CHAPTER XLII.

GUFFEY’S QUEER ACTIONS.

Merriwell was in his pajamas, and as it was getting a time of day when people began to stir around, the scope of his efforts in overhauling the fellow who had been under the box was naturally limited. He had hoped that Fritz, Silva and Woo Sing might take up the pursuit, but in this he was disappointed.

“Where is the fellow?” Merry demanded, showing himself at a rear door and confronting the Dutchman, the Chinaman, and the Mexican.

“He vent avay like some shtreaks,” Fritz answered.

“Why didn’t you try to stop him?”

“He iss a boliceman, dot’s der reason.”

“Nonsense!” exclaimed Merry, “he’s no more a policeman than you are.”

“Ven he iss under der pox he say——”

“I know what he said, Carrots. Look here! What do you, and Silva, and Woo Sing mean by making such a disturbance on Sunday morning?”

“Dot vas a mishap, Merrivell, und nodding more.”

“Well, don’t let it happen again. Sing, bring up the water. What’s that you just picked up, Silva?”

The Mexican, standing near the uptilted box, had bent down and picked up some object off the ground.

“No sabe, señor,” said he, coming toward Merry and handing over his “find.”

Frank examined it carefully and discovered that it was a small, needle-pointed syringe, a “hypoderm,” such as is used by drug fiends to puncture the arm and inject their slow-working poison into the veins.

“The fellow under the box must have dropped that,” remarked Clancy.

“It’s a cinch that he did,” answered Merry.

“Now I know what that pasty face of his means. He’s a slave of the needle, Chip.”

“Yes,” nodded Frank. “Let’s go back upstairs, Clan,” he added, starting through the hotel and toward the stairs.

In the hallway on the second floor they met Ballard. He was fully dressed and was hurrying down to find out what was going on.

“I saw that squabble in the back yard,” he remarked, “and I thought Chip was back of that voice under the box. When the black-haired chap showed himself, it almost took me off my feet.”

“Same here,” chuckled Clancy. “Chip did throw his voice so that it seemed to come from the box.”

“Then he knew there was some one there?”

“Not so you could notice it, Pink,” Merry returned, with a puzzled laugh. “I hadn’t an idea there was a fellow under the box when I threw my voice in that direction and tried to stop the row. You could have knocked me down with a feather when that box began to lift.”

“Funny stunt,” put in Clancy, “and don’t you forget it. What do you suppose the fellow was doing there?”

“You’re liable to find a dope fiend almost any place. They’re half crazy all the time. But I happen to know who this particular fellow is.”

“You do?” cried Clancy and Ballard, together. “Who is he?”

“Come in and shut the door,” Frank answered.

After the tub had been twice filled by Woo Sing and Merry and Clancy had had their plunge, while they were dressing Merry told his chums about the new coach that had been doing such wonders with the Gold Hill football team. In his talk he did not mention Bleeker in any way, but referred principally to his conversation with Mr. Bradlaugh the preceding afternoon.

“This Guffey,” Frank proceeded, “seems to be a stranger to nearly every one but Jode Lenning. Jode, it seems, got scared at the brand of football we put up during the game at Tinaja Wells, and he begged the colonel to send for Guffey. After that incident in the gulch, when the blast came so near going off and killing Hawtrey, Guffey was sent for. They say he has done marvels with that Gold Hill squad.”

“Let me get this business straight in my mind, Chip,” said Ballard. “You’ve opened up a few leads that I can’t understand. Is Jode Lenning still hand-and-glove with the colonel?”

“Seems to be.”

Clancy and Ballard turned startled, uncomprehending looks at Merry.

“Thunder!” exclaimed the red-headed chap. “I can’t understand that, at all.”

“Nor I, Clan,” said Frank. “The colonel’s a queer one, and that’s the least you can say. Jode wanted Guffey. Guffey proves to be a dope fiend, but a brilliant coach. He’s a young fellow, too, and a horrible example for any other young fellow who feels like tagging him over such a course. From what I know of Colonel Hawtrey I can’t begin to understand why he will have anything to do with such a man as Guffey. Hawtrey is a stickler for clean living and sportsmanlike conduct, and this Guffey isn’t the sort to appeal to him a little bit.”

“The clouds continue to gather on Ophir’s football horizon,” observed Ballard, with an effort. “If that game is lost next Saturday——” He finished with a look that expressed his meaning better than words.

“We’re not going to lose it,” declared Merry.

“That’s the spirit, old man!” approved Clancy. “Still,” he added doubtfully, “you’ve got a man’s job on your hands if you succeed in pounding the club team into winning form. Since we came in from Tinaja Wells the eleven appears to have gone all to pieces.”

