When Jimmie awoke the fire which had burned in the cavern had gone out, and those who remained in the chamber seemed to be fast asleep. He tumbled out of his alcove, still feeling weak and dizzy, and moved toward a hanging rug which closed the entrance to the place.
He drew one side of the rug back and saw the white light of day. The sun seemed to be high up in the sky, for the ledge at the front of the cavern showed a streak of gold. Two Chinamen sat at the entrance to the outer cave, and when he advanced toward them they waved him back. Instead of retreating he stood regarding them with a puzzled look on his face.
One was Chang Chee, the keeper of the disreputable Chinese dive on Doyers street, whom Jimmie had noticed the night before, and the other was a much younger man—a boy, in fact. When Chang ordered Jimmie back the youngster turned toward him a face showing both curiosity and interest.
“What’s doin’ here?” Jimmie demanded, in a moment.
He thought best not to show that he recognized Chang, for he knew that the identification of the Chinaman would only add to his peril, if that were possible. It was certain that Chang would never permit the information that he had been seen there to get out to the government officers.
Jimmie’s idea at that time was that he had blundered on a gang of opium smugglers, although he could not understand why so many Chinamen were, apparently, engaged in the illegal traffic.
Chang finally turned his face away, with a frown, and Jimmie advanced a step toward the boy, who threw himself carelessly down on his back and extended his right arm straight up from the shoulder. Jimmie’s eyes opened wider, and his breath almost stopped, when he saw the thumb and little finger thrown diagonally across the palm of the hand, the tip of the thumb covering the nail of the little finger, the three remaining fingers pointing upward.
In the excitement of the moment, in the amazement caused by his recognition of the Boy Scout challenge, Jimmie lost all caution.
“Say!” he began, but Chang turned a repulsive face and ordered him into the rear chamber.
The boy, thankful for the interruption, moved back a few paces, believing that the Chinese boy who had given him the sign would communicate with him as soon as opportunity offered.
This was the greatest puzzle the lad had ever been called upon to solve. Some of the questions he asked himself were:
“How did that Chinese boy become a Boy Scout?”
“Is there a Chinese patrol?”
“Was he permitted to become a member of an American patrol?”
“Why is he mixed up with that disreputable old Chink?”
“Will he help me out of this hole, or will he ignore me?”
Of course there was not one of the questions the boy could answer, so he went back to his alcove and sat down, half believing that he had imagined the challenge.
As the day wore on the men who had been asleep in the inner chamber arose, staggeringly, as if still under the stupefying influence of opium, and made their trembling way outside. When they had all disappeared Chang pushed the rug aside so as to bring more light and air into the place and came and stood looking down on the boy.
Jimmie did not look up. He saw the shrunken figure up as far as the knees only. He was resolved not to open any conversation with the Chink. If he wanted to talk, Jimmie thought, let him choose his own subject and introduce it in his own way.
The yellow face of the Chinaman seemed to take on a more mask-like expression—or want of expression, rather—as the silence continued. When he spoke it was with a snarl which boded no good to the boy.
“Hungly?” he demanded.
“Hungry?” repeated Jimmie. “You know it! If you’ve got any rat sandwiches or puppy potpies, just introduce me!”
“Flesh!” growled Chang.
“Flesh?” repeated Jimmie. “Oh, yes, you mean fresh? Well, you’d be just as fresh as I am if you were as hungry.”
“Cheek!” cried Chang. “Kid allels have cheek—an’ tummy!”
“Sure,” said Jimmie. “Go on an’ get me a porterhouse steak with French potatoes. I could eat a car of raw onions.”
Chang turned away and walked out to the ledge, where the Chinese boy stood, looking out into the sunshine. It was a glorious morning, with the air clear and just a little sharp, owing to the altitude. Here and there little swirls of smoke showed that fires were burning in the forest, though none seemed to be close to the range.
Reaching the boy’s side Chang addressed a few words to him in Chinese and left the cave, turning back, after a few paces, to observe the boy, now standing with a long, keen-bladed clasp-knife in his hand. As Chang looked the boy ran his finger over the edge of the blade, as if to make sure that it was suitable for some purpose he had in view.
With an exclamation of rage Chang charged back at him and snatched the knife from his hand.
“You fool!” he cried.
“You let me alone!” shouted the other. “I tell you, I’m going to kill him!”
Jimmie heard the words and rose unsteadily to his feet. He recognized the voice as that of the boy who had given him the Boy Scout challenge. At least it was not that of Chang, and there were only two figures outlined against the sky when he looked out beyond the rug, still pushed aside.
“Fool! Fool! Fool!”
Chang gritted out the words as he took the Chinese boy by the back of the neck and hustled him into the cave. Then he spoke for a minute in Chinese and turned away again. Jimmie stepped back into his alcove and felt around for a stone, or anything in the shape of a weapon, as the boy advanced toward him.
“What does the badge say?”
Jimmie opened his eyes wider than ever, if possible, and stood facing the boy, half hiding the stone he had found.
“Be prepared,” he replied.
“Then drop that rock!”
Jimmie dropped it and stepped forward.
“Liu, Owl patrol, San Francisco,” the Chinese boy said.
“McGraw, Wolf patrol, New York,” replied Jimmie.
“You don’t look very comfortable in here,” Liu said.
“Nixy,” replied Jimmie, wondering if the boy really was preparing to carry out the threat he had made to Chang.
“You heard what I just said to Chang?” Liu asked.
Jimmie nodded his bandaged head.
“Bluff!” said Liu. “He’s watching now to see that I don’t make an attempt on your life. Had to do it!”
“I see,” Jimmie replied, wondering if it wasn’t pretty near time to wake up.
“Why don’t he want me killed?” Jimmie asked in a moment.
“He thinks you have information he needs,” was the answer. “Are you hungry?”
“That’s what Chang asked,” Jimmie said, “but he didn’t bring me any grub.”
