There was a clatter of hoofs, and a doubly burdened horse swept into view, bearing straight down upon the Braves, who were waiting as if ready to fight or take to flight.
The horse was foam-flecked, and it was plain he had been driven to the limit of his endurance.
The person who handled the reins was a youthful chap, and, as he came nearer, Frank gasped with surprise.
"Cholly Grayson De Smythe, the dude! Is it possible?"
In his arms, held upon the horse, was a bundle, like a human form, wrapped in a blanket.
The outlaws looked for a posse of armed men to follow the boyish horseman, but he was not followed, and he did not hesitate or turn back when he saw the party awaiting him.
Straight down upon them he rode, and Frank drew aside, shielding himself behind one of the men.
"It can't be possible!" muttered Frank. "It's ridiculous!"
Straight down upon the desperadoes rode the dude, seeming utterly fearless.
"Halt, thar!" cried one of the men, leveling a rifle at the young horseman. "Hold up, ur chaw lead!"
The youth gave a surge that flung the horse upon its haunches.
"Steady Bolivar!" his voice rang out. "Would you shoot me?"
"Who be you?"
"Don't you know me? Ha, ha, ha! Well, I do not wonder. I'll look different when I peel this mustache and wash off my make-up. I have her! See here, boys!"
The blanket was flung back, and the face of Lona Dawson, the banker's daughter, was revealed!
The girl was not unconscious, and she suddenly squirmed from the grasp of her captor, slipped from the horse, and ran into the midst of the outlaws, crying:
"Save me! Protect me!"
"Stop her, boys!" laughed the youth on the horse. "Don't let her get away. I've had trouble enough, and taken risk enough to get her."
"Wa-al, who be you?" roared one of the band.
"Who am I? Look here; do you know this sign?"
He made a swift motion with his hand, and nearly every man cried:
"The chief's sign! But you are not the chief! He is here with us! You are an impostor!"
"Am I? Look!"
He tore off a false wig, jerked away a false mustache, took a vial from his pocket, turned some of its contents in his hand, and seemed to sweep the make-up from his face.
The result was a wonderful transformation, and the face revealed was almost exactly like that of Frank Merriwell.
The men stared in bewildered astonishment.
"It is the chief!" gurgled one of them.
"Of course I am," laughed the unmasked youth. "You wasted your time in carrying off that other fellow who looks like me. Why didn't you leave him to be lynched? Then the fools would have thought they had put Black Harry out of the way."
"The other fellow?" repeated more than one of the men. "Who is the other fellow?"
"He is the fellow who looks like me," laughed BlackHarry, for the new arrival was the boy chief of the marauders.
In the meantime, while this unmasking was taking place Frank had not been idle. He had longed to meet Black Harry face to face, but now he realized that his situation was perilous in the extreme. He must act at once.
But the sight of the captive girl and her appeal for aid had bestirred all the chivalry of his nature. He longed to do something to save her.
Swiftly moving near her, he suddenly caught her up, swung her over his shoulder, and, with her held thus, regardless of the shriek of terror that broke from her lips, he dashed straight for the open door of the hut.
Cries of amazement broke from the lips of the outlaws.
"There he goes!" shouted Black Harry. "That is the fellow who looks like me, and he has the girl! After him!"
The men leaped in pursuit.
Into the hut bounded Frank, and the door went to with a slam. The foremost man, who flung himself against it, found it had been fastened.
"Well, we have him fast," said Black Harry, easily. "He can't get away in a thousand years. We'll dig him out at our convenience."
The men now gathered round their boy chief, eager to hear his explanation. It was difficult for them to realize that they had been deceived—that the boy they rescued from the lynchers at Elreno jail was not their leader.
"I was not fool enough to go into Elreno without disguising myself," said Harry. "I knew I should be recognized if I did. I fixed myself up in the outfit I just threw off, and, with this English tourist rig and a sissy lisp, I succeeded in deceiving everybody.
"You may imagine how surprised I was when I sawthis other fellow, who is nearly my perfect double. He took the train at Oklahoma City, and I sat directly behind him. I was there when the private detective, Burchel Jones, who fancies he is so shrewd, arrested him.
"If they had lynched him, I could have disappeared, and it would have been thought that Black Harry had gone up the flume. But you fellows thought that I was in the scrape, and you came round in time to save him.
"I watched my opportunity to scoop the girl, and I have brought her here, although I was hotly pursued for a time, and I did not know but I'd have to drop her and get away alone. I succeeded in fooling the pursuers, and I arrived here at last.
"My double and the girl for whom I have risked so much are in that hut. I propose to break down the door and go in."
A wild shout came from the men. They were furious to think they had been so wonderfully deceived.
"Down with the door!"
"Drag him out!"
"Shoot him!"
With a hoarse roar of rage the Braves rushed toward the cabin, and flung themselves against the door, which went down with a crash, letting them into the hut.
Frank, with his usual daring and gallantry, had resolved to make an effort to save the unfortunate girl—to rescue her from the clutch of Black Harry.
Having determined on such an attempt, he lost no time in catching her up and dashing into the hut with her in his arms.
Dropping her upon her feet, he whirled, slammed the door shut, found the wooden bar with which old Cade had made it fast, dropped the bar into its socket, and cried:
"Hurrah for us! This is the first step to freedom!"
Turning, he found the girl was leaning against the wall, staring at him in a wondering way, but without fear being expressed on her handsome face.
"I trust you are quite unharmed, Miss Dawson?" he said, swiftly. "My unsavory double has——"
"He has not harmed me," she broke in, swiftly, "but I feel that I have done you a harm I can never repair."
