Frank and his chums, in riding from Tinaja Wells to Dolliver’s, passed the mouth of the gulch only a few moments after Darrel had ridden into it. Had Frank encountered Darrel, there is no doubt but that he would have persuaded him against going on to Camp Hawtrey. In that event, some very pretty maneuvers of Fate, calculated to benefit Darrel, would have been effectually blocked.
But Merry and his two friends missed their new chum by a scant margin, and galloped on to Dolliver’s. Dolliver, smoking his short black pipe, was sitting in front of his little establishment, mentally considering uncles and nephews, and the foolishness of a kid with a broken arm trying to take a horseback ride before he was well able to be out of bed.
At sight of Merriwell, Ballard, and Clancy, Dolliver’s reflections went off at a fresh angle. He now began to concern himself with the contrariness of human affairs in general.
“Hello, Dolliver!” Frank called, pulling in his black mount, Borak. “How’s Curly?”
“Plumb locoed,” grunted the rancher.
“You don’t mean to say he’s out of his head?” gasped Frank.
“If he ain’t, then, by the jumpin’ hocus-pocus, I never see a feller that was.”
“We’ll have to see about this!”
Frank slid from the saddle and started hurriedly into the house.
“No use lookin’ fer him in the wikiup, Merriwell,” said Dolliver, “kase he ain’t there.”
“Not in the house?” demanded Frank, recoiling in amazement. “Where is he, then?”
“Gone to Camp Hawtrey to make the old kunnel talk with him.”
“What do you know about that!” exclaimed Ballard.
“Thunder!” cried the astounded Clancy.
“How long since he left here?” asked Frank.
“Less’n half an hour.”
“Did he ride?”
“Sartain he did. No more business on a hoss than a two-year-old kid, nuther. He’s wuss to manage than a case o’ the measles, anyways. Howsumever, he would go. He reckoned he could talk with the kunnel and smooth things out fer you.”
“How did he know matters had to be smoothed out for me?”
“Bleeker and Hotchkiss dropped in here on their way to the Hill, and they cut loose about your troubles. That got Darrel all het up. Right arter dinner, to-day, the kunnel himself blowed in here and tried to git Mr. Bradlaugh on the telephone. But Bradlaugh was away on business, I reckon. I wasn’t in the shack at the time, but I heerd the kunnel sayin’ the business was important and that he’d call up later this afternoon. Darrel was in the house, though, and tried to powwow with the kunnel, but the kunnel wouldn’t have it. Runnin’ out, the kunnel climbed his hoss and moseyed up the cañon. Nothin’ ’u’d do but Darrel had to mosey arter him.”
“Here’s news, fellows, and no mistake!” breathed Merriwell.
“Curly wasn’t able to take such a ride,” growled Ballard,“and that’s a cinch.”
“What does he think he can do, anyhow?” asked Clancy. “He’s not on the colonel’s visiting list.”
“Have you any idea what he intended to do, Dolliver?” Merry went on.
“Palaver with that grouchy old uncle o’ his,” replied the rancher. “Jode’s tryin’ to make the kunnel believe Darrel set you up to act like you done. I allow that Darrel wants to disabuse his mind, thinkin’ that if he’s out o’ it you’ll have less trouble comin’ to an understandin’ with Hawtrey.”
“Foolish!” muttered Merriwell. “He couldn’t make the colonel believe any such thing, and it wouldn’t help if he could. I wish we’d get here in time to head Darrel off. What’ll happen to him when he gets to Camp Hawtrey?”
“I don’t opine he’ll ever git there,” and Dolliver shook his head dubiously. “He wa’n’t able to sit a hoss, not noways.”
Frank hurried to Borak and leaped into the saddle.
“Only one thing to do, fellows,” he announced, “and that’s for us to ride for Camp Hawtrey.”
“Bully!” exulted the red-headed chap. “That gang will sure welcome us with open arms.”
“They will that,” agreed Dolliver. “Say, if you go to the kunnel’s camp, jest now, ye’ll have the time o’ your lives.”
“All right,” answered Frank, “I don’t care how hot a time they give us providing we can do something to help Darrel. Come on, fellows!”
He pointed Borak for the mouth of the cañon, and set off at speed. Clancy and Ballard made after him.
The cañon trail was narrow and the riders were obliged to proceed in single file. When they turnedinto the gulch, however, they were able to ride stirrup to stirrup.
“I don’t like the prospect a little bit,” said Frank. “Now that Bleeker and Hotch have left the Gold Hill camp, there isn’t a fellow there that’s at all friendly toward Darrel.”
“Hawtrey’s there,” suggested Ballard. “Don’t forget that, Chip. Hawtrey won’t have anything to do with Curly, but you can bet he won’t let Jode rough things up with him.”
“That’s right, Pink. Darrel must be a little hazy in his mind to start for the Gold Hill camp at such a time as this.”