“He told me to,” grinned Liu, “and I told him that I’d kill you if I got near enough to do so. He’ll hang around until he sees me bring you something to eat.”
“You ain’t so very slow yourself,” grinned Jimmie. “Where did you learn to speak United States so well?”
“Born in Frisco,” was the reply. “The Boy Scouts take me out on their hunting trips to do the cooking. That’s why I’m here now. I know the mountains, and Chang hired me to go along with him.”
“An’ they took you into the patrol, did they?” asked Jimmie.
“Sure they did,” was the reply. “Why not? I’m an American citizen, or will be in four years.”
“Have they captured any of the others?” asked Jimmie.
The Chinese boy shook his head.
“Have they heard from the men they sent out to capture them?” was the next question.
Another shake of the head, then Liu drew closer and whispered.
“Do you see Chang poking his head around that rock in the opening? He’s watching to see that I don’t knife you!”
Jimmie saw the parchment-like face of the old reprobate peering around the rock and wanted to heave a stone at it, but knew that this would not be good policy. Instead he threw it at Liu, and missed, of course.
“You seem to be wide awake yourself,” Liu said.
“Why don’t you go and get me some grub?” demanded Jimmie. “I’m near starved to death.”
“All right!” said Liu, and turned away.
Jimmie was now in a deeper puzzle than before. He had no means of knowing whether Liu was telling him the truth. He might be trying to get into his confidence in order to gain the information sought, whatever it was.
However, in a short time Liu returned with a generous supply of food, fried fish, fresh biscuit—the boy wondered how Liu had managed to bake them there—coffee, and plenty of tinned goods.
“What’s this bunch doin’ here?” the boy asked, as he made heavy inroads on the fresh fish, coffee and biscuits.
“I don’t know,” was the hesitating reply.
“I know,” Jimmie went on. “They’re smuggling opium an’ setting fire to the woods. They’ll all get pinched!”
“I hope so,” was the reply.
“It sounds odd to hear a Chinese boy talk straight United States,” Jimmie said, after a short silence.
Liu made no reply for a moment. He was watching the ledge outside the entrance to the cave. The occasional rattle of pebbles told him that some one was standing there, probably just out of sight.
“What is Chang doin’ here?” Jimmie asked, presently.
“He’s in some scheme with the foresters,” was the reply.
“They ain’t no foresters!” Jimmie said. “They’re timber thieves an’ smugglers, an’ firebugs, an’ murderers!”
Liu shuddered but remained silent. After listening a second he went to the entrance and looked out. There was no one in sight at first, then a roughly dressed fellow came around the angle of the cliff to the north and approached him. The fellow was rather short for a man of his width of shoulder, and his step was remarkably light and quick for one of his apparent weight.
His face was sun and wind-tanned, with plenty of mountain soil on top of that. A cartridge-belt encircled the loose jacket he wore and a revolver handle protruded from the pistol pocket of his trousers.
“What’s the word?” he asked, gruffly, as he came up to Liu.
“Go on in,” replied Liu.
Jimmie saw evidences of treachery in the hostile attitude of the newcomer and retreated farther into the cavern.
Then he saw Liu doubling up with laughter and stopped. It didn’t look very amusing to him, especially as the stranger was advancing toward him with swift strides. Then something remotely familiar in the set of the shoulders, the carriage of the head, attracted his closer attention to the figure and he moved forward a step.
“You’re a nice little boy to get into a trap like this!”
There was no mistaking that voice. Just how Ned Nestor had secured that disguise and found his way to that spot Jimmie did not stop to think. He knew that it was his chum, and that was enough. While the two boys clasped hands Liu stood regarding them smilingly, at the same time watching the entrance.
“How did you ever find this hole?” Jimmie asked, his wonder at the thing which had happened mastering all else.
“I saw this cave when my machine dropped into a hole in the air in the cañon,” was the reply. “The shelf where we landed is just above this cavern. There was a fire in the outer room, and numerous Chinamen were moving about.”
“They’re opium smugglers,” Jimmie said.
“Man smugglers!” laughed Ned.
“Do you mean that they bring Chinks over the border here, an’ so run them down into civilization whenever they get a chance?” demanded Jimmie.
“That is just it,” Ned answered. “We seem to have come upon a lot of the articles to be smuggled,” he added.
“How did you come across Liu?” Jimmie asked.
“Oh, I met him while I was prowling about not far from the cave, at daylight,” was the reply. “He helped me get this disguise.”
Liu was still watching at the mouth of the cavern, so the boys talked freely, with little fear of being disturbed. Ned told of his return to the camp, and of the all-night hunt for the missing boy. It took Ned and Frank a long time to find the opening the former had seen in his swift drop down the cañon, but about daylight it was located.
They had, however, found many Chinamen loitering about, and Frank had gone back to camp to reassure the others, while Ned remained on the eastern side on the chance of getting into communication with Jimmie. While loitering about Liu had come up the slope.
It was quite a long story, that of his getting a perfect understanding with Liu, and Ned cut it as short as possible, merely saying that Liu had recognized his name, having heard his associates mention it frequently. Then the Chinese boy had procured the disguise and Ned had stuffed out the shoulders of the coat to give it a better fit.
“I was observed by a half a dozen men, some Americans, some Chinamen, while getting in here,” Ned said, then, “but the disguise misled them. Now, the question is this: How are we going to get out?”
“We’ll have to fight our way out?” asked Jimmie.
“It won’t answer,” Ned replied. “They are too many for us.”
Liu now came into the second cave and held up his hand for silence.
“You’ll have to hide in the back chamber,” he said. “Chang is coming in.”
“I thought this was the back chamber,” Jimmie said.
“I suspect,” Liu said, “that there’s a chain of caves running through the divide. Come on!”
Liu passed back to the west, removed a great box which stood against the rear wall, and disclosed an opening through which the patrol leader crawled. When the box was replaced Ned stopped and listened. What he heard was the click of a typewriter.
