CHAPTER XXIX.

THE COLONEL CALLS.

When Merriwell was close to the spot where the rolling, tumbling, and howling was going on, a blot of shadow darted through the sifting moonlight and was swallowed up in the gloom of the lower gulch. As the shadow disappeared, a long, quavering coyote yelp floated back on the night wind.

A thrill ran through Merriwell’s nerves. Was it a coyote or a coyote dog that had flung past him and given vent to that yelp? Instinctively he knew that it was the wretched mongrel for whose life he and Clancy had battled in the vicinity of Camp Hawtrey.

Merriwell was conscious of an uncanny feeling, which laid hold of him as that eerie yelp echoed through the cañon. What Hotchkiss had told him about coyote dogs was no doubt responsible for it. With an exclamation of impatience he flung the feeling from him and went on to where a figure was sitting up on the ground among the rocks.

“Py shinks, it vas nod a shpook,” the figure was muttering. “A shpook iss nodding, und dis vat I hat in my handts vas more as dot. Yas, you bet my life!”

“Carrots!” exclaimed Merry. “Say,” and he laughed, scenting a joke of some sort, “what’s the matter with you?”

“I schust hat a fight mit a bear dot vas pigger as a house,” Fritz cried. “I hat nodding but my hands, und I vas shoking der life oudt oof dot bear ven you come oop und schkared him avay mit himselluf. Vy der tickens,” complained Fritz, “don’t you leaf a feller alone ven he catches some bears?”

“Whoosh!” chuckled Clancy, as he and several more lads grouped around the shadowy Fritz. “Fritz was trapping a bear with his bare hands, and he’s mad because we came down here when he yelled for help. If you wanted to be left alone, Carrots, why the deuce did you make such a racket?”

“I got some oxcidements, dot’s all,” Fritz explained, as he squirmed to his feet. “Dot bear vas so pig as a moundain, so hellup me, aber I chuggled him aroundt like anyding. Fairst, I took him py vone leg und drowed him der air in, den I took him by some odder legs und tossed him my headt aroundt, und pooty soon I tropped him der rocks on, und vas chust gedding retty to sit down und make him some brisoners ven you fellers schkared him avay. Vat sort oof pitzness you call dot, hey?”

“Fritz,” laughed Merriwell, “you’re a four-flusher. First, you had that bear as big as a house, and now he’s as big as a mountain. As a matter of fact, Fritz, the animal was about the size of a dog; and, as another matter of fact, it was a dog, a coyote dog. I heard him yelp as he ran down the gulch.”

This came pretty near taking the wind out of Fritz’s sails.

“You t’ink you know more about dot bear as me?” he demanded. “I hat him in my arms, py shinks, und I fight mit him so glose as vat I am to you. I know vat I know, and dot’s all aboudt it.”

“_Ay de mi!_” cackled the voice of Silva, “he grab one coyote dog and think him so beeg lak mountain! It ees most fonny. Fat gringo no tell coyote dog from bear so beeg lak mountain, huh, huh, huh!”

This, from the hated Silva, was more than Fritz could stand, and he began forthwith to do a war dance and to brandish his fists. The clawing he had received from the coyote dog had not done very much to sweeten his temper.

“So hellup me cracious,” he whooped, “I vill knock you py der mittle oof lasdt veek! No greaser lopster can laugh my face in same as dot.”

He started for Silva, but somebody tripped him and he pitched sprawling upon the rocky ground.

“Get out of here, Silva!” ordered Merriwell. “I don’t want any more fussing between you and Fritz.”

The Mexican retired slowly toward his own post, whistling as though for a missing dog and calling loudly for the animal to “Come, bonita, come, li’l wan—hyah, hyah!”

Fritz was fairly boiling with rage. Merriwell helped him up, ordered him to resume his guard duty, and not to make any further disturbance, or to try to mix things with Silva. Then, laughing heartily among themselves, all the boys went back to their blankets.

“So that coyote dog is hanging around our camp, eh?” muttered Clancy, as he settled down in bed. “I hope to thunder, Chip, he hasn’t transferred his affections from Lenning to you. There’s something about that brute that gives me the creeps.”

“Oh, slush!” answered Merriwell. “You don’t mean to say, Clan, that you’re taking any stock in that stuff Hotchkiss batted up to us?”

“About an abused coyote dog taking the war path as a lone avenger? Well, no, I’m not so superstitious as all that, but I can’t get out of my mind that picture of the miserable brute tied to an ironwood tree, a dynamite cartridge fastened to his tail, and a bunch of hoodlums taking pot shots at him. I can just see that dog, Chip, turning somersaults at the end of the rope while bullets are kicking up the dust all around him.”

“Forget it, Clan,” said his chum shortly; “go to sleep.”

Amid the silence that dropped over the camp, Silva’s voice, from the grove, could be heard calling: “Bonita! li’l wan, coom dis-a-way! Hyah, hyah, hyah!”

Then, from down in the cañon, Fritz would howl wrathfully: “Vait, you greaser scallavag! Bymby, I bed you, I make you vistle by der odder site oof your mout’.”

Finally the Mexican tired of jeering at Fritz, and the boys in the tents succeeded in going to sleep.

