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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Call of the Beaver Patrol, by V. T.
+Sherman
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Call of the Beaver Patrol
+       or, A Break in the Glacier
+
+
+Author: V. T. Sherman
+
+
+
+Release Date: December 6, 2006  [eBook #20040]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CALL OF THE BEAVER PATROL***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Barbara Tozier, David T. Jones, Bill Tozier, and the
+Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+(https://www.pgdp.net/)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 20040-h.htm or 20040-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/0/4/20040/20040-h/20040-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/0/4/20040/20040-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+THE CALL OF THE BEAVER PATROL
+
+Or
+
+A Break in the Glacier
+
+by
+
+CAPT. V. T. SHERMAN
+
+Author of
+
+The War Zone of the Kaiser;
+Boy Scouts with Joffre;
+The Perils of an Airship;
+The Boy Scout Signal, Etc.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece]
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+1913
+M. A. Donohue & Co.
+Chicago
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+       Chapter                           Page
+
+    I--Camping in the Breaker              7
+
+   II--The Call of the Pack               15
+
+  III--Who Cut the String?                21
+
+   IV--A Sensational Discovery            28
+
+    V--The Flooded Mine                   35
+
+   VI--The Beaver Call                    41
+
+  VII--A Treacherous Foe                  47
+
+ VIII--They Went Up in the Air            54
+
+   IX--Who Discovered the Leak?           60
+
+    X--The Boy in the Empty               67
+
+   XI--A Knock at the Door                73
+
+  XII--A Midnight Robber                  79
+
+ XIII--One More Hungry Boy                86
+
+  XIV--Mine Rats Ready for War            92
+
+   XV--A Stick of Dynamite                99
+
+  XVI--Caused by a Fall                  106
+
+ XVII--The Signs in Stones               113
+
+XVIII--Two Hold-Up Men                   120
+
+  XIX--The Money in Sight                127
+
+   XX--Sandy Is Discharged               134
+
+  XXI--"I Told You So"                   141
+
+ XXII--Conclusion                        148
+
+
+
+
+  Boy Scouts in the Coal Caverns
+
+  Or, The Light in Tunnel Six
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+CAMPING IN THE BREAKER
+
+
+"And so I says to myself, says I, give me a good husky band of Boy
+Scouts! They'll do the job if it can be done!"
+
+Case Canfield, caretaker, sat back in a patched chair in the dusky,
+unoccupied office of the Labyrinth mine and addressed himself to four
+lads of seventeen who were clad in the khaki uniform of the Boy Scouts
+of America.
+
+Those of our readers who have read the previous books of this series
+will have good cause to remember George Benton, Charley ("Sandy") Green,
+Tommy Gregory and Will Smith. The adventures of these lads among the
+Pictured Rocks of Old Superior, among the wreckers and reptiles of the
+Florida Everglades, in the caverns of the Great Continental Divide, and
+among the snows of the Hudson Bay wilderness have been recorded under
+appropriate titles in previous works.
+
+The four boys were members of the Beaver Patrol, Chicago. Will Smith was
+Scoutmaster, while George Benton was Patrol Leader. They wore upon the
+sleeves of their coats medals showing that they had passed the
+examination as Ambulance Aids, Stalkers, Pioneers and Seamen.
+
+Instructed by Mr. Horton, a well-known criminal lawyer of Chicago, the
+boys had reached the almost deserted mine at dusk of a November day.
+There they had found Canfield, the caretaker, waiting for them in a
+dimly-lighted office. The mine had not been operated for a number of
+months, not because the veins had given out, but because of some
+misunderstanding between the owners of mines in that section.
+
+The large, bare room in which the caretaker and the Boy Scouts met was
+in the breaker. There was no fire in the great heater, and the tables
+and chairs were black with dust. A single electric light shone down from
+the ceiling, creating long, ghostlike shadows as it swayed about in a
+gentle wind blowing through a broken window.
+
+"Well," Tommy Gregory said, as the caretaker paused, "you've got the Boy
+Scouts, and it remains for you to set us to work."
+
+"And a sturdy looking lot, too!" grinned the caretaker.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Horton wouldn't be apt to send a lot of cripples!" laughed
+Sandy Green. "He's next to his job, that man is!"
+
+"I presume he told you all about the case?" suggested Canfield.
+
+"Indeed he did not," replied Will Smith.
+
+"Not a thing about it?" asked the caretaker.
+
+"He only said that you would give us full instructions."
+
+"That's strange!" Canfield observed thoughtfully.
+
+"Perhaps he thought we wouldn't want to undertake the job if we knew
+exactly what it was!" suggested Sandy.
+
+"It is a queer kind of a job," Canfield admitted, "but I don't think you
+boys would be apt to back out because of a little danger."
+
+"I have wanted to back out several times," laughed Tommy, "but, somehow,
+these others boys wouldn't permit me to."
+
+"Go on and tell us about it," urged Sandy. "Tell us just what you want
+us to do, and then we'll tell you whether we think we can do it or not."
+
+"You've got to find two boys!" replied Canfield.
+
+"Mother of Moses!" exclaimed Tommy. "I hope we haven't got to go and dig
+up blond-haired little Algernon, or discover pretty little Clarence, and
+turn a bunch of money over to him!"
+
+"I think these two boys may have money coming to them," the caretaker
+replied. "There must be money back of it or the friends of the lads
+wouldn't be giving me cash to spend in their interest."
+
+"Where are these boys?" asked Will.
+
+"I've heard the opinion expressed that the boys are somewhere in the
+mine!" answered Canfield. "I can hardly believe that they are, but it
+has been suggested that we may as well begin the search under ground."
+
+"Where do these boys belong?" asked George.
+
+"Anywhere and everywhere," was the reply. "Jimmie Maynard and Dick
+Thompson came here as breaker boys six months ago. They were ragged and
+dirty, and appeared to be as tough as two young bears. They worked
+steadily until the day before the mine closed down and then they
+disappeared."
+
+"That's easy!" declared Tommy. "They got tired of work!"
+
+"That may be," answered the caretaker, "but they certainly didn't get
+tired of drawing their pay. They went away leaving about eight dollars,
+the two of them, in the care of the company."
+
+"Then something must have happened to them!" Will suggested.
+
+"Who's looking for these boys?" asked George.
+
+"A New York lawyer," was the reply. "I know nothing whatever about the
+man. In fact, I don't know why he wants to find out where the boys are.
+He sends me money and tells me to continue my quest until the boys are
+found, and then to send them to New York."
+
+"So you have entire charge of the search," said Sandy, tentatively.
+
+"Yes," was the reply, "except for Joe Ventner. He's a detective sent on
+from New York by this Burlingame person, the lawyer to whom I referred a
+short time ago."
+
+"What part of the world is he searching?" asked Will.
+
+"He seems to think that the boys ran away because of some childish prank
+put on by them the night before. They broke some windows in a couple of
+shanties down by the tracks, or, at least, the other boys say they did,
+and Joe thinks they ran away because of that. He accounts in that way
+for their not calling after their pay envelopes."
+
+"So he thinks they've gone out of the country, does he."
+
+"Yes," was the reply. "He comes back here every few days to ask if I
+have heard anything regarding the youngsters, and then goes away again.
+If you leave it to me, I don't think the fellow is working very hard in
+the case. There's a half a dozen saloons in a little dump of a place
+about ten miles away, and my idea is that he puts in a good deal of his
+time there."
+
+"You don't seem to take to this detective?" asked George.
+
+"Oh, I don't know as he's so much worse than the average private
+detective," replied the caretaker. "He's out for his day's wages, and
+the easier he can get them, the better it suits him.
+
+"So you don't know who wants these boys, or what they're wanted for?"
+asked Will. "Lawyer Burlingame never took you into his confidence so far
+as to post you on the details of the case."
+
+"He never did!" answered the caretaker.
+
+"Is he liberal with his money?" asked George.
+
+"He pays all the bills I send in," was the answer. "And seems to keep
+this bum detective pretty well supplied with ten-dollar bills."
+
+"We may have to investigate this investigator!" laughed Sandy.
+
+"Did Mr. Horton say anything to you about your lodgings while here?"
+asked the caretaker. "It's getting too cold here for me, and we may as
+well be shifting to warmer quarters."
+
+"You said a short time ago," Will began, "that you rather thought we
+ought to begin this search in the mine itself."
+
+"That's my idea!" answered the caretaker.
+
+"Do you think the boys are hiding in the mine?"
+
+"Well, there are some things connected with the case which point in that
+direction," replied Canfield. "For instance, there's a lot of queer
+things going on under ground."
+
+"Ghosts?" demanded Tommy.
+
+"You're not steering us up against a haunted mine, are you?" asked
+George with a wink at his chum. "That would be too good to be true!"
+
+"I haven't said anything about ghosts or haunted mines," chuckled the
+caretaker. "I'm only saying that there are queer things taking place in
+the mine. Now there's Tunnel Six," he went on, "I have seen lights there
+with my own eyes, when I know there wasn't a person within two miles of
+the spot except myself. And I've heard noises, too! These unaccountable
+noises which make a man think of graveyards and ghosts."
+
+"But why should two healthy, active boys want to seek such a hiding
+place?" asked Will. "It certainly can't be very pleasant in the dark and
+damp tunnels! Besides, where would they get their provisions?"
+
+"I'm not arguing the case, lads," the caretaker replied, "I'm placing
+the case in your hands without instructions. I only suggest that you
+look in the mine first, but you don't have to do that unless you want
+to!"
+
+"I don't see how we can find fault with that arrangement!" laughed Will.
+"And now," he went on, "let's arrange about our lodgings. In the first
+place, who knows that we are here on this job?"
+
+"Not a soul, unless some one saw you coming into the breaker!"
+
+"That's just as it should be," Will went on. "Now I propose that we camp
+out in the breaker. There must be a cosy corner somewhere, under the
+chutes, or in back of a staircase, or away up under the roof, where we
+can camp out while we are going through the mine."
+
+"You won't find the old breaker a very comfortable place to live in,"
+suggested Canfield.
+
+"Oh, we can line the walls of some little cubby-hole with canvas if
+necessary, and you can string a wire in so as to give us electricity for
+heating and lighting, and we can live as comfortable as four bugs in a
+rug. If we keep out of sight during the day time, no one will ever
+suspect that we are here."
+
+"Have it your own way!" replied Canfield. "I'll see that you get plenty
+to eat and plenty of bed clothing."
+
+"That'll help some!" laughed Tommy. "During the night we can travel
+through the mine with our lights, and during the daytime we can crawl
+into our little beds and sleep our heads off!"
+
+"When do you want your first load of provisions?" asked Canfield.
+
+"Right now, tonight!" replied Sandy.
+
+"Well, come along then," Canfield said, rising from his chair, "and I'll
+let you pick out a spot for your camp, as you call it."
+
+After quite an extended search through the breaker the boys selected a
+small room on the ground floor, from which one window looked out on the
+half-deserted yard where the weigh-house stood. The room was perhaps
+twenty feet in size each way, and the walls were of heavy planking. The
+whole apartment was sadly in need of a scrubbing, but the lads concluded
+to postpone that until some future date.
+
+"I can bring in cot beds and bedding," the caretaker announced, "and
+string the electric wire for heating, lighting, and cooking before I go
+to bed. That will leave you all shipshape in the morning, and you can
+then begin your cleaning up as soon as you please."
+
+The caretaker was as good as his word, and before ten o'clock the cots
+and bedding were in place, also an electric heater and an electric plate
+for cooking had been moved into the apartment.
+
+Not considering it advisable to go out for supper, Canfield had also
+brought in provisions in the shape of bacon, potatoes, eggs, bread,
+butter, coffee, and various grades of canned goods, so the boys had made
+a hearty meal and had plenty left for breakfast. While cooking they had
+covered the one window with a heavy piece of canvas.
+
+"Now you're all tight and snug for the night," the caretaker smiled, as
+he turned back from the door and glanced over the rather cozy-looking
+room. "If I'm about here during the night, I'll look in upon you again."
+
+Canfield stepped out and closed the door behind him. Then he came back
+and looked in again with a half-smile on his face.
+
+"Do you boys know anything about mines?" he asked.
+
+"Not a thing!" replied Tommy.
+
+"Then don't you go climbing down the ladders and wandering around in the
+gangways tonight!" the caretaker warned.
+
+"Say, there's an idea!" Tommy said to Sandy, with a wink, as Canfield
+went out. "How do you think one of these mammoth coal mines looks,
+anyway?"
+
+"Cut that out, boys!" exclaimed Will. "If I catch one of you attempting
+the ladders tonight, I'll tie you up!"
+
+"Who said anything about going down the ladders tonight?" demanded
+Tommy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE CALL OF THE PACK
+
+
+It was somewhere near midnight when the boys sought their beds. Will and
+George were soon asleep, but Tommy and Sandy had no notion of passing
+their first night in the mine in slumber. Ten minutes after the regular
+breathing of the two sleepers became audible, Tommy sat up in his bed
+and deftly threw a pillow so as to strike Sandy in the face.
+
+"Cut it out!" whispered Sandy. "You don't have to do anything to wake me
+up! I've been wondering for a long time whether you hadn't gone to
+sleep! You looked sleepy when the light went out."
+
+"Never was so wide awake in my life!" declared Tommy.
+
+"Well, get up and dress," advised Sandy. "If we get into the mine
+tonight, we'll have to hurry!"
+
+"Have you figured out how we're going to get into the mine?" asked
+Tommy. "It will be the ladders for us, I guess."
+
+"Of course it'll be the ladders!" replied Sandy. "Do you suppose
+Canfield is coming here in the middle of the night to turn on the
+power?"
+
+"I wonder how deep the shaft is?" asked Tommy.
+
+"I guess this one must be about five hundred feet."
+
+"Is that a guess, or a piece of positive information?"
+
+"It's a guess," laughed Sandy, drawing on his shoes and walking softly
+across the bare floor in the direction of the shaft.
+
+The boys passed out of the sleeping chamber into a passage which led
+directly to the shaft of the mine. This shaft was perhaps twenty feet in
+width. It included the air shaft, the division where the pumps were
+operated, and two divisions for the cages which lifted the coal from the
+bottom of the mine. The pumps were not working, of course, and no air
+was being forced down.
+
+One of the cages lay at the top so the other must have been at the
+bottom of the shaft. As the boys looked down into the shaft, Tommy
+seized his chum by the arm and whispered:
+
+"Did you see that light down there?"
+
+"Light nothing!" declared Sandy.
+
+"But I did see a light!" insisted the other.
+
+"Perhaps you did," replied Sandy, "but if there's any light there it's
+merely a reflection from our electrics. There may be a metallic surface
+down there which throws back the light rays."
+
+"Have it your own way!" grunted Tommy. "You know yourself that the
+caretaker said there were lights in the mine which no one could account
+for, and he especially mentioned the light in Tunnel Six."