What business calling for the use of a typewriter was being transacted under the main divide of the Rocky Mountains?
Ned stood perfectly still in the darkness and listened. He could hear the click of the keys and nothing else. At length he moved stealthily forward over an even surface, feeling his way in order that he might not trip over some unseen obstruction and raise a racket in a tumble.
Presently he came to a rug hanging at the end of the chamber in which he was. From the other side of the rug came a faint light. The noise of the keys was more distinct here, and the boy knew that he had at least located the operator.
While he stood listening and undecided as to what course to pursue, the noise of the machine ceased and the operator—a young, well-dressed American—came toward him carrying a lighted candle in his hand. Ned crouched down in an angle of the wall and waited for him to pass.
The boy was not quite so anxious now to leave the strange rendezvous in which he found himself. Some mischief greater than smuggling opium and Chinamen over the border might be carried on there. His work seemed to be growing on his hands!
He had been sent to that district to investigate the cause of the frequent forest fires, and given an aeroplane in order that he might fly over the forests in making his observations. It seemed to him now, as he lay on his side against a wall of rock, waiting for the typist to pass with his light, that he was spending more time under the ground than in the air!
The main range of the Rocky Mountains in the northern part of Montana is noted for its rugged and irregular formation. It is declared by some that the home of the original cave dwellers was here. Many of the great cañons are known to be honeycombed with openings almost large enough to hide a small city in.
The typist moved straight ahead and his light disappeared from view. Then Ned advanced beyond the rug, which appeared to be of fine material, and flashed on his light. There was a table in the room, a couple of chairs, a row of pigeon-holes attached to the wall.
On the table was a typewriter, in the pigeon-holes were folded papers, neatly ticketed and enclosed in rubber bands. Aside from the underground smell the place was tolerably comfortable. The air was damp and chilly, but Ned was well clothed and did not mind that.
As has been said, the boy was now in no haste to leave the place. He believed that the mystery he had been sent out to solve would be solved there. For an hour or more he searched over the place, opening the folded papers and making a close examination of the typewriter and the stock of unused paper in the drawer of the table.
At length, his examination completed, he passed back into the chamber behind the rug and listened at the opening through which he had entered. A sound of the steady beat of blows reached his ears at first, then a low whistle. That was Jimmie, he knew. The lad had a habit of whistling softly to himself, usually without time or tune.
Waiting for a lull in the blows, he rapped softly on the box which backed up against the opening. Instantly the whistling ceased, and Jimmie’s voice was heard.
“Come on out,” the boy said. “I’ve been kicking my heels against this box for an hour, waitin’ for you to signal back.”
“Be sure there is no one watching,” Ned cautioned.
He heard Jimmie walking away, then heard him coming back. In a moment the box was drawn away from the opening.
“You’ve been in there long enough to dig through to China,” Jimmie said, as Ned stood by his side. “What did you find in there?”
“A double keyboard typewriter,” grinned Ned.
“Quit your kiddin’,” answered Jimmie. “You’ll be claimin’ next that you found a brass band in there.”
Ned did not stop to explain to the boy all that he had discovered in the inner chamber. His work there seemed to be finished now, and he was anxious to get back to camp. There was no knowing what had been going on there during his absence.
“Where is Liu?” he asked.
“Watchin’ outside,” was the reply. “He’s my guard. Goin’ to shoot me if I try to get away.”
“Don’t know,” replied Jimmie. “They herded a lot of Chinks an’ went off down the valley.”
Liu now appeared in the entrance, bowed gravely to the boys, and stepped out on the ledge, with a Boy Scout challenge in the wave of his hand.
“He’s all right!” Jimmie said. “You ought to see the breakfast he got up for me. That feller can cook—an’ then some!”
“Call him,” Ned suggested, “and we’ll see if it is safe for me to go out.”
“For you to go out!” repeated Jimmie. “For us to go out.”
“I think you’d better remain here,” Ned replied.
Jimmie looked at his chum in amazement. The light back there was not good, but Ned saw several questions in the boy’s eyes.
“Liu can protect you, can’t he?” Ned asked.
“That’s what I don’t know,” was the reply. “He will do his best, of course, but his best might not be good enough.”
Ned was thinking fast. If he permitted the boy to leave, the fact of his escape would be likely to scatter the outlaws—and he very much wished to keep them together for a short time.
“I think,” he said, “that we have found the men we want—with the goods. If you leave now they will make a quick getaway. You see that, don’t you?”
“Of course,” was the reply. “An’ I see, too, that if I remain I’m the one that’s likely to make a quick getaway—to a country no one comes back from.”
“There may be some other way,” Ned said, thoughtfully. “Give me a chance to think it over.”
“Oh, I’ll stay, all right,” Jimmie went on, “if it will do any good. I guess they won’t eat me alive.”
As he spoke the boy put his hand to his eyes and gave them a long rub.
“There’s smoke in here,” he said. “Don’t you smell it?”
“I was thinking of that,” Ned replied, anxiously. “There may be a fire in the cañon.”
Regardless of consequences, Jimmie rushed to the ledge and looked out. The sun was no longer in sight, for a mist of smoke hung over the cañon and over the slope to the east.
“There’s goin’ to be the biggest blaze ever!” Jimmie cried.
Liu came to the side of the boys and pointed to the south.
“The fire came through a gully over there,” he said. “I was watching it from here. It was not put out yesterday, and worked its way over the divide. When it gets to going strong here no one can live in this cavern. I’m going to get out.”
“That’s the idea!” Jimmie cried.
The cañon was a veritable fire trap. For years the boughs and the turp of the trees had been dropping down. Ned knew that the blaze would mount to the cavern and be drawn into it. The atmosphere of the place indicated openings at the rear which would serve as chimneys.
“Oh, the devils!” Jimmie cried. “To set a fire like that!”
“They didn’t set it, I tell you,” insisted Liu, speaking as if in the defense of his employers.
“Who did, then?” demanded Jimmie, half angrily.
