“Better fly low,” said Ned to Jerry, who was guiding the airship. “If you go up too high,” he went on, as they were approaching the location of the mysterious gorge, “they may see you.”
As far as they could learn by looking down and sweeping the landscape through powerful glasses, they were not seen, and the airship settled down at the entrance of the defile, to give the boys and the professor a chance to find the secret door before the cowboys arrived.
“We’ve got about three hours,” Jerry said. “It will take them that long to ride here.”
They entered the V-gorge, and when they came to the place where, always before, they had been stopped by the lack of the cattle signs, they examined the ground with new interest.
“Look at those splinters of wood!” exclaimed Ned. “That shows where the big stone-boat was pulled along over the stones, laden with cattle.”
“That’s right,” agreed Jerry. “Probably those splinters were there all the while.”
“It’s queer we didn’t notice ’em!” cried Ned. “I don’t believe they were as plain before. I’m sure we would have taken some notice of them if they had been. More likely they put more cattle on the wooden drag this time, so as to hurry them through the passage, and because of the greater weight more splinters were rubbed off.”
“That’s right,” agreed Jerry. “Anyhow, the thing is plain now, and if we follow the splinter trail to where it ends it ought to bring us right to the secret door. Where the splinters end there is the entrance.”
“That was my idea,” said Professor Snodgrass with a smile.
They followed the “splinter trail,” as they called it, until it came to an end right where the two sides of the big stony V came together.
“Here ought to be the door—here or hereabouts,” the professor said as he drew a geologist’s hammer from his pocket, for he was a geologist as well as a botanist and a “bugologist.”
He began to tap gently on the walls of the defile. They were of rough stone, and so cunningly had the concrete coating been made for the wooden door that it could not be detected by an difference in hue or texture.
But suddenly the hammer, instead of giving back a sharp, thudding sound, produced a hollow boom.
“There it is!” cried Jerry.
“Right,” assented the scientist. “And you can see the outline of the door,” and he pointed to an irregular crack starting at the floor of the gorge, rising up about five feet, always irregular, then down again until it reached the rocky floor once more, the space between being roughly shaped like an inverted U with about ten feet distance between the two points.
“But how does it open?” asked Ned. “If we can’t get through we aren’t much better off than before.”
“It is only a light wooden door, covered on the outside with expanded metal lath and that, in turn, with concrete,” said the professor. “It was made in this irregular shape so that the crack, where it fitted into the opening of the tunnel, would look like a crack in the wall. But now we know what the crack means we can pry the door open.”
Ned ran to get the necessary tools, and while he was coming back with them Jerry and Bob looked at the secret door. It was so cunningly devised that from the gorge few would have guessed its existence. They, in their previous searches, had probably stared right at the crack but uncomprehendingly.
Ned returned with a short iron bar, sharp and flat at one end. With this, and an axe, they attacked the secret door. As the professor had said, having gained his knowledge from overhearing the thieves talk while he was a captive, the portal was really but a shell. It was quickly forced open, the secret lock on the inside being broken.
Though they worked quickly they made as little noise as possible, for they feared, from what Professor Snodgrass had said about the two entrances being guarded, that someone would be stationed near the secret door.
But no alarm was raised, for while it was true that a guard was usually kept at the farther end of the tunnel, where it opened into the valley, on this occasion the man had been called away to help in re-branding the cattle.
So, thus favored by fortune, the Motor Boys and the professor were able, undetected by those whom they sought to capture, to force open the door. As it swung back on iron hinges set in the inner face of the rock, a dark tunnel was revealed. Hesitating a moment, to make sure none of the rustlers was there, they stepped in.
“Look! here’s the stone-boat and the ropes and pulleys they used to haul the cattle over a space so all trace of them would be lost,” exclaimed Bob, pointing to the contrivance that was at the opening of the tunnel, which, in reality was a large cave.
