A RIFT IN THE CLOUDS.
Lenning had disappeared from the foot of the slope by the time the
little party from above had brought their burden to the water’s edge.
It was just as well for all concerned that he had not lingered.
Darrel was laid down with a rolled-up coat under his head for a pillow.
The boys scooped up water in their hands and allowed it to trickle over
the white, unconscious face.
“That was about as nervy a piece of work as I ever saw a fellow do,”
remarked Clancy, on his knees at Darrel’s side.
“That’s the sort of a chap Curly is,” spoke up Ballard.
“You’re right, Pink,” said Merriwell shortly.
The colonel’s face was a study. Not much could be learned from it,
however, regarding the state of his feelings.
“How is it,” he asked, “that all of you happened to be around at
the time I needed help? Did you and your friends come with Ellis,
Merriwell?”
“We followed him,” Merry answered.
“Followed him?” echoed the other.
“Why, you see,” Merry explained, “we started for Dolliver’s soon after
you left Tinaja Wells, colonel. From what you said, I gathered the
impression that you believed Darrel had something to do with the way
Clancy and I lit into Lenning, on account of that coyote dog. I was
afraid he’d hear of it, and I wanted to talk the matter over with him.
Besides, I had it in mind to call up Mr. Bradlaugh on the phone from
Dolliver’s, and tell him how matters were getting complicated.”
“I tried that myself,” said the colonel, “but discovered that Mr.
Bradlaugh was out of town.” “Perhaps it’s just as well I couldn’t talk
with him,” he added.
“When we reached Dolliver’s,” Frank resumed, “we were told that Darrel
had left to go to Camp Hawtrey. I didn’t stop to telephone, but turned
and followed him!”
“Why did Ellis start for our camp?”
“He wanted to talk with you—to try and patch up our differences on
account of what happened yesterday.”
“Just an errand of his own out of mere friendship for you, eh?”
“That’s about the size of it, sir.”
“What did you follow him for?”
“Well,” said Frank bluntly, “I wasn’t sure how he’d be treated at Camp
Hawtrey. And then, too, I thought it was foolish of him to try and get
you to change your mind regarding me.”
“Ah!” A queer smile crossed the colonel’s face as he bent down to rub
the knee that had lately been pinned under the bowlder. “You didn’t
have much confidence,” he finished, “in my ideas of fair play?”
“Not when you were banking on information furnished by Jode. I
couldn’t——”
“Darrel’s coming around, Chip,” broke in Clancy.
Merriwell stepped close to Darrel’s side. The lad’s eyes were open and
he was staring up into the faces that bent over him.
“Gee, what a mix-up!” were Darrel’s first words. “I must have stepped
out for a few minutes, I reckon. Who sic’d that coyote dog on Jode?”
“The dog was among the rocks, Curly,” Frank answered. “When the
bowlder fell, it scared him out. He tried to get over the top of the
gulch wall, but Pink, Clan, and I were there, and so he whirled and
rushed for the place where Lenning was holed up. How do you feel?”
“I feel as though I’d been too darned ambitious for a sick man. What
the dickens are you doing here, anyway?”
Clancy chuckled.
“We just moseyed along behind you to try and keep you out of trouble,”
he laughed. “And we didn’t make out.”
“You followed me from Dolliver’s?”
“Surest thing you know. You were batty to even think of going to the
Gold Hill camp. Chip fretted about that, and we all started after you.”
“Well, well!” Darrel changed his position a little and then wriggled
into a sitting posture. “Was the colonel hurt?”
“No, my lad,” said the colonel, stepping closer and speaking for
himself. “I’m all right, thanks to you. You reached the fuse just in
the nick of time, although I’d have sworn you couldn’t make it. What
did you mean by disregarding my orders to turn back?”
“I wasn’t caring a whoop about orders,” said Darrel. “If you gave any I
don’t believe I heard them, anyhow. I know I pinched out the fire, but
what I was wondering was whether you had been hurt by that bowlder.”
The colonel explained how he had escaped injury from the falling rock.
“I’m afraid,” he added, “that you’ve done that arm of yours little good
by this day’s work. If you feel able, you might come along to the camp
with me. We can make you comfortable there, and——”
Darrel shook his head.
“I’m obliged to you, colonel,” he answered, “but I reckon Dolliver’s is
the best place for me for a while.”
“You’re able to ride back there?”
“Yes, and with ground to spare.”
The colonel came closer and stood over Darrel.
“Do you want to shake hands with me?” he asked.
The boy flushed. “I want to,” he answered, “but I’m not going to
until—until I can read my title clear. You know what I mean, colonel.”
“I think so,” was Hawtrey’s answer, and it was not difficult for Frank
to see that the stern old man was pleased.
“I’d like to ask one thing of you, sir,” Darrel went on.
“What is that?”
“Why, that you’ll take Merriwell’s word as to what happened near Camp
Hawtrey yesterday afternoon. If you knew him as well as I do, colonel,
you wouldn’t hesitate a minute.”
“I don’t think,” answered the colonel dryly, “that I shall hesitate
quite so much as I did yesterday afternoon. I’ll come over to Tinaja
Wells this evening, Merriwell,” he finished, turning to Frank, “and
then I will have something to add to our interesting conference of this
afternoon. Good-by, Darrel! Good-by, my lads.”
The colonel turned and limped off up the gulch in the direction of Camp
Hawtrey. He was hardly out of sight before Merriwell stooped down and
caught Darrel by the hand.
“Old man,” said he heartily, “you’ve made a big winning this
afternoon. If we’d manufactured the thing to order it could not have
turned out better. The old colonel had a chance to strike a balance
between you and Jode. His eyes have been opened, and he has seen for
himself just what sort of a fellow Jode is.”
“It happened just about right, that’s a fact,” returned Darrel. “The
old boy has had a hard blow, but you’d never know it to look at him.
That’s his way.”
“That picture he saw of Jode, neck-and-necking it down the hill with
the coyote dog,” laughed Clancy, “will live in his memory a good long
while.”
“What will he say to Jode?” queried Ballard. “I’d like to be around and
hear it.”
“No one can ever tell what the colonel will do,” said Darrel. “Jode, I
reckon, will have a hard time explaining why he ran down the hill when
he ought to have been yanking that blazing fuse out by the roots.”
“We’d better be starting back to Dolliver’s,” put in Merry. “Where’s
your horse, Curly?”
Darrel told where the horse had been left. While Merriwell went after
it, Clancy and Ballard climbed the slope to get the three mounts that
had been left on top of the gulch wall.
Half an hour afterward all the boys were riding down the gulch, en
route to Dolliver’s. They formed about the happiest party that had
ever traveled that particular trail. There had been a rift in the
black clouds of injustice and suspicion that had hung for so long
above Darrel’s head, and through the rift the sun of hope was shining.
Darrel’s luck had taken a sudden turn for the better.