Next morning, as Frank was getting into his clothes after a plunge in the swimming pool, he asked Brad and Ballard if they had thought of anything that could be done to straighten out matters between the two athletic clubs.

“I’m by,” said Brad. “What we’re to do is too many for me, Chip.”

“Same here,” spoke up Ballard. “I guess there isn’t a thing we can do but just kick our heels and let things drift.”

Clancy, at that moment, came dancing up the bank, grabbed a rough towel, and began sawing it over his shoulders.

“I’ve thought of a scheme, fellows,” he remarked.

“What sort of a scheme?”

“Lenning’s the stumblingblock. Why not abduct him, lock him up in some quiet place about a thousand miles from Nowhere, and leave him there until the rest of the Gold Hill fellows come to their senses? Take it from me, Chip, that’s the only way we can work through the trick.”

“Quit your joshing, Clan,” growled Merry. “This is serious business.”

“You might just as well lie down on the whole affair so long as Jode Lenning is at large. You know that as well as I do. Whenever he cracks his little whip, everybody in the other camp has to jump—or get out. Bleeker is one of the best players on the Gold Hill eleven, and yet you see what happened to him. He and Hotchkiss have the courage to call their souls their own, and Camp Hawtrey isn’t big enough for them and Lenning.”

“It’s a tough nut to crack,” muttered Merriwell, frowning. “We’re supposed to be fostering a spirit of friendly rivalry with Gold Hill, and here we’ve broken with them entirely. There’ll be music, before long, and of a kind I won’t like to hear. What do you suppose your father will say, Hannibal?”

“Pop’s the clear quill, Chip,” Brad answered. “Half a dozen words of explanation from you will be enough. If he finds fault with you about anything, it will be because you didn’t give Lenning the worst licking he ever had in his life.”

“That may be,” went on Frank, “but it doesn’t better the athletic situation any. I don’t suppose I was—er—very diplomatic. Maybe Clan and I could have saved the coyote dog without harrowing Jode all up, as we did. I didn’t stop to consider that part of it when we interfered with Jode’s amusement.”

“What’s done is done,” said Ballard, “and there’s no use sobbing about it. I guess, after all, Chip, your best move is to give the colonel the facts.”

“Wow!” gulped Clancy. “The fur will begin to fly as soon as Chip tries that. But it’s a cinch that there’s nothing else to be done.”

“If you lay it down to the colonel, Chip,” put in Brad, “don’t hem, and haw, and side-step. Give Jode the limit. Tell Hawtrey everything he ought to know about that rough-neck nephew of his. Throw in all the trimmings.”

“Chip can do it, with ground to spare,” grinned Ballard, “if he once makes up his mind.”

Merriwell leaned against a tree and dropped his chin thoughtfully into his hand. He wasn’t more than two minutes in coming to a conclusion.

“I’m going to Gold Hill,” he announced, “and I’ll start right after dinner.”

“That means you’re going to beard the colonel in his den,” said Clancy. “Want me along as a bodyguard?”

“And me?” asked Ballard.

“No, Pink, I don’t want you, or Clan, or any one else,” Merry answered. “I intend to handle this alone.”

“That’s the stuff!” approved Brad. “You can do more, all by your lonesome, than with half a dozen fellows trailing after you. Hawtrey has a heap of respect for you, Chip. His admiration for your father has something to do with the way he sizes you up, I reckon. He knows you’re a chip of the old block, and a square sportsman from soles to headpiece. If anybody can talk to him about Jode, and get away with it, you’re the one.”

“Well, that’s the program,” said Merriwell grimly, “whether I’m the one or not. When I get after Jode I’m going to handle him without gloves.”

“What will Darrel think about it?” inquired Ballard.

“Search me. I think, though, that he’ll take it all right. Lenning’s actions have reached a point where they’ve got to receive immediate attention.”

Following breakfast, that morning, Frank and his chums, under Professor Phineas Borrodaile’s supervision, took up their studies for the forenoon. No matter what was going on, the professor insisted relentlessly on the three lads applying themselves to their books for the first half of the day.

Merriwell’s attention wandered a good deal. He was wondering how he had better approach the colonel on the delicate subject he had in mind. His acquaintance with Hawtrey was not of very long standing, and he might almost call himself a stranger to the big man of Gold Hill. Frank winced when he thought of broaching the matter—which was largely a family affair—to Lenning’s uncle.

As soon as the forenoon was over, and dinner out of the way, Frank made his preparations for the ride to Gold Hill. While he was engaged with them, Ballard suddenly thrust his head into the tent.

“You won’t need to take that trip to Gold Hill, Chip,” announced Ballard.

“Why not?”

“Because the colonel is here, old man. He’s got a chip on each shoulder, too, if I’m any judge. He wants you, and no one else. Say, but he’s in a temper!”

“I’ve got a job on my hands,” muttered Merry, “and no mistake. Tell him I’ll be along in about two minutes, Pink.”

Frank nerved himself for what he knew was to be an ordeal, and presently he left the tent and made his way toward the place where Colonel Hawtrey, in the worst kind of a temper, was pacing back and forth under the cottonwoods.