It was at Blunt's suggestion that the relay Marathon was run, with the professor's claim as the prize: and it was by a plot of Blunt's that Merry had been lured to the Bar Z Ranch, where, as Blunt had planned.
Merry pitched against the cowboy in a baseball game.

Frank and his chums had won the relay Marathon and Frank had pitched his cowboy team to victory.

Yet Blunt still refused to be satisfied.
The "Cowboy Wonder," as Blunt called himself, had been reared by a man who had implanted in his growing mind a vast array of false notions.

By these, the Wonder regulated his conduct, with a result that was ludicrous at times, and at other times almost tragic.
There was something about the queer fellow that young Merriwell liked.
And yet, while he sympathized with Blunt to a certain extent, he was forced to condemn his rashness and dare-devil behavior.
"Clan." said Merry, as he and his chums moved on into the trackless desert, "while I sat in McGurvin's adobe it flashed over me, all at once, that we had forgotten something about Professor Borrodaile which might possibly explain his absence." "What was that ?" "Why, you remember how we left Happenchance in such a hurry, the time we went to the place and found the prof ?" "We were chased out by Blunt and his puncher friends." "Not exactly.

We were hurrying out ahead of them in order to reach the automobile and beat Blunt to Gold Hill with the professor's location notice.