ronks, an my well 'u'd bring me in two bits a head fer each of 'em."

The rancher was still sputtering as the boys raced off through the
starlight, heading into the desert. As soon as they were well away.
McGurvin's wrath died in his throat, and he gave vent to a husky
chuckle.

"On ter Happenchance, or I'm a Piute!" he muttered jubilantly. "Go it,
you crazy galoots--but I 'opine ye won't find what ye're a-lookin' fer."

Still chuckling, he turned back into the house and pounded on a
stovepipe that ran through the ceiling and into a room overhead.

"Have they gone, McGurvin?" came a muffled voice from above.

"I reckon they have, Nick," laughed the rancher; "they went
pippity-poppin' away, each of 'em on a couple o' wheels run by
gasoline."

"Where'd they go?"

"Happenchance, I reckon. Leastways, they headed inter the desert,
p'intin' thataway."

A satisfied grunt echoed from above.

"Lucky I hitched yore bronk out in the scrub," went on McGurvin
complacently. "I'll bet a-plenty them kids was nosin' around afore they
come in here. But they didn't find nothin', nary, they didn't."

_"Buenas noches_, Mac," called down the man upstairs, "I'm turnin' in."

The words were followed by a faint echo of hoarse laughter. McGurvin
caught up the sound with some heartiness as he locked the door, blew out
the light, and went groping through the dark for his own bed.

CHAPTER VI.

A STARTLING DISCOVERY.

The entrance of Barzy Blunt into that mystifying tangle had been as
sudden as it was unexpected. And yet, knowing Blunt as he did, Merry
wondered that he had not thought of the fellow before.

Blunt was a young cow-puncher, who boasted of being a "homemade"
athlete, and would take a back seat for nobody, least of all young
Merriwell. He was not exactly "cracked" on the subject of his prowess in
athletic sports, but his views were certainly warped. Obsessed with the
idea that it was his duty to take Merriwell down a peg. Blunt was
continually, and in the most weird and wonderful ways, contriving to
force Merry into tests of strength and skill.

Merry had shown Blunt his heels in a hundred-yard dash, and at least
once had put him on his back in a catch-as-catch-can wrestling bout. It
was at Blunt's suggestion that the relay Marathon was run, with the
professor's claim as the prize: and it was by a plot of Blunt's that
Merry had been lured to the Bar Z Ranch, where, as Blunt had planned.
Merry pitched against the