A FRIEND FROM CAMP HAWTREY.
Darrel passed a restless night at Dolliver’s ranch. His arm, stiffly
wrapped with splints and bandages, was swollen and feverish. The pain
of it must have been intense.
Ballard did what he could to cheer Darrel up. The boy with the broken
arm, however, had mental worries apart from his physical pains, and it
was hard for Ballard to do anything with him. As the forenoon wore on,
Darrel began to talk, and to reveal the troubles that lay at the back
of his head.
“Pink,” said he, with an air of desperation, “I’ve got to do something
to clear up that forgery matter. The colonel won’t have a thing to do
with me until I prove that I didn’t sign his name to that check.”
“Chip’s going to look after that, old man,” returned Ballard. “Leave
it to him. You’ve got enough to fret about, seems to me, without going
into any of your family affairs.”
“It’s on my mind a whole lot, pard,” continued Darrel, gritting his
teeth to keep back a groan. “I hate to be treated like a yellow dog by
Uncle Alvah. If I had really forged the check, then I’m getting no more
than what’s coming to me; but I didn’t—I’d take my oath I didn’t.”
“What’s that old saw about, ‘Truth, crushed to earth, will rise again’?
Just keep your shirt on, and wait. In the end, everything will come out
O. K. Chip’s on the trail, and you can bet a pinch of snuff against a
bone collar button that he’ll run it out. Take matters easy, Darrel,
and wait for Merriwell to play his hand.”
“I can’t leave it all to him,” fretted Darrel.
“You’ve got to leave it to somebody until you can get up and around,
haven’t you? A few days, or weeks, won’t make any difference. That
forgery business has been hanging fire for more than a year, and I
guess there isn’t any great rush about clearing it up right now.”
Darrel squirmed impatiently as he lay in the bed.
“It was different,” said he, “when I was drifting around in other parts
of the West. Then I was among strangers, and nobody knew anything about
me. Now that I’m back on this range, I can’t meet a soul but knows I’m
the nephew that disgraced the colonel’s family, and I’m looked on with
contempt. Even Dolliver acts as though he thought I was a criminal.”
“Gammon! Say, Darrel, your imagination is working overtime. Dolliver’s
manner is all that can be desired. I haven’t seen a thing in his
actions to suggest that he looks on you as a jailbird.”
“I can see it, Pink, even if you can’t,” insisted Darrel. “Things have
got to be different, and they’ve got to change mighty soon.”
“Leave it to Merry. He, and all the rest of us, believe in you, and are
working for you. Something will turn up, take it from me, and there’s
no earthly use in your worrying yourself blue in the face because it
doesn’t turn up right away.”
“The colonel thinks a heap of Jode,” murmured Darrel.
“Jode is a soft-sawdering beggar, and knows how to get around him. It
gets my goat the way a man as smart as the old colonel allows himself
to be taken in. But it can’t last. Hawtrey’s eyes are bound to be
opened some time.”
“I don’t want to be the one that strips the mask away from Jode. In
order to believe that Jode is a schemer, the colonel will have to find
it out for himself.”
“You can’t be too ladylike about it. When you fight the devil, you
know, you’ve got to use fire.”
Noon came, and the early hours of afternoon began drifting away. It
was about two o’clock when a visitor dropped in at Dolliver’s. He came
on horseback, left his mount at Dolliver’s hitching pole, and pushed a
bulletlike head through the door of the front room.
“How’s the patient?” he asked of Ballard.
Ballard recognized the fellow as one Mark Hotchkiss, a Gold Hiller
belonging with the rival camp.
“Come in, and ask him yourself,” Ballard answered.
A bony youth of seventeen projected himself through the door. Darrel
turned his head on the pillow and looked at him.
“Hello, Hotch,” said he. “What’re you doing here?”
“Came to find out how you’re makin’ it,” grinned Hotchkiss.
“You Gold Hill chaps must be worrying a lot about me,” said Darrel
sarcastically.
“There’s a few of us who don’t think you’ve had a square deal, El.
Jode’s king bee at our camp, and there’s some of the junipers over
there that ain’t got the nerve to call their souls their own. I’m my
own boss, I reckon. Nearly all of our crowd have gone to Tinaja Wells
for a football game this afternoon. Bleeker and me and one or two more
was left behind.”
“Bleeker!” exclaimed Darrel. “Why, he’s one of the strongest men on the
football squad!”
“Sure, but Jode’s hot at him, and Jode’s captain of the eleven, so he
carries his grouch to the extent of orderin’ those he don’t like to
stay behind.”
“Why is Jode hot at Bleeker?”
“That’s too many for me. They ain’t hardly spoke to each other since
they got back from the Ophir camp yesterday. You see, them two went to
the Wells to fix up the details of the game, and they was as chummy
as you please when they left Camp Hawtrey, but they come back mad as
blazes at each other.”
“Maybe,” suggested Ballard, “Bleeker’s beginning to find out some
things about Jode that don’t set well.”
