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 notonly 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, thedeputy 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!