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 hadhis 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 anArizona 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.”

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