merriwell was very much out of sorts with himself. it did not seem possible that lenning could play such a game and make it win. and yet, he was missing and the bullion was missing. lenning’s past record rose up against him, and clinched the circumstantial evidence. nevertheless, a lingering doubt stirred itself far down in merriwell’s mind.
“chirk up, son!” said burke, in a kindly tone. “i don’t believe mr. bradlaugh will come down very hard on you. you’ve made the biggest kind of a hit with the general manager, and you can bet something handsome he’ll let you off as easy as he can.”
“business is business,” merry answered glumly. “i put myself on record and became responsible for lenning. it was on my say-so alone that lenning got the job here. i’m not asking any favors from mr. bradlaugh, but i’ll be dinged if i call on dad to fork over the six thousand. i’ll go out and find a mine, or something, and pay it all myself.”
“that’s the spirit. anyhow, don’t go looking for the mine until we make sure the bullion can’t be recovered. the thieves haven’t got very much the start of us, and hawkins is a regular terror when he cuts loose on the track of a lawbreaker. pin your faith to hawkins, boy, and hope for the best.”
“maybe,” said frank, after a little hard thinking, “lenning isn’t mixed up in the robbery, after all.”
“don’t fool yourself about that. you’re not helping
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matters any by starting on the wrong track. lenning is gone. that’s the strongest point against him. how can you get around that?”
“he may have met with foul play——”
burke laughed scoffingly.
“nonsense! everything points to the fact that he engineered all the foul play himself.”
“wait a minute, burke,” urged merriwell. “when i was coming to the mine, i heard something like a call for help. it was a smothered sort of cry, just as though some one was having a hard time using his voice.”
burke began to show some interest.
“where did you hear the cry?” he asked.
“just as i started down the slope toward the mine. i was in the trail, at the time, and it wasn’t until the cry was repeated that i gave much attention to it. you see, the stamps made so much noise that i couldn’t be sure. after a while i thought i located the sound in a clump of greasewood. i pounded around in the bushes but couldn’t find any one. just as i had given up and was starting on again, i heard the shout once more. this time it was still farther away from the trail, seemingly. i tried to follow it, and tumbled head over heels into one of your open cuts. it’s the cut just above the cyanide works. after i got out of that hole, i came down to the tanks and tried to find lenning. now, what did those cries for help mean?”
“nothing,” answered burke. “some coyote was yelping in the hills. the yelp of a prowling brute like that, when it gets mixed with the noise of the stamps, gives a queer impression sometimes.”
“well,” said frank doubtfully, “maybe you are right, burke, but i don’t think so.”
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“if you really heard a cry,” was the skeptical rejoinder, “why couldn’t you find the person that gave it?”
“i may have missed him in the dark.”
“that’s possible, too, but not probable.”
“another thing,” went on merriwell, “i think lenning was honest in his intentions, and that he meant to do the right thing here. he came to the hotel to see me, in the afternoon, and we walked out on the trail a short distance and had a talk. he wanted to thank me for helping him get a job here. he said he was going to make good, and that i’d never be sorry for what i’d done.”
“oh, he’s smooth,” said burke. “if he hadn’t been, how could he have pulled the wool over his smart old uncle’s eyes for so long? he had an object in going to town—and his object wasn’t to thank you for helping him. that was merely a makeshift to cover his real purpose.”
“what do you think his real purpose was?”
“that’s a poser. maybe, though, he wanted to get word to his confederate—to tell him that he’d got the job, and that the work could be pulled off to-night.”
“that’s a guess, burke, and maybe a wild one.”
“if it comes to that, chip, we’re guessing about everything except one thing—and that thing’s as plain as print.”
“what is that?”
“why, that lenning is at the bottom of the whole black business. it must have been lenning. but we’re wasting time here. i don’t know that we can do much, but we can try. suppose we rummage around for clews?”
they rummaged for half an hour, but all they discovered was a blank. just what sort of clews burke was looking for, frank did not know, but he helped the super paw around the laboratory, hoping against
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hope that something might turn up. in the midst of their fruitless search, mr. bradlaugh and hawkins, the deputy sheriff, hurried into the building.
“here’s a fine kettle of fish, burke!” cried the exasperated general manager. “mighty queer we can’t hang onto our gold, after we get hold of it. has lenning turned up?”
“no,” said the super, “he has vanished, and the gold has vanished. i reckon one explains the other.”
