“buck up, shoup! what ails you, anyhow?”
“i’m all in, len. i d-don’t believe i can take another step. you see, i—i——”
the words faded into a groan, and the tottering youth slumped to his knees, then pitched forward and sprawled out limply in the sandy trail.
there were two of them, and they had been tramping wearily through a defile known as bitter-root cañon. the stage trail leading from ophir, arizona, to gold hill, followed the cañon, and the two lads had been taking this trail.
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
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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.
“here’s a go!” muttered the younger lad, looking down grimly at the unconscious, deathlike face of his friend in the trail. “shoup hasn’t the backbone of a jellyfish. i’ve got to do something for him, but what?”
the boy looked around him and discovered that shoup had fallen only a few yards from the edge of a pool. the sight of water suggested the means for reviving the fainting lad, and, with considerable difficulty, the other dragged him to the pool’s edge. wetting a handkerchief in the pool, he bathed the pallid face. in a few moments shoup drew a deep breath and opened his eyes.
“you’re pretty near a wreck, shoup,” said the boy called len crossly. “how do you think we’re ever going to get to the gulch if you can’t walk four or five miles without crumpling up in the trail?”
“i was trying to save the dope,” was shoup’s answer, in a weak voice. “i haven’t got much of it, and no money to buy any more.”
“cut that out,” the other growled angrily. “the more of that stuff you use, the more you have to use. it’s making you ‘dippy’ as blazes; not only that, but it eats up your muscle and ruins your nerves. why don’t you quit?”
“can’t quit. my old man used it, and my grandfather used it. the hankering for the stuff was born
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in me. what’s bred in the bone, lenning, is bound to come out in the flesh. no use fighting against the craving. here, help me to sit up.”
lenning put his hands under shoup’s shoulders and lifted him to a sitting posture, twisting him about so he could lean his back against a bowlder. with fingers that trembled from weakness, shoup pushed up his left sleeve.
the skin of his arm was white as marble, and dotted with little, black, specklike marks. reaching into an inside pocket of his coat, shoup drew out a small, worn morocco case.
“bound to squirt a little more of that poison into your veins, eh?” asked lenning disgustedly.
as he put the question, he produced a box of cigarettes, lighted one, tossed away the burned match and dropped the box into his pocket. a sneering smile crossed shoup’s face.
“what’s the difference, len,” he queried, “whether you inhale the poison or take it my way? it brings us both to the same place, in the end.”
“splash! cigarettes aren’t as bad as all that. anyhow, when i’m in training i cut ’em out. you’re never in training and you never cut out that dope. if you can’t get it just when you want it, your strength is snuffed out like a fool candle. how long do you think you’ll last, going on as you are now, eh?”
“that’s the least of my worries,” was the placid retort.
with his shaking right hand, shoup pressed the needle-like point of a small “hypoderm” into the flesh of his left arm. an instant his quivering finger toyed with the tiny piston, then drove it “home.” with a long sigh of relief, he sank back.
“i’ll feel like a king pretty soon,” said he, speaking
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with his eyes half closed. “you haven’t a notion how it gingers a fellow up. say,” and the eyes opened wide, “why don’t you try it yourself?”
“not on your life!” returned the other, in a sort of horror. “the sight of you, with one foot in the grave on account of that stuff, is enough for me.”
“go on,” urged shoup, his faded eyes brightening wonderfully. “try for yourself and see how it puts fire into your veins, and peace and happiness into your heart. jove! already i’m beginning to feel as though i could run a hundred miles, and be as fresh at the end of the run as when i started.”
lenning stared at shoup curiously.
“that’s the way you feel, but your system is all shot to pieces and you’d drop before you’d gone half a mile,” commented lenning.
“don’t you want to forget your troubles, old man?” coaxed shoup. “this is a sure cure for the blues.”
“no!” almost shouted lenning, springing to his feet. “try to push that thing into my face again and i’ll grab it and throw it into the water. you say you inherited an appetite for the stuff; well, i inherited a few things, myself, and i reckon they’re enough to stagger under without taking on any of your failings.”
“maybe you’ll come to it, some time,” laughed shoup.
he was, by now, an entirely different person from the shoup of a few minutes before. his eyes gleamed, and while his face remained colorless and of a dead, waxen white, strength ran surging through him, and his nerves steadied. it was the influence of the drug, of course, and when that failed his condition would be more pitiful than ever. lenning, shivering at the spectacle presented by his companion, turned moodily and looked down into the pool.
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shoup put away his morocco case. getting up, he stepped to lenning’s side and laid a hand on his shoulder.
“i’m a horrible example, eh?” he breathed. “all right. you’re a good deal of an example, too. you’re a cast-off; a week ago your uncle gave you a thousand dollars and kicked you out of the house. where’s the thousand now, lenning? ‘rooly’ and faro have swallowed it up.” he laughed jeeringly.
lenning whirled on him, red with anger.
“and who helped me lose the thousand?” he cried. “it was you! you might have the grace, seems to me, to shut up about the loss of that money. we’ve neither of us got a sou; but, if we can get to the gulch beyond dolliver’s, maybe i can borrow enough to get us out of this country for good.”
“who’s at the gulch?”
“a few friends of mine—at least, they used to be friends. they’re members of the gold hill athletic club, and they’re camping there.”
“i don’t think you’re going to get money—not altogether,” said shoup. “there’s something else on your mind, too. what is it, len?”
“tell you later,” muttered lenning.
“look here: the bunch of fellows at the camp in the gulch are having merriwell over for a boating competition—canoe race, or something like that. you’ve got a grudge against merriwell and you’d like to saw it off with him. am i right?”
an astounded look crossed lenning’s face. he turned his bewildered eyes on his friend.
“how the deuce did you guess that?” he inquired breathlessly.
“the dope clears the brain wonderfully, len,” grinned
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shoup. “it all came to me, just now. sort of second sight, i reckon. am i right?”
“well, what if you are?”
“nothing, but this: i’m with you. what reason have i to love merriwell? no more than you. if we square the score, suppose we do it together.”
lenning stared gloomily at shoup, then turned on his heel and started off down the cañon. “come on,” he called, “we’d better keep a-plugging.”
shoup made after him, his step buoyant, his spirits as light as his step. he was paying for every hour of that stimulated, fictitious strength with a year of his life. but his thoughts did not—dared not—take account of the future. it was the immediate present that concerned him.
“you can’t get away from these family traits, len,” said shoup, as they made their way southward.
“there’s a mighty tough prospect ahead of me,” growled lenning, “if that’s the case.”
“well, it is the case.”
“i’m not taking your word for it. nobody would take your word for anything, billy. you’re a wreck of a man—just a burned-out hulk of what you ought to be. that’s the way with you slaves of the needle.”
“what are you, jode?” gibed the other. “while you’re throwing it into me, you’d better think about yourself.”
“i’m no dope fiend,” snarled jode lenning. “i’ve got a will left, and when i get good and ready i can turn a leaf and be different.”
“i’ve got a picture of you ‘turning a leaf,’” laughed shoup sarcastically. “you’ll have to show me. you’re not turning a leaf by going after merriwell, are you?”
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lenning did not answer. something, ahead of them in the trail, caught his attention, just then, and brought him to a dead stop.
“thunder!” he exclaimed, “there’s a stage. something’s gone wrong with it. where’s the team and the driver? wonder if they’ve had a break-down?”
