“I’d like to know why that little monkey of a Jimmie doesn’t show up?” asked Jack in a moment. “He ought to be here now.”
At this moment a great threshing and puffing came from the rear of the rock, and the boys rushed in that direction. What they saw caused them to dance with excitement and repeat the call of the pack until the mountains rang again.
Jimmie and Norman were having it out on a level space behind the rock! They were not doing each other any serious harm, but they were rolling and tumbling about, locked in each other’s arms, at a great rate. As Ned drew near, Jimmie gained a decided advantage, and in a moment was calmly sitting on Norman’s stomach wiping the perspiration from his face.
“Wolves trying to eat each other!” laughed Jack.
“Huh!” stormed Jimmie, “this ain’t no wolf. This is only a dirty dog that sneaked into the pack. I’m going to give him what’s coming to him! He deserves a good beating up for what he has done to us!”
“Pry him loose!” shouted Norman, half laughing at the predicament in which he had been discovered, “and I’ll tell you all about it.”
“Yes you will!” shouted Jimmie. “You’ll tell us another pack of lies and get us into more trouble. Why,” he went on, “I wouldn’t believe you if you said that round thing up there in the sky is the moon.”
“Get up,” Ned advised, “and give the boy a chance.”
Jimmie arose, reluctantly, and Norman soon got to his feet.
“I said I’d tell you all about it some day,” Norman began, “and I’m going to do it right now!”
“Don’t work your imagination overtime!” scoffed Jimmie.
“Go on!” Ned suggested. “Say what you have to say. But let me tell you this,” he went on, “your story will have to be pretty straight, and not include any excursions into the land of the enemy, in order to be believed. You must remember that we’ve had trouble following your steers.”
“Don’t you believe a word he says!” almost shouted Gilroy, thinking only of his own inconvenience. “It was his fault that I was led to that awful Devil’s Punch Bowl. I’ll never get over that experience as long as I live! It was horrible—beyond belief.”
“Go on, Norman,” Ned advised. “Make it short!”
“I told you once,” the boy began, “that something terrible would happen to a person in New York if I ever gave Toombs any cause to believe that I wasn’t perfectly loyal to his interests.”
“I remember that,” Ned answered. “Go on!”
“That person,” Norman continued, “is my sister, a pretty girl of eighteen—though you wouldn’t believe she could be pretty, being my sister—who became employed in Toombs’ Wall street office a year ago. We lived together upon East Tenth street, and both had to work. When she secured the place in Toombs’ office we thought our fortunes were made, and for a time everything went well.”
“Aw, cut it short!” Jimmie hinted. “We don’t believe a word of it, you know, so you may as well ring off right now.”
“Don’t interrupt the boy,” Ned suggested. “Let him tell his story in his own way. We have plenty of time.”
“One day,” Norman continued, “a large sum of money—something like five thousand dollars—very mysteriously disappeared from Toombs’ safe. At least Toombs declared the money had been taken. Some of us never believed the story he told.
“The only person having a knowledge of the combination of the safe except Toombs himself was my sister. She was accused of taking the money, and Toombs threatened prosecution. At last he promised not to turn the matter over to the police if we would both promise to return the money.”
“Gee!” declared Jimmie in a friendlier tone. “That was a life sentence all right, wasn’t it? I don’t believe he ever lost any money.”
“We have been paying that old thief a portion of our wages ever since,” Norman went on. “Then, a few weeks ago, when he promised to square the whole account if I would do certain work for him in connection with the Wolf Patrol, I was forced to consent. He threatened that if I did not consent he would set the law in motion and send my sister to prison.”
“What did he want you to do in connection with the Wolf Patrol?” demanded Ned. “I don’t understand how you could help him through the Patrol. Wall street knows little of Boy Scouts.”
“When you boys reached San Francisco, after your bout with the train robbers,” Norman answered, “the newspaper owned by Frank’s father printed a long story about the Boy Electricians. At the end of the article was a statement to the effect that the boys were going into camp near Twin Peaks. Now, this is the point toward which Toombs’ activities had been directed for a long time.”
“I know that,” answered Ned. “He is trying to rob corporations represented by Jack’s father of their property.”