“It came through from the other side, just as I told you,” replied Liu, with the utmost good nature. “There’ll be a pass through the range some day where the fire found its way through.”
“But they set the fire on the other side,” Jimmie urged. “They set it for the purpose of burning our aeroplane an’ driving us out of the district. When we go out of the district they’ll go with us, wearin’ steel bracelets!” he added.
“I rather think,” Liu said, “that they set the fires over there to draw the foresters, away from this section, and so protect their business. That is what they have been doing right along.”
“Yes,” Ned said, “there has been a forest fire for every cargo of opium, for every gang of Chinamen, that has been brought in over the border.”
“So that is the real trouble?” asked Jimmie. “How do you know so much about it?”
Ned smiled and pointed to the slope to the east, where columns of fire were cutting their way through the timber.
“It strikes me,” he said, “that now is a pretty good time for us to get out of this. The outlaws won’t come back so long as this danger exists, and we shall not be missed for a long time—or rather, Liu and Jimmie will not be missed.”
“They’ll think we ran out to escape the heat and lost our lives in the fire,” Liu said.
Ned stood hesitatingly at the mouth of the cavern while Liu gathered a few articles he wanted to take with him.
“If I thought the fire would reach the cave when the big trees in the cañon get to going,” he mused, “I’d go back and get the papers—or more of them.”
“It surely will get into the cave,” Liu said. “You see, the summit scoops down here quite a lot, and the timber line is almost to the top. The gulch below is quite high up on this elevation, still it is not so very high as compared with some of the summits to the north and south. So, you see, the timber line here is capable of getting up a good deal of a blaze, especially where the cañons are full of trees. The fire will come up here, all right.”
Ned darted away, was gone a minute or so, and returned with hands full of folded papers.
“What you got?” demanded Jimmie.
Ned laughed but made no satisfactory reply. After stowing the papers away in the numerous pockets of his borrowed suit, he led the way down the ledge, away from the cave he had first seen in his fall down the cañon, and which had proved so profitable to his search.
The air was now filled with smoke. The cañon below was not yet in full flame, but a column of destruction was creeping upon it from the south. It seemed to Ned that there were numerous small fires, though how this could be true he could not understand.
The boys made their way along the ledge without coming upon any of the men who had occupied the cavern. It was evident that the few left after the departure of the men with the Chinamen had fled before the clouds of smoke. The ledge wound up on the plateau from which Ned had dropped the night before, and here they paused to decide on some course of action.
The light breeze was from the west, so the fires below were in a measure protected from it by the bulk of the summit, but Ned knew that the heat would in time bring the air into the burning spaces with a rush, merging the little blazes into one gigantic one which might repeat the disasters of August, 1910.
Now and then, from far to the east, there came a signal in the shape of a gunshot. The faithful foresters were at work there, trying to head off the advancing flames before they passed beyond control. The place to combat a forest fire, of course, is ahead of it, and not where the red line is running through the sputtering timber.
“If I could get the aeroplane,” Ned said, as he looked over the country from the plateau, “I might get to the fighting line and do some good.”
“Where is it?” asked Liu.
“At the camp.”
“The others won’t dare bring it out, of course?” asked Liu.
“Doubtful,” Ned replied. “Frank has always taken a great interest in the machine, and was studying its mechanism when I left, but I don’t think he will attempt to operate it. He ought not to, anyway.”
“If the men who left here to pinch the boys,” Jimmie said, “showed up at the camp, an’ Frank got a chance to mount the aeroplane, you bet your life he’s shootin’ through the air with it this minute, or hidin’ in some valley.”
“But there were three of them,” Ned urged, “and all couldn’t ride.”
“They’d try!” gritted Jimmie, “unless Pat got cold feet an’ run away.”
Ned glanced up at the sky, now very thick with smoke, as the boy spoke. He looked with indifference at first, then with interest, then with anxiety. There was a shape moving up there, coming slowly toward the plateau.
“There they are!” shouted Jimmie, whose attention had been attracted to the sky by Ned’s fixed gaze. “Frank’s runnin’ the machine. I’ll bet dollars to apples that he’ll dump her into the cañon when he tries to land here.”
The aeroplane, indeed, looked as if there were an uncertain hand at the helm. She wavered, tipped in the air currents, dipped wickedly, circled staggeringly, but finally swooped down on the plateau and, more by good luck than good handling, settled down within a dozen feet of the lip of the cañon. Frank and Jack were aboard. Pat, they said, had taken to his heels at the first suggestion of his joining the others in the ride.
Ned examined the machine carefully and found it in excellent shape, although the gasoline was getting low.
“Better go an’ get some,” Jimmie suggested.
Ned looked toward the line of smoke off to the east.
“We can reach the firing line with what we have,” he said, in a moment, “and that may be sufficient for the present.”
“What you goin’ to do?” demanded the boy.
“Going to see if I can’t help fight this fire,” was the reply.
“From here?” laughed Jack.
Ned indicated a distant line of hills where the forest still stood green on the slopes.
“We’ll fight the fire from there,” he said. “We can see the location well enough now, but the smoke will soon shut it out from here.”
“What can we do when we get there?” asked Jack. “We are safe enough here. The smoke and heat may scorch us a little, but we’ll live through it, and that is more than we can say about the safety of the place you point out.”
“Pat will be making his way here,” Ned said, “and you may as well remain here and meet him. I’ll take Frank and go over to the place where the foresters are fighting the blaze.”
Jimmie was on his feet in an instant.
“Me for the ride with you!” he shouted.
“Some one may have to run the machine back,” Ned said. “You can’t do that, my little man, and Frank can, so Frank goes.”
“I don’t see what you can do over there that the foresters can’t do,” Liu said.
“There is no knowing how useful the aeroplane may be,” Ned said.
Then the machine was rolled back as far up the plateau as possible, the boys took their seats, and then they were lost in the dense clouds of smoke in the sky.