“Like enough,” grinned Hotchkiss. “The football players made for Tinaja
Wells on foot, ‘cross country. Parkman was late in startin’, and just
before he pulled out, Bleeker, with a face like a thundercloud, rushed
from his tent with a note all sealed up in an envelope. He hands it to
Parkman. ‘Give that to Lenning on the q. t.,’ says Bleeker; ‘tell him
it’s from me, and it’s about El Darrel,’ he says, ‘and about Merriwell
a little, too,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to get myself in no trouble
with Jode,’ says Parkman, half a mind not to have a thing to do with
the note. ‘You’ll get yourself into a whole lot of trouble with me,’
Bleeker says, ‘if you don’t do as I want.’ So, with that, Park takes
the note and slips it away some’r’s inside his uniform. I reckon
Jode’ll get it, all right.”
Darrel was developing a strong interest in that note of Bleeker’s.
“What had Bleeker to tell Lenning about me,” he asked, “that he
couldn’t bat up to him without putting it in a letter?”
“Kin savvy?” returned Hotchkiss, giving the local equivalent for the
Mexican _quien sabe_—who knows? “A few of us what was left behind at
Camp Hawtrey put our heads together and sort of made up our minds about
somethin’. That’s mainly the reason I’m here, El. You see, the reason
Jode’s down on a few of us is because we was stickin’ up for you. We
told Jode flat that we didn’t take no stock in that forgery business,
and reckoned you’d clear yourself some day. That made Jode madder’n
hops. All those that kept their mouths shut Jode took to Tinaja Wells.”
Ballard was almost as deeply interested in Hotchkiss’ remarks as was
Darrel. Here was a friend from the rival camp, and he brought news that
might be of great value.
“Now,” pursued Hotchkiss, “us fellers that was left behind—barrin’
Bleeker—sort of made up our minds that the note Parkman’s totin’ maybe
contains a clew about the forgery matter. Bleeker, as you know, El, has
been mighty close to Jode for a couple o’ years or more. Them two was
thicker’n two peas in a pod at the time the colonel turned you adrift.
It looks to a few of us as though Bleek’s had an attack of conscience,
or somethin’, and has put on paper a few things that may be pretty
important to you. I was delegated to come over here, tell you about the
note, and suggest a plan of action.”
“What plan?”
Darrel’s eyes were big and bright, and he rose on his right elbow and
peered earnestly at Hotchkiss.
“Well, you got friends in the Ophir camp,” said Hotchkiss. “Have ’em
get that note away from Parkman; or, if it’s too late to get it from
Parkman, then have ’em take it from Jode.”
“It’s Lenning’s letter,” put in Ballard. “What business have Darrel’s
friends with it?”
“If it comes to that, what business have Bleek and Len with evidence
clearin’ Darrel of that forgery?”
“How do you know the letter contains anything like that?” demanded
Ballard.
“I reckon us fellers in the Gold Hill camp ain’t deef, dumb, and
blind,” bristled Hotchkiss. “We’ve kept our eyes and ears open, we
have. A bunch of us is friends of El’s, here, and we allow he’s goin’
to clear himself. What Bleek knows about that forgery he’s put into
that letter, more’n likely, and right here’s a chance for El to be
cleared by a little snappy work. You see, Bleek’s so mad at Jode he
won’t speak to him, and Jode’s so mad at Bleek he won’t take him to
Tinaja Wells. Maybe he’s afeared, if Bleek was near Merriwell, that
he’d split on the hull business.”
Darrel swerved his glimmering eyes to Ballard.
“Pink,” said he, deeply stirred, “I’m banking on Hotchkiss and the
few friends I have in Camp Hawtrey. Meddling with correspondents
that doesn’t concern the meddler is pretty bum business, but we have
Bleeker’s word for it that the letter he sent Jode concerns me—and
Merriwell, too. Doesn’t that give us the right to get hold of it, if we
can?”
“That’s a pretty fine point,” frowned Ballard, “but I should say that
you and Chip have a right to that letter.”
“Sure,” exploded Hotchkiss, “they have a right to it! The next thing
is for some of you friends of El’s to get it. I’ve done all I can.”
Hotchkiss got up, stepped to the side of the bed, and took Darrel’s
hand. “Some of us Gold Hillers, pard,” he went on, “have pinned our
faith to you. We can’t say much, or do much, because the colonel purty
nigh owns the club, and because Jode stands ace high with the colonel.
But we’ve put you wise to this letter, and it’s up to your Ophir
friends to help you out. Somethin’ will have to be done pretty quick,
I reckon, for that game’s due to come off before long. Some day, El,”
and Hotchkiss dropped Darrel’s hand and started for the door, “I hope
you’ll get Lenning on the mat for the count. He’s a two-faced coyote,
and that shot goes as it lays. _Adios!_”
A few moments later, the hoofs of the Gold Hill boy’s horse could be
heard drumming a diminishing tattoo up the cañon.
“Are my Ophir pards going to help me, Pink?” queried Darrel.
“You can bet your life they are, Darrel!” answered Ballard. “Think you
can get along while I ride to Tinaja Wells, and put this up to Chip?”
“Sure I can,” and a look of happiness overspread Darrel’s face. “At
last,” he murmured, “I think I’m on the right track.”
“Here’s hoping,” said Ballard blithely. “I’m off on the keen jump, old
man,” and he rushed from the house to get his horse under saddle.
A little later, he flashed past the door, waved his hat in a parting
salute to Darrel, and pushed at speed in the direction of Tinaja Wells.