"Nonsense! How have you harmed me?"
"By declaring that you were the one who shot my father."
"You believed it when you said so, and that——"
"Yes, I believed it, but that is nothing that will lessen the injury I did you. And to think of the terrible peril in which I placed you! Then, when it was reported that father was dead, they were determined to lynch you."
"And your father is not dead?"
"He was not when I last saw him, and the doctor said he might come out all right."
"That is indeed fortunate."
"I heard them crying that he was dead, I saw them preparing to make an assault on the jail, and I left father's side to stop them if I could."
"Brave girl!"
"Then it was that I fell into the hands of this wretch who brought me here—the real Black Harry. He was waiting for an opportunity to capture me—he told me so. He told me how I had imperiled the life of one who was innocent, and he laughed at my horror and remorse. He is a heartless creature!"
"He seems to be all of that."
"And you have placed your life in greater peril for me—you did so after what I did to you! Why should you do such a thing?"
"Why, Miss Dawson, you were not to blame for thinking me Black Harry. The fellow is my double, and I ought not to have a double. Do you suppose I would think of leaving you in his power if there was any possible way for me to save you?"
"You are a noble fellow! But you cannot save me—you cannot escape yourself! They will soon break in here, and then——"
Frank was listening at the door, and he heard Black Harry complete his explanation to his Braves, heard their wild cries, and knew they were going to charge on the door.
"It will not stand before them!"
He looked around and saw the stairs.
"Up!" he cried to the girl. "Don't lose a moment!"
He motioned toward the stairs, and she ran toward them, hearing the roar that came from the outlaws as they made the rush for the cabin.
"Come!" she panted, looking over her shoulder, andseeing Frank with a revolver in either hand. "Don't stay there! They will kill you!"
"Up!" he shouted again. "I will follow!"
She sprang up the stairs, which creaked and swayed beneath her.
There was a great shock, and the cabin seemed to totter on the brink of the chasm. Then the door fell, and the ruffians swarmed into the cabin.
Frank Merriwell was right behind the girl, and he seemed to lift her and fling her into the loft.
"There they go!" rang the voice of the real Black Harry. "Up the stairs!"
"This is no time for talk!" cried Frank, as he crouched at the head of the flight, his teeth set, and the light of desperation in his eyes.
The braves came rushing up the stairs, and the boy above thrust out both hands, each of which held a revolver.
Frank fired four shots, and the smoke shut out the faces of the fierce rascals on the stairs. He heard cries of pain and the sound of falling bodies.
"I didn't waste my bullets," came grimly from his lips.
But what could he do now? He had repulsed them for the time, but they were in the cabin, and it would not be for long that he could keep them back. They would soon find a way to reach him.
He leaped to the swinging window and flung it open, thrusting the revolvers lightly into the side pockets of the coat he wore. He looked down into the depths of the chasm, through which ran the stream of water.
"It is a long distance down there," came hoarsely from the lad's lips. "I will try it! It is our last hope."
With a bound, he caught up the coil of rope, then he rushed to the window and flung it out. As one end was made fast to a rafter, it hung dangling from the window.
Frank looked out, and he saw that the rope reached to the stream of water.
At the same time, he heard Black Harry calling on his braves to follow him up the stairs.
"Come!" said Frank, hurrying to the side of the girl, and grasping her arm. "There is one chance in a thousand that we may do the trick and escape alive. We'll make a try for that chance."
She did not question him, she did not hold back, but she bravely trusted everything to his judgment.
Frank passed through the window in advance. He twisted the rope around one leg, and he secured a good hold on it with his hands. Then he said to the girl:
"Be lively now! Get through the window, put your arms about my neck, cling for your life, and trust to Frank Merriwell and Providence."
She did so, and they were soon descending the rope.
Frank went down, hand under hand, as he did not dare slide at first, knowing that his hands would be torn and bleeding, and that he must lose his hold before the bottom was reached. With the twist about his leg to aid him, he managed to sustain himself and his living burden very well.
The girl whispered in his ear:
"Courage! You are the noblest fellow I ever saw—the greatest hero in the whole wide world!"
He made no reply, for his teeth were set, and he was mentally praying for strength and time.
Down they went—down, down. And then, when nearly half the distance had been covered, a shout came from above.
"Here they are! Ten thousand fiends! They shall not get away alive!"
It was the voice of Black Harry himself.
"Oh, for a little more time!" panted Frank.
But no more time was to be given him. He heard the voice of the boy outlaw crying:
"Look up here, Frank Merriwell—look up! I have a little trick to show you."
Frank looked upward, and he saw Black Harry leaning far out of the window. A knife glittered in the hand of the young desperado.
"I am going to cut the rope!" came down to the ears of the boy and girl. "Poor fools! Did youthinkto escape me! You will go down to your death in the creek!"
Frank clung with one hand to the rope, although the strain was terrible. With his other hand he drew one of the revolvers from his pocket, lifted it, took aim, fired.
The weapon spoke just as Black Harry slashed at the rope.
There was a shriek of pain, a human body shot out from the window, and, as it went whirling downward, the rope parted!
Then down shot Frank and Lona to fall into the stream. They struck where the water was quite deep, and they were unharmed, although the girl was unconscious when our hero bore her to solid ground.
As for Black Harry, he struck where some jagged rocks reared their heads from the water, and he lay there, in a huddled heap, and dead, forever past harming any living creature.
And yet, as was afterward discovered by examination, he had not been touched by the bullet which Frank had fired up at him. He had been startled by the shot, had lost his balance, and had fallen to his death.