The smoke was driving fiercely through the green trees on the slope, and the line of fire was not far in the rear. Every moment the wind gained force, every minute the flames leaped higher and faster.
The foresters felling trees and clearing a space at an advantageous point some distance in advance of the flames were working blindly, mechanically. The heat was intense, the smoke suffocating, irritating, blinding. The shirts of the workers were open at the throat, their coats had long ago been lost as they had been beaten back from one stand to another.
Now and then a worker dropped senseless in his tracks, his lips cracked with the heat, his face blistered, his tongue lolling from his smarting mouth like that of an overworked horse. Then the men who were able to move and understand would carry him back to a spot of supposed safety and return to re-engage in the almost hopeless fight, the battle which the flames were winning in every charge and sally.
The aeroplane, after a narrow escape from destruction, landed on a little rise of ground back of the working line when the wind lulled for an instant, and hope shone in the faces of the astonished men who gathered about to greet the unexpected arrivals.
“We can master it,” Green, the leader, said, after many questions had been asked and answered, “if we can be supplied with water. We wasted our supply wetting our clothes a long time ago, and are suffering.”
“Get us water,” shouted another, “and we’ll win yet.”
“There’s a spring three miles away,” Green went on, speaking in Ned’s ear, for the roaring of the flames drowned all ordinary conversation. “If you can take our water bottles there and fill them we can beat this blaze. If you can’t we’ve got to retreat and let the whole district burn over.”
“I have very little gasoline,” Ned replied, “but I’ll try.”
“We sent two men out not long ago,” Green continued, thrusting his scorched face close to the boy’s. “We sent them out with water bags, but there are no trails, and It will take them hours to make the spring and return. With your aeroplane you ought to do it within half an hour.”
“Fire fighters marooned without a supply of water, or a trail cut to a spring!” shouted Frank, scornfully. “Great head some one in authority has!”
“There are no trails, no telephones, no horses!” cried Green. “It looks as if the government sent us here to die. Hurry up with that water.”
“If the gasoline holds out,” Ned said, loading a dozen water bags on the machine, “I’ll be back here in less than half an hour, bar accidents.”
“There is plenty of gasoline back there in the shanty,” cried Green. “We have been using it lately in starting back fires, but the wind is now too strong for that. Get a move on, and take all you want.”
In a short space of time, but not without great risk, the tanks of the aeroplane were filled, and then Ned took in the general situation in the sky. The wind was blowing in puffs, but it was certain that a miniature tornado was at hand. He thought he could reach the spring, which had been described as lying to the southeast, but was not certain that he could make his way back.
He believed, however, that by flying either very low or very high up, so as to get all the protection possible from the mountain, or escape the sweep of wind just above the fire, he might be able to bring in one load of water before the worst of the wind storm came. He knew that it was an almost unheard of thing to even try to navigate the air in such a gale, but human lives were at stake, and he decided to try.
“You’ll have to help me up against this wind,” Ned said to Green. “If I start with the air current I’ll be carried too far to the east before my power begins to become effective. If I can hold my own against the wind until I get above the smoke I think I can win the game.”
It was a desperate expedient, but it appeared to be the only possible one. If the men had water they might succeed in stopping the fire and saving millions of dollars worth of timber. If the fire gained the upper hand they might lose their lives. The men cleared and smoothed a path for the run of the wheels, by great exertion sent the machine along at good speed, and then stood and watched it with anxiety depicted in their faces.
The great white bird quivered in the face of the wind, but the motors were true to their duty and the rudder held. To turn about in the face of that rush would be impossible, so Ned worked his levers guardedly and kept the wings as level as he could. Now and then a swirl of heated air would shake the hopes of those watching below, but in the end the aeroplane drifted slowly ahead, up, higher up, and was lost in the smoke.
“The lad is worth his weight in gold!” shouted Green. “He’ll do it! I know he’ll do it!”
“Powerful motor,” one of the foresters said. “When we saw the machine last she was actually holding her own against the wind.”
This was, indeed, the fact, but the wind was not as strong in the higher levels as at the upper limit of the heat from the fires. A great fire usually brings a great wind, as those who witnessed the burning of Chicago and San Francisco well know. The hot air rises, forming a partial vacuum, and the colder air rushes in.
Ned and Frank gained the spring, filled their water bags and started back. It was no easy task to land near the spring in that whirl of wind, nor yet an easy task to get the aeroplane into the air again, but the feats were accomplished. Often after that exciting day the boys declared that they had no idea how they ever did it.
“We were excited,” Frank would say, “and took chances, everything worked in our favor, and we loaded the water. We knew that lives were at stake, and it seemed that we had the strength of a score of men, and the cool heads of men far beyond all excitement. I never saw anything like the way Ned handled the levers. The wings and the rudders seemed to me to work on a brain suggestion rather than on a movement of the levers.”
But the most difficult part of the journey still remained to be accomplished after the water had been secured. The ’plane was much heavier and did not respond so readily to the hand of the driver, and the return course was quartering against the wind. Ned, however, did not attempt to move directly toward the destination he sought.
Instead he sailed off to the south, working west as much as possible. He tacked as a yacht tacks in the wind and came near upsetting several times. He found it impossible to sail low on account of the eddies and currents created by the heat, and so lifted the machine far up into the air. It was better sailing there, and he managed to get as far west as he thought necessary.
But he could not see the landing place. Below was an ocean of smoke, the waves heaving in the touch of the wind, the edges now and then tipped with flame. Above the sun smiled at him, and the birds flew excitedly about, peering down at the threatening roll of clouds.
“I’m afraid,” Frank said, grasping an upright and clinging to the water bags.
“I never was so frightened in my life,” Ned called back, lifting his voice so that it might be heard above the snapping of the motors.
“I didn’t finish,” Frank called back, his heart thumping loudly. “I wanted to say that I was afraid we’d sweep past the workers when we descended into the smoke and the swifter breeze near the earth.”
