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Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail, a novel by Burt L. Standish |
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Chapter 10. Foiling The Plotters |
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_ CHAPTER X. FOILING THE PLOTTERS Merriwell and Clancy had to diminish their speed in order to let the cowboys keep them in sight. This was annoying, and Merry formed another plan and slowed to a halt in order to broach it to Blunt. "Clancy and I," said he, as Blunt and his friends galloped up, "can cover the ground between here and McGurvin's four times as quick as you fellows. I think we had better push on." "What's the use?" Blunt demanded. "We'll all get there before afternoon." "Suppose the man with the flashy clothes and the red mustache should take it into his head to come to McGurvin's before afternoon?" "Then maybe it's too late. Possibly he's there now." "We'll go on and see," said Merry. "You fellows can lope along and get there in time to help Clancy and me, if we find they're too many for us." "Correct, Merriwell. We'll come a-smoking." Frank and Owen ducked through the rough country like a couple of meteors. The daylight was all they needed to help them in their flight over a course so carefully covered the night before. Again, as once before, the professor's claim was at stake, and the motorcycles were pushed to, the utmost in an attempt to reach McGurvin's and head off the scoundrelly work of the plotters. It seemed almost no time at all until the verdant spot, irrigated by McGurvin's well, came into view in the distance across the bare sands. "We'll make a detour, Clan," said Merry, "and come up on the ranch from the rear. There are only two of us, you know, and we will have to proceed with care if we don't want to spoil everything." "Sure," Clancy promptly assented. "We'd better leave our machines in the brush somewhere, and move up on the adobe on foot. If we don't, McGurvin will hear us." This plan was carried out. The motor cycles were left at a safe distance, and the lads crept cautiously forward under the screen of McGurvin's corral. Corn was growing in the irrigated truck patch, and Merry and Clancy got into it and moved upon the house. Presently they began to hear voices; then, catching a glimpse of McGurvin's hitching pole, they saw a saddle horse secured there. "Looks like our man was here already," Merry whispered in his chum's ear. "Where is the talking coming from?" returned Clancy. "It seems pretty close." "We'll find out." On hands and knees the boys crept on, screened by the broad leaves of the corn. Presently Merry reached the edge of the cornfield, and paused. The shady side of the house was not over twenty feet from him, and there comfortably seated, was a florid, flashily dressed, red-mustached person. Opposite him, in another chair, was not less a personage than Professor Phineas Borrodaile. He was looking over his glasses in consternation at the man with the red mustache. Grouped in the background were McGurvin and two flannel-shirted, rough-looking Arizonians. It had been a happy inspiration of Merry's to hasten on ahead of the cowboys. It was not afternoon, yet already the stage was set and the play for the professor's claim was being made. Clancy gripped his chum tensely by the arm. They did not speak, even in whispers, but crouched at the edge of the corn and watched and listened. "Yes, indeed," the professor was saying, in his cracked voice, "you aver rightly, Mr. Heppner, that this is a remarkable country, most remarkable. Over in the Picket Post Mountains, if you please, I have seen misty island-like protuberances, resembling greatly the post-pliocene crannoges of the Roscommon loughs. Now--" "Call off the dog, professor," interrupted Heppner. "I'm a government agent, and I'm here on business. See? You didn't know you'd jumped a mining claim belonging to McGurvin, but such is the fact. This will have to be straightened out, or the responsibility will rest heavily upon you. Now, speaking personal, I'd hate a heap to see you sent to jail, seeing as how you're in this country for your health. Jails ain't a health resort, by any manner of means. What do you propose to do about this?" "Dear me!" murmured Borrodaile, taking off his hat and rubbing the top of his bald head. "I am not dishonest, gentlemen. I assure you that I want only to do what's right. The claim I located was discovered by my nephew; and I am his next of kin. I supposed, you understand, that it was rightfully mine." "Sure," answered the bogus government agent heartily, "I can see right where you made your mistake. How could you know that, in the years that followed your nephew's discovery, the claim was located again by McGurvin, there? When did you locate it, Mac?" he asked, turning on the rancher. "Night onto two year ago," asserted McGurvin solemnly. "There you are!" exclaimed Heppner triumphantly. "McGurvin has done the assessment work, so it belonged to him. And you jumped it. State's prison offense, professor." The professor shuddered. "I didn't intend to do any wrong," he answered. "Ignorance of the law," expounded Heppner, "excuses no one. Still, speaking personal, I'm here to let you off light. You've had a lot of trouble in this matter, and McGurvin is willing to give you a hundred dollars for that. You will have to sign a quitclaim deed, though, so as to clear up the title. I call that," beamed Heppner, "mighty generous." "A heap more'n I ort ter do," said McGurvin, in a burst of frankness. "More'n I'd do, Mac," said one of the two others. "Ye know, Sam," whimpered the rancher, "I allers was troubled with enlargement of the heart, I reckon, someday, it'll be the ruination o' me. Ain't that so, Turkeyfoot?" "Not as nobody can notice," replied the other bystander. "All I wants is to see the perfesser git his rights. I was totin' his stuff ter town, an' I'm in his pay. I stick fer the hunderd, an' you can whine all ye darn please." "Mr. Turkeyfoot," said the professor, casting a grateful look at that noble gentleman, "I shall never forget your loyalty and kindness to me. If you insist, I will accept the hundred dollars, and sign this quit claim. All I want is to do what is right. _Otium oum dignitate_, that is my motto, and what I am seeking. Such matters as this, in which I have unwittingly erred, distress me greatly." Heppner had pulled a paper and a fountain pen from his pocket. "There ain't no odium attached to this move, professor," he said reassuringly. "You have done wrong, but you are doing your best to make amends." He got up and handed the pen to the professor, and then opened out the paper. "Sign there," said he. "Mac," he added, "have your hundred dollars ready." McGurvin went down into his trousers, fished up a roll of bills, and held it in his hand, eying it hungrily. The professor, hunting for a place on which to write, stood up and laid the paper against the wall of the house. Merry was astounded to think that Borrodaile should prove so lacking in ordinary understanding as to take the words of that gang of tricksters in such a matter. But he was child, so far as business affairs were concerned. It was easy to make him believe anything, so long as his particular field of knowledge was not intruded upon. Something had to be done, and Merry was not long in doing it. A bold move was necessary. If Heppner ever got that signed quitclaim deed in his hands, the transaction would be badly complicated. Starting up, Merriwell jumped clear of the cornfield, dashed across the space separating him from the group of men in the shade of the house, and, before the astounded plotters could interfere, he had reached over the professor's shoulder, snatched the paper out of his hands, and torn it to bits. "Blast ye!" roared McGurvin, jumping forward savagely. "What right you got buttin' in?" Sam, Turkeyfoot, and Heppner likewise confronted Merry with flaming eyes and twitching, angry faces. The professor fell back, astounded. "Merriwell!" he gasped, lifting a hand to his forehead. Clancy, losing not a moment, jumped to place himself at his chum's side. "You're a pack of curs!" cried Merriwell, "and you're trying to swindle the professor out of a bonanza mining claim. You--" With a snarl of rage, all four of the plotters began closing in on Merry and Clancy. _ |
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