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

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It was three o’clock before they regained the camp. The other search parties had already arrived. They had seen nothing of Shoup or Lenning.

Merriwell and Bleeker reported their own discoveries, but held back the warning Blunt had delivered. Merry had asked Bleeker to say nothing about that. He considered the idea as altogether foolish, and not worth recounting. Bleeker, on his part, although he may have credited Lenning and Shoup with sinister designs against Frank, undoubtedly thought that the two fugitives would have too much to think about to have any spare time for plots.

The idea of the races had been received by the whole camp with enthusiasm. Shoup and Lenning and the lost canoe were temporarily forgotten in the prospect of the afternoon’s sport.

It was settled that there were to be three competing canoes. Bleeker and Hotchkiss were to man one, Merry and Clancy another, and Lenaway and a chap named Orr were booked for the third.

Arizona being a dry country, there was not the chance for water sports that was enjoyed by States more favored by Mr. Jupiter Pluvius. Had miners, in the olden times, not thrown a dam across the mouth of the gulch, the gulch would have been like the cañon, with only a knee-deep pool here and there throughout its entire length. The dam, however, had created a reservoir some three miles long, fed by clear mountain springs. It was the only place in that part of the State where the twin sports of bathing and boating could be indulged in.