FOILING THE PLOTTERS.
Merriwell and Clancy had to diminish their speed in order to let the
cowboys keep them in sight. This was annoying, and Merry formed another
plan and slowed to a halt in order to broach it to Blunt.
"Clancy and I," said he, as Blunt and his friends galloped up, "can
cover the ground between here and McGurvin's four times as quick as you
fellows. I think we had better push on."
"What's the use?" Blunt demanded. "We'll all get there before
afternoon."
"Suppose the man with the flashy clothes and the red mustache should
take it into his head to come to McGurvin's before afternoon?"
"Then maybe it's too late. Possibly he's there now."
"We'll go on and see," said Merry. "You fellows can lope along and get
there in time to help Clancy and me, if we find they're too many for
us."
"Correct, Merriwell. We'll come a-smoking."
Frank and Owen ducked through the rough country like a couple of
meteors. The daylight was all they needed to help them in their flight
over a course so carefully covered the night before. Again, as once
before, the professor's claim was at stake, and the motorcycles were
pushed to, the utmost in an attempt to reach McGurvin's and head off the
scoundrelly work of the plotters.
It seemed almost no time at all until the verdant spot, irrigated by
McGurvin's well, came into view in the distance across the bare sands.
"We'll make a detour, Clan," said Merry, "and come up on the ranch from
the rear. There are only two of us, you know, and we will have to
proceed with care if we don't want to spoil everything."
"Sure," Clancy promptly assented. "We'd better leave our machines in the
brush somewhere, and move up on the adobe on foot. If we don't, McGurvin
will hear us."
This plan was carried out. The motor cycles were left at a safe
distance, and the lads crept cautiously forward under the screen of
McGurvin's corral. Corn was growing in the irrigated truck patch, and
Merry and Clancy got into it and moved upon the house.
Presently they began to hear voices; then, catching a glimpse of
McGurvin's hitching pole, they saw a saddle horse secured there.
"Looks like our man was here already," Merry whispered in his chum's
ear.
"Where is the talking coming from?" returned Clancy. "It seems pretty
close."
"We'll find out."
On hands and knees the boys crept on, screened by the broad leaves of
the corn. Presently Merry reached the edge of the cornfield, and paused.
The shady side of the house was not over twenty feet from him, and there
comfortably seated, was a florid, flashily dressed, red-mustached
person. Opposite him, in another chair, was not less a personage than
Professor Phineas Borrodaile. He was looking over his glasses in
consternation at the man with the red mustache. Grouped in the
background were McGurvin and two flannel-shirted, rough-looking
Arizonians.
It had been a happy inspiration of Merry's to hasten on ahead of the
cowboys. It was not afternoon, yet already the stage was set and the
play for the professor's claim was being made. Clancy gripped his chum
tensely by the arm. They did not speak, even in whispers, but crouched
at the edge of the corn and watched and listened.
"Yes, indeed," the professor was saying, in his cracked voice, "you aver
rightly, Mr. Heppner, that this is a remarkable country, most
remarkable. Over in the Picket Post Mountains, if you please, I have
seen misty island-like protuberances, resembling greatly the
post-pliocene crannoges of the Roscommon loughs. Now--"
"Call off the dog, professor," interrupted Heppner. "I'm a government
agent, and I'm here on business. See? You didn't know you'd jumped a
mining claim belonging to McGurvin, but such is the fact. This will have
to be straightened out, or the responsibility will rest heavily upon
you. Now, speaking personal, I'd hate a heap to see you sent to jail,
seeing as how you're in this country for your health. Jails ain't a
health resort, by any manner of means. What do you propose to do about
this?"
"Dear me!" murmured Borrodaile, taking off his hat and rubbing the top
of his bald head. "I am not dishonest, gentlemen. I assure you that I
want only to do what's right. The claim I located was discovered by my
nephew; and I am his next of kin. I supposed, you understand, that it
was rightfully mine."
"Sure," answered the bogus government agent heartily, "I can see right
where you made your mistake. How could you know that, in the years that
followed your nephew's discovery, the claim was located again by
McGurvin, there? When did you locate it, Mac?" he asked, turning on the
rancher.
"Night onto two year ago," asserted McGurvin solemnly.
"There you are!" exclaimed Heppner triumphantly. "McGurvin has done the
assessment work, so it belonged to him. And you jumped it. State's
prison offense, professor."
The professor shuddered.
"I didn't intend to do any wrong," he answered.
"Ignorance of the law," expounded Heppner, "excuses no one. Still,
speaking personal, I'm here to let you off light. You've had a lot of
trouble in this matter, and McGurvin is willing to give you a hundred
dollars for that. You will have to sign a quitclaim deed, though, so as
to clear up the title. I call that," beamed Heppner, "mighty generous."
"A heap more'n I ort ter do," said McGurvin, in a burst of frankness.
"More'n I'd do, Mac," said one of the two others.
"Ye know, Sam," whimpered the rancher, "I allers was troubled with
enlargement of the heart, I reckon, someday, it'll be the ruination o'
me. Ain't that so, Turkeyfoot?"
"Not as nobody can notice," replied the other bystander. "All I wants is
to see the perfesser git his rights. I was totin' his stuff ter town,
an' I'm in his pay. I stick fer the hunderd, an' you can whine all ye
darn please."
"Mr. Turkeyfoot," said the professor, casting a grateful look at that
noble gentleman, "I shall never forget your loyalty and kindness to me.
If you insist, I will accept the hundred dollars, and sign this quit
claim. All I want is to do what is right. _Otium oum dignitate_, that is
my motto, and what I am seeking. Such matters as this, in which I have
unwittingly erred, distress me greatly."
Heppner had pulled a paper and a fountain pen from his pocket.
"There ain't no odium attached to this move, professor," he said
reassuringly. "You have done wrong, but you are doing your best to make
amends." He got up and handed the pen to the professor, and then opened
out the paper. "Sign there," said he. "Mac," he added, "have your
hundred dollars ready."
McGurvin went down into his trousers, fished up a roll of bills, and
held it in his hand, eying it hungrily. The professor, hunting for a
place on which to write, stood up and laid the paper against the wall of
the house.
Merry was astounded to think that Borrodaile should prove so lacking in
ordinary understanding as to take the words of that gang of tricksters
in such a matter. But he was child, so far as business affairs were
concerned. It was easy to make him believe anything, so long as his
particular field of knowledge was not intruded upon.
Something had to be done, and Merry was not long in doing it. A bold
move was necessary. If Heppner ever got that signed quitclaim deed in
his hands, the transaction would be badly complicated.
Starting up, Merriwell jumped clear of the cornfield, dashed across the
space separating him from the group of men in the shade of the house,
and, before the astounded plotters could interfere, he had reached over
the professor's shoulder, snatched the paper out of his hands, and torn
it to bits.
"Blast ye!" roared McGurvin, jumping forward savagely. "What right you
got buttin' in?"
Sam, Turkeyfoot, and Heppner likewise confronted Merry with flaming eyes
and twitching, angry faces. The professor fell back, astounded.
"Merriwell!" he gasped, lifting a hand to his forehead.
Clancy, losing not a moment, jumped to place himself at his chum's side.
"You're a pack of curs!" cried Merriwell, "and you're trying to swindle
the professor out of a bonanza mining claim. You--"
With a snarl of rage, all four of the plotters began closing in on Merry
and Clancy.