As the only heir of a very rich and influential man, Jode Lenning had a number of followers of a certain sort. Parkham, Lamson, and “Klink” Hummer, who were bearing a part with Jode in his doubtful “sport” with the tramp dog, were three of these satellites; and they revolved around Jode and made his will their law, just for the favors which he could dole out to them. There was a community of interest among the four lads, but no real friendship.
As Lenning rushed toward Merriwell and Clancy, Hummer raced along at his heels. Finally the two halted close to the pair from the other camp. Lamson and Parkman, scowling over the rough treatment they had received, had regained their feet and stepped shoulder to shoulder with Lenning.
“What are you two butting in here for?” shouted Lenning, his shifty eyes a-gleam with anger.
“We think you’ve tortured that dog enough, Lenning,” replied Merriwell, smothering his own wrath and trying to use a persuasive tone. “You’d better cut away that dynamite cartridge and let the brute go.”
Here was a suggestion that thinly veiled a command. Although Merriwell’s voice was like velvet, yet it cut like steel, and Lenning’s temper boiled more briskly than ever.
“You’re a private little society for the prevention of cruelty to coyote dogs, eh?” Lenning sneered.“That cur has been snooping around our camp for days, stealing our grub. We’re going to put him out of business, and you chumps can’t come crow-hopping around here and meddle with our plans.”
“There are other ways of putting a dog out of business,” said Frank, “than singeing him with bullets and then blowing him up with dynamite.”
“It’s none o’ your put-in,” scowled Lamson, rubbing a blister on his hand where the match had burned him.
“I reckon we can do as we blame’ please in our own camp,” said Hummer.
Merriwell, stepping to the cowering brute, bent over to remove the string from his stump of a tail.
“Keep away from that dog, Merriwell!” stormed Lenning, taking a couple of threatening steps in Frank’s direction.
Clancy promptly jumped in front of Lenning.
“That will be far enough,” he said curtly. “Go on, Chip,” he added to Frank. “I’ll look after this duffer.”
The words were hardly out of Clancy’s mouth before Lenning struck him. The blow caught the red-headed chap in the shoulder and spun him half around. The next instant Clancy was going for Lenning, hammer and tongs. Before Lamson, Hummer, or Parkman could interfere, a stiff right-hander had put Lenning on his knees.
“That’s enough of that kind of work!” cried Merriwell, leaping up and tossing the dynamite cartridge into the bushes. “We didn’t come here to kick up a row. Hands off, you fellows!” he ordered, facing Lenning’s restive comrades.
“Go for ’em!” whooped Lenning, nursing a bruised chin with both hands.“If they want a rough-house, give ’em a-plenty. There are only two of them and three of you. What are you hanging back for?”
Probably Lamson, Hummer, and Parkman had no great amount of courage, and Merriwell and Clancy looked rather formidable to them. Be that as it may, yet when Lenning had dropped to his knees his three companions had held back.
Now, under their leader’s urging, Hummer threw himself toward Frank. The latter side-stepped a savage blow and turned suddenly to put out a foot and trip Lamson, who was making a headlong rush at him from the side. Lamson fell sprawling into Hummer, and both dropped in a tangle. Clancy laughed.
“A little ground and lofty tumbling by Lamson and Hummer,” he remarked. “Why don’t you get up, Jode, and take a hand in this set-to yourself? Where’s your ginger? You’re not going to leave all this to your friends, are you?”
“Just a minute,” put in Frank, as Lenning, muttering wrathfully, struggled erect. “This thing can stop right where it is. Clancy and I don’t want to stir up any hard feelings. We came over from our camp this afternoon to arrange for a competition of some kind with you Gold Hill chaps. Now, let’s drop this and——”
“I’ll drop that red-headed freak over there,” cut in Lenning, “if it’s the last thing I ever do! Who wants any competitions with that Ophir bunch of yaps? All we want you fellows to do is to stay away from Camp Hawtrey and leave us alone.”
He was edging slowly toward Clancy, his face contorted with rage. Lenning wasn’t a pleasant sight, and Frank wondered how a fellow could give away to his temper in such fashion.
“That will do you, Lenning!” said he sternly. “Keep your shirt on—if you don’t want to get more than you bargain for.”
The glint in Clancy’s eyes meant trouble, and Frank knew that his red-headed chum would go the limit with Lenning if the latter got close enough for a fight. At this stage of the affair, when a one-sided scrimmage seemed inevitable, Bleeker and Hotchkiss, of the Gold Hill crowd, stepped out from behind a pile of rocks and rapidly approached the scenes. Hotchkiss, on his way, halted to cut the dog adrift, and the harassed brute vanished among the low hills like a streak.
“This will be fine news for Colonel Hawtrey!” exclaimed Bleeker, coming close to his camp mates. “He’ll be tickled to death when he hears about this—I don’t think. You must be going bug house, Jode!”
Lenning whirled on Bleeker like a fury.
“Get away from here!” he flashed. “You’re a cheap skate, anyhow, and I reckon you know pretty well what I think ofyou!”