Frank was trying to restore Lona to consciousness when he heard the rattle of rifle and revolver shots, the sound coming down faintly from above. Following it there was wild and continued cheering, and still more shooting.
"It sounds like a battle," thought the boy. "I believe the outlaws have been attacked."
He was right. For all that he fancied he had thrown his pursuers from the trail, Black Harry had been tracked to Cade's Canyon. The guard was captured while the assault on the hut was taking place, and then Hank Kildare, at the head of the trailers, swept down on the astonished braves.
The battle was short and sharp, and but few of the outlaws escaped. Some were killed, and some were captured.
One of the captured ruffians told them where to find Black Harry, Frank and the kidnaped girl.
Lariats were tied together, and a line was made long enough to reach the bottom of the chasm.
Lona Dawson was drawn up first, and then Frank tied the rope about the body of his double, permitting them to draw him to the top of the bluff. Frank came up last, and he found the men from Elreno in a rather dazed condition.
"Is thar two Black Harrys?" asked one, staring at the dead boy, and then at his living counterpart.
"Moses in der pulrushes!" groaned Solomon Rosenbum, who was on hand. "There vas only von, und he vas deat, vid der accent on der deat. Dat leds me oudt, und I don'd vas aple to take him pack East vor murter."
"Take him back East for murder?" questioned a man. "What do you mean by that."
"I mean that he is wanted in the East, and I have been tracking him for the last two months," said the supposed Jew, suddenly speaking without a trace of accent.
"Who are you?"
"I am Burchel Jones, a detective."
"Burchel Jones! Impossible! Jones was the fellow who arrested this boy for Black Harry."
"That fellow was not Burchel Jones; he is an impostor, and he was working for the reward offered for Black Harry's capture. If he is in Elreno when we get back there, I shall have a little settlement with him."
Then Lona Dawson, who had recovered, told them how bravely Frank had fought for her, and the boy suddenly found himself regarded as a hero by the very ones who had been fierce to lynch him a short time before.
"Hurro!" cried Barney Mulloy, who was on hand. "Oi knew ye'd come out at th' top av th' hape in th' ind, Frankie, be b'y!"
And the delighted Irish boy gave his friend a "bear's hug."
It was a triumphant party that returned to Elreno. Lona Dawson was restored to her wounded father, the body of Black Harry was placed on exhibition, and Frank was cheered and stared at by admiring eyes wherever he went.
The bogus detective heard what had happened in time to leave the place and avoid meeting the real Burchel Jones.
Robert Dawson did not die from his wound. He recovered in time, but, as he lay on his bed, with his daughter restored to him, he held out a hand to Frank, who had been summoned to that room, saying, fervently:
"God bless you, young man! My daughter has told me everything. You shall be rewarded by anything it is in my power to give you."
Frank laughed, his face flushing, as he gallantly returned:
"Mr. Dawson, I have already been rewarded by the pleasure it gave me to be of service to your daughter in a time of peril."
A week later Frank and his friends continued their journey westward, where fresh adventures awaited them.
"No, sir!" roared Professor Scotch, banging his clinched fist down on a rough wooden table that stood in the only "hotel" of the town of Blake, Utah. "I say no, and that settles it!"
"But," urged Frank, who sat opposite the little professor at the table, "wait till I tell you——"
"You have told me enough, sir! I do not want to hear any more!"
Barney, who sat near, could restrain his merriment no longer.
"Begobs!" he cried; "th' profissor is on his ear this toime, Frankie, me b'y. He manes business."
"That's exactly what I do!" came explosively from the little man's lips. "It is my turn now. You boys have been having your own way right along, and you have done nothing but run into scrape after scrape. It is amazing the troubles you have been into and the dangers you have passed through. Several times you have placed me in deadly peril, and but for my coolness, my remarkable nerve, my extremely level head, I must have been killed or gone insane long ago."
Both boys laughed.
"Allow me to compliment you on your remarkable nerve, professor," chuckled Frank. "You are bold as a lion—nit."
The final expressive word was spoken in an "aside," but the professor heard it, as Frank had intended he should.
"Laugh, laugh, laugh!" shouted the little man, in a hoarse tone of voice. "The time has passed when you can have fun with me; I decline to permit you to have fun with me. I have decided to assert myself, and right here is where I do it."
"Ye do thot, don't yez, profissor!" cried the Irish lad, in a way that made the little man squirm.
"You can bet I do! Judging by the past, any one would think Frank my guardian. They'd never dream I was his. He has gone where he pleased, and done as he pleased. Look where he has dragged me! Where is this forsaken hole on the face of the earth? It's somewhere in Utah."
"Blake is very easily located," said Frank, glibly. "Any schoolboy will tell you it is in Eastern Utah, on the line of the Grand Western Railway, at the point where the railroad crosses Green River. You are a little rusty on such things, professor, and so you fancy everybody else is as much a back number as yourself."
"Back number!" howled the little man, leaping into the air and dashing his hat to the floor. "That is more than I can endure. You have passed the limit."
Neither of the boys had ever before seen him so far forget his dignity without greater provocation, and they were not a little surprised.
"Steady, professor," laughed Frank. "Don't fly off the handle."
"Howld onter yersilf, profissor," chuckled Barney. "Av ye don't, ye may get broken."
"This is terrible!" cried the professor, his face crimson with anger. "Frank Merriwell, you are an ungrateful, reckless, heartless young rascal!"
"Oh, professor!"
Frank seemed deeply touched. He grew sober in amoment, out came his handkerchief, he carried it to his eyes, and he began to sob in a pitiful way.