“He’s trying to do you a good turn, Chip,” suggested Clancy.
“Sure he is—I give him credit for that—but the crazy old lobster can’t do me any good, or himself, either. He ought to stay in the house for another week yet.”
“Bosh!” returned Clancy. “Curly is all rawhide and India rubber. A broken wing hadn’t ought to bother him much more than a mild case of the mumps. You’ll notice we haven’t run across him lying along the road.”
“He’ll stick it out, you can bank on that,” said Ballard. “He’s probably in Camp Hawtrey this minute. That bunch would be pretty yellow if they didn’t treat him right.”
Clancy had a sudden thought.
“Say, Chip,” said he, “we’re taking this hike to help Curly, but I don’t think we’ll do him much good if we plunge full tilt into the camp. They’re a suspicious lot, and they might think it a frame-up of Curly’s. Suppose we reconnoiter a little before we show ourselves?”
“How’ll we reconnoiter, Clan?” asked Merry.
“The top of the gulch wall, about where we were yesterday, is a good place for that.”
“I guess you’ve got the right end of the stick, Clan. If we’re to climb the bank we’d better begin right here. Strikes me this is as good a place as we’ll find, and it’s far enough this side of the camp so we can make the climb without being seen.”
The slope was not steep, but it was easier for the boys to walk up the incline and lead their horses. In perhaps ten minutes they had reached the crest, and were able to take a comprehensive survey of the gulch below.
“Jove!” exclaimed Merry. “There are two fellows on a bowlder down there. See them? They are just below that chaparral of mesquite. One of them looks like the colonel to me. Wonder if the other is Darrel?”
“Not on your life!” murmured Clancy. “The other is Jode.”
“Sure enough!” agreed Ballard. “We’d better lead our horses back from the rim, and drop down on the rocks. If the colonel and Jode happened to look up here, they’d see us.”
Ballard’s suggestion was carried out at once; then, on their knees, the lads continued to peer downward. Presently the colonel and Jode got up and began climbing. They passed well to the left of the chaparral, angled across the face of the slope, and stepped upon a ledge that jutted out from the gulch side.
“I’m next to what’s going on down there,” said Merry. “Remember what Bleek told us, Clan, when I asked him where Jode got that dynamite for the cartridge?”
“He said something about Hawtrey stumbling on a ‘prospect,’” was the answer, “and that Jode was to fill a hole, and the colonel was to load it and set it off.”
“That’s what the colonel is about to do. Let’s move down the gulch a little way and find a place directly over the ledge.”
A hundred yards carried the boys to a spot above the ledge. Masses of splintered granite and loose bowlders covered the slope between the ledge and the crest of the gulch wall. The boys were able to look over the intervening rocks, however, and get a clear view of the ledge level.
Colonel Hawtrey, on his knees, was at work capping a fuse and ramming dynamite into the hole where the blast was to be set off.
“You’re right about it, Chip,” said Clancy. “The colonel’s going to have a little blow-up, down there, and probably he’ll make a ‘strike.’ How many poor prospectors, do you suppose, have passed that ‘prospect’ by? That’s the way things work out, in this world. Here’s the colonel, with more mines and money than he knows what to do with, just falling right over a good thing. Now——”
“Look!” broke in Ballard, grabbing Frank’s arm and pointing downward and to the left of the ledge. “See that long break in the gulch wall, running from the top right down to that bunch of chaparral? Who’s that looking out of it?”
“Darrel!” murmured Merriwell, astounded.
“Curly, as sure as you’re a foot high!” fluttered Clancy. “Now, what the deuce do you suppose he’s up to?”
It was a surprising situation, and no mistake. Darrel, screened in the rift, was cautiously looking out and keeping track of the movements of the colonel and Jode.
“Curly wants to talk with the colonel,” said Frank, after a moment’s thought, “and he’s waiting for Jode to get out of the way.”
“I could slip down that chute,” suggested Ballard, “andslide right into Darrel. We could bring him up here, with us, and——”
“Wait till after the blast,” cut in Merry. “The colonel’s just touching it off.”
“See Jode scramble for the tall rocks!” chuckled Clancy. “He’s not going to take any chances on being knocked over by flying stones.”
“Neither is Curly,” added Ballard. “He has ducked down into the bottom of that hole of his.”
“Two sticks of dynamite will lift a pretty big chunk out of that ledge,” said Merriwell, “and before it lets go we’d better push back a little. The charge——”
The words died on Merry’s lips. A bowlder, just above the ledge, had slipped from its moorings and was rolling over and over, grinding and crashing toward the ledge. The colonel had just risen from lighting the fuse. He saw the bowlder, and tried frantically to get out of the way of it. In his haste, he slipped and fell prone upon the ledge. The next moment the bowlder was upon him!