Frank Merriwell I have seen a few times and of whom I have heard so much.”

He paused. Frank was already over his head wondering what the colonel was trying to get at. He said nothing, but waited respectfully for the other to broach the subject he had in mind.

“As you doubtless know,” remarked the colonel, “I founded the Gold Hill Athletic Club, and have been its best patron during the few years it has been in existence. Some people say”—and he smiled slightly—“that I am cracked on the subject of athletics. It’s a hobby with me, for I believe that, rightly directed, sports of the track and field do more to develop properly a young man’s character than anything else in the world. On the other hand, if wrongly directed they are a source of much harm. Just at the present time, and much as I regret to say it, the club at Ophir and the one at Gold Hill are heading in the wrong direction.

“A bitter partisan spirit has crept into the competitions between the two clubs. Some of the members—I won’t say all of them—have proved that they are not good losers. Rancor has shown its ugly head, Merriwell. I think that you, more than any one else, can help to foster a different spirit between the clubs.”

Frank tried to speak, but the colonel lifted his hand.

“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.”

“Exactly!” beamed the colonel. “I should be delighted to come out from town and see some of your contests. A friendly rivalry, Merriwell, will go far toward inculcating a different spirit between the clubs. Eh? I’m more than obliged to you for meeting my advances in the matter so agreeably. Jode is coming over here this afternoon to get an expression from you relative to a football game for to-morrow, or next day. What are the prospects?”

“Good, I should say,” said Frank. “I’ll broach the matter to Handy as soon as he gets back from up the cañon.”

“That’s the talk!” cried the colonel enthusiastically.

Merriwell was more than pleased with Colonel Hawtrey’s suggestion for a series of competitions between the two camps. Incidentally, if the contests were conducted in the right spirit, they would go far toward healing old wounds. Mainly, however, Merriwell wanted to come into closer contact with Jode Lenning, and see what he could discover, if anything, that would prove a benefit to Ellis Darrel. These proposed contests could not but help him in this desire.

The colonel, having achieved the purpose that brought him to Tinaja Wells, got up from the bench in high, good humor.

“You are really a chip of the old block, Merriwell,” he laughed, “and it’s something for you to be proud of.”

Merry thought he might take advantage of the colonel’s amiable nature at that moment and do a little something for his new chum.

“Have you any word to leave for Ellis Darrel, colonel?” he asked.

The good humor left the other’s face. He straightened his shoulders stiffly and his eyes narrowed under a black frown.

“The one word I have for Darrel,” said he harshly, “is this: that he keep away from me. If he’s got it in him, he’ll live down the past; if he hasn’t, he’ll go to the dogs. I shall be glad to learn that he’s making something of himself, but—but I never want to see him again.”

There was sadness in the colonel’s voice as he spoke, but sternness and determination were there, as well. Frank’s heart grew heavy as he watched the colonel pull the reins over the head of his horse and swing up into the saddle.

“Good-by, Merriwell,” he called, waving his hat as he rode off the flat and headed northward along the cañon trail.

“Lenning has the old boy right under his thumb,” Merriwell muttered, as he turned away.

Ballard, Clancy, and Darrel had disappeared. Merry asked Fritz about them, and was told that Ballard and Clancy had gone down the cañon to see if they couldn’t get up to the shelf and recover the football; but where Darrel was, Fritz did not know.

“He’s probably with Ballard and Clancy,” said Frank. “Keep away from Silva, Fritz, if you don’t want to get fined!”

“Dot greaser feller,” answered Fritz scornfully, “ain’d vort’ fife cents, say nodding aboudt fife tollar. You bed my life I leaf him alone.”

Frank, hastily leaving the camp, made his way down the cañon to do what he could to help recover the lost football.

CHAPTER XVI.
A TERRIBLE MISHAP.

Merriwell found Ballard and Clancy surveying the cliff from a spot almost under the shelf where the football had lodged. That they were extremely dubious about recovering it from below was evident from their actions.

“Here’s Chip, Pink,” said Clancy; “perhaps his eagle eye can pick out a trail up the side of that wall.”

“If it can,” returned Ballard, “Chip’s entitled to a leather medal.”

“Where’s Darrel, fellows?” was Merriwell’s first question when he reached the side of his chums.

“Search me,” answered Clancy, in some surprise. “He was back there on the flat when Pink and I left.”

“Probably he ducked into one of the tents,” said Ballard. “The look Hawtrey gave him, there under the cottonwood, was enough to make almost anybody squirm away and get out of sight. Holy smoke, but that colonel’s a cold-blooded proposition!”

“Darn shame, too, the way he hands it to Darrel,” growled Clancy. “Jode Lenning’s a skunk—any one can see that with half an eye—yet here the old colonel coddles up to Lenning and throws a frost into Darrel every time he gets the chance. Hawtrey must be dippy. What was the chin-chin all about, Chip?”

Merriwell repeated the gist of the colonel’s remarks.

“Listen to that!” exclaimed Clancy. “So he thinks Lenning is a true sportsman, does he? How do you suppose Lenning manages to pull the wool over his eyes?”

“Because he’s slick, and hasn’t any scruples to amount to anything,” said Ballard; “that’s how.”

“I don’t think we ought to have anything to do with Lenning and that bunch of his, Chip,” declared the red-headed boy wrathfully. “Because Lenning has the colonel landed and strung, that’s no sign we should let him repeat the operation with us.”

“Why, you old lobster,” said Merry, with a laugh, “the landing and stringing is to be the other way around. How are we going to help Darrel unless we can get close to Lenning? Don’t be so thick, Clan. No matter what our convictions are, can’t you see that we haven’t an atom of proof against Lenning? It’s easy enough to call him a skunk, but the next thing is to prove it.”

“Chip’s right,” said Ballard, “we’ve got to get the goods on Lenning. That’s the only way we can help Darrel. And how are we to get the goods on him if we don’t have anything to do with him or the Gold Hillers? If we have a series of contests with that rival camp, it will give us a tiptop chance to find out a few things about Lenning.”

“Sure thing,” said Frank. “Furthermore, if we take up these contests in the right spirit, there’s no reason on earth why Ophir and Gold Hill can’t come to be friends as well as rivals.”

“But the colonel is off his trolley about one thing, Chip,” put in Clancy, “and that is that Lenning is a power for peace on the other side. Simmer the business right down, and I’ll bet you find that Lenning is the biggest trouble maker in the Gold Hill crowd.”

“I think so myself, Clan,” said Merry, “but I haven’t any cold facts to prove it. Let’s get the facts, and then we can talk to some purpose.”

“That’s the idea!” agreed Ballard. “I’m glad we’re going to have a little preliminary try-out with Gold Hill on the gridiron. We’ll be able to see just how good they are, and can go after some of their weak points.”

Merriwell grinned.

“Strikes me, Pink,” said he, “that they’re thinking exactly the same thing about us. But we’d better cut out this powwow and see what we can do to get our hands on that ball.”

Merry drew back and passed a swift, keen glance over the face of the cañon wall. What he saw was not at all reassuring. There were a number of projections, below that upper shelf where the ball had lodged, but at its base the cliff sloped inward instead of outward. To scale the lower twenty feet of wall a fellow would have to cling to the rocks, like a fly to the ceiling.

“We could use wings to better advantage from down here, Chip,” observed Clancy, “than from the top of the cliff.”

“If a fellow could get over that first stretch of twenty or twenty-five feet,” mused Merriwell, studying the wall, “he would have tolerably clear sailing from that point to the top shelf. There are plenty of bushes and projections to help in the climbing, and the wall has a bit of a slope in the right direction. By Jove!” he suddenly exclaimed, “I believe I see a way to make it.”

“Don’t take any chances, Chip,” urged Ballard anxiously. “The foot of the wall is covered with stones, and it would be a bad place to take a drop.”

“It would be a drop too much,” punned Clancy, “and you know what that does to a fellow, Chip.”

“I don’t intend to take a drop,” answered Merriwell, walking down the cañon for about twenty feet and then turning directly toward the cliff.

At that point the inward slope of the wall was not so pronounced, and there was a fissure, with a projecting lower lip, angling across the face of the rocks, its upper end clearing the bad bit of wall under the shelf which it was necessary to gain.

“Going to try to climb up that crack, Chip?” yelled Ballard.

“Why not?” was the cool response. “It leads to a place where climbing is easy.”

“Stop it!” whooped Ballard. “You’re crazy to think of such a thing! You’ll tumble off the rocks just as sure as the world.”

“Come on back, Chip!” called Clancy. “The pesky old ball isn’t worth it.”

“Keep your shirts on, both of you,” was the calmly confident reply. “I’m not such a fool as to risk my neck for a five-dollar ball.”

Nevertheless, to Ballard and Clancy that seemed exactly what Merriwell was about to do. They watched him, almost holding their breath.

With a little spring, Merriwell landed on the lower edge of the fissure. Less than three feet above him was the overhang. This overhang came close to the shelf below at a distance of four yards upward in its oblique course, and at that place the lower lip of the fissure began to jut out and afford a foothold.

Slowly, digging into crevices with his toes and reaching for others with his hands, Frank began traversing the crack in the wall. Once his foot slipped, and both lads who were watching gave vent to a yell of fright.

“My nerves are all shot to pieces, Chip,” shouted Clancy. “Next time you do a thing like that I’ll throw a fit.”

Frank clung to his place and turned to look smilingly down at his chums.

“Rot!” said he. “Why, fellows, this is as easy as pie.”

He climbed on, crouching lower and lower as the overhang descended toward the shelf below. Presently he was in the narrowest part, hanging to the steep slope of the lower lip of the crevice and compelled to drop on all fours in order to keep inside of it.

“You can’t make yourself thin enough to get through it,” shouted Ballard discouragingly. “Ten feet farther up, Chip, the crack isn’t wide enough for a chipmunk.”

“It looks a whole lot harder from down there,” Frank called back, “than it does from here. When I get to that narrow place, I’ll step out and walk around it.”

“Yes, you will! You’ll play the deuce trying that. I think——”

What Ballard thought did not appear. Just at that moment, he and Clancy heard a swishing sound which attracted their eyes to the wall above the shelf. Exclamations of astonishment escaped them. A rope had dropped its length downward from above, and there, on the very crest of the cliff, the rope in his hands, sat Darrel!

“What’s going on down there, pards?” yelled Darrel.

“Chip’s trying to break his neck walking a rock tight rope,” Clancy answered, making a trumpet of his hands.

“This is my job,” whooped Darrel, “and I don’t think it’s fair for Chip to cut me out of it. Tell him to come down. In about two shakes I’ll be kicking the ball off the shelf and right into your hands.”

“Is that Darrel up there?” Frank asked.

“Sure it’s Darrel, Chip,” replied Ballard. “He’s got a rope hitched to the paloverde, and is all ready to come down.”

“Tell him I can get the ball easier than he can, and for him to pull up the rope and give me a chance at it.”

Darrel heard the words, and did not put those below to the trouble of repeating them.

“No, you don’t, Chip!” he shouted. “If you’re climbing up to the shelf, go back down to the foot of the wall. I’ll have the ball before you can come anywhere near it.”

There was finality in Darrel’s voice, and Frank knew it was useless to argue with him.

“Wait!” he cried. “Don’t slide down, Darrel, until I get to the bottom of the wall. Will you wait?”

“Sure I’ll wait. I’ll give you all the chance you want to see the performance.”

Frank went down the fissure much faster than he had climbed up, and without a mishap of any kind had soon regained the bottom of the cañon. Making his way to where Ballard and Clancy were standing, he turned his eyes upward. Darrel waved his hat to him.

“So that’s what you were up to, eh?” called Frank. “Why didn’t you tell us what you were about and we could have helped you get the ropes.”

“I don’t think you would,” came the laughing reply from Darrel. “You thought the work was too dangerous. Here I come!”

He swung half around, preparatory to lowering himself.

“Better wait until a couple of us come up there, Darrel!” Frank called.

“Don’t need anybody. You can’t see the paloverde, as it’s screened by the greasewood, but you can gamble that I tied the rope good and hard. Now, watch!”

Thereupon Darrel lowered himself down and was presently swinging against the smooth wall. He was agile enough, and twisted one leg around the dangling rope and slid slowly toward the shelf. Then, when he was some ten feet above the shelf, a most horrifying thing happened. Before he could cry out, or make any move to save himself if that had been possible, he dropped like a stone to the ledge, struck heavily upon his side, lengthwise of his body, rolled off limply, fell sprawling to a jutting bowlder four or five feet below and lay there, silent and motionless. A scraggly tree, growing from a crevice among the stones, was all that held him from dropping to the foot of the cliff!

The rope, strangely separated at the loop which had coiled around the paloverde, fell writhing through the air, pulled itself out of Darrell’s nerveless hand, and dropped at the feet of the three horror-stricken lads below.

CHAPTER XVII.
A DARING RESCUE.

A yell of consternation broke from Clancy’s lips. Merriwell and Ballard were silent. With white, drawn faces and wide, staring eyes, all three of the boys stood as though rooted to the ground.

The accident had happened so suddenly that those below were stunned. It took them a few moments to realize the awful thing that had occurred. Frank was the first to break the thrall of inaction that bound them.

“He can’t be badly hurt, fellows!” he called. “It wasn’t much of a fall—about ten feet to the ledge and four or five feet from the ledge to the bowlder. He’s stunned, that’s all, but worse things are likely to happen if we don’t get him down before he begins to revive.”

“How in thunder did the rope break away from the paloverde?” cried Ballard. “Darrel said he was careful to tie it securely, and——”

“Never mind that now, Pink,” Merriwell interrupted. “As long as Darrel’s unconscious he won’t make a move, but when he begins to come to himself, he’s liable to stir around. If he does that, he’s going off that bowlder, sure!”

Certainly it was a gruesome situation for Darrel. His body hung over the projecting bowlder, face downward, and only the tree’s twisted and stunted trunk, rising at the bowlder’s edge, kept him from falling to the bottom of the wall. It was a precarious support at best, however, and the slightest move on Darrel’s part would dislodge him in spite of the tree.

“Get him down?” breathed Ballard. “How the blazes can we do that, Chip? The best way is to get more ropes and go down to him from the paloverde.”

“It would take too long.” Frank, his mind working swiftly, had picked up the end of the spliced rope and was making it fast around his waist. “I’m going up after him,” he finished briefly, and started for the lower end of the fissure.

If Ballard and Clancy had watched Merriwell with bated breath before, when only the recovery of a five-dollar football was to be the result of his dangerous climb, how much greater was their trepidation now, when the life of a chum was at stake?

The worst feature of the nerve-racking situation for Ballard and Clancy was this, that they were absolutely powerless to help Merriwell. No more than one could make the climb through the fissure, and no more than one could work around the jutting bowlder and the stunted tree. For the lads in the bottom of the cañon, a little active work would have loosened the tension of their taut nerves and made the situation more endurable. There was nothing for them to do just then, however, but to wait and watch.

The swiftness and precision with which Frank scaled the fissure aroused the admiration of his chums, even in that breathless moment. Frank’s brain was as cool and his nerves as steady as though life or death was not hanging on the result of his efforts.

“Good old Merry!” whispered Ballard huskily. “He’s going as steady as a clock, and doesn’t seem to have the least notion that Darrel may tumble down on him at any moment.”

“Talk about your true sportsmen,” returned Clancy, “if a piece of work like that doesn’t prove a fellow is one, then I don’t know what does.”

With the rope trailing after him and gradually paying out from the coil below as he climbed higher and higher, Merriwell continued his rapid ascent of the crevice. On reaching the narrow part, he shifted around it with an agility and skill that were wonderful to see. Getting back into the fissure again, at a point where it widened, he made his way on hands and knees to the place directly over the point where the wall sloped inward to the base, and began another inward slope to the shelf.

Getting out of the crevice and upon the slope was a hair-raising performance, but Frank accomplished it successfully. Then began the crawl from projection to projection and from one stunted bush to another, up the face of the cliff. At last the daring youth was directly under the bowlder and the stunted tree that supported the unconscious form of Darrel. With his left arm over the bowlder and his feet in crevices of the rocks, Frank began removing the rope from his waist with his right hand.

“Good work, Chip!” shouted Ballard. “What are you going to do now? How do you expect to get Darrel down? Can’t we do something to help?”

“Nothing you fellows can do, Ballard,” Frank answered. “I’ve got to hang on with my eye winkers and work with one hand.”

“If Darrel should make a move,” cried Clancy, in a spasm of fear, “he’d bring you both down!”

“I’ll have the rope around him before he moves,” was the reply.

Working with one hand, as Frank was obliged to do, it was a difficult task to manage the rope. If the cable were dropped, all Frank’s work would have gone for nothing, and before he could do it over again Darrel would probably revive and slip from the bowlder.

First, Frank passed the rope around the trunk of the stunted tree. A brief examination of the tree had convinced him that it was strongly wedged into the rocks and could be depended upon to support Darrel’s weight.

In getting the hempen strands around the tree, Frank was obliged to push the rope over the trunk, then hold it in his teeth while he withdrew his hand and passed it around the trunk a second time. Again taking the cable in his teeth, he withdrew his hand to lay hold of it once more. Thus he had made a half hitch around the tree and could control the rope under the pull of a heavy weight.

His next step was to make the end of the cable fast about Darrel’s shoulders, under the arms. This was not so difficult as the work with the tree had been, for Darrel hung from the bowlder with head and shoulders down.

After getting the cable about Darrel’s body, Frank used his right hand and his teeth and rove the end into a bowline knot. Scarcely had he accomplished this, when Darrel uttered a low groan and attempted to shift his position. The moment he did this, he slipped from the bowlder.

A yell of horror came from Ballard and Clancy. To their frightened eyes it looked as though both Darrel and Merriwell would be precipitated to the bottom of the cañon. The rope, however, and Frank’s quickness served to avert the catastrophe.

Releasing his left arm from the bowlder, Frank gripped the trailing rope under the tree with both hands. His weight, on one side of the dwarfed trunk, served to balance Darrel’s weight on the other side, and the two, for a few terrible moments, swung into mid-air. Then, carefully but as quickly as possible, Frank found fresh footholds, and so lessened the weight on his end of the rope. Just as he had planned, Darrel began slipping downward, the rope sliding through Frank’s hands and around the tree trunk.

Drooping limply in the noose that encircled his body, Darrel twisted and swayed in sickening fashion as he dropped foot by foot down the face of the cliff. In a few minutes he had been lowered into the outstretched arms of Ballard and Clancy, and the lads below sent up a cheer that reverberated loudly between the cañon walls.

Frank’s descent was made safely and speedily, for he knotted the rope around the trunk of the tree and slid down its length to the side of his chums. Ballard had Darrel’s head on his knee, and Clancy had gone to the creek for a capful of cold water. Merriwell, breathing heavily, dropped down on the rocks.

“You got that rope around Darrel just in the nick of time, Chip!” said the admiring Ballard. “If you had been a second later, Darrel would have brought both of you down in a heap. Gee, man, but it was a close call!”

“A miss is as good as a mile, Pink,” answered Merry.

Clancy arrived with the water and allowed it to trickle over the white, haggard face of the unconscious lad. Darrel’s eyes flickered open, and a haunting expression of pain was in them as they rested on his friends. He ground his teeth to stifle a groan.

“Are you badly hurt, Darrel?” queried Frank.

“My—my left arm,” panted Darrel, “it’s broken, I think.”

With a muttered exclamation, Frank threw himself to his knees close beside Darrel. As he lifted him by the shoulders, the left arm swung limply and a moan was wrenched from Darrel’s lips.

“The arm is broken,” said Frank, “there’s no doubt about that. Clan,” he added, “go to the camp for our mounts. You needn’t bring a horse for Darrel—he can ride behind me on Borak.”

“Going to take him to Ophir?” asked Clancy, bounding to his feet and starting up the cañon.

“No, to Dolliver’s. Hustle, old man!”

Clancy disappeared up the narrow trail at a keen run.

“I—I’ve made a monkey’s fist of this, all right,” muttered Darrel. “If I’d left you alone, Chip, you’d have got the ball with ground to spare. But I had to try to star myself, and this is what comes of it.”

“Don’t fret about that, old man,” said Merry. “The thing to do now is to have the arm attended to.”

“Why don’t you take him to the camp?” asked Ballard. “We could get there in a mighty small part of the time it would take to reach Dolliver’s.”

“Darrel has got to have a comfortable bed, for one thing, Pink,” Merry answered. “Mainly, though, we can use the phone from Dolliver’s and get the doctor out from Ophir by motor car. By going to the ranch at the mouth of the cañon, we’ll not only save time, but make Darrel more comfortable into the bargain.”

“What happened to me?” queried Darrel, smothering his pain with a heroic effort. “Did I drop all the way down the cliff wall? I can’t remember a thing after hitting the shelf.”

“You rolled off the shelf and lodged on a bowlder,” Frank answered. “We got you down by means of the rope.”

“‘We’ didn’t have a thing to do with it,” spoke up Ballard. “It was Chip did it all, Darrel. He swarmed up the side of the cliff with the rope, took a half hitch around a bit of a tree, and then lowered——”

“Don’t worry him with all that,” struck in Merry. “Just lie as quietly as you can, Darrel. Here, put your head on this.”

Jerking off his coat, he rolled it up for a pillow, and Darrel was gently lowered until he was lying at full length on the rocks. His eyes closed. Although he made no sound, yet the contracting muscles of his face showed that he was fighting hard with pain.

At last a clatter of hoofs announced the coming of Clancy with two led horses. Handy and the rest had not returned from up the cañon, and Clancy had seen nothing of Fritz, Silva, or the professor. Because of his failure to see anybody at the camp, he had been unable to report the accident.

“Everybody will know about it soon enough, Clan,” said Frank. “Now, you ride on to Dolliver’s as fast as you can and use the phone. Ask Mr. Bradlaugh to bring out the doctor in his motor car. Ballard and I will come on with Darrel.”

“On the jump,” answered Clancy.

Merriwell took the reins of the led horses, and the red-headed chap dug in with his heels and vanished toward the mouth of the cañon.

CHAPTER XVIII.
QUICK WORK FOR DARREL.

“There’s a little ginger left in me, pards,” murmured Darrel, sitting up. “I’m not letting a busted wing put me down and out entirely.”

He got up slowly and stood beside Ballard.

“You’re to ride behind me, old man,” said Merriwell. “I’ll mount, Pink, and then you help him up.”

Frank swung into the saddle, pulled the restive Borak down sharply, and kicked a foot out of the stirrup for Darrel’s use. Darrel was game, if ever a boy was. With a little aid from Ballard, he succeeded in getting astride the horse, and held himself there with his right arm around Merriwell.

“Can you hang on, Darrel?” asked Frank.

“Sure,” was the reply. “Just hurry, that’s all.”

With a shouted request for Ballard to follow, Frank headed Borak down the gulch. Five miles lay between Tinaja Wells and the ranch at the mouth of the cañon known as Dolliver’s. There was no horse in that part of the country that could cover the ground more speedily than Borak. Knowing that the ride was plain torture for Darrel, Frank sought to get it over with as quickly as possible.

Although the broken arm swung cruelly during the rough ride, yet never once did so much as a whimper escape Darrel’s lips. In less than half an hour the treacherous trail was covered, and Frank drew up in front of the ranch building. Both Dolliver and Clancy were in front to receive the injured lad. It was well that they were there, and ready, for no sooner had Borak been drawn to a halt than Darrel pitched sideways from his back. He was caught in the outstretched arms of the rancher and Clancy, and swiftly borne into the house.

Ballard came up, a moment later, and he and Frank dismounted, secured their horses at the hitching post, and went in to learn what luck Clancy had had with his telephoning.

“The doctor’s on the way, Chip,” said Clancy. “I got Mr. Bradlaugh right off the reel. He said he knew the doctor was in town, and that he would be snatching him toward Dolliver’s in less than five minutes. That wasn’t so very long ago, though. You must have ridden like blazes to get here so quick.”

The agony of the rapid ride down the gulch must have been intense for Darrel. He had kept himself in hand pretty well until reaching Dolliver’s, and then a wave of weakness had blotted out his endurance.

A bed in the main room of the ranch was ready for him, and he was now lying in it, as comfortable as he could possibly be under the circumstances.

“I’m putting you fellows to a heap of trouble,” remarked Darrel weakly.

“Oh, bother that!” answered Merry. “It’s mighty good to know that you’ve come off with only a broken arm. You’ll not be laid up long, old man.”

“I’m wondering how that rope happened to give way. It——”

“Don’t wonder about a blooming thing, Darrel. Wait till you feel better.”

“I can’t get it out of my mind,” persisted Darrel. “Where did it break? Did you see?”

“It broke in the place where you had it looped around the paloverde,” said Ballard.

“Strike me lucky!” muttered Darrel, a puzzled look battling with the pain in his face. “Why, it couldn’t have broken there! That rope was Clan’s reata, and was as sound as any rope you ever saw.”

“That’s what happened, anyhow,” said Frank.

“I’m blamed if I can understand it!”

Frank and the other two were also at a loss to understand it. There was certainly something queer about the breaking of that rope.

A little later, the hum of a motor car was heard along the trail.

“Mr. Bradlaugh has come over the road for a record,” remarked Clancy, starting for the door. “But I knew he’d hit ’er up.”

When the boys reached the front of the house, the big car was just slowing to a halt.

“Nothing but a broken arm, eh, boys?” asked Mr. Bradlaugh, as the doctor tumbled out with his surgical case.

“That’s all, sir,” Frank answered.

“I didn’t catch the name over the phone. Whose arm was it? Not Hannibal’s?”

“No, Darrel’s.”

Bradlaugh’s face suddenly clouded.

“That young rascal, eh?” he muttered.

Frank was quick to catch the significance of Mr. Bradlaugh’s remark.

“You know something about Ellis Darrel, Mr. Bradlaugh?” he asked.

“I know that his uncle made a home for him, treated him indulgently in every way, and that he rewarded Hawtrey by forging his name to pay a gambling debt. I was sorry to hear that you’d taken up with the fellow, Merriwell, or that you were making room for him in the Ophir camp. He’s a wild one, and won’t do any of you much good.”

Here was an impression which Frank was determined to change for one of another sort. While Clancy and Ballard were helping the doctor set the broken arm, and while an occasional groan of pain echoed out through the open ranch door, Frank leaned against the side of the car and earnestly explained a few things to Mr. Bradlaugh.

He went into the details of that thousand-dollar robbery, just as he had done once before for the benefit of Colonel Hawtrey, and by the time he had finished his defense of Darrel, Mr. Bradlaugh was almost convinced that he had made a wrong estimate of “the boy from Nowhere.”

“Well, well,” smiled the president of the Ophir Athletic Club, “you’re a red-hot champion of Darrel’s anyhow. If you’re so positive that the boy has been a victim of some designing scoundrel, I can’t help but think there may be some mistake about that forgery matter. Hawtrey’s a very wealthy man, and the only ones he can leave his property to are Jode Lenning and Ellis Darrel. If Darrel is out of it, then it all goes to Lenning. There’s a point that demands consideration. I don’t know much about Lenning except that he’s a pretty good sprinter, and seems to be the apple of the colonel’s eye—now that Darrel appears to have gone to the bad. If you think you’re doing the right thing by taking up with Darrel, all right. I’m willing to trust to your judgment. And now, tell me, how’s everything at Tinaja Wells?”

“Fine as silk,” Frank answered. “This accident of Darrel’s is the first one we’ve had.”

“How did it happen?”

Frank recounted the details, in a general way, putting himself very much in the background.

“Own up,” smiled Mr. Bradlaugh; “you’re the one who picked Darrel off the shelf, and kept him from breaking his neck as well as his arm. Isn’t that the size of it?”

Merriwell dodged the question as well as he could, and began telling about Hawtrey’s visit to the camp, and his proposals. Mr. Bradlaugh was in hearty agreement with the colonel.

“It’s up to you, boys,” said he, “to wipe out this bitterness between the two clubs while you are out in the hills in neighboring camps. If that’s accomplished, it will be something worth while. Remember, too, all Ophir is counting on you to give us a winning eleven for the game with Gold Hill.”

“I’ll do my best,” Frank answered. “Won’t you come in, Mr. Bradlaugh, and meet Darrel?”

“He’s probably in no condition to make acquaintances now,” answered Mr. Bradlaugh, shaking his head; “and, besides,” he added, “I’d a good deal rather shake hands with him after you prove he’s innocent of forging his uncle’s name.”

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.”

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?”

“Sure, old man, unless you can think of another way for getting it down.”

This was more than Clancy had bargained for. He had thought that about all he and Merry would have to do would be to walk down the cañon, cut off the end of the rope they were interested in, then stroll back to camp and examine the section of hemp at their leisure. But Merry, as usual, had considered the matter more thoroughly.

“I nearly had heart failure,” said Clancy, “when you made the climb yesterday. Pass it up, Chip. It’s just a spasm of curiosity on our part, anyhow. It would be rank foolishness for you to risk your neck because we’re curious as to how the rope happened to break.”

“I’ve a notion, Clan,” returned Merriwell soberly, “that this breaking of the rope reaches deeper than we imagine.”

“How so?”

“There may be a plot back of it.”

“A plot?” The color faded from Clancy’s homely face and left the freckles standing out in prominent blotches. “You don’t mean,” he gasped, “that there was a plot to—to kill Darrel?”

“I haven’t said so, and just now I don’t want to go on record as thinking of such a dastardly thing. All the same, though, I’ll have a look at the other end of that rope if it takes a leg.”

“If that’s the way you feel about it,” said Clancy, “you can bet a ripe persimmon I’m not going to let you hog all the dangerous work. Uncle Clancy will do the climbing this morning, and work up an appetite for breakfast.”

“Not much you don’t,” was Merriwell’s decided answer, as he flung off his coat and laid hold of the rope. “Recovering the rope was my idea, and I’m going up there, cut off what I need, and come back with it.”

“We’ll draw straws,” urged the red-headed fellow. “The fellow that gets the short one goes up.”

“Just consider that I drew the short one,” chuckled Merry, and began to climb.

Clancy growled as he watched his chum hand over hand his way up the first twenty feet, then allow his legs to help his arms the rest of the distance. It was all so easily and so cleverly done that Clancy lost his apprehensions.

“You’re certainly all to the mustard, Chip,” he called. “Don’t linger too long, though. I’m hungry to have a look at the upper end of that rope myself.”

Frank, climbing to the bowlder which had caught Darrel in his fall, wedged himself comfortably between the stunted tree and the face of the cliff, swung his legs out over space and began an examination of the cable.

There were two ends to it, for it had been looped around the paloverde and had given away in the middle of the loop. What Frank discovered he did not make known to his anxious chum at that moment. Severing a four-foot section of the rope, he tied it about his waist, cautiously arose to his feet on the bowlder and began climbing again.

“Where the mischief are you going now, Chip?” bellowed Clancy.

Frank was too busy to answer. Presently the lad below saw him hang to the rocks and reach over the edge of the shelf. The next moment, the lost football came bounding down into the cañon.

“Darn!” roared Clancy. “I should think that confounded ball has caused trouble enough without making you take any more chances to get hold of it. I guess it wouldn’t bankrupt the O.  A. C to lose a five-dollar pigskin.”

“We’ll need that in the game this afternoon, Clan,” shouted Merry.

Then he slid back to the bowlder, sat down on it, swung off on the stunted tree, and came down the rope as easily as though it had been a ladder.

“You wanted to show off,” jeered Clancy, “and I guess you made out to do it. Now take that piece of rope from your waist and let’s look at it.”

Silently Merriwell untied the section of rope and handed it to Clancy. The latter took it in his hands, examined it, and looked up, startled.

“Well, what do you think?” Merriwell asked.

“It didn’t break, Chip.”

“No.”

“It was cut.”

“Yes,” nodded Merriwell. “The strands of hemp were severed with a sharp instrument of some kind. It was a clean stroke that separated Darrel’s lifeline from the paloverde, Clan.”

“What scoundrel——”

“Keep your shirt on, Red,” broke in Frank. “At this stage of the game there’s no use guessing about who did it or why it was done. We can suppose that somebody crept into the greasewood, watched Darrel as he lowered himself, and then struck the rope with the edge of a knife, or a hatchet. The rope would have cut easily. The loop was drawn taut against the paloverde by Darrel’s weight, and——”

Horror had been slowly rising in Clancy’s eyes.

“What wretch,” he whispered, “what infernal villain, would have dared to do a thing like that?”

“There you are again,” said Merriwell calmly, “trying to guess who it was might attempt such a devilish piece of work. If you keep that up, first thing you know you’ll be doing some one an injustice. After all, you know, Darrel’s fall might really have been due to an accident.”

“Maybe I’m thick, but I’ll swear I can’t see how it could have been an accident.”

“Suppose the reata, in kicking around the camp, had been accidentally cut into near that particular end? Suppose Darrel, in tying the rope about the paloverde, didn’t notice the weak spot?”

At first Clancy was impressed with this reasoning; then, when his wits had a little time to work, he believed he saw the fallacy of it.

“If it had been like that, Chip,” said he, “a few strands would have been left torn and ragged where they had broken. But that’s not the case. Every strand shows a keen, clear cut. Your argument won’t hold water.”

“Possibly not,” agreed Merriwell, his face hardening, “but I’d rather, ten times over, think this was an accident rather than a deliberate attempt on the part of some fiend to put Darrel out of the way. We may have our suspicions, ugly suspicions, but let’s keep them to ourselves until we get a little further light on this business. If no light ever comes—well, we’ll throw the piece of rope away and try to forget all about it. It’s an awful thing, Clancy, to think there was a deliberate plan to throw Darrel down the face of that cliff. There goes the bugle,” he added, getting into his coat. “Mum’s the word, Clan, when we get back to camp.”

Coiling up the piece of rope, Merry thrust it under his coat, where it could not be seen. Very thoughtfully the two lads returned to Tinaja Wells.

Professor Phineas Borrodaile was in front of the tent, jointly occupied by himself and Frank and his chums, carefully combing what little hair nature had spared him. A three-cornered piece of looking-glass, hung against the canvas-tent wall, aided him somewhat in making his toilet.

Fritz, moving toward the chuck tent with an armful of wood, sighted the ball under Clancy’s arm. He gave a whoop of delight, and dropped the wood.

“Py shinks,” he cried, “you got him! Vat a habbiness iss dot! Say, Merrivell, now I can lick dot greaser feller, don’d it, mitoudt gedding tocked der fife tollar?”

“Lay a hand on Silva,” answered Frank, glaring at Fritz and winking an off eye at Clancy, “and you’ll lose the five, ball or no ball.”

Fritz looked grieved, and slowly picked up his wood and waddled away with it. Clancy threw the ball into the tent and dropped down in the shade beside Merriwell.

“Merriwell,” said the professor, a troubled look in his face, “ever since I returned to camp yesterday afternoon I have found myself vastly concerned over this accident to Darrel—vastly concerned. In fact, I may say I have become obsessed with the idea that some one—I cannot say who—may be entangled in the affair in a—er—guilty manner. Tell me, if you please, do you consider that what happened to Darrel was an accident?”

The professor doubled up his pocket comb like a jackknife and stowed it away in his pocket. Then, adjusting his glasses, he peered over the tops of them at Frank.

“How could it have been anything else, professor?”

“You are beating about the bush, Merriwell,” reproved the professor; “you are not frank with me. Do you, sir, consider the breaking of that rope an accident, or not?”

“Not,” spoke up Clancy.

“From the facts at hand,” replied Merriwell, “it is hard to say what it was.”

“I speak in this manner,” went on Professor Borrodaile, “because, shortly before the supposed accident happened, I was among the rocks to the south of that particular part of the cañon. I heard high words from beyond a bit of chaparral, as of two men quarreling. I had no interest in the quarrel, if such it was, so I sought to avoid the men and proceed with my examination of the rocks adjacent to the cañon’s brink. And yet, I had a glimpse of the disputatious pair. One of them, I am sure, was Jode Lenning; the other was the young man called Bleeker.”

Clancy cast a startled look at Merriwell.

“Later,” went on the professor, “much later, Lenning and Bleeker appeared in this camp and spoke to Handy. Where were Lenning and Bleeker during the interim? I confess, Merriwell, that the thought annoys me. It certainly could not have taken the two Gold Hill young men an hour or more to come from the place where I saw them to Tinaja Wells. What do you think?”

Just then Fritz came forth and announced “grub pile” in his usual hearty manner, and Merry did not find it necessary to tell Professor Borrodaile what he thought.

CHAPTER XX.
A FRIEND FROM CAMP HAWTREY.

Darrel passed a restless night at Dolliver’s ranch. His arm, stiffly wrapped with splints and bandages, was swollen and feverish. The pain of it must have been intense.