“I said just what I wanted to say,” Ned answered. “I never was half so scared in all my life.”
Yet his hand on the lever was steady, his brain was as cool as if he had been sitting in the Wolf Patrol club room in New York. He knew that the dip of a wing a foot lower than he intended might send them both into the blazing forest below. He was afraid, but not with a shrinking, physical fear, but afraid because he understood the peril he was in—because he knew that upon his efforts depended the lives of the heroes in the heated hell below.
“We’ve got to go into that mess of smoke, I suppose?” shouted Frank.
“There is no other way,” Ned called back. “We’ve got to dip down low enough to see the line of fire and take our chances on landing where the fighters are. You understand that they are farther to the east than when we left them?”
“Of course they have been driven back,” Frank said. “I never thought of that. We may not be able to find them at all.”
Ned shut his teeth and settled his jaw.
“We’ve got to find them,” he said.
A long, sullen roaring, like the beating of waves on a beach in a storm, now reached the boys’ ears, even shutting out the chattering of the motors. It came from the west, and passed along, as it seemed, below the level held by the aeroplane, now high up in the air.
“If we don’t get down there pretty soon,” Ned said, shouting, “we will be too late. That wind will join the different fires and make one roaring mass of the whole northwest. I wish I knew just how far the foresters have been driven back.”
“Do you know where to look for them, north or south?” asked Frank.
“There is a peak to the west and one to the east,” was the reply. “They are on a line with the two. But the trouble is that we can’t see the peaks after we drop down into the smoke.”
“There appears to be a little lull in the wind now,” Frank said, shutting his lips tight, as a man does when about to make a sudden plunge into unknown waters.
The remark was suggestive. Ned knew by it that his chum had braced himself for the dash.
“Here we go, then,” Ned replied. “Remember that we’ll go about eighty miles an hour when I turn the motor on full head, and that we can’t be more than five miles from the spot where we left them, so keep your eyes out.”
The aeroplane dipped gracefully as Ned touched the lever. In a minute the boys were surrounded by smoke. It was hot smoke, too, and made breathing difficult. Their eyes smarted until their faces were wet with nature’s protest against such irritation of the organs of sight. The chuck-chuck, snap-snap of the motors was in their ears, the seats they occupied—frail rests between life and death—shivered under the pulsations of the machine.
Now and then the aeroplane dipped frightfully, but the wings and the rudders brought it back again.
“Can you see the earth yet?” asked Frank, In an awed tone, which sounded like a whisper in that clatter.
“We seem to be over the fire,” Ned returned.
And that was all. There was no need of conversation. In all their lives they would never be so near to a frightful death as they were then.
First they caught sight of a rocky ridge. Ned knew where that was, and realized that he was still in the direct line of the workers. Beyond this ridge, he knew, was a valley, so he must drop down. The workers were on a level beyond the valley, a great plain of fir and pine between gigantic ranges of the Rocky Mountains.
The aeroplane trembled as she dropped, swiftly, apparently straight down. Frank grasped his upright and prepared to spring out of the wreckage when it fell, if there was anything to fall from after the trees had had their way with the frail machine.
The smoke was blinding. Nothing could be seen but smoke for a time. Then the dark gray clouds turned red, and Ned knew that he was nearing the advance line of the fire, and that it was mounting to the very tops of the giant trees on the plain—or elevated plateau, rather, for, though comparatively smooth of surface and heavily timbered, it was far above sea level.
If you look on an enlarged map of northern Montana you will see that the Rocky Mountains do not consist of one great, massive range. There are ridges and valleys, and plateaus extending for hundreds of miles along the British frontier. There are peaks from which the snow never disappears, and there are timber lines which crawl almost to the summit of other peaks. There are fertile valleys where cattle grow fat, and great gorges where beasts of prey await their victims in thickets.
It is the timber on this great stretch of country that the United States government is trying to save.
The heat was blistering now, and Ned feared for the safety of his gasoline tanks. At a motion from him Frank removed his coat, carefully, for a slight movement in the air is sometimes productive of disastrous results, placed it over the tanks, after a great effort, and managed to saturate it with water from one of the bags.
Through the smoke a line of tree tops now came into view, low down, and the boys knew that they had passed the fire line. Ned tried to slow down, but found that he must keep the motors going in order to retain control of the machine.
“There’s a clear space ahead!” Frank shouted, and Ned dropped. Then a giant trunk obtruded itself, and the boy tried to dip and whirl so as to dodge it, but the pressure of the wind was too strong.
The machine headed straight for the tree, which seemed to Frank to be about a thousand feet high.
“Hang on to the first thing that comes to your hands if she strikes!” Ned shouted. “But stick to the ’plane as long as she is clear. There may be a current of air which will sweep us away from that tree.”
“Here’s hoping!” Frank gasped back, and then the smoke shut out the view, making the situation doubly dangerous.
The rangers, almost exhausted, were fighting the fire desperately, hoping against hope, when the cyclone—it amounted at times almost to that—struck the forest. Then they knew that the fight was lost for the time being.
It was now a question of escaping from the flames they had been battling with. The chief foresters knew very well that there was a way to safety, but they had under their command many rangers who had joined the service merely for the adventures they anticipated meeting, and these, they understood, would be hard to manage.
When the order came to drop everything and fall back some of the new men accused those in authority of cowardice and kept on in the course mapped out for them under entirely different conditions. Two of them even insisted on starting back to the rough shanty and preparing dinner. They lost their way in the blazing inferno, and their bones were found two weeks later, at the foot of a tree which had been burned into a stub, but which had not fallen.
When the danger became apparent to Green who was in charge of the company found by Nestor, he ordered his men into a “burn” of half a dozen acres in extent. By “burn” is meant a patch of forest which has been cleared by fire the previous year. This “burn” was entirely stripped of trees. The fire had done its work well, but had been checked before spreading.
