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Updated: May 6, 2025
"Now don't you butt in here, Sid!" growled Hank Snogger, with an ugly look at the other cowboy. "I'll see fair play," answered Todd, sharply, and he elbowed his way between Snogger and Dave. Having delivered his unexpected blow, Link Merwell sprang back and stood on the defensive. Dave was not wearing any coat or vest, and he merely threw his hat to his friend.
"I'll twist your little neck off for you!" muttered Merwell, and was on the point of hitting the boy in the face when Dave stepped up behind him and caught his arm. "Don't you know better than to hit a little chap like this, Merwell?" he demanded. "Porter!" muttered the western youth, and his face took on a sour look. "Say, this ain't none of your affair!" he burst out. "You keep your hands off."
Endicott, I shall respect your wishes so far as I can," returned Felix Merwell, with great stiffness. "But if these young men have done my son an injustice, they will have to suffer for it. I bid you good-day." And having thus delivered himself, the man wheeled around his coal-black steed and was off in a cloud of dust down the road. "Oh, Dave, what do you think he'll do?" asked Jessie, in alarm.
"Saw Link and his father just as we were coming home," answered Sid Todd. "Merwell said he had seen nothing of the thieves." "Did Link say anything?" "No. He was dead tired and he looked scared." "Scared?" queried Roger. "Yes. When he saw me I thought he was going to run away. I asked him if he had seen anything, and when he answered me his face went almost white.
"Don't you think we ought to search 'em thoroughly?" he asked. "They may have something belonging to me some map of the lost mine, or something like that? I don't exactly remember what I had in that suit-case Merwell got from the porter on the train." "Certainly, we'll have them well searched," declared Dave, and spoke to Tom Dillon about it.
Merwell sold his place and moved to parts unknown, taking his son with him. The purchaser of the ranch proved to be an agreeable man, and he and Mr. Endicott got along very well together. "Well, I hope that is the last of Link Merwell," said Roger, when he heard about the affair. But it was not the last of the fellow, as Dave, later on, found out.
His eyes were roving over the sea of faces, upstairs and down. "I wonder how many a theater like this can hold?" "Two thousand, perhaps." "It certainly looks it, Roger. That gallery Well, I declare!" "What is it?" asked the senator's son. "Do you see that fellow in the front row in the balcony? The one next to the aisle?" "Yes. What of him?" "Looks to me like Link Merwell."
It was to the effect that the ranch next to that of the Endicotts was owned by a Mr. Felix Merwell, the father of Link Merwell, one of Dave's bitterest enemies at Oak Hall. Link had met Laura out there and gotten her to correspond with him. "It's too bad, Laura; I wish you hadn't done it," Dave had said on learning the news. "It may make trouble, for Merwell is no gentleman."
"If he's from the Merwell place, they can't have very nice fellows up there." "Well, who would want to work for a man like Mr. Merwell? He and Link are just alike, dictatorial and mean." The two boys kept on for a short distance further. Then Phil caught his foot in a tree root and went sprawling. "Wow!" he spluttered, as he arose.
"I'll do that gladly," returned the senator's son. And then all in the camp gathered around the fire, to talk the situation over and arrange their plans for the morrow. In the meantime Link Merwell and Job Haskers rode along the rocky trail leading in the direction of Black Cat Camp.
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