When Merriwell was close to the spot where the rolling, tumbling, and howling was going on, a blot of shadow darted through the sifting moonlight and was swallowed up in the gloom of the lower gulch. As the shadow disappeared, a long, quavering coyote yelp floated back on the night wind.
A thrill ran through Merriwell’s nerves. Was it a coyote or a coyote dog that had flung past him and given vent to that yelp? Instinctively he knew that it was the wretched mongrel for whose life he and Clancy had battled in the vicinity of Camp Hawtrey.
Merriwell was conscious of an uncanny feeling, which laid hold of him as that eerie yelp echoed through the cañon. What Hotchkiss had told him about coyote dogs was no doubt responsible for it. With an exclamation of impatience he flung the feeling from him and went on to where a figure was sitting up on the ground among the rocks.
“Py shinks, it vas nod a shpook,” the figure was muttering. “A shpook iss nodding, und dis vat I hat in my handts vas more as dot. Yas, you bet my life!”
“Carrots!” exclaimed Merry. “Say,” and he laughed, scenting a joke of some sort, “what’s the matter with you?”
“I schust hat a fight mit a bear dot vas pigger as a house,” Fritz cried.“I hat nodding but my hands, und I vas shoking der life oudt oof dot bear ven you come oop und schkared him avay mit himselluf. Vy der tickens,” complained Fritz, “don’t you leaf a feller alone ven he catches some bears?”
“Whoosh!” chuckled Clancy, as he and several more lads grouped around the shadowy Fritz. “Fritz was trapping a bear with his bare hands, and he’s mad because we came down here when he yelled for help. If you wanted to be left alone, Carrots, why the deuce did you make such a racket?”
“I got some oxcidements, dot’s all,” Fritz explained, as he squirmed to his feet. “Dot bear vas so pig as a moundain, so hellup me, aber I chuggled him aroundt like anyding. Fairst, I took him py vone leg und drowed him der air in, den I took him by some odder legs und tossed him my headt aroundt, und pooty soon I tropped him der rocks on, und vas chust gedding retty to sit down und make him some brisoners ven you fellers schkared him avay. Vat sort oof pitzness you call dot, hey?”
“Fritz,” laughed Merriwell, “you’re a four-flusher. First, you had that bear as big as a house, and now he’s as big as a mountain. As a matter of fact, Fritz, the animal was about the size of a dog; and, as another matter of fact, it was a dog, a coyote dog. I heard him yelp as he ran down the gulch.”
This came pretty near taking the wind out of Fritz’s sails.
“You t’ink you know more about dot bear as me?” he demanded. “I hat him in my arms, py shinks, und I fight mit him so glose as vat I am to you. I know vat I know, and dot’s all aboudt it.”
“Ay de mi!” cackled the voice of Silva,“he grab one coyote dog and think him so beeg lak mountain! It ees most fonny. Fat gringo no tell coyote dog from bear so beeg lak mountain, huh, huh, huh!”
This, from the hated Silva, was more than Fritz could stand, and he began forthwith to do a war dance and to brandish his fists. The clawing he had received from the coyote dog had not done very much to sweeten his temper.
“So hellup me cracious,” he whooped, “I vill knock you py der mittle oof lasdt veek! No greaser lopster can laugh my face in same as dot.”
He started for Silva, but somebody tripped him and he pitched sprawling upon the rocky ground.
“Get out of here, Silva!” ordered Merriwell. “I don’t want any more fussing between you and Fritz.”
The Mexican retired slowly toward his own post, whistling as though for a missing dog and calling loudly for the animal to “Come, bonita, come, li’l wan—hyah, hyah!”
Fritz was fairly boiling with rage. Merriwell helped him up, ordered him to resume his guard duty, and not to make any further disturbance, or to try to mix things with Silva. Then, laughing heartily among themselves, all the boys went back to their blankets.