The men could hear trees falling as they dashed along. The fire was screaming, the wind whistling and roaring. Coals of fire, driven like arrows by the wind, hit the men in the back as they rushed toward safety. At last the “burn” was gained, and the men threw themselves face down on the ground. At the eastern edge there were large logs which had not been entirely consumed, and some of the men lay down behind them.
The air was so hot that it cut the lungs like acid. Above, across the old “burn,” streamed a river of flame, now racing like a mountain torrent, now dropping sullenly back to the west, like a fiery ceiling which had been rolled away. On such occasions the fainting foresters below could catch a breath of fresh air and a hazy view of the sky.
Some of the men, half crazed by their sufferings, arose to their feet and shook clenched hands at the blazing forests, at the brassy sky, and the green hills away to the east. Green crept from one to another and whispered that the only hope of life lay in keeping on the ground.
Once when he was creeping toward a man who was moaning in anguish and despair he turned his eyes upward to the sky, clear for an instant, for the wind was wayward after a time, and saw a speck sweeping out of the west, dropping lower and lower, whirling in the wind, racing like an express train.
“Dan,” he whispered to the man he was trying to comfort, “get a brace! There’s no use of giving up now. Why, man, the fight is won, and Nestor is coming back with water!”
“Impossible!” grunted the other. “Impossible—in this wind!”
“Then look,” Green said.
A sheet of flame swept over the “burn,” lay upon it for an instant like a red-hot roof, and then warped and twisted itself away.
“I see,” Dan said, looking into the sky again, “but he can’t land. Impossible—in this storm!”
“Wait and see!” Green said, and sank back to the earth.
The aeroplane circled, high up, like a bird seeking its prey in the burning forest. The wind was tolerably steady at that height, but Ned knew that when he came into the lower current he would meet conditions which he could not understand.
“There’s a place to drop!” Frank shouted to him, pointing ahead to the “burn,” which seemed only a few yards away.
The aeroplane had missed the tree which had threatened it by an inch, and had turned upward again, for there were other trees in the way of a descent there. The “burn” was the first free spot that had been observed, and, besides, it lay inside the line Ned had figured as leading to the foresters.
“Hang on!” Ned cried.
The aeroplane plunged down, almost vertically, and Frank felt as if he was standing on his head.
“Don’t jump when it strikes the ground,” Ned commanded.
Watched by a score of anxious eyes—for the foresters under Green had all been told of the coming relief—the aeroplane shot down, struck the ground at the center of the “burn,” rolled swiftly for a few yards, and stopped. At that moment the space above filled with flame.
Both boys threw themselves on the ground and waited. When the fierce gust was over the men gathered about them eagerly.
“Did you make it?” asked Green.
“Yes,” Ned replied. “Get the bags out and distribute the water. Don’t let the men waste it.”
“I’ll see to that,” cried Green.
Without the water, without the cooling sips, without the wet cloths held over nose and mouth, without the saturated sponges laid on scorched heads, the men would have died there in the forest. Presently, when the consumption of the timber to the west reduced the heat, when the wind quieted down in a measure, they were ready for another fight with the flames, and it was owing largely to their exertions that the fire was extinguished before millions of acres had been burned over.
“It is a dream!” Green exclaimed, that afternoon, as he stood by Ned and the aeroplane. “I don’t believe yet that you did it.”
“I don’t see how I did,” laughed Ned. “Anyhow, I’m sure I couldn’t do it again. I guess Providence took the matter into his own hands. Honestly, I do not believe any human strength or skill could do what was done with the aeroplane to-day. It was a miracle.”
“I know of a nervy boy who had something to do with the miracle,” said Green.
Ned was naturally anxious regarding Pat, Jack and Jimmie, but believed they would show up in good form whenever he got back to the vicinity of the place where they had been left. When the boys were in camp with the rangers that night, Ned asked Frank about Pat’s idea of safety after refusing to go up in the aeroplane.
“He said he would stay about the valley,” Frank replied. “There is plenty of provisions there, you know, and Pat is quite long on the eats,” he added, with a laugh.
“And Jack and Jimmie will be sure to hang about the neighborhood of the caves,” Ned said. “The Chinese boy, Liu, will be able to care for them. If there is enough gasoline in the tanks, I may go back to the valley to-night.”
“You’d better get some sleep to-night,” Frank advised. “I don’t know how long it has been since you settled down for a night of it. If you keep your brain working right you’ve got to sleep.”
“I really ought to go to San Francisco,” was the astonishing reply to this advice. “I have work to do there.”
“What work?” demanded Frank.
“You see,” Ned answered, “we have done nothing yet, except discover a crime with which we are supposed to have nothing to do. We have brought a little water for the fire-fighters, but we came here for a certain purpose, and we have not made good as yet. Perhaps, when I get to Frisco, I can hunch my wits, as the baseball fans say, and report good progress.”
“I don’t understand what you mean,” Frank said.
“I am not sufficiently sure of my ground to attempt an explanation now,” Ned replied.
“Of course,” Frank said, thoughtfully, “there’s the murder case you went to Frisco about before. You might look that up again, but I can’t see where that has any bearing on this forest fire business.”
“You may be surprised,” Ned said, “when the end comes. Somehow, I have an idea that the two crimes dovetail into each other.”
“Nothing stirring!” laughed Frank. “They don’t seem to me to match. Still, you may have information I do not possess.”
An hour later, after the not very elaborate supper had been eaten, Green came to the little tent which had been set aside for Ned and Frank. He had not wholly escaped the dangers of the day unscathed. There were burns on his hands and face, and one of his feet was bandaged.
“Shoe burned through,” he said, shortly. “I shall have to walk with a crutch for several days.”
“You won’t like that,” Ned suggested.
“No, indeed,” was the reply, “especially as I would like to be moving about in order to see what has happened to the other boys.”
“Have you heard from any of the other groups?” asked Ned.
“Howard came in from the north,” was the reply. “Three men killed up there. The fire caught them unawares. One of my men has gone south, but it will be some hours before I hear from him.”