“I don’t know why,” the boy went on, “but he has been paying a great deal of attention to this section for a long time. He has had detectives here rounding up half-breeds, and has been hunting high and low in all the abstract offices of the west for papers which he claims are wrongfully withheld from him. There seems to be a great deal at stake.”
“You bet there is,” laughed Jack, nudging Frank. “There is more at stake than that old slob knows anything about.”
“When Toombs saw that Lawyer Bosworth’s son was headed for this part of the country, accompanied by Ned Nestor, well known over the world as a very successful juvenile detective, he just ran around in circles, he was so excited about it. It was then that he proposed to me to come on here with him, ostensibly as a cook in his camp, but really as a spy, and learn what you boys were up to. I had to come. What else could I do?
“There was my sister in New York, waiting for me to wipe out the unlawful indebtedness, and I couldn’t disappoint her. He could have thrown her into the Tombs prison with ten words sent by wire.”
“That’s a pretty rotten proposition, isn’t it?” demanded Jimmie.
“Rotten is no name for it!” agreed Jack.
“Toombs and his gang of mercenaries arrived in the vicinity of the old Franciscan mission long before you boys came into the mountains. I was with him, of course, acting as cook, and for a few days I enjoyed myself hugely. Then you boys came in, and I was ordered to deliver that note to Ned. But before the morning I saw you boys in camp and delivered the note, I had seen you all in your beds.
“Because of some trivial disobedience of orders, Toombs had decreed that I should go supperless to bed. What I did, I think, was to scorch his steak. Anyway, he said, that I shouldn’t have anything to eat until the next day at noon.”
“No wonder you grabbed for our grub closet!” laughed Jimmie.
“I was good and hungry that night all right,” Norman answered with a smile. “But I didn’t eat all the stuff I took away. I hid it in the forest so as to be provided with food when I finally gained the courage to beat Toombs over the head with a club and escape.”
“Did you really think of doing that?” chuckled Jimmie.
“I thought of doing it,” was the answer, “but I don’t know whether I should ever have acquired the courage. There was my sister waiting in New York, you know. Anyway, I hid the beans and part of the bread not far away from your camp.”
“Why didn’t you wake us up?” asked Ned.
“I wanted to,” was the reply, “but I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid you would in some way let Toombs understand that I was playing into your hands. I didn’t think you would betray me knowingly, but I thought that some careless act on your part might send my sister to prison.”
“I can’t blame you for being cautious,” Ned answered.
“The next morning, when we saw the two in the pine woods, that is, when Toombs and I came upon them there, Toombs laid the plot to get Ned into his hands by sending the note which I afterwards delivered. You must remember that I tried to warn you at that time, boys,” he added.
“Yes, you told us to beat it!” Frank said.
“After that,” Norman continued, “I gave the Indian smoke signal in order to confirm you in the belief that I really was a Boy Scout in good standing. I didn’t know then that Jimmie would start off alone to investigate and get cornered by the half-breeds. I didn’t know, either,” he added, “that the half-breeds were so thick about the place where Frank and the others were captured.
“And when I warned you,” he added, turning to Ned, “that the boys were in a bad fix in the Devil’s Punch Bowl, I did it in good faith. I have since learned that I was followed last night, and that the half-breed who came after me saw the boys in the pit and went back after the gang.
“Huga, Toombs’ right-hand man, was killed at the pit, and the old man is wild with anger. He can’t control the half-breeds without Huga. They have already deserted him. In fact, there is only one person with him at the old mission now, and that is a Hoola Indian named Sigma. This Indian is one of the descendants of the tribe of Indians which long claimed this property as their own under a grant from the Mexican government. He is said to know more about the mountains hereabouts than any other living person.”
“Is he a real Hoola Indian?” asked Frank, rather anxiously.
“He is said to be,” answered Norman.
“Are there other Hoolas about?” demanded Jack.
“A few have been seen—perhaps less than a dozen.”
“Then if there really should be an extensive deposit of gold in this section,” Frank asked, “this Sigma might know something about it?”
“He would know about it if any one did.”
Frank beckoned Ned and Jack to one side where they could talk without being overheard by the others. Then Frank very briefly explained the discovery of the gold chamber and added:
“If this Hoola Indian knows all about the deposit of gold, he’ll tell Toombs, and the New York bunch will get possession of it in some way. Now, what are we going to do?”
