CHAPTER XV.

THE MYSTERIOUS MR. RANDOLPH.

Rather less than twenty-four hours later Dick Merriwell entered the lobby of the Brown Palace Hotel and walked directly to the desk.

“Anything for me on that last mail, Fred?” he asked.

The clerk turned to the rack behind him.

“I believe there is, Mr. Merriwell,” he answered. “Yes, here it is. Only one, though.”

“That’s all I was expecting,” he returned.

He walked slowly from the desk, tearing open the envelope as he went. Close by the door he stopped to glance through the several sheets it contained.

“He’s well and flourishing, that’s one good thing,” he murmured. “It’s so long since the last letter that I was beginning---- By Jove, what a peculiar coincidence!”

Without pausing to read further, he folded the letter hastily and hurried out of the door and down the steps. Waiting at the curb stood the _Wizard_ in the front seat of which was Brad Buckhart. Letter in hand, Merriwell sprang up beside him.

“Say, Brad,” he began eagerly, “talking about coincidences, I’ve got one here that beats the Dutch. Do you remember that interesting scrap of conversation we couldn’t help hearing last night in the dining room?”

“I sure do,” the Texan returned promptly. “The one between the dressy little Jew and the pudgy gent with the china-blue eyes, you mean?”

Dick nodded emphatically.

“That’s it,” he returned quickly. “They were talking about somebody by the name of Randolph--Scott Randolph, who evidently had something to do with diamonds.”

“If I got their lingo straight, he had quite some to do with them,” Buckhart put in. “Unless I’m a whole lot wrong, those same two gents were saying that this Randolph manufactured ’em.”

“It did sound that way,” Merriwell returned; “but of course, that’s impossible. We must have misunderstood them. At any rate, they were very secretive about it, for the minute the little fellow noticed us, he nudged the big man and they shut up like clams.”

He paused and unfolded the letter he had just received from his brother.

“Here’s a letter which just came from Frank,” he went on. “He’s well and very busy and all that. Glad we’re having a nice trip and a lot more that won’t interest you. Then comes the coincidence. I just want you to listen to this:

“‘This will reach you while you are in Denver,’” Dick read. “‘I wish, if you have time, you would look up an old friend of mine who is located somewhere near there. He’s a rather retiring chap and doesn’t care at all for company; but we got to be pretty good friends at Yale, and afterward kept up a more or less regular correspondence for some time. I haven’t heard from him in over two years, and several letters of mine have been unanswered. I’d like to know whether he is still in the land of the living; and, if so, what he is doing and why he doesn’t write occasionally. He was a great fellow for experimenting with chemicals and had the most extraordinary inventive ability and talent for mechanics that I have ever seen. I fancy he is doing a lot of experimenting, though he never told me just what he was after. His name is Scott Randolph. If you find him, tell him I should very much like to hear from him again.’”

Dick folded the letter and restored it to the envelope. As he did so, a card dropped out of the latter and he stooped over to pick it up.

“Scott Randolph!” the big Texan exclaimed. “Now what do you think of that? This is a sure enough interesting gent. Mebbe he’s got the receipt of making diamonds out of these chemicals he experiments with.”

Dick secured the card from the bottom of the car and tucked it into his pocket.

“Just one of Frank’s cards introducing me to his friend,” he said. “I think I shall do my best to present it. From the way Frank writes about him, Randolph must be a good sort of a chap, and I’d like to meet him for other reasons.”

Buckhart laughed.

“A chap that can make diamonds must be a very good sort,” he observed. “I’d sure like to put my blinkers on him. Mebbe he’d present us with a bushel or two. You hear me softly warble!”

“That’s all nonsense, of course,” Dick smiled. “We must have misunderstood those men last night. You know we only heard a few words. But, all the same, I’d like to meet this Randolph. Now we’ve seen Tucker and Bigelow off for Colorado Springs, we haven’t a thing on hand for the rest of the day, and we might as well start on a still hunt for this friend of Frank’s. I’ll run in and see if Fred knows anything about where he can be found.”

He stepped out of the car and reëntered the hotel lobby, walking up to the desk. The clerk was not busy and turned to him at once.

“Say, Fred,” Merriwell began, “I’m looking for a man by the name of Scott Randolph, who is supposed to live in or around Denver. Ever heard of him? That’s a pretty big order, I know, but you seem to be wise to the life history of about every one in town.”

The hotel clerk laughed.

“You’ve got me this time,” he said. “Scott Randolph? I don’t think I ever heard of him. What does he do? In business here at all?”