“So that coyote dog is hanging around our camp, eh?” muttered Clancy, as he settled down in bed. “I hope to thunder, Chip, he hasn’t transferred his affections from Lenning to you. There’s something about that brute that gives me the creeps.”
“Oh, slush!” answered Merriwell. “You don’t mean to say, Clan, that you’re taking any stock in that stuff Hotchkiss batted up to us?”
“About an abused coyote dog taking the war path as a lone avenger? Well, no, I’m not so superstitious as all that, but I can’t get out of my mind that picture of the miserable brute tied to an ironwood tree, a dynamite cartridge fastened to his tail, and a bunch of hoodlums taking pot shots at him. I can just see that dog, Chip, turning somersaults at the end of the rope while bullets are kicking up the dust all around him.”
“Forget it, Clan,” said his chum shortly; “go to sleep.”
Amid the silence that dropped over the camp, Silva’s voice, from the grove, could be heard calling: “Bonita! li’l wan, coom dis-a-way! Hyah, hyah, hyah!”
Then, from down in the cañon, Fritz would howl wrathfully: “Vait, you greaser scallavag! Bymby, I bed you, I make you vistle by der odder site oof your mout’.”
Finally the Mexican tired of jeering at Fritz, and the boys in the tents succeeded in going to sleep.
Next morning, as Frank was getting into his clothes after a plunge in the swimming pool, he asked Brad and Ballard if they had thought of anything that could be done to straighten out matters between the two athletic clubs.
“I’m by,” said Brad. “What we’re to do is too many for me, Chip.”
“Same here,” spoke up Ballard. “I guess there isn’t a thing we can do but just kick our heels and let things drift.”
Clancy, at that moment, came dancing up the bank, grabbed a rough towel, and began sawing it over his shoulders.
“I’ve thought of a scheme, fellows,” he remarked.
“What sort of a scheme?”
“Lenning’s the stumblingblock. Why not abduct him, lock him up in some quiet place about a thousand miles from Nowhere, and leave him there until the rest of the Gold Hill fellows come to their senses? Take it from me, Chip, that’s the only way we can work through the trick.”
“Quit your joshing, Clan,” growled Merry. “This is serious business.”
“You might just as well lie down on the whole affair so long as Jode Lenning is at large. You know that as well as I do. Whenever he cracks his little whip, everybody in the other camp has to jump—or get out. Bleeker is one of the best players on the Gold Hill eleven, and yet you see what happened to him. He and Hotchkiss have the courage to call their souls their own, and Camp Hawtrey isn’t big enough for them and Lenning.”
“It’s a tough nut to crack,” muttered Merriwell, frowning. “We’re supposed to be fostering a spirit of friendly rivalry with Gold Hill, and here we’ve broken with them entirely. There’ll be music, before long, and of a kind I won’t like to hear. What do you suppose your father will say, Hannibal?”
“Pop’s the clear quill, Chip,” Brad answered. “Half a dozen words of explanation from you will be enough. If he finds fault with you about anything, it will be because you didn’t give Lenning the worst licking he ever had in his life.”
“That may be,” went on Frank, “but it doesn’t better the athletic situation any. I don’t suppose I was—er—very diplomatic. Maybe Clan and I could have saved the coyote dog without harrowing Jode all up, as we did. I didn’t stop to consider that part of it when we interfered with Jode’s amusement.”
“What’s done is done,” said Ballard, “and there’s no use sobbing about it. I guess, after all, Chip, your best move is to give the colonel the facts.”
“Wow!” gulped Clancy. “The fur will begin to fly as soon as Chip tries that. But it’s a cinch that there’s nothing else to be done.”
“If you lay it down to the colonel, Chip,” put in Brad,“don’t hem, and haw, and side-step. Give Jode the limit. Tell Hawtrey everything he ought to know about that rough-neck nephew of his. Throw in all the trimmings.”
“Chip can do it, with ground to spare,” grinned Ballard, “if he once makes up his mind.”