“i reckon it does. why,” and mr. bradlaugh’s glance took stock of merry for the first time, “how did you get the news, merriwell? and how did you beat hawkins and me to the mine.”
“i was mixed up in the robbery,” frank answered.
hawkins, a good friend of frank’s, laughed at that.
“how was it, son?” he inquired.
frank went over his experiences for the benefit of mr. bradlaugh and the deputy sheriff.
“thought, mebby, you’d made a mistake in recommendin’ lenning, hey?” grinned hawkins. “that why you came out to the mine?”
“no,” frank answered, “i’ve got a lot of confidence in lenning. i didn’t think he’d do such a thing, and i’m not positive he did it now.”
“don’t dodge the facts, my boy,” interposed mr. bradlaugh. “i think it’s pretty plain, myself. lenning’s record is all against him.”
“it must have been lenning, chip,” asserted hawkins.
just as before, when merry had stood up for lenning and asked mr. bradlaugh to give him a place, every one was against the boy. his friendlessness was even more evident than it had ever been.
“if lenning made off with the bullion,” said frank,
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“then i’m out six thousand dollars—in case hawkins fails to get it back.”
“we’ll talk about that later,” said mr. bradlaugh significantly.
“a bargain’s a bargain,” said frank firmly. “you’ll have to give me time, though, mr. bradlaugh. i’ve got to do something to get hold of that six thousand myself. that’s what it’s liable to cost me for taking a chance on lenning.”
“hold your bronks a spell, son,” put in hawkins. “don’t forget that i’m on the job, or that i’d work harder for you than i would for any one. i’ve said a number o’ times that you’re the clear quill; and when i toot my bazoo to that effect about any one, it’s a sure sign they’re pretty solid with me. i want to tell you that i’ve laid hold of this proposition with both hands, because mr. bradlaugh told me lenning was your protégé. i don’t reckon you had much savvy when you tried to help the coyote, but you acted accordin’ to your lights. when a feller does that-a-way, he’s entitled to credit. just on your account, son, i exerted myself more’n common. i managed to get hold of half a dozen men and hosses, and they’re shacking off to lay for lenning and his burglar pal, between here and the border. that’s where they’ll make for, i reckon—mostly they all do. mexico’s safer than the u. s., arter a job same as this. don’t be down in the mouth till hawkins throws up his hands and says there’s nothin’ doin’. it ’u’d tickle me plumb out o’ my boots to get back that bullion for you.”
there was no doubt of the deputy sheriff’s feelings in the matter, and frank felt grateful.
“you’re a good friend, mr. hawkins,” said he. “if i can help any, i wish you’d tell me how.”
“you can help by goin’ to the ophir house and turnin’
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in,” laughed the deputy. “not much can be done at night. with daybreak, though, you can climb a-straddle of borak and report to me for orders.”
“i don’t want to go back to the hotel,” demurred frank. “i want to stay right around here, and be johnny-on-the-spot if anything turns up.”
hawkins and mr. bradlaugh went over to the safe and gave it a critical examination.
“good job of safe blowin’,” declared the deputy. “some old hand did the business. couldn’t have been lenning.”
“that’s what i’ve been trying to tell burke,” said frank, grasping at this straw of hope and trying to swing it in lenning’s favor.
“but,” went on hawkins, “it’s not a one-man job. there was two of ’em—mebby more. lenning was one—he must have been.”
there was the same old positiveness in convicting lenning. merry had heard that “it must have been lenning” several times. yet, blindly, the youngster still clung to the scrap of faith he still had in lenning.
“what have you done, burke?” hawkins inquired, turning from his examination of the safe to face the super.
“i’ve sent half a dozen men from the mill to curry the chaparral around the camp,” burke answered. “i don’t think they’ll discover anything, but it was about all i could do.”
hawkins nodded his approval.
“any of ’em reported yet?” he asked.
“no, not yet. they’ve been out for some time, though, and i reckon it won’t be long before some of ’em come straggling in.”
the words were hardly out of burke’s mouth before
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a couple of the mill men came running into the room with their lanterns. they were jubilant, and the very appearance of them caused those in the laboratory to feel a thrill of hope.
“found something?” demanded hawkins.
“bet we have,” answered one.
“lenning?”
“well, no; but we got hold of a couple of fellers, and they’re comin’ this way. wait till they come. i reckon we’d better let ’em talk for themselves.”
then two more came into the room—and the sight of them made merriwell dizzy.