Ballard did what he could to cheer Darrel up. The boy with the broken arm, however, had mental worries apart from his physical pains, and it was hard for Ballard to do anything with him. As the forenoon wore on, Darrel began to talk, and to reveal the troubles that lay at the back of his head.

“Pink,” said he, with an air of desperation, “I’ve got to do something to clear up that forgery matter. The colonel won’t have a thing to do with me until I prove that I didn’t sign his name to that check.”

“Chip’s going to look after that, old man,” returned Ballard. “Leave it to him. You’ve got enough to fret about, seems to me, without going into any of your family affairs.”

“It’s on my mind a whole lot, pard,” continued Darrel, gritting his teeth to keep back a groan. “I hate to be treated like a yellow dog by Uncle Alvah. If I had really forged the check, then I’m getting no more than what’s coming to me; but I didn’t—I’d take my oath I didn’t.”

“What’s that old saw about, ‘Truth, crushed to earth, will rise again’? Just keep your shirt on, and wait. In the end, everything will come out O.  K. Chip’s on the trail, and you can bet a pinch of snuff against a bone collar button that he’ll run it out. Take matters easy, Darrel, and wait for Merriwell to play his hand.”

“I can’t leave it all to him,” fretted Darrel.

“You’ve got to leave it to somebody until you can get up and around, haven’t you? A few days, or weeks, won’t make any difference. That forgery business has been hanging fire for more than a year, and I guess there isn’t any great rush about clearing it up right now.”

Darrel squirmed impatiently as he lay in the bed.

“It was different,” said he, “when I was drifting around in other parts of the West. Then I was among strangers, and nobody knew anything about me. Now that I’m back on this range, I can’t meet a soul but knows I’m the nephew that disgraced the colonel’s family, and I’m looked on with contempt. Even Dolliver acts as though he thought I was a criminal.”

“Gammon! Say, Darrel, your imagination is working overtime. Dolliver’s manner is all that can be desired. I haven’t seen a thing in his actions to suggest that he looks on you as a jailbird.”

“I can see it, Pink, even if you can’t,” insisted Darrel. “Things have got to be different, and they’ve got to change mighty soon.”

“Leave it to Merry. He, and all the rest of us, believe in you, and are working for you. Something will turn up, take it from me, and there’s no earthly use in your worrying yourself blue in the face because it doesn’t turn up right away.”

“The colonel thinks a heap of Jode,” murmured Darrel.

“Jode is a soft-sawdering beggar, and knows how to get around him. It gets my goat the way a man as smart as the old colonel allows himself to be taken in. But it can’t last. Hawtrey’s eyes are bound to be opened some time.”

“I don’t want to be the one that strips the mask away from Jode. In order to believe that Jode is a schemer, the colonel will have to find it out for himself.”

“You can’t be too ladylike about it. When you fight the devil, you know, you’ve got to use fire.”

Noon came, and the early hours of afternoon began drifting away. It was about two o’clock when a visitor dropped in at Dolliver’s. He came on horseback, left his mount at Dolliver’s hitching pole, and pushed a bulletlike head through the door of the front room.

“How’s the patient?” he asked of Ballard.

Ballard recognized the fellow as one Mark Hotchkiss, a Gold Hiller belonging with the rival camp.

“Come in, and ask him yourself,” Ballard answered.

A bony youth of seventeen projected himself through the door. Darrel turned his head on the pillow and looked at him.

“Hello, Hotch,” said he. “What’re you doing here?”

“Came to find out how you’re makin’ it,” grinned Hotchkiss.

“You Gold Hill chaps must be worrying a lot about me,” said Darrel sarcastically.

“There’s a few of us who don’t think you’ve had a square deal, El. Jode’s king bee at our camp, and there’s some of the junipers over there that ain’t got the nerve to call their souls their own. I’m my own boss, I reckon. Nearly all of our crowd have gone to Tinaja Wells for a football game this afternoon. Bleeker and me and one or two more was left behind.”

“Bleeker!” exclaimed Darrel. “Why, he’s one of the strongest men on the football squad!”

“Sure, but Jode’s hot at him, and Jode’s captain of the eleven, so he carries his grouch to the extent of orderin’ those he don’t like to stay behind.”

“Why is Jode hot at Bleeker?”

“That’s too many for me. They ain’t hardly spoke to each other since they got back from the Ophir camp yesterday. You see, them two went to the Wells to fix up the details of the game, and they was as chummy as you please when they left Camp Hawtrey, but they come back mad as blazes at each other.”

“Maybe,” suggested Ballard, “Bleeker’s beginning to find out some things about Jode that don’t set well.”

“Like enough,” grinned Hotchkiss. “The football players made for Tinaja Wells on foot, ‘cross country. Parkman was late in startin’, and just before he pulled out, Bleeker, with a face like a thundercloud, rushed from his tent with a note all sealed up in an envelope. He hands it to Parkman. ‘Give that to Lenning on the q.  t.,’ says Bleeker; ‘tell him it’s from me, and it’s about El Darrel,’ he says, ‘and about Merriwell a little, too,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to get myself in no trouble with Jode,’ says Parkman, half a mind not to have a thing to do with the note. ‘You’ll get yourself into a whole lot of trouble with me,’ Bleeker says, ‘if you don’t do as I want.’ So, with that, Park takes the note and slips it away some’r’s inside his uniform. I reckon Jode’ll get it, all right.”

Darrel was developing a strong interest in that note of Bleeker’s.

“What had Bleeker to tell Lenning about me,” he asked, “that he couldn’t bat up to him without putting it in a letter?”

“Kin savvy?” returned Hotchkiss, giving the local equivalent for the Mexican quien sabe—who knows? “A few of us what was left behind at Camp Hawtrey put our heads together and sort of made up our minds about somethin’. That’s mainly the reason I’m here, El. You see, the reason Jode’s down on a few of us is because we was stickin’ up for you. We told Jode flat that we didn’t take no stock in that forgery business, and reckoned you’d clear yourself some day. That made Jode madder’n hops. All those that kept their mouths shut Jode took to Tinaja Wells.”

Ballard was almost as deeply interested in Hotchkiss’ remarks as was Darrel. Here was a friend from the rival camp, and he brought news that might be of great value.

“Now,” pursued Hotchkiss, “us fellers that was left behind—barrin’ Bleeker—sort of made up our minds that the note Parkman’s totin’ maybe contains a clew about the forgery matter. Bleeker, as you know, El, has been mighty close to Jode for a couple o’ years or more. Them two was thicker’n two peas in a pod at the time the colonel turned you adrift. It looks to a few of us as though Bleek’s had an attack of conscience, or somethin’, and has put on paper a few things that may be pretty important to you. I was delegated to come over here, tell you about the note, and suggest a plan of action.”

“What plan?”

Darrel’s eyes were big and bright, and he rose on his right elbow and peered earnestly at Hotchkiss.

“Well, you got friends in the Ophir camp,” said Hotchkiss. “Have ’em get that note away from Parkman; or, if it’s too late to get it from Parkman, then have ’em take it from Jode.”

“It’s Lenning’s letter,” put in Ballard. “What business have Darrel’s friends with it?”

“If it comes to that, what business have Bleek and Len with evidence clearin’ Darrel of that forgery?”

“How do you know the letter contains anything like that?” demanded Ballard.

“I reckon us fellers in the Gold Hill camp ain’t deef, dumb, and blind,” bristled Hotchkiss. “We’ve kept our eyes and ears open, we have. A bunch of us is friends of El’s, here, and we allow he’s goin’ to clear himself. What Bleek knows about that forgery he’s put into that letter, more’n likely, and right here’s a chance for El to be cleared by a little snappy work. You see, Bleek’s so mad at Jode he won’t speak to him, and Jode’s so mad at Bleek he won’t take him to Tinaja Wells. Maybe he’s afeared, if Bleek was near Merriwell, that he’d split on the hull business.”

Darrel swerved his glimmering eyes to Ballard.

“Pink,” said he, deeply stirred, “I’m banking on Hotchkiss and the few friends I have in Camp Hawtrey. Meddling with correspondents that doesn’t concern the meddler is pretty bum business, but we have Bleeker’s word for it that the letter he sent Jode concerns me—and Merriwell, too. Doesn’t that give us the right to get hold of it, if we can?”

“That’s a pretty fine point,” frowned Ballard, “but I should say that you and Chip have a right to that letter.”

“Sure,” exploded Hotchkiss, “they have a right to it! The next thing is for some of you friends of El’s to get it. I’ve done all I can.” Hotchkiss got up, stepped to the side of the bed, and took Darrel’s hand. “Some of us Gold Hillers, pard,” he went on, “have pinned our faith to you. We can’t say much, or do much, because the colonel purty nigh owns the club, and because Jode stands ace high with the colonel. But we’ve put you wise to this letter, and it’s up to your Ophir friends to help you out. Somethin’ will have to be done pretty quick, I reckon, for that game’s due to come off before long. Some day, El,” and Hotchkiss dropped Darrel’s hand and started for the door, “I hope you’ll get Lenning on the mat for the count. He’s a two-faced coyote, and that shot goes as it lays. Adios!”

A few moments later, the hoofs of the Gold Hill boy’s horse could be heard drumming a diminishing tattoo up the cañon.

“Are my Ophir pards going to help me, Pink?” queried Darrel.

“You can bet your life they are, Darrel!” answered Ballard. “Think you can get along while I ride to Tinaja Wells, and put this up to Chip?”

“Sure I can,” and a look of happiness overspread Darrel’s face. “At last,” he murmured, “I think I’m on the right track.”

“Here’s hoping,” said Ballard blithely. “I’m off on the keen jump, old man,” and he rushed from the house to get his horse under saddle.

A little later, he flashed past the door, waved his hat in a parting salute to Darrel, and pushed at speed in the direction of Tinaja Wells.

CHAPTER XXI.
TRYING TO BE FRIENDLY.

During the forenoon of the day that was to witness the preliminary skirmish with Gold Hill, Frank’s mind was not wholly on his studies. He had been disturbed by his examination of the severed rope, and by the professor’s remarks concerning Jode Lenning and Bleeker. It was impossible for Frank to get away from the ugly suspicions of foul play that had taken hold of him. He felt relieved when Fritz sang out the dinner call, and books and recitations could be dismissed for the rest of the day.

Following the noon meal, Merry collected the football squad and started in to give them a little talk.

“Now, fellows,” said he, “we’re going to have thirty minutes of play with Gold Hill this afternoon, and I want every one of you to be right up on your toes. Gold Hill is going to watch you to see whether you have improved any over last year, and we’re going to keep our eyes peeled for weak points in the Gold Hill team. I don’t think they’ll find out any more about us than we will find out about them, so honors will be easy. Play the game, that’s all. The mesa isn’t quite so good as the O.  A.  C. athletic field, but it’s plenty good enough for this little try-out. I’m not at all particular whether you win a little sawed-off preliminary set-to like this one, but I am mighty particular that you don’t let Gold Hill win. Hold them.

“Another thing: There has been too much knock-down and drag-out in this rivalry between Gold Hill and Ophir. A petty feeling of partisanship has crept into all the contests between the two clubs, and it has reached a point where it has become a disgrace. It’s up to you, by your actions to-day, to wipe out the bitterness. Colonel Hawtrey is anxious to have an era of good feeling crop out between the rival clubs, and I guess it’s about time something of the sort did crop out if every contest doesn’t end in a free-for-all rough-house. The colonel says the Gold Hill fellows will meet us halfway in friendly sport, and I know that you will do your part to have everything pleasant and agreeable. Mr. Bradlaugh wants it that way, too. He told me so himself, and what he says ought to carry a good deal of weight. Let’s be true sportsmen, fellows, and when the other squad comes over here, just remember that bygones are to be bygones, and that, with this afternoon, we’re setting a new mark in the competitions with Gold Hill.”

A cheer, which tried to be hearty, greeted Merriwell’s remarks. Handy, the captain, stepped out to ease himself of a few words.

“Most of you were up the cañon with me yesterday afternoon,” said he, “and heard the talk I had with Colonel Hawtrey. The colonel’s as fine as they make ‘em, fellows, and he’ll do his part to keep the Gold Hillers in line. I reckon we’ll do ours. From now on, instead of being licked by Gold Hill, every clatter out of the box, we’re going to do some of the licking ourselves. It’s a fine thing to be a good loser, but it’s just as fine, according to my notion, to be a good winner, and show some consideration for the other fellow. Gold Hill never showed us much consideration, but we’re going to forget the habit they used to have of ‘rubbing it in.’ All we’re to remember is that we’re making a cut for a new deal to-day, and that we’re meeting on neutral territory— which is a good place to start the good work. We’re to play thirty minutes, with a fifteen-minute interval between the quarters. Be a credit to Ophir. That’s all.”

The cheering still lacked the vim and heartiness which Merriwell would like to have seen, but the Ophir fellows had a long string of bitter defeats to live down, and they were human, and the remembrance of their fights with the rival club could not be wiped out in a minute. It would take a good many friendly competitions, with both sides showing consideration and forbearance, to bring the relations of the clubs into the zone of true sportsmanship. But that would come, Merriwell felt certain, and to-day would mark the beginning.

It was one-thirty when Colonel Hawtrey rode into camp. He had been notified by telephone that the game was to be played, and he had come personally to help inaugurate the “era of good feeling.” Mr. Bradlaugh had also been notified, but business matters compelled him to remain away from Tinaja Wells. He sent his regrets, however, and warned the Ophir lads that he would expect them to prove that they were true sportsmen in every sense of the word.

The colonel was taken into camp with every expression of good will. Not one in the Ophir crowd had any fault to find with the big man from Gold Hill. For years he had tried his utmost to smooth out the differences between the rival clubs, but had found a mysterious influence working against him and upsetting all his plans. He had not the remotest idea that Jode Lenning was back of this evil influence, but had he given some attention to Jode he might have succeeded long before in bringing affairs of the two clubs to a more amiable basis.

When two o’clock came, ten Gold Hill men came trotting into the camp on the flat, Jode Lenning at their head. The colonel, after greeting Jode, passed his eye over the fellows behind him.

“Only ten!” he exclaimed. “What does this mean, my boy?”

“Parkman was late in starting,” Jode answered, “and we didn’t wait for him. He’ll be along soon.”

“Where’s Bleeker?”

“He has a grouch of some kind, colonel, and wouldn’t come.” Lenning laughed good-naturedly. “He’ll get over it, though,” he added. “You know how Bleek is!”

“I know he’s one of the best men on the team,” the colonel remarked, “and that you’re handicapped without him. You haven’t any substitutes.”

“We’re not going to need any, with this bunch.”

There was lofty contempt in Lenning’s voice. Here, at the very start of the new schedule of friendly rivalry, Lenning was giving vent to the spirit that had done so much to put rival athletic affairs in a bad way.

“Tut, tut!” said the colonel, with a look of annoyance, “these Ophir fellows are as fine a lot of players as I’ve ever seen, and we’ll find that we’re up against a pretty stiff proposition.”

Hooking his arm through Lenning’s, the colonel led him off to one side and began talking with him in low and earnest tones. Lenning could be seen to smile and put on his most agreeable manner.

“Did you hear that, Chip?” Handy asked, in a husky and angry whisper, of Merriwell.

“Never mind Lenning,” Frank answered. “Have the fellows circulate among the visitors and show them there’s no hard feelings. Because Lenning’s a cad, that’s no reason the rest of the Gold Hill team are cut on the same pattern.”

The Ophir lads went bravely at their task of inaugurating a new spirit of friendliness with the other team. Going among them, they drew them apart in groups, and before long there was considerably less frost in the atmosphere than there had been.

Presently the colonel and Lenning approached Merriwell and Clancy. Lenning wore a furtive smile which he no doubt intended to be genial and winning. He put out his hand to Merry.

“Hello, Merriwell!” said he. “I’m sorry we had that disagreement over the camping site. I was in the wrong entirely. You see, I had my heart set on this place, and when I learned that you Ophir fellows had it, it made me mad. I acted like a fool, and that’s no lie. But we’ve got a fine place, over at Camp Hawtrey, and I hope you and the Ophir fellows will return this visit, and give us a chance to convince you that we mean to be friends, and all the better friends because we are rivals.”

Frank took the offered hand, passing it on to Clancy, who came up at that moment.

“There’s no sense in being at loggerheads, Lenning,” said Frank. “You may be sure that we’ll soon visit your camp.”

Intuitively, Frank had felt that Jode Lenning’s clutching fingers reflected anything but a genial nature. He could not help but think that Lenning was acting a part, and for Hawtrey’s exclusive benefit.

“I’m going to make it a point, my lads,” put in the colonel jovially, “to be present at all your contests. And,” he added, “I’m looking forward to a little wholesome excitement.”

Just at that moment Parkman, the straggler, arrived in the camp. There was a queer expression on his face as he sidled up toward Lenning, turning away suddenly when he found the colonel’s eyes upon him.

“Got here at last, eh, Parkman?” observed Hawtrey pleasantly. “I suppose you were mending some of your gear. It’s a good thing to overhaul your football equipment occasionally and make sure that everything is in proper trim for use.”

A blank look crossed Parkman’s face, but vanished when he caught a significant glance from Lenning.

“That’s right, sir,” said Parkman, and walked away.

“I heard,” spoke up Lenning, “that Darrel met with an accident yesterday. I—I hope it wasn’t serious?”

He threw a doubtful look at the colonel as he put the question. The colonel seemed to be paying little attention to what was said, and yet Frank felt sure that he saw a glint of sudden anxiety rise in his eyes.

“Broken arm, that’s all,” replied Merry. “Darrel will be all right in a few weeks.”

“You’d better take your crowd out for a little signal practice, Jode,” suggested the colonel. “I’ll go with you. It will soon be time for the game,” he finished, looking at his watch.

“Good idea, sir,” assented Lenning; and called to the Gold Hill players.

With the colonel at his side, Lenning led the way toward the mesa. Parkman dodged along at their heels, seeking a chance for a word in private with Lenning, but finding none.

“Say, Chip,” said Clancy, when the Gold Hillers had vanished over the edge of the mesa, “when I took Lenning’s hand I felt as though I had a fistful of cold fish. Allow me to repeat what I said before—that Lenning person is strictly nig.”

“Let it go at that, Clan,” answered Merry. “The rest of the Gold Hillers are all right.”

“It’s a hard job, making friends with that outfit,” said Handy, coming up just then and mopping the sweat from his face. “Everybody’s under a good deal of a strain, and most of the Gold Hillers seem to be taking their cue from Lenning. He’s a pill.”

“Sugar-coated,” grinned Clancy, “when the colonel’s around.”

“He makes me sick,” grunted Handy bluntly. “We’ve taken the colonel on for referee,” he continued, to Merriwell, “by way of showing our good will. Let’s go up on the mesa and get busy. I’ll be glad as blazes when this game is over with.”

“Them’s my sentiments, too, old man,” added Clancy, dropping in beside Merriwell as the Ophir team started for the field.

Gold Hill won the toss. The wind was at its back, and a Gold Hill toe lifted the ball far into the field.

The game was on. From the side lines, Merriwell and Clancy were watching every move with keen, critical eyes.

CHAPTER XXII.
SHARP WORK.

“The Gold Hillers shape up well, Chip,” remarked Clancy. “So far as beef is concerned, they put it all over our lads.”

“Headwork does more than ‘beef’ to win a game, Clan,” replied Merriwell confidently. “Look at Brad, will you!”

Hannibal Bradlaugh, playing half back for the Ophir team, had caught the ball and run it back twenty yards before he was downed. In another moment came the first scrimmage. Neither Clancy nor Merry had any time for further talk, just then, so anxious were they not to miss a single detail of the play.

Brad tried to get through the center. He gained a little, and Handy, captain and full back, went around the end for a couple of yards. The Gold Hill line was putting up a good defense, and both Merriwell and Clancy were finding time to note the work of Lenning, at right guard.

“Remember how he beat the pistol in the race with Darrel?” Clancy said to Merriwell. “If Lenning was tricky in one thing you’ll find him tricky in all. He’ll try something or other here, if I’m any prophet, Chip.”

“Not while the colonel is watching him, Clan,” Merry answered.

Handy retreated, and kicked. The colonel, carried away by the game and perhaps forgetting that an impartial spirit was to be looked for in a referee, was shouting excitedly and urging the Gold Hillers to do their best, and applauding their resistance.

Merriwell was eager to learn whether the Ophir fellows could hold the rival eleven as well as Gold Hill had held their Ophir opponents. The players crouched, then, as though touched by an electric wire, flung into action. The result was a disappointment, for Gold Hill had gone through the Ophir line for five yards.

The colonel’s excitement increased. He was cheering his club frantically when he suddenly seemed to remember his official position, and put a damper on his ardor.

“Hold them, Ophir!” whooped Clancy. “You’re just as good as they are! Aren’t you going to hold ’em?”

This urging seemed to have no effect, for there was another play, and this time the ball went through for a seven-yard gain.

“Well, well!” muttered Merry. “What do you think of that?”

There followed a fierce drive at center, and Joe Mayburn let the runner get past him for ten yards. Clancy was dancing around like a wild man. Handy was doing all he could to steady the boys, but it was plain that they were badly rattled by the sharp work of the other team.

Another play was aimed at center, but Mayburn was on his mettle, and the attack was thrown off.

“Bully work, Mayburn!” roared Merry. “That’s the style!”

“I guess they don’t find Mayburn so easy as they thought,” chuckled Clancy. “There they go again,” he added.

And again Gold Hill failed. Confidence was returning to the Ophir men.

“They’re getting their nerve back,” commented Merriwell. “Oh, I guess we’ll show those fellows that Ophir is a different crowd to-day from what it was a year ago. Now let Gold Hill kick.”

The way Ophir came up the field was beautiful to see. Savagely Gold Hill fought for every yard of the way. After two downs and a total gain of twenty yards, Handy tried for a field goal and missed. The colonel waved his hat, and then calmed himself into the correct official impassiveness. A little later, he blew the whistle.

“Fifteen minutes?” cried Clancy. “Thunder, Chip, it seems more like fifteen seconds to me.”

“The colonel’s holding the watch,” laughed Merry, “so he must have it pretty nearly right.”

“We ought to have a full sixty-minute session out of this. Why the deuce did Handy stipulate that only two quarters were to be played?”

“His head was level. A little of this sort of thing is a great plenty—with the real game some three weeks off.”

Parkman moved over toward Lenning, who was walking from the field. The two sat down to rest on a heap of bowlders close to the edge of the mesa.

The colonel, his face beaming, made directly for Merriwell and Clancy.

“It’s as even a thing, Merriwell,” he exclaimed, “as you’d find anywhere! You’ve done wonders with this Ophir eleven. If I wasn’t so old and warped with rheumatism I’d take a hand in it myself. Why don’t you get into it?”

The colonel did not wait for an answer, but saw Handy coming up and turned in his direction.

“I’d like an hour of this, Handy,” he cried. “Why don’t you let ’em box the compass for the limit?”

Handy looked at Merriwell, and what he saw in the latter’s face convinced him that his stipulations were fully approved.

“I don’t want to work our boys too hard, just at the present time, colonel,” said he. “The first quarter ended with the ball in the center of the field, and with everything pretty well balanced, so far as I could make out.”

Merriwell, seeing Bradlaugh beckon to him, left Clancy and Handy talking with the colonel, and moved over to hear what Brad had to say.

“Chip,” whispered Brad excitedly, “there’s a hen on!”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that Lenning is up to some dirty move or other, that’s what I mean.”

“Bosh! I’ve been watching him like a weasel, and I——”

“I don’t mean during the play,” Brad interrupted, “but over there on that rock pile where he’s been talking with Parkman.”

“What’s happened?”

“I was over there myself, stretched out for a little rest. I was on one side of the bowlders, and those two came up and sat on the other side. Parkman handed Lenning something. ‘That’s from Bleeker,’ I heard him say, ‘and he says it contains some hot news about Darrel and Merriwell.’ That’s all that was said. Parkman sneaked off as though he was afraid some one would see him. I got up to move away, and looked back, to see Lenning reading a note. His face was savage. He made as though he’d tear up the note, then changed his mind and pushed it in between the lacings of his jacket. What do you suppose is going on?”

“Whatever it is, Brad,” answered Merriwell calmly, “it’s none of my business.”

“But Parkman mentioned your name and Darrel’s. Certainly it is some of your business.”

“I can’t figure it that way, or——”

Merriwell bit his words short. Ballard was just hurrying up over the edge of the mesa and laying a course in his direction. Merry’s first thought was that something had happened to Darrel, and he hastened to get close to Ballard.

“Game begun?” panted Ballard.

“Begun, and half over,” was the reply. “We’re only to play two quarters, and there’s a fifteen-minute interval between them. What’s the matter, Pink? Why are you here? Darrel all right?”

“Darrel’s getting along in good shape,” Ballard answered, “but there’s something up that ought to be attended to.”

“What?”

“It seems there’s a division of sentiment in the Gold Hill camp regarding Darrel. A few of the Gold Hill fellows think Darrel isn’t getting a fair shake. Lenning found it out, and made them stay behind when he and the rest came to Tinaja Wells for this game. He’d had a quarrel with Bleeker, I don’t know what about, and the two have hardly spoken since last night. Hotchkiss, one of Darrel’s Gold Hill friends, came to Dolliver’s a while ago and said Bleeker had given Parkman a letter to be delivered to Lenning, and that the letter contains evidence that will clear Darrel of that forgery charge.”

Merriwell jumped. Bradlaugh, too, was wildly excited.

“Jupiter!” muttered Brad, “I reckon we’re getting this down pretty fine.”

“How do you know the letter contains evidence of that sort?” asked Merriwell.

“Hotchkiss said so.”

“Well, how does Hotchkiss know?”

“He and one or two more of Darrel’s friends at Camp Hawtrey got their heads together and figured it out. Hotchkiss rode over to Dolliver’s to tell Darrel that some of his friends must get the letter away from Parkman.”

“Parkman has already delivered it,” put in Brad.

“Then, Hotchkiss said, it’s got to be taken away from Lenning.”

Merriwell’s dark eyes flashed. He believed fully in Darrel, and he had no confidence whatever in Lenning. In his own mind, Merry was convinced that Lenning had fabricated, and carried into effect, that dastardly plot to make it appear as though Darrel had looted the colonel’s safe of the one thousand dollars.

Was it possible that here, during this brief try-out with Gold Hill, evidence could be deduced proving Darrel innocent of that forgery charge?

Ballard, in his excitement, had not stated the case exactly as it was. Hotchkiss had qualified his assertions somewhat in saying that the communication from Bleeker to Lenning contained forgery evidence. Ballard had merely left out the qualifying words of the friend of Darrel from Camp Hawtrey.

This, at first blush, might seem like a trifling omission, and yet had Merriwell not believed absolutely that Hotchkiss knew what he was talking about, and that the note really contained evidence in the forgery matter, his action would have been vastly different from what it was.

It would soon be time to put the ball into play again. Merriwell, his eyes roving over the field and the scattered players, was thinking deeply.

“You think, Brad,” he asked, “that Lenning still has that note where you say he placed it?”

“It’s a cinch!” Brad declared.

“Keep this under your hats, both of you,” said Merriwell. “If that evidence concerns Darrel, and indirectly myself, we’re going to have it.”

He spun around and ran back to the field. Lenning was right guard for the Gold Hill team, and Spencer Dunn was left guard for Ophir.

“Spence,” said Merry, “I want some of your harness. If you’ve no objection, I’d like to take your place in the game for the second quarter.”

“Go to it, Chip!” answered Dunn cheerfully, and began shedding as much of his costume as Merriwell thought necessary and had time to take.

Colonel Hawtrey witnessed the proceeding.

“Couldn’t stand the strain, eh, Merriwell?” he laughed. “Well, I don’t blame you, my boy. Now I expect to see some real football.”

Merriwell smiled a little. “I wonder what Hawtrey would say,” he muttered to himself, “if he knew just what sort of a game within a game this was going to be?”

CHAPTER XXIII.
GETTING THE EVIDENCE.

Merriwell was not disposed to be at all considerate of Jode Lenning. Into Merry’s mind, again, came those ugly suspicions of the favorite nephew.

It was conceivable that Lenning, jealous of his half brother, had plotted to have him cast off and set adrift, just as he had, Merriwell felt sure, engineered that robbery plot against him. What had caused the accident on the cliff still remained a mystery; yet, terrible as that accident had been, if the result of a plot, then the plot was less heinous than the one by which it had been made to appear that Ellis Darrel was a forger. Through the first, life might have been lost; but, through the second, honor, which men of integrity hold dearer than life, hung in the balance.

The blood ran hot through Merriwell’s veins as all these thoughts trooped through his mind. Here was a chance to do something for Darrel, was the idea that filled him, to the exclusion of anything and everything else.

Taking his place on the field, opposite Lenning, Merriwell strove to note the exact place where the note from Bleeker had been stowed. His eyes, peering hawklike from either side of the rubber nose guard, sought the lacings of the other guard’s jacket. Between two of the crossed thongs he believed he caught a flash, the merest flash, of something white. Then, while Merriwell’s brain was still lashed with those ugly suspicions of Lenning, the playing began.

Ophir ran the kick-off back a bare seven yards. Line plunges, during which Merry sought in vain for a chance at that scrap of white, netted another gain of four yards. Then, as in some weird dream, Merriwell found himself crouching in the middle of the line, staring into the face of Lenning, with its shifty eyes and its overtopping mop of black hair. The swaying lines locked and clashed as the ball flew out of the scramble and into the arms of the Gold Hill half back.

Merry plunged forward in an attempt to break through. Lenning threw out a leg to trip him. Merry’s hands pawed at the jacket as he went down, but he was up again in a flash with something clutched in his fist.

“You’re not so much!” snarled Lenning.

Merriwell laughed. He could afford to. The evidence was in his possession now.

The playing went on, and gradually Merriwell began to take more interest in the battle and less in the scrap of evidence which had come into his hands.

Ophir had the ball and was going down the field with it, five yards through tackle, five more stolen through the guard, and then five more around the end. A tackle run netted ten yards, and a forward pass twenty, Brad grabbing the ball on a perfect throw.

Gold Hill’s confidence was oozing away steadily. Her men were rattled, and Clancy and Dunn and Ballard were doing their utmost from the side lines to make their confusion more complete. Before Ophir’s attack, the Gold Hill line slumped and gave way.

And then, when close to Gold Hill’s goal, Mayburn lost the ball on a distressing fumble. That nearly broke the center’s heart. Hawtrey hung over the scramble as the players disentangled themselves, and it was discovered that a Gold Hill man had the ball.

“Somebody kick me!” wailed Mayburn. “Oh, what a bobble!”

Gold Hill had no use for a scrimmage at that stage of the game, and immediately lifted the pigskin into safer quarters. Both sides were still without a score when, a few minutes later, the quarter ended.

Merriwell had smothered his desire to do his best. Ophir, he knew, had outplayed Gold Hill, and it was better for all concerned that there should be no scoring. On the face of it, the teams might be called evenly matched. As for the rest of it, the game Merriwell had played within the game had been entirely successful.

The best of good feeling prevailed. It was much easier for the right spirit to manifest itself over a scoreless game than if one side or the other had made a touchdown or had kicked a goal.

Led by the colonel, the Gold Hill fellows collected in a group and cheered the Ophir team, while Ophir, with Handy and Merriwell leading, returned the compliment for their opponents.

“This,” beamed the colonel, taking Merriwell and Handy off to one side, “starts our series of friendly competitions, and leaves nothing to be desired. I have enjoyed myself this afternoon, and it has been a pleasure to me to notice the utter absence of anything like ill feeling. Keep up the good work, boys. I’ll have to leave you now, for I want to get on my horse and ride over to the other camp. Jode and his teammates will make the trip ’cross country.”

Merriwell and Handy walked with the colonel to the camp. As he was about to mount his horse for the ride to Camp Hawtrey, the colonel turned and gave Merry his hand.

“I wish that some day you might come to town with Jode and have dinner with me,” said he. “I should esteem it a great pleasure, Merriwell.”

“Thank you, colonel,” Frank answered, “but I’m afraid I shall be too busy here to accept many social invitations.”

“You won’t forget to take the Ophir boys over to the other camp?”

“They can look for us over there almost any day.”

“Good!”

He swung into his saddle, waved his hand, and started at a gallop down the gulch.

“We could have scored,” mourned Handy, “we ought to have scored. Mayburn——”

“I’m glad he fumbled,” interrupted Frank. “As I told the boys before they went on the field, I wasn’t eager to have them win, but I was more than eager to have them keep Gold Hill from winning. We outplayed them, and that’s enough.”

“You got into it yourself in order to study the other team at close quarters?”

“That wasn’t my idea exactly,” Frank answered, “although the experience will probably be a help. Come on,” he added, suddenly shifting the subject, “and let’s take our plunge in the pool.”

Ballard and Bradlaugh were feverishly eager to have a few words in private with Merriwell. The opportunity did not offer until some time after Merriwell had had his swim and had got into his clothes; then, as he walked toward the camp, Ballard and Bradlaugh and Clancy joined him. Already Ballard had confided to Clancy, Merriwell’s real reason for getting actively into the football game.

“Did you win out, Chip?” asked Bradlaugh.

Merriwell nodded, and slapped his pocket.

“What’s the evidence?” queried Ballard. “Does it clear Darrel?”

“Haven’t looked at it yet,” was the reply.

Astonished exclamations came from the other three.

“Don’t mean to say you haven’t had time?” Clancy asked.

“I’ve had the time, Clan, but not the inclination. We’ll let Darrel look at the note first. Maybe,” and Merry grew thoughtful, “I jumped into this thing too quick. Suppose Hotchkiss was wrong? Suppose there’s no evidence in the note about the forgery? If that’s the case, I’ve done a measly trick.”

“You were justified in getting that note, Chip,” declared Ballard, “just on the strength of what I told you.”

“I hope so,” said Frank, “but that’s a thing we’ll leave to Darrel. Shall we ride down the cañon this afternoon?”

“I’ve got to go back,” returned Ballard, “and you fellows might as well go with me.”

Without delay, they started to get their horses ready. Half an hour later they were speeding along the narrow cañon trail in single file, Merriwell hardly knowing whether he ought to feel elated or depressed over his exploit on the football field.

The high ideas of honor, inculcated by his father, would not have pardoned his afternoon’s work unless it set right the great wrong that had been done Ellis Darrel. Merriwell felt that, in his eagerness to help his new chum, he might have committed a deed which he would later regret. He had acted on the impulse of the moment, and with implicit faith in what Ballard had repeated as coming from Hotchkiss.

A fine point of ethics was involved, and Merriwell believed that no eyes save Darrel’s should read the note unless it was really found to have an important bearing on Darrel’s affairs.

CHAPTER XXIV.
CONCERNING THE EVIDENCE.

When the four lads reached Dolliver’s, they found Darrel anxiously awaiting news from Tinaja Wells.

“Did you get that letter, pards?” were his first words, as the four from the camp trooped into the house.

“Yes,” said Frank. “Parkman had delivered the letter to Lenning, and Lenning was in a temper when he read it. He seemed on the point of tearing the note in pieces, then changed his mind and pushed it into the front of his jacket. Brad saw him.”

“How did you get it from Lenning?”

“During the football game. I got into the play and secured the note in a scrimmage.”

“Merriwell,” said Darrel, with deep feeling, “you’re a loyal friend, if a fellow ever had one.”

“It’s something I wouldn’t have done unless it seemed best,” answered Merriwell, “and I wouldn’t have done it, Darrel, if I had thought there was the slightest doubt that it’s not what Hotchkiss said.”

“Hasn’t it anything to do with me, or—or that trouble with the colonel?”

“I don’t know what the letter contains. I have brought it to you, Darrel, and you can read it. If it hasn’t any bearing on you, I’m going to take it back to Lenning and tell him how I got it.”

Clancy and Ballard were about to cry out against such a proceeding, but there was a look in their chum’s face which assured them that he had made up his mind as to the course he should follow, and would keep to it if the circumstances warranted.

“Let’s see the letter, Chip,” said Darrel huskily.

Merriwell removed the soiled and crumpled paper from his pocket and silently handed it to Darrel. The latter’s hand trembled as he took the folded scrap and slowly opened it. His eyes widened as he read the note’s contents; and then, when he had finished, his hand dropped nervelessly at his side and he stared at Merriwell with wide eyes.

“What is it?” asked Merry. “Has it anything to do with you?”

“Yes,” was the muffled response, “and with you, too. Read it. I think you have a perfect right to do so, Chip.”

Merry took the note and read as follows:

“Lenning: I know about your cutting the rope and dropping Darrel down the cliff. There are some things I won’t stand for, and that’s one of them. If you try any dirty work during the football game, I’ll blow the whole measly business to Merriwell.

