A TANGLE OF EVENTS.
Right from that moment a series of thrilling happenings began below.
The slope of the gulch wall was a stage, and from the crest Frank and
his chums watched events breathlessly. Horror gripped them and held
them spellbound. Instinctively they rose from their crouching positions
and stared wide-eyed at the tragic scene below them.
The colonel, as it is already known, had cut off only a two-minute
length of fuse. This meant that, in one hundred and twenty seconds from
the time he applied the match to the fuse, the gulch wall adjacent
to the ledge would be piled with ruin. So, in the short space of two
minutes, one weird event heaped itself upon another with amazing
rapidity.
Frank and his chums saw it all. Not one detail of the awful drama
escaped them. But, as the eye can comprehend infinitely quicker than
the tongue can frame a scene in so many words, it will be well to
describe each occurrence. At the same time, let it be remembered that
most of them happened simultaneously, and that the others fairly
jostled each other, so closely did they follow.
It was the falling bowlder that, primarily, caused the tragic
situation. This had become loosened, perhaps by the pounding Jode had
done in “putting down” that hole for the blast. Poised and ready to
tumble, Fate held the bowlder back until the critical moment when the
colonel had lighted his two-minute fuse and was on the point of rushing
from the ledge.
A cry of horror escaped the lads on the crest when they saw the huge
stone apparently about to crush out the life of the fallen man on the
ledge. But fortune, in a small way, favored Colonel Hawtrey.
The bowlder crashed to a full stop on the ledge, trapping one of the
colonel’s feet. He was held securely, it seemed, for, in spite of his
wild struggles, he could not release himself.
He was lying on the stones with his head toward the sputtering fuse,
and yet the fuse itself was well beyond the reach of his arms. A
terrible fate appeared to be in store for him unless Jode came to his
rescue.
The colonel, of course, knew nothing about Darrel being close at hand,
so his frantic cries were all directed at Jode.
“Jode!” he shouted. “I’m trapped by a bowlder! Hurry, and tear away the
fuse! Jode! Do you hear me?”
At just this moment, when Jode’s presence was so urgently demanded by
the colonel, another factor had come bounding into the weird progress
of events. The coyote dog had been skulking among the rocks above the
ledge. The roar of the falling bowlder had frightened the animal, and
he had uttered a wild yelp and started for the top of the gulch wall.
Before he reached the crest, he saw Frank and his chums, and whirled
and dashed down the slope. His course carried him among the bowlders
where Jode had sought refuge from the débris of the blast.
And now, under the colonel’s own eyes, Jode Lenning gave abundant proof
of the “yellow streak” in his character. He saw the tawny form of the
outcast dog leaping toward him, eyes gleaming, mouth open, and red
tongue protruding. Fear seized Jode, for no doubt he believed in the
superstition that was held by many of the settlers in those parts, and
felt in his soul that the dog was rushing upon him in a vengeful mood.
The frantic shouts of the colonel passed over Jode’s head unheeded. The
colonel might be in danger, but Jode was obsessed with the idea that
his own danger was fully as great. So, why should he think of his uncle
when his own life swung in the balance?
This must have been the trend of Lenning’s reasoning. With a cry of
fear, he rushed out from among the rocks and raced for the trail at the
foot of the gulch wall.
As a matter of fact, the coyote dog had no designs whatever upon Jode.
All the animal was trying to do was to efface himself from the scene as
quickly as possible. Very likely, he was more anxious to get away from
Jode than Jode was to get away from him.
Howling for help, stumbling, and falling, and rolling, Jode put forth
every effort to reach the bottom of the slope. Long before he had
accomplished his purpose, the coyote dog had passed him on an angling
course and had flickered away down the gulch. Jode, in his excitement,
failed to notice this. He had the impression that the enraged brute was
still on his trail, and did not slacken his pace.
Colonel Hawtrey, lying helpless on the ledge with the flame of the fuse
dancing nearer and nearer to the charge of dynamite, was able to watch
his nephew flying down the slope. In that tense moment the boy’s whole
nature must have revealed itself to the colonel in a single flash.
Merriwell had not remained long inactive on the crest of the sloping
bank. As soon as it became evident that nothing could be expected from
Jode, he flung himself among the masses of bowlders and splintered
rocks and began a descent toward the ledge.
But the going was difficult, and Merriwell realized, with a sinking
heart, that it would be impossible for him to reach the ledge before
the charge of dynamite had exploded. Then, at the very moment the
realization came home to him, he saw Darrel pawing and scrambling over
the rocks toward his uncle.
A hopeful thought plunged through Merriwell’s brain. A light dawned
upon him suddenly. Here was the very chance for which Ellis Darrel had
been waiting. Fate had taken his affairs in hand, and, in a short two
minutes of time, was revealing to the colonel the varying dispositions
of his two nephews.