“I reckon I do,” returned Bleeker slowly. “We’ve hardly been on speaking terms for a week.”
“You attend to your own business,” snapped Lenning, “and I’ll take care of mine.”
“There’ll be no more fighting with Merriwell and Clancy,” asserted Bleeker firmly. “There are four of you and two of them, and if you try any more of this rough-house business, Hotch and I will jump into it ourselves and show you where you get off. You’re about as near a yellow pup, Lenning, as I know how to describe.”
This did not, in the least, tend to placate Lenning’s ugly mood.
“Why don’t you move over and join that Ophir crowd?” he taunted.“You’re stuck on El Darrel, and think he’s the whole thing. Why don’t you and Hotchkiss take your truck and emigrate to Tinaja Wells, so you can be with Darrel’s friends?”
“We’ll emigrate,” answered Hotchkiss darkly, “but it won’t be to the Wells. When we hike, by thunder, it’ll be for home. Eh, Bleek?”
“Surest thing you know,” Bleeker replied. “And when I see the colonel,” he added significantly, “I’ll have something to tell him.”
Lenning was a little startled at that; but his dismay was only temporary. He was too much enraged to consider the consequences of his own acts, or of anything else.
“Talk to my uncle,” snarled Lenning, “and you’ll get the biggest calling-down you ever had in your life. Furthermore, Bleeker, if you and Hotch don’t get out of Camp Hawtrey before sun-down, I’ll see that you’re properly kicked out. Come on, fellows,” he added to his three stand-bys, whirling on his heel.
The angry, sullen quartette walked to a little distance, and Lenning stooped down and picked up the dynamite cartridge from the place to which Merriwell had thrown it. Bleeker turned to Frank.
“He’s a pup, that’s all,” grunted Bleeker. “He has ordered Hotch and me out of camp, but we were about ready to go, anyhow. We’ve been having merry blazes at Camp Hawtrey for some time. A few of us Gold Hillers won’t lick Lenning’s boots—not so you can notice—and we think Ellis Darrel hasn’t been having a square deal. That’s put Lenning down on us, and he has been taking most of his spite out on Hotch and me. I reckon this is about the finish.”
“I’m plumb satisfied,” grinned Hotchkiss. “If it hadn’t been for you, Bleek, I’d have hit the trail for Gold Hill several days ago.”
“I’ve hung on,” continued Bleeker,“hoping we could do a little to make a better feeling between our club and the Ophir fellows. But there’ll never be anything but scraps and bitterness between the rival athletic clubs as long as Jode is king-bee of the Gold Hill crowd. That’s straight. Colonel Hawtrey lets Jode wind him around his fingers. I should think,” Bleeker added hotly, “that the old colonel would have sense enough to see through that measley, two-faced nephew of his. I know him, by thunder, from a to izzard, and he’s plumb yellow.”
“Clancy and I,” said Merriwell ruefully, “came over here as a games committee to arrange for a visit of the Ophir fellows to Camp Hawtrey, but when we saw Jode and his friends torturing that dog, it stirred us up so that we jumped into them.”
“Don’t blame you,” said Bleeker. “Hotch and I saw it all, Merriwell. We were behind another pile of rocks, and if you hadn’t interfered, we would. Pestering a dog like that is mean business. The brute has been hanging around the camp, stealing provisions, and has been no end of a nuisance, but he didn’t have to be tortured when he could have been shot out of hand. Parkman has been laying for that coyote dog for a couple of days. He got a chance at him this afternoon and dropped a rope over his head. Jode fixed up that dynamite cartridge, and when he and his mates started off with the cartridge and the dog, Hotch and I followed along, expecting some kind of deviltry. This is the outcome of it. I wish Hawtrey had been behind the rocks with us. I’ll bet a bunch of dinero what he would have seen would have been an eye opener for him.”
“I’m sorry as blazes about this flare-up,” muttered Merriwell.“It certainly puts a crimp into all our plans for getting the two clubs together on a friendly basis. But Clan and I couldn’t hold in when we saw Jode abusing that cur dog. What do you suppose Hawtrey will say?”
“He’ll take Jode’s part, sure as shooting. I could tell Hawtrey a few things, but he wouldn’t believe them. Jode was right when he said that the colonel would give me a big calling down if I tried to open up on his favorite nephew.”
“I left O. Clancy’s private mark on Jode’s chin,” chirruped Frank’s red-headed comrade, “and I can’t remember when anything has happened that made me feel so good. Be hanged to the rest of it. Things will work out all right, Chip, so don’t fret.”
“If Bradlaugh——”
Merry never finished what he was about to say, for, at that precise moment, Bleeker and Hotchkiss sprang into fierce action.
“Run!” shouted Bleeker, as he raced over the rocks; “run—for your lives!”
Over his shoulder Frank saw a hissing, sputtering object in the air, coming toward the point where he, and Clancy, and Bleeker, and Hotchkiss had been standing. Hotchkiss was already bounding after Bleeker, and in less than half a second Merry and Clancy were also hustling like mad to get out of the way.
The hissing object struck ground, and in a moment there was an explosion, and a little cloud of débris was flung high in the air.