“Perhaps we’d better hear Norman out first,” Ned said, after expressing surprise that such a store of gold should remain so long undiscovered by the seekers after the precious metal. “Norman may know something more concerning this Indian.”
“Where do these Indians make their headquarters?” Ned asked, returning to the others.
“No one knows,” Norman answered. “They come and go like ghosts. It is common talk that they know where great deposits of gold are located but no one has ever been able to follow them to their store-house. They always have plenty of virgin gold, and are very independent.”
“Have you ever tried following this Sigma?” asked Ned.
“I followed him one moonlight night,” Norman replied. “He climbed the cliff which faces the east and backs against the Devil’s Punch Bowl. He made his way almost to the summit, and there disappeared. I searched the locality thoroughly, but all I discovered was a great smooth space of rock overlooking the east. Carved in deep lines upon this rock were the outlines of the flag of Spain, crown and all! I don’t think anyone ever saw it before—anyone save the Indians. After discovering it, however, I found no difficulty in tracing it out from the valley.”
“And the flag on the cliff indicates the spot where the gold was stored by nature long ago!” Frank whispered to Ned.
“I beg your pardon, boys,” suggested Gilroy stepping forward to where Ned and Frank were standing, “but if you’ll kindly direct me toward the camp, I’ll manage to get on alone. The fact of the matter is,” he continued, “that I’m faint with hunger.”
“Faint with hunger!” echoed Jimmie. “Mother of Moses! If you were half as hungry as I am, you’d be eating rock. I haven’t had anything to eat in so long that I wouldn’t know whether to chew a bear steak or to drink it. I’m near dead right now.”
“I think we’d all better hurry back to camp,” Ned suggested. “We may find something of a mixup there.”
“May I go with you?” asked Norman humbly.
“What about Toombs?” asked Ned. “If you are seen in our company, the telegram you have good reason to fear may be sent on to New York as soon as he can get out of the wilderness.”
Norman turned paler under the light of the moon and shrank back as if from a blow. His voice trembled as he spoke.
“I thank you for reminding me of my duty to my sister,” he said. “I’m afraid I’ll have to go back to Toombs. I don’t know what he’ll do to me because of my long absence, and because of the suspicious circumstances under which I left the camp. I’m afraid of him!”
“Now look here, Norman,” Frank advised, “this man Toombs is a welcher. He’s a dirty cur, and never kept a promise in his life which it was to his interest to disregard. Whatever you do for him, he’ll exact the last cent of the obligation which he has placed upon you, and will then, at the slightest whim, turn your sister over to the law. I don’t want to give you any advice calculated to get you into trouble, but were I in your place I think I’d go back there and beat his head off! The more you do for him, the stronger will be his grip upon you.”
“And I regard that as good advice!” Jack declared.
“Very good!” Nestor commented.
“I’ll go back with you if you want to beat him up!” offered Jimmie.
“And I’ll go along, too,” Harry said. “I’ve got a bum arm, all right, but I think I could help push that fellow into the Devil’s Punch Bowl.”
“Don’t resort to violence, boys! Don’t resort to violence!” pleaded Gilroy. “I’m shocked now to think how the laws of our country have been disobeyed tonight. Don’t go back to get into more trouble!”
“But look here,” exclaimed Jimmie, “you don’t know how smooth and fat and vicious this man Toombs is. I have never seen much of him, but I’ll tell you right now that he breathes out an atmosphere like that of a snake. I’ll get his goat yet!”
“Don’t be putting wild notions into the boy’s head,” laughed Frank. “I’ve got a better way than that to round up the old sea-serpent. We can get a messenger out to the telegraph station just as quickly as he can—perhaps quicker if we set Gilroy on the trail tonight. Now, I’ll write a long message to Dad and tell him all about it, and Dad’s got a pull in New York.”
“He’ll go to the District Attorney and calmly announce that he’ll smash him all to little pieces in his newspaper if he causes the arrest of that girl until after a full investigation has been made. What Dad can do in the District Attorney’s office is a wonder! We’ll fix old Toombs all right, all right! We’ll have him in jail as soon as he gets back to New York!”