+
+"All right!" Sandy grinned. "We'll sneak down so quietly that any person
+who happens to be at the bottom of the shaft with the light will never
+suspect that we are within a hundred miles of the place. We may be able
+to geezle the fellow that's making the ghost walk around here nights."
+
+The boys took to the ladders and moved down as silently as possible. Now
+and then a rung creaked softly under their feet, but they got to the
+bottom without any special mishap.
+
+Tommy drew a long breath when at last they landed at the bottom of the
+shaft. He threw his light upward, then, and declared that in his opinion
+they were at least ten thousand feet nearer the center of the earth than
+they were when they started down.
+
+"I remember now," Sandy said with a grin, "that the Labyrinth mine is
+only about five hundred feet deep. If I remember correctly, there are
+three levels; one at three hundred feet; one at four, and one at five."
+
+"And which level is this?" asked Tommy.
+
+"Why, we're on the bottom, ain't we?"
+
+"Of course," laughed Tommy. "I ought to have known that!"
+
+"Well come along if you want to see the mine!" urged Sandy. "All we have
+to do is to push our searchlights ahead and walk down the gangway. We'll
+come to something worth seeing after a while."
+
+As the boys advanced they found the gangway considerably cluttered with
+"gob," or refuse, and the air was none of the best.
+
+"I wish we could set the air shaft working," suggested Sandy.
+
+"Well, we can't!" Tommy answered with a scornful shrug of his shoulders.
+"We can't set the whole works going in order to give us a midnight view
+of the Labyrinth mine. What gets me is, how are we going to find our way
+back? There seem to be a good many passages here."
+
+"I've got that fixed all right!" Sandy exclaimed.
+
+As the lad spoke he took a ball of strong string from his pocket and
+tied one end to the cage which lay at the bottom of the shaft.
+
+"Now we can go anywhere we please," he chuckled "and when we want to
+return, all we've got to do is to follow the string."
+
+"Quite an idea!" laughed Tommy.
+
+The boys proceeded along the gangway, walking between the rails of the
+tramway by means of which the coal was delivered at the bottom of the
+shaft. The experience was a novel one to them. The dark walls of the
+passage, the echoes which came from the counter gangways, the monotonous
+dripping of water as it seeped through seams and crevices in the rock,
+all gave a weird and uncanny expression to the place.
+
+After walking for some distance the boys came to a level which showed
+several inches of water.
+
+"We can't wade through that!" Tommy declared.
+
+"Well," Sandy suggested, "if we go back a little ways, we can follow a
+cross heading and get into the mine by another way."
+
+The boys followed this plan, and, after winding about several
+half-loaded cars which had been left on the tramway, found themselves in
+a large chamber from which numerous benches were cut.
+
+"Where does all this gas come from?" asked Tommy stopping short and
+putting a hand to his nose.
+
+"There must be a blower somewhere," Sandy explained.
+
+"What's a blower?" demanded Tommy. "What does it look like, and does it
+always smell like this?"
+
+"It doesn't look like anything!" replied Sandy. "It's composed of
+natural gas, and they call it a blower because it blows up out of
+crevices in the coal and in the rocks."
+
+"If I should light a match, would it set it on fire?" asked Tommy.
+
+"I wouldn't like to have you try it!"
+
+The boys continued on their way for some moments, and then Tommy stopped
+and extinguished his light, whispering to Sandy to do the same.
+
+"What's that for?" demanded the latter.
+
+"Didn't you hear that noise behind the cribbing?" asked Tommy.
+
+"Rats, probably!"
+
+"Rats nothing!" replied Tommy. "Rats don't make sounds like people
+whispering, do they? Keep still a minute, and we'll find out what it
+is!"
+
+"You'll be seeing a light next!" Sandy suggested.
+
+"I see it now!" answered Tommy.
+
+Sandy saw it, too, in a moment. It seemed at first to be floating in the
+air at the very top of the gangway. It moved from side to side, and
+finally dropped down nearer to the floor. There seemed to be no one near
+it or under it. Its small circle of illumination showed only the empty
+air.
+
+"What do you make of it?" asked Tommy.
+
+"Is this Tunnel Six?" asked his chum.
+
+"I don't know! If it is, we've seen the light the caretaker referred to.
+We'll have a great story to tell in the morning!"
+
+The boys stood in the darkness of the gangway watching the light for
+what seemed to them to be a long time. Now the light advanced toward
+them, now it receded. Now it lifted to the roof of the gangway, now it
+dropped almost to the floor.
+
+At intervals, the noises behind the cribbing to which Tommy had referred
+were repeated, and the boys at last moved over so as to stand with their
+ears almost against the wooden walls.
+
+"There is some one behind the cribbing, all right!" Tommy declared. "I
+hear some one breathing."
+
+"Aw, keep still!" whispered Sandy. "If there is anyone there, you'll
+frighten them away! I thought I heard some one myself!"
+
+"I'll tell you what I think," Tommy suggested in a moment, "and that is
+that either Will and George, or both of them, beat us to this gangway.
+They are hiding behind there on purpose to give us a scare."
+
+"That's a dream!" replied Sandy. "We left them both asleep."
+
+"Dream, is it?" repeated Tommy scornfully. "You just listen to the sound
+that comes from behind this cribbing, and tell me what you make of it!"
+
+Both boys listened intently for a moment, and then Sandy switched on his
+light and moved swiftly along the cribbing as if in search of an
+opening. Tommy gazed at him in astonishment.
+
+"You've gone and done it now!" he said.
+
+"There's some one in here all right!" Sandy explained. "Did you hear the
+call of the pack a minute ago? There are Boy Scouts in there, and what
+we hear are the signals of the Wolf Patrol."
+
+"That's right!" cried Tommy excitedly. "That's right!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+WHO CUT THE STRING?
+
+
+"Do you suppose he would understand the call of the Beaver Patrol?"
+asked Sandy. "I'm going to try him, anyway!"
+
+The boy brought his hands together in imitation of the slap of a
+beaver's tail on the water, and listened for some reply.
+
+"He'll understand that if he's up on Boy Scout literature," suggested
+Sandy. "He ought to be wise to the signs of the different patrols if
+he's a good Boy Scout."
+
+There was a short silence, broken only by the constant drip of the water
+in an adjoining chamber, and then the call of the pack came again,
+clearly, sharply and apparently only a short distance away.
+
+"What did Mr. Canfield call those two boys we are looking after?" asked
+Sandy, after waiting a short time for the repetition of the sound.
+
+"Jimmie Maynard and Dick Thompson," replied Tommy.
+
+Sandy threw out his chest and cried out at the top of his lungs:
+
+"Hello, Jimmie! Hello, Dick!"
+
+The lad's voice echoed dismally throughout the labyrinth of passages,
+but there was no other reply. Tommy and Sandy gave the call of the
+Beaver Patrol repeatedly, but the call of the Wolf pack was heard no
+more.
+
+"I'll bet it's some trick!" exclaimed Sandy after waiting in the chamber
+for a long time in the hope of hearing another call from the boys who
+were hidden somewhere behind the cribbing.
+
+"What do you mean by trick?" demanded Tommy.
+
+"Why, I mean that some of the breaker boys, out of work because of the
+stoppage of operations, may have sneaked into the mine on purpose to
+produce the impression that there are ghosts here."
+
+"But ghosts wouldn't be giving signals of the Wolf Pack, would they?"
+asked Tommy.
+
+"Not unless they were Scouts," replied the other.
+
+"Oh well, of course the kids would want to test us, wouldn't they,
+seeing that we were only boys?"
+
+"Well, we've discovered one thing by coming down," said Tommy, "and that
+is that there really are people in the mine who have no business here."
+
+"Then we may as well go back to bed," advised Sandy.
+
+"Do you know how many corners we've turned since we came in here?" asked
+Tommy.
+
+"About a thousand, I guess," replied Sandy.
+
+"Yes, and we'd have a fine old time getting out if you hadn't brought
+that ball of twine!"
+
+"Tell you what we'll do," Sandy said, as the boys turned their faces
+down the gangway, "we'll pass around the next shoulder of rock and then
+shut off our lights. Perhaps the kids who gave the cry of the pack in
+there will then show their light again."
+
+"That's a good idea, too!"
+
+The boys came at length to a brattice, which is a screen, of either wood
+or heavy cloth, set up in a passage to divert the current of air to a
+bench where workmen are engaged, and dodged down behind it, first
+shutting off their lights, of course.
+
+"Now, come on with your old light," whispered Tommy.
+
+As if in answer to the boy's challenge, the light showed again,
+apparently but a few yards away from their hiding place.
+
+A moment later the call of the pack, sounding louder than before, rang
+through the passage. The boys sprang to their feet and switched on their
+lights.
+
+"Why don't you come out and show yourselves?" shouted Tommy.
+
+"I don't believe you're Scouts at all!" declared Sandy.
+
+There was no answer. The boys could hear the drip of water and the
+purring of the current as it crept into a lower gangway, but that was
+all.
+
+"That settles it for tonight!" exclaimed Tommy. "I'm not going to hang
+around here waiting for Boy Scouts who don't respond to signals!"
+
+"That's me!" agreed Sandy. "We'll go to bed and think the matter over.
+There may be some way of trapping those fellows."
+
+"Suppose it should be Jimmie Maynard and Dick Thompson?" asked Tommy.
+
+"Then we'd have the case closed up in a jiffy!" was the reply.
+
+Before leaving that particular chamber, Tommy selected a large round
+piece of "gob," placed it in the center of the open space, and laid
+another small piece of shale on top of it.
+
+"What are you doing that for?" demanded Sandy.
+
+"Don't you know your Indian signs?" demanded the boy. "That means 'This
+is the trail.' Now I'll put a stone to the right, and that will tell
+these imitation Boy Scouts to turn to the right if they want to get
+out."
+
+"I guess they can get out if they want to," suggested Sandy.
+
+Thirty or forty feet further on, where, following the string, the boys
+turned again, this time to the left, Tommy laid another signal which
+showed the direction to be taken.
+
+"There," he said with a grin, "we've started them on the right path. If
+they don't want to follow it, that isn't our fault!"
+
+"We must be getting pretty near the shaft," Sandy said, after the boys
+had walked for nearly half an hour on the backward track.
+
+"Pull on your string," suggested Tommy, "and see if it stiffens up like
+only a short length of it remained out."
+
+Sandy did as requested, and then dropped to the floor with his
+searchlight laid along the extension of the cord.
+
+"The other end is loose!" he said in a tone of alarm.
+
+"Loose?" echoed Tommy. "How did it ever get loose?"
+
+Sandy sat down on the floor of the passage and began drawing the cord
+in, hand over hand.
+
+"I'm going to see if it's been cut!" he said.
+
+Tommy stepped on the swiftly moving cord and held it fast to the floor.
+
+"You mustn't draw it in!" he exclaimed. "As long as it lies on the floor
+as we strung it out, we can follow it without taking any chances. If you
+pull it in, then it's all off."
+
+"I understand!" Sandy agreed. "I didn't pull much of it in."
+
+The boys started up the gangway, one of them keeping a searchlight on
+the white thread of cord.
+
+They seemed to make a great many turns and once or twice Sandy declared
+that they were walking round and round in a circle.
+
+"I don't believe the passages run so we could walk around in a circle!"
+argued Tommy. "That ain't the way they run passages in mines!"
+
+"I don't care!" Sandy insisted. "We've been turning to the left about
+all the time, and if you leave it to me, we'll presently come out in the
+chamber where we heard the call of the pack!"
+
+"That may be right," admitted Tommy. "It does seem as if we'd been
+turning to the left most of the time. Besides," he went on, "we've been
+walking long enough to have reached the shaft three or four times."
+
+"And yet," argued Sandy, "we've been following the line of the cord
+every step. It lies right in the middle of the gangway here, and we're
+going the way it points all the time."
+
+This bit of reasoning seemed to give the boys fresh courage, and they
+walked on, expecting every moment to come in sight of the frame work
+which surrounded the shaft. At length, after a long half hour, Tommy
+stumbled over an obstruction lying in a chamber which somehow seemed
+strangely familiar. He lifted his foot and gave the obstruction a hearty
+kick.
+
+"That's my Indian sign of the trail!" grunted Sandy.
+
+"For the love of Mike!" exclaimed Tommy. "Have we been traveling all
+this time to come out in this same old hole at last?"
+
+"That's what we have!" replied Sandy. "If we had paid no attention to
+the string whatever and followed the rails when we came to the main gang
+way, we would have been home and in bed by this time!"
+
+"But we didn't," grinned Tommy. "We thought we had a cinch on getting
+out by way of this cord and so we followed that. I don't see, though,"
+he continued, "how we came back to this same old chamber by following
+the cord. That looks queer to me!"
+
+"I'll tell you how!" replied Sandy. "There's some gink been walking on
+ahead of us stringing the cord out for us to follow!"
+
+Tommy sat down on the bottom of the chamber and wrinkled his freckled
+nose provokingly.
+
+"We're a couple of easy marks!" he laughed.
+
+"Easy marks is no name for it!"
+
+"Well, what'll we do now to get out?" Tommy asked. "First thing we know,
+it'll be daylight, and then Will and George'll be calling out the police
+to find us. We ought to get home before they wake up."
+
+"I'm willing!" declared Sandy. "I'd like to be in my little bed this
+minute! I've had about enough of this foul air!"
+
+The boys passed along until they came to the second trail sign and then
+stopped. Tommy pointed down to it with a hand which was not quite steady
+and looked up into his chum's face with frightened eyes.
+
+"That's been moved!" he said.
+
+"How do you know it's been moved?"
+
+"Because you had the side stone on the other edge."
+
+"I don't think I did!" argued Sandy.
+
+The boys puzzled over the situation for a few moments, and then
+proceeded down the chamber looking for the tramway rails.
+
+They passed from chamber to chamber and finally came to a place where
+the slope was upward.
+
+"I guess we've struck it at last!" Sandy exclaimed.
+
+"But there are no rails here!" Tommy argued.
+
+"Then we're on the wrong track again," admitted Sandy.
+
+He bent down to the rock with his searchlight and pointed out evidences
+that the passage had once been laid with rails.
+
+"When they strip a chamber or a counter gangway," he said, "they take
+away the rails. It seems that we are now in a part of the Labyrinth mine
+which has been worked out."
+
+"I know what to do!" exclaimed Tommy. "I'll give the call of the Beaver
+Patrol and tell those ginks who have been giving the call of the pack
+that we're lost! That ought to bring them out of their holes."
+
+The Beaver call was given time after time, but no reply came.
+
+"Say," Tommy said after his patience had become exhausted, "I believe
+it's daylight. Look at your watch. I left mine in the bed!"
+
+"I left mine in bed, too," answered Sandy. "I know it is day, because
+I'm hungry."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+A SENSATIONAL DISCOVERY
+
+
+When Will awoke he began preparations for breakfast before paying any
+attention whatever to his chums, whom he believed to be sleeping quietly
+on their cots. It was November, and quite chilly in the apartment, so
+his next efforts were directed to coaxing the electric coils into a
+cheery glow.
