Merriwell and Burke looked at each other so long and so significantly that Ballard became curious.
“What’s biting you two, anyhow?” he asked.
In the fewest possible words, Frank told Ballard and Blunt about the robbery in the cañon.
“Thunder!” exclaimed Ballard. “Why, the stage went past us with both horses on the run while we were tangled up with that pig. I wondered then why the mischief the driver was in such a tearing hurry.”
“That must have been right after the robbery,” said the excited cowboy, “and the driver was in a rush to get to town and spread the news. Gee, but this is a stunner!”
“Those two fellows we saw on horseback were the robbers,” went on Ballard. “The things they had in front of them were the mail bags!”
“Great head, Pink!” approved Clancy.
“But, of course,” observed Blunt, “the juniper we thought was Lenning couldn’t have been Lenning at all. Looked a heap like him, though.”
“Um!” grunted Burke; “I don’t know about that. Lenning left the mine yesterday and hadn’t returned up to something like an hour ago. He took my horse when he went—and my horse is a sorrel, with a white stocking foot.”
Frank was sorry the superintendent had thought it necessary to throw in any comments about Lenning. The only result would be to crowd suspicion upon the absent watchman, when, in all likelihood, he was as blameless of the robbery as Burke himself.
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The superintendent, however, was never backward about airing his views. Ballard stared as he listened to Burke, and then turned and looked at Barzy Blunt.
Blunt’s face was a study. Up to the time of that ball game with Gold Hill, the cowboy had had no sort of use for Jode Lenning. In fact, right to Lenning’s face, Blunt had declared that no respectable fellow would take part in a game in which a crook like Lenning was booked to play.
But the game itself had changed all that. Blunt, and all the players, had been won over by Lenning’s clever work, and by his meeting in masterly fashion that thrilling moment when victory or defeat for Ophir hung on his efforts alone.
Had the enthusiasm inspired by Lenning’s splendid work in a crisis developed a friendship that could not last? Frank watched Blunt critically.
“I reckon you haven’t got it right, Burke,” said the cowboy finally. “It wasn’t so mighty long ago when I’d have believed Lenning equal to any sort of skullduggery. It used to make me sore to see Chip, there, standing up for the fellow, getting him a job, and all that; but, on the day of that ball game, I made up my mind that Chip Merriwell’s judgment was warranted not to come out in the wash. ‘What’s good enough for Chip,’ I said to myself, ‘is good enough for me, and right here’s where I quit handing it to Lenning every time a chance comes my way.’ I’d be a pretty measly sort of a coyote if I shook hands with Lenning on Saturday and then turned against him Monday. Sorrel horse or no, that couldn’t have been Lenning we saw in the cañon.”
“Bully for you, Barzy!” exclaimed Merriwell, deeply gratified by the stand the cowboy had taken.
Burke shook his head, by way of dissent.
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“The circumstantial evidence is pretty strong,” said he.
“The same kind of circumstantial evidence, Burke,” returned Merry, “that led you to think Lenning had made off with that bullion. Remember that? Lenning was missing, and the bullion was missing, so you thought——”
“This isn’t the same, Chip, not by a whole row of ’dobies,” broke in the superintendent. “Lenning’s record is all against him.”
“So it was the night the bullion was taken,” said Frank warmly, “and Lenning has been making a mighty fine record since then.”
“Well, this sort of talk won’t get us anywhere. It doesn’t make any difference, just now, whether Lenning was one of the thieves or whether he wasn’t. The main point is, Ballard and Blunt saw the thieves galloping off after the stage was held up. Hawkins ought to be put in possession of what they know without loss of a moment’s time. I’m going to hustle for town and tell some one who can get the news to the deputy sheriff in short order.”
His spurs rattled, and he kicked up the dust on the road to Ophir.
“It gets my goat,” muttered Ballard, “the way Lenning drops into trouble. Just as he gets started on the right road, something like this has to happen and put him all to the bad again. I’ll be hanged if I can understand how he manages it.”
“Somebody else manages it for him,” said Clancy. “That’s an easy guess. It was Shoup that engineered the bullion plot.”
“Who engineered this one?” queried Ballard.
“Maybe it was Shoup again.”
“Did the fellow you saw with the one who looked like Lenning resemble Billy Shoup?” asked Frank.
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“No more than I do,” said Blunt. “He was a square, chunk of a man. Of course, you understand we weren’t near enough to see either of ’em very clearly.”
“I understand that. Well, let’s get to town, fellows. I’m all worked up about this thing. The professor’s check was in that batch of stolen mail, and if he doesn’t get it back we’ll have to hang out here until another check can come on from New York.”
“How many more will that mule carry?” inquired Ballard, looking at Uncle Sam wistfully.
“He’s load............