Behind the handkerchief the mischievous lad was laughing still.
The professor rushed about the room a moment, and then he stopped, staring at Frank and beginning to look distressed.
"That I—should—ev-ev-ever live—to—see—this sad—hour!" sobbed the boy, with the handkerchief to his eyes. "That I should be called ungrateful and heartless by a man I have loved and honored like—like a—a sister! If my poor uncle had not died——"
"Goodness knows you cannot feel worse about that than I do!" came from the little man's lips. "I suppose he fancied he was doing me a favor when he appointed me your guardian and directed that I should accompany you as your tutor in your travels over the world. Your tutor indeed! Why, you insist on giving me points and information about every place we visit. You do exactly as you please, and it is a wonder that either of us is alive to-day. You have dragged us through the most deadly perils, and now that I object when you want to go ranting away into a wild and unexplored region of Southern Utah, where you say there dwells the last remnant of the murderous and terrible Danites, you—you—you——"
"What have I done?" sobbed Frank.
"Why, you've—you've said——"
"What?"
"I don't remember now; but I'd give seventeen million dollars if Asher Merriwell, your uncle, was living and had to travel around with you!"
"Now my heart is broken!" came mournfully from behind that handkerchief.
That was more than Scotch could stand. He edgednearer Frank, who fell face downward on the table, still laughing, but pretending to quiver with sobs.
"There, there, there!" fluttered the little man, patting the boy on the shoulder. "Don'tfeelso bad about it."
"I—I can't help it."
"Oh, I didn't mean anything—really I didn't. I'll take it back, and——"
"Your cruel words have pierced my tender heart as the spear of the fisherman pierceth the unwary flounder."
"I was too hasty—altogether too hasty."
"That does not heal the bleeding wound."
"Oh, well, say—I'll do most anything to——"
"Will you permit me to go on this expedition?"
"No, never!" cried the little man. "There is a limit, and that is too much."
"But you have not heard the story of this Walter Clyde, to whom I owe my very life," said Frank, pretending to dry his eyes with the handkerchief.
"You owe what?" shouted the professor, astonished. "How do you owe him so much?"
"Well, sir," spoke the boy, "it was like this: I had fallen into the hands of a band of murderous ruffians, and——"
"When did this occur?"
"At about half past six. Please do not interrupt me again. These ruffians, after relieving me of my valuables and wearing apparel, so that I was clad in nothing but a loose-fitting suit of air, proceeded, with fiendish design, to tie me to the railroad track."
"Terrible!" gasped Scotch, his face pale and horrified. "But where did this take place?"
"Directly on the line of the railroad. Will you be good enough not to interrupt! I was helpless in their power, and I could do nothing to save myself. I begged them to spare me, but they laughed at my entreaties."
"The wretches!" roared the little professor. "Ah! Er! Excuse me for breaking in."
"Having tied me firmly across the polished rails," continued Frank, growing dramatic in his method of relating the yarn, "they told me the express would be along in fifteen minutes, and then they left me to my fate."
"The dastardly scoun—— Beg pardon! Go on! go on!"
"I tried to wrench myself free, but it was impossible; they had tied the knots well, and I began to believe I was doomed. The rail sang beneath my head, and I knew the express was approaching at terrible speed."
"This is too much—too much!" groaned the little man, flopping down on a chair. "It actually overcomes me!"
"I fully expected the express would come over me," the boy went on. "I gave up hope. Looking along the track, I saw the engine swoop into view round a curve in the road. Down upon me with the speed of the wind it swept."
No sound but a groan came from the lips of Professor Scotch.
"Staring with horrified eyes and benumbed senses at the engine, I heard it shriek a wild note of warning. I had been seen! But the train was on a down grade, and it could not stop in time. I was doomed just the same."
The professor was ready to fall off his chair.
"Then," cried Frank, dramatically, "out along the side of the engine crept a boy, who carried something in his hand. That boy was Walter Clyde, to whom I owe my very life. The something he carried in his hand was a lasso, and with that he saved me."
"How—how could he do it?" palpitated the professor. "You were tied to the track!"
"Yes, but Walter Clyde is an ingenious fellow, and he saw how to get around that difficulty."
"But how—how?"
"Well, close beside the railroad was the stump of a great tree that had been cut down. I saw him point at it, and above the roar of the train I heard him shriek for me to lift my head and look at it."
"Yes, yes! Go on!"
"I saw him whirling the lasso-noose about his head, making ready for the cast, having first hitched the other ends to the cow-catcher of the locomotive."
"Well, well?"
"I lifted my head as high as possible, and I saw the noose shoot through the air. Excuse me while I shudder a few seconds!"
"Did he drag you from the track in time?" shouted the professor. "Did the noose fall over your head?"
"No," answered Frank; "but it fell over that stump, and, when the express reached the end of the lariat, having come so near that the nose of the pilot brushed my hair, the lariat brought up. It was a good stout rope, and it yanked that engine off the track in a second, and piled the entire train in the ditch. I was saved—saved by a brave boy, and only forty of the passengers on the train were killed."
Professor Scotch gasped for breath and sank from his chair to the floor.
Barney Mulloy had been holding on to keep from shouting with laughter, and now he exploded.
"Ha! ha! ha!" he roared. "Pwhat do yez think av thot, profissor? Thot wur th' narrowest escape ivver hearrud av, ur Oi'm a loier!"
"Send for the undertaker!" came in a hollow groan from the lips of the professor.
"You do not seem to feel well?" said Frank, hastening to the man's assistance. "What is the trouble?"