+
+Presently George came tumbling out in his pyjamas and sat down on a
+rickety chair to talk of the adventures in prospect.
+
+"I wonder if the Labyrinth mine is so much of a labyrinth after all?" he
+asked. "It seems to me that we might find our way through it without
+danger of losing ourselves," he continued with a yawn.
+
+"It's some labyrinth, I take it," Will replied.
+
+"Well, we can make chalk marks on the walls as we move along," suggested
+George. "Besides," he added, "we can string an electric wire through the
+center gangway and turn on the lights."
+
+"There are probably electric lights there now," answered Will.
+
+"Then there's no danger of our becoming lost," George argued.
+
+"I wish you'd go to the back of the room and tip over those two cots,"
+grinned Will. "It's the hardest kind of work to get Tommy and Sandy to
+bed, but when you do get them in bed once, it's harder still to get them
+out of it. Just tip the cots over and roll 'em out on the floor."
+
+George approached the two cots in a stealthy manner and made ready to
+give Tommy and Sandy the bump of their lives.
+
+"Don't break their necks!" advised Will.
+
+As soon as George reached Tommy's bunk he stretched forth a hand for the
+purpose of tangling the boy up in the bedclothing so that his fall to
+the hard floor might be in a measure broken.
+
+As he swung his hand over the cot, however, his eyes widened and he
+called out to Will that the boys were not in their cots.
+
+There was a look of alarm as well as of annoyance on each face as the
+lads thought over the situation.
+
+"The little idiots!" exclaimed Will.
+
+"That isn't strong enough!" George corrected.
+
+"There's no knowing how long they've been gone," Will suggested. "The
+chances are that they went away as soon as we went to sleep."
+
+"In that case, they're in trouble!" George declared.
+
+"In what kind of trouble?"
+
+"The good Lord only knows!" replied George. "Tommy and Sandy can get
+into more different kinds of trouble in less time than any other boys on
+the face of the earth. They're the original lookers for trouble!"
+
+"Do you suppose they've got lost in the mine?" asked Will.
+
+"It may be worse than that!" cried George. "They may have butted into
+some of the people the caretaker indirectly referred to last night."
+
+"He did speak of strange noises and mysterious lights, didn't he?"
+
+"He certainly did, and I've got a hunch that Sandy and Tommy have butted
+into some hostile interests.
+
+"It does seem as if they would be back by this time unless they were in
+trouble!"
+
+The boys prepared an elaborate breakfast in the hope that Tommy and
+Sandy, who would be sure to be hungry, would return in time to partake
+of it. A dozen times during the meal they walked back to the shaft
+opening and looked anxiously down into the dark bowels of the mine.
+
+"Those fellows are always getting into trouble," Will said, rather
+crossly, as he stood looking down. "They have a way of running into most
+of their dangers at night, too. It was the same up on Lake Superior; the
+same in the snake-haunted Everglades of Florida; the same on the Rocky
+Mountains, and the same in the Hudson Bay country."
+
+"They sure do keep things moving," grinned George.
+
+"I think," Will suggested after a time, "that we'd better find Canfield
+and get his advice before we do anything in the way of setting up a
+search. I hate to admit that two members of our party got into a scrape
+on the same night we struck the mine, but I guess there's no way out of
+it."
+
+While the boys talked together, the door opened softly and the caretaker
+entered, accompanied by a short, paunchy man with a very red face and
+eyes which were black, small and suspicious. He was a man well past
+middle age, but he seemed to be making a bluff at thirty-five. His hair,
+which had turned white at the temples, and his moustache were both dyed
+black.
+
+Canfield introduced the new-comer as the detective, Joe Ventner, of New
+York, and the boys greeted him courteously.
+
+He accepted their proffered hands with an air of condescension which was
+most exasperating. He puffed out his chest, and at once began talking of
+some of his alleged exploits in the secret service of the government.
+
+"How did you pass the night, boys?" asked the caretaker.
+
+"Slept like pigs!" replied Will with a laugh.
+
+"Where are the others?" asked Canfield.
+
+"They're out getting a breath of fresh air, I reckon," answered George.
+
+The boys did not take to the detective at all. There was an air of
+insincerity about the man which at once put them on their guard.
+
+Had Canfield visited them alone, they would have explained to him the
+exact situation. In the presence of this detective, however, they
+decided to do nothing of the kind.
+
+"Now then," the detective said after a moment's silence, "if you boys
+will outline the course you intend to pursue in this matter, I think we
+can manage to work together without our plans clashing."
+
+"We have talked the matter over during the night," Will replied, "and
+have decided to remain here only long enough to obtain some clue as to
+the direction taken by the boys in their departure."
+
+"Then you think they are not here?" asked the detective.
+
+"There is no reason why they should be here, is there?" asked Will.
+
+"I don't know that there is," relied Ventner.
+
+"Can you imagine any reason for their wanting to linger about the mine?"
+asked George.
+
+"No," was the reply. "It has always been my opinion that the boys left
+the mine because they feared arrest for some boyish offense committed in
+some other part of the country, and that they are now far away from this
+place."
+
+Both lads observed that the detective seemed particularly pleased with
+the statement that they proposed to abandon the search of the mine
+immediately. Somehow, they caught the impression that they would
+interfere with his plans if they remained.
+
+"It might be well," Ventner said, directly, "to keep me posted as to any
+discoveries you may make. We must work together, you know."
+
+"Certainly," replied Will, speaking with a mental reservation which did
+not include the giving up of any information worth while.
+
+"Well, then, I'll be going," the detective said, strutting across the
+room, with his little round belly protruding like that of an insect.
+"You can always find me at the hotel down here, if I'm in this part of
+the country. Just ask for me and I'll show up."
+
+Canfield was turning to depart with the detective when Will motioned to
+him to remain. The caretaker turned back with a surprised look.
+
+Will waited until the door had closed on the detective before speaking.
+Even then, he went to the door and glanced down the passage.
+
+"Something exciting?" smiled the caretaker, noting the boy's caution.
+
+"Yes," Will answered, "there's something exciting. Tommy and Sandy
+disappeared during the night."
+
+"Disappeared?" echoed the caretaker.
+
+"Yes," George cut in, "there was some talk of their visiting the mine
+just before we went to bed, and we are of the opinion that they went
+down the shaft shortly after we fell asleep, and failed to find their
+way to the surface again. We are considerably alarmed."
+
+"I should think you would be!" replied the caretaker. "In the first
+place, the Labyrinth mine bears the right name. There are old workings
+below which a stranger might follow for days without finding the way
+out."
+
+"Then we'll have to organize a search for the boys," George suggested.
+
+"Besides," continued Canfield, "there are things going on in the mine
+which no one understands. I have long believed that there are people
+living there who have no right to take up such a residence."
+
+"I'm sorry you said anything to this detective about our being here,"
+Will said, after this phase of the case had been discussed.
+
+"As a matter of fact," the caretaker replied, "I didn't intend to say
+anything to Ventner about your being here, but in some way he received
+an intimation that you were about to take up the case and so pumped the
+whole story out of me."
+
+"Perhaps he received his information from the New York attorney,"
+suggested Will.
+
+"I'm sure that he did not," answered the caretaker. "If the attorney had
+written to him in regard to the matter at all, he would have posted him
+so fully that when he cross-examined me such a proceeding would have
+been unnecessary."
+
+"Has this man Ventner visited the mine often?" asked George.
+
+"Yes, quite frequently."
+
+"Does he always go alone?"
+
+"Yes, he always goes alone," was the answer. "Once I accompanied him to
+the bottom of the shaft, but there he suggested that we go in different
+directions, and did not seem to want me anywhere near him."
+
+"I don't like the looks of the fellow, and that's a fact!" exclaimed
+Will. "He doesn't look good to me."
+
+After some discussion it was decided that the caretaker would accompany
+the two boys to the bottom of the shaft and direct them down gangways,
+which they could follow without fear of losing their way, and the
+illumination of which would be likely to be observed by anyone wandering
+about the blind chambers and passages of the mine.
+
+When they reached the bottom of the shaft, climbing down the ladders, as
+Tommy and Sandy had done some hours before, they gathered in a little
+group at the bottom while the caretaker gave them a few general
+instructions regarding the general outlines of the Labyrinth of tunnels,
+chambers and cross passages which lay before them.
+
+"Did any one come down after us?" asked Will directly.
+
+"No one," was the reply. "Why do you ask?"
+
+"Because," Will answered, "there's some one skulking off down that
+passage, and it looks to me like that bum detective!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE FLOODED MINE
+
+
+"What makes you think it's Ventner?" asked the caretaker. "Did you see
+his face? I don't think he is here."
+
+"I didn't see his face," answered Will, "but I saw the shape of his
+shoulders and the hang-dog look of him."
+
+"You're prejudiced against Ventner," laughed Canfield.
+
+"I admit it!" replied Will. "He looks to me like a snake in the grass. I
+don't think anything he could do would look good to me."
+
+"Now," Canfield said, "perhaps we'd better be mapping out a plan of
+campaign. Here are three gangways leading in three different directions.
+We'll leave one of the lights burning at the shaft, then we'll each take
+a light and proceed into the interior, making as much noise as we
+conveniently can, and flashing the light into all the chambers and cross
+headings we come to."
+
+"How long are these gangways?" asked Will.
+
+"Somewhere near a half a mile straight ahead!" was the answer.
+
+The caretaker went away swinging his electric searchlight, and Will and
+George pushed forward in their respective passages.
+
+After proceeding a short distance, George heard Will calling to him.
+
+"There's some one just ahead of me in the gangway!" Will declared. "I
+think we ought to go together!"
+
+"Do you think it's that bum detective?" asked George.
+
+"I certainly do!"
+
+"Well, we can go together if you like," George said. "We can't cover
+quite as much ground in that way, but I guess we can accomplish more in
+the long run!"
+
+The boys had proceeded only a short distance when they heard Canfield
+calling to them. A moment later they heard the caretaker's steps ringing
+on the hard floor of the gangway down which they were advancing. He came
+up to them panting, in a moment.
+
+"There's something mighty queer about this mine," the caretaker
+declared. "It was punk dry only two days ago, and now there are four or
+five feet of water where the gangway I started to follow dips down.
+
+"And look there!" Will exclaimed holding his light aloft and pointing,
+"you can see plenty of water ahead! I guess all the gangways are taking
+a washing, and the water seems to be rising, too!"
+
+"Is there any way by which the mine could be intentionally flooded?"
+asked George. "There may be some one planning trouble for the owners."
+
+"There is only one way that I know of in which the mine could be flooded
+intentionally," replied the caretaker. "There is a large drain, of
+course, in what is known as the sump. Considerable water runs off in
+that way, and the rest of the drippings are taken out by the pumps. If
+this sump drainage should become clogged, the mine, of course, would
+become flooded though not to such an extent, unless the pumps were kept
+constantly at work."
+
+"Then I guess you'd better set the pumps going," Will suggested. "We
+can't get into the mine in its present condition unless we swim."
+
+"Haven't you got a boat?" asked George.
+
+"Why, yes," replied the caretaker. "There's a couple of boats somewhere
+in the mine. The operators placed them here thinking they might come in
+handy at some future time, but I haven't any idea where they are now.
+Still, I think they're not far away."
+
+"If you'll go and set the pumps in motion," Will advised, "George and
+I'll look around for the boats. We may need them before the pumps get
+under motion the way the water is pouring in now."
+
+"I guess Tommy and Sandy don't come back because they're penned in by
+water," George suggested, as the boys began searching the vicinity of
+the shaft for the boats.
+
+"If they're anywhere within hearing distance, they ought to answer us
+when we called out, hadn't they?" asked Will.
+
+"We haven't tried that yet," George answered. "Suppose we let out a
+couple of yells!"
+
+To think in this case was to act, and the boys did let out a couple of
+yells which brought the caretaker running back from the shaft.
+
+The boys were listening for some answer to their shouts when he arrived,
+and so they paid little attention to his numerous questions.
+
+"There is no time to lose," Canfield went on. "I'll go to the top at
+once and call an engineer and a couple of firemen. When you find the
+boat, take a trip down the main gangway here and stick your lights into
+all the crossheadings and chambers you see. But, above all," he
+continued, "don't fail to leave a light here at a shaft, and be careful
+that you never pass out of sight of it."
+
+Canfield hastened away, climbing the ladders two rungs at a time, and
+soon disappeared into the little dot of light at the top.
+
+The two boys searched patiently for the boat for a long time, but did
+not succeed in discovering it. At last, Will suggested that it might be
+in the mule stable and thither they went.
+
+The boat was there, in excellent condition, and the boys soon had it
+swinging to and fro on the surface of the water which now lay several
+feet deep in the main gangway.
+
+"Je-rusalem!" exclaimed George, taking the depth of the water with an
+oar, "if the water is four feet deep here, how deep must it be at the
+middle of the dip?"
+
+"About forty rods, I should think!" exaggerated Will.
+
+The boys left a large searchlight at the shaft, so situated that it
+looked straight down the passage they proposed following, and started
+away in the boat. The flashlights illuminated only a small portion of
+the underground place, but the boys could see some distance straight
+ahead.
+
+Once they ceased rowing to listen, believing that they had heard calls
+from the darkness beyond. The sound was not repeated, and they were
+about to proceed when a sound which brought all their nervous energy
+into full swing reached their ears.
+
+It was the bumping of an oar or paddle against the side of a boat. The
+blow echoed through the cavern as sharply as a pistol shot might have
+done. There could be no mistake in the cause.
+
+"Now who's in that other boat?"
+
+"Somehow," George grumbled in a whisper, "we always have propositions
+like that put up to us! There's always a mystery in every trip we take!
+We found one on Lake Superior, and one in the Florida Everglades, and
+one at the top of the Rocky mountains and one in the Hudson Bay
+wilderness."
+
+"Yes, and we solved them, too!" grinned Will. "And we're going to solve
+this one! You remember about my seeing some one sneaking in here just
+ahead of us, don't you?"
+
+"Yes," was the answer. "You thought it was that bum detective."
+
+"I think so yet," replied Will.
+
+"If it's the detective," asked George, "why didn't he give the alarm
+when he found that the mine was being flooded. He might at least have
+done that and saved the company a great deal of expense and trouble."
+
+"Give it up," replied Will. "I might ask you," he went on, "why he was
+rowing away into a flooded mine which is supposed to be deserted."
+
+"And I'd have to give you the answer you gave me," George declared.
+
+The boys could now hear the strokes of the oarsman who was in the lead
+quite regularly and distinctly. Now and then he turned into
+crossheadings and chambers, as if to escape from their surveillance, but
+they kept steadily on after him, not taking into account the fact that
+they were leaving the light they had set at the shaft far out of view.
+
+"Perhaps we ought to turn back now," George proposed, in a short time,
+seeing that they came no nearer to the boat in advance. "We left the
+main gangway some time ago, and we ought not to get too far away from
+it."
+
+Will turned and looked back, facing only an inky blackness.
