“It looks to me,” Jack interrupted with a grin, “that father should have sent a regiment of United States troops instead of one confidential clerk. Now, just what is it he wants us to do?”
“He wants you boys to scout about and find out exactly who is at the bottom of all this trouble. He believes that the alleged heirs are ignorant pawns in the hands of a corporation with which his own companies are at sword’s points.
“His first thought was to send a company of detectives in here, but he concluded later on that a vacation crowd of Boy Scouts would attract less attention, and might not be suspected at all. In accordance with this reasoning he sent me out to tell you to learn everything possible regarding present complications.”
“Does he think this corporation he is fighting has already sent mercenaries out here to make trouble?” asked Jack.
“He is quite positive that such is the case,” answered Gilroy. “At any rate, he wants you to find out what kind of people they have leading this outlaw gang.”
“I knew it would come,” Jack laughed. “Every time we go out for a vacation, we get mixed up in a scrap of some kind.”
“Well,” Frank suggested, “we have all the more fun because of the trouble we get into. I like to be doing things.”
“But how are we going to get a line on these people?” asked Jack.
“It seems to me that they’ve got in the first blow,” Harry declared. “If we only had Ned here, he could tell us exactly what to do.”
“We’ll have him here before night!” Jimmie answered.
“You ask how you are to get a line on the people you are to watch,” Gilroy said, “and I think I can tell you what you ought to do first. It is said that somewhere out in the hills, perhaps within a few miles of this very spot, there are the ruins of an old Franciscan mission. It is said to stand high up on a mountain, facing east. Our information is that the walls of the original mission have been leveled to the ground, but that the subterranean rooms and passages reaching under the mountain are still fairly intact. You must find this mission.”
“And after we find it, what then?” Jack asked.
“It is said to be the headquarters of the outlaw claimants who are making us all this trouble,” replied Gilroy. “If you find the ruined mission, you will also find, without doubt, the agents of the corporation we are fighting. They are undoubtedly there.”
“And after we find them, what then?” Frank questioned.
“What Mr. Bosworth wants,” the confidential clerk continued, “is to connect this hostile corporation, through its agents, with what is going on here. Once in the possession of positive information that the corporation is instigating this revolt against law and order, and he will know exactly what to do. He expects you boys to bring in the proof.”
“Are you going to remain and help us?” asked Jack in a moment.
“Remain and help you?” repeated the fat little confidential clerk in dismay. “I should say not! In fact, Mr. Bosworth was thoughtful enough to intimate to me that I would better get out of the mountains as soon as possible after delivering my message. Personally, I wouldn’t stay in these hills for a thousand dollars a day!”
“If you’ll wait until we find this romantic old mission,” Jack grinned, “we’ll make you a suite of rooms that will beat anything in New York.”
“Say, boys,” Gilroy answered with a grim smile, “I’d rather be blind and be tied to a lamp post in New York than to own all the country west of the Mississippi river.”
“Well, then,” Jack said, “run back to Dad with your little old story about Ned’s being abducted the day you reached us!”
“If you do,” Jimmie called out, “we’ll murder you when we get back to New York! Ned will be with us before you get down to the foot-hills.”
“I certainly hope so,” Gilroy answered.
“Because,” Jimmie declared, “we’re going out right now to find that romantic old mission and dig him out of a ruined chamber!”
CHAPTER IV
JIMMIE BUILDS TWO FIRES
“I am really alarmed about the disappearance of Mr. Nestor,” Gilroy said, as the boys began frying ham and eggs and making fresh coffee for him. “There is no doubt at all in my mind that he was induced to leave the camp by the agents of the hostile corporation.”
“No doubt about that,” Jimmie put in.
“And that means,” Gilroy went on, “that they really suspect what you are here for. That is the worst part of it.”
“But why should they suspect us?” demanded Jimmie. “We never knew a thing about the complications until you came in here half an hour ago!”
