SHARP WORK.
“The Gold Hillers shape up well, Chip,” remarked Clancy. “So far as
beef is concerned, they put it all over our lads.”
“Headwork does more than ‘beef’ to win a game, Clan,” replied Merriwell
confidently. “Look at Brad, will you!”
Hannibal Bradlaugh, playing half back for the Ophir team, had caught
the ball and run it back twenty yards before he was downed. In another
moment came the first scrimmage. Neither Clancy nor Merry had any time
for further talk, just then, so anxious were they not to miss a single
detail of the play.
Brad tried to get through the center. He gained a little, and Handy,
captain and full back, went around the end for a couple of yards. The
Gold Hill line was putting up a good defense, and both Merriwell and
Clancy were finding time to note the work of Lenning, at right guard.
“Remember how he beat the pistol in the race with Darrel?” Clancy said
to Merriwell. “If Lenning was tricky in one thing you’ll find him
tricky in all. He’ll try something or other here, if I’m any prophet,
Chip.”
“Not while the colonel is watching him, Clan,” Merry answered.
Handy retreated, and kicked. The colonel, carried away by the game and
perhaps forgetting that an impartial spirit was to be looked for in a
referee, was shouting excitedly and urging the Gold Hillers to do their
best, and applauding their resistance.
Merriwell was eager to learn whether the Ophir fellows could hold the
rival eleven as well as Gold Hill had held their Ophir opponents. The
players crouched, then, as though touched by an electric wire, flung
into action. The result was a disappointment, for Gold Hill had gone
through the Ophir line for five yards.
The colonel’s excitement increased. He was cheering his club
frantically when he suddenly seemed to remember his official position,
and put a damper on his ardor.
“Hold them, Ophir!” whooped Clancy. “You’re just as good as they are!
Aren’t you going to hold ’em?”
This urging seemed to have no effect, for there was another play, and
this time the ball went through for a seven-yard gain.
“Well, well!” muttered Merry. “What do you think of that?”
There followed a fierce drive at center, and Joe Mayburn let the runner
get past him for ten yards. Clancy was dancing around like a wild man.
Handy was doing all he could to steady the boys, but it was plain that
they were badly rattled by the sharp work of the other team.
Another play was aimed at center, but Mayburn was on his mettle, and
the attack was thrown off.
“Bully work, Mayburn!” roared Merry. “That’s the style!”
“I guess they don’t find Mayburn so easy as they thought,” chuckled
Clancy. “There they go again,” he added.
And again Gold Hill failed. Confidence was returning to the Ophir men.
“They’re getting their nerve back,” commented Merriwell. “Oh, I guess
we’ll show those fellows that Ophir is a different crowd to-day from
what it was a year ago. Now let Gold Hill kick.”
The way Ophir came up the field was beautiful to see. Savagely Gold
Hill fought for every yard of the way. After two downs and a total gain
of twenty yards, Handy tried for a field goal and missed. The colonel
waved his hat, and then calmed himself into the correct official
impassiveness. A little later, he blew the whistle.
“Fifteen minutes?” cried Clancy. “Thunder, Chip, it seems more like
fifteen seconds to me.”
“The colonel’s holding the watch,” laughed Merry, “so he must have it
pretty nearly right.”
“We ought to have a full sixty-minute session out of this. Why the
deuce did Handy stipulate that only two quarters were to be played?”
“His head was level. A little of this sort of thing is a great
plenty—with the real game some three weeks off.”
Parkman moved over toward Lenning, who was walking from the field. The
two sat down to rest on a heap of bowlders close to the edge of the
mesa.
The colonel, his face beaming, made directly for Merriwell and Clancy.
“It’s as even a thing, Merriwell,” he exclaimed, “as you’d find
anywhere! You’ve done wonders with this Ophir eleven. If I wasn’t so
old and warped with rheumatism I’d take a hand in it myself. Why don’t
you get into it?”
The colonel did not wait for an answer, but saw Handy coming up and
turned in his direction.
“I’d like an hour of this, Handy,” he cried. “Why don’t you let ’em box
the compass for the limit?”
Handy looked at Merriwell, and what he saw in the latter’s face
convinced him that his stipulations were fully approved.
“I don’t want to work our boys too hard, just at the present time,
colonel,” said he. “The first quarter ended with the ball in the center
of the field, and with everything pretty well balanced, so far as I
could make out.”
Merriwell, seeing Bradlaugh beckon to him, left Clancy and Handy
talking with the colonel, and moved over to hear what Brad had to say.
“Chip,” whispered Brad excitedly, “there’s a hen on!”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that Lenning is up to some dirty move or other, that’s what I
mean.”