"If I die of heart failure you will be responsible!" fiercely grated Scotch.
"Doie!" cried Barney. "Whoy, ye'll live ter pick daisies on yer own grave, profissor."
"This is terrible!" faintly rumbled the little man, as he regained his chair, and began to mop cold perspiration from his face with a handkerchief.
There was a knock at the door.
"Come in," cried Frank.
The door opened, and a boy about seventeen years of age entered the room. He was a slender, delicate-appearing fellow, but he had a good face and steady eyes.
"Hurrah!" cried Frank. "Here is my preserver! Professor Scotch, permit me to introduce you to Mr. Walter Clyde."
The professor held out a limp hand to the boy, saying:
"Excuse me if I do not rise. Frank just robbed me of strength by telling how you saved his life by derailing an express train and killing forty passengers."
Clyde was quick to catch on. A faint look of astonishment was followed by a smile, and he said:
"Mr. Merriwell is mistaken."
"Ha!" cried the professor. "Then you denounce the whole story as false?"
"I said Mr. Merriwell was mistaken—but thirty-nine passengers were killed," said the newcomer, who had caught the end of Frank's yarn.
The professor came near having a fit, and Barney Mulloy held onto his sides, convulsed with merriment.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Clyde," said Frank. "I may have stretched the yarn a trifle."
"Just a trifle!" muttered the professor.
"If I had used giant-powder instead of dynamite in blowing up the track," said Clyde, "it is possible there might have been a smaller loss of life."
"But you did not blow up the track at all," hastily put in Frank. "You yanked the train off the rails with a lasso."
"So I did! I was thinking of another case. In this instance, if I had not stood so far from the railroad——"
"But you were on the pilot of the engine."
"Was I? So I was. Excuse me if I do not attempt any further explanations."
Then the three boys laughed heartily, and the professor was forced to join in at last.
Having restored Scotch to good nature, Frank requested Walter Clyde to tell his story. Clyde's face clouded a little, and he slowly said:
"I will tell it briefly. Years ago, when I was a very small child, my father left his home in the East to make a trip to California. Business called him out there, and, on his way, he entered this Territory. He never reached California.
"My father had a deadly enemy—a man who hadsworn to kill him some day. That man's name was Uric Dugan. Father had been instrumental in sending him to prison for robbery, but he had escaped, fled to the West, and, it was said, joined the Mormons.
"Fate led Uric Dugan and my father to meet in Utah. What happened then is known to Dugan alone. Months passed, and mother heard no word from father. She grew thin and pale and desperate. At length, a letter came to her. It was from Uric Dugan.
"That letter told my mother that father had died in a living tomb, where he had been placed and kept by Dugan till he went mad. Dugan gloated over his frightful crime. He told how father had raved in his delirium, called wildly for his wife and his boy, and how her name was last on his lips when he died."
"The monster!" broke in Professor Scotch, who was intensely interested.
"He was in truth a monster," agreed Clyde. "The effect of that letter on my mother was terrible. It nearly drove her mad, and she was ill a long time. When she recovered, she took measures to find and punish Dugan, but she never succeeded. She learned, however, that Dugan, after joining the Mormons, had been one of that terrible organization known as the Danites. He had disappeared, and no trace of him could be found.
"The detective who was in my mother's employ was aided by an old guide, miner, and fortune-hunter in general, known as Ben Barr. Barr learned the whole story of my father's disappearance, and it happened that he knew Uric Dugan—that Dugan had once done him an injury. He took a great interest in the case, and did his best to trace the man. As I have said, Dugan was not found, nor did the detective learn anything further of my father.
"Years passed, and I grew up. The years wroughttheir changes in Utah, and the Destroying Angels ceased to be a menace to every Gentile in the Territory. The younger Mormons regretted that such an organization had ever existed, and had been in any way connected with the Mormon Church. Danites who had been powerful and feared, found their former friends turning against them. Even the Mormon Church pretended to denounce them. John D. Lee, chief in the Mountain Meadow butchery, was captured, tried, found guilty, and shot. There were others as guilty as Lee, and they, who had been the hunters, found themselves hunted. They fled to the mountains, hid, disguised themselves, changed their names, and did everything they could to escape retributive justice.
"It seems that Dugan was still with them, and he found himself a fugitive like the others. Somewhere in Southern Utah, west of the Colorado, and amid the wild mountains that are to be found to the north of the Escalante River, the hunted Danites found a home where they believed they would be safe from pursuit, and there the last remnant of the once terrible Destroying Angels are living to-day.
"In his wanderings, Ben Barr came upon this retreat of the Danites, and there he saw Uric Dugan, who is now the chief of the band. Barr barely escaped with his life, and he lost no time in writing to my mother, telling her what he had discovered.
"This was enough to revive old memories and set mother to brooding over it. Her health was not very good, and I am sure that she worried herself to death. Before she died she told me of a dream that had come to her for three successive nights. In that dream she had seen my father, and he was still living, although he was unable to return to her. Just why he could not return was not very clear, but it was because of Dugan.
"As she was dying, my mother called me to her side and told me of the dream. 'My boy,' she said, 'I know your father is still living, and I want you to find him. Something has told me that you will be successful. Promise me that when I am gone you will not rest until you have found him or have satisfied yourself beyond the shadow of a doubt that he is dead.'
"I gave that promise, and I am here to search for my father and for Uric Dugan. If father is not living, I may be able to avenge him, and that will set me at rest.
"By accident I was thrown in with Mr. Merriwell, and we became somewhat friendly. I told him my story, and he was intensely interested in it. He asked me to let him go along. I did not refuse, and he said he would obtain your consent. That is all."