“Yes, that’s what I had my midnight ride on,” laughed Professor Snodgrass, who seemed to take huge delight in leading a raid on his former captors. “This is a new one they had just finished making in the woods when, unexpectedly, they caught me.”
“Hadn’t we better wait for the cowboys?” asked Bob, as Jerry and Ned seemed inclined to lead the way farther along the tunnel. “Besides, it’s so dark we can’t see more than a few feet,” and he pointed to the black void beyond.
“Yes, it is dark, and we’ll need lanterns,” said the scientist. “But we have time to go along a little way and explore. The raiding party won’t be here for some time yet.”
“We have plenty of electric flashes on the airship,” Jerry said. “We’ll get them and have a look.”
Presently they were going forward. It was new ground to the professor, as well as to the others, for he had never been in the tunnel. This latter was evidently a hollow shaft under the mountain, caused by an earthquake perhaps, or, more probably, by the erosion of an underground river.
The tunnel was about ten feet high and about as broad, being oval in shape. There was room to drive many cattle along it, and there were evidences that many had been so driven.
“Go a bit easy,” advised Ned. “We don’t want to burst out of the other end of this shaft into the midst of the rustlers.”
“Oh, the tunnel is about a mile long,” said the professor. “And the end is screened by bushes, so you’ll have plenty of chance to be on your guard.”
They hurried silently along the big rocky shaft, their electric flashlight casting queer, flickering shadows on the walls. The professor took the lead when they judged they had covered nearly the distance estimated, and presently he came to a halt.
“We’re near the end,” he said, indicating a glimmer of daylight. “Better put out your electrics.”
This the boys did. Then, proceeding still more cautiously, they presently found themselves looking through a screen of bushes at a curious sight.
Down in a sort of gigantic bowl of a valley, the presence of which they had not detected in their wanderings, as it was the depressed top of a big, deeply wooded hill, they saw a score or more of cowboys and a herd of steers, the latter being driven hither and yon in the process of having the brand of the Square Z ranch obliterated, and another substituted.
“The rustlers!” whispered Jerry.
“There they are!” murmured Bob.
“The secret solved at last!” cried Ned, in a suppressed voice. “Now dad will say we’re some pumpkins, I guess!”
“Only we haven’t got ’em yet,” remarked Jerry, cautiously.
“I guess they won’t get away,” came grimly from the professor. “And then I can get back my precious specimens I had to abandon. I hope they haven’t destroyed them.”
Marking the conformation of the valley, and noting the spot the professor pointed out as the egress, the boys and the scientist returned to the tunnel entrance. They had not long to wait before Hinkee Dee and the other cowboys came riding up.
“Are they there?” the assistant foreman asked eagerly, and he addressed Ned, Bob and Jerry in the most cordial tones he had ever used.
“All ready to go in and get,” Jerry replied.
“That’s good! Come on now, fellows!”
The situation was quickly explained, and plans for a rush made. The cowboys rode their horses into the tunnel, preceded by the boys and the professor with lights. At the far end they halted and then, after some whispered instructions from Hinkee Dee, the whole force went cautiously out and was posted behind the screening bushes.
“All ready now?” asked Hinkee Dee, as he scanned his waiting horsemen.
“All ready,” was the answer. Bob, Ned and Jerry had managed to get places in the front rank. The professor, as soon as he saw the preparations completed, went to one side in a quiet chase after some big bug he saw.
“Let her go!” said Hinkee Dee. “But don’t begin to yell or ride hard until they’ve seen us. Then rush ’em!”
This advice was followed. And so busy were the rustlers branding the steers that the attacking cowboys had ridden a quarter of the way toward them before the alarm was given.
And then it was too late to make a strong resistance. With a fusillade of revolver shots, with wild yells and waving of hats, while the ponies galloped on unguided by rein, the raiders rushed to the attack. The rustlers could not have been taken at a greater disadvantage. Not one of them was armed, all having laid aside their guns to work at the branding.