“Will you start off toward the nearest telegraph office tonight, Gilroy?” asked Ned. “This is important, you know.”
“Give me something to eat and let me sleep a couple of hours,” replied the fat clerk, “and I’ll gladly go! I wouldn’t stay in this country one more day for all the gold there is in it!”
“Well, then,” Jack cut in, “I’ll send a telegram to my Dad, and he’ll co-operate with Frank’s ancestor, and I guess they can arrange matters so the girl won’t be arrested. If Dad isn’t in New York when the wire arrives, his confidential clerk will attend to it. I have them all trained to jump when I say the word. Dad lets me do just as I please, and they have to follow his example.”
“Now, Norman,” Ned exclaimed, “you may as well give Toombs the hook and come on back to camp with us. These two boys can do more for you in New York than a host of lawyers and bondsmen could do in a hundred years.”
“That’s good sense!” Harry exclaimed. “Come on back to camp with us and we’ll fat you up!”
“I’m going to assault the next person that talks about eating!” Jimmie declared. “Here I’m half starved to death and you keep on talking about eating. If you fellows had any pity in your hearts, some of you would run on ahead and meet me at the camp with a pie!”
“Well,” Frank said in a moment, “I don’t know why we don’t all hurry back to the camp. We may as well talk there as here. It’s all right to stroll and talk in the moonlight, but I never could be romantic when I was hungry. It’s agin’ human nature!”
The boys made good progress for an hour or more, and just as day was breaking, they came within sight of the cliff under which their camp was situated. They stood looking down from a higher elevation for a moment and then Ned pointed away to the south and east.
“Listen!” he said, bending his head forward.
“Bells!” shouted Jimmie. “Bells ringing at this time of the morning, away up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains! What do you make of that?”
“Mule bells!” scoffed Jimmie.
“I guess that’s right,” Harry agreed. “And there are the mules,” he went on, pointing. “They’ve brought some one in!”
“If they would only stop long enough to take me out!” wailed Gilroy, starting off as if in pursuit of the distant train of mules.
“Those beasts of burden are two hours’ travel from this point,” Frank advised. “They look to be only a short distance off, but you’d have to climb over a whole lot of land standing up on end to get to them.”
“Now who do you think the latest arrival is?” asked Jimmie.
“Probably a message from Dad,” Jack suggested.
“I’m sure of that!” Gilroy cried, gleefully. “I’m sure it’s an order for my recall. I’ll soon be out of this terrible country, safe in little old New York! It’s too good to be true!”
The boys now hastened toward the cliff and, turning sharply around the angle of rock, saw that the camp had indeed been occupied since their departure. A fire, which gave every indication of having recently been built, was burning and a number of cooking utensils stood near by.
Jimmie was about to spring forward for the purpose of making an assault on the provision chest when Ned caught him by the arm and held him back. Jimmie scowled but remained silent.
“Listen!” Ned said in a very low whisper. “There are people talking in the cave! I propose to find out what’s going on before making my appearance. Get the boys farther away,” he went on, “and I’ll see what I can learn. We may not be out of trouble yet.”
“Why, that’s the person that came in with the mule train,” whispered Jimmie. “Anyone ought to know that!”
“I don’t know whether it is or not!” Ned insisted. “Get the boys away and keep still, all of you.”
Gilroy opened his mouth to protest against being separated from the supply of food so near at hand, but Jimmie clapped a hand over his lips and led him away by main force. Then Ned crouched under the stones of the barrier and listened.
“It’s all up with you, Bosworth!” he heard the voice of Toombs saying. “You played your last card when you came in here in person, and I’ve taken the trick! Now you may as well be good!”
“No game is ever played out until the last card is on the table!” Jack’s father was heard to say. “You said when you came in here,” the lawyer went on, “that you would give me information of my son.”
“All in good time!” replied Toombs. “I understand,” the Wall street man continued “that you have in your possession papers showing the location of a very valuable mine known to exist in this section hundreds of years ago. Inform me as to the location of this mine, and I’ll inform you fully regarding your son.”