Bleeker.”

Merriwell gasped. There was no further doubt about that supposed accident on the cliff. It was no accident at all, but the result of a fiendish design. It seemed hardly possible that Lenning, if in his right senses, could have attempted such a villainous deed.

Without a word, Frank handed the note to Clancy, and it went from one to the other until all had read it. No one spoke. The crumpled paper came back to Darrel again, and he held it thoughtfully in his trembling fingers.

Distant voices were heard outside the house. Through a window beside his bed Darrel could look into the mouth of the cañon.

Two horsemen had ridden out of the ragged entrance of the gulch and had halted, their mounts pulled close together. One of the riders was Colonel Hawtrey and the other was Lenning.

The colonel, it was evident, was on his way back to Gold Hill after visiting the camp of the Gold Hill Athletic Club. Lenning, it was equally evident, had ridden part way with him, and was now about to face the other way and return to the camp.

Through the window, all the boys in the ranch house looked at the horsemen. The colonel was smiling and happy. On his face could be seen a look of affection for the lad at his side. Taking Jode’s hand, he pressed it warmly, then used his spurs and rode off along the trail toward home.

Jode watched him for a few moments, shouted a last farewell, waved his hat, and then vanished at a gallop between the rugged cañon walls. A mist arose in the eyes of Ellis Darrel. He began tearing the paper to pieces, using his teeth and the one hand which was still serviceable.

“What are you doing that for, Darrel?” demanded Ballard.

“It would kill my uncle if he thought both his nephews were scoundrels,” Darrel answered. “I can’t have a hand in blackening Jode’s character like this. I’ve put up with a whole lot, and I can put up with a good deal more than I have, but this fight of mine is to prove that I didn’t sign the colonel’s name to a check. See what I mean? I—I can’t kill the colonel’s faith in Jode—not in this way. Don’t say a word about this, any of you. Promise me that you won’t.”

There was something fine and noble about Darrel’s act in destroying the evidence against Jode. It was not the evidence that Darrel wanted. The temptation to ruin his half brother was not so strong as his love for the misguided old colonel, or his desire to prove his own innocence.

Merriwell stepped to the bed and clasped Darrel’s hand.

“That’s right, old man,” said he, “exactly right. Say, Darrel,” and his voice quivered, “you’re a brick!”

CHAPTER XXV.
THE UNDER DOG.

“Great Scott, Chip! Say, I didn’t think there was a place like that in Arizona.”

Young Merriwell and his red-headed chum, Owen Clancy, stood on the crest of the long, sloping wall of a gulch and looked downward at a scene that filled them with wonder and admiration.

The gulch was perhaps a hundred and fifty feet deep, and a quarter of a mile from rim to rim. On either side the slopes fell away in a gentle descent, sparsely covered with pine trees, and with here and there a patch of flaming poppies touching the brown of the hillsides as with fire.

In the depths was a long, silvery vista of water, placid, and cool, and deep. At the foot of the slope on whose crest the two lads were standing, was a wide strip of clean yellow sand. Here there were half a dozen white canvas tents, pitched close to the water, with camping equipment scattered in all directions.

Four or five canoes were drawn up on the beach. On a float, a few yards from shore, several lads in “Nature’s raiment” were sitting and splashing their feet in the water; others were diving from the float, their white bodies flashing outward and downward like so many darts, disappearing under the smooth surface of the river and leaving a jet of spray and a quiver of silvery ripples; and still others were swimming, far up and down the stream. All were enjoying themselves to the utmost, if their laughter, echoing and reverberating between the slopes could be taken as an indication.

“This is certainly a peach of a place for a camp,” said young Merriwell. “In some ways it has our own camp at Tinaja Wells beaten a mile. The sight of those canoes down there makes me hungry for a paddle!”

“And to think,” went on Clancy, “that this is nearly the middle of November, and that back home the snow is beginning to fly, and overcoats are trumps, and folks are hunting up their galoshes! Wow! It hardly seems possible. Down here in southern Arizona a fellow can have his out-door sports all the year ’round. So that’s Camp Hawtrey, eh? Well, it’s a bully place, if you ask me.”

“The only thing these Gold Hill fellows haven’t got is a good athletic field. I hear they’ve cleaned up a patch of desert back of the gulch, and are using that for sports and practice. But that slice of raw ground isn’t in it with our mesa, Clan.”

“You’re right there, Chip. Our camp at Tinaja Wells has certainly got it over this one so far as a field is concerned, but I wish we had a nice stretch of river like that for canoeing. Where’s Lenning? Can you see him down there in that bunch of swimmers?”

The boys above studied carefully the ones below, but failed to discover Lenning.

“He’s not there, Clan,” said Merriwell, “and I can’t see Bleeker, Hotchkiss, and several more of the Gold Hill Athletic Club whom we know tolerably well.”

“Jode Lenning, I guess, is the main squeeze of that outfit, and he’s the one we’ll have to talk with.”

“I hate to have anything to do with him,” muttered Merry, “but he’s Colonel Hawtrey’s nephew, and the colonel is the backbone of the Gold Hill club, and if our fellows and the Gold Hillers have any more friendly competitions, we’ll have to arrange with Lenning.”

“Lenning’s a skunk,” growled Clancy. “If it hadn’t been for him we know mighty well that Ellis Darrel, his own half brother, wouldn’t be laid up at Dolliver’s with a broken arm. We know, I say, that Lenning cut the rope that dropped Darrel over the cliff, and——”

“Cut it, Clan!” interrupted Merriwell. “We promised Darrel we’d keep that to ourselves.”

“Well, I’m not blowing it around, am I? The way Hawtrey snuggles up to Lenning and hands Darrel, his other nephew, all the hard knocks makes me pretty darn tired.”

“Hawtrey will be all right when he finds out that Darrel didn’t forge his name to that check more than a year ago.”

“Yes, when he finds it out—and that’s never. Lenning, I’ll bet a peck of dollars, was at the bottom of that forgery, and you can’t bring forward any proof against Lenning that the colonel will consider. You know that as well as I do, Chip.”

“Something will turn up, Clan,” asserted Merriwell confidently. “When a fellow gets in wrong it’s bound to come out unless he changes his ways. And Jode Lenning isn’t changing—that is, not so you can notice it. Luck is going to turn Darrel’s way—I’ve got a pretty good hunch to that effect. The old colonel will find out for himself just which of his nephews is the more reliable. Wait, that’s all.”

“I can’t see anything rosy in Darrel’s future,” growled Clancy, “so long as Jode has his big stand-in with his Uncle Alvah. But there’s no use chinning about that now. We’re over here from our camp as a games committee to fix up a schedule of sports with Gold Hill, and we’re supposed to be loaded to the gunnels with peaceable sentiments and loving regards for Ophir’s athletic rivals. Oh, slush! I’m in such an amiable mood, right this minute, that I’d like to take a crack at Lenning with my bare knuckles.”

“Lenning’s only one of that Gold Hill crowd, old man,” said Chip soothingly. “Bradlaugh, president of the Ophir club, and Hawtrey, who backs the Gold Hillers, are both tired of having the rival organizations at loggerheads. They want peace and friendship between the two camps, and I don’t blame them. We’re going to do what we can to make the rivalry more sportsmanlike, and less bitter. ‘Fair play and no favor,’ that’s our motto. When we find Lenning, Clan, just hold yourself in and don’t bite.”

“All right,” assented Clancy, although with a show of some reluctance. “Let’s go down there, find Lenning, and get the business over with.”

Before they could start down the long slope that led to the bottom of the gulch, both lads were suddenly startled by the sudden note of a firearm. The report came from a considerable distance, evidently, yet was perfectly clear and distinct.

“What’s that?” demanded Clancy, wheeling about and staring at his chum.

“Sounded like a revolver,” was the reply. “Somebody trying a hand at target practice, more than likely.”

“The sound didn’t come from below—the shooting is going on up here, somewhere. Maybe Lenning is mixed up in it.”

“We’ll mosey around and find out,” said Merry.

Another report was heard, and the two chums, laying their course by the sound, started along the top of the gulch wall. A third shot was followed by a sharp yelp, as of some animal in pain.

“Was that a dog, Chip?” queried Clancy.

“Strikes me it was,” said Merry. “This way,” he added, turning from the gulch and moving off into some low, rocky hills.

As they advanced, the boys heard voices and laughter. One of the voices they recognized as Jode Lenning’s. Presently, from behind a bit of a ridge, they looked out and discovered what was going on.

Lenning and three more of the Gold Hill crowd—fellows of about his same stamp—had tied a dog to an ironwood tree. At a distance of about fifty feet they were taking turns shooting at the poor brute—evidently seeing how close they could come without making a hit.

The dog was about as homely an animal as Merry had ever seen. His tawny hide was scarred in a dozen different places, and one eye was gone and a front leg was crooked—apparently the leg had been broken and Nature had healed it alone. There was some object tied to the dog’s tail by a section of stout twine—the lads behind the ridge could not make out exactly what the object was.

Bang! went the revolver. A flurry of dust was kicked up under the wretched brute, which almost turned a somersault at the end of the rope. Lenning and his companions laughed at the dog’s antics.

Clancy’s face went black as a thundercloud. His fists clenched and, with a muttered imprecation, he started to hurl himself around the end of the ridge. Chip caught him and held him back.

“Are you going to stand for this, Chip?” asked the red-headed fellow in a savage whisper.

“No,” said Merriwell; “we’ll interfere at the right time. Wait a minute.”

Clancy restrained himself and once more sank down behind the rocks. Parkman, one of Lenning’s companions, had begun to speak.

“I reckon we’d better stop shooting, Jode,” said he, “or the dog will hit the cap on the stones and set off the dynamite.”

“You’re right, Park,” answered Lenning. “We’ll pass up the shooting, touch off the fuse, and set the ki-yi adrift. When the cartridge goes off,” he chuckled, “I bet there won’t be enough of that tramp dog left to wad a gun. Lamson, you light the fuse. You can cut the rope, Park, when the fuse is going. Be quick about it or the whelp will take a piece out of you.”

Clancy’s eyes were fairly burning as he leaned toward Merry and gripped his arm.

“Do you know what those skunks are up to, Chip?” he whispered. “They’ve tied a dynamite cartridge to that brute’s tail, and they’re going to light the fuse and turn the dog loose!”

“No, they’re not,” said Merriwell decisively. “That’s what they’re aiming to do, Clan, but we’ll interfere with the game. They’re a fine crowd of cannibals, I must say,” he went on scathingly. “The colonel ought to be here and see that precious nephew of his in his real colors. Hang it, Clan, I’m so worked up I can’t see straight.”

Clancy gave vent to a gruesome laugh.

“Here we come from Tinaja Wells with an olive branch,” he chuckled, “and now we’re going out to lam Jode over the head with it. Come on. Lamson is getting ready to scratch a match and light the fuse.”

“Here we go,” answered Merriwell.

With a rush the two boys got out from behind the ridge. They were nearer the cowering dog than they were to Lenning, and, the first thing Lamson knew, Merriwell had tipped him over and knocked the blazing match from his fingers. Clancy, at the same time, had grabbed Parkman by the collar and pulled him back so quickly that the open jackknife fell out of his nerveless hand.

Jode Lenning, stunned into momentary inaction by the unexpected appearance of Merriwell and Clancy, suddenly recovered himself, gave an angry yell, and started toward the newcomers at a run.

CHAPTER XXVI.
BAD BLOOD.

As the only heir of a very rich and influential man, Jode Lenning had a number of followers of a certain sort. Parkham, Lamson, and “Klink” Hummer, who were bearing a part with Jode in his doubtful “sport” with the tramp dog, were three of these satellites; and they revolved around Jode and made his will their law, just for the favors which he could dole out to them. There was a community of interest among the four lads, but no real friendship.

As Lenning rushed toward Merriwell and Clancy, Hummer raced along at his heels. Finally the two halted close to the pair from the other camp. Lamson and Parkman, scowling over the rough treatment they had received, had regained their feet and stepped shoulder to shoulder with Lenning.

“What are you two butting in here for?” shouted Lenning, his shifty eyes a-gleam with anger.

“We think you’ve tortured that dog enough, Lenning,” replied Merriwell, smothering his own wrath and trying to use a persuasive tone. “You’d better cut away that dynamite cartridge and let the brute go.”

Here was a suggestion that thinly veiled a command. Although Merriwell’s voice was like velvet, yet it cut like steel, and Lenning’s temper boiled more briskly than ever.

“You’re a private little society for the prevention of cruelty to coyote dogs, eh?” Lenning sneered. “That cur has been snooping around our camp for days, stealing our grub. We’re going to put him out of business, and you chumps can’t come crow-hopping around here and meddle with our plans.”

“There are other ways of putting a dog out of business,” said Frank, “than singeing him with bullets and then blowing him up with dynamite.”

“It’s none o’ your put-in,” scowled Lamson, rubbing a blister on his hand where the match had burned him.

“I reckon we can do as we blame’ please in our own camp,” said Hummer.

Merriwell, stepping to the cowering brute, bent over to remove the string from his stump of a tail.

“Keep away from that dog, Merriwell!” stormed Lenning, taking a couple of threatening steps in Frank’s direction.

Clancy promptly jumped in front of Lenning.

“That will be far enough,” he said curtly. “Go on, Chip,” he added to Frank. “I’ll look after this duffer.”

The words were hardly out of Clancy’s mouth before Lenning struck him. The blow caught the red-headed chap in the shoulder and spun him half around. The next instant Clancy was going for Lenning, hammer and tongs. Before Lamson, Hummer, or Parkman could interfere, a stiff right-hander had put Lenning on his knees.

“That’s enough of that kind of work!” cried Merriwell, leaping up and tossing the dynamite cartridge into the bushes. “We didn’t come here to kick up a row. Hands off, you fellows!” he ordered, facing Lenning’s restive comrades.

“Go for ’em!” whooped Lenning, nursing a bruised chin with both hands. “If they want a rough-house, give ’em a-plenty. There are only two of them and three of you. What are you hanging back for?”

Probably Lamson, Hummer, and Parkman had no great amount of courage, and Merriwell and Clancy looked rather formidable to them. Be that as it may, yet when Lenning had dropped to his knees his three companions had held back.

Now, under their leader’s urging, Hummer threw himself toward Frank. The latter side-stepped a savage blow and turned suddenly to put out a foot and trip Lamson, who was making a headlong rush at him from the side. Lamson fell sprawling into Hummer, and both dropped in a tangle. Clancy laughed.

“A little ground and lofty tumbling by Lamson and Hummer,” he remarked. “Why don’t you get up, Jode, and take a hand in this set-to yourself? Where’s your ginger? You’re not going to leave all this to your friends, are you?”

“Just a minute,” put in Frank, as Lenning, muttering wrathfully, struggled erect. “This thing can stop right where it is. Clancy and I don’t want to stir up any hard feelings. We came over from our camp this afternoon to arrange for a competition of some kind with you Gold Hill chaps. Now, let’s drop this and——”

“I’ll drop that red-headed freak over there,” cut in Lenning, “if it’s the last thing I ever do! Who wants any competitions with that Ophir bunch of yaps? All we want you fellows to do is to stay away from Camp Hawtrey and leave us alone.”

He was edging slowly toward Clancy, his face contorted with rage. Lenning wasn’t a pleasant sight, and Frank wondered how a fellow could give away to his temper in such fashion.

“That will do you, Lenning!” said he sternly. “Keep your shirt on—if you don’t want to get more than you bargain for.”

The glint in Clancy’s eyes meant trouble, and Frank knew that his red-headed chum would go the limit with Lenning if the latter got close enough for a fight. At this stage of the affair, when a one-sided scrimmage seemed inevitable, Bleeker and Hotchkiss, of the Gold Hill crowd, stepped out from behind a pile of rocks and rapidly approached the scenes. Hotchkiss, on his way, halted to cut the dog adrift, and the harassed brute vanished among the low hills like a streak.

“This will be fine news for Colonel Hawtrey!” exclaimed Bleeker, coming close to his camp mates. “He’ll be tickled to death when he hears about this—I don’t think. You must be going bug house, Jode!”

Lenning whirled on Bleeker like a fury.

“Get away from here!” he flashed. “You’re a cheap skate, anyhow, and I reckon you know pretty well what I think of you!”

“I reckon I do,” returned Bleeker slowly. “We’ve hardly been on speaking terms for a week.”

“You attend to your own business,” snapped Lenning, “and I’ll take care of mine.”

“There’ll be no more fighting with Merriwell and Clancy,” asserted Bleeker firmly. “There are four of you and two of them, and if you try any more of this rough-house business, Hotch and I will jump into it ourselves and show you where you get off. You’re about as near a yellow pup, Lenning, as I know how to describe.”

This did not, in the least, tend to placate Lenning’s ugly mood.

“Why don’t you move over and join that Ophir crowd?” he taunted. “You’re stuck on El Darrel, and think he’s the whole thing. Why don’t you and Hotchkiss take your truck and emigrate to Tinaja Wells, so you can be with Darrel’s friends?”

“We’ll emigrate,” answered Hotchkiss darkly, “but it won’t be to the Wells. When we hike, by thunder, it’ll be for home. Eh, Bleek?”

“Surest thing you know,” Bleeker replied. “And when I see the colonel,” he added significantly, “I’ll have something to tell him.”

Lenning was a little startled at that; but his dismay was only temporary. He was too much enraged to consider the consequences of his own acts, or of anything else.

“Talk to my uncle,” snarled Lenning, “and you’ll get the biggest calling-down you ever had in your life. Furthermore, Bleeker, if you and Hotch don’t get out of Camp Hawtrey before sun-down, I’ll see that you’re properly kicked out. Come on, fellows,” he added to his three stand-bys, whirling on his heel.

The angry, sullen quartette walked to a little distance, and Lenning stooped down and picked up the dynamite cartridge from the place to which Merriwell had thrown it. Bleeker turned to Frank.

“He’s a pup, that’s all,” grunted Bleeker. “He has ordered Hotch and me out of camp, but we were about ready to go, anyhow. We’ve been having merry blazes at Camp Hawtrey for some time. A few of us Gold Hillers won’t lick Lenning’s boots—not so you can notice—and we think Ellis Darrel hasn’t been having a square deal. That’s put Lenning down on us, and he has been taking most of his spite out on Hotch and me. I reckon this is about the finish.”

“I’m plumb satisfied,” grinned Hotchkiss. “If it hadn’t been for you, Bleek, I’d have hit the trail for Gold Hill several days ago.”

“I’ve hung on,” continued Bleeker, “hoping we could do a little to make a better feeling between our club and the Ophir fellows. But there’ll never be anything but scraps and bitterness between the rival athletic clubs as long as Jode is king-bee of the Gold Hill crowd. That’s straight. Colonel Hawtrey lets Jode wind him around his fingers. I should think,” Bleeker added hotly, “that the old colonel would have sense enough to see through that measley, two-faced nephew of his. I know him, by thunder, from a to izzard, and he’s plumb yellow.”

“Clancy and I,” said Merriwell ruefully, “came over here as a games committee to arrange for a visit of the Ophir fellows to Camp Hawtrey, but when we saw Jode and his friends torturing that dog, it stirred us up so that we jumped into them.”

“Don’t blame you,” said Bleeker. “Hotch and I saw it all, Merriwell. We were behind another pile of rocks, and if you hadn’t interfered, we would. Pestering a dog like that is mean business. The brute has been hanging around the camp, stealing provisions, and has been no end of a nuisance, but he didn’t have to be tortured when he could have been shot out of hand. Parkman has been laying for that coyote dog for a couple of days. He got a chance at him this afternoon and dropped a rope over his head. Jode fixed up that dynamite cartridge, and when he and his mates started off with the cartridge and the dog, Hotch and I followed along, expecting some kind of deviltry. This is the outcome of it. I wish Hawtrey had been behind the rocks with us. I’ll bet a bunch of dinero what he would have seen would have been an eye opener for him.”

“I’m sorry as blazes about this flare-up,” muttered Merriwell. “It certainly puts a crimp into all our plans for getting the two clubs together on a friendly basis. But Clan and I couldn’t hold in when we saw Jode abusing that cur dog. What do you suppose Hawtrey will say?”

“He’ll take Jode’s part, sure as shooting. I could tell Hawtrey a few things, but he wouldn’t believe them. Jode was right when he said that the colonel would give me a big calling down if I tried to open up on his favorite nephew.”

“I left O. Clancy’s private mark on Jode’s chin,” chirruped Frank’s red-headed comrade, “and I can’t remember when anything has happened that made me feel so good. Be hanged to the rest of it. Things will work out all right, Chip, so don’t fret.”

“If Bradlaugh——”

Merry never finished what he was about to say, for, at that precise moment, Bleeker and Hotchkiss sprang into fierce action.

“Run!” shouted Bleeker, as he raced over the rocks; “run—for your lives!”

Over his shoulder Frank saw a hissing, sputtering object in the air, coming toward the point where he, and Clancy, and Bleeker, and Hotchkiss had been standing. Hotchkiss was already bounding after Bleeker, and in less than half a second Merry and Clancy were also hustling like mad to get out of the way.

The hissing object struck ground, and in a moment there was an explosion, and a little cloud of débris was flung high in the air.

CHAPTER XXVII.
THE BOY WHO DIDN’T CARE.

It was Lenning, of course, who had lighted the fuse and hurled that infernal machine in the direction of Merriwell and those he had been talking with. The hot-headed recklessness of the act made Merriwell gasp. Had Bleeker not seen the hissing bomb in the air, and shouted his warning, what would have happened?

A wave of indignation and anger rushed over Merriwell. He was running at top speed at the moment of the explosion, and he continued to run while the booming echoes reverberated among the hills—but he changed his course.

Lenning and his friends were clustered together in a compact group, staring sullenly at the place where the dynamite had “let go.” All at once they saw Merriwell, eyes flashing and face like a thundercloud, bearing down on them.

Perhaps Lenning would have stood his ground had not his three companions deserted him in a panic. His courage was of a sort that needed backing, and when his supporters fled, he whirled and made after them. He had not gone far, however, before Merriwell overhauled him, grabbed him by the collar, and jerked him roughly backward.

Clancy, even more furious than his chum, and Bleeker and Hotchkiss, both scowling fiercely, made haste to get to Merriwell’s side. Lenning had been thrown from his feet, and was lying on the rocks half lifted on one elbow. There was a look of ugly defiance in his face that did not match the glimmer of fear in his eyes.

“You crazy fool!” cried Frank. “Are you trying to kill somebody?”

“It’s not the first time!” panted Bleeker.

“He ought to be kicked from here plumb to the bottom of the gulch,” clamored Hotchkiss.

“Let’s pound a little sense into him!” suggested Clancy.

“I don’t care a whoop what happens to you junipers,” answered Lenning. “Don’t you dare lay a hand on me! The colonel will make it hot for you if you do.”

“That’s about what I’d expect of you,” came scornfully from Clancy. “As soon as you earn a good trouncing you begin whooping it up for your Uncle Alvah. Oh, you’re the limit, all right.”

“Suppose Bleeker hadn’t seen that lighted bomb coming toward us?” went on Frank. “What would have happened, eh?”

“I don’t care a tinker’s darn,” said Lenning. “You fellows keep your hands off or you’ll wish you had.”

With a roar of anger Clancy attempted to use his fists on Lenning, but Merriwell put out a restraining arm and pushed him back. Frank’s temper had had time to cool a little.

“Stow it, Clan!” said he. “We don’t want to make this matter any worse than it is, you know.”

“Hang it, Chip,” Clancy protested, “you’re not going to let this crazy chump try to blow us up and then get off without a pounding, are you?”

“He’ll get all that’s coming to him before long, and without any help from us. We’ve made a mess of the work that brought us to Camp Hawtrey, and it’s just as well not to complicate matters any more than they are.”

Frank turned from his chum and gave his full attention to Lenning.

“You’re a good deal of a puzzle to me, Lenning,” said he. “I don’t believe I ever saw a fellow who was just like you. The reckless way you have of robbing your uncle and then throwing the responsibility on some one else, cutting a rope, and dropping your half brother over a cliff, and lighting dynamite cartridges and throwing them around, is going to get you into a peck of trouble. I’ve got a hunch that you’re crazy. If that’s really the case, then you ought to be in a padded cell, for it’s a cinch it’s not safe to leave you at large. Now——”

Lenning had risen hastily to his feet. Something Merriwell had said had caused his face to go white.

“Look here,” he broke in, “I reckon you found something I lost on the mesa, over at your camp, during the football game our crowd had with yours. It was a note in which Bleeker, there, put down a lie for the purpose of getting me into trouble. You can’t make any capital out of what Bleeker says.”

Bleeker, red with anger, tried to get close to Lenning, but Hotchkiss held him back.

“What I wrote in that note,” cried Bleeker, “was the truth.”

“You can’t get even with me and help Darrel by any such talk,” sneered Lenning.

“I’ll finish what I want to say to you,” continued Merriwell sharply, “and then Clancy and I will be going. If you try any more desperate games, Lenning, you’ll be caught at it, sure as fate. If anything happens, we know where to look for the cause of it, and you can’t bank on Colonel Hawtrey doing anything to save your neck. That’s about all.”

He turned away. Lenning, scowling and muttering, hurried to join his friends, who had kept at a safe distance, and the four vanished on their way down into the gulch.

“Ain’t that about the worst ever?” murmured Hotchkiss. “Jode’s pretty near right when he says he don’t care what he does. He counts on his uncle’s faith in him to pull him out o’ any trouble he gets into.”

“I wish to thunder the colonel wasn’t such a fool,” blurted out Bleeker. “Why can’t he get next to the coyote?”

“He will, some time,” declared Frank. “Where did that dynamite come from, Bleeker? Do you know?”

“Yes, I know, although pretty nearly our whole camp is in the dark about it. When Hawtrey was out here, the last time, he and Jode took a walk along the south wall of the gulch. Now, the colonel’s got a scent for mineral-bearing ground same as a hound dog has for a rabbit. He found a place where he reckoned there might be gold, and on the q.  t. he sent out some hand drills, a sledge, some fuse, and a little dynamite, and told Jode to put down a hole. Jode’s been working with the drill and sledge, now and then, as he could steal away and find the time. The colonel told him to put the fuse and dynamite where it would be safe, and to leave ’em there until he—the colonel—came out with a box of caps and asked for the rest of the blasting material. Hawtrey intends to load and fire the hole himself, I reckon. It’s dangerous business, and he doesn’t want Jode, or any of the other fellows, mixed up in it. Jode got a cap somewhere, and fixed up that cartridge for the coyote dog.”

“I see,” Frank nodded.

“Jode has made a misplay,” said Hotchkiss. “If that coyote dog had been killed, I reckon he’d have been all right; but Merriwell stripped off the bomb the cur was trailin’ and I up and cut the rope. Gee, man, how that animile skedaddled!”

“How did Jode make a misplay, Hotch?” asked the puzzled Merriwell.

“Ain’t you ever heard about coyote dogs?” returned Hotchkiss. “Why, they’re that vengeful they hold a grouch for years until they pay it off. Abuse a coyote dog, by thunder, and he’ll make it a p’int to get even. How about it, Bleek?”

Bleeker nodded solemnly.

“Go on,” jeered Clancy; “you can’t make me swallow any such stuff as that.”

“You don’t know coyote dogs same as us fellows that live out in these parts,” persisted Hotchkiss. “Over at Sacatone a miner kicked one o’ those tramp curs and broke its leg. Six months after that the miner was found dead in the trail, all chewed to pieces.”

“Maybe it was a panther did that,” suggested Frank.

“Not on your life, Merriwell! The footprints around the miner were those of a dog. Lots o’ things like that have happened.”

“I’m glad, Chip,” chuckled Clancy, “that you and I are on the safe side. We did what we could for that homely brute, so he ought to feel sort of friendly toward us.”

“I guess, fellows,” said Chip, with a laugh, “that there’s a whole lot of superstition wrapped up in those yarns about coyote dogs. What’s a coyote dog, anyhow?”

“Just enough coyote in him to make him savage and wild, and just enough tame dog in him to make him want to be around where human bein’s congregate. People who know, treat an animile like that with consideration, but those who are ignorant make a big mistake when they try to shoot such a brute, or to hit it with a club.”

“Much obliged for the tip, Hotch,” grinned Frank. “Whenever I meet a coyote dog, after this, I’ll treat him with consideration. So long, fellows. Clancy and I have got to be going.”

Rather grimly, Bleeker and Hotchkiss said “good-by” to the two lads from Tinaja Wells and started for the camp where they knew they were unwelcome. Merry and Clancy turned their faces ’cross country and began retracing their way to their own headquarters.

Merriwell was in no very pleasant mood. He and Clancy had started out, that afternoon, with the intention of inaugurating a little friendly sport with the rival athletic organization, and the coyote dog had dropped into the equation and played havoc with their plans.

“I don’t know how the deuce we could have avoided that mix-up with Jode Lenning,” muttered Merry.

“Well, we could have side-stepped it all right,” returned Clancy.

“How?”

“Why, by letting them make a skyrocket of the dog, Chip.”

“Neither of us could stand for that.”

“Sure not, but that was the only way we could have kept on friendly terms with Lenning. So far’s I’m concerned, I’ll be hanged if I’d be on friendly terms with the chump if I could.”

“Lenning doesn’t amount to a whole lot, but Mr. Bradlaugh and Colonel Hawtrey both want the clubs to be on a friendly footing. We made a fair beginning with that football game, and now, while we were trying to keep up the good work, we’ve knocked what little true sportsmanship there was about seven ways for Sunday.”

“Lenning has too much influence with the Gold Hill crowd. He can’t domineer over Bleeker and Hotchkiss, and so they’ve got to get out. I wish to blazes that coyote dog would turn up and do business with Jode. But we can’t hope for any such good luck as that.”

“You’ll be as bloodthirsty as Lenning, Clan, if you keep on,” grinned Merry.

“Lenning is at the bottom of all the bad blood between the two clubs,” asserted Clancy warmly, “just as he’s at the bottom of all Darrel’s troubles. The cub is too mean to live.”

“Speaking about coyote dogs,” said Frank, “that notion of Hotch’s is mighty interesting.”

“Hotch, and Bleeker, too, seemed to take a good deal of stock in the idea. But it’s pretty far-fetched, and——”

A startled expression crossed Clancy’s homely face. He came to a dead halt, the words died on his lips, and he lifted one hand quickly and pointed. Frank, following the direction indicated by his chum’s finger, saw a tawny form slipping like a specter among the rocks. The form paused, reared up on a bowlder, and stood peering over its front paws for a space at the two lads; then, like an ill-omened wraith, it dropped to all fours and disappeared as though by magic.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

“SPOOKS.”

When Merriwell and Clancy reached Tinaja Wells and the Ophir camp, late in the afternoon, it was with the disagreeable feeling that friendly rivalry between the two clubs had received a setback by recent events from which it could never recover. Merry at once sought Handy, captain of the Ophir team, Ballard and Hannibal Bradlaugh—the latter the son of the club’s president—and went into a star-chamber session with them.

All the unpleasant details of the afternoon were gone over, and Ballard, Brad, and Handy listened to them with absorbing interest.

“What can we expect,” burst out Brad indignantly, when the recital was finished, “while such a measly pup as Lenning bosses the Gold Hill crowd? So long as he’s the king-pin over there, you couldn’t foster a friendly spirit between the two clubs in a thousand years.”

“That dynamite cartridge gets my goat,” growled Ballard. “That pleasant habit Lenning has of trying to assassinate the fellows he doesn’t like will put him behind the bars one of these days. Thunder! Why, it doesn’t seem possible he could be such a reckless fool.”

“He’s dangerous,” said Merriwell quietly, “but I don’t think he’s exactly responsible when his temper’s roused.”

“Take it from me,” observed Handy, “there’s something on the fellow’s conscience. Fear of being found out is goading him to desperate things. He can’t go on like this; something has got to be done to stop him before he commits a sure-enough crime.”

“What’s to be done?” asked Frank. “Tell the colonel?”

“The colonel!” exclaimed Ballard. “Why, Chip, Lenning has got the colonel under his thumb. You can’t do a thing with Hawtrey. Just breathe a whisper against Lenning to the colonel and there’ll be fireworks. It beats creation the way Lenning is able to pull the wool over his uncle’s eyes. Darrel, now, is worth a dozen fellows of Lenning’s stripe. I’ve been with Darrel for three days at Dolliver’s place, and I’ve got to know him pretty well. He’s a prince, that’s what he is; and yet that confounded old muttonhead of a colonel won’t have a thing to do with him. When I think about it, sometimes, I get so mad I feel as though I’d explode.”

“We’d better sleep over this, fellows,” suggested Merriwell, “and see if we can’t think out some move that will be right and proper. Things are mighty unsatisfactory, as they are. It’s been a long time since I’ve had anything bump me so hard as what happened this afternoon.”

It was in this way that the important matter was dismissed temporarily. During supper, and for the rest of that evening, the boys tried to forget it. When they crawled into their blankets, at ten o’clock, Merriwell’s mind got busy with the far-reaching subject in spite of himself.

A guard of three was posted every night. Frank heard the guards changed at eleven o’clock. Fritz Gesundheit, the Dutch boy who did the cooking for the camp, was to be one of the midwatch. It took all of ten minutes for one of the lads who was going off duty to get Fritz out of the land of dreams and into a fitting realization of the fact that it was his turn at sentry-go.

Ghost stories had been indulged in around the camp fire during the evening. Fritz had listened to the wild yarns with both ears, while washing and putting away the supper dishes. More than once the cold shivers had crept up his backbone, and he had felt the carroty hair rising straight up on his head. When called for guard duty, he was snoring away with his head under the blankets.

Fritz’ post was below the flat, and in a part of the cañon where the moonlight sifted through the trees in wavering silvery patches. Every patch looked like a ghost, and the cañon was filled with them.

Fritz was about as eager to go on duty that night as he would have been to walk into a den of hungry bears. But Silva, the Mexican packer, was also one of the midwatch, and between Fritz and Silva was a feud of several days’ standing. Fritz would have scorned to show the white feather with Silva looking on, and so he armed himself with a stout club and a half a dozen ham sandwiches and waddled feebly down the side of the flat and into the ghostly shadows of the cañon.

Once a picketed horse gave a snort, and Fritz went straight into the air for at least five feet. A little later Uncle Sam, the professor’s mule, let out a “hee haw” that sounded like thunder in the cañon, and Fritz almost went into a swoon. Every little while Fritz imagined a quivering splash of moonlight was a spook, and he would groan to himself and crowd between the rocks, and say his prayers backward, forward, and sideways.

Finally, as nothing came up and grabbed him, he began to feel somewhat reassured. He thought of his sandwiches and started to eat one.

“Shpooks iss nodding, I bed you,” he communed with himself. “Nodding nefer hurt nopody at all, und I vill eat und forged aboudt it. Vat a peacefulness is der nighdt! How calm iss der moon und der leedle shtars! Oh, I lofe der nighdt, you bed my life, und I—himmelblitzen, vat iss dot?”

Fritz jumped, laid down his half-eaten sandwich on a bowlder beside him, and peered wildly around. He could see nothing but the shadowy live stock belonging to the camp, and yet, very distinctly, he had heard a pat, pat, pat as of something traveling among the bowlders.

“Id vas nodding some more,” he chattered. “Imachination makes some monkey-doodle pitzness mit me. I vill eat der sandvich und forged aboudt it.”

He reached for the sandwich, and a horrifying surprise ran through him. The sandwich was not where he had left it. Nor had it fallen off the rock.

“Br-r-r!” shivered Fritz. “Dere iss a keveerness here, py shiminy Grismus! Iss a shpook hungry dot he comes und takes my sandvich?”

For several minutes Fritz sat in a huddle and wondered what he had better do about it. He would have eased his tense feelings with a yell if Silva hadn’t been around to hear. It wouldn’t do to let the Mexican know he was scared. With trembling hands, Fritz dug down into his rations for another sandwich. Laying the sandwich down for a moment, he bent to twist the mouth of the paper sack in which his lunch was stowed. When he straightened again, and reached for the sandwich, another thrill of horror convulsed him. It was gone.

“Py shimineddy,” Fritz fluttered, “dis iss gedding vorse as I can tell! Vat iss habbening mit me? Iss it a shpook sandvich? Sooch now-you-see-him-und-now-you-don’t pitzness I don’t like.” Fritz, just then, had an illuminating idea which not only calmed his fears but aroused his wrath. “I bed my life id iss dot greaser feller playing some chokes mit me. I set some draps, und ven I catch him, I preak him in doo, so hellup me!”

With another sandwich Fritz baited his trap. Laying the sandwich on the bowlder’s top, he sank down until his eyes were level with it and the rest of his body hidden in gloom; then, lifting his hands ready to make a grab, he waited.

