CHAPTER XXVII.

THE BOY WHO DIDN’T CARE.

It was Lenning, of course, who had lighted the fuse and hurled that infernal machine in the direction of Merriwell and those he had been talking with. The hot-headed recklessness of the act made Merriwell gasp. Had Bleeker not seen the hissing bomb in the air, and shouted his warning, what would have happened?

A wave of indignation and anger rushed over Merriwell. He was running at top speed at the moment of the explosion, and he continued to run while the booming echoes reverberated among the hills—but he changed his course.

Lenning and his friends were clustered together in a compact group, staring sullenly at the place where the dynamite had “let go.” All at once they saw Merriwell, eyes flashing and face like a thundercloud, bearing down on them.

Perhaps Lenning would have stood his ground had not his three companions deserted him in a panic. His courage was of a sort that needed backing, and when his supporters fled, he whirled and made after them. He had not gone far, however, before Merriwell overhauled him, grabbed him by the collar, and jerked him roughly backward.

Clancy, even more furious than his chum, and Bleeker and Hotchkiss, both scowling fiercely, made haste to get to Merriwell’s side. Lenning had been thrown from his feet, and was lying on the rocks half lifted on one elbow. There was a look of ugly defiance in his face that did not match the glimmer of fear in his eyes.

“You crazy fool!” cried Frank. “Are you trying to kill somebody?”

“It’s not the first time!” panted Bleeker.

“He ought to be kicked from here plumb to the bottom of the gulch,” clamored Hotchkiss.

“Let’s pound a little sense into him!” suggested Clancy.

“I don’t care a whoop what happens to you junipers,” answered Lenning. “Don’t you dare lay a hand on me! The colonel will make it hot for you if you do.”

“That’s about what I’d expect of you,” came scornfully from Clancy. “As soon as you earn a good trouncing you begin whooping it up for your Uncle Alvah. Oh, you’re the limit, all right.”

“Suppose Bleeker hadn’t seen that lighted bomb coming toward us?” went on Frank. “What would have happened, eh?”

“I don’t care a tinker’s darn,” said Lenning. “You fellows keep your hands off or you’ll wish you had.”

With a roar of anger Clancy attempted to use his fists on Lenning, but Merriwell put out a restraining arm and pushed him back. Frank’s temper had had time to cool a little.

“Stow it, Clan!” said he. “We don’t want to make this matter any worse than it is, you know.”

“Hang it, Chip,” Clancy protested, “you’re not going to let this crazy chump try to blow us up and then get off without a pounding, are you?”

“He’ll get all that’s coming to him before long, and without any help from us. We’ve made a mess of the work that brought us to Camp Hawtrey, and it’s just as well not to complicate matters any more than they are.”

Frank turned from his chum and gave his full attention to Lenning.

“You’re a good deal of a puzzle to me, Lenning,” said he. “I don’t believe I ever saw a fellow who was just like you. The reckless way you have of robbing your uncle and then throwing the responsibility on some one else, cutting a rope, and dropping your half brother over a cliff, and lighting dynamite cartridges and throwing them around, is going to get you into a peck of trouble. I’ve got a hunch that you’re crazy. If that’s really the case, then you ought to be in a padded cell, for it’s a cinch it’s not safe to leave you at large. Now——”

Lenning had risen hastily to his feet. Something Merriwell had said had caused his face to go white.

“Look here,” he broke in, “I reckon you found something I lost on the mesa, over at your camp, during the football game our crowd had with yours. It was a note in which Bleeker, there, put down a lie for the purpose of getting me into trouble. You can’t make any capital out of what Bleeker says.”

Bleeker, red with anger, tried to get close to Lenning, but Hotchkiss held him back.

“What I wrote in that note,” cried Bleeker, “was the truth.”

“You can’t get even with me and help Darrel by any such talk,” sneered Lenning.

“I’ll finish what I want to say to you,” continued Merriwell sharply, “and then Clancy and I will be going. If you try any more desperate games, Lenning, you’ll be caught at it, sure as fate. If anything happens, we know where to look for the cause of it, and you can’t bank on Colonel Hawtrey doing anything to save your neck. That’s about all.”

He turned away. Lenning, scowling and muttering, hurried to join his friends, who had kept at a safe distance, and the four vanished on their way down into the gulch.

“Ain’t that about the worst ever?” murmured Hotchkiss. “Jode’s pretty near right when he says he don’t care what he does. He counts on his uncle’s faith in him to pull him out o’ any trouble he gets into.”

“I wish to thunder the colonel wasn’t such a fool,” blurted out Bleeker. “Why can’t he get next to the coyote?”

“He will, some time,” declared Frank. “Where did that dynamite come from, Bleeker? Do you know?”

