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 projectinglower 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 moveto 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.