"Young man," said Professor Scotch, "I sympathize with you, and I sincerely hope you may be successful; but I do not care to have Frank thrust himself into such perils as you may encounter on that search."
"Hold on, professor!" cried Frank. "Just wait and——"
Scotch waved his hand.
"The time has come for me to assert my authority," he said, sternly; "and I propose to assert it."
"You will not let me go?"
"No, sir!"
"All right. You'll be sorry, professor."
"That sounds like a threat, young man. Don't threaten me. This search looks like a wild-goose chase. How do you propose to reach this retreat of the Danites?" he asked, turning to Clyde.
"By cruising down the river in a strong boat which I have bought and provisioned for the trip."
"And did you boys think of going alone?"
"Oh no."
"Who was going with you?"
"Two explorers."
"Their names."
"Colton Graves and Caleb Kerney."
"What do you know about them?"
"Nothing, except that they wish to take a cruise through the canyons."
"Young man," said the professor, "let me give you a bit of advice."
But before he could do so there came a sharp knock on the door.
The door opened with a quick, jerky movement immediately after the knock, and, without waiting to be invited to enter, a tall, angular, thin-legged, knock-kneed man walked into the room with a peculiar movement that seemed to indicate that his legs were in danger of breaking at every step.
This man had a very long, thin neck, on which was set a long, narrow head, crowned with an out-of-date silk hat. He wore a suit of rusty black, a flaring high collar, that was sadly wilted and lay out over the collar of his coat, and a black string necktie, which was tied in a careless knot. His face was shaven smooth, and a pair of gold-bowed spectacles clung convulsively to the end of a long, thin nose.
"Excuse me," he said, in a high-pitched, cracked tin-pan sort of voice. "I seek a fellow laborer in the field of science. You know the Good Book says: 'Seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you.' I knocked—didn't stop for it to be opened—am in a hurry. Ahem! You"—pointing a long, slim finger at Scotch—"you must be the one I seek."
The little professor looked startled.
"What have I ever done to you?" he asked, hesitatingly.
"Not anything, my dear sir, but I believe you are Professor Scotch, are you not?"
"That is right; but I do not know you, sir."
"I am Professor Septemas Scudmore, of Pudville Classical Institute, in the State of Ohio."
"Never heard of you, sir."
"And I never heard of you till a few moments ago, when one of the polite and obliging citizens told me you were here, and asked me why I did not call on you, as you seemed to be a bigger fool than I am, and we might make good company for each other."
"What's that?" roared Scotch. "Who dared to say anything like that? The insulting wretch!"
Professor Scudmore waved a long, lank hand at the little man.
"Do not get agitated," he chirped. "It is not well for a man of your years. You should preserve a calm and even demeanor. Excuse me if I do not always follow my own teaching. We tutors never do."
Scotch stared at the strange man as if doubting his sanity.
"You seem to enjoy being called a fool!" he growled.
"Not at all—not at all. But I have been called that so much that I do not mind it. Genius is ever regarded as folly till it astounds the world. I am a man of genius. You may think that is boasting, but I assure you it is not. I am naturally modest—very modest. But I have found that, in order to be thought anything of by others, I must think well of myself. I am so exceeding frank and honest that I never hide my thoughts, therefore, I tell you candidly what I think of myself."
"Well, well!"
"It is possible you do not believe in this sort of thing—few do. Duplicity I despise. You are not a man of genius yourself, but you have led others to think you pretty smart, and you have succeeded in getting through the world thus far pretty easy. You are naturally slothful; in fact, I may say you are lazy, and you——"
"Hold on there!" thundered the little man. "You may be as frank as you please about yourself, but you had better be careful what you say about me!"
"Touchy, eh?" sniffed Septemas Scudmore. "Not strange at all. Studious inclination, close application to work, baffling researches, midnight oil—these things irritate the nerves and make a man crusty. But then, I don't think you ever hurt yourself by close application to work. You must be naturally irritable."
Professor Scotch pranced up and down the room like an angry bantam.
"Sir," he cried, "you are altogether too free with your mouth."
"The Scudmores are naturally generous, so I can't help it. Keep calm, sir. In some things we have an affinity. I can see it in your eye. I did not anticipate meeting an affinity out here in this wild and heathenish country."
"Affinity!" cried Scotch, scornfully. "A man with your tongue would be an affinity for a cackling old woman!"
"That is your hastily formed opinion. Permit me to warn you against forming opinions too quickly. It is a bad habit to get into, and——"
"Sir!" shouted the little man, "there is the door!"
Scudmore bowed profoundly.
"I noticed it when I came in," he chirped. "Very ordinary door, but I don't suppose we can expect anything better out in this wild section of the country."
Scotch was ready to tear his hair.
"Will you take a hint, or do you need a kick?" he bellowed, in his hoarsest tone.
"A man with hair and whiskers colored like yours should always beware of undue excitement. Don't think of kicking anybody, for you may lose your dignity. Speaking about aërial navigation, beyond the shadow ofa doubt, I, Septemas Scudmore, A. M., B. A., LL. D., and B. C, have solved the problem. I say beyond the shadow of a doubt, and I mean exactly what I say. It is not a matter of fans and wheels——"
"I think it is a matter of wheels," broke in Scotch, "and they are in your head."
Scudmore waved one thin hand loftily, his nose high in the air.
"Peace, professor, peace," he said. "It ill becomes you to interrupt a fellow scientist. Hear me out."
"I had much rather see you out—of the door."
"I see you are skeptical—you doubt the practical and practicable value of my invention. But you shall be convinced—you shall be my fellow passenger on my first voyage through space."