“I don’t think so,” Dick answered. “I believe he spends most of his time experimenting with chemicals, or something like that.”

There was a puzzled look on the clerk’s face as he looked meditatively across the lobby. All at once his eyes brightened.

“Say, there’s old Captain Winters sitting over there,” he said. “He’s the boy that can tell you what you want if anybody can. He’s a regular old man gossip, and there isn’t much that gets away from him, I can tell you. If he ever wrote a book and put in it all he knows about people in this town, you bet your life there’d be things doing. Come over and I’ll introduce you.”

He slipped from behind the desk and walked across the lobby, with Dick at his side, approaching a little, weazened-up old man who was reading a paper in an armchair close by one of the big windows.

“Captain Winters,” he said, “I’d like you to meet Mr. Merriwell, who is looking for some information about a party in town. I told him you’d be able to give it to him if anybody could.”

The old man peered at Dick over the tops of his spectacles, extending a palsied hand.

“Pleased to meet you, young man,” he piped in a shrill voice. “Pleased to meet you. Fred’s a great boy to talk. Mebbe I know a thing or two about folks, but I ain’t telling it all. He, he! I wouldn’t dast. What was it you was wanting to find out?”

“I’m looking for a man named Scott Randolph, Captain Winters,” Dick smiled. “I think he lives somewhere on the outskirts of town.”

“Scott Randolph!” the old man said sharply. “Why, I’m surprised at ye, Fred. You’d oughter know who that is. He’s the one that come here seven or eight years ago an’ built that crazy house like a fort in the mountains off Bonnet Trail a piece.”

“Oh, is that the man?” the clerk exclaimed. “I didn’t know his name was Randolph. Well, I guess you can tell Mr. Merriwell how to get out there. I must go back to the desk.”

He left them and Dick dropped into a chair beside the captain.

“Folks call it ‘The Folly,’” resumed the old man with the peculiar zest and relish of a born gossip. “It’s built like a fort, with bars to the winders and a door like a safe. Nobody knows what he does there, but they do say he invents things. Folks going by has heard enjines going fit to kill, an’ onct Jake Pettigrew, that keeps the store in Duncan, seen a great flame o’ fire shoot out o’ the roof. Whatever he’s doing, he ain’t up to no good, you can depend. It’s agin’ nater an’ the Bible to fool with the powers o’ darkness.”

“Did you ever see him, Captain Winters?” Dick asked curiously.

“Not more’n a couple o’ times, my boy. He don’t come around often. Sometimes folks don’t set eyes on him for weeks at a time; then again, he’ll come down to town in his autermobile. He’s a smallish, bald man, not much to look at. Some say he’s cracked, but I ain’t comitten’ myself.”

The captain pursed up his lips and shook his head slowly with the air of one who could tell a good deal more if he only would. In reality, he had already exhausted his small store of wisdom regarding Scott Randolph, who remained a perplexing mystery that the old gossip had never been able to solve.

“Can you tell me how I can find this place?” Dick asked.

“I kin,” answered the captain, “but it ain’t likely to do you much good, cause he never lets anybody inside the door. Howsomever, you kin try, if you have a mind to. You know where Bonnet Trail is, I s’pose?”

“Runs out to the mountains a little south of Georgetown, doesn’t it?” Dick asked.

“Yep. About twenty miles out is Duncan. It ain’t much of a place; jest a few houses an’ Jake Pettigrew’s store. Randolph’s place is some four miles from there, as I recollect. You’d better ask Jake, though, an’ he’ll tell you right.”

Dick arose from the chair.

“Thank you very much, Captain Winters,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’m very glad to have met you, and shall see you again while I’m here.”

“Don’t mention it,” returned the old man. “Let me know if you get inter Randolph’s. I’m kinder curious.”

“I will,” Dick laughed, turning toward the door.

Buckhart yawned openly as his friend appeared beside the car.

“Say, pard,” he drawled, “why didn’t you stay a couple of minutes longer and clean up the hour. I reckoned you were plumb lost and was just thinking of organizing a searching party of one to locate you.”

Cranking the engine, Dick squeezed past the Texan and took his seat at the wheel.

“I couldn’t break away from the old party who was telling me about our friend Randolph,” he explained. “He seems to be something of a mystery to the people around here. In fact, it is quite doubtful whether we shall be let into his place, once we’ve found it.”

“Say you so?” Brad inquired interestedly. “Let’s hear about it.”

Threading his way through the streets, Merriwell narrated for Buckhart’s benefit the curious story, or rather fragment of a story, he had just heard from Captain Winters; and by the time they reached the outskirts of the city and wheeled into Bonnet Trail, the Westerner had all the particulars and was as much interested as his chum.

