CHAPTER VI.
A STARTLING DISCOVERY.
The entrance of Barzy Blunt into that mystifying tangle had been as sudden as it was unexpected.

And yet, knowing Blunt as he did, Merry wondered that he had not thought of the fellow before.
Blunt was a young cow-puncher, who boasted of being a "homemade" athlete, and would take a back seat for nobody, least of all young Merriwell.

He was not exactly "cracked" on the subject of his prowess in athletic sports, but his views were certainly warped.

Obsessed with the idea that it was his duty to take Merriwell down a peg.

Blunt was continually, and in the most weird and wonderful ways, contriving to force Merry into tests of strength and skill.
Merry had shown Blunt his heels in a hundred-yard dash, and at least once had put him on his back in a catch-as-catch-can wrestling bout.