“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?”