“I’ll tell you why they’re suspicious of us,” Jack exclaimed. “They know that I am the son of the lawyer who is putting up the fight against them. Now you see how the case stands! We’ve been given a mission to execute on the theory that we could work without being suspected, when, as a matter of fact, we were suspected before we were given the work to do.”
“That’s funny!” Jimmie laughed.
“It might be humorous if it wasn’t so serious,” the confidential clerk explained, pompously, “and I’m going to give you boys a little advice, which may not meet with the approval of Jack’s father.”
“Go to it!” laughed Jack.
“This hostile corporation,” Gilroy continued, “will, in my opinion, stop at nothing in order to accomplish their ends. Now that the unexpected has happened—now that their agents suspect that you are here to watch and, if possible, frustrate their designs—my advice is that you get out of the country as quickly as possible.”
“And leave Ned here?” demanded Jimmie scornfully.
“If you boys break camp and leave the mountains at once,” Gilroy advised, “the agents of the corporation will not hold Nestor for any great length of time. Nestor, as you boys well know, has an international reputation for clever work in the detective line. Still, it is well known, that he works with Boy Scouts invariably, and the people who have abducted him will understand that he would be likely to abandon any case not shared with his old chums. Am I right in that?”
“You’ve got it sized up right!” declared Jimmie.
“I wonder why they didn’t trap me?” Jack asked.
“I rather wonder at that, too,” Gilroy answered.
“Huh,” laughed Frank. “They wanted the detective, and not the son of his father. To capture Jack would be to admit that their efforts were directed against the corporations under the control of Mr. Bosworth.”
“Well,” the confidential clerk insisted, “I am certain that, under the circumstances, Mr. Bosworth would object to your remaining here on any errand of his. For my own part, I advise you to get out of the mountains as soon as possible.”
“And miss all this fun?” demanded Jimmie with a grin.
“But I insist that you boys are in deadly peril here!” Gilroy went on. “Urged on by the agents of this hostile corporation, there is no knowing what desperate measures these outlaw claimants may resort to. But if you insist on remaining here against my advice, and against the advice your father would give if he understood the circumstances, you ought to move your camp to some place not in the knowledge of the outlaws. You can at least do that.”
“What’s the use?” asked Jack. “Don’t you suppose they’ve got people watching us now? From this time on, we can’t make a move without their knowing it. We may as well stay here and barricade this cave.”
“That’s a good idea!” Jimmie exclaimed. “All we’ve got to do is to roll a few large boulders down the slope and line them up at the entrance of the cavern. We’ll be as snug as bugs in a rug in behind them, and we have provisions enough to last us for a month.”
“Yes,” Harry submitted, “and we can lay behind the boulders and shoot outlaws and railroad mercenaries to our hearts’ content!”
“It’s dangerous, boys, it’s dangerous!” insisted Gilroy.
“Huh, we’re just beginning to enjoy ourselves, now that we have some object in life!” Jimmie insisted.
The boys set to work with a vim rolling boulders down the slope and placing them in front of the cave. It was the work of only a few minutes to barricade the entire entrance to within a foot of the top, leaving only a narrow place to pass in and out. Thus protected, the cave was quite dark but the electric flashlights carried by the boys would, they considered, supply sufficient illumination.
“And now,” Jimmie said, regarding the work critically, “we can give our whole attention to learning what has become of Ned.”
“If you don’t mind, boys,” Gilroy interrupted, “I wish you’d give a little attention to the ham and eggs and coffee you are preparing for my breakfast! This mountain air creates an appetite.”
“Sure thing!” Harry shouted. “We forgot all about your breakfast, and there’s the ham burning and the coffee bubbling over. But just you wait a minute,” he went on, “and we’ll soon have a meal better than any you could get at the Waldorf-Astoria!”
While the breakfast was being cooked and eaten, Gilroy continued to urge the boys to go out with him and wait at the nearest transportation point for Ned to follow them. The boys only laughed at the idea, however, and ended by urging him to remain with them until Ned should be brought back.