“Bosh! I’ve been watching him like a weasel, and I——”
“I don’t mean during the play,” Brad interrupted, “but over there on
that rock pile where he’s been talking with Parkman.”
“What’s happened?”
“I was over there myself, stretched out for a little rest. I was on
one side of the bowlders, and those two came up and sat on the other
side. Parkman handed Lenning something. ‘That’s from Bleeker,’ I heard
him say, ‘and he says it contains some hot news about Darrel and
Merriwell.’ That’s all that was said. Parkman sneaked off as though he
was afraid some one would see him. I got up to move away, and looked
back, to see Lenning reading a note. His face was savage. He made as
though he’d tear up the note, then changed his mind and pushed it in
between the lacings of his jacket. What do you suppose is going on?”
“Whatever it is, Brad,” answered Merriwell calmly, “it’s none of my
business.”
“But Parkman mentioned your name and Darrel’s. Certainly it is some of
your business.”
“I can’t figure it that way, or——”
Merriwell bit his words short. Ballard was just hurrying up over the
edge of the mesa and laying a course in his direction. Merry’s first
thought was that something had happened to Darrel, and he hastened to
get close to Ballard.
“Game begun?” panted Ballard.
“Begun, and half over,” was the reply. “We’re only to play two
quarters, and there’s a fifteen-minute interval between them. What’s
the matter, Pink? Why are you here? Darrel all right?”
“Darrel’s getting along in good shape,” Ballard answered, “but there’s
something up that ought to be attended to.”
“What?”
“It seems there’s a division of sentiment in the Gold Hill camp
regarding Darrel. A few of the Gold Hill fellows think Darrel isn’t
getting a fair shake. Lenning found it out, and made them stay behind
when he and the rest came to Tinaja Wells for this game. He’d had a
quarrel with Bleeker, I don’t know what about, and the two have hardly
spoken since last night. Hotchkiss, one of Darrel’s Gold Hill friends,
came to Dolliver’s a while ago and said Bleeker had given Parkman
a letter to be delivered to Lenning, and that the letter contains
evidence that will clear Darrel of that forgery charge.”
Merriwell jumped. Bradlaugh, too, was wildly excited.
“Jupiter!” muttered Brad, “I reckon we’re getting this down pretty
fine.”
“How do you know the letter contains evidence of that sort?” asked
Merriwell.
“Hotchkiss said so.”
“Well, how does Hotchkiss know?”
“He and one or two more of Darrel’s friends at Camp Hawtrey got their
heads together and figured it out. Hotchkiss rode over to Dolliver’s
to tell Darrel that some of his friends must get the letter away from
Parkman.”
“Parkman has already delivered it,” put in Brad.
“Then, Hotchkiss said, it’s got to be taken away from Lenning.”
Merriwell’s dark eyes flashed. He believed fully in Darrel, and he had
no confidence whatever in Lenning. In his own mind, Merry was convinced
that Lenning had fabricated, and carried into effect, that dastardly
plot to make it appear as though Darrel had looted the colonel’s safe
of the one thousand dollars.
Was it possible that here, during this brief try-out with Gold Hill,
evidence could be deduced proving Darrel innocent of that forgery
charge?
Ballard, in his excitement, had not stated the case exactly as it
was. Hotchkiss had qualified his assertions somewhat in saying that
the communication from Bleeker to Lenning contained forgery evidence.
Ballard had merely left out the qualifying words of the friend of
Darrel from Camp Hawtrey.
This, at first blush, might seem like a trifling omission, and yet
had Merriwell not believed absolutely that Hotchkiss knew what he was
talking about, and that the note really contained evidence in the
forgery matter, his action would have been vastly different from what
it was.
It would soon be time to put the ball into play again. Merriwell, his
eyes roving over the field and the scattered players, was thinking
deeply.
“You think, Brad,” he asked, “that Lenning still has that note where
you say he placed it?”
“It’s a cinch!” Brad declared.
“Keep this under your hats, both of you,” said Merriwell. “If that
evidence concerns Darrel, and indirectly myself, we’re going to have
it.”
He spun around and ran back to the field. Lenning was right guard for
the Gold Hill team, and Spencer Dunn was left guard for Ophir.
“Spence,” said Merry, “I want some of your harness. If you’ve no
objection, I’d like to take your place in the game for the second
quarter.”
“Go to it, Chip!” answered Dunn cheerfully, and began shedding as much
of his costume as Merriwell thought necessary and had time to take.
Colonel Hawtrey witnessed the proceeding.
“Couldn’t stand the strain, eh, Merriwell?” he laughed. “Well, I don’t
blame you, my boy. Now I expect to see some real football.”
Merriwell smiled a little. “I wonder what Hawtrey would say,” he
muttered to himself, “if he knew just what sort of a game within a
game this was going to be?”