Pat, pat came a mysterious sound from the other side of the bowlder. That must be Silva, Fritz thought, coming up on his hands and knees.

“Now, I bet you someding for nodding,” Fritz chuckled, “I get him!”

Something reared up out of the darkness on the other side of the bowlder. Fritz grabbed, and his hands closed on an object that felt like a buffalo robe and squirmed like an eel. Another moment and Fritz had an armful, for the object plunged straight at him over the bowlder.

“Hellup! hellup!” he howled, as he tumbled backward and began rolling over and over. “Hellup, I say, oder I vas a gone Dutchman!”

Then, for several moments, Fritz was altogether too busy for words. The thing in his arms clawed, and snapped, and snarled. Fritz continued to roll with it, sometimes underneath, sometimes on top. He was too scared to let go, and too scared to hold on; and while he floundered and plunged about among the rocks, the boys began to run out of the tents, wondering what the nation was the matter. At last, locating the excitement in the cañon, they began racing over the edge of the flat. As it happened, Merriwell was in the lead.

CHAPTER XXIX.
THE COLONEL CALLS.

When Merriwell was close to the spot where the rolling, tumbling, and howling was going on, a blot of shadow darted through the sifting moonlight and was swallowed up in the gloom of the lower gulch. As the shadow disappeared, a long, quavering coyote yelp floated back on the night wind.

A thrill ran through Merriwell’s nerves. Was it a coyote or a coyote dog that had flung past him and given vent to that yelp? Instinctively he knew that it was the wretched mongrel for whose life he and Clancy had battled in the vicinity of Camp Hawtrey.

Merriwell was conscious of an uncanny feeling, which laid hold of him as that eerie yelp echoed through the cañon. What Hotchkiss had told him about coyote dogs was no doubt responsible for it. With an exclamation of impatience he flung the feeling from him and went on to where a figure was sitting up on the ground among the rocks.

“Py shinks, it vas nod a shpook,” the figure was muttering. “A shpook iss nodding, und dis vat I hat in my handts vas more as dot. Yas, you bet my life!”

“Carrots!” exclaimed Merry. “Say,” and he laughed, scenting a joke of some sort, “what’s the matter with you?”

“I schust hat a fight mit a bear dot vas pigger as a house,” Fritz cried. “I hat nodding but my hands, und I vas shoking der life oudt oof dot bear ven you come oop und schkared him avay mit himselluf. Vy der tickens,” complained Fritz, “don’t you leaf a feller alone ven he catches some bears?”

“Whoosh!” chuckled Clancy, as he and several more lads grouped around the shadowy Fritz. “Fritz was trapping a bear with his bare hands, and he’s mad because we came down here when he yelled for help. If you wanted to be left alone, Carrots, why the deuce did you make such a racket?”

“I got some oxcidements, dot’s all,” Fritz explained, as he squirmed to his feet. “Dot bear vas so pig as a moundain, so hellup me, aber I chuggled him aroundt like anyding. Fairst, I took him py vone leg und drowed him der air in, den I took him by some odder legs und tossed him my headt aroundt, und pooty soon I tropped him der rocks on, und vas chust gedding retty to sit down und make him some brisoners ven you fellers schkared him avay. Vat sort oof pitzness you call dot, hey?”

“Fritz,” laughed Merriwell, “you’re a four-flusher. First, you had that bear as big as a house, and now he’s as big as a mountain. As a matter of fact, Fritz, the animal was about the size of a dog; and, as another matter of fact, it was a dog, a coyote dog. I heard him yelp as he ran down the gulch.”

This came pretty near taking the wind out of Fritz’s sails.

“You t’ink you know more about dot bear as me?” he demanded. “I hat him in my arms, py shinks, und I fight mit him so glose as vat I am to you. I know vat I know, and dot’s all aboudt it.”

“Ay de mi!” cackled the voice of Silva, “he grab one coyote dog and think him so beeg lak mountain! It ees most fonny. Fat gringo no tell coyote dog from bear so beeg lak mountain, huh, huh, huh!”

This, from the hated Silva, was more than Fritz could stand, and he began forthwith to do a war dance and to brandish his fists. The clawing he had received from the coyote dog had not done very much to sweeten his temper.

“So hellup me cracious,” he whooped, “I vill knock you py der mittle oof lasdt veek! No greaser lopster can laugh my face in same as dot.”

He started for Silva, but somebody tripped him and he pitched sprawling upon the rocky ground.

“Get out of here, Silva!” ordered Merriwell. “I don’t want any more fussing between you and Fritz.”

The Mexican retired slowly toward his own post, whistling as though for a missing dog and calling loudly for the animal to “Come, bonita, come, li’l wan—hyah, hyah!”

Fritz was fairly boiling with rage. Merriwell helped him up, ordered him to resume his guard duty, and not to make any further disturbance, or to try to mix things with Silva. Then, laughing heartily among themselves, all the boys went back to their blankets.

“So that coyote dog is hanging around our camp, eh?” muttered Clancy, as he settled down in bed. “I hope to thunder, Chip, he hasn’t transferred his affections from Lenning to you. There’s something about that brute that gives me the creeps.”

“Oh, slush!” answered Merriwell. “You don’t mean to say, Clan, that you’re taking any stock in that stuff Hotchkiss batted up to us?”

“About an abused coyote dog taking the war path as a lone avenger? Well, no, I’m not so superstitious as all that, but I can’t get out of my mind that picture of the miserable brute tied to an ironwood tree, a dynamite cartridge fastened to his tail, and a bunch of hoodlums taking pot shots at him. I can just see that dog, Chip, turning somersaults at the end of the rope while bullets are kicking up the dust all around him.”

“Forget it, Clan,” said his chum shortly; “go to sleep.”

Amid the silence that dropped over the camp, Silva’s voice, from the grove, could be heard calling: “Bonita! li’l wan, coom dis-a-way! Hyah, hyah, hyah!”

Then, from down in the cañon, Fritz would howl wrathfully: “Vait, you greaser scallavag! Bymby, I bed you, I make you vistle by der odder site oof your mout’.”

Finally the Mexican tired of jeering at Fritz, and the boys in the tents succeeded in going to sleep.

Next morning, as Frank was getting into his clothes after a plunge in the swimming pool, he asked Brad and Ballard if they had thought of anything that could be done to straighten out matters between the two athletic clubs.

“I’m by,” said Brad. “What we’re to do is too many for me, Chip.”

“Same here,” spoke up Ballard. “I guess there isn’t a thing we can do but just kick our heels and let things drift.”

Clancy, at that moment, came dancing up the bank, grabbed a rough towel, and began sawing it over his shoulders.

“I’ve thought of a scheme, fellows,” he remarked.

“What sort of a scheme?”

“Lenning’s the stumblingblock. Why not abduct him, lock him up in some quiet place about a thousand miles from Nowhere, and leave him there until the rest of the Gold Hill fellows come to their senses? Take it from me, Chip, that’s the only way we can work through the trick.”

“Quit your joshing, Clan,” growled Merry. “This is serious business.”

“You might just as well lie down on the whole affair so long as Jode Lenning is at large. You know that as well as I do. Whenever he cracks his little whip, everybody in the other camp has to jump—or get out. Bleeker is one of the best players on the Gold Hill eleven, and yet you see what happened to him. He and Hotchkiss have the courage to call their souls their own, and Camp Hawtrey isn’t big enough for them and Lenning.”

“It’s a tough nut to crack,” muttered Merriwell, frowning. “We’re supposed to be fostering a spirit of friendly rivalry with Gold Hill, and here we’ve broken with them entirely. There’ll be music, before long, and of a kind I won’t like to hear. What do you suppose your father will say, Hannibal?”

“Pop’s the clear quill, Chip,” Brad answered. “Half a dozen words of explanation from you will be enough. If he finds fault with you about anything, it will be because you didn’t give Lenning the worst licking he ever had in his life.”

“That may be,” went on Frank, “but it doesn’t better the athletic situation any. I don’t suppose I was—er—very diplomatic. Maybe Clan and I could have saved the coyote dog without harrowing Jode all up, as we did. I didn’t stop to consider that part of it when we interfered with Jode’s amusement.”

“What’s done is done,” said Ballard, “and there’s no use sobbing about it. I guess, after all, Chip, your best move is to give the colonel the facts.”

“Wow!” gulped Clancy. “The fur will begin to fly as soon as Chip tries that. But it’s a cinch that there’s nothing else to be done.”

“If you lay it down to the colonel, Chip,” put in Brad, “don’t hem, and haw, and side-step. Give Jode the limit. Tell Hawtrey everything he ought to know about that rough-neck nephew of his. Throw in all the trimmings.”

“Chip can do it, with ground to spare,” grinned Ballard, “if he once makes up his mind.”

Merriwell leaned against a tree and dropped his chin thoughtfully into his hand. He wasn’t more than two minutes in coming to a conclusion.

“I’m going to Gold Hill,” he announced, “and I’ll start right after dinner.”

“That means you’re going to beard the colonel in his den,” said Clancy. “Want me along as a bodyguard?”

“And me?” asked Ballard.

“No, Pink, I don’t want you, or Clan, or any one else,” Merry answered. “I intend to handle this alone.”

“That’s the stuff!” approved Brad. “You can do more, all by your lonesome, than with half a dozen fellows trailing after you. Hawtrey has a heap of respect for you, Chip. His admiration for your father has something to do with the way he sizes you up, I reckon. He knows you’re a chip of the old block, and a square sportsman from soles to headpiece. If anybody can talk to him about Jode, and get away with it, you’re the one.”

“Well, that’s the program,” said Merriwell grimly, “whether I’m the one or not. When I get after Jode I’m going to handle him without gloves.”

“What will Darrel think about it?” inquired Ballard.

“Search me. I think, though, that he’ll take it all right. Lenning’s actions have reached a point where they’ve got to receive immediate attention.”

Following breakfast, that morning, Frank and his chums, under Professor Phineas Borrodaile’s supervision, took up their studies for the forenoon. No matter what was going on, the professor insisted relentlessly on the three lads applying themselves to their books for the first half of the day.

Merriwell’s attention wandered a good deal. He was wondering how he had better approach the colonel on the delicate subject he had in mind. His acquaintance with Hawtrey was not of very long standing, and he might almost call himself a stranger to the big man of Gold Hill. Frank winced when he thought of broaching the matter—which was largely a family affair—to Lenning’s uncle.

As soon as the forenoon was over, and dinner out of the way, Frank made his preparations for the ride to Gold Hill. While he was engaged with them, Ballard suddenly thrust his head into the tent.

“You won’t need to take that trip to Gold Hill, Chip,” announced Ballard.

“Why not?”

“Because the colonel is here, old man. He’s got a chip on each shoulder, too, if I’m any judge. He wants you, and no one else. Say, but he’s in a temper!”

“I’ve got a job on my hands,” muttered Merry, “and no mistake. Tell him I’ll be along in about two minutes, Pink.”

Frank nerved himself for what he knew was to be an ordeal, and presently he left the tent and made his way toward the place where Colonel Hawtrey, in the worst kind of a temper, was pacing back and forth under the cottonwoods.

CHAPTER XXX.
MERRIWELL MISJUDGED.

The lads of the camp, aware that something momentous was brewing, kept at a discreet distance from the colonel. They were plainly ill at ease, although it was equally plain that they were trying not to show it. Ballard, Clancy, Brad, and Handy formed a little group by themselves. They had inside information as to what was going on, and watched developments with considerably more anxiety than the rest of the campers.

Frank walked briskly up to Colonel Hawtrey and put out his hand with a smile.

“Good afternoon, colonel,” said he pleasantly. “Glad to see you.”

The colonel paid no attention to the extended hand. Leaning back against his saddle horse, he hooked his left arm around the pommel of the saddle and allowed the fingers of his right hand to fumble with a watch chain. His snapping eyes fixed themselves on the frank, handsome face of the lad in front of him.

“Merriwell,” said he cuttingly, “I’m disappointed in you. I thought you were a worthy son of your father, and I repeat that I’ve been badly disappointed.”

“I’m sorry for that, sir,” Frank answered, flushing a little as he lowered his hand. “You have been to Camp Hawtrey?”

“I’ve just come from there; and, when I leave here, I’m going back. What have you to say for yourself—anything? I didn’t think you were a rowdy and a trouble maker.”

“You’ve heard one side of the story, colonel,” said Frank, keeping himself well in hand, “and don’t you think, in the interest of fair play, you ought to hear both sides?”

“What else,” demanded the colonel, “do you suppose I came over here for?”

“From your actions it looks as though you had made up your mind that I am in the wrong.”

“I have—I am sure of it. Jode has told me everything, and three of Jode’s companions have vouched for his statements. The testimony is of the very best.”

“Then, if you are so sure you have got the right of it, what was the use of coming here to talk with me?”

Frank was nettled by the colonel’s injustice. He tried hard to restrain himself and to give the older man the respect which was rightfully his due, but a little temper flashed in his words.

“Young man,” was the icy response, “I try to be a true sportsman; and, while you and that red-headed chum of yours have made a sorry exhibition of yourselves, I have an idea as to where the cause lies. You are at fault, of course, but I do not think that you are quite as much at fault as some one else whom I could name.”

“You mean Darrel?” Frank asked quickly.

“Yes.”

“Then,” said Frank warmly, “I want to tell you that you are mistaken, and that Ellis Darrel hadn’t the first thing to do with what happened near Camp Hawtrey yesterday afternoon.”

“You are under the influence of that scapegrace nephew of mine,” stormed the colonel. “Do you think I’m not able to see it? He has set you against Jode. Do you admire a sneak, Merriwell? What, under heavens, has got into you that you can’t see through the plans of that—that young marplot?”

Here was the colonel, wrong in every way because of Lenning’s influence, accusing his other nephew of being a sneak and a marplot. Frank rallied promptly to the defense of his new chum.

“Darrel is not a sneak, sir,” said he. “I’m not under his influence, either, in forming my own estimate of Jode Lenning.”

The colonel tossed his hand deprecatingly.

“Do you deny,” he asked, “that you and Clancy went over to the other camp, yesterday, and stirred up a disgraceful fight with Jode and three of his friends?”

“No, sir, I don’t deny that Clancy and I had trouble with Jode.”

“Clancy knocked Jode down. Do you deny that?”

“No. If Clancy hadn’t knocked him down, I should probably have done it myself. He deserved it. Did Jode tell you that he struck Clancy first?”

“That is not true!” asserted the colonel. “You and your friend began the fight. All Jode and his friends did was to defend themselves. Any lad, with the right sort of spirit, will fight back when he’s set upon. Jode is not a coward. If he hadn’t fought, I should have felt like giving him a trouncing myself.”

It looked to Frank like a hopeless job, trying to set the colonel right. He was so dominated by the influence of Lenning, that he took for gospel all that Lenning told him—especially since Hummer, Lamson, and Parkman vouched for the truth of Lenning’s statements.

“Is Bleeker at Camp Hawtrey, colonel?” inquired Frank calmly. “Or Hotchkiss?”

“Those two fellows have made themselves extremely disagreeable to all the others in our camp,” replied the colonel, “and, very properly, Jode sent them packing.”

“Bleeker and Hotchkiss could tell you a few things about that row, colonel, which Jode and his friends didn’t think necessary to mention.”

“They’re out with Jode, and they’d try to injure him if they could. I don’t care to talk with either of them.”

“Then, colonel, I’m going to tell you what started the racket. If you think Jode acted like a true sportsman, I’ll have nothing more to say. I want you to remember, though, that I was brought up to hate a lie, and that what you hear from me is the truth.”

“Go on,” said the colonel.

“Clancy and I set out for your camp to arrange for a series of competitions,” went on Frank. “We wanted to do everything possible to cause a better feeling between the two clubs, and stirring up trouble was the last thing in our minds. Before we got to the camp, though, we saw Jode and three of his friends blazing away at a coyote dog with a revolver.”

“That coyote dog was a camp robber,” put in the colonel. “It was perfectly right for the boys to shoot him.”

“Why, yes, if it was plain shooting they were going to do; but what right had they to torture the brute?”

“There was nothing in the way of torture whatever,” declared the colonel.

“Is tying a dynamite cartridge to a dog’s tail and lighting the fuse torture?” demanded Frank.

“Nothing of that sort was done.”

Frank gasped. How was he to make any headway against all this misinformation which the colonel had received from Jode? And it was misinformation which the colonel accepted in every detail.

“Colonel,” continued Frank earnestly, “I was there and I know what took place. Clancy and I didn’t interfere, until Jode had ordered one of the boys to light the fuse and another one to cut the dog loose. It was a brutal business. Clancy and I stopped it; and, if we had it to do over, we would stop it again.”

“I shall not dispute with you, Merriwell,” returned the colonel. “I consider that the source of my information is perfectly reliable.”

“I have something else to tell you,” Frank said respectfully, but none the less firmly, “and if you don’t believe me now you will some time. I cut the cartridge away from the dog and threw it off among the rocks. While Clancy and I were talking with Bleeker and Hotchkiss, Jode lighted the fuse and threw the cartridge toward us.”

“Merriwell!” The colonel’s eyes dilated, and angry protest was in his voice.

“Jode,” Frank quietly continued, “never shouted one word of warning when he let that infernal machine fly at us. Bleeker saw it, and he and Hotchkiss began to run. Clancy and I took to our heels and just managed to get out of the way before the cartridge exploded.”

“You are trying to make Jode out a murderous scoundrel,” cried Hawtrey, “and I shall not stay here and listen to such talk.”

“You’d better listen; not only that, but you’d better take Jode in hand and do something with him. He’s crazy. If he tries any more tricks of that sort, I’ll put the matter in the hands of Hawkins, the deputy sheriff.”

Angrily the colonel swung to his saddle. The subject of the dynamite cartridge he did not pursue any further. Evidently Jode had given his version of the affair, and the colonel had more faith in Jode than in Merriwell.

“What I regret most about all this,” said the colonel, speaking from the saddle and in a voice which he tried to make calm and judicial, “is that it breaks off at once all friendly rivalry between the two athletic clubs. The matter is worse, infinitely worse, than it was before you came to Ophir and took a prominent part in the affairs of the Ophir organization. There will be no football game between Gold Hill and Ophir this year.”

Hawtrey snapped out the last words, set his square jaw doggedly, and touched his horse with the spurs. Looking neither to left nor right, he galloped down into the cañon and out of sight along the narrow trail.

Clancy, Ballard, Brad, and Handy hurried over to the place where Merriwell was standing.

“What did he say?” all four of the youngsters asked, in one breath.

“He said a good many things,” Merry answered, “but about the bitterest dose I had to swallow was what he said about the football game with Gold Hill. It’s all off, fellows.”

“All off?” echoed Handy, as though he scarcely believed his ears. “What has a little row with Lenning got to do with that?”

“I guess the colonel thinks we’re a lot of plug-uglies and might turn the game into a Donnybrook fair. Jode has pumped him full, and Lamson, Parkman, and Hummer have backed Jode up in everything. The colonel, of course, is taking their word for it all. He didn’t tell me flatly that I lied, although he might as well have done so. Lenning has made him think, Clan, that you and I went over to Camp Hawtrey just to pick a row.”

“Of course,” said Clancy sardonically, “what else could you expect? How did Jode get around the dynamite cartridge?”

“By saying there wasn’t any such thing.”

“All the colonel has got to do, Chip, is to look at the hole in the ground where it went off.”

“Funny thing about it is,” Merry went on, “the colonel blames Darrel, he thinks Curly goaded us on to pick a row with Lenning.”

That brought a laugh, all the lads wondering how such a foolish notion could be entertained by Hawtrey for a single moment. Lenning, they agreed, must have contrived to give the colonel that impression.

“I’m going down the gulch to talk with Darrel,” said Frank. “If I were you, Handy, I wouldn’t say anything to the boys about the colonel’s calling the football game off. There’s a chance that Mr. Bradlaugh may be able to smooth over the differences, so that the game will be played according to schedule. Want to ride with me, Pink, you and Clan?”

Ballard and Clancy were eager to go with Merriwell and have a talk with Darrel. In a few minutes all three of the chums were mounted and galloping toward Dolliver’s.

CHAPTER XXXI.
DARREL’S RESOLVE.

On the afternoon which witnessed Merriwell’s and Clancy’s disastrous experiences near Camp Hawtrey, Ellis Darrel had been laid up nearly a week with his broken arm. He had been taken to Dolliver’s because the Ophir lads knew that the ranch offered more comforts than could possibly be had in the camp at Tinaja Wells. Dolliver, too, had telephone connection with Ophir, and but little time had been lost in getting a doctor.

Darrel was young and, at the time of his injury, in perfect physical health. A year of roughing it in the West, all the way from British Columbia to Mexico, had put a keen edge on his powers of endurance. For him, therefore, a broken arm did not cause the mischief which would have been the case in one less hardened and robust.

In three or four days he was out of bed, and sitting around Dolliver’s with his arm in a sling. Enforced idleness worried and fretted him. On the very day Frank and Owen had saved the coyote dog, Darrel had begun contemplating a return to Tinaja Wells.

The one thing in all the world which Darrel desired with a full heart was to prove his innocence in the forgery matter. He felt that he could not rest easy a moment until he had probed that forgery to the bottom and had unmasked the person who had written the name of Alvah Hawtrey on the five-hundred-dollar check.

The colonel, after considering the circumstantial evidence, had reached the conclusion that Darrel was the forger. He had therefore turned the boy from his door and would have nothing more to do with him. To wipe that blot from his name was Darrel’s one purpose in life. Merriwell had promised his help, but Darrel believed that it was his duty to do most of the work for himself.

After supper, in the evening of the day so many important events had happened at Camp Hawtrey, Darrel was sitting with the rancher in front of the house.

The cloudless Arizona sky was never more beautiful. When the sun sets in the Southwest, it drops out of sight suddenly, and night falls as swiftly as a drop curtain. One moment it is day; then, almost the next moment, the clear-cut stars are glittering overhead.

The entrance to Mohave Cañon was but a little distance away and facing the front of Dolliver’s house. The opening yawned like a huge black cavity on the sky line, stretching into the far distance amid ominous shadows.

With dreamy eyes young Darrel stared across the trail and into the gloomy gulch. Somehow the last year of his life resembled that cañon as he saw it then. That forgery had flung him into a black and forbidding path, through which he had wandered—and was still wandering—aimlessly. Would he never be able to fight his way out of the gloom and the dishonor and regain his rightful place in his uncle’s esteem, and in the eyes of honest men?

While Dolliver, a man of few words, like all who live much by themselves, sat silently and smoked his short black pipe, and while Darrel still gazed reflectively into the black mouth of the cañon, two figures slowly disentangled themselves from the shadows and bore down on the ranch.

“Some ’un from up the gulch,” Dolliver roused to remark, “mebbyso from Tinaja Wells.”

But they were not from the Wells. As the riders came close and halted, Darrel discovered that they were two whom he knew—Bleeker and Hotchkiss.

“Great jumpin’ sandhills!” exclaimed the voice of Hotchkiss. “That you, Darrel?”

“Sure,” laughed Darrel. “Why not?”

“We reckoned you would still be in bed, El,” spoke up Bleeker. “Must be pulling along in fine shape, eh?”

“How long do you think a busted arm ought to keep a fellow down, anyhow?”

“Depends a heap on the fellow, El. Between you, and me, and the gatepost, I don’t believe anything’ll keep you down very long.”

“Can’t you get off and stop a while?” Darrel asked.

“No. We’re bound for Gold Hill. Been kicked out of Camp Hawtrey.”

“Kicked out? Great Scott! What do you mean by that, Bleek?”

“Down at the bottom of it, we’re friends of yours, and Jode don’t want us around. Something happened up at the camp, this afternoon, that brought matters to a show-down.”

“What was that?”

Bleeker crooked one knee around the saddle horn and rested easily while he told about the trouble over the coyote dog.

“That’s what happened,” said he, when the recital was finished, “and I’ll bet a pound of prunes against a toothpick that Jode’s laying to unload a little of the trouble onto you.”

“How could he do that?” queried Darrel.

“Why, by making his uncle believe that your unholy influence sent Merriwell and Clancy to our camp to kick up a row. Parkham has already been sent to the Hill after the colonel. He’ll be out here, bright and early, to-morrow morning; then Jode will sing his little song and make the colonel believe just what he wants him to. The friendly relations of the two clubs have had a knock-out blow. There’ll be nothing doing, in an athletic way, for some time to come. Pretty tough on Merriwell. But he’ll come out all right, for that’s a way he has. Get well as quick as you can, pard, and then come on to Gold Hill. There are a lot of us there that are ready to fight for you. Buenas noches!”

Bleeker straightened around in his saddle and rattled his spurs. Presently he and Hotchkiss were clattering away along the main trail in the direction of home.

These revelations came to Darrel like a blow. He felt, and perhaps he was right, that Merriwell’s friendship for him had made an enemy of Jode.

“What do you think of that, Dolliver?” asked Darrel, appealing to the rancher.

“Why,” was the answer, “I opine that half brother o’ yourn is about as onnery as they make ’em.”

“I’m the one who is at the bottom of Merriwell’s trouble with Jode.”

“You can’t help it if ye are. Better hit the hay, son. I reckon you’ve been up a heap too long as it is.”

Darrel went to bed that night pondering the subject of Merriwell’s failure to inspire a friendly spirit in the dealings between the two athletic clubs.

“He could have succeeded,” was Darrel’s bitter conclusion, “if it hadn’t been for his friendship for me. What will Jode be trying next, I wonder? Where is that fiendish temper of his going to land him, if something isn’t done to curb it?”

Long into the night Darrel canvassed the unpleasant problem in his mind. As a consequence, he went to sleep about midnight and woke up with the sun at least two hours’ high.

“Has my uncle passed on his way to Camp Hawtrey, Dolliver?” were his first words when he found the rancher.

“All of an hour ago,” was the reply.

“I wanted to talk with him,” muttered Darrel.

“A heap o’ palverin’ you’d ‘a’ done with him,” grunted Dolliver. “The kunnel ain’t eager for no conversation with you, son.”

Darrel realized that, but it did not alter his determination to see if he could not talk with his uncle and try to make things easier for Merriwell.

The morning passed slowly, Darrel deciding one moment that duty called him to Tinaja Wells and Merriwell, and again that his proper course was to ride to Camp Hawtrey and interview the colonel.

Noon came, and Darrel ate little of the food Dolliver had set out on the kitchen table.

“If ye don’t eat,” grumbled Dolliver, “ye can’t expect to git around very soon.”

Darrel’s mind was on something else besides his dinner.

“I wish you’d saddle up a horse for me, Dolliver,” he said. “I’m going to take a ride.”

“More’n likely ye’ll fall off before ye’ve gone fur. Where ye goin’ to ride?”

“Camp Hawtrey.”

“Take a fool’s advice, son, and don’t.”

“I’m going to talk with the colonel. If you won’t put the gear on a horse for me, I reckon I can manage it myself.”

“Oh, I’ll do it, if ye’re bound ter ride. But wait a couple o’ hours. It’s plumb in the heat o’ the day, and ridin’ ’ll come a heap harder for you now than it will later.”

An hour or two would make little difference, and Darrel laid down on his bed for a short rest before taking the ride. He fell asleep almost immediately, and was awakened by a familiar voice trying to get some one over the telephone. It was his uncle, there in the room with him, asking for Bradlaugh’s office. Bradlaugh was not in, evidently.

“Tell him,” said Colonel Hawtrey, “that I’ll talk with him from here late this afternoon. This is mighty important—don’t neglect to tell him that.”

Colonel Hawtrey had just ridden down the cañon after his talk with Merriwell. He was still red and wrathful. As he whirled from the telephone, he was confronted by Darrel.

The boy’s face was as white as the bandage that swathed his arm, but he stood resolutely between his uncle and the open outside door.

“Colonel,” he began, “I want you to listen to me. I’m not talking for myself, but for Merriwell. Don’t think that I——”

“Not a word,” snapped the colonel. “You haven’t anything to say that I care to hear.”

He strode around Darrel. The boy stepped forward to lay a detaining hand on his arm. Roughly the colonel shook him off, hurried from the house, vaulted into the saddle of his waiting horse, and spurred for the cañon. He did not so much as look back.

“Nice way for an uncle to treat his nephew!” exclaimed Dolliver, from a place outside the house near the door. “But I told ye how it ’u’d be,” he added.

“He can’t shake me like that!” cried Darrel. “I’m going to do what I can to straighten out this trouble of Merriwell’s. Get the horse for me, Dolliver, and I’ll hike right after him.”

“Ye’ve got plenty o’ nerve, son, but blame’ poor jedgment,” growled the rancher.

“Why didn’t you call me,” demanded Darrel, “when you saw him coming?”

“Didn’t see him comin’. Didn’t have a notion anybody had dropped in till I saw the strange hoss at the hitchin’ pole.”

“Will you get the horse for me, Mr. Dolliver?”

The “mister” was pretty formal. The fact that Darrel used it proved that he was on edge and would not take “no” for an answer.

Dolliver got the horse and helped Darrel into the saddle. He wished him luck, too, although in the same breath he declared that the boy was running a big risk and would have his trouble for nothing.

Darrel’s pale face was set resolutely as he urged the horse into a gallop and disappeared through the mouth of the cañon.

CHAPTER XXXII.
THE LEDGE AT THE GULCH.

In a great many ways Merriwell had shown his friendship for Ellis Darrel. From the very first, when Darrel had reached the camp at Tinaja Wells as the “boy from Nowhere,” Merriwell had believed in him and had befriended him.

As he rode toward Camp Hawtrey, Darrel recalled how cleverly Merriwell had defended him against the charge of robbing the colonel’s safe. So successful was the defense that even the stern old colonel was forced to admit that Darrel was innocent.

And again, at the time the rope had given way and Darrel had fallen on the cliff, it was Merriwell who had risked his neck to climb to the ledge where Darrel lay unconscious, had fastened a rope about him, and had lowered him to safety. It was Merriwell, too, who had played “a game within a game” on the football field and had taken from Lenning certain evidence of Lenning’s scoundrelly work.

As a slight repayment for all this loyalty and friendship, Darrel felt that he should do what he could to straighten out the misunderstanding between the colonel and Merriwell.

Even if he could get the colonel’s attention, Darrel was doubtful of his ability to sway the colonel toward Merriwell’s side. It was a time, however, when Darrel was resolved to give himself the benefit of every doubt, in the hope of being of some service to his friend.

If Jode was successful in making the colonel believe that Darrel’s influence had caused the trouble between him and Merriwell, then Darrel would do his utmost to set his uncle right on that point. This, very likely, would put an altogether different complexion on the clash about the coyote dog.

If convinced that Darrel had nothing to do with the actions of Merriwell and Clancy, the colonel might be in a receptive mood so far as evidence against Jode was concerned. This, at least, was what Darrel hoped.

A mile or so from the mouth of the cañon the right-hand wall was broken into by the mouth of a gulch. This gulch was the one in which the Gold Hill Boys had pitched their camp.

Years before, a mining company had thrown a dam across the mouth of the gulch. This dam had backed up the water for several miles.

Darrel turned his horse into the gulch and followed a bridle path that led onward close to the water’s edge. Rapidly, as he advanced, the gulch widened out. The slopes on either side of the stream became less steep, pine trees began to show themselves, and flaming poppies, in irregular beds, made the slopes look like terraced gardens.

“First time I ever knew there was a place like this holed away among these hills,” muttered the boy, staring around him with all the delight aroused by a new and pleasant discovery. “It’s a mighty fine place, and no mistake. Where’s that camp, I wonder?”

Pulling the horse to a halt, he lifted himself in the stirrups and peered ahead. He could not see the gleam of the tents, but he did see something else which caused him to utter an exclamation of surprise and disappointment.

In the distance two figures were moving in his direction, on foot. One of them was the colonel, as he could see plainly, and the other was Jode.

“Beastly luck!” grumbled Darrel. “How can I talk with the colonel if Jode’s around? I’ll just leave the horse in the brush and watch them, for a spell. Maybe Jode will leave the colonel, and I’ll get my chance.”

Quickly turning the horse from the trail, Darrel spurred up the slope of the gulch wall for a short distance and rode into a chaparral of mesquite. Here he dismounted, hitched the horse to a scraggly paloverde, and crept back to the edge of the bushes to watch.

He had had no exercise to amount to anything for nearly a week, and he was astonished to find how his exertions tired him. He half reclined as he stared out of the thicket, resting as he watched the trail for the colonel and Jode to appear.

It was plain that the two could not be going far from the camp. Had they been traveling any considerable distance, they would have brought their mounts.

Not many minutes passed before the two hove in sight. Only a little way from the place where Darrel had turned from the trail, the colonel and Jode altered their course and began climbing the slope. The colonel was carrying a small package wrapped in brown paper.

It seemed evident to Darrel that the two from the camp would pass within a few yards of the chaparral. What if they discovered the horse? The boy compressed his lips sternly. If that happened, then he would show himself at once and talk to the colonel, in spite of Jode. But he hoped the horse would not be seen, and that he could watch his chances and have the colonel all to himself for a few minutes.

The climb must have tired the colonel, for he halted and sat down on a convenient bowlder for a brief rest. Jode dropped to the ground at his side. They were not more than twenty feet from Darrel.

“It won’t take me ten minutes to load the hole and set off the charge, Jode,” the colonel was saying, “and then we’ll see what sort of rock we uncover. There’s a vein there—I’m too old a hand at the business to be fooled—but whether it amounts to much or not remains to be seen.”

“You’re mighty clever at this sort of business, Uncle Al,” returned Jode admiringly. “I wish I knew as much about dips, angles, and formations as you do.”

“It won’t be necessary for you to work along that line, my boy,” said the colonel affectionately. “You’re to educate yourself for commercial work, and learn to take care of what I shall one day leave you.”

“I hope,” observed Jode, “that it will be a long time before I shall be called on to do that. There’s no chance, you think, of patching up our differences with the Ophir fellows?”

“No chance—at least, not so long as Merriwell has anything to do with the Ophir team. I’ve cancelled the Thanksgiving Day game.”

“That’s pretty tough! I think, uncle, we could play Ophir, even with Merriwell in their crowd, and show them that we can be square and let bygones be bygones.”

“What you say, Jode, does you a lot of credit. Our boys are gentlemen, however, and not hoodlums. I could not sanction your playing with a team where such a spirit as Merriwell and Clancy showed yesterday is liable to crop out at any moment.”

“Whatever you say goes, Uncle Al. But I wish the thing could be patched up in some way.”

“Well, I don’t see how it can. Mr. Bradlaugh has placed Merriwell in charge of the Ophir eleven, and a team is bound to reflect the spirit of the coach. There’ll be no more exhibitions of petty partisanship between the two clubs if I can help it.” The colonel got up and stooped to lay hold of the bundle he had been carrying. “What’s the matter?” he asked, starting quickly erect.

Jode had given a jump and uttered a startled exclamation.

“I—I thought I saw that coyote dog among the rocks, up toward the ledge,” he answered, in a smothered voice.

“What if you did?”

“Why, I heard—some one in the camp told me—that a coyote dog always lays for the fellow who tries to hurt him or——”

“Stuff and nonsense!” scoffed the colonel. “You ought to be above such superstitious notions, Jode. Never mind if you did catch a glimpse of the dog. Come on and we’ll go up to the ledge and do our work there.”

“I wish I’d brought my revolver,” said Jode, as he again began climbing at his uncle’s side.

“You’ll not need your revolver.”

Contrary to Darrel’s fears, the two passed well to the side of the chaparral. The colonel’s mind was busy with the work that lay ahead of him, and Jode was still plainly experiencing a few qualms on the score of the coyote dog. As he climbed, Jode’s shifty eyes were fixed on the rocks where he believed he had caught sight of the skulking animal.

What Darrel had overheard pass between his half brother and the colonel gave him a queer feeling of regret for the part he was playing. It seemed almost as though he was a spy and an eavesdropper. The colonel’s affection for Jode was deep and sincere, there could not be the slightest doubt; but Jode’s manner, his very talk, to Darrel’s mind, lacked all that the colonel’s so frankly expressed.

“What business is it of mine?” thought Darrel bitterly. “So long as I am under a cloud I have no right to criticize Jode. I wish he’d clear out and give me a chance at the colonel.”

Some twenty or thirty feet above the chaparral, and forty or fifty feet to the left of it, was a ledge of rock standing straight out from the sloping gulch wall. A mass of loose bowlders overhung the ledge.

This was the spot toward which the colonel and Jode were climbing. Observing this, Darrel quietly forced his way upward along one side of the patch of mesquite. At the upper edge of the chaparral he found a rift in the slope. It was like a trench, deep enough to hide a man, and ran straight toward the crest of the gulch wall.