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do, boys,” the confidential clerk finally stated, “if you’ll give me a big roll of blankets and leave someone on watch, I’ll go back in the cave and sleep for about three days. Do you think you can find your detective friend in that time?”
“In three days?” laughed Jack. “We’ll be able to send you back to father in less time with a full report as to what is doing in the mountains.”
“I hope you’re right,” Gilroy said.
He turned toward the barricaded cave but halted at the very entrance.
“What was it you said,” he asked, “about the boy who warned you in the thicket being a Boy Scout?”
“He answered the challenge all right,” replied Frank.
“If he really is a Boy Scout,” asked Gilroy tentatively, “he ought to be loyal to his comrades, don’t you think?”
“Yes, he ought to be,” Jack answered, “but then, you know, there are renegades in all grades and ranks of society. Still, this boy may have been acting under compulsion.”
“I have read a great deal about Boy Scouts being loyal to each other,” Gilroy continued, “and I can’t help thinking that this one will in time do something to make amends for his seemingly hostile act in delivering a fraudulent note. I have faith in the Boy Scout league!”
“And so have we all of us!” declared Jack. “We have found Boy Scouts in all parts of the world, and we have always found them loyal and trustworthy. This lad may yet prove to be so.”
“Why,” Jimmie interrupted, “he did show that he was made of the right kind of stuff when he took the pains to follow us into the forest and advise us to get out of the country.”
“Yes,” Jack laughed, “but he returned from that excursion and delivered a lying note to Ned. Still,” the boy went on more mildly, “we don’t know anything about the circumstances surrounding the matter, so we’ll give him the benefit of every doubt.”
“I only made the suggestion,” Gilroy advised, “in order that you boys might be looking for some indication of friendliness on the part of this seeming enemy. The boy may be of great use to you yet.”
“It’s a mystery to me how they ever got a true Boy Scout mixed up in a dirty game!” Harry declared. “This boy is no easy mark. The language he used said ‘New York’ just as plain as anything, so they must have brought him clear from the big city for some purpose of their own.”
“Well,” Gilroy said in a moment, “I’ve given you the best advice I have at my command, and made what I regard as a valuable suggestion,” he continued with a laugh, “and now I’ll go to bed and dream that I’m back in New York sleeping on top of the Singer building.”
“The Singer building ain’t nothing to this,” Harry grinned, sweeping his hand over the great stretch of country to the east. “From the top of the Singer building you can’t see the back yard of half a dozen states.”
Gilroy passed through the narrow opening and the four boys gathered about the fire to lay plans for the future.
“Now, whatever we do,” Frank suggested, “we must never leave this cave unprotected. Just as long as we have a bullet proof place to hide away in, and plenty of provisions, they can’t drive us out of the mountains with anything less than a piece of artillery. They know exactly where to find us, so we won’t have to go chasing through the woods looking for them!” he added with a grin.
“That’ll help some!” Harry laughed, “especially when we want to sleep and have to set up to dodge bullets.”
“There ain’t going to be no bullets!” laughed Jack.
“And now,” Jimmie suggested, “I’m going to take a little stroll for my health. I’m afraid I’m not getting sufficient exercise.”
“Before we turn him loose in the mountains,” Jack laughed, “we ought to tie a bell on him. Jimmie has a way of getting lost that approaches the artistic. I believe he’d get lost in a hall bedroom.”
“Perhaps I’d better go with him,” Harry ventured.
“No you won’t!” Jimmie said. “I’m going out alone, and I’m going to c-r-e-e-p and c-r-e-e-p and c-r-e-e-p through the bushes like one of J. Fennimore Cooper’s foresters.”
“Robin Hood would have been stuck on you!” grinned Frank.
“You bet he would!” Jimmie insisted gravely. “Me and Robin Hood would have had some great times together in Lincoln forest.”
“Go on, then, you little runt!” Jack exclaimed. “Go on and get back as soon as possible, for we’re all anxious to get on the hunt for Ned.”
Jimmie laughed and disappeared in the pines lower down on the slope. He walked steadily to the east and north for, perhaps, half an hour and then began a series of operations which even his friends might not have understood at the beginning.