“Looks like there was something queer about this gent, pard,” he remarked. “My curiosity has sure riz up on its hind legs.”

The road was extremely bad, being full of ruts and bumps and apparently not much traveled, so that it took them a good two hours to reach Duncan, where Dick drew up in front of the one store the small place boasted. A tall, lank individual in shirt sleeves and cowhide boots lounged in the doorway, chewing a straw.

“Are you Mr. Pettigrew?” Dick asked, stopping the engine.

“I are,” was the laconic reply.

“Can you tell me how I can get to Mr. Randolph’s place?”

Jake Pettigrew nearly swallowed the straw in his surprise, and was some time recovering it. When he had done so, his face was rather flushed and in his eyes there was a look of unmistakable interest.

“Randolph’s place?” he exclaimed. “The Folly, you mean?”

“That’s what they call it, I believe,” Merriwell answered.

“Take the footpath just beyond Injun Head Rock,” the lanky man directed, resuming with an evident effort his air of indifference. “It’s about four miles along the trail. You can’t miss it, ’cause the rock looks like the head of an Injun. ’Tain’t of’en Randolph has callers.”

“So I understand,” Dick said. “Is he at home, do you know?”

“So help me, no,” the man answered hastily. “He may be, or he mayn’t. I don’t know nothin’ about him.”

The Yale man thanked him, and with the engine started, the car continued up the hilly trail on second speed. They passed the rocky peak which, strange to say, really did bear some resemblance to an Indian’s head, and a few hundred yards beyond came to a clearly defined track leading from Bonnet Trail up into the foothills.

Dick turned the car in to one side of the road well out of the way. Pocketing the coil plug, he followed Buckhart out of the machine, and they started up the narrow, rocky track on foot.

It wound straight up into the mountains, hugging the steep wall on one side, while on the other the ground fell away abruptly into a multitude of gorges and ravines. Sometimes the descent was precipitous and the track seemed almost to be hung in mid-air over an abyss, while at other places the slope was more gradual and covered with great boulders, mingled with a heavy growth of pine and bushes.

At length they rounded a sharp turn and came out on a fairly level plateau, perhaps a hundred yards in diameter, completely hemmed in on three sides by high cliffs, while on the fourth it fell away abruptly into a deep ravine.

Facing them, and built against the highest cliff, was a stone house, which they at once made certain was the one they sought.

It was large and square, and composed entirely of the same dark, somber rock of which the surrounding mountains were made. Hugging, as it did, the cliff, it was somewhat hard to distinguish just where the natural rock ended and the house began. This difficulty was increased by the fact that the dwelling was in reality built into a sort of depression in the side of the cliff, the jagged top of which overhung the roof.

In the middle of the front side was a large door that seemed to be closed by a single sheet of iron or steel, while the windows, even on the upper floors, were protected by stout iron bars and some sort of inside shutters.

Taken all in all, it was a most dreary, desolate, prison-like structure, to which the surrounding barriers of jagged, gray cliffs, hard, bare, with no relieving touch of green, added an almost sinister grimness.

“By George, pard, what a place to live in!” Buckhart said in a low tone. “I’d as soon bunk up in a prison.”

The depressing influence of the surroundings was so great that, unconsciously, the Texan had lowered his voice almost to a whisper.

His companion did not answer. His head was bent slightly forward and there was look of keen intentness in his eyes. The next moment he spoke.

“Listen!” he said softly. “What’s that noise?”

In the silence which followed, a faint, regular, scraping sound came from their right. It was so slight that for a minute or two neither of them could place it. At length they decided that it came from around the corner of the building, a spot which they could not see from their present position at the entrance of the plateau.

Scrape, scrape, scrape. Scratch, scratch, scratch. It sounded, with the regularity of clockwork.

Buckhart eyed his chum with a puzzled expression on his face.

“What the deuce is it?” he whispered.

“I’m not sure,” Dick returned, “but it sounds like filing--as though somebody was filing an iron bar. I’m going to find out.”

He dropped down on his hands and knees and commenced to creep slowly through the scattered boulders to the right. Brad promptly followed him, and in less than five minutes they were ensconced behind a great rock, from which a very good view of that side of the house could be obtained.

There was a momentary pause, and then they both peered cautiously around the corner of the boulder.

The next moment the Texan caught his breath with a sudden, swift intake, his eyes widened with astonishment. Dick, crouching beside him, pressed his chum’s arm warningly, without for an instant averting his own gaze from the surprising sight before them.