"Not if I know myself!" shouted the little man. "You may be a fool, but——"
"There are others, sir—there are others. I beg you to grant me this favor. Think what an honor it will be to have it go abroad that you accompanied Professor Septemas Scudmore on his first voyage in his new airship."
"Oh, you make me very languid!" cried the little man, using a bit of slang which he had heard from the lips of one of his youthful companions.
"I am shocked—shocked beyond measure," declared the lank professor, sinking his chin upon his bosom and looking reproachfully over his spectacles at Scotch.
The three boys were enjoying this immensely. It was sport to Frank, who saw in Septemas Scudmore a character worth studying. Barney laughed heartily.
"Begorra!" cried the Irish lad, "it's shocked we all are. Th' profissor has gone crazy, sure."
"If I have, it is not surprising, after what I have passed through. It has been enough to drive any man insane."
"I fancy you are a person whose brain would not stand a severe strain," put in Scudmore.
"Oh, you do! Well, I have stood just all of this I can from you! There is the door—get out!"
"And you decline the honor I have attempted to confer upon you?"
"I decline to talk further with a crank. Get out!"
Septemas Scudmore shook his head dolefully.
"I will do as you have so politely requested; but you will regret this to your dying day. I shall hold no hardness against you. In fact, I am sorry for you, as you——"
The little man could stand no more, and he actually drove Scudmore from the room. When he came back, he found the boys laughing heartily, and this caused him to drive them out also.
"It is doubtful if he will consent to allow me to accompany you, Clyde," said Frank, when they were outside. "He is an obstinate man when he sets his mind on anything."
"Well," declared Walter, "I am sorry. We met by accident, and I took to you in a moment. When you had heard my story and expressed a desire to accompany me on my search for Uric Dugan, I was delighted."
"And I had no idea the professor would object. This is the first time he has done anything of the sort; but it is true that we have run into many perilous adventures, and he wishes to prevent such things in future."
"Whoy not run away an' go, Frankie?" asked Barney, whose thirst for adventure was whetted to a keen edge. "It's mesilf thot would loike to go hunting fer this colony av Danites."
Frank shook his head.
"I hardly feel like doing that," he said. "There is abare chance that the professor will relent. We will wait and see."
"There can be little waiting," said Clyde. "I start in the morning. Everything is ready, and Graves and Kerney are eager to be off."
"Well, we'll see what the next few hours will bring forth."
Little did they dream of the surprising things the next few hours would bring forth.
Frank and Barney were strolling about the place when they came upon Professor Scudmore.
"Ha, young gentlemen!" cried the eccentric old fellow; "come with me. I am about to start upon my trial voyage. TheEagleis inflated and ready to soar. I wish you to witness my triumph."
He took them outside the town to a secluded glen, in which was an old cabin and a huge, odd-shaped arrangement of silk, fine wires, and wickerwork. It was, in fact, a balloon, shaped like an egg, and inflated with gas. To it was attached a large and comfortable car, and there were two huge fore and aft rudders, together with some fan-like arrangements that seemed to be sails. This strange contrivance was secured to the ground by strong ropes.
"There!" cried Scudmore; "you now behold theEagle, a flying-machine that will fly, or, rather, sail. With the wind it will travel at wonderful speed, and it can beat to windward like a vessel. I have been at work upon it for years. Some time ago I perfected it, and I brought it here for my trial voyage. I have set it up and inflated it without attracting attention or advertising myself. I should not have called on Professor Scotch, but I was full of enthusiasm, and thought it would be a fine thing to have an eminent man like him accompany me on my first voyage."
The boys looked at each other.
"Phwat do yez think av it, Frankie?" asked Barney.
"Can't tell," was the reply. "Let's look her over."
"That's right, look her over," urged Professor Scudmore. "I am going to start at once, but I must first get aboard a few things that are in this hut."
So the boys examined the airship, while the inventor brought bundles from the hut and placed them in the car.
"Phwat do yez think now?" asked Barney, when they had looked it over quite thoroughly. "Will she sail?"
"She will rise in the air, like an ordinary balloon," said Frank; "but I am not satisfied that the rudders and sails will work."
"I will soon satisfy you on that point," said the professor, who happened to be near enough to overhear their words.
Immediately he set about explaining everything in connection with the handling of the singular craft, and it did not take him long to make it seem an assured thing that theEaglecould be steered in almost any direction, and that, with the aid of horizontal rudders, she could be brought to the ground or sent soaring into the air, without a change of ballast or the body of gas.
Frank was intensely interested.
"It is remarkable, professor!" he cried. "Scotch made a mistake when he refused to accompany you on your trial trip."
"Ha! You are a boy of sense! Saw it the first time my eye rested on you. I will make you famous."
Frank looked surprised.
"How?"
"You shall accompany me on my trial trip."
"How long will it be?"
"As long, or as short as we choose to make it. What do you say? Decide quickly. I am eager to be off."
"Can you take Barney along?"
"I can, but two is enough. I do not care for too many."
"Can you drop us in Blake by nightfall?"
"Yes."
"Well, if you will take us both, we'll go along, professor."
Scudmore considered, his right elbow resting in the hollow of his left hand, the long forefinger of his right hand touching his forehead.
"I will do it!" he cried, with a snap. "Get in. We'll lose no more time. In a few moments we shall be sailing away like a bird."
"Here goes, Frankie," grinned the Irish lad."Av we're both killed, Oi want yez to tell me ould mither how Oi died."
They entered the car, and Scudmore prepared to cast off. He was full of anxiety and excitement.