Merriwell leaned against a tree and dropped his chin thoughtfully into his hand. He wasn’t more than two minutes in coming to a conclusion.
“I’m going to Gold Hill,” he announced, “and I’ll start right after dinner.”
“That means you’re going to beard the colonel in his den,” said Clancy. “Want me along as a bodyguard?”
“And me?” asked Ballard.
“No, Pink, I don’t want you, or Clan, or any one else,” Merry answered. “I intend to handle this alone.”
“That’s the stuff!” approved Brad. “You can do more, all by your lonesome, than with half a dozen fellows trailing after you. Hawtrey has a heap of respect for you, Chip. His admiration for your father has something to do with the way he sizes you up, I reckon. He knows you’re a chip of the old block, and a square sportsman from soles to headpiece. If anybody can talk to him about Jode, and get away with it, you’re the one.”
“Well, that’s the program,” said Merriwell grimly, “whether I’m the one or not. When I get after Jode I’m going to handle him without gloves.”
“What will Darrel think about it?” inquired Ballard.
“Search me. I think, though, that he’ll take it all right. Lenning’s actions have reached a point where they’ve got to receive immediate attention.”
Following breakfast, that morning, Frank and his chums, under Professor Phineas Borrodaile’s supervision, took up their studies for the forenoon. No matter whatwas going on, the professor insisted relentlessly on the three lads applying themselves to their books for the first half of the day.
Merriwell’s attention wandered a good deal. He was wondering how he had better approach the colonel on the delicate subject he had in mind. His acquaintance with Hawtrey was not of very long standing, and he might almost call himself a stranger to the big man of Gold Hill. Frank winced when he thought of broaching the matter—which was largely a family affair—to Lenning’s uncle.
As soon as the forenoon was over, and dinner out of the way, Frank made his preparations for the ride to Gold Hill. While he was engaged with them, Ballard suddenly thrust his head into the tent.
“You won’t need to take that trip to Gold Hill, Chip,” announced Ballard.
“Why not?”
“Because the colonel is here, old man. He’s got a chip on each shoulder, too, if I’m any judge. He wants you, and no one else. Say, but he’s in a temper!”
“I’ve got a job on my hands,” muttered Merry, “and no mistake. Tell him I’ll be along in about two minutes, Pink.”
Frank nerved himself for what he knew was to be an ordeal, and presently he left the tent and made his way toward the place where Colonel Hawtrey, in the worst kind of a temper, was pacing back and forth under the cottonwoods.
The lads of the camp, aware that something momentous was brewing, kept at a discreet distance from the colonel. They were plainly ill at ease, although it was equally plain that they were trying not to show it. Ballard, Clancy, Brad, and Handy formed a little group by themselves. They had inside information as to what was going on, and watched developments with considerably more anxiety than the rest of the campers.
Frank walked briskly up to Colonel Hawtrey and put out his hand with a smile.
“Good afternoon, colonel,” said he pleasantly. “Glad to see you.”
The colonel paid no attention to the extended hand. Leaning back against his saddle horse, he hooked his left arm around the pommel of the saddle and allowed the fingers of his right hand to fumble with a watch chain. His snapping eyes fixed themselves on the frank, handsome face of the lad in front of him.
“Merriwell,” said he cuttingly, “I’m disappointed in you. I thought you were a worthy son of your father, and I repeat that I’ve been badly disappointed.”
“I’m sorry for that, sir,” Frank answered, flushing a little as he lowered his hand. “You have been to Camp Hawtrey?”
“I’ve just come from there; and, when I leave here, I’m going back. What have you to say for yourself—anything? I didn’t think you were a rowdy and a trouble maker.”
“You’ve heard one side of the story, colonel,” said Frank, keeping himself well in hand, “and don’t you think, in the interest of fair play, you ought to hear both sides?”
“What else,” demanded the colonel, “do you suppose I came over here for?”
“From your actions it looks as though you had made up your mind that I am in the wrong.”