+
+"We should have stuck to the main gangway," he said. "I don't even
+remember when we left it! Is it very far back?"
+
+"Some distance," answered George. "You see we followed this other boat
+without thinking what we were doing."
+
+"Perhaps, if we continue to follow the other boat, it will lead us
+somewhere. The fellow rowing must know something about the interior of
+the mine or he probably wouldn't be here!"
+
+"I've been listening for a minute or more, trying to catch sound of the
+fellow's oars," George went on, "but there's nothing doing. I guess he's
+led us into a blind chamber and slipped away!"
+
+"We don't seem to be lacking for excitement," Will suggested with a
+grin. "We've lost Tommy and Sandy, and the machinery of the mine has
+been interfered with, and the lower levels are filling with water! Any
+old time we start out to do things, there's a general mixup!"
+
+"Aw, quit growling and listen a minute," suggested George.
+
+The boys listened only for a moment when the sound George had heard was
+repeated. It was the call of the Wolf pack!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE BEAVER CALL
+
+
+"That's Tommy!" exclaimed Will.
+
+"I never knew that he belonged to the Wolf Patrol!" George observed.
+
+"He might give the call without belonging to the Patrol!" urged Will.
+
+The boys listened, but the sound was not repeated, although they called
+out the names of their chums and gave the Beaver call repeatedly.
+
+"I guess it was a dream," George suggested.
+
+"Then it was the most vivid dream I ever had!" Will declared.
+
+They rowed about the chamber for some moments searching for the source
+of the call, but to no purpose.
+
+"Let's go back to the shaft," urged George.
+
+"I'm agreeable," answered Will. "The only question now is whether we can
+find the shaft. The water is so deep that all branches of the mine look
+alike to me!"
+
+In passing out of the chamber into another passage the boys were obliged
+to stoop low in order to avoid what is called a dip.
+
+After passing under the dip so close to the ceiling that the boys were
+obliged to lie down in the boat in order to protect their heads, they
+came to a large chamber which seemed to be fairly dry save in the
+center, where there was a depression of considerable size.
+
+"Nothing doing here!" Will exclaimed as he flashed his searchlight
+around the place. "This chamber looks as if there hadn't been an ounce
+of coal mined here for a hundred years."
+
+"Then let's get out," George proposed, "and make our way back to the
+shaft if possible. If we can't, we'll make noise enough to attract
+Canfield's attention and let him come and lead us out."
+
+"Here we go, then," cried Will, giving the boat a great push toward the
+dip. "We can't get out any too fast."
+
+The boat came up against a solid projection of rock!
+
+"I don't seem to see any way out!" George exclaimed.
+
+"Well, it's there somewhere!" declared Will.
+
+"I see it now!" cried George. "It's under water!"
+
+"Under water?" repeated Will.
+
+"Yes, under water!" answered George. "If we don't get out of this hole
+before the pumps get to working we'll have to swim!"
+
+Will turned his searchlight on the dip and saw that it was now full
+clear to the down dropping roof.
+
+"I guess we'll have to swim," he agreed.
+
+"That black water doesn't look good to me," George exclaimed with a
+little shudder. "It seems to me that I can see snakes and alligators
+wiggling in it from here. Looks worse to me than the swamps of the
+Everglades! And there was a quart of snakes to every pint of water down
+there!"
+
+"But we got to swim just the same!" urged Will. "In half an hour from
+now the air in this chamber will be unbreathable. There is no vent at
+all, now that the water fills the dip, and the coal gas is naturally
+seeping in all the time."
+
+"That's all right, too!" admitted George. "But I'm not going to jump
+into that black water until I have to. If a rope or something should
+twine around my legs while I was in there, I'd drop dead with fright!
+Besides," he went on, "the chances are that Canfield will get the pumps
+going before long now."
+
+The boys waited for a long half hour, during which time the water rose
+steadily. It seemed certain that the mine was about to be flooded
+throughout all the lower levels.
+
+"Tommy and Sandy may have bumped into just such a situation as this,"
+Will said, as he pushed the boat from side to side in the hope of coming
+upon some exit from the place.
+
+"Serves 'em good and right!" exclaimed George.
+
+Will chuckled to himself and held a wet hand high up toward the roof of
+the chamber or passage.
+
+"There's a current of air here!" he said.
+
+"Then we won't smother to death!" George grunted.
+
+"And, look here," Will continued, as the boat bumped into a pyramid of
+shale which had been thrown up to within a few inches of the roof, "some
+one has been building this hill of refuse and using it for a refuge!"
+
+"It does look that way," George agreed. "That shows that at some time
+the water must have ascended to the very top of the wall. We may have to
+climb up there ourselves in order to keep from getting our clothing
+soaked in that ink down there!"
+
+The water rose higher and higher in the passage, and it seemed to the
+boys that by this time most of the lower gangways were entirely
+impassible.
+
+"It doesn't seem to me that the water in this blooming old mine could
+rise any faster if the whole Mississippi river were turned into it!"
+cried George in a tone of disgust. "If Canfield doesn't get his pumps
+going before long, he'll have a job here that'll take him all winter!"
+
+"I presume he's doing the best he can," Will argued. "For all we know,
+the boilers as well as the electric motors may have been tampered with.
+That would be just our luck!"
+
+"I wonder what's become of that bum detective?" asked George after a
+short silence. "We heard him rowing along in front of us one minute, and
+the next minute there wasn't a single sound to indicate that there was
+another boat in the mine."
+
+"As soon as I get out of this," Will stated, "I'm going to make it my
+business to find out whether that detective is regularly employed on
+this case. He looks to me like a crook!"
+
+It was dreary waiting there in the sealed-up chamber, and the boys found
+themselves dropping into long intervals of silence while they listened
+for the gurgle of the water which would indicate that the great pumps
+had been set in motion.
+
+During one of those intervals of silence, they heard sounds which
+brought them to their feet in great excitement. Almost unable to believe
+his ears, Will turned to George with a question on his lips:
+
+"Did you hear that?" he asked.
+
+"Of course I did!"
+
+"I did, too, but I thought I must be dreaming."
+
+"No dream about that!" replied George. "That's the call of the Beaver
+Patrol!"
+
+"And that means that Tommy and Sandy are not far away!"
+
+"We heard the call of the Wolf Patrol not long ago," suggested George.
+"I wonder if this blooming old mine is chock full of Boy Scouts of
+assorted sizes. There can't be too many here to please me!"
+
+The boys returned the Beaver call but no answer came. At times they
+thought they heard whispers coming from the dark reaches of the cavern,
+but they were not quite certain.
+
+"There may be real Beavers in here for all we know!" suggested Will.
+
+"That's all you know about it!" chuckled George. "Beavers only operate
+in running water."
+
+"Well, isn't that water out there running?" asked Will.
+
+"No jokes now!" replied George. "I've got all I can endure now without
+standing for any of your alleged witticisms!"
+
+While the boys sat in the boat, occasionally moving it from side to
+side, a shaft of light appeared directly above the point where the shale
+had been heaped up. It moved swiftly about for an instant and then
+dropped out of view. It was a moment before either boy spoke.
+
+"That's some of Tommy's foolishness!" Will declared.
+
+George repeated the Beaver call several times, but no answer came.
+
+"That's a searchlight, anyway!" insisted Will. "And I don't believe
+these ginks in the mines have electric searchlights to lug around with
+them!"
+
+Will unshipped an oar and struck the water with the flat of the blade
+several times, exerting his whole strength.
+
+"Keep it up!" advised George. "That sounds exactly like a beaver's tail
+connecting with the surface of a stream!"
+
+"Yes, keep it up!" cried a voice out of the darkness. "Keep it up, and
+perhaps some beaver'll come along and build a dam to get you out of that
+mess you're in! You're always getting into trouble, you two!"
+
+"You've got your nerve with you!" exclaimed Will, half-angrily. "Here
+you go out in the night and get lost, and we come out after you, and the
+mine gets flooded, and we get tied up between the solid wall and a
+bend in the passage, and then you blame us for getting into trouble!"
+
+"Can you climb?" chuckled Tommy, throwing the rays of his searchlight on
+the boat. "If you can, just mount up on that pile of shale and work your
+way through the opening between the two levels. This might have been
+used as a sort of an air hole a few hundred years ago," he went on, "but
+I'll bet that not one out of a hundred of the miners of today know that
+there is an opening here!"
+
+Leaving the boat, the boys mounted the pile of shale and were soon
+making their way up the rugged face of the shaft in the direction of the
+level, which ran along above the one now being flooded.
+
+"Can you find your way out of this dump, now?" asked Will as the boys
+stood with their chums at the end of a long passage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A TREACHEROUS FOE
+
+
+"There seems to be fewer twists and turns in this level than on the one
+below it," Tommy explained, "and I guess we can find our way out readily
+enough. If we don't," he went on, "I shall be obliged to eat a ton or
+two of coal to keep from starving to death."
+
+"Serves you right!" declared Will. "You had no business getting up in
+the middle of the night and wandering off into the mine!"
+
+"What did you do?" demanded Tommy.
+
+"We waited until morning, and then enlisted the services of the
+caretaker," replied Will. "So far as I can remember, this is about the
+nine hundredth relief expedition we've been out on in search of you
+boys!"
+
+"Seems to me," Tommy chuckled, "that you're the lads that were in need
+of the relief expedition! We found you boxed up in a chamber in a boat."
+
+"But we wouldn't have been in any such mess if we hadn't started out to
+look you up!" George declared.
+
+"We should have been back before you got out of bed this morning, if
+some one hadn't cut our string," replied Sandy. "We had a cinch on
+getting out, but some geezer led us a fool chase by cutting our cord and
+steering us around in a circle."
+
+"Did you see any one?" asked Will.
+
+"Not a soul!" was the reply. "But there's some one in here, just the
+same. We heard the call of the Wolf Patrol a long time ago and we've
+heard it several times since."
+
+"What do you mean by some one cutting your string?" asked George.
+
+"Why," replied Sandy, "we tied the loose end of a ball of twine to one
+of the shaft timbers and unwound the ball as we moved along, expecting
+to follow it back when we wanted to get out."
+
+"How do you know some one cut it?" asked Will.
+
+"Perhaps you broke it," George suggested.
+
+Sandy took a piece of the cord from his pocket and passed it over to
+George with a sly chuckle.
+
+"See if you can break that!" he said.
+
+George tried his best to break the string, but it remained firm under
+all his strength.
+
+The boys now fell into a discussion of the ways and means of getting out
+of the mine.
+
+"I believe," Sandy exclaimed, "that if we follow the current of air
+which the rising water is forcing out of this old shaft, we will come to
+the entrance. As you all know, a current of air takes the shortest way
+to any given point, and this one ought to blow straight toward the
+shaft."
+
+"Great head, that, little boy!" laughed Tommy.
+
+After proceeding some distance the steady thud, thud of the pumping
+machinery was heard, and the boys understood that the efforts of the
+caretaker were at last bringing results. The sounds also aided them in
+direction, and in a short time they stood at the shaft on the second
+level.
+
+When they came out to the timber work, Will, who was in the lead,
+motioned to the others to remain in the background.
+
+"What's doing now?" whispered Sandy.
+
+"There's a man working on the ladders," explained Will in a low whisper.
+"I can't see him yet, but I can hear the sound of a saw."
+
+"He may be cutting the rungs," suggested Tommy.
+
+"That's the notion I had," replied Will. "Suppose we all get around
+behind the air shaft and wait until we can find out what he is up to. It
+may be that bum detective, for all we know."
+
+"What would he be doing there?" questioned Sandy.
+
+"Sawing the rungs!" whispered Will. "He wouldn't cut them down, of
+course, but he might saw them so that they would break under our weight
+and give us a drop of a couple of hundred feet."
+
+"It doesn't seem as if any human being would do a thing like that!"
+cried George. "It would be a wicked thing to do!"
+
+While the boys whispered together, the sound of sawing continued. The
+man engaged at the task was evidently unfamiliar with such work, for
+they heard him puffing and blowing as the saw cut through the wood.
+
+"He's cutting the rungs, all right!" Will said in a moment. "And that
+cuts off our escape until the cables can be put in motion and the cages
+started. I wish I had him by the neck!"
+
+"We'll get him by the neck, all right, before many days," Sandy cut in,
+"if we can only get a sight of him so as to be sure of his identity."
+
+Presently the man ceased working, and they heard him ascending the
+ladders, step by step. In a moment the saw which he had been using
+dropped from his hands and clattered to the bottom of the shaft.
+
+Then they heard him springing swiftly forward, and directly they knew
+that he had reached the top. The boys all looked disgusted.
+
+"And we never caught sight of him!" exclaimed Tommy.
+
+Will now walked around to the front of the shaft and looked down. The
+saw which had been used lay shining on the lower level.
+
+"I'm going down after that!" he said in a moment.
+
+"Yes, you are!" whispered Tommy.
+
+"Got to have it!" insisted Will.
+
+"Well, go on and get it, then," laughed Sandy. "You've got to show me!"
+
+"I don't think he cut the rungs between this level and the next one,"
+George interposed. "It may be safe to use the lower ladders."
+
+"I can soon find out!" Will declared.
+
+The cutting had been done between the second level and the top. The
+ladders below seemed perfectly safe. After testing them thoroughly, Will
+trusted himself on one of the rungs and let himself down slowly, bearing
+as much weight as was possible on the standards.
+
+He was at the bottom in a moment, and in another moment stood by the
+side of his chums with the saw in his hand.
+
+"I don't think that's so very much!" Tommy exclaimed.
+
+"Right here, then," Will explained, "is where you get your little
+Sherlock Holmes lesson! This is a new saw, as you all see. It probably
+never was used before. Now the man who did the cutting bought this at
+some nearby store. Don't you see what it means?"
+
+"That's a fact!" cried Tommy. "We can find out who bought the saw, and
+so discover the gink who tried to commit murder by sawing the ladders."
+
+"And look here," Will went on, "do you see these threads hanging to the
+teeth of the saw? Do you see the color?"
+
+"Blue!" replied the boys in a breath.
+
+"That's right, blue. Now, what sort of a suit did the detective wear
+this morning? It was blue, wasn't it?"
+
+"Sure it was!" replied George. "A blue serge! I noticed it particularly
+because it wasn't much of a fit."
+
+"Well, these are blue serge threads!" commented Will.
+
+"That's right, too," admitted Sandy.
+
+While the boys still stood at the second level they heard some one
+moving down from the top. Will rushed around to the ladder and looked
+up.
+
+He could not see the face of the man who was climbing down, but he could
+see that he did not wear a blue serge suit.
+
+In a moment he called out to him, asking some trivial question regarding
+the action of the pumps. When the man looked down he saw that it was
+Canfield. The caretaker seemed surprised at finding the boys at the
+second level. He kept on descending.
+
+"Wait!" Will called. "Stop where you are!"
+
+"But I've got to find out what's the matter with the machinery at the
+bottom," the caretaker called out. "There's something wrong there!"