“Toombs,” Bosworth replied, “I wouldn’t trust you with a dirty bone that a dog wouldn’t take from my hand. You’re one of the pirates of Wall street! You never earned an honest dollar in your life. There are murders which might be laid at your door. You have wrecked private fortunes, and are no more to be trusted than a deadly rattler!”
Ned chuckled at this arraignment of the man who had given him so much trouble. The conversation certainly was amusing to him.
“Hard words break no bones!” laughed Toombs. “Say what you please, only give me the information I demand. And I insist on something more than the information, too,” he went on. “I want your promise that the corporation you represent will quit-claim all these lands to me.”
“To you?” asked Bosworth scornfully.
“Yes, to me!”
“Not to your clients, but to you personally?”
“To me, personally!”
“Thus placing you in a position to rob and blackmail your employers?”
“Call it what you like,” Toombs answered.
“I had been giving you credit for loyalty to the members of your thieving gang,” Bosworth said. “I see that I was mistaken.”
“But the information?” demanded Toombs.
“There are no such documents as you describe in existence!” the lawyer answered. “If there are, I am ignorant of the fact.”
Ned heard some one moving about in the cave, and then Toombs’ voice came again, speaking harshly and with vicious rage.
“You may as well accompany me to my camp,” Toombs said. “We can settle matters better there!”
“I shall not leave this place!” was the calm reply.
“But why wait longer here?” Toombs demanded fiercely. “This is a deserted camp. The boys who occupied it yesterday are dead, drowned at the Devil’s Punch Bowl. Your son with the others. You have no one in the hills to whom you can appeal for aid. If you persist in your refusal to deliver the papers and the information, you shall share the same fate. Will you come quietly?”
There was a scuffle and a blow, and when Ned gained the interior of the cave, he saw Bosworth lying on the floor with the blood springing from a slight wound on the forehead. Toombs made a motion toward his pistol-pocket as Ned appeared, but he was too late. A blow from the butt of the boy’s weapon laid him on the ground beside his victim.
Then the boys all came rushing in, and Jack was with difficulty restrained from giving the half-conscious Toombs a very bad beating.
“Let him alone,” Ned advised. “We’ll tie him up and take him out with us. There are many charges which can be placed against him.”
Jack’s father soon regained consciousness, and there followed a long and intimate conversation between the two. Too anxious to remain in New York after the departure of Gilroy, the father had followed on, trying his best to reach Gilroy by wire, but failing. He had traveled night and day, reaching the camp only three hours before the arrival of the boys.
The reader may well understand the kind of a meal that was prepared just after sunrise. After even Jimmie was satisfied the boys went to sleep, leaving Gilroy, who declared that he could never sleep again, moving about the camp. After a couple of hours the boys were awakened by shrill screams issuing from the throat of the fat clerk.
“The Indians! The Indians!” he shouted.
Ned sprang to his feet and looked keenly about but at first saw no cause for alarm. What he did see in a moment, however, brought a flush of anger to his face. The place where Toombs had lain was unoccupied! In some mysterious manner, the fellow had made his escape while the boys slept!
“The Indians did it!” insisted Gilroy, his teeth chattering with fright. “I saw an Indian creep up and cut the ropes. I was so frozen of terror that I couldn’t stop him. An awful, painted savage! He threatened me with a knife when I managed to look in his direction.”
While Gilroy was making this explanation, Jimmie sprang to his feet and darted swiftly out of the cave. Ned called to him to return, but he paid no attention. In a moment the boy was out of sight.
Leaving the boys in wild commotion at the camp, Jimmie followed swiftly on in the direction which he believed Toombs to have taken.
“I just can’t let that geezer get away!” the boy muttered as he traveled over the rough ground at great speed.
After half an hour’s steady walking he came to an elevation from which he saw two figures moving away to the north. One of the men seemed to him to be Toombs, while the other might well be classed as an Indian. They were moving at a good pace, although the Indian was frequently obliged to assist his companion over rocky crags.
The two seemed entirely unconscious of pursuit. Indeed, as it was afterwards learned, they were beyond the sound of Gilroy’s voice when he shouted out the alarm which had awakened the boys. The fat clerk had been so frightened that he had made no attempt to sound an alarm until the Indian he feared was too far away to inflict injury upon him!