Still watching and hoping for an opportunity to speak a few words in private with the colonel, Darrel crawled into the trench and made his way to a point that was on a level with the top of the ledge. When he finally halted and peered over the edge of the rift, he found that some thirty feet of rough ground separated him from the colonel and Jode.

The colonel was on his knees, carefully opening the parcel he had brought with him. A small coil of fuse and a couple of sticks of dynamite were presently taken from the package.

“There were three sticks here when I wrapped up the package in Gold Hill,” said the colonel, lifting his eyes to Jode’s. “What’s become of the rest of the dynamite?”

“Are you sure?” Jode answered. “Some one must have taken out one of the sticks.”

“Of course I may be mistaken,” muttered the colonel.

Cutting off a length of fuse, he trimmed it with a pocket knife; then, taking a cap from his pocket, he pushed it over the trimmed end. Next, he picked up one of the sticks of giant powder, slit it lengthwise on four sides, and dropped it into a hole that had been drilled in the shelf. The other stick was pushed down on the first, and both were gently tamped down on the cap, which was in the bottom of the hole.

“Now, clear out, Jode,” said the colonel. “It’s only a two-minute length of fuse, and I shall have to scramble for safety when I touch it off.”

Jode jumped from the ledge and hurried to get away among a lot of bowlders at a safe distance. The colonel lighted a match, touched it to the fuse, and Darrel flattened himself out in the bottom of the rift.

The next moment he heard a crash, but it was not the crash of an explosion. A startled cry came from the colonel, and Darrel, thrilled with a weird premonition of disaster, rose to his knees and again looked out over the top of the rift. What he saw, there on the ledge of the gulch wall, caused him to gasp and close his eyes to shut out the horror of it.

CHAPTER XXXIII.
FOLLOWING DARREL.

Frank and his chums, in riding from Tinaja Wells to Dolliver’s, passed the mouth of the gulch only a few moments after Darrel had ridden into it. Had Frank encountered Darrel, there is no doubt but that he would have persuaded him against going on to Camp Hawtrey. In that event, some very pretty maneuvers of Fate, calculated to benefit Darrel, would have been effectually blocked.

But Merry and his two friends missed their new chum by a scant margin, and galloped on to Dolliver’s. Dolliver, smoking his short black pipe, was sitting in front of his little establishment, mentally considering uncles and nephews, and the foolishness of a kid with a broken arm trying to take a horseback ride before he was well able to be out of bed.

At sight of Merriwell, Ballard, and Clancy, Dolliver’s reflections went off at a fresh angle. He now began to concern himself with the contrariness of human affairs in general.

“Hello, Dolliver!” Frank called, pulling in his black mount, Borak. “How’s Curly?”

“Plumb locoed,” grunted the rancher.

“You don’t mean to say he’s out of his head?” gasped Frank.

“If he ain’t, then, by the jumpin’ hocus-pocus, I never see a feller that was.”

“We’ll have to see about this!”

Frank slid from the saddle and started hurriedly into the house.

“No use lookin’ fer him in the wikiup, Merriwell,” said Dolliver, “kase he ain’t there.”

“Not in the house?” demanded Frank, recoiling in amazement. “Where is he, then?”

“Gone to Camp Hawtrey to make the old kunnel talk with him.”

“What do you know about that!” exclaimed Ballard.

“Thunder!” cried the astounded Clancy.

“How long since he left here?” asked Frank.

“Less’n half an hour.”

“Did he ride?”

“Sartain he did. No more business on a hoss than a two-year-old kid, nuther. He’s wuss to manage than a case o’ the measles, anyways. Howsumever, he would go. He reckoned he could talk with the kunnel and smooth things out fer you.”

“How did he know matters had to be smoothed out for me?”

“Bleeker and Hotchkiss dropped in here on their way to the Hill, and they cut loose about your troubles. That got Darrel all het up. Right arter dinner, to-day, the kunnel himself blowed in here and tried to git Mr. Bradlaugh on the telephone. But Bradlaugh was away on business, I reckon. I wasn’t in the shack at the time, but I heerd the kunnel sayin’ the business was important and that he’d call up later this afternoon. Darrel was in the house, though, and tried to powwow with the kunnel, but the kunnel wouldn’t have it. Runnin’ out, the kunnel climbed his hoss and moseyed up the cañon. Nothin’ ’u’d do but Darrel had to mosey arter him.”

“Here’s news, fellows, and no mistake!” breathed Merriwell.

“Curly wasn’t able to take such a ride,” growled Ballard, “and that’s a cinch.”

“What does he think he can do, anyhow?” asked Clancy. “He’s not on the colonel’s visiting list.”

“Have you any idea what he intended to do, Dolliver?” Merry went on.

“Palaver with that grouchy old uncle o’ his,” replied the rancher. “Jode’s tryin’ to make the kunnel believe Darrel set you up to act like you done. I allow that Darrel wants to disabuse his mind, thinkin’ that if he’s out o’ it you’ll have less trouble comin’ to an understandin’ with Hawtrey.”

“Foolish!” muttered Merriwell. “He couldn’t make the colonel believe any such thing, and it wouldn’t help if he could. I wish we’d get here in time to head Darrel off. What’ll happen to him when he gets to Camp Hawtrey?”

“I don’t opine he’ll ever git there,” and Dolliver shook his head dubiously. “He wa’n’t able to sit a hoss, not noways.”

Frank hurried to Borak and leaped into the saddle.

“Only one thing to do, fellows,” he announced, “and that’s for us to ride for Camp Hawtrey.”

“Bully!” exulted the red-headed chap. “That gang will sure welcome us with open arms.”

“They will that,” agreed Dolliver. “Say, if you go to the kunnel’s camp, jest now, ye’ll have the time o’ your lives.”

“All right,” answered Frank, “I don’t care how hot a time they give us providing we can do something to help Darrel. Come on, fellows!”

He pointed Borak for the mouth of the cañon, and set off at speed. Clancy and Ballard made after him.

The cañon trail was narrow and the riders were obliged to proceed in single file. When they turned into the gulch, however, they were able to ride stirrup to stirrup.

“I don’t like the prospect a little bit,” said Frank. “Now that Bleeker and Hotch have left the Gold Hill camp, there isn’t a fellow there that’s at all friendly toward Darrel.”

“Hawtrey’s there,” suggested Ballard. “Don’t forget that, Chip. Hawtrey won’t have anything to do with Curly, but you can bet he won’t let Jode rough things up with him.”

“That’s right, Pink. Darrel must be a little hazy in his mind to start for the Gold Hill camp at such a time as this.”

“He’s trying to do you a good turn, Chip,” suggested Clancy.

“Sure he is—I give him credit for that—but the crazy old lobster can’t do me any good, or himself, either. He ought to stay in the house for another week yet.”

“Bosh!” returned Clancy. “Curly is all rawhide and India rubber. A broken wing hadn’t ought to bother him much more than a mild case of the mumps. You’ll notice we haven’t run across him lying along the road.”

“He’ll stick it out, you can bank on that,” said Ballard. “He’s probably in Camp Hawtrey this minute. That bunch would be pretty yellow if they didn’t treat him right.”

Clancy had a sudden thought.

“Say, Chip,” said he, “we’re taking this hike to help Curly, but I don’t think we’ll do him much good if we plunge full tilt into the camp. They’re a suspicious lot, and they might think it a frame-up of Curly’s. Suppose we reconnoiter a little before we show ourselves?”

“How’ll we reconnoiter, Clan?” asked Merry.

“The top of the gulch wall, about where we were yesterday, is a good place for that.”

“I guess you’ve got the right end of the stick, Clan. If we’re to climb the bank we’d better begin right here. Strikes me this is as good a place as we’ll find, and it’s far enough this side of the camp so we can make the climb without being seen.”

The slope was not steep, but it was easier for the boys to walk up the incline and lead their horses. In perhaps ten minutes they had reached the crest, and were able to take a comprehensive survey of the gulch below.

“Jove!” exclaimed Merry. “There are two fellows on a bowlder down there. See them? They are just below that chaparral of mesquite. One of them looks like the colonel to me. Wonder if the other is Darrel?”

“Not on your life!” murmured Clancy. “The other is Jode.”

“Sure enough!” agreed Ballard. “We’d better lead our horses back from the rim, and drop down on the rocks. If the colonel and Jode happened to look up here, they’d see us.”

Ballard’s suggestion was carried out at once; then, on their knees, the lads continued to peer downward. Presently the colonel and Jode got up and began climbing. They passed well to the left of the chaparral, angled across the face of the slope, and stepped upon a ledge that jutted out from the gulch side.

“I’m next to what’s going on down there,” said Merry. “Remember what Bleek told us, Clan, when I asked him where Jode got that dynamite for the cartridge?”

“He said something about Hawtrey stumbling on a ‘prospect,’” was the answer, “and that Jode was to fill a hole, and the colonel was to load it and set it off.”

“That’s what the colonel is about to do. Let’s move down the gulch a little way and find a place directly over the ledge.”

A hundred yards carried the boys to a spot above the ledge. Masses of splintered granite and loose bowlders covered the slope between the ledge and the crest of the gulch wall. The boys were able to look over the intervening rocks, however, and get a clear view of the ledge level.

Colonel Hawtrey, on his knees, was at work capping a fuse and ramming dynamite into the hole where the blast was to be set off.

“You’re right about it, Chip,” said Clancy. “The colonel’s going to have a little blow-up, down there, and probably he’ll make a ‘strike.’ How many poor prospectors, do you suppose, have passed that ‘prospect’ by? That’s the way things work out, in this world. Here’s the colonel, with more mines and money than he knows what to do with, just falling right over a good thing. Now——”

“Look!” broke in Ballard, grabbing Frank’s arm and pointing downward and to the left of the ledge. “See that long break in the gulch wall, running from the top right down to that bunch of chaparral? Who’s that looking out of it?”

“Darrel!” murmured Merriwell, astounded.

“Curly, as sure as you’re a foot high!” fluttered Clancy. “Now, what the deuce do you suppose he’s up to?”

It was a surprising situation, and no mistake. Darrel, screened in the rift, was cautiously looking out and keeping track of the movements of the colonel and Jode.

“Curly wants to talk with the colonel,” said Frank, after a moment’s thought, “and he’s waiting for Jode to get out of the way.”

“I could slip down that chute,” suggested Ballard, “and slide right into Darrel. We could bring him up here, with us, and——”

“Wait till after the blast,” cut in Merry. “The colonel’s just touching it off.”

“See Jode scramble for the tall rocks!” chuckled Clancy. “He’s not going to take any chances on being knocked over by flying stones.”

“Neither is Curly,” added Ballard. “He has ducked down into the bottom of that hole of his.”

“Two sticks of dynamite will lift a pretty big chunk out of that ledge,” said Merriwell, “and before it lets go we’d better push back a little. The charge——”

The words died on Merry’s lips. A bowlder, just above the ledge, had slipped from its moorings and was rolling over and over, grinding and crashing toward the ledge. The colonel had just risen from lighting the fuse. He saw the bowlder, and tried frantically to get out of the way of it. In his haste, he slipped and fell prone upon the ledge. The next moment the bowlder was upon him!

CHAPTER XXXIV.
A TANGLE OF EVENTS.

Right from that moment a series of thrilling happenings began below. The slope of the gulch wall was a stage, and from the crest Frank and his chums watched events breathlessly. Horror gripped them and held them spellbound. Instinctively they rose from their crouching positions and stared wide-eyed at the tragic scene below them.

The colonel, as it is already known, had cut off only a two-minute length of fuse. This meant that, in one hundred and twenty seconds from the time he applied the match to the fuse, the gulch wall adjacent to the ledge would be piled with ruin. So, in the short space of two minutes, one weird event heaped itself upon another with amazing rapidity.

Frank and his chums saw it all. Not one detail of the awful drama escaped them. But, as the eye can comprehend infinitely quicker than the tongue can frame a scene in so many words, it will be well to describe each occurrence. At the same time, let it be remembered that most of them happened simultaneously, and that the others fairly jostled each other, so closely did they follow.

It was the falling bowlder that, primarily, caused the tragic situation. This had become loosened, perhaps by the pounding Jode had done in “putting down” that hole for the blast. Poised and ready to tumble, Fate held the bowlder back until the critical moment when the colonel had lighted his two-minute fuse and was on the point of rushing from the ledge.

A cry of horror escaped the lads on the crest when they saw the huge stone apparently about to crush out the life of the fallen man on the ledge. But fortune, in a small way, favored Colonel Hawtrey.

The bowlder crashed to a full stop on the ledge, trapping one of the colonel’s feet. He was held securely, it seemed, for, in spite of his wild struggles, he could not release himself.

He was lying on the stones with his head toward the sputtering fuse, and yet the fuse itself was well beyond the reach of his arms. A terrible fate appeared to be in store for him unless Jode came to his rescue.

The colonel, of course, knew nothing about Darrel being close at hand, so his frantic cries were all directed at Jode.

“Jode!” he shouted. “I’m trapped by a bowlder! Hurry, and tear away the fuse! Jode! Do you hear me?”

At just this moment, when Jode’s presence was so urgently demanded by the colonel, another factor had come bounding into the weird progress of events. The coyote dog had been skulking among the rocks above the ledge. The roar of the falling bowlder had frightened the animal, and he had uttered a wild yelp and started for the top of the gulch wall. Before he reached the crest, he saw Frank and his chums, and whirled and dashed down the slope. His course carried him among the bowlders where Jode had sought refuge from the débris of the blast.

And now, under the colonel’s own eyes, Jode Lenning gave abundant proof of the “yellow streak” in his character. He saw the tawny form of the outcast dog leaping toward him, eyes gleaming, mouth open, and red tongue protruding. Fear seized Jode, for no doubt he believed in the superstition that was held by many of the settlers in those parts, and felt in his soul that the dog was rushing upon him in a vengeful mood.

The frantic shouts of the colonel passed over Jode’s head unheeded. The colonel might be in danger, but Jode was obsessed with the idea that his own danger was fully as great. So, why should he think of his uncle when his own life swung in the balance?

This must have been the trend of Lenning’s reasoning. With a cry of fear, he rushed out from among the rocks and raced for the trail at the foot of the gulch wall.

As a matter of fact, the coyote dog had no designs whatever upon Jode. All the animal was trying to do was to efface himself from the scene as quickly as possible. Very likely, he was more anxious to get away from Jode than Jode was to get away from him.

Howling for help, stumbling, and falling, and rolling, Jode put forth every effort to reach the bottom of the slope. Long before he had accomplished his purpose, the coyote dog had passed him on an angling course and had flickered away down the gulch. Jode, in his excitement, failed to notice this. He had the impression that the enraged brute was still on his trail, and did not slacken his pace.

Colonel Hawtrey, lying helpless on the ledge with the flame of the fuse dancing nearer and nearer to the charge of dynamite, was able to watch his nephew flying down the slope. In that tense moment the boy’s whole nature must have revealed itself to the colonel in a single flash.

Merriwell had not remained long inactive on the crest of the sloping bank. As soon as it became evident that nothing could be expected from Jode, he flung himself among the masses of bowlders and splintered rocks and began a descent toward the ledge.

But the going was difficult, and Merriwell realized, with a sinking heart, that it would be impossible for him to reach the ledge before the charge of dynamite had exploded. Then, at the very moment the realization came home to him, he saw Darrel pawing and scrambling over the rocks toward his uncle.

A hopeful thought plunged through Merriwell’s brain. A light dawned upon him suddenly. Here was the very chance for which Ellis Darrel had been waiting. Fate had taken his affairs in hand, and, in a short two minutes of time, was revealing to the colonel the varying dispositions of his two nephews.

The one who, up to that moment, had had all Hawtrey’s affection and confidence, was bounding and plunging down the slope and abandoning him to his fate. The other, the lad that had been cast adrift and had been looked upon as a ne’er-do-well and a forger, was struggling valiantly to reach his uncle’s side and extinguish the blazing fuse.

There was danger in Darrel’s attempt. He was handicapped in his work because of his useless arm, and he had not a second to spare if he gained the ledge in time. If he failed to reach the ledge before the fuse exploded the cap and the cap set off the dynamite, then not only his uncle but he himself would be killed by the blast.

Darrel must have understood this, yet it made not the slightest difference to him. Furiously he was fighting his way over the rough ground toward the ledge. Again and again he stumbled and fell. His broken arm surely received many an agonizing wrench, but physical pain was as powerless to hold him back as was the prospect of death from his failure to reach the sputtering fuse in time.

Colonel Hawtrey at last became aware that some one else was coming to his rescue. He turned and, with glimmering eyes, watched the fierce efforts of Darrel. The boy’s face was white and haggard, but the same resolution smoldered in his eyes that had fixed itself there when he had left Dolliver’s.

The colonel was calm, now. The old military spirit revived in him, and he turned calculating eyes upon the fuse and measured at a glance the space that separated Darrel from the ledge.

“Stop where you are, El!” the colonel called, commandingly. “You can’t get here in time. If you keep on, two lives instead of one will be lost. Turn back, I tell you!”

Darrel did not answer. Neither did he turn back. He held to his course. There was a smear of red on the bandage that swathed the arm, but he continued to fight his way onward.

As a mere exhibition of pluck, the boy’s work was splendid. But what he was doing reached deeper, and something like admiration filled the colonel’s face as he watched. He tried no longer to make Darrel turn back. Possibly he knew any command of his would be useless.

Jode could be seen at the bottom of the slope. He had at last discovered that the coyote dog was no longer at his heels. Standing in the trail, he looked upward, and, like Frank and his chums, and the colonel, witnessed the gallant struggle his half brother was making.

The work Darrel was doing should have been Lenning’s. That fact could not escape the boy at the foot of the slope. What his thoughts were, in the circumstances, may easily be imagined.

“Good work, Curly!” shouted Merriwell. “You’ll make it, old man!”

This encouragement, coming in Merriwell’s familiar voice, probably carried a big surprise for Darrel. He had no time for surprises, however. Close to the ledge, he flung himself over at full length upon the stones and reached for the fuse.

The blaze had eaten its way to the very mouth of the drilled hole. Darrel dug down into the aperture with his fingers, searing his flesh as he pinched out the fire; then, with a stifled groan, he fell over on his back and lay silent and still.

“We’ll be with you in a minute, colonel,” shouted Frank cheerily, once more beginning to descend. “Darrel has prevented a blow-up, and now everything is going to be all right.”

“Yes,” came from the colonel, in a strained voice that was none too steady, “you’re right about that, Merriwell. I’ll make it my business to see that everything is all right—for Ellis.”

Clancy and Ballard had likewise started down the side of the gulch wall. A tremendous relief had been experienced by both the boys when they had seen Darrel reach the fuse.

“We’ll be down there in a brace of shakes, Chip,” sang out Clancy as he saw Merriwell step to the ledge and move toward the colonel.

Frank was kneeling beside Darrel when Clancy and Ballard reached the ledge.

“Never mind me, Merriwell.” Clancy and Ballard heard the colonel say, “I’m doing well enough for the present. Just look after Darrel, will you?”

“Is he hurt, Chip?” asked Ballard.

“He wasn’t in any shape to make a fight like that,” Merry answered, “and it took the ginger all out of him. He’s fainted, that’s all.”

“One of you go down to the bottom of the gulch and get a little water,” directed the colonel.

“Curly will be all right, sir,” said Frank, “until we get that bowlder off you. Strikes me that you’re in a pretty bad situation.”

“It only seems to be a bad situation. As it happens, there’s a crevice in the bowlder where it rests upon my foot and leg. I’m pinioned here, but I don’t believe I have been injured at all.”

With a steel drill for a lever, Frank pried carefully at the big stone while Clancy and Ballard put their combined weight against it. Their efforts were successful and the bowlder was rolled away.

The colonel pulled himself together and sat up on the ledge.

“That was a close call for me,” he remarked coolly, “and for Ellis, too. Do you think you could carry him down to the water?”

“Easily,” Frank answered.

All three of the boys laid hold of Darrel, gathered him up in their arms and started carefully down the slope. The colonel followed, limping a little as he came.

CHAPTER XXXV.
A RIFT IN THE CLOUDS.

Lenning had disappeared from the foot of the slope by the time the little party from above had brought their burden to the water’s edge. It was just as well for all concerned that he had not lingered.

Darrel was laid down with a rolled-up coat under his head for a pillow. The boys scooped up water in their hands and allowed it to trickle over the white, unconscious face.

“That was about as nervy a piece of work as I ever saw a fellow do,” remarked Clancy, on his knees at Darrel’s side.

“That’s the sort of a chap Curly is,” spoke up Ballard.

“You’re right, Pink,” said Merriwell shortly.

The colonel’s face was a study. Not much could be learned from it, however, regarding the state of his feelings.

“How is it,” he asked, “that all of you happened to be around at the time I needed help? Did you and your friends come with Ellis, Merriwell?”

“We followed him,” Merry answered.

“Followed him?” echoed the other.

“Why, you see,” Merry explained, “we started for Dolliver’s soon after you left Tinaja Wells, colonel. From what you said, I gathered the impression that you believed Darrel had something to do with the way Clancy and I lit into Lenning, on account of that coyote dog. I was afraid he’d hear of it, and I wanted to talk the matter over with him. Besides, I had it in mind to call up Mr. Bradlaugh on the phone from Dolliver’s, and tell him how matters were getting complicated.”

“I tried that myself,” said the colonel, “but discovered that Mr. Bradlaugh was out of town.” “Perhaps it’s just as well I couldn’t talk with him,” he added.

“When we reached Dolliver’s,” Frank resumed, “we were told that Darrel had left to go to Camp Hawtrey. I didn’t stop to telephone, but turned and followed him!”

“Why did Ellis start for our camp?”

“He wanted to talk with you—to try and patch up our differences on account of what happened yesterday.”

“Just an errand of his own out of mere friendship for you, eh?”

“That’s about the size of it, sir.”

“What did you follow him for?”

“Well,” said Frank bluntly, “I wasn’t sure how he’d be treated at Camp Hawtrey. And then, too, I thought it was foolish of him to try and get you to change your mind regarding me.”

“Ah!” A queer smile crossed the colonel’s face as he bent down to rub the knee that had lately been pinned under the bowlder. “You didn’t have much confidence,” he finished, “in my ideas of fair play?”

“Not when you were banking on information furnished by Jode. I couldn’t——”

“Darrel’s coming around, Chip,” broke in Clancy.

Merriwell stepped close to Darrel’s side. The lad’s eyes were open and he was staring up into the faces that bent over him.

“Gee, what a mix-up!” were Darrel’s first words. “I must have stepped out for a few minutes, I reckon. Who sic’d that coyote dog on Jode?”

“The dog was among the rocks, Curly,” Frank answered. “When the bowlder fell, it scared him out. He tried to get over the top of the gulch wall, but Pink, Clan, and I were there, and so he whirled and rushed for the place where Lenning was holed up. How do you feel?”

“I feel as though I’d been too darned ambitious for a sick man. What the dickens are you doing here, anyway?”

Clancy chuckled.

“We just moseyed along behind you to try and keep you out of trouble,” he laughed. “And we didn’t make out.”

“You followed me from Dolliver’s?”

“Surest thing you know. You were batty to even think of going to the Gold Hill camp. Chip fretted about that, and we all started after you.”

“Well, well!” Darrel changed his position a little and then wriggled into a sitting posture. “Was the colonel hurt?”

“No, my lad,” said the colonel, stepping closer and speaking for himself. “I’m all right, thanks to you. You reached the fuse just in the nick of time, although I’d have sworn you couldn’t make it. What did you mean by disregarding my orders to turn back?”

“I wasn’t caring a whoop about orders,” said Darrel. “If you gave any I don’t believe I heard them, anyhow. I know I pinched out the fire, but what I was wondering was whether you had been hurt by that bowlder.”

The colonel explained how he had escaped injury from the falling rock.

“I’m afraid,” he added, “that you’ve done that arm of yours little good by this day’s work. If you feel able, you might come along to the camp with me. We can make you comfortable there, and——”

Darrel shook his head.

“I’m obliged to you, colonel,” he answered, “but I reckon Dolliver’s is the best place for me for a while.”

“You’re able to ride back there?”

“Yes, and with ground to spare.”

The colonel came closer and stood over Darrel.

“Do you want to shake hands with me?” he asked.

The boy flushed. “I want to,” he answered, “but I’m not going to until—until I can read my title clear. You know what I mean, colonel.”

“I think so,” was Hawtrey’s answer, and it was not difficult for Frank to see that the stern old man was pleased.

“I’d like to ask one thing of you, sir,” Darrel went on.

“What is that?”

“Why, that you’ll take Merriwell’s word as to what happened near Camp Hawtrey yesterday afternoon. If you knew him as well as I do, colonel, you wouldn’t hesitate a minute.”

“I don’t think,” answered the colonel dryly, “that I shall hesitate quite so much as I did yesterday afternoon. I’ll come over to Tinaja Wells this evening, Merriwell,” he finished, turning to Frank, “and then I will have something to add to our interesting conference of this afternoon. Good-by, Darrel! Good-by, my lads.”

The colonel turned and limped off up the gulch in the direction of Camp Hawtrey. He was hardly out of sight before Merriwell stooped down and caught Darrel by the hand.

“Old man,” said he heartily, “you’ve made a big winning this afternoon. If we’d manufactured the thing to order it could not have turned out better. The old colonel had a chance to strike a balance between you and Jode. His eyes have been opened, and he has seen for himself just what sort of a fellow Jode is.”

“It happened just about right, that’s a fact,” returned Darrel. “The old boy has had a hard blow, but you’d never know it to look at him. That’s his way.”

“That picture he saw of Jode, neck-and-necking it down the hill with the coyote dog,” laughed Clancy, “will live in his memory a good long while.”

“What will he say to Jode?” queried Ballard. “I’d like to be around and hear it.”

“No one can ever tell what the colonel will do,” said Darrel. “Jode, I reckon, will have a hard time explaining why he ran down the hill when he ought to have been yanking that blazing fuse out by the roots.”

“We’d better be starting back to Dolliver’s,” put in Merry. “Where’s your horse, Curly?”

Darrel told where the horse had been left. While Merriwell went after it, Clancy and Ballard climbed the slope to get the three mounts that had been left on top of the gulch wall.

Half an hour afterward all the boys were riding down the gulch, en route to Dolliver’s. They formed about the happiest party that had ever traveled that particular trail. There had been a rift in the black clouds of injustice and suspicion that had hung for so long above Darrel’s head, and through the rift the sun of hope was shining. Darrel’s luck had taken a sudden turn for the better.

CHAPTER XXXVI.
A CHANGE OF MIND.

As soon as the boys reached Dolliver’s, they put Darrel to bed and sent in a telephone call for the doctor. Mr. Bradlaugh was back in town, and he brought the doctor out in his automobile. While an examination was being made to see whether Darrel’s arm had suffered any from the exciting events of the afternoon, Merriwell was out at the car, going over all the details of the affair for Mr. Bradlaugh’s benefit.

Merry began at the beginning, and that means, of course, that he had to start with the coyote dog and the dynamite cartridge. When he had finished, the president of the Ophir Athletic Club was breathing a little harder than usual.

“That’s a most remarkable story, Merriwell,” said he, “and the most remarkable part of it, to my mind, is the way Hawtrey let that pesky nephew of his make a fool of him. He’d call off the football game, would he, just because Jode Lenning happened to get into a scrap with you! Wonder if he thinks that’s good sportsmanship? I wish to thunder he’d got me on the phone and told me about this himself. Say, maybe I wouldn’t have read the riot act to him.”

“The colonel has woke up, Mr. Bradlaugh,” laughed Merry, “and I’ll bet Jode’s about at the end of his string.”

“Let me know what Hawtrey says to you when he calls at the Wells this evening,” said Mr. Bradlaugh. “I think he knows a whole lot more now than he did earlier in the afternoon, but he’s a queer proposition, and you never can tell what he’s going to do. If he’s still a bit offish, I’ll make it a point to see him myself.”

“What do you think about the way we mixed things with Lenning on account of the dog?”

“If you hadn’t mixed things with him,” laughed Mr. Bradlaugh, “you’d have had a chance to mix things with me. Plain brutality to a dumb brute,” he went on, straightening his face, “is more than I’ll take from any man.”

The doctor reported that Darrel’s arm had not been injured materially by the rough usage it had had during the afternoon, but the owner of the arm was warned to stay in bed for several days and not to try any horseback exercise until given permission to do so.

Darrel was in a more cheerful frame of mind, when Frank and his chums left, than he had been in for many a long day. He had accomplished something for himself, and he knew that he would accomplish more. Best of all, he had saved the colonel.

It was late when Merriwell, Clancy, and Ballard got back to Tinaja Wells. Handy and Brad were anxiously awaiting their arrival.

“The boys have got wind of something, Chip,” said Handy, “and they’re all up in the air. I think we’d better break camp and go in to town.”

“I think so, too,” said Merry. “We ought to have a week’s work on the home field before the game with Gold Hill.”

“Why,” spoke up Brad, “I thought that was all off.”

“So it was,” laughed Merriwell, “but I’ve got a hunch that it will be on again before long.”

During supper he repeated for the Ophir lads the same account that he had given to Mr. Bradlaugh at Dolliver’s. As might have been expected, the recital was greeted with delight by all the campers, and the demonstration wound up with a volley of cheers for Ellis Darrel.

It was quite fitting, perhaps, that Colonel Hawtrey should arrive at Tinaja Wells during the cheering. As he strode through the half gloom and into the light of the cook fire, he pulled off his hat and waved it about his gray head.

“You’re cheering my nephew, Ellis Darrel,” he shouted, “and I reckon I ought to be allowed to join in. Now that you’re done with Darrel, why not give three rousers for Merriwell? Come on, boys, all together!”

With that, the cañon fairly rang with a hearty three times three and a tiger. When silence finally settled over the camp, the colonel, still keeping his hat in his hand and his place by the fire, made a brief address to the Ophir fellows:

“I have come here this evening,” said he, “for the purpose of apologizing to Merriwell. I misjudged him, and because of that I crowded him pretty hard in a talk I had with him early in the afternoon. He took it well, and didn’t pitch into me. I suppose,” and the speaker laughed, “that he kept hands off on account of my gray hairs.

“During our conversation, if I remember, I told Merriwell that there would be no further competitions between the Gold Hill and the Ophir athletic organizations, and I declared, in pretty strong terms, that there’d be no football game next Thanksgiving Day. Well, I’ve changed my mind about that. The two clubs are going to meet and mingle in all the contests the games committees can arrange for. And we’re going to act like true sportsmen, every one of us, just as the chip of the old block has acted during his trouble on account of the coyote dog. ‘Fair play and no favor,’ that’s the idea, and we’ll stand up to it as firmly as Merriwell has done. I reckon that will be all.”

Clancy started the cheering for Colonel Hawtrey, and when it was done, all the campers flocked around the colonel and shook him by the hand.

“It’s a great day for Ellis Darrel, Clan,” said Merry to his red-headed chum.

“It’s a great day for everybody, Chip,” answered Clan, “and especially for true sportsmanship between the clubs.”

“A great day for everybody,” qualified Billy Ballard, “except Jode Lenning.”

CHAPTER XXXVII.
A MATTER OF THIRTY DOLLARS.

“Pink, this is awful!”

Young Merriwell turned a gloomy face toward his chum, Billy Ballard, who sat beside him in the grand stand. Ballard fell back with a groan.

“Awful, but true, Chip,” he answered. “After all the grinding, gruelling work of the last few weeks, the regular eleven can’t any more than hold their own against the scrubs. What’s got into the bunch?”

The scene was that part of the Ophir Athletic Club field which lay directly in front of the grand stand and contained the gridiron. Two teams were sweating and struggling with the pigskin—regulars against the second-string men. The first half was drawing to a close. There had been no scoring. The scrubs, playing like fiends, were meeting the regulars at every point and holding them in a most humiliating way.

The regulars were just back from three weeks of hard practice in the camp at Tinaja Wells. This was the first game since their return to town, and the first of the preliminary matches which Merry had arranged previous to the big game with Ophir’s old and successful rival: Gold Hill.

Merriwell had been looking forward to a fortnight of fine sport, in which the regulars would distinguish themselves in battles with the scrubs and with a cowboy eleven from the Bar Z Ranch, gradually rounding themselves into a harmonious machine which Gold Hill would find invincible. Frank had fondly imagined that the team he had drilled so thoroughly and so conscientiously would go through the remaining two weeks’ of practice in a beautiful romp, piling point upon point in each preliminary skirmish, and going through its less experienced opponents with the ease and finish of veterans. But what he saw that afternoon, from the moment the ball had been put in play, had made him gasp and rub his eyes.

There was no doubt about it, that cherished team had bounced upon a reef. It had started in on the despised scrub with a sort of pitying contempt, evidently planning to exercise restraint and not make too many touchdowns or kick too many goals. And what had it found? Nothing less than a bunch of wild cats, playing to win in a perfect fury of determination, and shaking out the most unexpected tricks from a bag which no one dreamed they possessed.

Frank was more than pleased with the way the scrubs were distinguishing themselves, and more than amazed at the sorry exhibition the regulars were making. The scrubs, for the most part, had remained in town while the club team had been off in Mohave Cañon, training for battle every day and going through a course of sprouts calculated to make each and every member a finished performer.

And now, the result!

In less than five minutes from the kick-off the regulars had lost their contempt for the scrubs. They awoke to a realization that, in some mysterious fashion, the scrubs had been transformed into a little army of brawn and brain—foemen in every way worth of their mettle.

The regulars tried, in a spasm of pique after the Spartan nature of their fight dawned on their minds, to rush the scrubs off the field. But the scrubs wouldn’t be rushed. The regulars gritted their teeth and tried harder. Still nothing doing. A great disappointment took hold of Merry, and he turned to Ballard and put it in the fewest possible words.

Only Merriwell and Ballard were in the grand stand. Under the stand there were dressing rooms for visiting players, and into one of these rooms there had come by stealth a young man with sinister face and evil and greedy eyes. At a distance of ten or fifteen feet from the two lads in the stand, the interloper was peering out from between two board seats, watching the ragged performance of the regular Ophir team and listening to the gloomy remarks that passed between Merry and Ballard. A self-satisfied grin crossed the face of the keen-eyed, keen-eared youth.

That game—and Merriwell was glad in his heart that it was so—was strictly private. The general public was barred.

Had grand stand and bleachers been thrown open to spectators, emissaries from Gold Hill might have crept in to watch for vulnerable points in the work of the Ophir team. For years Gold Hill had been a winner in its games with Ophir, and was ever on the alert for advantages that would help to prevent a slip from its enviable record.

This prowler under the benches, chuckling over the disappointment of the Ophir coach and the ragged work of the Ophir team, was not there for any good. But for his own daring and ingenuity and unscrupulousness, he would not have been there at all.

“Thunder!” muttered Merriwell. “Why, Pink, the team isn’t playing half so well as it did in that little practice game with Gold Hill, on the mesa at Tinaja Wells!”

“It doesn’t look like the same team, Chip,” replied Ballard. “What’s got into them? Mayburn’s a joke at center, Doolittle as right tackle is all that his name implies, and Spink, at quarter, is all balled up. By George! Say, I’ll bet a peck of prunes against a celluloid collar that the scrubs score in the next half.”

“No, they won’t,” gritted Merriwell. He was on his feet, taking personal odds and ends from his trouser’s pockets and stowing them in his coat. At last he threw off the coat and dropped it where he had been sitting. “Come on, Pink,” he added, leaping over the rail and into the field, “you and I have got to get into this.”

The first half was over. Clancy, who was acting as referee, was walking up and down the side lines, telling the sweating club eleven what he thought of them. Merriwell stopped him and did a little talking on his own account. Handy, the captain, seemed utterly demoralized and in a daze. Even the scrubs seemed a bit awed by what they had accomplished.

Merriwell’s temper was struggling to get the best of him. He had tried, to the best of his ability, to make a winning team of the club eleven. But all his work seemed to have gone for nothing. With a tremendous effort he kept his feelings in check. The look on his face, however, was enough for the regulars. They knew how intense was Merriwell’s disappointment, and they realized that they were the cause of it.

“You fellows have got to get together,” said Frank, his voice low and deliberate. “You play as though it was every fellow for himself, and seem to forget what I have been pounding into you about teamwork. Every man is a cog in the machine, and all the cogs have got to work together if you don’t want the machine to go wrong. There were times, Spink,” and he turned not unkindly to the quarter, “when it seemed to me as though you had paralysis of the intellect. It’s just possible that you got rattled because Handy interfered with you. I saw that.” He faced the captain. “I guess you got excited, Handy,” he continued, “when you tried to tease the scrubs and found them giving you a handful. You know better than to mix in with the work of the quarter back, so please restrain yourself during the next half, Mayburn,” and he turned to that husky player, “I’m surprised at you. For the rest of this game Ballard will play your position and I’ll try and fill Spink’s place. It would be fine to have the scrubs score against you, wouldn’t it? Get on your toes and work together during the next half, all of you. And,” he finished, with a grim smile at the scrubs, “I want you fellows to do your best and put it over the regulars—if you can. So far, you’ve played a great game. Keep it up.”