+
+"Then you'd better take long steps," replied Will, "for if you put any
+weight on those rungs, you're likely to land at the bottom of the shaft.
+The rungs have been cut!"
+
+"I can't believe that!" replied Canfield.
+
+"Suppose you look and see!"
+
+The caretaker advanced cautiously downward until he came to where a fine
+line of sawdust lay on one of the rungs.
+
+"Do you know who did this?" he asked.
+
+"We think we do," replied Will, "but this isn't any time for long
+stories. The first thing for us to do is to get back into the breaker
+and cook Tommy and Sandy three or four breakfasts apiece!"
+
+"So you found them, did you?" asked Canfield.
+
+"No; we found them," shouted Tommy.
+
+"Well, how're you going to get out?" asked the caretaker.
+
+"Get a rope," directed Will, "and throw it over the sound rung lowest
+down, and we'll climb up until we can trust our weight on the ladder."
+
+This plan was followed, and in a short time the boys all stood, hungry
+and tired, in their room in the breaker. Tommy made an instantaneous
+dive for the provisions which had been brought in the night before.
+
+"Nice old time we've had!" he exclaimed, with his mouth full of pork and
+beans. "I guess we're some Boy Scouts after all!"
+
+"I'm going to tie you up tonight!" Will declared.
+
+While the boys talked and ate the caretaker darted to the door leading
+to the passage which ended at the shaft.
+
+He returned in a moment looking both angry and frightened.
+
+"The pumps have stopped!" he said. "The mine will probably be flooded
+before tomorrow morning! The very devil seems to have taken full charge
+here today. I never saw anything like it!"
+
+"There are boys in the mine who will be drowned!" exclaimed Tommy.
+
+"I'm not so sure of that!" answered Canfield. "It was only a suggestion
+on my part that the boys we are in search of have taken refuge under
+ground. I think I must have been mistaken!"
+
+"Do you know whether these breaker boys belonged to the Boy Scouts or
+not?" asked Will. "Did you ever see any medals or badges on their
+clothing which told of Boy Scout experiences?"
+
+"Sure they belong to the Boy Scouts!" declared the caretaker, "and that
+is the very reason why I sent for Boy Scouts to help find them."
+
+"What Patrol did they belong to?" asked Will.
+
+"If you had heard them howling like wolves around the breaker night
+after night," was the reply, "you wouldn't ask what patrol they belonged
+to!"
+
+"Then they are in the mine!" shouted Tommy. "We all heard the call of
+the pack, but the funny thing is that they wouldn't show themselves."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+"THEY WENT UP IN THE AIR!"
+
+
+"There's something funny-about those boys!" exclaimed Canfield. "They
+seemed to be merry-hearted fellows, just a little bit full of mischief,
+but for some reason they never mixed with the others much."
+
+"Where did they come from when they came here?" asked Will.
+
+"The information in the letters I received from the attorney in charge
+of the case is that they came here from New York, not directly but by
+some round-about way."
+
+"Did this attorney ever inform you why he wanted the boys found?" asked
+Tommy. "Are we all working in the dark?"
+
+"He never told me why he wanted the boys found. For all I know, they may
+be wanted for some crime, or they may be heirs to an immense property.
+My instructions are to find them. That's all!"
+
+"Where did these boys lodge?" asked Will.
+
+"They didn't have any regular room," was the reply. "They slept in the
+breaker whenever the watchman would permit them to do so, and when he
+wouldn't, they threw stones at him and slept in the railroad yard
+somewhere. But the strangest part of the whole business is the way they
+disappeared from sight."
+
+"You didn't tell us about that!" exclaimed Sandy.
+
+"I meant to," the caretaker answered. "The last seen of them here they
+were at work on the breaker. It was somewhere near the middle of the
+afternoon, and the cracker boss had been particularly ugly. The two boys
+were often caught whispering together, and more than once the cracker
+boss had launched such trifles as half pound blocks of shale at them. I
+happened to be on the outside just about that time."
+
+"The boys didn't go up in the air, did they?" asked Sandy with a
+chuckle. "They haven't got wings, have they?"
+
+"To all intents and purposes, they went up into the air!" answered the
+caretaker. "One moment they were on the breaker sorting slate and stuff
+of that kind out of the stream of coal which was pouring down upon them,
+and the next moment they were nowhere in sight!"
+
+"Had any strangers been seen talking with them?"
+
+"Now you come to a point that I should have mentioned before!" replied
+the caretaker. "Two days before they left a strange boy came to the mine
+and went to work on the breaker. He was an unusually well-mannered,
+well-dressed young fellow, and so the breaker boys called him a dude. He
+resented this, of course, and there was a fight at the first quitting
+time. These two boys, Jimmie and Dick, stood by the new lad, and gave
+three or four of the tough little chaps who work on the breaker a good
+beating up."
+
+"Now we've got hold of something!" exclaimed Will. "Were these three
+boys together much after that?"
+
+"No," was the reply. "The new boy thanked Jimmie and Dick for helping
+him through his scrape, and that was about all. They might have talked
+together for five minutes that night, but they were never seen, in each
+other's company again so far as I know."
+
+"How long did this new boy stay here?" asked George.
+
+"He quit the next day."
+
+"He didn't go up in a pillar of fire, did he?" grinned Sandy.
+
+"No, he walked up to the office and asked if he could get his pay for
+the time he had worked. The boss told him he'd have to wait until
+Saturday night, and he turned up his nose and walked out."
+
+"And where did he go?" asked George.
+
+"He said he was going down the river in a boat," answered the caretaker.
+"He bought an old boat, stocked it with quite a supply of provisions,
+and started on his way. The next day the boat was found bottom side up
+on a bar, and the lad's hat lay on the bank not far away."
+
+"Do you think he was drowned?" asked Sandy.
+
+"It would seem so."
+
+"Drowned nothing!" exclaimed Tommy. "He sneaked those provisions into
+the mine under cover of the darkness, and the three little rascals are
+feeding on them yet. You can see the end of that without a telescope!"
+
+"Now, smarty!" exclaimed George. "You've told us where the boys went,
+and where the provisions landed, and all that, now tell us why these
+kids hid themselves in the mine. And while you are about it, you may as
+well tell why they gave the Wolf call and refused to reply."
+
+"This story," replied Tommy with a grin, "is not a novelette, complete
+in one number. It's a serial story, and will be continued in our next
+issue. What did you say about the pumps stopping, Mr. Canfield?"
+
+"They've stopped, all right!" the caretaker replied.
+
+"Are you going to let the ginks flood the mine?" asked Sandy.
+
+"While I was out a few moments ago," Canfield explained, "I notified one
+of the clerks in the company's office to send up a gang of men to repair
+the machinery. They ought to be here by this time."
+
+"How long will it take to repair the pump?" asked Tommy.
+
+"It may take an hour and it may take twenty-four."
+
+"In the meantime," Tommy continued, "do you think you could send one of
+the county officers out to round up this bum detective?"
+
+"You mean that you want him watched?" asked Canfield.
+
+"Sure!" answered Tommy. "He sawed the rungs in the shaft, didn't he? He
+could get ten years for that!"
+
+"All right," replied Canfield. "I'll send word out and have him arrested
+if you are positive that he is the man that did the cutting."
+
+"We are positive that he's the man," replied Will, "but it'll spoil
+everything if you have him arrested. We want to give him a free hand for
+a time, and see what he will do. He's a crook, and he's bound to show
+it! And another thing," the boy went on, "we don't want anyone to know
+that he is under suspicion. We just want him watched."
+
+"You're handling the case," smiled Canfield, "and I'll take any steps
+you advise. I can't tell you how sorry I am that I brought the detective
+in here this morning!"
+
+"Well," Will said, "we put up a bluff about getting out of town and
+perhaps we can make that stick. We can take a train out and come back in
+on a lonely freight, and get into the mine without his knowing anything
+about it. The mine is the best place to work from, anyway!"
+
+"That's why I wanted to know how soon the mine could be pumped out!"
+stated Tommy. "I don't care about wading around in a mess of water
+that's blacker than a stack of black cats."
+
+"I think I can have the mine fairly dry by the time you boys get out of
+town and back again!" laughed Canfield.
+
+"Well," Tommy said, "then you'd better get a couple of dry-goods boxes
+and fill them full of good things to eat, and drop 'em down to the first
+level. Perhaps you know of a cosy little chamber there where we can set
+up housekeeping."
+
+"I know just the place," said the caretaker. "To the left of the old
+tool house there's a room where odd articles of every description have
+been stored for any number of years. The blacksmith and the fire-boss
+used to go there to smoke and tell stories, if I remember right."
+
+"Does anyone ever go there now?" asked Will.
+
+"Not that I know of," was the reply.
+
+"Then we'll drop down there some time towards morning," Will decided.
+"And in the meantime," he added, with a wink at his chums, "we'll be
+looking for a boy tramp out in the railroad yards."
+
+"What do you mean by that?" asked the caretaker.
+
+"Oh, I've just got an idea," replied Will, "that there's a kid hanging
+around this part of the country whom we ought to interview."
+
+"But I don't understand."
+
+"You wait until we get hold of him, and you'll understand all right!"
+laughed Will. "We just need that boy!"
+
+"But how do you know there is such a boy?" urged the caretaker.
+
+"He gets it out of a dream book!" Tommy chuckled.
+
+"Do you mean to say that there is some go-between between the boys who
+may or may not be in the mine and some persons outside who are
+interested in them?" asked the caretaker.
+
+"I didn't say anything of the kind!" replied Will.
+
+"There are times," Tommy explained to Canfield, "when the gift of frank
+speech is taken away from Will, so you mustn't blame him for not
+answering. He'll tell you all about it when the time comes."
+
+The caretaker went away with a puzzled look on his honest face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+WHO DISCOVERED THE LEAK?
+
+
+"You've got to explanation me," George laughed, as the caretaker left
+the room, and the boys began picking up their clothing, preparatory to
+the alleged journey. "I can't understand what you mean by saying that
+you'll watch out for a boy tramp in the railroad yards."
+
+"It's a sure thing, isn't it?" Will asked, "that the boys we are in
+search of are in the mine? We don't know what they're in there for. They
+may be hiding there because of some fool notion they have in their
+heads, or they may have been sent here for some definite purpose."
+
+"You bet they've been sent here for some definite purpose," George
+replied. "They never came here to work on the breaker without having
+some well-defined motive. Boys answering to their description don't
+accept such jobs as they accepted here!"
+
+"Well, the boys are in the mine," Will continued. "As stated, we don't
+know what they're there for, but we know they're there. Now, this third
+boy comes to the mine and works just long enough to get in touch with
+the other two. Then he disappears."
+
+"Buys a lot of provisions and goes down the river to leave his hat on
+the bank!" laughed Tommy. "I guess that was a pretty poor imitation of a
+suicide or a drowning accident, either!"
+
+"But this boy didn't get to be intimate with the two breaker boys,"
+contended George. "He talked with them about two minutes after the
+fight, according to Canfield, but paid no further attention to them
+after that. If he had any secret understanding with them, he must have
+done a whole lot of talking in a mighty short space of time."
+
+"The right kind of a boy can say a good deal in a minute and half!"
+laughed Tommy. "But suppose we let Will go on and explanation us about
+that boy tramp in the railroad yards. I think I know what he's getting
+at, but I'm not quite certain. Go on, Will, it's up to you."
+
+"In order to make the connection," laughed Will. "I'll state for the
+third time that we know that the boys are in the mine. It may also be
+well to state, once more, that we are reasonably certain that this third
+boy came to the mine for the specific purpose of communicating with the
+other two. Now, this boy didn't drop into the river. He dropped the
+provisions he bought for the boat into the coal mine, and left them
+there for the consumption of the two boys inside. That's reasonable,
+isn't it?"
+
+"Fine deduction, as Sherlock Holmes would say to Watson!" laughed
+George.
+
+"But this third boy," Will went on, "doesn't go into the mine. He stays
+outside to serve as a means of communication between the boys who are
+hiding in the mine and some interested person or persons on the outside.
+That's perfectly clear, isn't it?"
+
+"That'll do very well for a theory," replied George.
+
+"I'll go you a plate of cookies," argued Sandy, "that Will is right, and
+that this third boy is hanging around taking messages from the two boys
+in the mine and also to the two boys in the mine."
+
+"Didn't I say it was all right for a theory?" chuckled George.
+
+"Now, the point is this," Will continued. "What are those boys in the
+mine for? What do they want there? Why didn't they answer our Boy Scout
+challenge when we replied to their call of the pack?"
+
+"If you don't ask so many questions, you won't get so many negative
+answers," Sandy advised. "We're here to find the boys, and I don't see
+that it makes any difference to us what they're in there for."
+
+"But we've found the boys now," contended Tommy. "We haven't got our
+hands on them yet, of course, but we know they're in there, and we know
+it's only a question of time when we get hold of them."
+
+"Well," Will insisted, "I'm going to find a motive before I quit the
+case. I'm going to know who sent those boys here, and all about it,
+before I make any report to Mr. Horton."
+
+"Go as far as you like," laughed Tommy. "My bump of curiosity is growing
+half an inch a day, and will continue to spread out until I find out
+exactly what those boys are doing burrowing in a deserted mine."
+
+"Now, we'll get back to the point we started from," Will explained.
+"This boy who is undoubtedly doing duty outside the mine in the
+interests of the persons who sent the two boys in, furnishes the clue to
+the whole situation! When we find him, and find out what he's up to, and
+trace any communications he may make back to their original source,
+we'll have the whole case tied up tight!"
+
+"That's right!" declared Tommy. "We'll have the case tied up tight if we
+succeed in getting hold of this third boy."
+
+"Oh, go on!" laughed Sandy. "We'll be picking third boys and fourth boys
+and fifth boys out of the air, first thing you know. We never went away
+on a Boy Scout expedition yet that we didn't find all manner of kids
+hanging around on purpose to be discovered. We found them on Old
+Superior; and in the Everglades; and on the Great Continental Divide;
+and up in the Hudson Bay country, we began to think we had stumbled on
+the center of population so far as Boy Scouts were concerned!"
+
+"There's just one thing that's likely to make us trouble," Will resumed.
+"And that is the fact that Canfield very foolishly slopped over to
+Ventner when explaining the purpose of our visit here. That bum
+detective knows now that we're here to search the mine. Of course he
+might have received, as Canfield says, the most of his information from
+outside sources, but the caretaker should have thrown him off the track
+instead of telling him exactly what our mission here was."
+
+"But Ventner came here to search for the boys himself!" George broke in.
+"At least, he says that he did."
+
+"There's a mystery about the whole matter," Sandy declared, "and I'd
+like to help clear it up from beginning to end!"
+
+"We're likely to have a chance!" laughed Tommy.
+
+"What are we going to do all the afternoon?" George asked.
+
+"Wander around town," smiled Will, "and find out about the evening
+train, and ask fool questions about the pumps and the mine, and laugh at
+the idea of anybody living in there. That'll give Ventner the idea that
+we're going for good, I reckon. He's a pretty bum skate to pose as a
+detective!"