Stopping at the foot of a granite finger which thrust a broad surface half way up to the tops of the pines, he began gathering dry boughs. After a great heap had been secured, he carried them with great exertion to the top of the elevation. It was necessary for him to make several trips up and down the steep side of the rock but at last two great heaps of perfectly dry boughs lay on the hard surface of the cliff.
One more trip to the bottom he made, to return with a great back load of green pine boughs. Then he sat down, panting, and regarded his work with no little satisfaction.
“I don’t know,” he mused, wiping the perspiration from his forehead, “but I ought to climb one of these trees. I’d do it, too, only I’m afraid I couldn’t get the fires into line on the boughs.”
He heaped the dry boughs into neat, compact array and then covered them heavily with the green branches. This done, he set fire to each of the two piles and sat down to await results.
The flames ate fast into the dry faggots and the green boughs above made such a white smudge as had rarely been seen in that vicinity.
“There,” the boy mused, “there’s two towering columns of smoke! In Indian talk, they mean ‘I want some one to come and help me out of a mess,’ and that is what the two smudges say in Boy Scout language, too. Now I wonder if anyone save the lads at the camp will see and understand. I hope the kids at the cave will recognize this as an invitation to the bearer of the note alone, and not directed to themselves.”
The two columns of smoke ascended straight into the sky for perhaps ten minutes and then died down. Jimmie sat at the top of the rock and waited. The forest around him seemed alive with creeping and flying things, and sunshine filtered softly through the branches of the great pines. After a time he climbed to the top of a great tree and looked over the landscape.
To the south and west he saw the faint column of smoke lifting from the campfire. To the north and west mountain peaks lifted above the range, many of them white with snow.
“Now,” the boy mused, “unless the messenger is shut up, or tied up, or rendered motionless by the muzzle of a gun, I ought to know before very long whether he is a good Boy Scout or a renegade.”
CHAPTER V
THE CALL OF THE PACK
From his high perch in the tree Jimmie could see far above the timber line and clearly distinguish slopes, ledges and precipitous canyons invisible as a whole to one walking on the surface, or even one looking down from a high cliff on the mountains themselves. To the north a snow-covered summit glistened in the sun, the great white cloak unbroken at the top but showing bare spaces farther down.
Looking in wonder and awe at this magnificent manifestation of nature, Jimmie began to realize, dimly, that the lines of snow on the lower stretches of the mountain seemed to lie at one point parallel with each other. It was as if trenches had been dug in the form of a parallelogram and the excavations filled in with snow.
The outline was so distinct that the boy regarded it curiously for a long time. It seemed to him that the hand of the Snow King had sketched on the mountainside a plan for a structure which had never been built.
Just above the spot where this remarkable pattern lay was a precipice fifty or more feet in height. This wall seemed to the boy to be absolutely vertical. There was a shelf of rock below the strange snow-line, and beneath that the heavy slope of the range.
Turning his eyes at last from the snow-covered summits, the boy gazed eagerly over the forest to left and right, studying the landscape for some indication of a signal. Directly he saw the column of smoke arising from the campfire strengthening into a black mass, and knew that the boys were answering his call not knowing by whom it had been sent forth. He smiled whimsically as he turned his eyes away.
“That tells me where the camp is, anyway!” he laughed.
Five minutes later, just as the boy was about to descend from his tree, he caught sight of the signal for which he had been waiting. Two columns of smoke arose from a point on the timber line near strange snow formation which he had been considering.
“There’s our Boy Scout!” he declared, scrambling quickly to the ground.
Once out of the tree, the boy made no haste in approaching the spot from which the signal had come. Instead of proceeding in a direct line he turned down the slope and walked swiftly to the north.
Half an hour’s steady traveling brought him to a point almost directly east of the columns of smoke. He could not see the smoke at all now, but knew of its location by the snow-capped cliff almost in front of which it had lifted. After reaching this point he walked directly west.