“Throw up your hands!” came the stern order from Hinkee Dee, his two guns pointed at the outlaws, and the order was sullenly obeyed. One rustler tried to make a dash for his horse, probably intending to seek the egress. But a shot fired over his head caused him to stop, and in a short time the whole gang was captured.
“Well, we’ve got you at last!” exclaimed Hinkee Dee, as he and his friends looked around the discomfited gang, many of whom were known, at least by reputation, to the cowboys. “Caught you in the act, too.”
“Yes, I guess you’ve got the goods on us,” admitted one of the outlaws. “But I’d like to know how you found us.”
“I showed them the way!” exclaimed a mild voice at Hinkee Dee’s stirrup. “And now I’d thank you for my specimens. They’re very valuable. There’s one red bug that——”
“Jumpin’ molasses barrels!” cried Black Henderson, the leader. “It’s the bug-house chap! So you got away, did you?”
“Yes. And I came back again. Now for my specimens,” and the professor hurried off to the shack where he had been held prisoner, coming back presently with several boxes under his arms and a happy smile on his face. He had done his part to aid his friends, and the specimens he secured afterward proved to be of great scientific value.
“Got them—every one!” he called, and from then on he took no more interest in the raid.
The prisoners were bound and driven out of the tunnel and eventually to town where they were locked up. The stolen cattle were gathered together, and headed for their home range.
“Well, boys,” said Hinkee Dee to Ned, Bob and Jerry as they were on their way to the ranch after the prisoners had been disposed of, “I want to congratulate you and say I was wrong in calling you tenderfeet. You’re one of us from now on. I was hopin’ to assimilate these rustlers myself, but you and the professor got ahead of me.
“Hello, what was the reason you didn’t come along with us, Munson?” he asked, as he dismounted at the corral and saw the cattle buyer standing near. “We needed all the help we could get.”
“I had business elsewhere.”
“Couldn’t have been more important business than roundin’-up the rustlers, to my way of thinkin’.”
“I was doing a little rounding-up myself,” was the smiling answer.
“You! Who’d you round up?”
“The Parson,” was the quiet answer.
“The Parson!” was yelled by a score.
“Yes, the head of the rustling gang, its prime mover and the man who gave them information when and where to make their raids on Square Z ranch.”
“Whew!” whistled Hinkee Dee; and the others expressed their surprise in different ways. “How’d you come to do that, Munson?”
“Peck’s my name,” was the quiet rejoinder. “Henry Peck, and I’m a detective. I was sent out here from New York.”
At this the boys started and looked at one another.
“I was sent on by your father,” said Mr. Peck, smiling at Ned, “to see what I could do. Evidently he didn’t take much stock in your efforts. But I shall tell him he was wrong. I did only a little end of it.”
“And you got the Parson,” murmured Gimp, amazed.
“Yes, I got the Parson! He is one of the most notorious cattle swindlers known, and the authorities have been looking for him a long time. I heard of him in Des Moines, and then I came on here. I guess you boys didn’t think much of me at first, did you?” Mr. Peck asked Jerry.
“No; not an awful lot. We thought you were a rustler yourself.”
“Especially after that fake about your leg,” added Ned.
“Well, that was a fake—part of it, anyhow,” admitted the detective. “I did see the rustlers drive off the cattle and they fired at me. They didn’t hit me; but I saw a chance to pretend to be wounded so I could have a good excuse for staying around the place here. That’s what I did, and in that way I got evidence against the Parson. I intercepted some messages he sent to the rustlers, made copies of them and they’ll be used for evidence. He was the real head of the gang.”
“Whew!” exclaimed Ned. “And we thought he was so good!”
“I guess you thought I was sort of mean, didn’t you?” asked Hinkee Dee.
“Yes,” admitted Jerry.
“But I want to say it wasn’t me who changed horses on you that time,” went on the assistant foreman. “I saw the Parson do it, but I wasn’t going to squeal. I didn’t know what his game was but I see now. He wanted to discourage you.”
“Of course not,” Jerry agreed. “I guess he had his reasons for trying to get us away from here.”