At length but a single rope held the now swaying and surging air ship to the ground.
"Here goes the last strand that ties us to earth!" cried the professor, as, with the slash of a knife he severed the rope.
Up shot the air ship.
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the inventor. "Who said I would fail! We are off!"
"Thot's all right," muttered Barney; "but will we ivver come back?"
"Look!" cried Frank, pointing downward; "there is Professor Scotch! We are already passing over the town."
Itwas true; in a remarkably brief space of time the air ship had sailed out of the glen and was rising above the town. Looking downward, they saw Professor Scotch and a number of persons, including Walter Clyde and two rough-looking companions, staring up at theEagle.
"Good-by, professor," shouted Frank, leaning out ofthe car and waving his hat. "We're off in search of the last of the Danites."
They saw the professor dance wildly around and beckon to them. Then his voice came faintly to their ears:
"Here, here, you rascals! come right back here this minute! If you don't, I shall have to——"
They could understand no more, for the swiftly rising air ship carried them beyond the reach of his voice.
Professor Scudmore was chuckling to himself, as he worked at the apparatus which controlled the sails and rudders.
"It is a success, and my fortune is made!" he was saying. "I shall become richer than Jay Gould ever was! Ha! ha! ha! I shall not only be rich, but I shall be honored!"
"Oi don't loike th' way he is actin', Frankie," whispered Barney. "Thot laugh does not sound natural at all, at all."
"You are right," admitted Frank. "Is it possible we have started out on this kind of a cruise with a man whose brain has been turned?"
"It may be thot."
"The situation will not be at all pleasant if it turns out that way."
"He is getting control av th' ship. See how he handles her now, me b'y."
It was true that the inventor was getting control of theEagle, and he was beginning to "put her through her paces," as it were. He ran before the wind, then luffed and took first one tack and then the other. The remarkable craft behaved very well.
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the professor, wildly. "I am the king of the air! I am the first man to make a successful air ship. The world and all its countries are mine!I can destroy armies and change the destiny of nations! I am the greatest man who ever lived!"
"By Jove!" muttered Frank, in alarm; "I believe the man is going mad!"
"It looks loike thot," admitted the Irish boy.
"In which case, this will be the worst scrape we ever got into, Barney. That is plain enough to see."
"Roight, me laddybuck! An' th' professor will soay it wur judgment on us fer runnin' away."
"He will. But we ought to be able to handle this man between us, if it comes to a struggle with him."
"We can; but can we handle th' ship afther thot, Oi dunno?"
"That is a question we cannot answer till we try the trick. But there may be no trouble at all with Scudmore if we do not anger him."
Below them lay a wild panorama of broken country, through which ran Green River to plunge deep into the winding mazes of Labyrinth Canyon, away to the southward.
Away to the west, beyond the San Rafael Swell, rose the Wasatch Mountains; being much nearer than the Rockies to the eastward, and, therefore, looking nearly as lofty.
To the north were Desolation Canyon and the Roan Cliffs, the latter rising brown and bleak at the southern boundary of the Ute Reservation.
To the south of mighty Colorado, rolling through the dark depths of canyons which seemed to sink deep into the bowels of the earth. Farther to the south, beyond the Fremont, which as yet could not be seen, Mount Pennell lifted its snow-capped summit eleven thousand feet in the air.
Mount Pennell was in the very heart of the mountainregion in which the last of the Destroying Angels had found homes.
"Professor!" said Frank, speaking gently.
"Ha! ha!" muttered the inventor, as he threw over a lever and sent theEaglescooting in a breathless sweep toward the earth. "She is like a bird! Up or down, to the right or left, she will sail in any direction."
"Professor!"
"Don't bother me now—don't bother me!" he almost snarled.
"I was a fool to take you along! I should have retained all the honor for myself. Now you will share it. It will be published all over the world that you accompanied Professor Scudmore on his trial trip in his wonderful air ship."
He glared at them a moment, as if he longed to cast them overboard, and then the handling of the craft claimed his entire attention.
"How do yez loike it, Frankie, me b'y?" asked Barney, with a sly nudge at his companion.
"It is decidedly uncomfortable."
"Phwat shall we do—jump th' son-av-a-goon at wance?"
"Nothing of the sort. We will keep still, as if we are quite satisfied and content. I will draw him into conversation when I think it proper, and he may be brought round all right."
So the boys remained silent and passive, one of them constantly watching Scudmore, so that they might not be taken by surprise, in case he took a fancy to attack them.
He continued to mutter and talk to himself, now and then laughing in a way that was not pleasant to hear.
The boys fell to wondering what the various bundlescontained. Opening one of them, covertly, they found it was a supply of dried beef.
"Great shmoke!" gasped Barney. "He has laid in a supply av provisions to larrust a wake!"
Frank nodded.
"It looks that way; but these things are not all provisions. See there at his side—one of those bundles contains firearms, for you may see the muzzles of two rifles protruding. I fancy the bundle next to that contains ammunition."
"Whoy, thot's enoogh to shtock a small arumy, Frankie!"
"A man like Professor Scudmore has very little notion as to what he needs or desires, and so he is liable to obtain four or five times what is necessary."
"Are you talking of me?" harshly demanded the inventor. "Then speak up distinctly. I may think you are plotting against me—plotting to keep me from reaching the land beyond the ice."
"The land beyond the ice?" cried Frank.
"That is what I said."
"Well, what did you mean? Whither are we bound?"
"For the South Pole," was the answer."Ha! ha! ha! We will pass over the ice floes and reach the land beyond them!"