“They’re not reliable, those fellows,” growled Ballard. “Remember how they made a farce of their practice work along at the first when they were out to show Chip what they could do?”

It wasn’t likely the three lads would ever forget that. The team had made a poor showing at the start; and now, after weeks of careful coaching, the showing was but little better.

After all, Merriwell was asking himself, did the fault really lie in the material? He could not bring himself to think this. The Saturday’s game had merely been called on an “off” day for the regulars. He had faith to believe that the game Monday afternoon would turn out differently.

“We’re getting away from the point I’m trying to get at,” said Merriwell suddenly. “What I’d like to know is, why is Guffey in Ophir? What business has he here when his work is all in Gold Hill?”

“Think he was spying upon this hotel?” queried Ballard.

Merriwell started. Instinctively his thoughts recurred to Bleeker and the conference he and Bleeker had had the night before.

Was Guffey under the box at the time? Had he trailed Bleeker to the hotel and then hidden himself away so as to listen to what passed between Bleeker and Merry?

A moment’s reflections all but convinced Frank that this could not have been the case. If Guffey had sneaked to the hotel on Bleeker’s trail, then when Bleeker left Guffey would also have gone away. There was no possible explanation of the Gold Hill coach’s presence under the box except the one that had to do with his hypoderm and his morphine. Feeling the need of the drug, Guffey had crawled off into the most convenient quarters he could find; from that moment until the antics of Fritz, Silva, and Woo Sing had aroused him he had been in the grip of the drug demons.

This, at least, seemed to Merriwell the most plausible explanation. As evidence that his theory was correct, he had that little “hypoderm” which had been found near the box by Silva.

“No, Pink,” said Merry, “I don’t think Guffey was spying upon this hotel. What good would a move of that sort do him? If he wanted to find out anything regarding our club eleven he’d be hiding somewhere near the grid.” A grim smile crossed Merry’s face. “Guffey would have enjoyed the performance if he had been out there yesterday afternoon.”

“He’d have carried a lot of good cheer back to Gold Hill,” grinned Ballard. “Oh, well, hang them and their dopey coach. I guess Ophir will wiggle out of the set-to in pretty fair shape.”

“What did you want to capture Guffey for, Chip?” queried Clancy. “What was the idea?”

“I suggested that on the spur of the moment,” Frank answered. “It was like a blow in the face when I recognized the fellow, from the description I had had of him. What I wanted was to learn what he was here for. Now I’ve pretty well decided that he wasn’t in his right mind when he crawled into the box. He was crazy for some of that drug. Strikes me, fellows, that’s about all there is to his being there.”

Just at that moment the breakfast gong sounded.

“There goes the chuck signal,” chirped Ballard. “Come on, you two.”

They piled downstairs, hung their hats on the rack by the dining-room door, and went in to their accustomed seats at the table. Here a fresh surprise awaited them.

The fellow who had been on the subject of their recent debate upstairs was in the dining room calmly eating his breakfast. He did not sit at the same table where Frank and his chums had their places, but at another farther toward the center of the room.

All three of the boys stopped, hands on the backs of their chairs. Clancy nudged Merriwell with his elbow.

Guffey’s appearance had undergone a very decided change for the better. His clothes had been smoothed out and brushed, his black hair neatly combed, and he looked quite as respectable as any coach ought to look. He was completely master of himself, too, and he met the gaze of the three chums leveled at him with perfect self-control. He smiled pleasantly, got up from his chair, and stepped toward Merriwell.

“Frank Merriwell, isn’t it?” he asked, in a voice low and well modulated. “I thought so,” he went on, as Frank nodded. “My name is Guffey, and I’m the new coach over at Gold Hill. We are coaching rival teams, Merriwell, but we’re true sportsmen, eh? We can be on friendly terms for all that?”

“Of course,” Frank answered, a little dazedly. “Glad to meet you, Guffey. My friends, Owen Clancy and Billy Ballard.”

Guffey transferred his right to Clancy and Ballard, smiled again, murmured his acknowledgments, and then returned to his waiting chair. It was all very nicely done, and it was plain that Guffey, the coach, knew how to be a gentleman.

“Well, I’ll be darned!” muttered Clancy. “Say, Chip, is that really the dope fiend we saw coming out from under the box?”

“No doubt of it,” Frank answered.

“He acts and looks like a different fellow—still, that pasty face, that black hair, and those washed-out blue eyes are the same. Why is he here? Is it a case of nerve on his part?”

“You’ll have to ask me something easier than that,” Merry answered, dismissing Guffey from his mind and giving his whole attention to his meal.