And so, believing that the boys still slept in the camp, and that the escape of their prisoner still remained undiscovered, the two made their way, not to the old camp near the mission, but toward the sheltered bit of ground which enclosed the Devil’s Punch Bowl.
“Now, I wonder why they are going there!” mused Jimmie, gaining upon the two fugitives every moment. “If that fellow who cut Toombs out of our camp,” he went on, “should prove to be a Hoola Indian, fully advised as to the deposit of gold, he might give Toombs information calculated to make us a lot of trouble.”
The boy was satisfied that neither Toombs nor any of the half-breeds possessed any information concerning the hidden mime. According to Norman’s story, only the Hoola Indians knew about the wonderful deposit which the boys had blundered upon during their trip to the underground passage. His thought now was that the Indian with Toombs might be leading that individual to the treasure.
Wishing earnestly that he had not started on such a mission alone, the boy followed on until the two stopped at the very verge of the Devil’s Punch Bowl. By this time Jimmie was completely exhausted. He had been on his feet all night, laboring under great excitement, and had had only a short bit of rest after breakfast. He was, therefore, more than glad when Toombs and the Indian paused at the Devil’s Punch Bowl and threw themselves on the ground.
Lying behind a boulder, the boy saw the Indian pointing down into the pit, and it seemed to him that he was directing the attention of his companion to the old channel where he, Jimmie, had met with such exciting adventures.
“It’s dollars to doughnuts,” the boy mused, “that that’s Sigma, the Indian, Norman referred to. If it is, he’s showing Toombs where the gold mine is. That’s just our luck, anyway!”
Foot by foot the boy passed from one rock to another until he came within sound of the men’s voices. He could not understand what the Indian was saying, but Toombs seemed to be able to grasp the meaning of the uncouth words used.
“And you say there are tons of gold under there?” the boy heard Toombs ask. “Is there any way of getting at it at once?”
Jimmie saw Sigma nod his head vigorously.
“Can you understand exactly what I say?” Toombs asked in a moment.
Sigma nodded again, and the Wall street man went on:
“What we want to do right now,” he said, “is to get the gold out without any publicity whatever. Do you understand that?”
The Indian looked puzzled at the long words used, but nodded. It was evident that he understood the general import of the other’s talk.
“The men I represent,” Toombs went on, “would throw a few dirty dollars into my lap for information which would bring them millions. Now my idea is to get the gold out and get away with it.”
“Say, Toombs,” Jimmie whispered to himself behind the rock, “you’re a dirty old schemer!”
“With the gold in our possession, we can disappear from the country, you and I. We need never trouble ourselves about money any more.”
The Indian nodded while a pleased smile came over his rugged face.
“How many know of this mine?” asked Toombs.
Sigma held up eight fingers and pointed into the pit.
“Only that many?” asked Toombs.
“The rest dead!” answered Sigma.
“And where are they now?” demanded the Wall street man.
“All in the mine getting out gold!” was the reply.
“They can get it out pretty fast, can’t they?” asked Toombs.
The Indian nodded, and said in a guttural voice that many great heaps of it had already been taken out of the rock and stored in the inner chamber. Toombs’ eyes brightened wickedly at the information.
“And they’re all in there now?” he asked. “All the heaps?”
Sigma nodded again.
“We don’t want anyone watching us,” Toombs explained, “so we must make sure about their all being in the cave. You go through the dry channel and find out if they are all really there, then come to the entrance and signal to me and go back and explain what we have planned—that I am to market the gold, for them and receive half.”
“Now it strikes me,” Jimmie mused, “that if I were in Sigma’s place, I wouldn’t go into that old channel and leave Toombs on the outside, especially if every living person having knowledge of the deposit of gold was on the inside, too!”
The Indian disappeared over the edge of the Devil’s Punch Bowl and made his way to the bottom, pursuing practically the same tactics resorted to by the boys the day before. As soon as he disappeared in the old dry channel, Toombs, who had carefully watched the Indian’s every move, proceeded to follow into the depression.
The man was fat, unwieldy, and out of training, but his greed for gold was so great, his daring so remarkable, that he managed to reach the bottom of the pit with only a few slight bruises. Jimmie lay down at the lip of the pit and regarded him quizzically.