“I am afraid there were several lives lost,” Ned said. “In the morning I’ll fly about and see what I can learn.”
“What I came here to talk about,” Green said, after a pause, “is this. I want to know what you think of the Chinks?”
“The Chinese fire-fighters?” asked Ned.
Green laughed quietly for a moment before replying. Then:
“They told you that, did they?”
Ned nodded. He wanted to jump into the subject without waiting for Green to have his say, for he was greatly interested, but prudence told him to listen to the forester first.
“Yes,” he said. “They told me that.”
“Also that they were foresters—the men who told the story about the Chinks, I mean?”
“Yes, one of them claimed to be in charge of this district.”
“Well, you know better than that now, so there is no use in talking about that. You saw some of the Chinks?”
“Certainly. I even had the honor of visiting their residence.”
Frank laughed, wondering what sort of a story Ned would have to tell him when they were alone again.
“It is a wonder you ever got out again,” Green said.
“I left under the excitement of the fire,” Ned said. “It was easy enough.”
“Do you know where the Chinks have gone?” asked Green.
“I think I do,” was the reply.
“To San Francisco?”
“Yes, some of them. Others to Portland, I think.”
“Smuggled in?”
“Of course, though it seems odd that they should want to cross the border so far away from civilization. It must be expensive getting them in over such a route.”
“The men at the bottom of the game are watched,” Green said. “Watched so closely that they are obliged to keep out of the actual work and do their business through unsuspected channels. After this place has been raided they will try some other point.”
“You know what has been going on then?” asked Ned, surprised that the matter, as understood by the forester, had not been reported to him by the Secret Service man in San Francisco.
“Yes,” was the reply.
“And you have reported to your superior officers?”
Green nodded, and Ned began to feel provoked at the strange attitude taken by the government in the matter. Surely he should have been posted as to conditions in the district before being sent on.
“Why wasn’t I informed of this new element in the case?” he asked.
“Well,” Green replied, “the officials have an idea that the men who are running the Chinks and the opium in are the men who are responsible for the forest fires. In fact, I have so reported to them for a long time.”
“Go on,” the puzzled boy requested.
“You see,” Green continued, “I might go and pick up a couple of dozen Chinks almost any month, and capture a lot of opium, and arrest a few men caught with the goods on, but, don’t you see, that wouldn’t end the game?”
“I see that,” Ned answered.
“There is a man at the head of this game who is working from behind the scenes somewhere,” Green hastened to say. “I don’t know who he is. The officials at San Francisco don’t know who he is, or where he is. The big guns at Washington know just about as much regarding the head center of the game as we do. Well, that is what you were sent here for—to get down to cases, as I used to say on South Clark street, Chicago.”
“It was thoughtful of them not to interrupt the game until I got here,” Ned said.
“Yes, I thought so,” Green went on. “I thought that any man, or boy, coming here to get to the bottom of this thing would want us to leave a few ropes hanging out for him to climb down. You found ’em.”
“Yes, I found them,” Ned replied. “I found the counterfeit foresters and the Chinks, as you call them, and I found something else.”
“That is what we expected you would do,” Green said, after a moment’s hesitation. “We wanted you to begin without pointers, with a brain free of all the unsuccessful schemes which have been worked. You see, I know a great deal about it, my boy,” he added with a laugh. “I knew, days ago, that you would be here. When I saw the aeroplane in the sky I knew who was in charge of it.”
“What is the next move?” asked the boy.
“That is for you to say,” was the reply. “I am under orders to follow any reasonable instructions from you. It is for you to suggest something.”
“Well,” Ned said, “that brings me to a point I was studying over when you came in. I was wondering if you would detail men to do certain things for me.”
“Sure I will. If Washington has confidence enough in you to put you in charge of the blindest case in history, why shouldn’t I have equal confidence in you? You bet I’ll be there with the oxen when you give the word.”
“I thank you,” Ned replied. “What I want now is men enough to guard two points. One is a cave near Lake Kintla, and the other is the cavern where the Chinese have been hiding.”
“How many men?” asked Green.
“Two to each place. If there is need of more, others should be ready to assist.”
“I wish you all success,” Green said, after the details of the surveillance had been arranged. “We have located the tools, and now it is for you to let down to bed rock. The government wants the headpiece of this game, and believes that you can put your finger on him. Half a dozen inspectors have failed, but I have faith in you, boy.”
“Well,” Ned replied, “I am glad of your confidence, and thankful for the help you promise, and will only say that the man behind the scenes will soon be brought out. I think I know his ‘cue’!” he added, with a laugh.
“I am only expressing confidence in the clues I now hold,” Ned said in reply. “It may be that the next clues I find will point the other way.”
Green shook hands with the boys and went to his tent. It was a clear night up above the mountain tops, but down where the boys were the smoke of consumed forests lay on the ground like the gray ghost of fallen trees. Off to the west the summit of the Rocky Mountains—or one of the summits—lifted itself above the smudge, standing like a giant up to his neck in gray dust.
“Over there,” Frank said, “is Pat—hungry, if you want to know, and nearer are Jack and Jimmie. I wish we could hear from them.”
“If the ground wasn’t still red hot back there,” Ned said, “Jimmie would be sure to find us.”
“By the way,” Frank said, presently, “what did you mean when you told Green that you had a ‘cue’ which would bring out the man behind the scenes?”
“I meant that I have blundered on a clue which promises well,” was the reply. “And now,” he said, yawning, “I’m going to bed. Rather warm, but I think I’ll sleep, all right.”
In five minutes Ned was sound asleep and Frank was about to lie down by his side when Green made his appearance. The forester noted the sleeping boy and laid a finger on his lips.
“Let him sleep,” he said. “And come out here and see if you know anything about the fellow that is tampering with the aeroplane.”
“What is he doing to it?” whispered Frank.
“Acts like he was preparing to take a trip in it,” was the reply.
The words were followed by the rattle of the motors.