+
+"I'll tell you what I'm going to do most of the afternoon!" Tommy
+declared. "I'm going to the hay! I never felt so bunged up for want of
+sleep in my innocent life."
+
+"Haven't you forgotten something?" asked Sandy.
+
+"Sure!" shouted Tommy. "I'm forgetting to eat!"
+
+"And you're forgetting something else!" insisted Sandy.
+
+"Nix on the forget!" declared Tommy. "When I forget my eatings and
+sleepings, the world will come to an end!"
+
+"You forgot to read a chapter in your dream book!" said Sandy.
+
+"Never you mind that dream book," Tommy replied. "Whenever you want to
+find the answer to any puzzle, you look in that dream book!"
+
+After eating another hearty meal the boys, having already packed their
+wardrobes, locked the door of their room and addressed themselves to
+slumber.
+
+They were awakened about five o'clock by a loud knocking on the door,
+and presently they heard the voice of Canfield calling to them.
+
+"Wake up, boys!" he cried. "I have good news for you!"
+
+"All right, let her go!" shouted Tommy.
+
+"The pumps are working, and the water is lowering in the mine!"
+
+"That's nice!" laughed Sandy.
+
+"And we've found out what caused the sudden flooding," the caretaker
+went on. "It seems that a partition, or wall, between the Labyrinth and
+the Mixer mines unaccountably gave way. The Mixer mine has been flooded
+for a long time and, as it lies above the level of the Labyrinth, the
+water naturally flowed into our mine as soon as the wall was down."
+
+"But what caused the partition to fall?" asked Will, opening the door
+for the admission of the caretaker.
+
+"No one knows!" was the answer.
+
+"If you look about a little," Tommy suggested, "I think you'll find
+traces of dynamite. Who discovered the break in the dividing wall?"
+
+"A gang under the leadership of Ventner, the detective!" was the reply.
+
+The caretaker was very much surprised and not a little annoyed at the
+effect his answer had upon the four boys.
+
+"I don't see anything humorous about that!" he said as the lads threw
+themselves down on the bunks and roared with laughter.
+
+"It looks funny to me!" Tommy replied. "If we had never showed up here,
+the mine wouldn't have been flooded. As soon as we start away or promise
+to leave the district, which amounts to the same thing, this cheap skate
+of a detective finds the break, and all is well again!"
+
+"Why, you don't think that he had anything to do with the trouble at the
+mine, do you?" questioned the caretaker.
+
+"Oh, of course not!" replied Sandy. "Ventner had nothing to do with
+cutting the ladder! That fellow will land in state's prison if he keeps
+on trying to murder boys by sawing ladder rungs!"
+
+"I had forgotten that," said Canfield.
+
+"Well, don't forget that this man Ventner is playing the chief villain's
+role in this drama!" Tommy advised. "And another thing you mustn't
+forget," the boy continued, "is that you're not to say a word to him
+that will inform him that he is suspected."
+
+"I think I can remember that!" replied the caretaker.
+
+The boys prepared a hasty supper and then, suit cases in hand, started
+for the little railway station. There they inquired about the arrival
+and departure of trains, bought tickets, and made themselves as
+conspicuous as possible about the depot.
+
+"Keep your eye out for the third boy," George chuckled, as the lads
+walked up and down the platform.
+
+"Don't get excited about the third boy," Will replied. "We'll find him
+when the right time comes!"
+
+"There's Ventner!" exclaimed Tommy as the detective came rushing down
+the platform. "Of course the good, kind gentleman would want to bid us
+farewell!"
+
+"I'd like to crack him over the coco!" exclaimed Sandy.
+
+"I'll bet he's got some kind of a fake story to tell," suggested Will.
+"He looks like a man who had been working his imagination overtime!"
+
+"News of the two boys!" shouted the detective as he came up smiling.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE BOY IN THE "EMPTY"
+
+
+"Didn't I tell you," whispered Will, "that he is there with a product of
+his imagination? If you leave it to him, the two boys we're in search of
+are somewhere on the Pacific slope!"
+
+"He must think we're a lot of suckers to take in any story he'll tell!"
+whispered Tommy. "A person that couldn't get next to his game ought to
+be locked Up in the foolish house!"
+
+"I've just heard from a railway brakeman," Ventner said, rushing up to
+the boys with an air of importance, "that the two lads you are in search
+of were seen leaving a box car at a little station in Ohio. I don't just
+recall the name of the station now, but I can find it by looking on the
+map! It seems the lads left here on the night following their departure
+from the breaker, and stole their passage to this little town I'm
+telling you about."
+
+"Good thing you came to the depot," declared Will. "We should have been
+out of town in ten minutes more!"
+
+"Where is this town?" asked George, thinking it best to show great
+interest in the statement made by the detective.
+
+"It's a little place on the Lake Erie & Western road!" was the answer.
+
+The detective took a railroad folder from his pocket and consulted a
+map. It seemed to take him a long time to decide upon a place, but he
+finally spread the map out against the wall of the station and laid his
+finger on a point on the Lake Erie & Western railroad.
+
+"Nankin is the name of the place. Strange I should have forgotten the
+name of the place. They were put out of the car at Nankin, and are
+believed to have started down the railroad right of way on foot."
+
+"But you said they were seen leaving the car at Nankin!" Tommy cut in.
+"Now you say they were put out of the car!"
+
+"Well, they were chased out of the car, and that covers both
+statements," replied the detective somewhat nervously.
+
+"Thank you very much for the information!" Will exclaimed as the train
+the boys were to take came rolling into the station. "The pointer is
+undoubtedly a good one, and we'll take a look at the country about
+Nankin."
+
+There was a crossing not more than six miles from the station where the
+boys had taken the train, and they were all ready to jump when the
+engineer slowed down and whistled his note of warning. It was quite
+dark, although stars were showing in a sky plentifully scattered over
+with clouds and, as the boys dropped down out of the illumination of the
+windows as soon as they struck the ground, they were not seen to leave
+the train by any of the passengers.
+
+In a moment the train rushed on, leaving the four standing on the
+roadbed looking disconsolately in the direction of the town.
+
+"Now for a good long hike!" exclaimed Tommy.
+
+"It's for your own good!" laughed Sandy.
+
+"I can always tell when anything's for my own good," Tommy contended.
+
+"You don't look it!" chuckled Sandy.
+
+"When anything's for my own good," the boy continued, "it's always
+disagreeable! It makes me think of a story I read once where the man
+complained that everything he ever wanted in this world was either
+expensive, indigestible or immoral."
+
+"Well, get on the hike!" laughed George. "You can stand here and
+moralize till the cows come home, and it won't move you half an inch in
+the direction of the mine!"
+
+"And look here," Will exclaimed as the boys started up the grade, "when
+we get within sight of the lights of the station, we must scatter and
+keep our traps closed! We can all make for the mine by different routes.
+Ventner thinks we are out of town now, and the chances are that he'll be
+plugging around trying to accomplish some purpose known only to himself.
+For my part I don't believe he is employed on the same case we are! He's
+working here for some outside parties!"
+
+"That's the way it strikes me!" George agreed. "If the detective had
+been honestly trying to assist us, the mine wouldn't have been flooded,
+the pumps wouldn't have broken down, and the electric motors would have
+been found in excellent working order."
+
+"Did you notice the suit he had on when he stood talking with us at the
+station?" asked Will. "That was a blue serge suit, wasn't it?"
+
+"It surely was!" Tommy declared, quick to catch the point. "And there
+was a tear down the front of it which looked as if it had been made by
+the scraping of a saw! I guess if you'll match the shreds we found on
+the saw with the breaks in that coat front you'll find where the saw got
+in its work, all right!"
+
+"And there was a cut on his hand, too!" Sandy observed. "Looked like he
+had bounced the saw off one of the rungs on top of a finger."
+
+"Oh, he's a clever little boy all right!" Tommy cut in. "But he forgot
+to leave his brass band at home when he went out to cut into that
+ladder! If he does all his work the way he did that job, he'll be
+sitting in some nice, quiet state's prison before he's six months
+older."
+
+When the boys came within a quarter of a mile of the station lights,
+they parted, Will and George turning off from the right of way and Sandy
+and Tommy keeping on for half a dozen rods. When the four boys were
+finally clear of the tracks they were walking perhaps twenty rods apart,
+and at right angles with the right of way.
+
+"Now, as we approach the mine," Will cautioned his companion, "keep your
+eye out for Ventner and this third boy. They are both likely to be
+chasing around in the darkness."
+
+The route to the mine taken by Tommy and his chum crossed a network of
+tracks, led up to the weigh-house and so on into the breaker. As they
+came to a line of empty cars standing on a spur they heard a movement in
+one of the empties and crouched down to listen.
+
+"There's some one in there!" declared Tommy.
+
+"Some old bum, probably!"
+
+This from Sandy who had recently bumped his shins on a pile of ties and
+was not in a very pleasant humor.
+
+"It may be the boy we're looking for!" urged Tommy.
+
+Sandy sat down on the end of a tie and rubbed his bruised shin
+vigorously, muttering and protesting against railroad yards in general
+and this one in particular as he did so.
+
+Tommy made his way under the empty and sat listening, his ear almost
+against the bottom of the car. Presently he heard a movement above and
+then it seemed to him that something of considerable weight was being
+dragged across the floor. This was followed in a moment by a slight
+groan, and then a shadowy figure leaped from the open side door and
+started away in the darkness.
+
+Now Sandy had been warned to hang onto the third boy like grim death if
+he caught sight of him. He saw this figure bounce out of the car and
+start away. Therefore, he promptly reached out a foot and tripped the
+unknown to the ground.
+
+He fell with a grunt of anger and pain and lay rolling on the cinders
+which lined the roadbed for a moment without speaking. In the meantime,
+Tommy had crawled out from under the car and stood ready to seize any
+second person who might make his appearance.
+
+Almost immediately a second body came bouncing out of the empty.
+
+Instead of starting away on a run, however, the second person stopped
+where Sandy stood beside the wiggling figure and looked down upon it.
+
+"Hand him one!" he said in a boy's voice.
+
+"Who is it?" asked Sandy.
+
+"Don't know!" was the reply.
+
+"What was he doing to you?"
+
+"He was trying to rob me!"
+
+"I don't think a man would get rich robbing people who ride in empties!"
+laughed Sandy. "I shouldn't think their bank rolls would make much of a
+hit with a bold, bad highwayman!"
+
+"There's men riding the rods," was the reply, "who would kill a boy for
+a dime! If I wasn't opposed to cruelty to animals, I'd give this fellow
+a beating up right now. He tried to drag me from the car by the leg and
+nearly broke my ankle!"
+
+"I heard him dragging you across the floor!" Tommy said, coming up to
+where the two boys stood. "Can you see who it is?" he added.
+
+"He's just a tramp!" the other replied. "I saw him sneaking around the
+empties just before dark."
+
+"Why were you sleeping in an empty?" asked Sandy.
+
+"Because I like plenty of fresh air!" replied the boy with a chuckle.
+
+While the boys talked the tramp arose and sneaked away, limping over the
+ties as if tickled to death to get out of the way of the three
+youngsters.
+
+As he disappeared in the darkness Tommy turned to the boy who had
+dropped out of the car to ask him a question.
+
+The boy was nowhere to be seen.
+
+"Now we've gone and done it!" cried Sandy.
+
+"I guess we have!" agreed Tommy. "We've let the third boy get away from
+us! And we couldn't have done a worse thing!" he went on, "because the
+boys in the mine will know that we are still in this vicinity!"
+
+While the boys stood blaming themselves the sharp call of the Wolf pack
+came to them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A KNOCK AT THE DOOR
+
+
+When Will and George came to the back of the weigh-house they heard some
+one moving about at the front.
+
+"That's probably the caretaker, taking his last look for the night,"
+suggested Will. "He pokes around all the outbuildings every night before
+he goes to bed. At least, he is supposed to."
+
+"But this fellow hasn't got any lantern," urged George.
+
+"The plot deepens!" chuckled Will.
+
+"Can you crawl around there and see who it is," asked George, "or shall
+I go? It may be a thief, or it may be Ventner, or it may be this boy
+we're looking for. Anyway, we want to know who it is!"
+
+"I'll go!" Will suggested, "and don't you make any racket if you hear
+something doing there. The one thing to do at this time is to keep our
+presence here a profound secret."
+
+Will moved cautiously around the angle of the weigh-house just in time
+to see a figure leaving the side of the building and moving toward the
+breaker. There was a little side door in the breaker not far from the
+weigh-house, and it was toward this that the prowler was making his way.
+
+Half way to the little house the fellow stumbled over some obstruction
+in his path and fell sprawling to the ground. He arose with an impatient
+oath and moved on again, but not before the watcher had recognized both
+the figure and the voice. Will turned back to where George stood.
+
+"That's Ventner," he said.
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Dead sure!"
+
+There was a short silence.
+
+"What can we do now?"
+
+"I don't know of anything we can do, unless it is to watch the rascal
+and see where he goes," answered the other. "The chances are that he's
+trying to get into the mine!"
+
+"That shows that the fellow's a crook," Will contended. "He has full
+permission to enter the mine at any time he sees fit."
+
+"Of course, he's a crook!" agreed George. "What would he be sneaking
+around here in the night for, if he wasn't engaged in some underhand
+game? You just wait until we get into the mine," the boy continued, "and
+we'll give him a ghost scare that'll hold him for a while."
+
+As Ventner approached the little side door leading into the breaker, a
+light flashed in the window of the room which the boys had occupied, and
+directly Canfield's voice was heard asking:
+
+"Who's there?"
+
+"Now if he's on the square, hell answer!" whispered Will.
+
+There was no reply whatever, and in a moment the caretaker called again,
+this time rather peremptorily:
+
+"What are you prowling about the yard for?"
+
+The detective dropped to his knees and began crawling away.
+
+"If I see you around here again," the caretaker shouted in a braver tone
+now that the intruder was taking his departure, "I'll do some shooting!"
+
+Evidently giving over the attempt to enter the mine at that time, the
+detective arose to his feet as soon as he gained the shelter of the
+weigh-house, and walked away, passing as he did so, within a few feet of
+where the boys were standing.
+
+"That settles that bum detective, so far as we are concerned!" Will said
+to his chum, in a whisper. "We knew before that he was playing a rotten
+game on us, but we didn't know that his plans included such
+surreptitious visits to the mine."
+
+After making sure that the detective was not within sight or sound, Will
+and George tapped softly at the little door and were admitted by the
+caretaker. Five minutes later they were joined by Tommy and Sandy.
+
+"Were you boys out there a few moments ago?" asked Canfield.
+
+"Nix!" replied George. "That was Ventner. We saw him from the
+weigh-house. He was trying to sneak his way into the mine!"
+
+"But he has full permission to enter at any time he sees fit!" urged the
+caretaker. "It doesn't seem as if he would attempt to steal his way in
+during the night. You must be mistaken!"
+
+"Yes, and perhaps we were mistaken about the sawing of the ladder, too!"