“I’d like to know what the game is,” the boy thought.
The tragedy enacted before his eyes during the next hour informed him fully on this point.
In a short time Sigma returned to the entrance of the old channel and held up eight fingers to Toombs. His face showed surprise at seeing the Wall street man at the bottom of the pit. After giving the signal he stood with his head bowed for a moment, as if in deep thought, and then turned back into the tunnel.
It was then that the real purpose of the Wall street man became known. He threw off his coat and vest and began filling the channel leading to the crevice, now carrying away the waters of the pool! He worked frantically until the sweat streamed down his face in tiny rivulets, notwithstanding the cool air of the mountain.
At first he dug away with his fingers, but that appeared to be too slow a process for his eager haste. There were pieces of shale lying about which the boys had used the previous afternoon, and with these he made much better progress.
Although it had taken the boys a long time to dig the trench connecting the pool with its original outlet, it was by no means difficult for Toombs to fill in the channel in a very short time. Slowly but steadily the waters of the pool lifted as the obstructions in its channel forced the water toward the level of the old outlet.
While the man worked nervously, strenuously, and with such strength as he would never have been able to exhibit at ordinary times, Jimmie saw the dark face of Sigma appear at the opening. The Indian stood for an instant with folded hands as he saw what Toombs was doing.
“It’s all up with the fat Wall street man now!” Jimmie mused. “The Indians are wise to the fact that his only purpose in sending Sigma in was to bunch those possessing information of the mine and drown them all like a lot of baby cats. What they’ll do to him now will be a plenty. I wouldn’t be in his shoes for a good deal.”
So busily was Toombs engaged in his work that he did not hear the smothered ejaculations or the soft footsteps of the Indian as he crept up behind him. It was evident that he believed the Indians to be all massed in the gold chamber.
When, at last, he was seized in the muscular grasp of the Indian, the boy saw him smile, evidently trying to explain away his actions. Sigma shook his head and uttered a peculiar cry. The next moment seven Indians came from the entrance and gathered around the now crestfallen Wall street man.
There was not much talk. In fact, Jimmie could not hear a word that was spoken. All he knew was that there was no delay. The Indians took up the work of filling the channel which Toombs had begun. Then, when it was quite full and the water was roaring and swirling into the entrance so recently vacated, they bound Toombs hand and foot and cast him into the torrent.
Jimmie gave a low groan of horror and turned away. He knew that Toombs fully deserved his fate. Still, his punishment seemed to be a brutal one. He knew that the mangled body of the unfortunate man would be swept from level to level and from rock to rock until it came to the round aperture in the floor which carried the water straight down for how many hundred feet no one could estimate.
He knew that in time the Indians would find a way of getting out the gold unless the corporation represented by Jack’s father should take advantage of the information secured by the Boy Scouts and get the gold in advance. He knew, too, that Toombs’ craving for gold would at last be satisfied. For a long time his body would swing about in eddys which whirled about heaps of gold worthy a king’s ransom.
“Serves him just right!” the boy mused as he turned away. “He was the crookedest man that ever lived. And now,” he added with a sigh, “I’ll get back to camp and see if the boys have been cooking anything more to eat.”
When he reached the camp, a great kettle of bear stew was simmering over the fire, and Frank and Jack were explaining to Mr. Bosworth the story of the night and telling of the discovery of the wonderful deposit of gold in the vicinity of the Devil’s Punch Bowl. The capitalist seemed overjoyed at the success of the expedition, and when Jimmie, in a voice not very strong, described the death of Toombs and the re-flooding of the mine, the silence was broken only by exclamations of pity for the man whose greed had led him to such a frightful death.
“But how are we going to get this gold out, now that the mine is flooded?” asked Mr. Bosworth.
“Huh,” grinned Jimmie, “guess we can unflood it. I could do it myself with a good big shovel.”
“I presume the Indians will change the course of the outlet as soon as they find some willing to market the gold for them,” suggested Ned.
“We have not the least intention in the world of robbing the Indians of all the wealth,” Mr. Bosworth declared. “On the contrary, we’ll get the gold out and give them a fair share of the proceeds of the mine. After dinner, we’ll go up and negotiate with them.”