It was no easy matter, climbing the rugged side of the mountain, but the boy persisted in his work until at last he came to a shelf of rock which seemed to be not far away from where the signals had been shown. Stopping to rest, he looked toward the camp for some indication of further activity in the way of signals there but none came.
The campfire itself, and the face of rock into which the cave had long ago been cut, were not in sight from the point where he stood, the timber line creeping up in the form of an inverted “V” and shutting out all that portion of the lower level to the south.
Just as the boy was about to proceed, the long, snarling, vicious call of a wolf came from a thicket not far away. The boy involuntarily drew his automatic revolver and stepped behind the bole of a giant pine.
In a moment the call came again and again.
There was a note in it which seemed to the boy to speak of human lips. While he listened another call—louder, longer, more insistent—came—the call of the pack! Jimmie almost danced in his excitement.
“The Wolf Patrol!” he shouted. “The good old Wolf Patrol!”
Throwing back his head he produced an excellent imitation of the challenge he had heard. It echoed through the forest singly for a moment and was then joined by the call which had attracted his attention.
“Mother of Moses!” the boy cried. “The people will think there’s a whole pack of timber wolves in the country.”
Advancing now through the thicket, the boy soon saw a motion in the underbrush not far away. He stood still and waited.
“Hello, Wolf!” he shouted in a moment.
“Hello, Wolf!” came the answer.
“Show your colors!” Jimmie called.
In a moment a slender, dusky boy advanced out of the thicket and approached Jimmie, his right hand extended palm out, thumb and little finger crossed—the full sign of the Boy Scout.
Jimmie sat flat down on the ground his back against a tree trunk and regarded the lad quizzically.
“You the kid that brought that note?” he asked.
The other nodded, and Jimmie went on with a mock air of censure.
“What’d you do it for?” he demanded.
“Aw, what’s all this?” said the other scornfully.
“The third degree,” Jimmie grinned. “What’d you bring that note for? Now you’ve gone and got Ned Nestor into trouble. What’s your name?” he continued as the boy bent his face to the ground.
“Norman,” was the reply, “Wolf Patrol, New York.”
“You’re a new one on me!” asserted Jimmie. “I belong to the Wolf Patrol, New York. Never saw you before!”
“You’re Jimmie McGraw?” Norman asked.
“How do you know that?”
“On account of your nerve!” Norman answered.
“What’re you going to do about it?” asked Jimmie belligerently.
“I’ve been ordered,” Norman went on with a smile, “to break you in two if I came across you in the mountains.”
“Do it, then!” shouted Jimmie. “You’ve gone and got Ned into a mess, and I’d just like to have you try something on me now!”
Instead of showing temper, Norman sat down on the ground and laughed until he felt obliged to hold his sides.
“How’d you ever get away out here in the mountains?” Jimmie asked. “Ain’t you afraid you’ll get lost?”
“I haven’t got lost yet!” was the scornful reply.
“Come now,” Jimmie said, in a more conciliating tone of voice, “put me wise to the game you’re playing with Nestor.”
“All I know about it is that I delivered the note.”
“Where is Nestor?”
“I left him talking with a very fine gentleman who seemed to be offering to do the square thing with him,” was the reply.
“Bribing him, was he?”
“I don’t know about that. He was offering him money.”
“When will Nestor return to camp?” asked Jimmie.
Norman shook his head gravely.
“Do you mean that they won’t let him go?” demanded the boy.
“I don’t know anything about it,” Norman answered.
“Who told you to rope Ned into such a mess?”
“The man I work for.”
“What’s his name?” asked Jimmie then.
“His name is Toombs,” was the reply. “He hired me to come out on a hunting trip with him and help around the camp.”
“How many are there in the party?” was Jimmie’s next question.
“Only two, Toombs and a black looking heathen named Huga. I guess he’s an Indian. Anyway, he’s a mighty evil-looking fellow.”
“Well,” Jimmie announced accusingly, “those fellows are not out here on a hunting trip at all! They’re out here to make trouble for Ned Nestor and his friends. I think you’ve done a mighty cute trick in helping them along with their work!”