+Tommy broke in.
+
+"Yes, we may all be mistaken about that."
+
+"Not so you could notice it!" declared Sandy. "If you look at the
+thief's coat, you'll see that he didn't do all the sawing on the rungs
+of the ladder. We've got him too dead to skin!"
+
+Without any lights being shown on the surface, the boys were conducted
+down the ladder to the first level. There they found a room very cosily
+furnished, indeed. A lounge from the office, a couple of good sized
+cupboards, and a large table had been brought down, together with a
+serviceable rug and numerous chairs, and the apartment presented an
+unexpectedly homelike appearance.
+
+The current was on, and two electric lamps made the room as light as
+day. The cooking was to be done over electric coils so that the presence
+of the boys would not be disclosed by smoke. One of the ventilating
+pipes which supplied the offices in the vicinity of the shaft with fresh
+air passed through the room, so there was no lack of ozone.
+
+"Have we got plenty of eatings?" asked Tommy.
+
+"Plenty!" was the reply. "I have arranged for fresh meat, milk and
+vegetables to be brought in every evening."
+
+"Talk about your bull-headed, obstinate men!" exclaimed Tommy, as the
+caretaker finally took his departure. "That fellow takes the cake! He
+knows very well that we caught Ventner in the act of sawing on the
+ladder, and he knows, too, that we heard Wolf calls while we were in the
+mine. Still, he shakes his head and says that he don't know about the
+boys being there, and don't know about that bum detective being crooked.
+If you could get a saw and operate on his head, you'd find it solid
+bone!"
+
+"You'll feel better after you get supper!" Sandy declared.
+
+"This isn't any grouch!" insisted Tommy. "This is the true story of that
+man's life! If I had a dollar for every time he doesn't know anything,
+I'd be the richest boy in the world!"
+
+"Are you thinking of going down the mine tonight?" asked George, with a
+wink at Will. "We might try another midnight excursion."
+
+"If you kids go into the mine tonight," declared Will, "I'll send you
+both back to Chicago on the first train!"
+
+"Aw, how are you going to find these boys if you don't go into the
+mine?" demanded Tommy. "I suppose you'll want us to wait till daylight
+when the owners will be looking around to see if any damage was done by
+the inundation. The best time is at night!"
+
+"Look here," Will argued, "we've got to do more than lay hands on the
+boys! We've got to find out why they are hiding in the mine."
+
+"That's the correct word," agreed George. "Hiding is the word that
+expresses the situation exactly!"
+
+"There is no doubt," Will continued, "that the boys were sent here by
+some one for some specific purpose. They are hiding in the mine with a
+well-defined motive. I have an idea that we might be able to find them
+in twenty-four hours, but what is more important, is to find out what
+they are up to."
+
+"Well, in order to get the whole story, we'll have to pretend that we
+are looking for them and can't find them!" George said.
+
+"That's right!" laughed Tommy. "Give them plenty of rope and they'll
+hang themselves. We may as well have the whole story while we're at it."
+
+Before preparing their beds for the night, the boys paid a visit to the
+shaft and made their way down to the rungs which had been cut. They
+found that they had been replaced by new ones.
+
+There was still water in the lower levels of the mine, but it was slowly
+disappearing through the sump, and the indications were that it would be
+dry by morning. The boys listened intently for some evidence of
+occupancy as they moved up and down the shaft, but all was still.
+
+"This would be a good place to tell a ghost story," Tommy chuckled as
+they moved back to their room on the first level.
+
+"There's about a million stories now, entitled The Ghost of the Mine!"
+declared Sandy. "Perhaps however," he went on, "one more wouldn't hurt."
+
+"If I see a ghost tonight," declared Tommy, "it'll be in my dreams!"
+
+Sandy and Tommy were sound asleep on their cots as soon as supper was
+over, and Will and George were getting ready to retire when the soft
+patter of a light footstep sounded in the vicinity of the shaft.
+
+"Rats must be thick in the mine!" suggested George.
+
+"Rats nothing!" declared Will. "Those two youngsters are prowling about
+in order to see what we are up to!"
+
+As he spoke the boy arose, turned off the electric light and stepped out
+into the passage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A MIDNIGHT ROBBER
+
+
+There was a quick scamper of feet as Will stepped out, then silence!
+
+"Where did he go?" asked George, joining his chum on the outside.
+
+"Down the ladder!" replied Will.
+
+"Why don't we go and see where he went?"
+
+"That might be a good idea," Will replied. "Do you think it's safe for
+us to try to navigate that shaft in the dark?"
+
+"We can stick to the ladders, can't we?" asked George.
+
+"We ought to find out where the kids hang out," Will argued. "I'd like
+to get my hands on one of them!"
+
+"I don't think we're likely to do that tonight," George answered. "It
+seems to me that about the only way we can catch those fellows is to set
+a bear trap. They seem to be rather slippery."
+
+Will, clad only in pajamas and slippers, moved toward the shaft, and
+looked down. It was dark and still below, and he turned back with a
+little shudder. The situation was not at all to his liking.
+
+"Well, are you going down?" asked George.
+
+"Sure, I'm going down!" Will answered. "I'm only waiting to get up my
+nerve! It looks pretty dreary down there. If we could use a light I
+wouldn't mind, but it's pretty creepy going down that hole in the
+darkness."
+
+"Then suppose we wait until morning," suggested George.
+
+Will leaned against the shaft timbers and laughed.
+
+"It'll be just as dark in here in the morning, as it is now!" he said.
+"I think we'd better go on down tonight and see if we can locate the
+fellows."
+
+The two boys passed swiftly down the ladder, paused a moment at the
+second level, and then passed on to the third. The gangways leading out
+from the shaft were reasonably dry now. Lower down the dip they were
+still under a few inches of water.
+
+"I don't see how we're going to discover anybody down in this blooming
+old well!" George grumbled. "There might be a regiment of state troops
+here and we wouldn't be able to see a single soldier!"
+
+"We can't show a light, for all that!" declared Will. "We've just got to
+wait and see if _they_ won't be kind enough to show a light."
+
+"You guessed it," chuckled George, whispering softly in his chum's ear,
+"there's a glimmer of light, now!"
+
+"I see it!" Will replied.
+
+The boys left the ladder and moved out into the center gangway. They
+could see a light flickering some distance in advance, and had no
+difficulty in following it.
+
+"That's an electric torch!" Will commented.
+
+"Perhaps, if we follow along, we'll be able to track them to their
+nest," George suggested, "and, still, I don't care about getting very
+far away from the shaft. We might get lost in these crooked passages."
+
+"Yes," replied Will. "Some one might head us off, too. I don't care
+about being held up here in pajamas."
+
+The mine was damp and cold, and a wind was sweeping up the passage
+toward the shaft. The boys shivered as they walked, yet kept resolutely
+on until the light they were following left the main gangway and
+disappeared in a cross heading.
+
+"That means 'Good-night' for me," whispered Will, "for I'm not going to
+get out beyond the reach of the rails. I guess well have to go back and
+invent some other means of trapping those foxy boys."
+
+As Will spoke the light reappeared and moved on down the gangway again.
+Then, for the first time, the boys saw a figure outlined against the
+illumination. Will caught his chum by the arm excitedly.
+
+"That isn't one of the boys at all!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Well, how large a population do you think this mine has!" demanded
+George. "If it isn't one of the boys, who is it?"
+
+"That bum detective!" answered Will.
+
+"So he got in here at last, did he?" chuckled George. "Well, it's up to
+us to find out what he's doing in here!"
+
+"Do you think that is the gink who was prowling around our room?" asked
+Will. "If he is, then our little trip in the country doesn't count for
+much!"
+
+"The fellow who visited us," George argued, "was light and quick on his
+feet. This bum detective waddles along like an old cow."
+
+"Then we've passed the boy who called to see us, and failed to leave a
+card," grinned Will. "We may meet him as we return!"
+
+"Here's hoping we bump straight into him if we do meet him," George
+exclaimed. "I'm just aching to get my hands on that fellow!"
+
+"I'm not particularly anxious to catch him just yet," Will suggested. "I
+want to find out what the kids are up to before we pounce down upon
+them."
+
+While the boys stood in the passage, whispering together, the light
+moved on until it came to a chamber which seemed to be rather shallow,
+for the reflection of the searchlight was still in the gangway.
+
+"Now we've got him!" exclaimed Will. "I think I remember that chamber,
+and, unless I'm very much mistaken, it opens only on this passage! While
+he's poking around in there, we'll sneak up and see what he's doing!"
+
+Before the boys reached the entrance to the chamber they heard the
+sounds of a pick. When they came nearer and looked in they saw the
+detective poking away at a heap of "gob" which lay in one corner of the
+excavation. He worked industriously, and apparently without fear of
+discovery. Now and then he stooped down to peer into a crevice in the
+wall, but soon went on again.
+
+"I wonder if he thinks he can find two boys in that heap of refuse?"
+laughed George. "I wonder why he don't use a microscope."
+
+The detective busied himself at the heap of refuse for a considerable
+length of time, and then began a further investigation of little breaks
+in the wall. Using his pick to enlarge the openings he made a systematic
+search of one break after another.
+
+"Looks like he might be hunting after some pirate treasure," George
+chuckled. "I never heard of Captain Kidd sailing over into the sloughs
+of Pennsylvania. Did you?"
+
+"That tells the story!" Will whispered. "The fellow is here on some
+mission of his own. That story of his about being in quest of the boys
+is all a bluff! I reckon he had heard somewhere that two boys were
+missing and came here with the fairy tale!"
+
+"Well, he's got a good, large mine to look in if he's in search of
+treasure," George suggested. "He can spend the rest of his days here,
+provided the operators don't get sore on him."
+
+While the boys looked, Ventner turned toward the entrance to the
+chamber, and they scampered away. Turning back, they saw him pass out of
+the place where he had been working and into a similar excavation
+farther on. There he worked as industriously as before.
+
+"You see how it is," Will suggested. "The fellow is hunting for
+something, and doesn't know where to look for it! So it's all right to
+let him go ahead with his quest for hidden wealth, or whatever it is
+he's after. When he finds it, we'll not be far away!"
+
+"I like this walking about in my naked feet," George grunted in a
+moment. "I had my slippers on when I came down the ladder, but I either
+had to take them off and carry them in my hands or lose them in the
+mud."
+
+"Same here!" Will said. "I'm going back to my little cot bed right now
+and go to sleep. I think we have the detective sized up and we can catch
+the kids some other night."
+
+"Me for the hay, too," George exclaimed. "I don't think I was ever quite
+so sleepy in my life!"
+
+"Now, on the way back," Will cautioned, "we ought to keep still and keep
+a sharp lookout for the person who was sneaking around our quarters."
+
+"Whoever it was may be between us and the shaft," George suggested.
+
+"If I thought so," Will argued, "I'd just stand around and wait until
+they pass us on the way in. I don't want to find those boys just now.
+There's a mystery connected with this mine which the caretaker knows
+nothing about, and which Mr. Horton never referred to when he sent us
+down here.
+
+"We wouldn't be able to breathe if we didn't discover an air of mystery
+every fifteen minutes," George declared.
+
+Half way back to the shaft, the boys, who were walking very softly in
+their stockinged feet, heard a rattle as of a moving stone or piece of
+coal in the passage, and at once drew up against the side wall.
+
+While they stood there, scarcely daring to breathe, they sensed that
+some one was passing them in the darkness. The tread was light and
+brisk, and they thought they heard a soft chuckle as the unseen figure
+breezed by them.
+
+"I'll bet the lad who was listening near our door never came down the
+shaft until after we did!" George whispered after the figure had passed
+by.
+
+"That's very likely!" agreed Will.
+
+"Then he may have been poking around our quarters while we have been
+gone."
+
+"That's very likely, too."
+
+Believing the way to be clear now, the boys hastened on toward the
+shaft. Just as they reached the foot of the ladder they heard a sound
+which sent the blood throbbing to their cheeks.
+
+"He's making fun of us!" exclaimed George.
+
+"It looks like it," admitted Will.
+
+The sound they heard was the low, complaining snarl of the Wolf.
+
+"The nerve of him!" exclaimed George.
+
+"Perhaps he'll answer now!" Will suggested.
+
+Then followed the "slap, slap, slap!" of the Beaver Patrol.
+
+No answer came from the darkness beyond the shaft.
+
+"He's got his nerve with him!" declared Will. "When I get hold of him,
+I'll teach him to answer Boy Scout challenges!"
+
+When the boys got back to their quarters they found Tommy and Sandy
+sitting in the darkness with their automatics and their searchlights in
+their hands. One of them turned on a finger of light as the boys entered
+but immediately shut it off again.
+
+"What's coming off here?" demanded Will.
+
+"Do you know what those fellows did?" asked Tommy. "They came here while
+we were asleep and stole about half our provisions!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+ONE MORE HUNGRY BOY
+
+
+"We may as well turn on the lights!" Will said. "If any one comes in
+here to steal Tommy's necktie," he added with a wink at his chum, "we
+want to see what he looks like."
+
+"Why didn't you stay here and watch, then?" demanded Tommy. "Why did you
+go off and leave the camp all alone? I heard people moving around, and I
+thought it was you."
+
+Will and George sat down on the edge of their cots and laughed.
+
+"Yes, you thought it was me!" Will said directly. "You never heard a
+thing! You'd better look and see if the midnight visitors didn't steal
+your pajamas. Or they might have taken your pillow."
+
+Tommy threw a shoe at his tormentor and turned on the electric light.
+
+"Now that I'm awake," he said with a sly grin, "I think that I'll get
+myself something to eat. Seems to me I'm always hungry."
+
+While the boy rattled among canned goods and candled eggs to see if they
+were fit for a four-minute boil, Sandy turned to George.
+
+"What did you find in the mine?" he asked.
+
+"We found that bum detective nosing around. We've got his number now,
+all right," the boy went on, "and there's something in the mine that he
+wants to find and he doesn't know where to look for it. He isn't looking
+for Jimmie and Dick any more than we're looking for a pot of gold at the
+end of a rainbow. I don't believe he was ever sent here to make a search
+for the missing boys!"
+
+"What was he doing when you saw him?" asked Sandy.
+
+"Poking around in worked-out chambers with a pick!"
+
+"Did he see you?"
+
+"You bet he didn't! Do you think we're going to walk six miles in from
+the country in order to dodge the detective, and then let him run across
+us in the mine?"
+
+"Yes, but what's he looking for?" insisted Sandy.
+
+"That, me son," George replied with a wink, "is locked in the bosom of
+the future! We may be able to find out what he's doing here when we find
+out who struck Billy Patterson."
+
+"Don't get gay now!" grinned Sandy.
+
+"Well, if you insist upon it," George continued with a smile, "Ventner
+was digging in refuse heaps for something which he didn't find!"
+
+"Did you meet the boys who stole our provisions?" was the next question.
+"I wish you'd got hold of them!"
+
+"We are certain that one of them passed us while we were returning,"
+George answered.
