THE UNDER DOG.
“Great Scott, Chip! Say, I didn’t think there was a place like that in
Arizona.”
Young Merriwell and his red-headed chum, Owen Clancy, stood on the
crest of the long, sloping wall of a gulch and looked downward at a
scene that filled them with wonder and admiration.
The gulch was perhaps a hundred and fifty feet deep, and a quarter of a
mile from rim to rim. On either side the slopes fell away in a gentle
descent, sparsely covered with pine trees, and with here and there a
patch of flaming poppies touching the brown of the hillsides as with
fire.
In the depths was a long, silvery vista of water, placid, and cool,
and deep. At the foot of the slope on whose crest the two lads were
standing, was a wide strip of clean yellow sand. Here there were half
a dozen white canvas tents, pitched close to the water, with camping
equipment scattered in all directions.
Four or five canoes were drawn up on the beach. On a float, a few
yards from shore, several lads in “Nature’s raiment” were sitting and
splashing their feet in the water; others were diving from the float,
their white bodies flashing outward and downward like so many darts,
disappearing under the smooth surface of the river and leaving a jet of
spray and a quiver of silvery ripples; and still others were swimming,
far up and down the stream. All were enjoying themselves to the utmost,
if their laughter, echoing and reverberating between the slopes could
be taken as an indication.
“This is certainly a peach of a place for a camp,” said young
Merriwell. “In some ways it has our own camp at Tinaja Wells beaten
a mile. The sight of those canoes down there makes me hungry for a
paddle!”
“And to think,” went on Clancy, “that this is nearly the middle
of November, and that back home the snow is beginning to fly, and
overcoats are trumps, and folks are hunting up their galoshes! Wow! It
hardly seems possible. Down here in southern Arizona a fellow can have
his out-door sports all the year ’round. So that’s Camp Hawtrey, eh?
Well, it’s a bully place, if you ask me.”
“The only thing these Gold Hill fellows haven’t got is a good athletic
field. I hear they’ve cleaned up a patch of desert back of the gulch,
and are using that for sports and practice. But that slice of raw
ground isn’t in it with our mesa, Clan.”
“You’re right there, Chip. Our camp at Tinaja Wells has certainly got
it over this one so far as a field is concerned, but I wish we had a
nice stretch of river like that for canoeing. Where’s Lenning? Can you
see him down there in that bunch of swimmers?”
The boys above studied carefully the ones below, but failed to discover
Lenning.
“He’s not there, Clan,” said Merriwell, “and I can’t see Bleeker,
Hotchkiss, and several more of the Gold Hill Athletic Club whom we know
tolerably well.”
“Jode Lenning, I guess, is the main squeeze of that outfit, and he’s
the one we’ll have to talk with.”
“I hate to have anything to do with him,” muttered Merry, “but he’s
Colonel Hawtrey’s nephew, and the colonel is the backbone of the Gold
Hill club, and if our fellows and the Gold Hillers have any more
friendly competitions, we’ll have to arrange with Lenning.”
“Lenning’s a skunk,” growled Clancy. “If it hadn’t been for him we know
mighty well that Ellis Darrel, his own half brother, wouldn’t be laid
up at Dolliver’s with a broken arm. We know, I say, that Lenning cut
the rope that dropped Darrel over the cliff, and——”
“Cut it, Clan!” interrupted Merriwell. “We promised Darrel we’d keep
that to ourselves.”
“Well, I’m not blowing it around, am I? The way Hawtrey snuggles up to
Lenning and hands Darrel, his other nephew, all the hard knocks makes
me pretty darn tired.”
“Hawtrey will be all right when he finds out that Darrel didn’t forge
his name to that check more than a year ago.”
“Yes, _when_ he finds it out—and that’s never. Lenning, I’ll bet a peck
of dollars, was at the bottom of that forgery, and you can’t bring
forward any proof against Lenning that the colonel will consider. You
know that as well as I do, Chip.”
“Something will turn up, Clan,” asserted Merriwell confidently. “When
a fellow gets in wrong it’s bound to come out unless he changes his
ways. And Jode Lenning isn’t changing—that is, not so you can notice
it. Luck is going to turn Darrel’s way—I’ve got a pretty good hunch to
that effect. The old colonel will find out for himself just which of
his nephews is the more reliable. Wait, that’s all.”
“I can’t see anything rosy in Darrel’s future,” growled Clancy, “so
long as Jode has his big stand-in with his Uncle Alvah. But there’s
no use chinning about that now. We’re over here from our camp as a
games committee to fix up a schedule of sports with Gold Hill, and
we’re supposed to be loaded to the gunnels with peaceable sentiments
and loving regards for Ophir’s athletic rivals. Oh, slush! I’m in such
an amiable mood, right this minute, that I’d like to take a crack at
Lenning with my bare knuckles.”