“Say,” Norman answered, with a touch of irony in his voice, “you go away in some quiet spot and count yourself. When you get done you’ll find you aren’t so many. You needn’t think you’re the only boy that can get a job in the mountains.”
“Has Toombs captured any game yet?” asked Jimmie.
“I haven’t seen him do any hunting,” was the answer. “He and Huga just sit around in camp all day and send half-breed messengers scurrying around from place to place.”
“So there are half-breed messengers, are there?” demanded Jimmie. “You said there were only two—Toombs and Huga.”
“I left New York with Toombs and Huga,” answered Norman, “and they’re the only ones I have anything to do with. The half-breeds we found here.”
“All right,” Jimmie said with a smile, “we’ve got Toombs’ number right now. If he butts in on us again, we’ll roll him down to the foothills. What does he want of Ned, anyway?”
“How should I know?” demanded Norman. “I’m not his confidential secretary! Say, I’d like to go and live with you boys.”
“Well,” Jimmie promised, “you go to Toombs and stay with him until you get Ned out of the mess you got him into, and you can come and live with us, all right.”
The boys sat together under a scraggly pine for a long time, talking about New York and the Wolf Patrol. Norman had joined the Wolves during Jimmie’s absence, and so they had not chanced to meet.
“Well,” Norman said directly, “I’ll have to be getting back to camp. They expect me to build the fire and get the meals.”
“Where is the camp?” asked Jimmie.
“It’s on a shelf not far off,” was the reply. “I’m not to tell anybody where it is, but you can find it for yourself if you care to.”
“If I care to?” repeated Jimmie. “Don’t you suppose I’m going there and help Ned out of the trouble you got him into?”
“Go as far as you like,” Norman replied, “only I advise you to keep away from there. Those men are dangerous.”
“Then will you help Ned away?”
“I’ll do what I can,” answered Norman gravely. “I can’t tell you, just now, all about the situation I’m in, but you’ll probably know sometime that I didn’t play crooked.”
“I’m going to tag along when you go back to camp!” warned Jimmie.
“Then keep a long ways behind,” Norman replied. “When I get to the top of that little elevation over there,” he went on, “I’ll make the Wolf call again and you come along. Only,” he continued, “don’t try to get into the camp alone. There’s a whole regiment of half-breeds sneaking around. Perhaps some of them have followed me here.”
Norman disappeared in the undergrowth, and Jimmie sat waiting for the signal agreed upon. He waited a long time but no signal came.
“Now I wonder,” he thought, “if that Boy Scout was acting on the level. I wonder if he won’t give me away to that man Toombs and his bunch of half-breeds. I believe he’s crooked after all! Think I’ll sneak.”
He arose from his position by the tree and turned toward the camp. He had proceeded but a short distance, however, when he tripped and fell over a running vine. Before he could regain his feet he was seized by two pair of muscular hands and laid flat on his back. A knife large enough to cut a hole in the side of a house was held to his throat.
“Oh, you, Norman,” he said under his breath, “if I just had that scrawny neck of yours in my hands now!”
The boy’s rage against the one who had apparently betrayed him was so overpowering that for a moment he paid little attention to the two half-breeds bent over him. Then he saw that the vine over which he had fallen had been purposely held in front of his feet.
His captors were dusky fellows, with straight black, greasy hair and narrow, treacherous black eyes. They seemed to the boy to be crosses between Mexican and California Indians. Directly Jimmie was hustled to his feet by a muscular hand at his collar and his automatic revolver, searchlight and even his pocket knife taken from him.
“Say,” Jimmie said, “if I had one of you fellows on the Bowery, somewhere down near Stanton street, I wouldn’t do a thing to him.”
“You bright boy!” grunted one of the half-breeds as the two started away with their prisoner. “You ver’ bright boy!”
