dirty, stinking Injuns. This will teach you!”
His finger tightened on the trigger.
“Pepper!” Sandy gasped with the last remnant of his strength. “Don’t let him kill me, Pepper!” He slid to the floor as the gun went off.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Fourth Touchdown
Sandy fought his way up from unconsciousness like a diver rising from the bottom of a dark sea. For a long time he lay without moving as he tried to sort out the sounds around him. He was dead, of course, he reasoned. Nevertheless, some of the voices he seemed to hear sounded familiar.
He opened one eye experimentally, prepared to snap it shut if he didn’t like what he saw. Mrs. Gonzales was bending over him with one of her eternal compresses. So was a man with a goatee who had a stethoscope clipped around his neck.
Sandy opened the other eye and turned his head, which seemed to weigh a ton.
He found that he was in bed and bandaged right up to his chin. Kitty, her pretty face badly scratched, was watching him too. So were John Hall and…yes, it was Pepper!
“But I ought to be dead,” Sandy whispered in great surprise. “What happened?”
“I conked Cavanaugh with his own flashlight,” Pepper said with pride. “Knocked him out. His shot went wild.”
“Thanks a lot, Pepper. Shake.” Sandy tried to hold out his hand but found he couldn’t quite make it.
“Easy,” said the doctor.
“Am I badly hurt?” Sandy managed to say.
“Nothing worse than loss of a lot of blood. I’ve pumped you full of plasma. You’ll be all right in a few days, but you mustn’t exert yourself for a while,” said the doctor as he started packing instruments into his little black bag.
“But I’ve got to know what happened,” Sandy said fretfully. “For Pete’s sake!”
“I called Kitty out of the woods after I hit Cavanaugh,” Pepper explained. “We got you into his car and brought you home as fast as we could.”
“And you’re all right, Kitty?” Sandy persisted.
“Just a few scratches and bruises.” She came forward to prove it and patted his bandaged shoulder.
“And…and Cavanaugh?”
“The crazy fool is still up there,” Hall spoke up. “Look.” He pointed through the bedroom window.
Sandy worked his head around in that direction. The great hump of the Window Rock was lit up as bright as day.
“Floodlights,” Hall explained as he saw the boy’s surprise. “They’re set up permanently to illuminate the Rock on Frontier Day and for other tourist events.”
“But…”
“The Navajo police turned them on. The whole force, as well as most of the Indians who attended the joint Council meeting, are up there trying to flush Cavanaugh out of hiding.”
“Ralph too?” Sandy’s eyes were shining.
“Yes.”
“Did the Council meeting come to anything, Mr.—John?”
“It broke up before any formal agreement was signed when we got your message, but…”
“Gee, I’m sorry about that.”
“Forget it. I only had the chance to say a few words to Ralph while they were organizing the posse, but he told me the tribes understand each other’s position now. It’s just a matter of ironing out details before they agree to put those boundary-line leases up for bids.”
“That’ll be great for you,” Sandy said, “but I sure wish I hadn’t had to…”
“Forget it, I said.” Hall patted his shoulder too. (Why did everybody have to pat him as if he were a dog? Sandy wondered crossly. Then he burst out laughing, although to do so hurt his face and chest. Why, he almost was a dog, wasn’t he?)
“Young man, you’re getting much too excited,” the doctor warned as he approached the bed, hypodermic needle in hand. “I’d better put you to sleep for a while.”
Sandy pushed him away.
“There’s something else,” he cried. “John, did Pepper tell you about the message Cavanaugh received from Washington?”
“I told him there had been a message, and what Cavanaugh said to Elbow Rock,” Pepper spoke up. “But I couldn’t hear the message itself. Cavanaugh was wearing the earphones.”
“Better forget all this for a while and go to sleep, Sandy,” said Hall. His face was gaunt with worry.
“No! You must listen now.”
Sandy wanted desperately to go to sleep, but he wouldn’t let himself give in. Slowly, forcing each word out of his mouth as though it weighed several pounds, he repeated the message to Cavanaugh as well as he could remember it.
“Good Lord!” Hall gasped. “This changes the whole picture. I must call Ken!”
He rushed to the telephone while Sandy’s eyelids closed in spite of his efforts to keep them open. He just had to have a few minutes’ sleep. White’s arrival at the cottage jerked him awake again. The Agent was wearing heavy boots and carried a pair of binoculars slung over his pudgy shoulder.
“What’s all this, John?” he demanded. “I was just leaving from the Rock when you called. I sent off an inquiry to the Department of Interior immediately, of course. Then this message came in from San Francisco. That’s what took me so long getting here. The message is for you, Sandy.”
“Read it to me, please,” the boy said. “I’m too weak to lift a finger.”
White ripped open the yellow envelope, got out his glasses, and read:
FINALLY GOT HERE STOP NEWSPAPER FILES SHOW THERE WAS CAVANAUGH ON STATE TEAM IN 1930 WHO MADE ALL-AMERICAN STOP BUT HE WAS CALLED BRICK NOT RED STOP ALL SPORTS PAGE STORIES ON BIG GAME SAY HE MADE FOUR TOUCHDOWNS REPEAT FOUR TOUCHDOWNS AGAINST CALIFORNIA STOP QUIZ TAYLOR
“Aw shucks,” Pepper said disgustedly. “That proves our Cavanaugh isn’t an impostor after all.”
“Wait a minute! Wait a minute!” Sandy dragged himself up on one elbow despite Mrs. Gonzales’ efforts to make him lie still. “It proves no such thing!”
“But if he did make those three touchdowns he was always bragging about…” Pepper started to protest.
“Four touchdowns, the telegram says,” Sandy panted. “Now look, all of you. Maybe a real football player might add a touchdown to his record if he thought no one would catch him at it. But who would subtract a touchdown? Nobody. That’s who!
“Cavanaugh