While this talk was going forward, a hand had crept out from between the seats in the grand stand and had groped for Merriwell’s coat. Finding the garment, the fingers of the hand closed on it and withdrew it from sight. At about the time the players took they field for the second half, the coat had been returned, and the greedy, evil eyes were again studying the football field.

There was a decided improvement in the work of the club team after Merriwell and Ballard had taken the places of Spink and Mayburn. But there was no scoring on the part of the regulars, for the scrubs continued to hold them and to fight like madmen for every yard in front of their goal posts. Most of the battling was in scrub territory.

Merriwell had not retired Spink temporarily and taken his place because the quarter back had become rattled. What Merry wanted was to get into the game and study at close and active quarters the unsuspected defects of the Ophir team. All the plays were carefully directed for this one purpose.

When the scoreless game was finished, the regulars started grimly for the gymnasium with the second eleven skylarking around them and joshing them at every step of the way. Frank jumped into the grand stand for his coat and Ballard’s, and then joined his chums on the way to the bathrooms.

“What do you think of the performance, Chip?” queried Clancy ruefully.

“I think,” was the reply, “that we’ll have to put in several days of mighty hard work. Not only that, but I’m going to make one or two changes in the line-up. I——”

He suddenly came to a dead stop. He had been groping in the pockets of his coat for the personal property he had left in them. A blank look overspread his face.

“What’s to pay, old man?” queried Ballard.

“I’ve lost what money I had, somewhere,” was the answer. “Probably it dropped out of my coat, back there in the grand stand.”

“How much?” asked Clancy.

“A matter of thirty dollars, Clan; twenty-five in bills and some change.”

Clancy whistled, and Ballard looked ominous.

“I don’t see how it could have dropped out,” said Ballard. “You’re not usually so careless as all that, Chip.”

“It must have dropped out,” was the reply; “what else could have happened?”

“Let’s go back and see,” said Clancy.

The three lads returned to the grand stand and made a thorough search. The money was not in evidence.

“Maybe it fell through between the seats, Chip,” Ballard suggested. “Let’s go into the dressing rooms under the place where you left your coat.”

There were no locks on the dressing-room doors, and the lads made a thorough investigation but without finding any trace of the missing money. A look of suspicion crossed Clancy’s freckled face.

“A matter of thirty dollars,” said he, “can’t get up and walk off all by itself. While the game was on, Chip, somebody sneaked into the grand stand and went through your pockets.”

“Why didn’t the fellow go through mine as well as Chip’s?” queried Ballard. “I didn’t have any money in my pockets, but——”

“That’s the reason,” said Clancy.

“Keep it quiet,” frowned Merriwell. “I don’t want the Ophir fellows to think for a moment that we suspect any one. We’ll know some time, I guess, whether the money was lost or stolen, and just now we’ll think it’s lost, and keep mum. Come on to the gym.”

CHAPTER XXXVIII.
MORE DISCOURAGEMENT.

It seemed as though everything was going wrong for Merriwell. As if the poor showing of the regular eleven, after weeks of practice, was not sufficiently discouraging, this loss of the thirty dollars had to happen by way of heaping up the measure.

While Frank was getting his shower and his rub-down, his thoughts were about equally divided between the ragged work of the players and the mysterious disappearance of the money.

So far as the football team was concerned, two weeks yet remained before the game with Gold Hill, and the young coach grimly resolved that at least ten days of the fourteen should see such driving practice as the squad had never known. He would change the line-up, pound the whole machine into form, and give Ophir a winning team in spite of fate!

Merry knew, from practical experience, just how much could be accomplished in two weeks—provided a fellow went at it hard enough. He would give the eleven a drilling which would make the time spent at Tinaja Wells look like a loafing bee.

Having made up his mind to this, the discouraging afternoon’s work on the grid lost much of its sting. What sting there was left, merely roweled the coach’s determination to give Ophir a winning eleven.

Merry was the son of the best all-round athlete and coach the country had ever known. That fact was universally admitted. The lad, his white skin glowing under the manipulations of the Mexican rubber, felt the old indomitable spirit tingling through his veins. He would show them, by Jove! He would prove that he was a chip off the old block! Down in that out-of-the-way corner of Arizona he would lick that pioneer team into shape—or he’d know the reason why.

Somehow or other, young Merriwell experienced a glow of satisfaction. There was a fascination in overcoming difficulties—in winning success in spite of them. Where’s the credit if a fellow romps to victory without any opposing hardships? It takes the hard knocks, the glowering possibilities of failure, to put us “on our toes” and make us buck the line of fate with a do-or-die determination to “get there.”

Merry had reached that point. Hovering disaster caused him to reach out and lay firm hold of the invincible spirit that every lad, if he is worth his salt, has always at the back of his nature. And this spirit is alive with electric force. Every fellow who falls back upon it feels a thrill in every nerve. This it was that brought Merry his glow of satisfaction.

Having conquered the disturbing features of the practice game, the lad’s thoughts turned to the loss of the money. There was not an avaricious hair in his head, and it was not the mere fact that he was minus thirty dollars that bothered him; it was the ugly suspicion that there might be a thief among some of those Ophir fellows. He hated to think it, and it was because of the fact that, even in thought, he did not want to do the Ophir club an injustice, that he had warned Clancy and Ballard to keep mum on the subject of the lost money.

Oddly enough, there was a pocket piece mixed up with the missing silver, and the most of Merry’s regret centered about that. It was a silver half dollar, neatly plugged, which had been “worked off” on Merry by some one in Sandstone, Cal. When he found that the fifty-cent piece was minted in the year of his birth, he immediately accepted it as a souvenir. With the lapse of time a sentimental interest had developed in the coin and Merriwell hated to lose it.

By the time the regulars and the scrubs got out of the gym, the hilarity of the second-string men had faded. They had played a good game and, with unexpected luck, had held the regulars. The joy aroused by this excellent showing had manifested itself directly after the game, but the scrubs had been doing a little reflecting while taking their showers and getting into their clothes.

Every member of the O.  A.  C. was fiercely eager to win the coming game with Gold Hill. If the club team, after weeks of coaching, could not take a game from a picked-up eleven, what chances would it have with Gold Hill? This thought pushed aside the joys of the afternoon, and filled scrubs, as well as regulars, with painful doubts.

Merry emerged smiling from the bathrooms. As he came out into the groups of players, lingering in front of the gym, many a glum face was turned wonderingly in his direction. What meant that sunny, confident smile on the face of the coach? Was it possible that he had seen anything hopeful in the afternoon’s miserable work?

Hannibal Bradlaugh, son of the president of the club, stepped up to Merry.

“I reckon, Chip,” said he, “that you think that this club team is a joke. Is that what amuses you?”

“It’s not a joke, Brad,” laughed Merry, “although it has tried to be one this afternoon. During the next two weeks I’m going to show you fellows what real work is, see? And, when we face Gold Hill you’re going to win. Regulars and scrubs will be here at two-thirty, Monday afternoon. To-morrow, Handy,” he added, to the captain of the club team, “you and I will have a little talking match at the Ophir House.”

Hope, like the measles, is “catching.” All the players, even to Spink, Mayburn and Doolittle, began to feel better.

As Merry walked through the clubhouse, on his way to the trail that led back to town, he was halted by Mr. Bradlaugh, the club’s president. Mr. Bradlaugh’s face was long and gloomy. There was a curious gleam in his eyes as they fixed themselves upon Merry’s smiling face.

“Gad,” murmured the president, “you don’t seem worried, Merriwell.”

“Where were you when the balloon went up, Mr. Bradlaugh?” Frank inquired.

“On the clubhouse balcony, watching the ascension. What’s got into the boys?”

“Just an off day with them, I think. That will happen to the best teams, you know.”

“I was badly disappointed. After three weeks at Tinaja Wells, the eleven seems to put up a poorer article of football than they did when they left here to go into camp. I’m afraid they’ve been having too good a time, up the cañon.”

“They worked hard and faithfully at the Wells, Mr. Bradlaugh,” declared Frank. “The change from the mesa to their home field may have had a bad effect on them. Come Monday afternoon and watch them, and I think you’ll see something worth while. We have two weeks before the big game, and, by then, the squad will be tinkered into winning form.”

“Not two weeks, Merriwell.”

Frank started and flung a quick look at Mr. Bradlaugh.

“Has there been a change in the date?” he asked.

“There has. Colonel Hawtrey and I had a talk about Thanksgiving Day, and made up our minds that it’s time we followed the practice that prevails in the East. We’ll not play any more on that particular day, and we decided that our respective clubs will come together on Saturday afternoon of next week.”

Frank’s smile faded. The time for whipping the team into shape had been cut down one-half. Seven days were left—six days, with Sunday out—and not all of those six days could be given to hard work. The practice should slow up for two days before the game.

“Holy smoke!” he muttered. “When did all this happen?”

“This morning,” Mr. Bradlaugh answered. “I haven’t had a chance to tell you before. Had I seen the work of our men previous to my conference with Colonel Hawtrey, you may be sure that I should have put off the big game as long as possible. Now it’s too late. A week from to-day we face Gold Hill. What can you do in that short time?”

“This is a crack right between the eyes,” murmured Frank, “and it knocks all my calculations galley west.”

“It’s certainly discouraging,” agreed Mr. Bradlaugh, “but there’s no help for it. I hear that the Gold Hillers are playing the game as they never played it before. They have a new coach who seems to have inaugurated some new plays and a whole lot of improvements.”

“A new coach?” echoed Frank. “What’s his name?”

“Guffey. I’ve heard that he’s a phenomenon, not only as a coach, but as a player.”

Merriwell’s face clouded. Here was more discouraging news, and he couldn’t help wondering where the lightning was going to strike next.

Mr. Bradlaugh was quick to note the change in Frank’s face and manner. He knew the young coach’s hopes had received a severe setback, and he tried to temper the blow.

“I don’t know who this Guffey is,” said he, “and I don’t care. You’re a heap better than he is, and I’ll bank on it.”

A ghost of a smile flickered about the boy’s lips.

“I’ve been coaching the Ophir team for a long time, Mr. Bradlaugh,” he remarked, “and you saw the afternoon’s performance. It wasn’t a credit to me any more than it was to the eleven.”

“That’s the wrong way to look at it,” was the warm response. “If you haven’t the material to work with, what can you do?”

“I’ve got the material,” insisted Frank. “Your son is a crack half back; Handy, at full, and Spink, at quarter, are class A, and I haven’t any fault to find with the rest of the men. There’ll be some shifting, though, and I may take a couple of players from the scrubs for the regulars.”

“Suppose this Guffey gets into the Gold Hill line-up? He’s an amateur, the colonel tells me, and, by our rules, is qualified to play. Will you jump into the fight if Guffey does?”

“I’m going to do all I can to make Ophir win,” Frank answered determinedly.

“You still have hopes, then?”

The young coach had again got himself well in hand. The obstacles were thickening, and, because of them, final victory over Gold Hill would be a prize worth while.

“Ophir is going to win!” he declared, and there was a look on his face and a gleam in his dark eyes that went far to dispel the president’s gloomy forebodings.

“You’re a brick!” said Mr. Bradlaugh, clapping Frank on the shoulder. “That’s the spirit, my lad, that leads many a forlorn hope to victory. We’re going to win—I consider that settled. If you’re on your way back to town, jump into my car and I’ll take you. I was only waiting for a word with you before I started.”

The clubhouse and athletic field were a short mile out of Ophir. On the way back Merry communed with himself and took heart out of his very discouragements.

The poor showing of the club team, the short time in which to make a winner out of it, the good work of Gold Hill under Guffey—all these things Merry considered well; and, in the final summing up, they merely spurred him to fresh endeavors. He was out for Gold Hill’s scalp, and he was going to get it.

That night, in a most peculiar way, some more disturbing details were brought home to him. It was about one in the morning when he heard a pebble rattle against the window of his room. He got up, lifted the window cautiously, and looked out into the dark.

“It’s Bleeker,” came a low voice, “Bleeker, of Gold Hill. Don’t give me away, Merriwell, but come down. I’ve something I want to tell you.”

CHAPTER XXXIX.
GOOD INTENTIONS.

Clancy occupied the room with Merriwell. The latter, in order to make as little noise as possible, slipped on his shoes but made no attempt to get out of his pajamas and into his clothes. Softly opening the hall door, he stepped out into the dimly lit corridor, descended the stairs, and got clear of the hotel without arousing any one.

“This way, Merriwell,” said Bleeker, in a low tone, appearing suddenly out of the shadows and moving off toward the rear of the building.

Frank followed him, and they presently halted at a board fence.

“I reckon we can talk here,” observed Bleeker, “without any one getting next to what we say.”

“This is quite a surprise party, Bleeker,” said Frank. “I don’t often have a friend steal in on me like a thief in the night, just to make a sociable call.”

“You know what people might think, if I came over to this town in broad day, hunted you up, and had a talk with you? I’m from Gold Hill, and I used to be on the Gold Hill eleven until Jode Lenning gave me the sack. If I happened to be seen here, people would say I am sore, and that I’m trying to get even with Lenning by handing you a little information that will help when Ophir goes up against our crowd next Saturday. That’s what they’d say, Merriwell, and you know it,” Bleeker grunted. “I’m no traitor, and, while I may feel as though Jode has played it pretty low down on me, you can bet I’m not settling scores with him by doing our eleven any dirt. Understand that, don’t you?”

“Sure,” Frank answered.

“By sneaking over here, like this, and palavering with you, I’m trying to be white, that’s all. I’d like to do something to help Ellis Darrel.”

Frank’s interest went up several notches, at that.

“I know you’re a friend of Darrel’s,” said he, “and I know that you and Hotchkiss got Lenning down on you while the Gold Hill crowd was in camp a few miles from Tinaja Wells, at Camp Hawtrey. Are the Gold Hill fellows still in the gulch?”

“No, Lenning brought them back to town the next day after your crowd hiked for Ophir. Lenning kicked Hotch and me out of camp because we stood up for Darrel. Jode hasn’t any use for a fellow who tries to be a friend of his half brother’s.”

“Well, Bleek,” said Frank, “Darrel has acted like a brick all through this trouble of his; and, you take it from me, that blot on the shield is going to be rubbed out. One of these days Darrel will be able to take his uncle by the hand, and the consequences of that forgery are going to be dropped onto somebody else.”

“Now you are shouting, Merriwell!” exclaimed Bleeker eagerly. “I never thought Darrel had anything to do with that, and there are a few more, over in the Hill, who have been of the same opinion right along.”

“Who do you think did the job and arranged to involve Darrel?”

“First off, who’d be the gainer if Darrel lost his uncle’s good will? When you want to figure out a thing, the proper way is to find the chap with a motive. Now, you know Colonel Hawtrey is rich, and that the only relatives he has in the world are his two nephews, Jode Lenning and Ellis Darrel. Wouldn’t Lenning come in for all the old colonel’s property if Darrel was disgraced and run out? Sure he would. The fellow with the motive was Lenning. And that motive, by thunder, has been cropping out ever since Darrel came back.”

This subject was intensely interesting to Merriwell. He had thrown himself heart and soul into the task of redeeming the good name of his new chum, Ellis Darrel, and he believed that now events were forming which would bring about that result.

“Bleeker,” said Frank earnestly. “I’ve heard that about the time this forgery was committed you and Jode Lenning were pretty thick. If that’s so, then you ought to know something about the forgery.”

Bleeker was silent for a space. Leaning against the fence, he bent his head and pulled aimlessly at a sliver on one of the posts.

“You’ve hit it about right, Merriwell,” said he, at last. “Being friendly with Lenning was no credit to me, but he had money and I didn’t, and he had influence with the colonel and stood pretty high in the athletic club—and the colonel had founded the club. I knuckled under to Lenning—I reckon you’d call it toadying. If there were any favors to be passed around, Lenning saw to it that I got my share. I had a finger in every athletic pie the club cut open, and several plums came my way. This wouldn’t have happened, you see, if I hadn’t been training with Jode. I was wide of the right trail, Merriwell, but I got to know Jode as few know him. Ever since our outfit camped in the gulch I’ve done a lot of thinking about El Darrel and Jode Lenning, and I made up my mind that Jode and his influence wasn’t worth a single jab my conscience has been giving me for months. As soon as I woke up, and Jode found it out, he got mad and made me leave the camp.”

Bleeker had been talking in a shamed sort of way, with his head bowed. He now looked up, and the moonlight shone full in his face, bringing out the contrition that lurked there in strong lights and shadows.

“I’ve sneaked out of Gold Hill,” he went on, “and into Ophir, as you said a spell ago, ‘like a thief in the night,’ but I’ve done it because I’m trying to act white after acting the other way for longer than I care to think about. I want,” and the words rushed forth in a torrent of eagerness, “to help El Darrel wipe that blot from his shield. I can’t do much myself, Merriwell, but I reckon I can help you.”

A thrill ran through Merriwell. When a fellow has been traveling the wrong path, and by and by turns of his own accord into the right one, there is a pleasure in meeting him halfway and going on together. Frank grabbed the hand from the post and shook it cordially.

“Bleek,” said he, “you’re all right. You and Hotch began helping Darrel some time ago, and if we can work in double harness and show Hawtrey that he had nothing to do with that forgery, it will be one of the finest things that ever happened.”

That Bleeker was pleased by Merriwell’s attitude was plain. His form straightened, his shoulders went back, and he returned the other’s handclasp with a strong and determined grip.

“It will,” he said, “and I think you can bring it around. You will be making a star play, Merriwell, and I shall have the satisfaction of feeling that I helped. Now, about Jode. I am telling you what everybody knows when I say that his reckless, hot-headed actions come to him as a birthright. His father was a desperate character, in some ways, and was killed in a brawl up in Alaska. Colonel Hawtrey never had anything to do with Lenning’s father, and it was only when the elder Lenning died, and Mrs. Lenning married Darrel, that the colonel and his sister became reconciled. If you’re next to this, maybe you won’t blame Jode quite so much for the way he’s been acting. What a fellow inherits must have something to do with his conduct.”

“A little, Bleek,” said Frank, “but not a whole lot. My father has told me that a fellow must build his own character, and not try to blame his folks when he goes wrong. But, look here. After the way Lenning showed himself up to the colonel, at the time Darrel saved him from the blast, I suppose there’s a coolness between the two? Certainly Lenning isn’t still on the Gold Hill eleven?”

“The colonel’s a queer stick,” was the answer. “There’s been no flare-up between the two, and Jode is still king bee at the Gold Hill Athletic Club. What do you make out of that?”

Merriwell was astounded. How was it possible for the stern old colonel, after having Jode’s “yellow streak” show itself so clearly under his very eyes, still to keep on friendly terms with the fellow? Merriwell was not only amazed, but a bit indignant.

CHAPTER XL.
THE MYSTERIOUS BILLY SHOUP.

“That gets my goat, and no mistake!” said Merriwell disgustedly. “For doing nothing at all, Colonel Hawtrey drives Darrel out of his house, but when Lenning shows himself a cur, the colonel hasn’t a thing to say. It makes me sick!”

“It’s certainly a brain twister, the way Hawtrey acts,” muttered Bleeker. “All Gold Hill is sitting up nights, trying to figure it out. Somehow, you know, it doesn’t seem like the old colonel at all. He’s sharp and savage when anything ruffles him, and people just about expected he’d flay Lenning and nail his hide to the front door. All he did, though, was to pat Lenning on the shoulder and congratulate him on the way he got clear of the coyote dog.”

Merriwell acted as though he was stunned. His feelings, at that moment, were too deep for words.

“Lenning,” Bleeker went on, “had already asked the colonel to send for this chap Guffey to coach the eleven. Lenning, as captain of the Gold Hill eleven, was scared by the way the Ophir boys held his squad in that practice game you had at Tinaja Wells. He wanted a bang-up coach, and asked the colonel for Guffey. Nobody had ever heard of Guffey—that is, nobody except Lenning—and the colonel sort of held off about getting him. It wasn’t until after Jode showed his yellow streak that the colonel had Guffey come on. They say he’s a whirlwind.”

“How old is he?” Merry inquired, his interest taking a new tack.

“Twenty, maybe—not over that.”

“Where did he come from?”

“No sabe.”

“What does he look like?”

“Hair black as ink, eyes a washed-out blue——”

“Queer combination!”

“And you’d swear, to give him a keen sizing, that he was an athlete and had gone wrong with some kind of dope. His skin’s a dead white, and there are puffs under his eyes. He soft foots it around like a wild cat, and acts so nervous you think he’s getting ready to spring. But he can deliver the goods. They say he has done wonders with the Gold Hill eleven.”

“If he’s a professional athlete——”

“He’s not. Everybody has the colonel’s word for that. But Guffey, you take it from me, is as crooked as a dog’s hind foot.”

“If he’s a dope fiend,” said Frank, “he’s pretty apt to be crooked. Fellows of that sort may be brilliant, at times, but it’s only a flash while they’re in the power of the drug. Take the drug away from them and they’re human jellyfish. None of them last long.”

“That may be, but your crowd will have to go some if you make a clean-up next Saturday.”

Merry received this remark in thoughtful silence. He was wondering about this Guffey person, and where and how he had made himself such a phenomenal coach.

“Well, Bleek,” said he presently, “let’s drop Guffey and get back to Curly Darrel. I want to do what I can to help him, and you haven’t dipped very deep into anything as yet.”

“I’m coming to that right now.” Bleeker straightened and peered cautiously around into the wavering shadows. “We’re all by ourselves here, aren’t we?” he asked.

“The only people who are anywhere near us are in the hotel, and they’re all asleep,” said Frank reassuringly.

“What I tell you is in strict confidence.”

“Sure. You can trust me, can’t you? Fire away.”

“Has Darrel ever told you how he happened to get mixed up in that forgery affair?”

“He has said mighty little about it. I don’t think he knows very much himself. He told me that he made a wrong move—a move he always regretted. Lenning was drinking and gambling on the q.  t., and managing to keep it away from the colonel, so Darrel side-stepped and went into it himself. One night he gambled and grew sort of hazy; couldn’t remember what happened; and when he had his wits, next day, the forged check for five hundred showed up, and the fellow who had it said Darrel had given it to him to square a gambling debt. But Darrel couldn’t remember a thing about it.”

“I was one of a party of four when that happened,” said Bleeker huskily, and fairly driving the words out.

“You were?” Frank returned excitedly.

“It hurts like the devil to say it, but I believe it’s a duty. Yes, I was there. Besides myself, there were Darrel, a fellow who lives in Gold Hill, and the mysterious Billy Shoup.”

“Lenning wasn’t around?”

“No. We had had one or two drinks—first and only time I ever touched the stuff, and I’ve registered a solemn vow that it will be the last—and I noticed that El was acting queerly. There was a far-away look in his eyes, and when you spoke to him it seemed like he had to come back from a thousand miles away before he could answer you. Shoup poured the stuff we drank, and I’ve thought since that he dropped something into El’s glass. I can’t be sure of that, but I know he had his hand over the glass before he set it down. The other chap and I got out of money, and when we left Darrel and Shoup were still at it. I tried to get El to go home, and nearly had a fight with Shoup because I did. El just sat in his chair and stared at me, never making a move to leave. Next day Shoup offered the forged check to the colonel. The colonel took five hundred from his safe, gave it to Shoup, and then very neatly kicked him down the front steps.”

“This has all the earmarks of a plot, and no mistake,” muttered Merry.

“It has,” agreed Bleeker. “I’ve been a year turning it over in my mind and coming to that conclusion.”

“Didn’t you go to Hawtrey and tell him about what happened?”

“No. Don’t blame me for that, Merriwell. I thought, at the time, that perhaps Darrel might have put the colonel’s name to the check. And then, consider my own situation. I didn’t want it known that I had been guzzling poison with a fellow like Shoup.”

“Shoup! You called him a moment ago ‘the mysterious Billy Shoup.’ Why did you do that?”

“Because he was a stranger in Gold Hill. No one knew where he came from, nor where he went. I saw him just twice—the night we gambled and the next afternoon. He and Lenning were in the cañon, palavering. They didn’t see me, and I didn’t care to see Shoup, so I hustled away. I told Lenning about it afterward, and he said he’d kill me if I ever mentioned having seen him with Shoup. He explained that he thought Shoup had done some crooked work, and he had been trying to pump him and do something for Darrel.”

“Fine!” exclaimed Merry scornfully. “A fat lot Lenning was doing for his half brother.”

“That night,” proceeded Bleeker, “Billy Shoup faded out of Gold Hill, and no one in town has heard anything about him since. That’s why I called him the mysterious Billy Shoup.”

“Regular gambler, wasn’t he?”

“He didn’t look it. Rather youngish, he was—nineteen or twenty—and he had a mop of hair about the color of tow. That’s all, Merriwell,” and Bleeker drew a long breath. “I’ve got it off my chest, at last. Jumping sandhills, what a fix a little gambling and drinking will get a fellow into! I had my lesson, and I’ll bet El had his. If Darrel hadn’t been a bit wild, he’d never have got mixed up in that forgery trouble.”

“And the night you were with Shoup, Jode Lenning was—where?”

“At home with the colonel, reading to him in his study. He was doing the dutiful, you see, and going to bed early.”

“Doing the dutiful for a purpose,” commented Merriwell scathingly.

“That’s what I think. He got Shoup to come on and throw the hooks into El—that’s the way I size it up.”

“How can it be proved?”

“Search me. That’s where your star play comes in, Merriwell. It’s up to you to find Billy Shoup and make him talk. I’ve given you all the facts I have, and you’re welcome to go ahead and use them.”

“It’s a pretty big proposition, Bleek,” said Merriwell disappointedly. “This confounded Shoup is so mysterious that we haven’t the first thing in the way of a clew. Perhaps the whole affair could be got out of Lenning?”

“You don’t know Lenning! He’s a fox.”

Merriwell leaned over the fence and looked up at the moon and stars, riding in all the calm serenity of an Arizona night. Bleeker had offered him something to work on in helping Darrel, but it was something which broke in his hands like a rope of sand. Where was Billy Shoup? A year had passed since his mysterious visit to Gold Hill, and a great many things may happen in a year to a fellow of Shoup’s probable stamp. Was the fellow still alive? If so, would he be East or West? He had a wide country for his roaming, and hunting for a needle in a haystack was easy work compared with the task of locating him. If found, would it be possible to make him talk? Hardly. If he admitted forging the check himself, he merely cleared his own path to the penitentiary. If he confessed that Lenning had furnished the check, then it was a matter of his unsupported word against that of the favorite nephew. There was no doubt as to which of the pair the colonel would believe.

“I’ve put it up to you, Merriwell,” said Bleeker, at last, “and now I reckon I’ll point for Gold Hill. I have a horse, out in the brush, and the animal is probably getting tired waiting for me.”

“You’ve shed a little light, Bleeker,” said Frank, dropping his troubled eyes from the sky and resting them on the face of the lad from Gold Hill, “but I’ll be darned if I know what I can do. Isn’t there any way we can pick up a clew as to the whereabouts of Shoup?”

“Not that I know of. Lenning could probably give a clew, but he wouldn’t. He knows what it would mean to him.”

“Any objection to my repeating what you have said to Darrel? He’ll be in Ophir some time during the week—Dolliver’s ranch can’t hold him very long.”

“He knows most of what I’ve told you,” answered Bleeker, “but you can tell him as much as you please. If I hear of anything that will help, I’ll get the information to you, somehow. I’ve a hunch that Darrel’s going to come out of this all right. But I reckon you don’t believe in hunches, eh? Well, anyhow, I’ve done what I could. So long, Merriwell, and good luck.”

The Gold Hill lad who had tried to be “white” shook Merry’s hand and moved swiftly and noiselessly off into the gloom. Merry stood and watched him until he had disappeared, then slowly and carefully made his way back into the hotel.

“I’d give a hundred dollars,” he said to himself, “if I knew where to find this mysterious Billy Shoup.”

CHAPTER XLI.
THE MAN THE BOX.

“Where’s the water?”

Merriwell stirred and opened his eyes. He was usually an early riser, but an hour or two had been chopped out of his sleeping schedule during the night by Bleeker. For this reason he wasn’t so prompt in beating Clancy out of bed that morning, as was generally the case.

Clancy had just husked himself out of his pajamas and was standing wrathfully over a washtub—an empty washtub.

“Who’s trying to hold the morning dip out on me?” demanded Clancy, throwing a look of suspicion at Merry.

“How do I know?” asked Merry. “Don’t be so darned ambitious on a Sunday morning. Bottle up and let a fellow sleep.”

With that he knocked the red-headed chap off his balance with a pillow. There was a great racket as Clancy sat down hard in the empty tub.

“No one can do that to me and live,” hissed Clancy, wriggling out of the tub and rushing at his chum.

It was the duty of Woo Sing, Chinese roustabout in the hotel, to fill the tub with cold water. The first lad out of bed took his plunge, and the second one up had to empty and fill the tub for himself. Now Woo Sing, who was allowed an honorarium for his work, had failed in his duty.

While Merry and Clancy were laughing and pounding each other with pillows, a screech from the back yard claimed their attention. The screech was followed by a wild assortment of words in three separate and distinct voices.

“China boy fillee tub, by Klismas!”

“Py shinks, I fill dot tub myselluf, und dot’s all aboudt it.”

“Me, I fill de tub.”

Merry and Clancy stepped away from each other, listened, and then moved toward a window. A look into the back yard at once disclosed the reason why the bath water had not been provided.

The Chinaman evidently had started for the second floor of the hotel with a filled pail, but before he could get into the building he had been waylaid by Fritz Gesundheit and the Mexican, Silva. The Dutchman and the Mexican had each laid hold of the pail, and all three were glaring at each other over the top of it.

Fritz, otherwise Carrots, was out of a job now that the Ophir fellows had come in from Tinaja Wells, and the same was equally true of Silva. Carrying water for the bath had looked like easy money to the Dutchman and the Mexican, and each of them had made up his mind to kick Chinese labor off the job and monopolize the work and the honorarium. Woo Sing, however, was registering objections.

“Lettee go pail!” cried the Chinaman. “No lettee go, my bleakee head! By jim klickets, Melican sons guns no makee fool business allee same China boy!”

“Caramba!” breathed Silva darkly. “De water ees mine for carry. I make insist. Hands off de pail, muy pronto!”

“By Shiminy,” wheezed fat Fritz, “I vas gedding my mad oop like I can’t tell! I take der pail myselluf.”

Then began a savage tussle with the pail of water as the bone of contention. It proved a mighty unsatisfactory bone to fight over, for as it heaved and jumped under the straining hands and arms, a quart went into the Dutchman’s face and a cupful found its way down the Mexican’s back. This caused little damage, apart from putting a keener edge on the tempers of Fritz and Silva. Ceasing the struggle for the pail, they began giving their attention to each other.

There was a close and animated tangle of heads, arms, and legs—the pail somewhere in the midst. As the massed combatants surged back and forth, they left a trail of water; and their cries, which were wild and continuous, were all awash and filled with strangles and bad words—words on which they choked.

Merriwell and Clancy, at the second-story window, were enjoying the spectacle hugely. It seemed to be reaching a serious phase, however, and they were just thinking of putting a stop to it when the Chinaman’s heels went into the air and the Dutchman and the Mexican fell away from him.

Woo Sing, by some weird mischance, had taken a header. The pail happened to be placed so as to receive him. For half a minute he was emerged to the shoulders in the pail, his sandaled heels kicking the air. It was a mirthful exhibition, and Fritz and Silva enjoyed it.

“Haw, haw, haw!” the Dutchman wheezed. “Vat a funny Chinaman I don’d know! See, vonce, how he kicks his heels mit der air, und keeps his headt der pail in! Iss der vater py der pail? Yah, so hellup me! Vill der Chinaman be trowned? Dere iss not so mooch goot luck!”

“Madre mia!” tittered the Mexican, holding up against the pump while he gasped and chuckled and roared. “Dat ees no Chinaman, dat ees one frog! De frog he take one dive in de pail, and he make t’ink de pail ees a pond—har, har, har!”

Woo Sing, about as mad a Chinaman as one could find, succeeded at last in getting his feet on the ground. Half strangled, he lifted himself erect. Now that he was right side up, of course the pail was upside down. A flood of water was released and rolled over the Chinaman like a tidal wave. His kimono and baggy breeches were soaked. With a sputtering whoop, he tore the pail from his head and hurled it at Fritz.

The pail caught the Dutchman in the pit of the stomach, doubling him up with something besides laughter. Having attended to Fritz, the water-soaked Celestial rushed at Silva.

The Mexican, in jumping away from the pump, hit the handle with his knee. It flew up and struck him a terrific blow under the chin. While Silva was thus more or less demoralized, the Chinaman fell on him and bore him down.

Fritz, who had by a valiant effort succeeded in getting his breath back, was “seeing red.” Reckless of consequences, he picked up a club and started to even up matters with Woo Sing. The mêlée was becoming too serious to be tolerated any further. Up to that point Merry and Clancy had enjoyed the performance in the back yard immensely.

Clancy leaned out of the window to shout a yell of warning. Merry, however, pulled him back, a mirthful glimmer in his dark eyes.

“I’ll stop it, Clan,” he whispered. “Watch.”

Merriwell was past master in the art of “throwing his voice.” Ventriloquism had afforded him a good deal of fun, and had occasionally been of decided benefit to him and his affairs.

Near the kitchen woodpile was a large box. It was empty and Pophagan, proprietor of the hotel, had thrown it into the backyard to be broken to pieces and used for kindling. The box was still intact, however.

“Stop that!” boomed a deep voice, apparently coming from inside the box. “No more of that rough-house or I’ll put you all in jail. D’you hear?”

The voice was heard, plainly enough. The effect was startling.

“Ach, du lieber!” sputtered Fritz, all his anger fading from him in a flash. “Who iss dot? Iss it some boliceman?”

“Plaps him p’leeceman,” whimpered Woo Sing, dashing the water out of his eyes with the back of his hand. “My no likee go to jail! Whoosh!”

“Dat ees muy malo!” chattered Silva, holding his chin and showing the whites of his eyes. “How you s’pose man get in de box, huh?”

“Dot iss a plame’ funny blace for a man, py shinks!” commented the wondering Fritz.

“Get me out of here quick,” came the voice from the box, “or I’ll nab the lot of you!”

“Caramba!” gulped the Mexican. “Me, I no like to fool wit’ de box.”

“Mebbyso Melican man gettee stuck in box,” suggested Woo Sing. “Him wantee out. My no likee one piecee pidgin, too. We helpee him, huh?”

The object for which Merriwell had been striving had been accomplished. Peace reigned among the three in the back yard. It was a sloppy sort of peace, for all of them were more or less drenched, but still it was peace for all that.

A community of interest had drawn the three together. Just now, to their disordered fancies, the possibility of a term in jail loomed very large.

“I t’ink ve pedder hellup der feller oudt oof der pox,” said Fritz, after a period of harrowing reflection. “Silfa, you go fairst and I vill precede mit der chink.”

“You yourself go first to de box!” implored Woo Sing.

“Please, fat Melican man!” implored Woo Sing.

“Help, help!” came the voice, in a roar. “I’m listening to what you fellows say out there. When I get out, you can bet I’ll take care of the ones who don’t come to my rescue.”

As soon as this statement had had time to sink in, all three of those who were standing at a distance from the box rushed as one man to get near it and to release the supposed person inside.

Clancy was red in the face with suppressed mirth. Merry, leaning against the window casing, was enjoying the situation to the utmost.

“Now for some fun,” murmured Clancy, “when they turn the box over and find there’s no one inside.”

“This is pretty rich, and no mistake,” chuckled Merry. “They’re all going to lay hold of the box and lift it. They——”

The words died on his lips. Just then something happened which caused a chilly feeling to race along his spine, and Clancy’s rapture vanished on the instant.

Before a hand could be laid on the box, it began to lift—apparently of its own accord. Fritz, Silva, and Woo Sing stepped back. They, of course, were in no wise startled for they were expecting to find some one under the big packing case. But Merry and Clancy could only gasp and stare downward with wide eyes.

The box, by a force exerted from within, was tilted backward. A young fellow showed himself, unkempt and his clothes in disorder from several hours in such cramped quarters.