“I have—I am sure of it. Jode has told me everything, and three of Jode’s companions have vouched for his statements. The testimony is of the very best.”
“Then, if you are so sure you have got the right of it, what was the use of coming here to talk with me?”
Frank was nettled by the colonel’s injustice. He tried hard to restrain himself and to give the older man the respect which was rightfully his due, but a little temper flashed in his words.
“Young man,” was the icy response, “I try to be a true sportsman; and, while you and that red-headed chum of yours have made a sorry exhibition of yourselves, I have an idea as to where the cause lies. You are at fault, of course, but I do not think that you are quite as much at fault as some one else whom I could name.”
“You mean Darrel?” Frank asked quickly.
“Yes.”
“Then,” said Frank warmly, “I want to tell you that you are mistaken, and that Ellis Darrel hadn’t the first thing to do with what happened near Camp Hawtrey yesterday afternoon.”
“You are under the influence of that scapegrace nephew of mine,” stormed the colonel. “Do you think I’m not able to see it? He has set you against Jode. Do you admire a sneak, Merriwell? What, underheavens, has got into you that you can’t see through the plans of that—that young marplot?”
Here was the colonel, wrong in every way because of Lenning’s influence, accusing his other nephew of being a sneak and a marplot. Frank rallied promptly to the defense of his new chum.
“Darrel is not a sneak, sir,” said he. “I’m not under his influence, either, in forming my own estimate of Jode Lenning.”
The colonel tossed his hand deprecatingly.
“Do you deny,” he asked, “that you and Clancy went over to the other camp, yesterday, and stirred up a disgraceful fight with Jode and three of his friends?”
“No, sir, I don’t deny that Clancy and I had trouble with Jode.”
“Clancy knocked Jode down. Do you deny that?”
“No. If Clancy hadn’t knocked him down, I should probably have done it myself. He deserved it. Did Jode tell you that he struck Clancy first?”
“That is not true!” asserted the colonel. “You and your friend began the fight. All Jode and his friends did was to defend themselves. Any lad, with the right sort of spirit, will fight back when he’s set upon. Jode is not a coward. If he hadn’t fought, I should have felt like giving him a trouncing myself.”
It looked to Frank like a hopeless job, trying to set the colonel right. He was so dominated by the influence of Lenning, that he took for gospel all that Lenning told him—especially since Hummer, Lamson, and Parkman vouched for the truth of Lenning’s statements.
“Is Bleeker at Camp Hawtrey, colonel?” inquired Frank calmly. “Or Hotchkiss?”
“Those two fellows have made themselves extremely disagreeable to all the others in our camp,” replied the colonel, “and, very properly, Jode sent them packing.”
“Bleeker and Hotchkiss could tell you a few things about that row, colonel, which Jode and his friends didn’t think necessary to mention.”
“They’re out with Jode, and they’d try to injure him if they could. I don’t care to talk with either of them.”
“Then, colonel, I’m going to tell you what started the racket. If you think Jode acted like a true sportsman, I’ll have nothing more to say. I want you to remember, though, that I was brought up to hate a lie, and that what you hear from me is the truth.”
“Go on,” said the colonel.
“Clancy and I set out for your camp to arrange for a series of competitions,” went on Frank. “We wanted to do everything possible to cause a better feeling between the two clubs, and stirring up trouble was the last thing in our minds. Before we got to the camp, though, we saw Jode and three of his friends blazing away at a coyote dog with a revolver.”
“That coyote dog was a camp robber,” put in the colonel. “It was perfectly right for the boys to shoot him.”
“Why, yes, if it was plain shooting they were going to do; but what right had they to torture the brute?”
“There was nothing in the way of torture whatever,” declared the colonel.
“Is tying a dynamite cartridge to a dog’s tail and lighting the fuse torture?” demanded Frank.
“Nothing of that sort was done.”
Frank gasped. How was he to make any headway against all this misinformation which the colonel had received from Jode? And it was misinformation which the colonel accepted in every detail.