“Yes, I know, although pretty nearly our whole camp is in the dark about it. When Hawtrey was out here, the last time, he and Jode took a walk along the south wall of the gulch. Now, the colonel’s got a scent for mineral-bearing ground same as a hound dog has for a rabbit. He found a place where he reckoned there might be gold, and on the q. t. he sent out some hand drills, a sledge, some fuse, and a little dynamite, and told Jode to put down a hole. Jode’s been working with the drill and sledge, now and then, as he could steal away and find the time. The colonel told him to put the fuse and dynamite where it would be safe, and to leave ’em there until he—the colonel—came out with a box of caps and asked for the rest of the blasting material. Hawtrey intends to load and fire the hole himself, I reckon. It’s dangerous business, and he doesn’t want Jode, or any of the other fellows, mixed up in it. Jode got a cap somewhere, and fixed up that cartridge for the coyote dog.”

“I see,” Frank nodded.

“Jode has made a misplay,” said Hotchkiss. “If that coyote dog had been killed, I reckon he’d have been all right; but Merriwell stripped off the bomb the cur was trailin’ and I up and cut the rope. Gee, man, how that animile skedaddled!”

“How did Jode make a misplay, Hotch?” asked the puzzled Merriwell.

“Ain’t you ever heard about coyote dogs?” returned Hotchkiss. “Why, they’re that vengeful they hold a grouch for years until they pay it off. Abuse a coyote dog, by thunder, and he’ll make it a p’int to get even. How about it, Bleek?”

Bleeker nodded solemnly.

“Go on,” jeered Clancy; “you can’t make me swallow any such stuff as that.”

“You don’t know coyote dogs same as us fellows that live out in these parts,” persisted Hotchkiss. “Over at Sacatone a miner kicked one o’ those tramp curs and broke its leg. Six months after that the miner was found dead in the trail, all chewed to pieces.”

“Maybe it was a panther did that,” suggested Frank.

“Not on your life, Merriwell! The footprints around the miner were those of a dog. Lots o’ things like that have happened.”

“I’m glad, Chip,” chuckled Clancy, “that you and I are on the safe side. We did what we could for that homely brute, so he ought to feel sort of friendly toward us.”

“I guess, fellows,” said Chip, with a laugh, “that there’s a whole lot of superstition wrapped up in those yarns about coyote dogs. What’s a coyote dog, anyhow?”

“Just enough coyote in him to make him savage and wild, and just enough tame dog in him to make him want to be around where human bein’s congregate. People who know, treat an animile like that with consideration, but those who are ignorant make a big mistake when they try to shoot such a brute, or to hit it with a club.”

“Much obliged for the tip, Hotch,” grinned Frank. “Whenever I meet a coyote dog, after this, I’ll treat him with consideration. So long, fellows. Clancy and I have got to be going.”

Rather grimly, Bleeker and Hotchkiss said “good-by” to the two lads from Tinaja Wells and started for the camp where they knew they were unwelcome. Merry and Clancy turned their faces ’cross country and began retracing their way to their own headquarters.

Merriwell was in no very pleasant mood. He and Clancy had started out, that afternoon, with the intention of inaugurating a little friendly sport with the rival athletic organization, and the coyote dog had dropped into the equation and played havoc with their plans.

“I don’t know how the deuce we could have avoided that mix-up with Jode Lenning,” muttered Merry.

“Well, we could have side-stepped it all right,” returned Clancy.

“How?”

“Why, by letting them make a skyrocket of the dog, Chip.”

“Neither of us could stand for that.”

“Sure not, but that was the only way we could have kept on friendly terms with Lenning. So far’s I’m concerned, I’ll be hanged if I’d be on friendly terms with the chump if I could.”

“Lenning doesn’t amount to a whole lot, but Mr. Bradlaugh and Colonel Hawtrey both want the clubs to be on a friendly footing. We made a fair beginning with that football game, and now, while we were trying to keep up the good work, we’ve knocked what little true sportsmanship there was about seven ways for Sunday.”

“Lenning has too much influence with the Gold Hill crowd. He can’t domineer over Bleeker and Hotchkiss, and so they’ve got to get out. I wish to blazes that coyote dog would turn up and do business with Jode. But we can’t hope for any such good luck as that.”

“You’ll be as bloodthirsty as Lenning, Clan, if you keep on,” grinned Merry.

“Lenning is at the bottom of all the bad blood between the two clubs,” asserted Clancy warmly, “just as he’s at the bottom of all Darrel’s troubles. The cub is too mean to live.”

“Speaking about coyote dogs,” said Frank, “that notion of Hotch’s is mighty interesting.”

“Hotch, and Bleeker, too, seemed to take a good deal of stock in the idea. But it’s pretty far-fetched, and——”

A startled expression crossed Clancy’s homely face. He came to a dead halt, the words died on his lips, and he lifted one hand quickly and pointed. Frank, following the direction indicated by his chum’s finger, saw a tawny form slipping like a specter among the rocks. The form paused, reared up on a bowlder, and stood peering over its front paws for a space at the two lads; then, like an ill-omened wraith, it dropped to all fours and disappeared as though by magic.