He was not a tramp, that was evident. His clothing was of excellent quality and fitted him well. Surprise followed surprise for Merry, for he presently noticed that the youth’s hair was as black as a raven’s wing, his eyes a faded blue, and his skin a waxlike and unhealthy white!

Merriwell, astounded beyond words, leaned against the side of the window and continued to peer blankly outward and downward at the odd group in the rear of the hotel.

The man who had been under the box had his coat over his arm and his sleeves rolled to the elbow. With a snarling, angry cry he leaped past the Mexican, the Dutchman and the Chinaman, and sprinted at a tremendous clip to get out of the way.

“Catch that fellow!” cried Merriwell, finally waking up. “Come on, Clan!”

The red-headed chap came out of his daze in time to plunge for a dressing gown and a pair of slippers, and then to dart into the hall and away after his chum.

CHAPTER XLII.
GUFFEY’S QUEER ACTIONS.

Merriwell was in his pajamas, and as it was getting a time of day when people began to stir around, the scope of his efforts in overhauling the fellow who had been under the box was naturally limited. He had hoped that Fritz, Silva and Woo Sing might take up the pursuit, but in this he was disappointed.

“Where is the fellow?” Merry demanded, showing himself at a rear door and confronting the Dutchman, the Chinaman, and the Mexican.

“He vent avay like some shtreaks,” Fritz answered.

“Why didn’t you try to stop him?”

“He iss a boliceman, dot’s der reason.”

“Nonsense!” exclaimed Merry, “he’s no more a policeman than you are.”

“Ven he iss under der pox he say——”

“I know what he said, Carrots. Look here! What do you, and Silva, and Woo Sing mean by making such a disturbance on Sunday morning?”

“Dot vas a mishap, Merrivell, und nodding more.”

“Well, don’t let it happen again. Sing, bring up the water. What’s that you just picked up, Silva?”

The Mexican, standing near the uptilted box, had bent down and picked up some object off the ground.

“No sabe, señor,” said he, coming toward Merry and handing over his “find.”

Frank examined it carefully and discovered that it was a small, needle-pointed syringe, a “hypoderm,” such as is used by drug fiends to puncture the arm and inject their slow-working poison into the veins.

“The fellow under the box must have dropped that,” remarked Clancy.

“It’s a cinch that he did,” answered Merry.

“Now I know what that pasty face of his means. He’s a slave of the needle, Chip.”

“Yes,” nodded Frank. “Let’s go back upstairs, Clan,” he added, starting through the hotel and toward the stairs.

In the hallway on the second floor they met Ballard. He was fully dressed and was hurrying down to find out what was going on.

“I saw that squabble in the back yard,” he remarked, “and I thought Chip was back of that voice under the box. When the black-haired chap showed himself, it almost took me off my feet.”

“Same here,” chuckled Clancy. “Chip did throw his voice so that it seemed to come from the box.”

“Then he knew there was some one there?”

“Not so you could notice it, Pink,” Merry returned, with a puzzled laugh. “I hadn’t an idea there was a fellow under the box when I threw my voice in that direction and tried to stop the row. You could have knocked me down with a feather when that box began to lift.”

“Funny stunt,” put in Clancy, “and don’t you forget it. What do you suppose the fellow was doing there?”

“You’re liable to find a dope fiend almost any place. They’re half crazy all the time. But I happen to know who this particular fellow is.”

“You do?” cried Clancy and Ballard, together. “Who is he?”

“Come in and shut the door,” Frank answered.

After the tub had been twice filled by Woo Sing and Merry and Clancy had had their plunge, while they were dressing Merry told his chums about the new coach that had been doing such wonders with the Gold Hill football team. In his talk he did not mention Bleeker in any way, but referred principally to his conversation with Mr. Bradlaugh the preceding afternoon.

“This Guffey,” Frank proceeded, “seems to be a stranger to nearly every one but Jode Lenning. Jode, it seems, got scared at the brand of football we put up during the game at Tinaja Wells, and he begged the colonel to send for Guffey. After that incident in the gulch, when the blast came so near going off and killing Hawtrey, Guffey was sent for. They say he has done marvels with that Gold Hill squad.”

“Let me get this business straight in my mind, Chip,” said Ballard. “You’ve opened up a few leads that I can’t understand. Is Jode Lenning still hand-and-glove with the colonel?”

“Seems to be.”

Clancy and Ballard turned startled, uncomprehending looks at Merry.

“Thunder!” exclaimed the red-headed chap. “I can’t understand that, at all.”

“Nor I, Clan,” said Frank. “The colonel’s a queer one, and that’s the least you can say. Jode wanted Guffey. Guffey proves to be a dope fiend, but a brilliant coach. He’s a young fellow, too, and a horrible example for any other young fellow who feels like tagging him over such a course. From what I know of Colonel Hawtrey I can’t begin to understand why he will have anything to do with such a man as Guffey. Hawtrey is a stickler for clean living and sportsmanlike conduct, and this Guffey isn’t the sort to appeal to him a little bit.”

“The clouds continue to gather on Ophir’s football horizon,” observed Ballard, with an effort. “If that game is lost next Saturday——” He finished with a look that expressed his meaning better than words.

“We’re not going to lose it,” declared Merry.

“That’s the spirit, old man!” approved Clancy. “Still,” he added doubtfully, “you’ve got a man’s job on your hands if you succeed in pounding the club team into winning form. Since we came in from Tinaja Wells the eleven appears to have gone all to pieces.”

“They’re not reliable, those fellows,” growled Ballard. “Remember how they made a farce of their practice work along at the first when they were out to show Chip what they could do?”

It wasn’t likely the three lads would ever forget that. The team had made a poor showing at the start; and now, after weeks of careful coaching, the showing was but little better.

After all, Merriwell was asking himself, did the fault really lie in the material? He could not bring himself to think this. The Saturday’s game had merely been called on an “off” day for the regulars. He had faith to believe that the game Monday afternoon would turn out differently.

“We’re getting away from the point I’m trying to get at,” said Merriwell suddenly. “What I’d like to know is, why is Guffey in Ophir? What business has he here when his work is all in Gold Hill?”

“Think he was spying upon this hotel?” queried Ballard.

Merriwell started. Instinctively his thoughts recurred to Bleeker and the conference he and Bleeker had had the night before.

Was Guffey under the box at the time? Had he trailed Bleeker to the hotel and then hidden himself away so as to listen to what passed between Bleeker and Merry?

A moment’s reflections all but convinced Frank that this could not have been the case. If Guffey had sneaked to the hotel on Bleeker’s trail, then when Bleeker left Guffey would also have gone away. There was no possible explanation of the Gold Hill coach’s presence under the box except the one that had to do with his hypoderm and his morphine. Feeling the need of the drug, Guffey had crawled off into the most convenient quarters he could find; from that moment until the antics of Fritz, Silva, and Woo Sing had aroused him he had been in the grip of the drug demons.

This, at least, seemed to Merriwell the most plausible explanation. As evidence that his theory was correct, he had that little “hypoderm” which had been found near the box by Silva.

“No, Pink,” said Merry, “I don’t think Guffey was spying upon this hotel. What good would a move of that sort do him? If he wanted to find out anything regarding our club eleven he’d be hiding somewhere near the grid.” A grim smile crossed Merry’s face. “Guffey would have enjoyed the performance if he had been out there yesterday afternoon.”

“He’d have carried a lot of good cheer back to Gold Hill,” grinned Ballard. “Oh, well, hang them and their dopey coach. I guess Ophir will wiggle out of the set-to in pretty fair shape.”

“What did you want to capture Guffey for, Chip?” queried Clancy. “What was the idea?”

“I suggested that on the spur of the moment,” Frank answered. “It was like a blow in the face when I recognized the fellow, from the description I had had of him. What I wanted was to learn what he was here for. Now I’ve pretty well decided that he wasn’t in his right mind when he crawled into the box. He was crazy for some of that drug. Strikes me, fellows, that’s about all there is to his being there.”

Just at that moment the breakfast gong sounded.

“There goes the chuck signal,” chirped Ballard. “Come on, you two.”

They piled downstairs, hung their hats on the rack by the dining-room door, and went in to their accustomed seats at the table. Here a fresh surprise awaited them.

The fellow who had been on the subject of their recent debate upstairs was in the dining room calmly eating his breakfast. He did not sit at the same table where Frank and his chums had their places, but at another farther toward the center of the room.

All three of the boys stopped, hands on the backs of their chairs. Clancy nudged Merriwell with his elbow.

Guffey’s appearance had undergone a very decided change for the better. His clothes had been smoothed out and brushed, his black hair neatly combed, and he looked quite as respectable as any coach ought to look. He was completely master of himself, too, and he met the gaze of the three chums leveled at him with perfect self-control. He smiled pleasantly, got up from his chair, and stepped toward Merriwell.

“Frank Merriwell, isn’t it?” he asked, in a voice low and well modulated. “I thought so,” he went on, as Frank nodded. “My name is Guffey, and I’m the new coach over at Gold Hill. We are coaching rival teams, Merriwell, but we’re true sportsmen, eh? We can be on friendly terms for all that?”

“Of course,” Frank answered, a little dazedly. “Glad to meet you, Guffey. My friends, Owen Clancy and Billy Ballard.”

Guffey transferred his right to Clancy and Ballard, smiled again, murmured his acknowledgments, and then returned to his waiting chair. It was all very nicely done, and it was plain that Guffey, the coach, knew how to be a gentleman.

“Well, I’ll be darned!” muttered Clancy. “Say, Chip, is that really the dope fiend we saw coming out from under the box?”

“No doubt of it,” Frank answered.

“He acts and looks like a different fellow—still, that pasty face, that black hair, and those washed-out blue eyes are the same. Why is he here? Is it a case of nerve on his part?”

“You’ll have to ask me something easier than that,” Merry answered, dismissing Guffey from his mind and giving his whole attention to his meal.

CHAPTER XLIII.
REVIVING HOPES.

Guffey left the dining room before Frank and his chums had finished their breakfast. When they finally came out they found Handy, captain of the Ophir eleven, waiting for them. Handy showed traces of excitement.

“What was Guffey, the Gold Hill coach, doing over here, Chip?” he demanded.

“Nothing more than eating his breakfast, Handy, so far as I know. Are you acquainted with him?”

“I’ve heard him described, and I thought I had him spotted as he passed through the office. To settle any doubts, I looked at the register. There was his name, plain enough: ‘Simeon Guffey, Gold Hill.’ I don’t like the idea of his sneaking around Ophir like this.”

“Don’t be in a taking about it, old man,” said Frank soothingly. “Where did he go?”

“There was a horse out in front, and he got into the saddle and pointed for the cañon trail. On his way back to Gold Hill, I reckon.”

“Come on up to my room,” said Merry. “Clan, you and Pink had better come, too.”

When they had the captain behind the closed door, Frank told him about the squabble in the back yard, and how, in a most surprising way, Guffey had been discovered under the empty packing case. Frank propounded his theory as to why Guffey was in that peculiar place, and produced the “hypoderm” in evidence.

Handy was experiencing an attack of nerves and was ready to see the hidden hand of the Gold Hill club in anything and everything that looked a little off color.

“There’s something back of his being here,” he declared, “and it’s a heap more than you imagine, Merriwell. Guffey didn’t blow into town for any good. He may use the dope, but you can gamble that he’s not using it to an extent that queers him in his work as coach.”

It was several minutes before Frank and his chums could calm Handy sufficiently for a talk about football. At last, however, they began a study of the club eleven with the view of shifting the players around and getting better results.

“I wouldn’t drop any of the boys from the regular team, Chip,” said the captain earnestly.

“It would be a bad move at this late day,” Frank answered, “to put in some new men from the scrub team. If we had two weeks left I don’t know but I’d try it, but with only four days for good, hard practice, dropping anybody from the eleven would be a mistake. Win or lose, Handy, we’ll use the material we have. We can do a little shifting, though.”

“I made a monkey of myself yesterday,” declared Handy, with a firm determination to shoulder all the consequences of his own mistakes, “and that’s what played the dickens with the quarter. But I was nervous, and the way the scrubs lit into us had me rattled. I’ve a notion all the boys felt the same way. We went into that game overconfident and careless; then, when we began getting the worst of it, we slopped over in the other direction and took our backsets too much to heart. We’ll do better to-morrow.”

“You’ve got to, that’s all,” said Merriwell grimly. “What will happen if Gold Hill gets the best of it in next Saturday’s game?”

“It would make the third time, hand-running, that we’ve gone down to defeat at the hands of that other crowd. If that happens, everybody in Ophir will be disgusted, and this athletic club of ours will go to the dogs.”

“Is it as bad as that?”

“It’s worse!” declared Handy. “If you had lived in this town for a year or two, you’d know more about the feeling that prevails regarding these football games.”

“Then, if that’s the way you hook up, we’ve got to win.”

“We have, if it takes a leg.”

After two hours of thoughtful discussion, during which each individual player on the regular team was thoroughly studied, two or three shifts made in the line-up, and a little talk indulged in that renewed the captain’s ardor and determination, the meeting broke up.

For most of the regulars and second-string men, however, it was a blue Monday when they assembled in the gym for the afternoon’s work. Their faces were long and gloomy as they squatted around on the floor in their football togs and listened to a little sharp grilling from the captain.

Merriwell followed Handy. The faults and mistakes of the preceding Saturday afternoon he flashed before the player’s eyes in detail. There was terror in the souls of the regular eleven; but fears were relieved somewhat when not one of the team was publicly disgraced by being dropped to the scrub. At last, tingling in every nerve, the men were sent to the field for another contest with the second eleven.

And, this time, the regulars did their work admirably. The practice was secret, and no evil, greedy eyes were staring out from between the benches of the grand stand. The club eleven lit into the scrubs with a savage fury that swept all before them. Never once, in all the fierce battling of the game, was the regular’s goal in danger. This was a romp to victory, but with none of the gala features of a romp about it. Intensity of purpose marked every play. And the final score was so many to nothing that the dusty, sweating, worn-out scrubs were awed and chastened.

Tuesday afternoon the work was even harder. The scrub team was strengthened by the addition of Ballard and Clancy, and while it was being hurriedly organized, farther down the oval of the field, the regulars were being run through the signals. Up and down the field they rushed in rehearsal of all the complicated attacks. The numbers, flung out by Merry, cracked like a blacksnake whip; and, with every crack, the players leaped to their work. Again and again the coach charged the team, now against one goal and now against the other.

After a brief rest the strengthened scrub teams appears. Against them the regulars are pitted for a whirlwind fight of half an hour, cut in two by an interval of two minutes.

The hardiest of the players flop over on the warm sand, utterly exhausted, when the whistle stops the playing. Merriwell is boring down into their endurance as no coach has ever done before. But they do not complain. They know he is doing it for the glory of Ophir.

That Tuesday-afternoon match was rendered brilliant by the playing of Owen Clancy at quarter. He and Ballard, encouraging the second eleven, gave the regulars a grapple that they will long remember.

Wednesday is a repetition of Tuesday, only worse in its grinding, gruelling labor, if that were possible. Like tigers, with sinews of steel and a suddenness of lightning, the regulars spring at the throats of the scrubs. Every man on the second eleven is putting up the fight of his life. He knows that the harder he can make it for the regulars, the more it will be for the glory of Ophir. Brilliantly supported by Clancy and Ballard and, along toward the end, by Merry at half, they bring out the very last ounce of power and ability which the club team has in store.

The regulars have possession of the ball. They smash into the scrubs like a living catapult, hunting from end to end of the scrub line for the one weak point. After thirty minutes of heartbreaking play, a whistle sounds a truce. The teams are rushed to the gym, quickly sponged, fresh recruits jump into the ranks of the scrubs, and once more the regulars are put to the relentless test.

“If we can live through this,” gasps one of the regulars as, the playing over for the day, he totters in the direction of the showers, “if we can live through this we’ll eat up any eleven on earth.”

“Are you satisfied, Chip?” queried the weary, exultant Handy as he came, clothed for the street, out of the dressing rooms after the Wednesday game.

“Yes,” Merry answered, “we’ve got a bunch of winners. All aboard for Dolliver’s to-morrow afternoon.”

“The word has been passed around, Chip, and we’ll all be ready.”

Thursday afternoon Bradlaugh’s big car, and two other machines pressed into service, carried the Ophir eleven, three or four substitutes, and Chip Merriwell and his chums out along the old trail to Tinaja Wells.

A disappointment awaited Frank at Dolliver’s. He had counted upon meeting Darrel at the ranch, but Darrel, he found, had gone into Gold Hill that very morning.

Why was Darrel in Gold Hill? Certainly his uncle had not sent for him. The colonel was still clinging to Jode Lenning, and, so long as he did that, he could have no possible use for Darrel.

Merry, however, had too much on his mind to worry over the mysterious actions of Darrel. Curly was improving right along, and that was the main thing. He would undoubtedly be at the Ophir-Gold Hill game, and Merry could see him there.

Thursday there was nothing at all to do, with the exception of a little signal practice along toward sun-down. Nor was there any line-up or hard work on Friday—nothing but a five-mile cross-country trot in the forenoon, and in the afternoon nothing at all. It was the day before the game—a day to which the population of Ophir and Gold Hill had been looking forward for months.

The game was to be played on the Ophir field. The games of the two previous years had been won by Gold Hill on her own field, and it was deemed no more than fair that Ophir should have the third game on her grounds.

The fellows were to remain at Dolliver’s until one o’clock Saturday afternoon. At that hour the machines were to arrive for them and whisk them away to the field for the fight with their rivals.

There was not much hilarity among the lads. They were impressed—and a little oppressed—with the prospect of the work required of them on the next afternoon. They collected in groups, and, in low voices, talked of everything they could think of except football. And yet, the biggest and most constant thing in every fellow’s mind was the coming game.

Merry and Handy, along about eight in the evening, were a little apart from the players. They were considering Simeon Guffey for about the dozenth time.

“You’re fretting too much about the Gold Hill coach, old man,” said Frank.

“I’ve got a hunch that there’s something about the fellow we don’t understand,” answered the captain.

“If you’re going to worry about all the things you can’t understand,” Merry laughed, “you’re going to have your hands full.”

Just at that moment Clancy came around a corner of the house.

“Guess who’s here, Chip!” said he.

“I’m in no mood to wrestle with conundrums, Clan,” was the answer.

“All right, then. It’s Colonel Hawtrey. He just rode up. His horse is at the hitching pole and he wants to see you at once—and privately.”

“Hawtrey—to see me!” Frank muttered, as he hurried around the house and toward the trail in front.

CHAPTER XLIV.
THE COLONEL’S TIP.

The colonel, erect and soldierly, was pacing slowly back and forth at the trailside. It was a fair inference, from the way he bore himself, that there was something on his mind.

Since Frank had heard of the way the old colonel had been treating Jode Lenning, following Jode’s wretched conduct in the gulch, his estimate of the colonel had gone down several degrees. A man might be eccentric, Frank reasoned, without displaying such glaring partiality or such weak-kneed injustice.

“Good evening, colonel,” said Frank, coming to a halt near the trail.

The other, busy with his reflections, had not noticed the lad’s approach. “That you, Merriwell?” he asked, turning.

“Yes, sir. I was told that you want to talk with me.”

“So I do; I have come out here for that especial purpose. Suppose we walk a little way along the trail?”

Frank fell in at the colonel’s side and walked with him a stone’s throw up the road. When they halted, the colonel sat down on a bowlder and lighted a cigar. The flare of the match, falling over his rugged face, revealed a sternness and a settled purpose that rather startled the youngster at his side. Colonel Hawtrey, in spite of the way he was treating Jode, was no weakling.

“To-morrow, Merriwell,” went on Hawtrey, “is the day of the big game. Several hundred from Gold Hill will move on Ophir to root for the home team. I hope everybody keeps his temper and that there will be no disgraceful clashes. To-morrow afternoon, I sincerely trust, we are going to bury our animosities in friendly rivalry. The old feud between the two athletic organizations, let us hope, is going to be wiped out forever.”

“You will find, colonel,” said Frank, “that Ophir will do her full part.”

“Glad to hear that. I will personally stand sponsor for Gold Hill. The news comes to us that your team is in a bad way, and that last week Saturday the first game after your return to town from camp was a big disappointment to you. Handy, your captain, got rattled and began interfering with the quarter back, and Mayburn, your center, put up a miserable article of play. Is that right?”

The hot blood rushed into Merry’s face and he shot an indignant glance at the colonel. What was the use of the Gold Hill nabob coming out to Dolliver’s to talk such stuff to the Ophir coach?

“How did you get any information about that game, colonel?” he demanded. “No one was allowed on the grounds except our men. I can’t believe that our fellows would talk about what happened last Saturday afternoon.”

“Ordinary loyalty would keep them from doing that, eh?”

“Sure it would. Who told you all that, sir?”

“That’s immaterial, just now. I am not here to twit you about your team’s shortcomings, Merriwell. I have simply recited what came to me as facts, and I want you to say whether or not the facts are true. A good deal hangs upon that point—more than you even dream of.”

There was a depth of earnestness in the colonel’s voice which filled Frank with wonder. What in blazes was he trying to get at, anyhow?

“Why, yes,” said Frank, “Harry did interfere a little with the quarter, and Mayburn was off in his work.”

“Doolittle wasn’t very good, either, was he?”

“Not very.”

The colonel drew a long breath and puffed silently at his cigar for a few moments.

“Then what I heard was true,” he muttered finally. “This makes it certain, my lad, that Gold Hill had a spy at your secret game. How could anything be known about the game if that had not been the case? Such work is reprehensible. I am as indignant over the matter as you could possibly be. There is nothing sportsmanlike about it. I can congratulate myself on the fact, however, that the spy was not a Gold Hill man but a stranger—or almost a stranger. I am positive that it was Guffey, the coach.”

“You think, then, that Guffey was sneaking around when we played that game, last week?” the boy demanded.

“I’m sure of it. Guffey left Gold Hill in the forenoon of Saturday, and he did not return until Sunday forenoon. He was in Ophir—he must have been.”

“I knew he was in Ophir Saturday night,” said Frank, and told of what happened in the rear of the hotel on Sunday morning.

The colonel muttered angrily to himself.

“That’s the sort of gentleman we have for a coach,” he growled, “a fellow who uses a ‘hypoderm’ and who sleeps in a box in a back yard. He’s a hobo, and a pretty poor stick of a hobo at that. This thing is working out just as I thought it would. Good may come of it, however.”

“Where does this man Guffey hail from, colonel?” Frank asked.

“I don’t know the first thing about him. Jode knows him, and he’s the one who sent for him. Guffey’s a good coach, and our eleven is in better shape than it has ever been before. I’m sorry that Guffey’s a scoundrel, but it is going to be the happiest day of my life if he pans out the way I hope and believe.”

Once more the colonel had Frank wondering. How was he expecting Guffey to “pan out?” In one breath the colonel was sorry Guffey was a scoundrel, and in the next he was going to be happy if the scoundrel panned out to be as bad as he hoped and believed. Frank was all twisted to account for the colonel’s motives and feelings.

“Now that you know Guffey’s a scoundrel,” Frank remarked, “are you going to let him come to Ophir with the Gold Hill fellows?”

“I am,” was the reply, “and while he’s in your bailiwick, Merriwell, I want you to do one thing.”

“What is that?”

“Watch the fellow. You’re a friend of my nephew, Ellis, aren’t you?”

“Right from the top of the hat,” said Frank, with spirit.

“Well, keep a keen eye on Guffey. By doing that, you may help Darrel more than you can realize now. You’re very much concerned, I suppose, because I have treated Jode, since that affair in the gulch, with the same consideration that I did before. You don’t understand why I have left him on the football team, or why I have anything further to do with him. Is that correct?”

“Well, yes,” admitted Frank.

“And neither can you understand why I tolerate such a scoundrel as Guffey.”

“No, colonel, I can’t.”

“I am manipulating things, Merriwell. I may be wrong, but I don’t think so. If you will coöperate with me, I’m pretty sure this whole affair is going to come around in fine shape.”

“Just what do you expect me to do?” Frank queried. “How will keeping an eye on Guffey enable me to coöperate with you?”

“Why, as to that, everything depends on your shrewdness. Take up a position close to Guffey from the time he arrives on the field; then watch him like a hawk. If anything develops that excites your suspicion, follow it up with vigor.”

“What do you think will develop?”

“I haven’t the least notion what form developments will take, but I am sure something will come. I have done my part by tolerating Jode and helping to get Guffey here. Now the rest of it is up to you—and you are a good friend of Darrel’s.”

Frank was nonplused. It had been made clear to him, however, that the colonel had let Jode off easy, after that affair in the gulch, for a purpose; and, for the same purpose, he had allowed Jode to have his way about Guffey. Here the wily old colonel was playing a deep game. And at the back of his head was the desire that Darrel might profit by it. While this much was clear; to Merry, all the rest was steeped in the deepest kind of mystery.

“Are you going to take my tip, Merriwell, and act upon it?” asked the colonel.

“Bank on that, sir!” was the prompt response.

“Good!” said the colonel, in a tone of deep satisfaction. “If I’ve got hold of the right end of this, I can trust you to work out the rest of the problem.”

“Will Guffey get actively into the game?” inquired Frank.

“No,” was the decided answer. “It’s bad enough to have such a fellow coach our boys without coming actually into contact with them on the field. As soon as this game is over, I can promise you that Gold Hill will see the last of him. Darrel, I hear, is not at Dolliver’s?” the colonel went on, shifting the subject.

“No,” said Frank.

“Is he in Ophir?”

“Dolliver tells me that he went to Gold Hill Thursday morning.”

“Jove! I haven’t seen him in Gold Hill, and I haven’t heard of his being there. You are sure Dolliver——”

“Darrel won’t go looking for you, colonel,” said Frank, with a touch of pride, “until he’s able to give you his hand. I believe he went to the Hill to try and clear up that forgery matter.”

“Ah!” There was a certain grimness in the colonel’s voice which did not escape Frank. “I don’t believe he can do that, Merriwell. He hadn’t ought to be roaming around, anyhow, until that broken arm of his is entirely well. He’ll be at Ophir for the game?”

“He said he would, at the time we broke camp and pulled out for home.”

The colonel got up and stepped closer to Frank. His voice sank low and throbbed with feeling as he laid a hand on Frank’s shoulder and went on:

“If you see him, Merriwell, tell him not to draw any wrong conclusions from the way I am conducting myself. Tell him that, when he knows all, he will see that I am acting for the best interests of all concerned. You’ll do that?”

“Certainly.”

“I’ve been an old fool in a good many ways, and when an old fool sees the light he ought to be wise in getting to the bottom of things and in passing justice around. I’m trying to show a little wisdom, Merriwell. Until you know all, you can at least give me credit for that.”

“I do, colonel,” Frank answered.

The colonel reached for his hand, shook it warmly, and then, without speaking further, turned and retraced his way to his horse. Frank, standing to one side, watched while he swung into the saddle.

“Good-by, my lad, and good luck,” called the colonel.

“Good-by, sir,” Frank answered.

The next moment Colonel Hawtrey had galloped off along the trail and was lost in the wavering shadows. He left behind him, perhaps as puzzled a boy as there was in all Arizona.

“Well, I’ll be hanged!” Merriwell muttered, as he turned back toward the house. “The colonel’s all right, but I wish to thunder that I knew what he’s trying to get at. Going it blind never made much of a hit with me.”

CHAPTER XLV.

THE PLUGGED “HALF.”

The noon meal at Dolliver’s was a light one, for Frank did not believe in football on a full stomach. The three big cars came along, promptly on time, and the lads crowded into them with their suit cases. They were a nervous lot of boys in spite of their efforts to be cool and confident.

Frank got into a front seat of the Bradlaugh car. Mr. Bradlaugh was driving.

“This outfit is looking mighty fit, I must say,” the president of the O.  A.  C. remarked, as he put the automobile in motion on the back track.

“The Ophir fellows are ready to make the fight of their lives,” Frank answered.

“Bully. About all of Gold Hill was piling into our club grounds when I left. They’re always a talkative lot and not too careful how they rag the Ophir players. We must all remember to take the joshing in good part.”

“You can depend on us to prove a credit to Ophir, Mr. Bradlaugh,” said Frank quietly.

“It does me good to hear that. Win or lose, Merriwell, let’s show the colonel and his crowd that we are true sportsmen. The colonel is always harping on that proposition, you know, so let’s give him an example of what it really means.”

“We will.”

The game was called for two-thirty, and it was two o’clock when the three automobiles trailed into the inclosure at the athletic field, trailed in single file across one end of the grounds and halted at the doors of the gym.

Grand stand and bleachers were swarming with people. The crowd overflowed the clubhouse balcony, filled a number of automobiles that nosed the fence beyond the side lines, and took up every available foot of ground that commanded a view of the gridiron.

Pennants were waving, handkerchiefs were being fluttered, and cheers were going up on every side. The arrival of Ophir’s champions was the signal for a bedlam of cheers that traveled across the field and back again in a tidal wave.

“They look good, but not good enough!” howled a Gold Hiller as the cheering lulled.

“You can’t produce anythin’ to beat ’em!” whooped a scrappy Ophir man.

“Hold yer bronks till the other crowd trots out!”

“We’ll hold our bronks, and our eleven’ll hold yore team to a fare-ye-well!”

“Wait an’ see!”

“Yes, wait!”

This was a sample of the cross-fire indulged in by the rival rooters. Cowboys and miners were among the partisans, on both sides, and they were of a class not given to undue restraint.

“Hawkins is on the ground with a force of helpers,” said Mr. Bradlaugh, as Merry climbed out of the car, “and if the good feeling happens to get strained I reckon the deputy can smooth it out.”

“If there’s any row,” said Frank, “it will be among the rough-necks. There’s no bitterness in our crowd. We’re going to win, and we know it. That’s all, Mr. Bradlaugh.”

“That’s enough,” laughed Mr. Bradlaugh, with an admiring glance at Merry as he trailed the Ophir fellows into the gymnasium.

Frank was not intending to get into the game himself, but as good substitutes were lacking, he had planned to hold Clancy and Ballard, along with a few of the best second eleven men, in reserve.

While the fellows were in the dressing rooms, getting out of their ordinary clothes and into their football togs, Chip sat in the big, bare exercise room, his head bowed in thought. Some one approached him from behind and touched his shoulder.

“Not gloomy are you, old chap?” asked a familiar voice.

Frank whirled and sprang up.

“Hello, Curly!” he exclaimed, his face flushing with pleasure. “Where the deuce have you been keeping yourself for the last few days?”

“Left Dolliver’s to go to Gold Hill on business, pard,” smiled Darrel.

The youngster’s face was pale and a little thinner than usual. His bandaged arm swung from his neck in a sling.

“I was badly disappointed when I did not see you at the ranch,” Frank went on, taking the other’s hand. “How are you feeling?”

“Finer than silk. A little wabbly on my pins, but that’s only temporary. I’m here to see the game, but I’ve been hanging around the gym to tell you that I don’t like the way this man Guffey sizes up. I’ve got some mighty strong doubts about him. When I heard a new coach had arrived in Gold Hill, and that Jode had signaled him to come I was filled with suspicions. That’s why I went over to the Hill. But the suspicions didn’t work out worth a darn. Yesterday I headed for Ophir.”

“What were the suspicions, Curly?”

“Never mind, now. I seem to be full of pipe dreams. Say, what do you think about Jode and the colonel? You know, of course, that Jode’s still king bee of the Gold Hill bunch. He’s got a stranglehold on the colonel, all right!”

A shadow crossed Darrel’s face. Through it showed disappointment and a little sadness.

“When I heard how your uncle had treated Jode, after that eye opener in the gulch,” Frank returned, “I had begun to think that the old colonel was in his dotage. But now I’ve changed my mind.”

“What caused the change?”

“A talk I had with the colonel last night. He came out to Dolliver’s purposely to have a word with me.”

Darrel showed symptoms of curiosity and excitement.

“What did he say, Chip?” he asked.

“I couldn’t tell you all he said, for I haven’t time, but he gave me a message for you. He wanted me to say, if I saw you before the game, that you’re not to draw any wrong conclusion from the way he has been behaving; he said that, when you know all, you’ll see how he’s acting for the best interests of all concerned.”

“That’s mighty hard to swallow,” said Darrel, with a trace of bitterness. “I saved his life when Jode failed, and yet he keeps right on with Jode just as he was doing before. I’m not finding any fault with him—he’s his own boss, and I’ve nothing to say. But I’m not the only one that’s doing a heap of guessing because of the way he’s acting.”

“Don’t form any snap judgments, Curly,” urged Frank. “Wait for a while, anyhow.”

“Oh, I’ll wait,” was the hopeless response. “What can I do but wait? But I’m pretty near discouraged. That forgery plot was too deep, too well laid. We’ll never get to the bottom of it.”

“Buck up, old man! We will get to the bottom of it—mark what I’m telling you.”

At this point the Ophir eleven and the substitutes trooped from the dressing rooms. Although Darrel belonged with Gold Hill, yet he was not an active Gold Hiller, and a lot of his warmest friendships were wrapped up in the Ophir team. The boy was a prime favorite, and the players flocked around him and pressed his hand cordially. Darrel, with a laughing remark to the effect that he wished the Ophir fellows all sorts of luck, excused himself and hurriedly left the gym.

The time had come for a final word with the eleven. Handy eased himself first of what was on his mind. He recalled the fact that Ophir had been beaten twice by the Gold Hillers. Would Ophir stand for that kind of thing three times hand running? He thought not. With a few words of counsel here and there, he stepped back and gave place to Merriwell.

“You know what the effect will be, fellows,” said Frank, “if you fall down on this game?”

A chorus of affirmatives greeted the question.

“I guess I don’t have to say anything more,” Frank added. “Get together, that’s all. You can win, and you’re going to.”

Just as he finished, a tumult of shouts and cheers came from the spectators. One look from the gym door showed that the Gold Hill team had trotted out on the field from their dressing rooms. They made a fine spectacle, and, all in all, looked to be the formidable crowd that they were.

Not only was Gold Hill cheering the team, but Ophir also had risen to its feet and joined in with the rival rooters. This augured well for the feeling that prevailed among the spectators.

After a few moments, the Gold Hill squad scattered over the gridiron for a little signal work.

“Now, then, fellows,” said Handy.

As the Ophir lads appeared, there was another round of cheering; but the volume of sound and the enthusiasm were no greater than in the case of their opponents. At sight of the Ophir squad, the Gold Hill players bunched together and gave them their club yell in a most friendly spirit. Jode Lenning himself, who was always more or less of a disturbing factor, led in the demonstration.

Handy, not to be outdone by the rivals, bunched up his men and returned the Gold Hill greeting.

“Gee,” laughed Clancy, at Merry’s elbow, “you’d never have thought, a spell ago, that these two clubs were ready to fly at each other’s throats! The proper spirit prevails in wads and slathers.”

“This is merely by way of shaking hands before the bout,” smiled Merry. “The test will come when we get down to business.”

While the Ophirites were being put through a few of their paces, Merry started in to fulfill his promise to Colonel Hawtrey. He began looking for Guffey.

The other coach found him first, and came forward smilingly and with outstretched hand.

“Hello, Merriwell,” said he pleasantly. “This is a bully day for a game, and a bully crowd of spectators.”

“You’re right,” Merry answered.

He kept close to Guffey, in an artless sort of way, and was with him when Lenning and Handy approached to toss for positions.

“Got a dollar, Guff?” inquired Lenning.

“Here’s a half, Len,” answered the coach, dipping into his pocket.

The coin was sent spinning into the air, and, when it fell, it was almost at Merriwell’s feet.

Lenning won, and naturally he chose the goal that had the wind in its favor. The players scattered out on the field, and Merry was left staring at Guffey—startled so that he scarcely realized what was going on around him.

The coin which Guffey had furnished for the toss was the plugged half dollar, Merry’s pocket piece, and the one that had vanished with the rest of the money from Merry’s coat. Frank had had a good look at the coin, and could not be mistaken.

CHAPTER XLVI.
THE GAME.

Merriwell’s interest in that game was naturally intense; and yet, it was not so intense as it was in that affair of Darrel’s. The colonel had hinted that Darrel was to be benefited by Merriwell’s watching Guffey. Keeping an eye on the other coach had started something, right at the very beginning of the game.

Like lightning Merry’s mind marshaled a few facts and evolved a startling theory. Hawtrey had said that Guffey had seen the game on the preceding Saturday. Merriwell’s thirty dollars had vanished during that game. Now Guffey had produced some of the loose change that had formed part of the “thirty.” It was money that could not readily be passed, so here was a possible reason for Guffey’s keeping it by him.

The pockets of the coat were emptied while the garment lay on the grand-stand benches. Instantly Merriwell thought of the dressing rooms under the stand, and of their possibilities as a point of observation. He thought, too, how easy it would be for a thief to reach out and draw the coat through between the seats, go into the garment at his leisure, and then replace it where it had been left by its owner.