“Colonel,” continued Frank earnestly, “I was there and I know what took place. Clancy and I didn’t interfere, until Jode had ordered one of the boys to light the fuse and another one to cut the dog loose. It was a brutal business. Clancy and I stopped it; and, if we had it to do over, we would stop it again.”
“I shall not dispute with you, Merriwell,” returned the colonel. “I consider that the source of my information is perfectly reliable.”
“I have something else to tell you,” Frank said respectfully, but none the less firmly, “and if you don’t believe me now you will some time. I cut the cartridge away from the dog and threw it off among the rocks. While Clancy and I were talking with Bleeker and Hotchkiss, Jode lighted the fuse and threw the cartridge toward us.”
“Merriwell!” The colonel’s eyes dilated, and angry protest was in his voice.
“Jode,” Frank quietly continued, “never shouted one word of warning when he let that infernal machine fly at us. Bleeker saw it, and he and Hotchkiss began to run. Clancy and I took to our heels and just managed to get out of the way before the cartridge exploded.”
“You are trying to make Jode out a murderous scoundrel,” cried Hawtrey, “and I shall not stay here and listen to such talk.”
“You’d better listen; not only that, but you’d better take Jode in hand and do something with him. He’s crazy. If he tries any more tricks of that sort, I’ll put the matter in the hands of Hawkins, the deputy sheriff.”
Angrily the colonel swung to his saddle. The subject of the dynamite cartridge he did not pursue any further. Evidently Jode had given his version of theaffair, and the colonel had more faith in Jode than in Merriwell.
“What I regret most about all this,” said the colonel, speaking from the saddle and in a voice which he tried to make calm and judicial, “is that it breaks off at once all friendly rivalry between the two athletic clubs. The matter is worse, infinitely worse, than it was before you came to Ophir and took a prominent part in the affairs of the Ophir organization. There will be no football game between Gold Hill and Ophir this year.”
Hawtrey snapped out the last words, set his square jaw doggedly, and touched his horse with the spurs. Looking neither to left nor right, he galloped down into the cañon and out of sight along the narrow trail.
Clancy, Ballard, Brad, and Handy hurried over to the place where Merriwell was standing.
“What did he say?” all four of the youngsters asked, in one breath.
“He said a good many things,” Merry answered, “but about the bitterest dose I had to swallow was what he said about the football game with Gold Hill. It’s all off, fellows.”
“All off?” echoed Handy, as though he scarcely believed his ears. “What has a little row with Lenning got to do with that?”
“I guess the colonel thinks we’re a lot of plug-uglies and might turn the game into a Donnybrook fair. Jode has pumped him full, and Lamson, Parkman, and Hummer have backed Jode up in everything. The colonel, of course, is taking their word for it all. He didn’t tell me flatly that I lied, although he might as well have done so. Lenning has made him think, Clan, that you and I went over to Camp Hawtrey just to pick a row.”
“Of course,” said Clancy sardonically,“what else could you expect? How did Jode get around the dynamite cartridge?”
“By saying there wasn’t any such thing.”
“All the colonel has got to do, Chip, is to look at the hole in the ground where it went off.”
“Funny thing about it is,” Merry went on, “the colonel blames Darrel, he thinks Curly goaded us on to pick a row with Lenning.”
That brought a laugh, all the lads wondering how such a foolish notion could be entertained by Hawtrey for a single moment. Lenning, they agreed, must have contrived to give the colonel that impression.
“I’m going down the gulch to talk with Darrel,” said Frank. “If I were you, Handy, I wouldn’t say anything to the boys about the colonel’s calling the football game off. There’s a chance that Mr. Bradlaugh may be able to smooth over the differences, so that the game will be played according to schedule. Want to ride with me, Pink, you and Clan?”
Ballard and Clancy were eager to go with Merriwell and have a talk with Darrel. In a few minutes all three of the chums were mounted and galloping toward Dolliver’s.