The one who, up to that moment, had had all Hawtrey’s affection and
confidence, was bounding and plunging down the slope and abandoning him
to his fate. The other, the lad that had been cast adrift and had been
looked upon as a ne’er-do-well and a forger, was struggling valiantly
to reach his uncle’s side and extinguish the blazing fuse.
There was danger in Darrel’s attempt. He was handicapped in his work
because of his useless arm, and he had not a second to spare if he
gained the ledge in time. If he failed to reach the ledge before the
fuse exploded the cap and the cap set off the dynamite, then not only
his uncle but he himself would be killed by the blast.
Darrel must have understood this, yet it made not the slightest
difference to him. Furiously he was fighting his way over the rough
ground toward the ledge. Again and again he stumbled and fell. His
broken arm surely received many an agonizing wrench, but physical pain
was as powerless to hold him back as was the prospect of death from his
failure to reach the sputtering fuse in time.
Colonel Hawtrey at last became aware that some one else was coming to
his rescue. He turned and, with glimmering eyes, watched the fierce
efforts of Darrel. The boy’s face was white and haggard, but the same
resolution smoldered in his eyes that had fixed itself there when he
had left Dolliver’s.
The colonel was calm, now. The old military spirit revived in him, and
he turned calculating eyes upon the fuse and measured at a glance the
space that separated Darrel from the ledge.
“Stop where you are, El!” the colonel called, commandingly. “You can’t
get here in time. If you keep on, two lives instead of one will be
lost. Turn back, I tell you!”
Darrel did not answer. Neither did he turn back. He held to his course.
There was a smear of red on the bandage that swathed the arm, but he
continued to fight his way onward.
As a mere exhibition of pluck, the boy’s work was splendid. But what
he was doing reached deeper, and something like admiration filled the
colonel’s face as he watched. He tried no longer to make Darrel turn
back. Possibly he knew any command of his would be useless.
Jode could be seen at the bottom of the slope. He had at last
discovered that the coyote dog was no longer at his heels. Standing in
the trail, he looked upward, and, like Frank and his chums, and the
colonel, witnessed the gallant struggle his half brother was making.
The work Darrel was doing should have been Lenning’s. That fact could
not escape the boy at the foot of the slope. What his thoughts were, in
the circumstances, may easily be imagined.
“Good work, Curly!” shouted Merriwell. “You’ll make it, old man!”
This encouragement, coming in Merriwell’s familiar voice, probably
carried a big surprise for Darrel. He had no time for surprises,
however. Close to the ledge, he flung himself over at full length upon
the stones and reached for the fuse.
The blaze had eaten its way to the very mouth of the drilled hole.
Darrel dug down into the aperture with his fingers, searing his flesh
as he pinched out the fire; then, with a stifled groan, he fell over on
his back and lay silent and still.
“We’ll be with you in a minute, colonel,” shouted Frank cheerily, once
more beginning to descend. “Darrel has prevented a blow-up, and now
everything is going to be all right.”
“Yes,” came from the colonel, in a strained voice that was none too
steady, “you’re right about that, Merriwell. I’ll make it my business
to see that everything is all right—for Ellis.”
Clancy and Ballard had likewise started down the side of the gulch
wall. A tremendous relief had been experienced by both the boys when
they had seen Darrel reach the fuse.
“We’ll be down there in a brace of shakes, Chip,” sang out Clancy as he
saw Merriwell step to the ledge and move toward the colonel.
Frank was kneeling beside Darrel when Clancy and Ballard reached the
ledge.
“Never mind me, Merriwell.” Clancy and Ballard heard the colonel say,
“I’m doing well enough for the present. Just look after Darrel, will
you?”
“Is he hurt, Chip?” asked Ballard.
“He wasn’t in any shape to make a fight like that,” Merry answered,
“and it took the ginger all out of him. He’s fainted, that’s all.”
“One of you go down to the bottom of the gulch and get a little water,”
directed the colonel.
“Curly will be all right, sir,” said Frank, “until we get that bowlder
off you. Strikes me that you’re in a pretty bad situation.”
“It only seems to be a bad situation. As it happens, there’s a crevice
in the bowlder where it rests upon my foot and leg. I’m pinioned here,
but I don’t believe I have been injured at all.”
With a steel drill for a lever, Frank pried carefully at the big stone
while Clancy and Ballard put their combined weight against it. Their
efforts were successful and the bowlder was rolled away.
The colonel pulled himself together and sat up on the ledge.
“That was a close call for me,” he remarked coolly, “and for Ellis,
too. Do you think you could carry him down to the water?”
“Easily,” Frank answered.
All three of the boys laid hold of Darrel, gathered him up in their
arms and started carefully down the slope. The colonel followed,
limping a little as he came.