“SPOOKS.”
When Merriwell and Clancy reached Tinaja Wells and the Ophir camp, late
in the afternoon, it was with the disagreeable feeling that friendly
rivalry between the two clubs had received a setback by recent events
from which it could never recover. Merry at once sought Handy, captain
of the Ophir team, Ballard and Hannibal Bradlaugh—the latter the son of
the club’s president—and went into a star-chamber session with them.
All the unpleasant details of the afternoon were gone over, and
Ballard, Brad, and Handy listened to them with absorbing interest.
“What can we expect,” burst out Brad indignantly, when the recital was
finished, “while such a measly pup as Lenning bosses the Gold Hill
crowd? So long as he’s the king-pin over there, you couldn’t foster a
friendly spirit between the two clubs in a thousand years.”
“That dynamite cartridge gets my goat,” growled Ballard. “That pleasant
habit Lenning has of trying to assassinate the fellows he doesn’t
like will put him behind the bars one of these days. Thunder! Why, it
doesn’t seem possible he could be such a reckless fool.”
“He’s dangerous,” said Merriwell quietly, “but I don’t think he’s
exactly responsible when his temper’s roused.”
“Take it from me,” observed Handy, “there’s something on the fellow’s
conscience. Fear of being found out is goading him to desperate things.
He can’t go on like this; something has got to be done to stop him
before he commits a sure-enough crime.”
“What’s to be done?” asked Frank. “Tell the colonel?”
“The colonel!” exclaimed Ballard. “Why, Chip, Lenning has got the
colonel under his thumb. You can’t do a thing with Hawtrey. Just
breathe a whisper against Lenning to the colonel and there’ll be
fireworks. It beats creation the way Lenning is able to pull the
wool over his uncle’s eyes. Darrel, now, is worth a dozen fellows of
Lenning’s stripe. I’ve been with Darrel for three days at Dolliver’s
place, and I’ve got to know him pretty well. He’s a prince, that’s what
he is; and yet that confounded old muttonhead of a colonel won’t have a
thing to do with him. When I think about it, sometimes, I get so mad I
feel as though I’d explode.”
“We’d better sleep over this, fellows,” suggested Merriwell, “and see
if we can’t think out some move that will be right and proper. Things
are mighty unsatisfactory, as they are. It’s been a long time since
I’ve had anything bump me so hard as what happened this afternoon.”
It was in this way that the important matter was dismissed temporarily.
During supper, and for the rest of that evening, the boys tried to
forget it. When they crawled into their blankets, at ten o’clock,
Merriwell’s mind got busy with the far-reaching subject in spite of
himself.
A guard of three was posted every night. Frank heard the guards changed
at eleven o’clock. Fritz Gesundheit, the Dutch boy who did the cooking
for the camp, was to be one of the midwatch. It took all of ten minutes
for one of the lads who was going off duty to get Fritz out of the land
of dreams and into a fitting realization of the fact that it was his
turn at sentry-go.
Ghost stories had been indulged in around the camp fire during the
evening. Fritz had listened to the wild yarns with both ears, while
washing and putting away the supper dishes. More than once the cold
shivers had crept up his backbone, and he had felt the carroty hair
rising straight up on his head. When called for guard duty, he was
snoring away with his head under the blankets.
Fritz’ post was below the flat, and in a part of the cañon where the
moonlight sifted through the trees in wavering silvery patches. Every
patch looked like a ghost, and the cañon was filled with them.
Fritz was about as eager to go on duty that night as he would have been
to walk into a den of hungry bears. But Silva, the Mexican packer,
was also one of the midwatch, and between Fritz and Silva was a feud
of several days’ standing. Fritz would have scorned to show the white
feather with Silva looking on, and so he armed himself with a stout
club and a half a dozen ham sandwiches and waddled feebly down the side
of the flat and into the ghostly shadows of the cañon.
Once a picketed horse gave a snort, and Fritz went straight into the
air for at least five feet. A little later Uncle Sam, the professor’s
mule, let out a “hee haw” that sounded like thunder in the cañon, and
Fritz almost went into a swoon. Every little while Fritz imagined
a quivering splash of moonlight was a spook, and he would groan to
himself and crowd between the rocks, and say his prayers backward,
forward, and sideways.
Finally, as nothing came up and grabbed him, he began to feel somewhat
reassured. He thought of his sandwiches and started to eat one.
“Shpooks iss nodding, I bed you,” he communed with himself. “Nodding
nefer hurt nopody at all, und I vill eat und forged aboudt it. Vat
a peacefulness is der nighdt! How calm iss der moon und der leedle
shtars! Oh, I lofe der nighdt, you bed my life, und I—_himmelblitzen_,
vat iss dot?”
Fritz jumped, laid down his half-eaten sandwich on a bowlder beside
him, and peered wildly around. He could see nothing but the shadowy
live stock belonging to the camp, and yet, very distinctly, he had
heard a _pat, pat, pat_ as of something traveling among the bowlders.
“Id vas nodding some more,” he chattered. “Imachination makes some
monkey-doodle pitzness mit me. I vill eat der sandvich und forged
aboudt it.”
He reached for the sandwich, and a horrifying surprise ran through him.
The sandwich was not where he had left it. Nor had it fallen off the
rock.
“Br-r-r!” shivered Fritz. “Dere iss a keveerness here, py shiminy
Grismus! Iss a shpook hungry dot he comes und takes my sandvich?”
For several minutes Fritz sat in a huddle and wondered what he had
better do about it. He would have eased his tense feelings with a yell
if Silva hadn’t been around to hear. It wouldn’t do to let the Mexican
know he was scared. With trembling hands, Fritz dug down into his
rations for another sandwich. Laying the sandwich down for a moment,
he bent to twist the mouth of the paper sack in which his lunch was
stowed. When he straightened again, and reached for the sandwich,
another thrill of horror convulsed him. It was gone.
“Py shimineddy,” Fritz fluttered, “dis iss gedding vorse as I can
tell! Vat iss habbening mit me? Iss it a shpook sandvich? Sooch
now-you-see-him-und-now-you-don’t pitzness I don’t like.” Fritz, just
then, had an illuminating idea which not only calmed his fears but
aroused his wrath. “I bed my life id iss dot greaser feller playing
some chokes mit me. I set some draps, und ven I catch him, I preak him
in doo, so hellup me!”
With another sandwich Fritz baited his trap. Laying the sandwich on the
bowlder’s top, he sank down until his eyes were level with it and the
rest of his body hidden in gloom; then, lifting his hands ready to make
a grab, he waited.
_Pat, pat_ came a mysterious sound from the other side of the bowlder.
That must be Silva, Fritz thought, coming up on his hands and knees.
“Now, I bet you someding for nodding,” Fritz chuckled, “I get him!”
Something reared up out of the darkness on the other side of the
bowlder. Fritz grabbed, and his hands closed on an object that felt
like a buffalo robe and squirmed like an eel. Another moment and Fritz
had an armful, for the object plunged straight at him over the bowlder.
“Hellup! hellup!” he howled, as he tumbled backward and began rolling
over and over. “Hellup, I say, oder I vas a gone Dutchman!”
Then, for several moments, Fritz was altogether too busy for words. The
thing in his arms clawed, and snapped, and snarled. Fritz continued
to roll with it, sometimes underneath, sometimes on top. He was too
scared to let go, and too scared to hold on; and while he floundered
and plunged about among the rocks, the boys began to run out of the
tents, wondering what the nation was the matter. At last, locating the
excitement in the cañon, they began racing over the edge of the flat.
As it happened, Merriwell was in the lead.