“Lenning’s only one of that Gold Hill crowd, old man,” said Chip
soothingly. “Bradlaugh, president of the Ophir club, and Hawtrey,
who backs the Gold Hillers, are both tired of having the rival
organizations at loggerheads. They want peace and friendship between
the two camps, and I don’t blame them. We’re going to do what we can
to make the rivalry more sportsmanlike, and less bitter. ‘Fair play
and no favor,’ that’s our motto. When we find Lenning, Clan, just hold
yourself in and don’t bite.”
“All right,” assented Clancy, although with a show of some reluctance.
“Let’s go down there, find Lenning, and get the business over with.”
Before they could start down the long slope that led to the bottom of
the gulch, both lads were suddenly startled by the sudden note of a
firearm. The report came from a considerable distance, evidently, yet
was perfectly clear and distinct.
“What’s that?” demanded Clancy, wheeling about and staring at his chum.
“Sounded like a revolver,” was the reply. “Somebody trying a hand at
target practice, more than likely.”
“The sound didn’t come from below—the shooting is going on up here,
somewhere. Maybe Lenning is mixed up in it.”
“We’ll mosey around and find out,” said Merry.
Another report was heard, and the two chums, laying their course by
the sound, started along the top of the gulch wall. A third shot was
followed by a sharp yelp, as of some animal in pain.
“Was that a dog, Chip?” queried Clancy.
“Strikes me it was,” said Merry. “This way,” he added, turning from the
gulch and moving off into some low, rocky hills.
As they advanced, the boys heard voices and laughter. One of the voices
they recognized as Jode Lenning’s. Presently, from behind a bit of a
ridge, they looked out and discovered what was going on.
Lenning and three more of the Gold Hill crowd—fellows of about his same
stamp—had tied a dog to an ironwood tree. At a distance of about fifty
feet they were taking turns shooting at the poor brute—evidently seeing
how close they could come without making a hit.
The dog was about as homely an animal as Merry had ever seen. His tawny
hide was scarred in a dozen different places, and one eye was gone and
a front leg was crooked—apparently the leg had been broken and Nature
had healed it alone. There was some object tied to the dog’s tail by
a section of stout twine—the lads behind the ridge could not make out
exactly what the object was.
_Bang!_ went the revolver. A flurry of dust was kicked up under the
wretched brute, which almost turned a somersault at the end of the
rope. Lenning and his companions laughed at the dog’s antics.
Clancy’s face went black as a thundercloud. His fists clenched and,
with a muttered imprecation, he started to hurl himself around the end
of the ridge. Chip caught him and held him back.
“Are you going to stand for this, Chip?” asked the red-headed fellow in
a savage whisper.
“No,” said Merriwell; “we’ll interfere at the right time. Wait a
minute.”
Clancy restrained himself and once more sank down behind the rocks.
Parkman, one of Lenning’s companions, had begun to speak.
“I reckon we’d better stop shooting, Jode,” said he, “or the dog will
hit the cap on the stones and set off the dynamite.”
“You’re right, Park,” answered Lenning. “We’ll pass up the shooting,
touch off the fuse, and set the ki-yi adrift. When the cartridge goes
off,” he chuckled, “I bet there won’t be enough of that tramp dog left
to wad a gun. Lamson, you light the fuse. You can cut the rope, Park,
when the fuse is going. Be quick about it or the whelp will take a
piece out of you.”
Clancy’s eyes were fairly burning as he leaned toward Merry and gripped
his arm.
“Do you know what those skunks are up to, Chip?” he whispered. “They’ve
tied a dynamite cartridge to that brute’s tail, and they’re going to
light the fuse and turn the dog loose!”
“No, they’re not,” said Merriwell decisively. “That’s what they’re
aiming to do, Clan, but we’ll interfere with the game. They’re a fine
crowd of cannibals, I must say,” he went on scathingly. “The colonel
ought to be here and see that precious nephew of his in his real
colors. Hang it, Clan, I’m so worked up I can’t see straight.”
Clancy gave vent to a gruesome laugh.
“Here we come from Tinaja Wells with an olive branch,” he chuckled,
“and now we’re going out to lam Jode over the head with it. Come on.
Lamson is getting ready to scratch a match and light the fuse.”
“Here we go,” answered Merriwell.
With a rush the two boys got out from behind the ridge. They were
nearer the cowering dog than they were to Lenning, and, the first thing
Lamson knew, Merriwell had tipped him over and knocked the blazing
match from his fingers. Clancy, at the same time, had grabbed Parkman
by the collar and pulled him back so quickly that the open jackknife
fell out of his nerveless hand.
Jode Lenning, stunned into momentary inaction by the unexpected
appearance of Merriwell and Clancy, suddenly recovered himself, gave an
angry yell, and started toward the newcomers at a run.