Lenning had disappeared from the foot of the slope by the time the little party from above had brought their burden to the water’s edge. It was just as well for all concerned that he had not lingered.
Darrel was laid down with a rolled-up coat under his head for a pillow. The boys scooped up water in their hands and allowed it to trickle over the white, unconscious face.
“That was about as nervy a piece of work as I ever saw a fellow do,” remarked Clancy, on his knees at Darrel’s side.
“That’s the sort of a chap Curly is,” spoke up Ballard.
“You’re right, Pink,” said Merriwell shortly.
The colonel’s face was a study. Not much could be learned from it, however, regarding the state of his feelings.
“How is it,” he asked, “that all of you happened to be around at the time I needed help? Did you and your friends come with Ellis, Merriwell?”
“We followed him,” Merry answered.
“Followed him?” echoed the other.
“Why, you see,” Merry explained,“we started for Dolliver’s soon after you left Tinaja Wells, colonel. From what you said, I gathered the impression that you believed Darrel had something to do with the way Clancy and I lit into Lenning, on account of that coyote dog. I was afraid he’d hear of it, and I wanted to talk the matter over with him. Besides, I had it in mind to call up Mr. Bradlaugh on the phone from Dolliver’s, and tell him how matters were getting complicated.”
“I tried that myself,” said the colonel, “but discovered that Mr. Bradlaugh was out of town.” “Perhaps it’s just as well I couldn’t talk with him,” he added.
“When we reached Dolliver’s,” Frank resumed, “we were told that Darrel had left to go to Camp Hawtrey. I didn’t stop to telephone, but turned and followed him!”
“Why did Ellis start for our camp?”
“He wanted to talk with you—to try and patch up our differences on account of what happened yesterday.”
“Just an errand of his own out of mere friendship for you, eh?”
“That’s about the size of it, sir.”
“What did you follow him for?”
“Well,” said Frank bluntly, “I wasn’t sure how he’d be treated at Camp Hawtrey. And then, too, I thought it was foolish of him to try and get you to change your mind regarding me.”
“Ah!” A queer smile crossed the colonel’s face as he bent down to rub the knee that had lately been pinned under the bowlder. “You didn’t have much confidence,” he finished, “in my ideas of fair play?”
“Not when you were banking on information furnished by Jode. I couldn’t——”
“Darrel’s coming around, Chip,” broke in Clancy.
Merriwell stepped close to Darrel’s side. The lad’s eyes were open and he was staring up into the faces that bent over him.
“Gee, what a mix-up!” were Darrel’s first words. “I must have stepped out for a few minutes, I reckon. Who sic’d that coyote dog on Jode?”
“The dog was among the rocks, Curly,” Frank answered. “When the bowlder fell, it scared him out. He tried to get over the top of the gulch wall, but Pink, Clan, and I were there, and so he whirled and rushed for the place where Lenning was holed up. How do you feel?”
“I feel as though I’d been too darned ambitious for a sick man. What the dickens are you doing here, anyway?”
Clancy chuckled.
“We just moseyed along behind you to try and keep you out of trouble,” he laughed. “And we didn’t make out.”
“You followed me from Dolliver’s?”
“Surest thing you know. You were batty to even think of going to the Gold Hill camp. Chip fretted about that, and we all started after you.”
“Well, well!” Darrel changed his position a little and then wriggled into a sitting posture. “Was the colonel hurt?”
“No, my lad,” said the colonel, stepping closer and speaking for himself. “I’m all right, thanks to you. You reached the fuse just in the nick of time, although I’d have sworn you couldn’t make it. What did you mean by disregarding my orders to turn back?”
“I wasn’t caring a whoop about orders,” said Darrel. “If you gave any I don’t believe I heard them, anyhow. I know I pinched out the fire, but what I was wondering was whether you had been hurt by that bowlder.”
The colonel explained how he had escaped injury from the falling rock.
“I’m afraid,” he added, “that you’ve done that arm of yours little good by this day’s work. If you feelable, you might come along to the camp with me. We can make you comfortable there, and——”
Darrel shook his head.
“I’m obliged to you, colonel,” he answered, “but I reckon Dolliver’s is the best place for me for a while.”
“You’re able to ride back there?”
“Yes, and with ground to spare.”
The colonel came closer and stood over Darrel.
“Do you want to shake hands with me?” he asked.
The boy flushed. “I want to,” he answered, “but I’m not going to until—until I can read my title clear. You know what I mean, colonel.”
“I think so,” was Hawtrey’s answer, and it was not difficult for Frank to see that the stern old man was pleased.
“I’d like to ask one thing of you, sir,” Darrel went on.
“What is that?”
“Why, that you’ll take Merriwell’s word as to what happened near Camp Hawtrey yesterday afternoon. If you knew him as well as I do, colonel, you wouldn’t hesitate a minute.”
“I don’t think,” answered the colonel dryly, “that I shall hesitate quite so much as I did yesterday afternoon. I’ll come over to Tinaja Wells this evening, Merriwell,” he finished, turning to Frank, “and then I will have something to add to our interesting conference of this afternoon. Good-by, Darrel! Good-by, my lads.”
The colonel turned and limped off up the gulch in the direction of Camp Hawtrey. He was hardly out of sight before Merriwell stooped down and caught Darrel by the hand.
“Old man,” said he heartily,“you’ve made a big winning this afternoon. If we’d manufactured the thing to order it could not have turned out better. The old colonel had a chance to strike a balance between you and Jode. His eyes have been opened, and he has seen for himself just what sort of a fellow Jode is.”
“It happened just about right, that’s a fact,” returned Darrel. “The old boy has had a hard blow, but you’d never know it to look at him. That’s his way.”
“That picture he saw of Jode, neck-and-necking it down the hill with the coyote dog,” laughed Clancy, “will live in his memory a good long while.”
“What will he say to Jode?” queried Ballard. “I’d like to be around and hear it.”
“No one can ever tell what the colonel will do,” said Darrel. “Jode, I reckon, will have a hard time explaining why he ran down the hill when he ought to have been yanking that blazing fuse out by the roots.”
“We’d better be starting back to Dolliver’s,” put in Merry. “Where’s your horse, Curly?”
Darrel told where the horse had been left. While Merriwell went after it, Clancy and Ballard climbed the slope to get the three mounts that had been left on top of the gulch wall.
Half an hour afterward all the boys were riding down the gulch, en route to Dolliver’s. They formed about the happiest party that had ever traveled that particular trail. There had been a rift in the black clouds of injustice and suspicion that had hung for so long above Darrel’s head, and through the rift the sun of hope was shining. Darrel’s luck had taken a sudden turn for the better.