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

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The fun stopped as though by magic. All the boys cast startled glances at each other.

“That may be the fellows who stole our canoe!” cried Hotch, jumping to his feet. “Come on, fellows! Here’s a chance to nail ’em!”

He started up the gulch bank at a run, Bleeker and Merriwell tight at his heels.

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The lads were somewhat confused as to the direction from which the report had come. They were all agreed on one point, however, and that was that the shot had been fired on their side of the gulch. From there on, their ideas of the right direction varied widely. Clustered together on the crest of the long slope of the gulch bank, they held a hurried consultation, to decide what their next move should be.

“I’m sure,” said Bleeker, “that the sound came from the northwest.”

“Northeast, Bleek,” asserted Hotchkiss.

“Directly north,” a chap named Lenaway declared, with equal conviction.

“What do you think, Merriwell?” asked Bleeker.

“It’s hard to tell,” Frank answered. “If we’d been listening for the shot, and trying to locate it, we might have got the direction tolerably close; but the sound came when we weren’t expecting anything of the kind, so that the way we ought to go is more or less of a guess. I’m inclined to think you’re right, though, Bleek.”