They did not take the precaution to bind the boy in any way, but they gave no chance of escape, for every step of the way muscular hands clung to him. The way was rough, for it led directly up the slope, and this mode of surveillance was rather helpful than otherwise in the steep climb.
“Say,” Jimmie demanded after a long walk, “did that kid who talked with me tell you to follow him and get me?”
“You one fool boy!” declared one of his captors. “You have your eyes in the wool!”
CHAPTER VI
A BRIBE OF HALF A MILLION
Preceded by the boy who had brought the note, Ned walked swiftly along the side of the mountain for a mile or more, taking a northerly course. It is needless to say that the boy was more than suspicious regarding the authenticity of the message he had received.
In the first place, the handwriting on the piece of paper was not at all like that of either of the boys who were alleged to have sent it. In the second place, the boys were never known to carry writing paper with them on their trips out from the camp.
There was a chance, however, that either Jimmie or Frank had written the message at a moment of peril or during great excitement. There was a bare chance, too, that one of them had discovered a sheet of writing paper in his pocket.
The appeal for help, suspicious as it was, was by no means to be disregarded, so Ned trudged along behind his guide, feeling that whatever took place he was doing his full duty.
And there was another feature of the case which Ned considered fully. Should the sending of the message prove to be a trick on the part of some designing person, it was quite important that he should know who that person was. His decision to follow the boy, therefore, was brought about by these two reasons.
It will be remembered that up to the time of Ned’s departure from camp, no suspicion of any hostile presence in the mountains had been entertained. Gilroy, the fat, confidential clerk, it will be remembered, arrived shortly after Ned’s departure in response to the message.
Realizing that the messenger might be leading him into a trap, Ned took occasion to blaze his trail by marks on trees, carelessly made, by signs in twigs and by signs in stones. All these, he knew, would be readily understood by anyone of his chums, or, in fact, by any Boy Scout.
Once or twice Ned thought he caught in the eye of his guide a significant look as these signs were left in the path. However, the boy made no objections to Ned’s frequent pauses, and gave no indications of displeasure at the marking of the trail.
After a long walk along the slope of the mountain toward the north, the boy suddenly turned straight west and made his way up toward the snow line. Here the walking was very difficult, as the boys were obliged to wind around jutting crags and climb into and out of narrow canyons at the bottoms of which trickles of water made their way eastward.
Up to this time very little conversation had been indulged in, but now during the frequent necessary halts, Ned began questioning his strange companion. The boy answered in a manner which at first seemed entirely frank.
“How did you like the bread and beans?” Ned asked at one resting place with a smile. “Why didn’t you wake us up?”
“What are you talking about bread and beans?” asked the boy, though the sly look in his face told Ned that he understood.
“The next time you come to our camp in the night,” Ned went on, “Just wake us up and we’ll give you a night lunch worth while.”
“What about last night?” asked the boy.
“Last night,” Ned answered, “you would have had broiled bear steak and hot coffee. Steak beats cold beans, doesn’t it?”
“Say, you are a good fellow!” exclaimed the guide.
Ned laughingly extended his right hand, giving the full Boy Scout salute. The guide returned the sign and asked:
“How did you know?”
“The button under the lapel of your coat shows when you are climbing,” Ned replied. “Why do you try to hide it?”
“I put it there so it wouldn’t get lost,” was the hesitating answer.
“What time did you reach our camp last night?” was Ned’s next question.
“A little after twelve,” was the reply. “It’s a wonder you fellows wouldn’t keep some one on watch. The bears’ll eat you up some night!”
“Why did you come to the camp at all?”
“Well, I was wandering over the mountains when you boys came in late yesterday afternoon, and I thought I would go over and have a visit with you. After I got to your camp I thought perhaps you wouldn’t like to be routed out of bed, so I just helped myself to a lunch and came away. Say, but I was good and hungry!”
“What are you doing in the mountains?” asked Ned.
“I came in with hunters from New York,” was the answer.
“So you live in New York city, do you?”
“Yes,” was the slow reply.
“And belong to the Wolf Patrol, your button says!”
