Читать книгу Frank Merriwell, Jr., in Arizona; or, Clearing a Rival's Record онлайн

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The trail was white with dust, churned up by the wheels and hoofs that had passed over it. It wound interminably along the cañon’s bed, twisting back and forth through patches of greasewood and mesquite, now hugging one wall and now the other, and again skirting the edge of some brackish pool.

A stream flowed through the cañon, although no one not familiar with such mysterious streams would have guessed it. Like a good many Arizona rivers, the water flowed under the surface, appearing only here and there where bedrock forced it upward.

The lad who had yielded to exhaustion and had fallen must have been nineteen or twenty years of age. He was well dressed, although his clothes were dusty and in disorder. His hair was of a tow color, his eyes a washed-out blue, and his face was hueless—startlingly white and waxlike.

The other boy was a year or two younger than his companion, with a dark, sinister face and shifty eyes. They had walked southward from Gold Hill for many miles, and while the younger lad was an athlete and ordinarily in good physical condition, yet a few days of reckless living had sapped his endurance. He was almost as exhausted as his companion.