Everything pointed to the fact that Simeon Guffey had taken the money. Frank had to believe the evidence. He stepped closer to the Gold Hill coach, who was watching the game with an absorbed air.

Ophir had got the Gold Hill kick-off and had run the ball back past the middle of the field, losing it after two downs by an on-side kick that failed to pan out as expected.

“Now, then, Gold Hill, smash into ’em! Get the steam engine to work! Flatten ’em out!” roared the visiting rooters.

“Hold ’em, Ophir!” came encouragingly from the local ranks.

Gold Hill smashed into a stone wall when Ophir took the defensive; but a breach was made, and Mingo, the Gold Hill half back, made some good gains by clever work. But Gold Hill, strongly favored by the wind, elected to punt in the hope of getting within scoring distance.

The ball gyrated through a long, high, aërial arc, to be captured on the Ophir fifteen-yard line and hustled back to the twenty-five yards before the runner was downed.

“Whoop-ya!” howled cowboys in the Ophir crowd; “eat ‘em up, you Ophir gophers! Swaller ’em, boots an’ chaps! You can do it!”

“I got a ten-case note what says they kain’t do it!” yelped a sporty miner from the Gold Hill benches.

“Make it a hundred an’ I’ll go ye!”

But evidently the other man couldn’t dig up the hundred.

Guffey, crouching on the side lines, was absently picking pebbles out of the sand and flipping them about. He seemed surprised by Ophir’s showing. Merry crouched down at his side.

“You’ve done wonders with that bunch since last week, Merriwell,” remarked Guffey.

He must have spoken before he thought. The next instant his jaw muscles flexed angrily, and his pallid face showed something like consternation.

“What do you know about our work last week, Guffey?” Frank asked.

He was so close to the other coach that it was not difficult for him to make himself heard in spite of the tumult caused by the spectators. One side or the other was howling and cheering, so that the uproar was almost continuous.

“Only—what I’ve heard,” answered Guffey, with some nervousness and constraint.

“You heard our eleven was poor?”

Guffey affected not to catch the question. He pretended to be wrapped up in the playing.

Ophir, from the twenty-five yards, had failed to gain, and punted. Gold Hill got the ball on her forty-yard line, and, after two trials that fell short, kicked again. The ball sailed over the goal line, and Ophir touched it back.

There came a bit of a lull. Frank pushed closer to Guffey.

“I say, Guffey,” said he, “will you let me look at that half dollar that was used for the toss?”

The Gold Hill coach turned his deathlike face toward Frank, and peered at him with suspicion in his faded blue eyes.

“You think it’s a fake coin, eh?” he demanded; “one of the heads-I-win-tails-you-lose sort, eh?”

There was a snarl, venomous as it was uncalled for, back of the words.

“I don’t think anything of the sort,” Frank answered sharply. “I just want to look at it, that’s all.”

“There you are.”

Guffey thrust his hand into his pocket, jerked out a coin, and flung it down in front of Frank. The latter picked it up.

It was not a plugged coin, nor was it minted in the year of Merry’s birth. Guffey had substituted another piece for the one in question.

“This isn’t the half they used for the toss, Guffey,” said Frank.

“I’m a liar, am I?” demanded Guffey hotly. “What are you trying to do, Merriwell? Kick up a row?”

“No,” was the response, “I don’t want any row here to-day. Just let me see the half dollar that was used for the toss.”

“You’ve seen it.”

With that Guffey arose from his crouching position, and, with a scowl, moved off to another place. Frank knew that the fellow was guilty. He had seen Frank eying the plugged coin when it dropped in front of him, and he had reasoned that he might have recognized it. Frank’s request to see the silver piece was further proof to Guffey that he had developed a suspicious interest in it. Hence, Guffey’s motive for substituting another half dollar for the right one.

Ophir, after the touchback, had elected to put the pigskin in scrimmage, on the twenty-five yard line, but was soon back at its old punting tricks. Gold Hill’s right half, Poindexter by name, misjudged the ball. As it slipped from the ends of his fingers, he was pushed aside by an Ophir lad, who got it under him on Gold Hill’s forty-yard line.

Ophir went wild. The stands fairly roared, hats were tossed in the air, and yells and cheers made the whole place a pandemonium.

“What’s up between Guffey and you, Chip?” queried Clancy, in Merriwell’s ear.

“Why?” returned Merry. “What makes you think there’s anything up, Clan?”

“Blazes! Why, I can’t help but see when it’s going on right under my eyes.”

“Watch the game, Clan,” said Merry. “If I have to leave the field, you stand by to send in the substitutes.”

“Look here,” muttered the excited Clancy, “you don’t intend to clear out before the game’s over, do you?”

“I don’t know what will happen, Clan, but if I leave it will be to follow Guffey. Don’t ask any questions. I’m playing a bigger game than this little match at football.”

The red-headed fellow was all up in the air. His freckled face reflected his conflicting emotions.

Frank, turning to keep track of Guffey, saw Hawkins, the deputy sheriff, beckoning to him. He got up and walked over to the deputy’s side.

“I’m keepin’ an eye on that Guffey person, Merriwell,” said Hawkins. “You don’t need to bother.”

“What are you watching him for, Hawkins?” Frank asked.

“Because I don’t like his looks. He’s a pill.”

“He’s the Gold Hill coach, and you’re not to interfere with him, you know.”

“Mebby not, but what’re you baitin’ him for?”

They were both unconsciously peering toward Guffey. At that moment, the Gold Hill coach turned suddenly and gave the two of them a full, level stare. When he turned away, he acted like a person who is considerably wrought up and trying to conceal it.

“Wow!” chuckled Hawkins. “Say, son, he don’t like seein’ you and me in talk, like this. He’s makin’ a bluff that he don’t care—but it’s a bluff. Why does he care? You better tell me.”

“Not now,” said Frank, and walked away.

Meanwhile the quarter had ended with the ball on Gold Hill’s fifty-yard line. On the first play, Bradlaugh, left half for Ophir, carried the oval for a ten-yard gain. Little by little, steady as fate, the ball crept to within ten yards of the Gold Hill goal line.

Frank’s interest, for a while, almost turned from Guffey to the ball. It looked as though Ophir was surely due to make a touchdown.

The spectators had gone crazy with excitement. Gold Hill’s players were fighting like so many tigers; and then, out of the ruck of fighting and the tangle of sweating players, the ball soared up and over the field. Ophir groaned and Gold Hill began to jubilate.

That was the only time either goal had been in serious danger, and the half ended with the ball at about the place where it had been when first put into play.

Merriwell led his men to the dressing rooms.

“Fine work!” said he. “You’re going to get a touchdown in the next half, and Gold Hill isn’t going to score at all. I’ve got a hunch—one of the red-hot kind that always pans out. Mayburn, you’re a crackajack! Spink, just keep up the good work! Brad, you’re a star! What’s the matter, Deever?”

Lafe Deever, right end, was limping.

“Twisted my ankle,” said he, “but I reckon it won’t amount to much.”

“Take off your shoe and let’s see.”

Merry shook his head when he examined the exposed foot. The skin was broken and the ankle looked red and angry.

“Let Banks report to the referee, Handy,” said Frank. “Sorry, Deever,” he added, to the crestfallen end, “but we can’t take chances, you know. You’ve won glory enough in the first half, anyhow.”

Merry pulled Handy aside.

“If anything happens that I have to leave the field before the game is over, Handy,” said Frank, “Clancy will be on deck.”

“But you’re not going to leave——”

“Not if I can help it. There’s something important going on—something not down on the bills—and I can’t neglect it even for this football game.”

With that, Merry hurried from the gym. The first man he encountered on the field was Hawkins.

“Has Guffey come out of the Gold Hill dressing rooms yet?” he asked.

“Well, I reckon,” grinned the deputy. “He came out with Jode Lenning, an’ the two walked over to’rd the west end of the grand stand. There they are now, in a close confab.”

Frank sauntered carelessly in the direction of Guffey and Lenning.

CHAPTER XLVII.
NOT ON THE PROGRAM.

Over their shoulders, Lenning and Guffey caught sight of Merriwell making his way toward them. They exchanged hurried words, and Guffey turned from Lenning and started to leave the field around the lower end of the grand stand.

Frank quickened his pace a little. Lenning walked hurriedly toward Frank. He was plainly nervous and worried, and his shifty eyes held a harassed look.

“Where’s Guffey going?” Merry inquired, when Lenning was close enough to hear.

“He’s sick and is going around back of the stand to lie down,” was the answer. “He’s subject to spells with his head, and he’s got a bad one coming on now. He’ll be back before the last half’s over.”

Merriwell went on. Lenning watched him with growing suspicion.

“Are you going after him, Merriwell?” he asked.

“I want to talk with him,” Frank replied indefinitely.

“He’s in no shape to talk. He——”

But Merriwell, by then, was out of earshot. The call for the second half was ringing down the field. Lenning hesitated, as though inclined to follow Merriwell; then, tossing his hands with a desperate gesture, he whirled and ran to take his place with the rest of the Gold Hill team.

When Frank had worked his way past the lower end of the grand stand, he half started toward the dressing rooms. But he checked the move, for Guffey, as he could see, was traveling north across the sandy stretch of ground on that side of the club premises.

Lenning had misstated the case. The Gold Hill coach may have been having “a spell with his head,” but he was not bound for the dressing rooms to lie down. On the contrary, he was striding briskly off into the open, apparently bent on getting as far away from the football field as possible.

Merriwell chuckled grimly. He had thought that a maneuver of this kind would be attempted.

What he had said about the half dollar had certainly worked upon Guffey’s suspicions; and then, the suspicions must have been intensified when Guffey saw Frank talking with Hawkins, the deputy sheriff.

Undoubtedly the Gold Hill coach thought that a plan was forming to put him under arrest for stealing the thirty dollars. In order to avoid such a result, Guffey’s best plan, of course, was to get himself out of the way. This, very likely, was what he was attempting to do.

Guffey, casting a hurried look behind him, saw Merriwell. He began to run.

“Hold up, Guffey!” Merry shouted. “Don’t be in a rush.”

But Guffey was attending to a matter of pressing importance. If overtaken, a jail would yawn to receive him; on the other hand, if he succeeded in making his escape from Merriwell, he would perhaps receive the benefit of a doubt in the matter of that thirty dollars. Instead of halting, he increased his pace to the limit.

There must have been some exciting work going forward on the football field. The roar of the spectators mounted high, and never for a moment were grand stand and bleachers entirely quiet. The noise lessened as Merriwell and Guffey drew farther and farther away.

Merry, it was soon demonstrated, was a faster runner than Guffey, for at every stride he was gaining upon him. It was presently evident, too, that Merry was also a better jumper.

Ahead of Guffey lay an eight-foot irrigation ditch, filled to the brim with flowing water. The Gold Hill coach attempted to take it at a leap, but he took off too soon; then, on top of that, his foot slipped as he sprang into the air. It happened, therefore, that instead of landing safely on the opposite bank, he dropped squarely into the water.

For a moment he was under the surface, and all that was to be seen was his cap, floating away with the sluggish tide. Frank jumped the ditch and stood waiting on the opposite bank.

Guffey bobbed up, thoroughly drenched, and sputtering. Seeing Merriwell waiting for him, he turned to reach the other bank. To his astonishment—and somewhat to Merriwell’s, as well—Hawkins, the deputy sheriff, appeared abruptly and headed him off in that direction.

“What are you chumps trying to do?” sputtered Guffey.

“Tryin’ to git hands on you, Guffey,” answered Hawkins, with a grin. “If you think you’ve been in long enough, why not come out? Jumpin’ sand hills! What’s the matter with your hair?”

This was a question which Frank had been asking himself. The water had played sad pranks with Guffey’s jet-black hair. In spots the black had all run out of it, and had streaked his pale face, leaving a tow color in place of the dark hue that had previously distinguished the looks.

With a yell of consternation, Guffey put up his hands to his face and then withdrew them and looked at his smudged fingers.

“It ain’t right for a young feller to go dyin’ his hair that-a-way,” said Hawkins. “Come on out. I shouldn’t think it would be comfortable, stayin’ in there too long.”

“I’ll come out,” said Guffey savagely, “but you can’t arrest me for taking Merriwell’s money.”

“That’s it, eh?” chuckled the deputy sheriff. “I thought you’d done something to Merriwell that wasn’t exactly honest.”

“He stole thirty dollars from me,” said Frank. “He’s got a pocket piece of mine in his clothes, right this minute, and that was part of the stolen money. He furnished it for the toss, at the beginning of the football game, and I had a good look at it.”

“A fellow in Gold Hill worked that off on me,” said Guffey.

“He did, eh?” answered Frank grimly. “Then why didn’t you show the half dollar to me when I asked you? Why did you hand me another half, instead?”

“I did that by mistake,” was the lame excuse.

Guffey had splashed out of the ditch, and, dripping and forlorn, was standing close to Hawkins.

“We’ll let that part go, for the present,” said Frank. “Your real name is Billy Shoup, and not Sim Guffey. If you will tell all you know about that forgery, and the way you manipulated matters so as to make Ellis Darrel appear guilty, we’ll drop the robbery matter. What do you say?”

Guffey stood like a man in a trance. When he finally recovered speech he persisted in declaring that he was Guffey, and had never heard of the man called Shoup.

“What you need, Guffey,” grinned Frank, “is a change of heart. Maybe that will come to you with a change of clothes.”

He turned to Hawkins.

“Take charge of him, Hawkins,” he went on. “Take him to the Ophir House, and stay with him until I come. He knows all about that forgery business, and can clear Ellis Darrel. He’ll do it, too, or he’ll be put in jail for stealing that money from me.”

“I’ll hang onto him,” said Hawkins, “don’t fret about that. Come on, Guffey—or Shoup—whichever it is.”

Guffey walked meekly away with the deputy sheriff, trailing little streams of water behind him as he went. Frank hastened back to the football field, arriving just as Brad made the only touchdown of the game, and in the last five minutes of play.

Bedlam was let loose. All the Ophir partisans rushed into the field, caught their winning team up on their shoulders, and raced the entire eleven around the cinder track. Never before had Ophir experienced a day like that.

There were many shouts for Merriwell, but Merry was in the clubhouse. Hawtrey had caught him by the arm and hustled him to a place where they could have a few words in private.

Very briefly Frank told the colonel what had transpired in the vicinity of the irrigation ditch. The colonel’s face brightened wonderfully.

“I could have sworn it!” he exclaimed delightedly. “We’ll pick up Ellis and Jode and get to the hotel as soon as we can. I’m going to settle this affair now, once and for all. Wait here, Merriwell, till I find the others; then we’ll see how quick we can get to town.”

CHAPTER XLVIII.
ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

It was half an hour before the colonel had rounded up the party he wished to take into Ophir with him, and during that time Frank was being congratulated warmly in the clubhouse on the success of the Ophir team. Mr. Bradlaugh, staid old gentleman that he was, fairly took the lad in his arms and gave him a hug.

“You did it, Merriwell,” he kept saying; “if it hadn’t been for you we couldn’t have won.”

When the colonel finally arrived with Jode and Ellis, Mr. Bradlaugh offered to give them a lift to the Ophir House in his car. Clancy and Ballard appeared just in time to form part of the load.

Merry’s chums had been wondering what it was that could have taken their chum off the field during the last half of that exciting game. Merriwell wouldn’t breathe a word on the ride into town, but told them to wait a little and the whole thing would be explained.

In less than fifteen minutes after leaving the clubhouse, Colonel Hawtrey, his two nephews, Merriwell, Clancy, and Ballard were ushered by Pophagan into a room where Hawkins was keeping watch over Shoup, alias Guffey.

Shoup had wrung out and dried off his clothes, and he had likewise washed his face and removed the rest of the color from his hair. The moment Jode Lenning saw him, he sank limply into a chair, white to the lips.

“I know you, you contemptible cur,” cried the colonel, shaking a finger in Shoup’s face. “You’re the fellow who, more than a year ago, brought a forged check to me and said my nephew, Darrel, gave it to you. I thought that Guffey and you might be one and the same person, and that’s why I was willing to bear with Jode for a while longer, and see what I could make out of his desire to get a new coach for Gold Hill. Tell me about that forgery, and do it quick. The truth, mind!”

“What will you do to me if I—I tell the truth?” quavered Shoup.

“Nothing, but if you lie I’ll see to it that you’re landed behind the bars.”

“And you’ll let that thirty dollars pass?” asked Shoup, looking toward Merriwell.

“I’ve already told you I would—if you tell the truth,” Merry answered.

“Well, here goes, then. I was a fool for ever coming back here, but Darrel had shown up and Lenning was scared, and wanted to do something to get rid of him. So I came on, when Lenning wired. I happen to be a fair football coach, and that was Lenning’s excuse for getting me here. But the main object of this trip, just as of the one before, was to do up Darrel.”

“Why did Jode want his half brother ‘done up’?” cut in the colonel.

“Why, Jode wanted all your property for himself,” answered Shoup, an ugly smile on his pasty face, “and that was his principal reason for wanting to get Darrel out of the way.”

“Go on,” said the colonel, between his teeth; “tell us about the forgery.”

“Jode planned it,” explained Shoup, “and furnished the forged check. I was to get Darrel into a game, dope his drink, and then accuse him of having given me the forged check. That’s the way it worked. Darrel was hazy and couldn’t remember what he’d done. Jode, of course, was at home with you, colonel, so you hadn’t a notion he was mixed up in it.”

“You’re a black-hearted scoundrel,” said the colonel, “but Jode Lenning is a whole lot worse. What have you to say, young man?” and he turned on his cowering and discredited nephew with gleaming eyes.

Jode tried to talk, but words failed him. He began to whimper.

“Is it true, what this fellow Shoup has told me?” thundered the colonel.

“Y-yes,” Jode answered.

“I already knew you were a coward,” said the colonel, “and I was tempted to think you were a knave as well, but I couldn’t be sure. It was necessary first to catch Shoup, and wring a confession from him. I thought, when you were so eager to have this Guffey come to Gold Hill, that he might be Shoup. Something in your manner aroused my suspicions. That is why I let the fellow come. To-day I asked Merriwell to coöperate with me and see what we could learn from the Gold Hill coach. Merriwell’s work surpassed my hopes and expectations. He made a star play, and, as a result, has cleared the name of his chum of every stain. As for you, Lenning, clear out. I’m done with you for good! I——”

Darrel caught his uncle’s sleeve, drew his head down, and whispered to him earnestly. The colonel shook his head, but Ellis continued to insist, and finally his uncle yielded.

“Ellis asks me to temper my indignation a little,” said he, “and to be a little more lenient. His motive does him credit, after the way he has suffered at your hands, Jode. You can go to my house and collect your traps; and, when you leave, I will give you a thousand dollars to make a fresh start in the world. Now, clear out! You go with him, Shoup!” he added.

Jode got up and staggered from the room. Shoup followed him, turning at the door to laugh derisively, and bid those in the room a mocking good-by.

“Sufferin’ horn toads!” muttered Hawkins, “that’s no way to treat a law breaker.”

“Better that, Hawkins,” answered the colonel, “than to put Shoup through for his crimes and not get the evidence to clear Darrel. My lad, will you now honor me with your hand?”

Darrel pressed the colonel’s palm joyfully, and then whirled to shake hands with Merriwell.

“You’re the one who did it, old man!” he exclaimed, in a trembling voice. “If it hadn’t been for you, Chip, I’d still be the ‘boy from Nowhere.’”

THE END.

“Frank Merriwell, Jr. in Arizona” will be the title of the next volume of the Merriwell Series, No. 217. Frank’s adventures in the West make up an absorbing tale.

BOOKS THAT NEVER GROW OLD

Alger Series
Clean Adventure Stories for Boys

The Most Complete List Published

The following list does not contain all the books that Horatio Alger wrote, but it contains most of them, and certainly the best.

Horatio Alger is to boys what Charles Dickens is to grown-ups. His work is just as popular to-day as it was years ago. The books have a quality, the value of which is beyond computation.

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In this list will be included certain books by Edward Stratemeyer, Oliver Optic, and other authors who wrote the Alger type of stories, which are equal in interest and wholesomeness with those written by the famous author after whom this great line of books for boys is named.

ALL TITLES ALWAYS IN PRINT

By HORATIO ALGER, Jr.

- 1—Driven from Home
- 2—A Cousin’s Conspiracy
- 3—Ned Newton
- 4—Andy Gordon
- 5—Tony, the Tramp
- 6—The Five Hundred Dollar Check
- 7—Helping Himself
- 8—Making His Way
- 9—Try and Trust
- 10—Only an Irish Boy
- 11—Jed, the Poorhouse Boy
- 12—Chester Rand
- 13—Grit, the Young Boatman of Pine Point
- 14—Joe’s Luck
- 15—From Farm Boy to Senator
- 16—The Young Outlaw
- 17—Jack’s Ward
- 18—Dean Dunham
- 19—In a New World
- 20—Both Sides of the Continent
- 21—The Store Boy
- 22—Brave and Bold
- 23—A New York Boy

In order that there may be no confusion, we desire to say that the books listed below will be issued during the respective months in New York City and vicinity. They may not reach the readers at a distance promptly, on account of delays in transportation.

To be published in January, 1929

24—Bob Burton
25—The Young Adventurer

To be published in February, 1929.

26—Julius, the Street Boy
27—Adrift in New York

To be published in March, 1929.

28—Tom Brace
29—Struggling Upward

To be published in April, 1929.

30—The Adventures of a New York Telegraph Boy
31—Tom Tracy

To be published in May, 1929

32—The Young Acrobat
33—Bound to Rise
34—Hector’s Inheritance

To be published in June, 1929

35—Do and Dare
36—The Tin Box

NOW IN PRINT

By EDWARD STRATEMEYER

- 98—The Last Cruise of The Spitfire
- 99—Reuben Stone’s Discovery
- 100—True to Himself
- 101—Richard Dare’s Venture
- 102—Oliver Bright’s Search
- 103—To Alaska for Gold
- 104—The Young Auctioneer
- 105—Bound to Be an Electrician
- 106—Shorthand Tom
- 108—Joe, the Surveyor
- 109—Larry, the Wanderer
- 110—The Young Ranchman
- 111—The Young Lumberman
- 112—The Young Explorers
- 113—Boys of the Wilderness
- 114—Boys of the Great Northwest
- 115—Boys of the Gold Field
- 116—For His Country
- 117—Comrades in Peril
- 118—The Young Pearl Hunters
- 119—The Young Bandmaster
- 121—On Fortune’s Trail
- 122—Lost in the Land of Ice
- 123—Bob, the Photographer

By OLIVER OPTIC

- 124—Among the Missing
- 125—His Own Helper
- 126—Honest Kit Dunstable
- 127—Every Inch a Boy
- 128—The Young Pilot
- 129—Always in Luck
- 130—Rich and Humble
- 131—In School and Out
- 133—Work and Win
- 135—Haste and Waste
- 136—Royal Tarr’s Pluck
- 137—The Prisoners of the Cave
- 138—Louis Chiswick’s Mission
- 139—The Professor’s Son
- 140—The Young Hermit
- 141—The Cruise of The Dandy
- 142—Building Himself Up
- 143—Lyon Hart’s Heroism
- 144—Three Young Silver Kings
- 145—Making a Man of Himself
- 146—Striving for His Own
- 147—Through by Daylight
- 148—Lightning Express
- 149—On Time
- 150—Switch Off
- 151—Brake Up
- 152—Bear and Forbear
- 153—The “Starry Flag”
- 154—Breaking Away
- 155—Seek and Find
- 156—Freaks of Fortune
- 157—Make or Break
- 158—Down the River
- 159—The Boat Club
- 160—All Aboard
- 161—Now or Never
- 162—Try Again
- 163—Poor and Proud
- 164—Little by Little
- 165—The Sailor Boy
- 166—The Yankee Middy
- 167—Brave Old Salt

175—Fighting for Fortune | By Roy Franklin
176—The Young Steel Worker | By Frank H. MacDougal
177—The Go-ahead Boys | By Gale Richards
178—For the Right | By Roy Franklin
179—The Motor Cycle Boys | By Donald Grayson
180—The Wall Street Boy | By Allan Montgomery
181—Stemming the Tide | By Roy Franklin
182—On High Gear | By Donald Grayson
183—A Wall Street Fortune | By Allan Montgomery
184—Winning by Courage | By Roy Franklin
185—From Auto to Airship | By Donald Grayson
186—Camp and Canoe | By Remson Douglas
187—Winning Against Odds | By Roy Franklin
188—The Luck of Vance Sevier | By Frederick Gibson
189—The Island Castaway | By Roy Franklin
190—The Boy Marvel | By Frank H. MacDougal
191—A Boy With a Purpose | By Roy Franklin
192—The River Fugitives | By Remson Douglas

A CARNIVAL OF ACTION

ADVENTURE LIBRARY
Splendid, Interesting, Big Stories

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ALL TITLES ALWAYS IN PRINT

By WILLIAM WALLACE COOK

- 1—The Desert Argonaut
- 2—A Quarter to Four
- 3—Thorndyke of the Bonita
- 4—A Round Trip to the Year 2000
- 5—The Gold Gleaners
- 6—The Spur of Necessity
- 7—The Mysterious Mission
- 8—The Goal of a Million
- 9—Marooned in 1492
- 10—Running the Signal
- 11—His Friend the Enemy
- 12—In the Web
- 13—A Deep Sea Game
- 14—The Paymaster’s Special
- 15—Adrift in the Unknown
- 16—Jim Dexter, Cattleman
- 17—Juggling with Liberty
- 18—Back from Bedlam
- 19—A River Tangle
- 20—Billionaire Pro Tem
- 21—In the Wake of the Scimitar
- 22—His Audacious Highness
- 23—At Daggers Drawn
- 24—The Eighth Wonder
- 25—The Cat’s-Paw
- 26—The Cotton Bag
- 27—Little Miss Vassar
- 28—Cast Away at the Pole
- 29—The Testing of Noyes
- 30—The Fateful Seventh
- 31—Montana
- 32—The Deserter
- 33—The Sheriff of Broken Bow
- 34—Wanted: A Highwayman
- 35—Frisbie of San Antone
- 36—His Last Dollar
- 37—Fools for Luck
- 38—Dare of Darling & Co.
- 39—Trailing “The Josephine”

40—The Snapshot Chap | By Bertram Lebhar
41—Brothers of the Thin Wire | By Franklin Pitt
42—Jungle Intrigue | By Edmond Lawrence
43—His Snapshot Lordship | By Bertram Lebhar
44—Folly Lode | By James F. Dorrance
45—The Forest Rogue | By Julian G. Wharton
46—Snapshot Artillery | By Bertram Lebhar
47—Stanley Holt, Thoroughbred | By Ralph Boston
48—The Riddle and the Ring | By Gordon McLaren
49—The Black Eye Snapshot | By Bertram Lebhar
50—Bainbridge of Bangor | By Julian G. Wharton
51—Amid Crashing Hills | By Edmond Lawrence
52—The Big Bet Snapshot | By Bertram Lebhar
53—Boots and Saddles | By J. Aubrey Tyson
54—Hazzard of West Point | By Edmond Lawrence
55—Service Courageous | By Don Cameron Shafer
56—On Post | By Bertram Lebhar
57—Jack Cope, Trooper | By Roy Fessenden
58—Service Audacious | By Don Cameron Shafer
59—When Fortune Dares | By Emerson Baker
60—In the Land of Treasure | By Barry Wolcott
61—A Soul Laid Bare | By J. Kenilworth Egerton
62—Wireless Sid | By Dana R. Preston
63—Garrison’s Finish | By W. B. M. Ferguson
64—Bob Storm of the Navy | By Ensign Lee Tempest, U. S. N.
65—Golden Bighorn | By William Wallace Cook
66—The Square Deal Garage | By Burt L. Standish
67—Ridgway of Montana | By Wm. MacLeod Raine
68—The Motor Wizard’s Daring | By Burt L. Standish
80—A Submarine Cruise | By Donald Grayson
81—The Vanishing Junk | By Remson Douglas
82—In Strange Waters | By Donald Grayson
83—Afloat with Capt. Dynamite | By Wilson Carew
84—Bob Steele’s Motor Boat | By Donald Grayson
85—The Filibusters | By Frederick Gibson
86—Bob Steele’s Reverse | By Donald Grayson
87—On Wooded Trails | By Frederick Gibson
88—Bob Steele’s New Aeroplane | By Donald Grayson
89—Buck Badger’s Ranch | By Russell Williams
90—Bob Steele’s Last Flight | By Donald Grayson
91—In Full Cry | By Richard Marsh
92—The Fatal Legacy | By Louis Tracy
93—His Heritage | By W. B. M. Ferguson
94—The Treasure of the Golden Crater | By Lieut. Lionel Lounsberry
95—The Ape and the Diamond | By Richard Marsh
96—The Camp in the Snow | By William Murray Graydon
97—Nobody’s Fool | By Frederick Gibson
98—A Case of Identity | By Richard Marsh
99—Randy, the Pilot | By Lieut. Lionel Lounsberry
100—The Reluctant Queen | By J. Kenilworth Egerton
101—The Goddess—A Demon | By Richard Marsh
102—The Survivor | By E. Phillips Oppenheim
103—The Fate of the Plotter | By Louis Tracy
104—Philip Bennion’s Death | By Richard Marsh

In order that there may be no confusion, we desire to say that the books listed below will be issued during the respective months in New York City and vicinity. They may not reach the readers at a distance promptly, on account of delays in transportation.

To be published in January, 1929.
105—Mysterious Mr. Sabin | By E. Phillips Oppenheim
106—The Strange Disappearance of Lady Delia | By Louis Tracy
To be published in February, 1929.
107—Master of Men | By E. Phillips Oppenheim
108—The Whistle of Fate | By Richard Marsh
To be published in March, 1929.
109—The Wooing of Esther Gray | By E. Louis Tracy
110—The Great Awakening | By E. Phillips Oppenheim
To be published in April, 1929.
111—A Strange Wooing | By Richard Marsh
112—His Father’s Crime | By E. Phillips Oppenheim
To be published in May, 1929.
113—At the Court of the Maharaja | By Louis Tracy
114—In the Service of Love | By Richard Marsh
To be published in June, 1929.
115—As a Man Lives | By E. Phillips Oppenheim
116—The Glitter of Jewels | By J. Kenilworth Egerton

NOTE THE NEW TITLES LISTED

Western Story Library
For Everyone Who Likes Adventure

Ted Strong and his band of broncho-busters have most exciting adventures in this line of attractive big books, and furnish the reader with an almost unlimited number of thrills.

If you like a really good Western cowboy story, then this line is made expressly for you.

ALL TITLES ALWAYS IN PRINT

1—Ted Strong, Cowboy | By Edward C. Taylor
2—Ted Strong Among the Cattlemen | By Edward C. Taylor
3—Ted Strong’s Black Mountain Ranch | By Edward C. Taylor
4—Ted Strong With Rifle and Lasso | By Edward C. Taylor
5—Ted Strong Lost in the Desert | By Edward C. Taylor
6—Ted Strong Fighting the Rustlers | By Edward C. Taylor
7—Ted Strong and the Rival Miners | By Edward C. Taylor
8—Ted Strong and the Last of the Herd | By Edward C. Taylor
9—Ted Strong on a Mountain Trail | By Edward C. Taylor
10—Ted Strong Across the Prairie | By Edward C. Taylor
11—Ted Strong Out for Big Game | By Edward C. Taylor
12—Ted Strong Challenged | By Edward C. Taylor
13—Ted Strong’s Close Call | By Edward C. Taylor
14—Ted Strong’s Passport | By Edward C. Taylor
15—Ted Strong’s Nebraska Ranch | By Edward C. Taylor
16—Ted Strong’s Cattle Drive | By Edward C. Taylor
17—Ted Strong’s Stampede | By Edward C. Taylor
18—Ted Strong’s Prairie Trail | By Edward C. Taylor
19—Ted Strong’s Surprise | By Edward C. Taylor
20—Ted Strong’s Wolf Hunters | By Edward C. Taylor
21—Ted Strong’s Crooked Trail | By Edward C. Taylor
22—Ted Strong in Colorado | By Edward C. Taylor
23—Ted Strong’s Justice | By Edward C. Taylor

In order that there may be no confusion, we desire to say that the books listed below will be issued during the respective months in New York City and vicinity. They may not reach the readers at a distance promptly, on account of delays in transportation.

To be published in January, 1929.
24—Ted Strong’s Treasure | By Edward C. Taylor
25—Ted Strong’s Search | By Edward C. Taylor
To be published in February, 1929.
26—Ted Strong’s Diamond Mine | By Edward C. Taylor
27—Ted Strong’s Manful Task | By Edward C. Taylor
To be published in March, 1929.
28—Ted Strong, Manager | By Edward C. Taylor
29—Ted Strong’s Man Hunt | By Edward C. Taylor
To be published in April, 1929.
30—Ted Strong’s Gold Mine | By Edward C. Taylor
31—Ted Strong’s Broncho Boys | By Edward C. Taylor
32—Ted Strong’s Wild Horse | By Edward C. Taylor
To be published in May, 1929.
33—Ted Strong’s Tenderfoot | By Edward C. Taylor
34—Ted Strong’s Stowaway | By Edward C. Taylor
To be published in June, 1929.
35—Ted Strong’s Prize Herd | By Edward C. Taylor
36—Ted Strong’s Trouble | By Edward C. Taylor

VALUE

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Table of Contents

- Transcriber’s Notes

- Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Helping Hand

- CHAPTER I. THE HOUSEBREAKER.

- CHAPTER II. A STRANGER IN CAMP.

- CHAPTER III. A FRIEND IN NEED.

- CHAPTER IV. A CLASH OF AUTHORITY.

- CHAPTER V. A CHALLENGE.

- CHAPTER VI. PUZZLING DEVELOPMENTS.

- CHAPTER VII. THE WILES OF A SCHEMER.

- CHAPTER VIII. A JOKE—WITH RESULTS.

- CHAPTER IX. THE RACE.

- CHAPTER X. A HELPING HAND.

- CHAPTER XI. A PARTIAL VICTORY.

- CHAPTER XII. THE DOVE OF PEACE.

- CHAPTER XIII. GERMANY VERSUS MEXICO.

- CHAPTER XIV. AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR.

- CHAPTER XV. TRUE SPORTSMANSHIP.

- CHAPTER XVI. A TERRIBLE MISHAP.

- CHAPTER XVII. A DARING RESCUE.

- CHAPTER XVIII. QUICK WORK FOR DARREL.

- CHAPTER XIX. UGLY SUSPICIONS.

- CHAPTER XX. A FRIEND FROM CAMP HAWTREY.

- CHAPTER XXI. TRYING TO BE FRIENDLY.

- CHAPTER XXII. SHARP WORK.

- CHAPTER XXIII. GETTING THE EVIDENCE.

- CHAPTER XXIV. CONCERNING THE EVIDENCE.

- CHAPTER XXV. THE UNDER DOG.

- CHAPTER XXVI. BAD BLOOD.

- CHAPTER XXVII. THE BOY WHO DIDN’T CARE.

- CHAPTER XXVIII.

- CHAPTER XXIX. THE COLONEL CALLS.

- CHAPTER XXX. MERRIWELL MISJUDGED.

- CHAPTER XXXI. DARREL’S RESOLVE.

- CHAPTER XXXII. THE LEDGE AT THE GULCH.

- CHAPTER XXXIII. FOLLOWING DARREL.

- CHAPTER XXXIV. A TANGLE OF EVENTS.

- CHAPTER XXXV. A RIFT IN THE CLOUDS.

- CHAPTER XXXVI. A CHANGE OF MIND.

- CHAPTER XXXVII. A MATTER OF THIRTY DOLLARS.

- CHAPTER XXXVIII. MORE DISCOURAGEMENT.

- CHAPTER XXXIX. GOOD INTENTIONS.

- CHAPTER XL. THE MYSTERIOUS BILLY SHOUP.

- CHAPTER XLI. THE MAN THE BOX.

- CHAPTER XLII. GUFFEY’S QUEER ACTIONS.

- CHAPTER XLIII. REVIVING HOPES.

- CHAPTER XLIV. THE COLONEL’S TIP.

- CHAPTER XLV.

- CHAPTER XLVI. THE GAME.

- CHAPTER XLVII. NOT ON THE PROGRAM.

- CHAPTER XLVIII. ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

- BOOKS THAT NEVER GROW OLD

- Alger Series Clean Adventure Stories for Boys

- ADVENTURE LIBRARY Splendid, Interesting, Big Stories

- Western Story Library For Everyone Who Likes Adventure

- VALUE

- READ

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