“The very best!” laughed Henry Peck. “And now I think you’d better send word home. The main credit belongs to you boys, for if you hadn’t rescued the professor you’d never have known where the rustlers’ headquarters were. I doubt if I could have forced the Parson to tell.
“I stayed away from the raid to-day to get the last bit of evidence against him I needed. And I got it—and him. He’s in jail with the rest of his gang now.”
There is little more to tell. The workings of the cattle thieves were revealed with the arrest of the entire gang. As has been related, they would run off a bunch of cattle when the signal was sent them by the Parson, who, working at the ranch, knew all its operations. Then the steers would be held in the secret valley until a favorable time to send them out to innocent buyers.
The detective’s boast that he had bought Square Z stock under the market price was not a vain one, as he had done so in order to get evidence, though it was worthless at the time. Eventually, the lawless men received their punishment.
Mr. Peck, or Mr. Munson, a name he often went by, had been sent out to Square Z ranch by Mr. Baker as soon as the boys started. He traveled faster than they, and knew when they were to arrive in Des Moines. His attempt to make friends with them was more a joke than anything else, so as to be able to send word back to their parents that they were all right.
He learned of their arrival at the ranch, and, after having worked up some clues himself, he came on, surprising them at their airship. The detective tried to solve the mystery of where the stolen cattle were hidden, but was unsuccessful. He did, however, suspect the Parson, and with good reason, and laid his plans to trap him. The latter was a “slick” rustler, though, and, for a time, baffled the efforts of Mr. Peck.
It was soon learned that one of the rustlers, who had been sent by the others to spy on the deserted camp of the cowboys on the mountain top had fired at the airship.
“Well, I suppose we’ll have to be going back to Boxwood Hall soon now,” said Bob one day, following the receipt of letters from home, in which were many congratulations on their achievements.
“Yes, but there are worse places,” commented Ned, and Jerry nodded.
“I’m glad that dad and Mr. Slade decided not to sell the ranch, and that Mr. Slade found funds for his new business enterprise somewhere else,” observed Bob.
“Well, while we have a chance, let’s take a trip in the airship,” said Jerry. “Want to come, Professor?”
“No, I’m going to stay on the ground to-day. I lost a valuable jumping spider from one of my boxes and I must search for it.”
And while the three chums are enjoying one of their last trips over Square Z ranch we will take leave of them for a time, to meet them again in the next volume, which will be entitled, “The Motor Boys in the Army, or Ned, Bob and Jerry as Volunteers.”
It was about a week after the capture of the rustlers that Ned, Bob and Jerry prepared to make their leisurely way back East in their big car. The airship, after a last wonderful flight, which was witnessed by a number of cowboys from neighboring ranches, had been taken apart and shipped to Cresville.
“Well, come again, boys,” urged the foreman, as he shook hands with the travelers. “Always glad to see you, though I can’t offer you any more excitement like that you just went through.”
“We’ll be glad to see you, anyhow,” put in Hinkee Dee, and this was a great deal, considering the way he had formerly regarded the boys.
The ranchmen gave them a cheer as the big car moved away, and the last sight the boys had of Square Z ranch was the waving hats of their friends.
“Well, it turned out all right,” remarked Ned, after a period of silence.
“Yes, we succeeded better than I expected we would at one time,” agreed Jerry. “It looked as though we were going to fail. What are you thinking of, Chunky?” he asked the stout lad who had not said much.
“Something to eat!” challenged Ned.
“I was not! I was just thinking how the Parson fooled us all. No one would ever have taken him for a rustler.”
“That’s the reason—he was so different,” commented Jerry, as he guided the car over the trail toward the distant East.
THE END
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Transcriber’s Notes:
A List of Illustrations has been provided for the convenience of the reader.
Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.
Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.
Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.
The Author’s em-dash and long dash styles have been retained.
The Chapter XVI title in the Table of Contents (The Wrong Way) was changed to reflect the title within the contents (The Wrong Pony).