“Yes, I belong to the Wolf Patrol.”
“Where are you taking me now?” asked Ned, at another stop.
“Why, to the place where the boys are,” was the reply.
At that moment Ned understood that the guide was not telling the truth. There was a look in the fellow’s eyes which betrayed the fact. However, he decided to continue the journey and discover if possible why the fraudulent message had been sent.
“Who gave you this message?” he finally asked.
“The man who saw the boys,” was the answer.
“Then you did not see the boys?”
“Yes,” was the slow reply, “I saw the boys.”
“Did you speak with them?”
“Yes, I spoke with them,” replied the guide.
“Did they give you this note? If so, tell me under what circumstances it was written. It says that they are in need of assistance. Tell me the exact situation of affairs.”
Instead of replying to the direct question, the guide darted away, passing around a corner of rock, and was soon lost to view. Ned hesitated, not knowing whether he ought to follow him or not.
While he stood considering the matter, four as evil-looking half-breeds as he had ever seen swarmed down upon him, and in a moment he was bound hand and foot and placed on a rude stretcher.
The attack had come so suddenly that the boy had offered little resistance. He now lay upon the stretcher of bark and boughs and looked into the faces of his captors with curiosity as well as astonishment.
“What did you do that for?” he asked.
The individual who seemed to be the leader of the party mumbled out some sullen reply and motioned to the others to take up the litter.
“Anyway,” the boy said grimly, “I seem to be going in state.”
“You are a slippery cuss!” the leader declared and the little procession moved on up the slope.
All four of the men seemed to be half-breeds, dirty and roughly clad. Ned felt a feeling of repulsion which would have been expressed by blows had his feet and hands been at liberty.
The climb up the mountain was a slow one, and one not at all pleasant to the boy as they insisted on carrying him feet foremost. At last, however, they came to a level shelf of fair size whereon a tent had been pitched.
There was a fire in front of the tent, and a large, fleshy, well-dressed man sat on a packing box industriously whittling a pine stick. Not far away, and bent over a mass of dirty dishes, was a man who seemed to be older and a great deal taller than the man on the box.
This latter individual’s face was thin and dark and lighted by a pair of eyes which seemed almost lidless, like those of a snake. Both men were very neatly dressed in tailor-made garments although the articles of clothing showed the effects of mountain climbing.
The litter was set down in front of the tent and Ned lost no time in taking a sitting position. The fat man looked him over benevolently.
“Well, son,” he said in a moment, “you made no effort to make my acquaintance, and so I sent the boys to ask you over.”
“They did it all right!” Ned answered.
The fat man now motioned to the half-breeds, who proceeded to search the boy for weapons and then cut his bonds.
“Now,” said the fat man, “we may as well introduce ourselves. You are Ned Nestor, I take it? Well, my name is Richard Toombs, recently of the city of New York.”
“How did you happen to escape?” asked Ned scornfully.
“Now don’t make the mistake of becoming sarcastic!” Toombs warned. “I had you brought here because I can do you a service and you can do me one. We’ll get along all right together if you exercise the good sense you are generally given credit for possessing.”
“If you wanted to see me,” Ned demanded angrily, “why didn’t you come over to the camp? Why did you send your cut-throats over to tie me up like a pig for roasting?”
“Because,” Toombs answered, “you have the reputation in New York of being a very obstinate as well as a very clever lad. Because, again,” he went on, “I have no time to waste in preliminaries. I wanted you to understand from the word ‘Go’ just exactly what the situation is.”
“Well, what is it?” asked Ned.
“You came into the mountains with young Jack Bosworth?”
“Jack is a member of my party,” Ned answered.
“And you came on a mission for Jack’s father?”
“Nothing of the kind!” answered Ned. “We came in on a vacation.”
“You don’t expect me to believe that, do you?” demanded Toombs.
“It is the truth,” answered Ned.
“It is remarkable,” smiled Toombs, “that Jack Bosworth’s son and you, a juvenile detective of pronounced ability, should just happen into this country at this particular time!”