“I hope you’ll send me back to New York immediately,” pleaded Gilroy, turning to his employer.
“We’ll all be going out directly,” was the reply.
“Now, look here!” Jimmie declared. “We came in here for a vacation, and we’ve been mixed up with half-breeds, and Indians, and bears, and old Franciscan missions, built underground, and pots of gold at the rainbow’s end, and a thousand other things that haven’t given us much joy. Now I propose that we stay here and have our visit to the mountains out after all this mess is cleared up.”
“I’ve got a bum arm,” Harry exclaimed, “but I vote for staying in the hills a month. If I can’t climb trees and send Boy Scout signals floating over the mountain tops,” he added with a laugh, “I can sit here and broil bear steaks and have all the fun in the world seeing you boys eating them. That will be fun enough for me!”
“Besides,” he went on with an amusing grin, “I want to stay here long enough to make the personal acquaintance of that flag on the cliff—the flag of Spain, without any yellow in it, that stands for a billion of yellow metal not far away!”
“The flag on the cliff?” repeated Mr. Bosworth.
“Sure,” replied Jimmie. “There has been a stone flag waving on the cliff over the old mine for two or three hundred years. It isn’t much of a flag to look at, but it represents the kingdom of Spain, crown and all, and the old Indians loved it because they knew of the treasure it guarded.”
“Then our first visit,” Mr. Bosworth declared, “shall be to the flag on the cliff!”
“My idea of a pleasant afternoon,” Ned said, as they arose from a sumptuous camp dinner, “is to get off alone into the mountains. Mr. Bosworth seems inclined to go with you boys for a view of the flag on the cliff,” he went on, “and so I’ll leave you to your own amusement while I go and get acquainted with the mountains.”
“You would better come with us, and see what’s going on at the Devil’s Punch Bowl,” Jimmie advised.
“Somehow, ever since I’ve been here,” Ned went on with a smile, “I have lived in an atmosphere of excitement. We shall be leaving the mountains before long, and I have a notion that I’d like to get up to the snow line and look over the country.”
“I should think you’d had enough of the snow line at the Devil’s Punch Bowl!” Frank laughed.
“That wasn’t the real snow line,” Ned replied. “It was pretty cold up there, it is true, but still we didn’t get to the real thing.”
“I should like very much to go with you,” Mr. Bosworth suggested, “only my time is limited, and I really must investigate this mine about which so much has been said.”
The result of this conversation was that Frank, Jack and Norman started away with Mr. Bosworth, leaving Harry and Gilroy at the camp, while Ned turned straight west and pointed for an elevation which seemed to be something like 10,000 feet above sea level.
The boy’s days and nights for a long time had been filled with adventure, and now he was more than pleased to be away from all hostile influences. The way was not difficult for a time, and he walked along taking great draughts of mountain air and feasting his eyes on the wonderful landscape to the east.
About three o’clock in the afternoon he came to a cliff from which, through a break in the chain of mountains, he could look out toward the Pacific. The slope toward the sea was more gradual there, and the boy gazed over valleys in the great chain with feelings of awe in his heart.
As he stood on the cliff looking out to the west, he caught sight of an eagle perched on a crag not far above him.
“It wouldn’t be a bad idea,” the boy thought, “to take back an eagle as a trophy. Boy Scouts as a rule,” he reasoned with himself, “are not supposed to take the life of any wild creatures for their own amusement or benefit. Still, I never saw anything about an eagle that looked very patriotic, or very much in touch with the softer side of animal life. The eagle, notwithstanding its prominence on the American dollar, is merely a bird of prey, eating its game alive and killing out of pure viciousness.”
The great bird finally left the crag and swung nearer and nearer to the place where Ned stood. The boy crouched down behind a boulder and watched it with no little interest.
“I don’t suppose it is the right thing to do,” Ned mused, as he drew his automatic revolver, “but I just naturally want that eagle in the Boy Scout club room in New York. The boys of the Eagle Patrol would greet him with an ovation which he will never receive while alive.”
When the eagle came nearer, the boy fired. The huge monarch of the air fell at the base of the cliff, shot through the heart.
“Now,” thought the boy, looking down in dismay, “how am I ever going to get him. It doesn’t seem to me that any human being can descend this precipice.”