+
+"The nerve of him!" shouted Sandy.
+
+"The idea of his coming here and swiping our provisions!" Tommy cut in.
+"If I ever get hold of that gink, I'll beat his head off!"
+
+"You going back after than bum detective tonight?" asked George.
+
+"Not me!" answered Sandy. "Me for ham and eggs!"
+
+"What's the matter with passing the ham and eggs around?"
+
+Every one of the four boys sprang forward as the words came from
+somewhere just outside the door.
+
+"That's one of those thieving kids!" declared Tommy.
+
+"You've had your share!" shouted Sandy.
+
+"It has now been nine days since I've tasted food!" came the answer from
+the other side of the door, and the boys thought they caught a chuckle
+between the words.
+
+"All right!" replied Tommy. "You go and sit in the deserted mine nine
+days more, and then we'll consider whether you have any right to be
+hungry. Go on away tonight, anyhow!"
+
+"Not so you could notice it," came the insistent tones from beyond the
+door. "I'm going to stay right here until I get something to eat!"
+
+"Eat the stuff you stole!" advised Sandy.
+
+"You're in wrong!" came from the other side of the door. "I haven't had
+a thing to eat in forty or fifty days. Come on, now," he added "be good
+fellows and open up. I'm so hungry I could eat a brass cylinder."
+
+"Aw, let him in!" advised Tommy. "He'll stand there chinning all night
+if we don't! We've got enough to eat for the present anyway."
+
+Will unfastened the door and a tall, slender young fellow of perhaps
+seventeen stepped inside the room and stood blinking a moment under the
+strong electric light. His face was streaked with coal dust and his
+clothing was ragged and dirty. Still, the boy looked like anything but a
+tramp. Tommy eyed him suspiciously for a moment.
+
+"Where'd you come from?" he asked.
+
+"Off the rods!" was the reply.
+
+"And I suppose," Sandy broke in, "that you were just taking a stroll by
+starlight and just happened to walk into this mine."
+
+"Sure!" answered the other with a provoking grin.
+
+"Well, if anybody should ask you," Tommy continued, "you're the boy that
+had a mixup with the tramp tonight, and ran away while we were trying to
+invite you to supper. What do you know about that?"
+
+"Invite me to supper now and see if I'll run away!"
+
+"If you boys will cut out this foolish conversation for a minute," Will
+suggested, "I'll try to find out what this boy wants. Do you mean to
+say," he added turning to Tommy, "that you bumped into this kid while
+returning to the mine from the tracks?"
+
+"Didn't I tell you about that?" asked Tommy. "I thought I did. We found
+him in a mixup with a tramp, and that's all there is to it!"
+
+"And I told you at the time," the stranger interrupted, "that the tramp
+tried to rob me! That was all right, too. He did try to rob me, but I
+didn't have a blessed cent in my possession, so he didn't get anything!
+The tramp who got a hold of me night before last stripped me clean! And
+that, you see, is why I haven't got any money to buy provisions with.
+And also that's the reason why I'm hungry."
+
+The four boys gathered around the stranger and began a systematic course
+of questions which at first brought forth only unsatisfactory answers.
+
+"And also," the boy went on, taking up the speech he had begun some
+minutes before, "that's why two other boys are hungry just about this
+time. I got rolled for my wad plenty."
+
+"That's South Clark street!" laughed Tommy.
+
+"That's Bowery!" corrected the other.
+
+"What'd you say about other boys being hungry?" asked Sandy.
+
+"I said that's why two other boys are hungry."
+
+"They ain't hungry any more," Tommy declared with a wink.
+
+"That listens good!" the stranger said.
+
+"Because," continued Tommy, "they came in here about an hour ago and
+stole everything they could get their hands on."
+
+"Brave boys!" laughed the other.
+
+"You wasn't hiding behind the door when they gave out nerve, either!"
+declared Tommy. "Here these boys come here and steal our grub and you
+seem to think they did a noble thing! What's your name, anyhow?"
+
+"Buck," was the reply. "Elmer Cyrus Buck, 409 Lexington Avenue, N. Y. C.
+Member of the Wolf Patrol, Boy Scouts of America, and just about ready
+to scrap for something to eat!"
+
+"Why didn't you say so before?" Tommy exclaimed, setting a great slice
+of ham and several freshly boiled eggs, together with bread and butter
+and canned tomatoes, before the young man. "Why didn't you say something
+about being a Boy Scout before you tried to hold us up for a hand-out?
+You seem to go at everything wrong end first!"
+
+"How long since you've seen Jimmie Maynard and Dick Thompson?" asked
+Will. "You must have failed to connect with them tonight!"
+
+"How do you know that?"
+
+"Because, if you had bumped into them, they would have fed you out of
+the provisions they stole from us!"
+
+"I haven't been looking for them tonight!" Elmer replied. "I tried to
+follow you to the mine," he added turning to Tommy and Sandy, "when you
+left me at the car. But, somehow, I lost track of you in the darkness,
+and when you finally got into the mine, I had to wait for things to
+quiet down before I could force an entrance. I don't think I could have
+got in at all if some one hadn't been ahead of me with a jimmy, or an
+axe, or something of that kind."
+
+"That must have been Ventner," suggested Will.
+
+"Mother of Moses!" cried Elmer. "Has that fellow got into the mine
+again? Does he know you're here?"
+
+"He knew that we were here," was the answer, "but he thinks we've gone
+away! He's down in the mine now, hunting for a pot of diamonds in the
+refuse cast aside by the miners."
+
+"Well you got into the mine at last," Will suggested, "what is the next
+move you are thinking of making?"
+
+"After I finish my modest supper," Elmer answered, with a nod at the
+great stack of food which Tommy had piled up on his plate, "I'm going to
+give you boys the surprise of your lives!"
+
+"You've pretty near done that now!" laughed Will.
+
+"And I'm going to begin," Elmer resumed, "by fishing two members of the
+Wolf Patrol out of the mine and bringing them up here to apologize for
+stealing your grub!"
+
+"If you'll do that," replied Will, "we'll forgive you!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MINE RATS READY FOR WAR
+
+
+"Wait till I destroy this hen fruit," Elmer said, "and I'll go down and
+bring those two foolish youngsters up with me. It's time we had an
+understanding with you boys. You're here looking for something, and
+we're here looking for something. Perhaps we would meet with better
+success if we talked over our plans."
+
+"What are you looking for?" demanded Tommy.
+
+"Keep it dark," grinned Elmer. "I'm not going to tell you a thing until
+I bring Jimmie and Dick up here so they can get next to the whole story!
+I guess you boys can work together without scrapping, can't you?"
+
+"When we find the boys," laughed Will, "our job will come to an end!"
+
+"So that's what you came down here after, is it?"
+
+"Yes, we came here to dig two boys out of a mine."
+
+"I don't believe it!" replied Elmer.
+
+"We came here from Chicago for that very purpose," went on Will.
+
+"Who sent you here?" asked Elmer.
+
+"Lawyer Horton."
+
+"Then Lawyer Horton didn't tell you the whole story," laughed Elmer. "He
+held out on you boys, just to see if you wouldn't get the story at the
+mine. Of course he didn't know where we were at the time he sent you
+down here, but he never sent you for the express purpose of finding us!"
+
+"Then why did he send us?" asked Tommy.
+
+"You just wait till I go and bring up Jimmie and Dick, and I'll tell you
+all about it! I won't be gone more than a minute."
+
+"But hold on!" cried Sandy. "You mustn't go chasing down into the mine
+now. That bum detective is there, and we don't want him to know that
+we're anywhere within a hundred miles of this place."
+
+"He doesn't know that we're here, either," commented Elmer. "His notion
+is that he drove us all into the next state when he caused the mine to
+be flooded. He thinks he has the whole mine to himself now."
+
+"So he caused the mine to be flooded, did he?"
+
+"Sure he did," was the curt reply. "The boys saw him digging away at the
+wall which protects this dry mine from the wet one next door."
+
+"So you saw him doing it, did you?"
+
+"I didn't, because I haven't been in the mine before for any length of
+time, but Jimmie and Dick saw him."
+
+"We've been told that he made the trouble," Will agreed, "but we weren't
+so very sure of it, after all. At least, we didn't have the proof. He
+ought to get twenty years for that!"
+
+"Well, if you keep asking me questions all night," Elmer declared, "I'll
+never get the boys up here, and you'll never know why you were sent
+here! You can come along with me if you want to."
+
+"But how about this detective?" insisted Sandy.
+
+"We ought to be able to get the boys up here without letting him know
+that we are in the mine," answered Elmer. "We needn't travel with a fife
+and drum corps ahead of us, nor even carry any lights down with us. He's
+probably working in some inside chamber."
+
+"All right," Will answered, "we've had our trip through the mine
+tonight, so we'll let Tommy and Sandy go with you. Are you sure the boys
+will come if you ask them to?"
+
+"Sure they'll come!" was the reply.
+
+The two boys drew on their rubber boots with which they had provided
+themselves before taking up their quarters in the mine, and which they
+had been too excited to use on a previous occasion, and Will loaned a
+pair to Elmer, then they started down the ladders.
+
+"It would be something of a joke if we should butt into that detective
+now, wouldn't it?" Sandy laughed, as they passed down from the second
+level.
+
+"I shouldn't consider it much of a joke," replied Tommy. "We took a lot
+of pains to make him think we'd gone out of town!"
+
+As the boys walked softly down the center gangway they heard a fall of
+rock which seemed to come from the passage next north. This passageway
+was connected by the main one with a cross-heading situated perhaps
+three hundred feet from the shaft.
+
+"I don't know much about mines," whispered Elmer as the boys stopped and
+listened to the clatter of the rocks as they settled down on the floor
+of the cavern, "but that sounds to me a whole lot like a fall from the
+roof. I hope the boys are not injured."
+
+The boys walked faster until they came to the cross-passage and then
+turned to the right. Just as they left the main gangway, they heard the
+sound of running feet and directly the distant creaking of the ladder
+rungs.
+
+"Some one's making a hot-foot for the surface!" exclaimed Tommy.
+
+"That's Ventner!" declared Sandy.
+
+"How do you know that?"
+
+"Because he wears heavy boots. We have rubbers on, and Jimmie and Dick,
+who are down in the mine, are also wearing rubber boots!"
+
+"The farther he gets away from the mine, the better it will suit me,"
+Elmer broke in. "I wish he'd go away and stay for a hundred years!"
+
+"The chances are that he dug away one of the pillars and caused that
+drop from the roof," suggested Sandy.
+
+"I guess that's all right, too," Elmer argued. "If he's been digging
+around here the way the boys say he has, he's certainly taking chances
+on cutting down more than one column. He ought to be fired out of the
+mine!"
+
+The boys now came to a chamber across the entrance to which a great mass
+of shale had been thrown when the fall from the roof took place.
+
+At first they listened, fearful that they would hear the voices of the
+lads they were in search of beyond the wall, possibly crushed under the
+weight of the mass of stone. Then they passed along for a short distance
+and peered into the chamber over the heap of refuse.
+
+What they saw brought excited exclamations to their lips.
+
+Jimmie and Dick stood in the interior of the chamber, hedged in by
+fallen debris. They were swinging their searchlights frantically from
+side to side, and while the boys looked, they began, the utterance of
+such yells as had never before been heard in that gloomy place.
+
+"What's the trouble?" asked Elmer, showing his light at the narrow
+opening between the roof of the chamber and the pile of refuse.
+
+"Oh, you're there, are you?" asked one of the boys. "We thought perhaps
+you'd gone back to New York and left us to starve to death."
+
+"Well, you didn't starve, did you?" asked Elmer.
+
+"Wow, wow, wow!" yelled Jimmie.
+
+"Now, what is it?" asked Elmer.
+
+"Rats!" yelled the boy. "Millions of rats! They're creeping out by the
+regiment from behind the cribbing where we were hidden!"
+
+"That idiot of a detective," the other boy went on, "undermined a pillar
+and let about half an acre of roof down into this chamber. When the roof
+fell, it broke the cribbing and the rats began pouring out."
+
+"They won't hurt you!" declared Tommy. "Only you mustn't go to picking a
+quarrel with them. They're fighters when they get their tempers up. Just
+let them alone and they'll let you alone!"
+
+"Who's that talking?" demanded Jimmie.
+
+"That's the relief expedition!" laughed Elmer.
+
+"You ought to be fired out of the Wolf Patrol for not answering Boy
+Scout signals!" Tommy broke in. "We called to you more than a dozen
+times, and you never answered once!"
+
+"Well, we had to wait until Elmer reported what kind of fellows you
+were, didn't we?" asked Dick. "We couldn't go and make friends with you
+without knowing what you were here for, so we kept out of your way until
+Elmer could find a way to learn more about you."
+
+"And instead of finding a way," Jimmie took up the argument, "he goes
+off and gets lost in a thicket about six feet square and never shows up
+with any grub for twenty-four hours! So we had to go and steal grub off
+the boys!"
+
+"Yes, and we're going to have you pinched when you get out!" laughed
+Tommy. "You'll get ninety days for that."
+
+"Where'd that bum detective go?" asked Jimmie. "When the roof fell, we
+heard him go clattering down the gangway running as though he had only
+about thirty seconds in which to get to New York."
+
+"He's a long distance from the mine by this time," Elmer suggested.
+
+"Well," Jimmie said, "I don't like the company of these rats, so if
+you'll kindly dig into the refuse on your side, we'll work from this
+side and we'll soon be out. These rats look hostile."
+
+"You let 'em alone!" advised Tommy.
+
+"Yes, I'll let 'em alone--not!" shouted Jimmie. "You wait until I get an
+armful of rocks and I'll beat some of their heads off!"
+
+"For the love of Mike, don't do anything of the kind!" yelled Tommy.
+"They'll climb onto you nine feet thick if you injure one of them!"
+
+But it was too late! Jimmie acquired an armful of large sized pieces of
+slate and began tossing them into the huddle of rats in the corner.
+
+For an instant the rats squealed viciously as they Were struck by the
+sharp edges of the slate, then they seemed to confer together for a
+moment or two, then they spread out like a fan and began moving toward
+the two boys.
+
+"Now you've done it!" cried Tommy. "If you don't get out of there in
+about a second, the rats'll eat your legs off!"
+
+Without waiting for the boys to assume the offensive, the rats began
+screaming and springing at their feet.
+
+The three boys on the outside of the barrier, understanding the peril
+their friends were in, crawled up to the top of the wall of refuse which
+shut the boys into the chamber and turned their lights inside.
+
+It seemed to them then that the rats were two or three deep on the
+floor. There appeared to be hundreds--thousands of them. They circled
+around the boys, becoming bolder every moment. They nipped at the rubber
+boots and left the marks of their teeth on the tough uppers.
+
+"Now, boys," Tommy yelled, as they drew their automatics and leveled
+them over the wall, "shoot to kill! This is no Sunday School picnic! And
+while we're shooting, boys, you back up to this wall, and see if you
+can't work your way to the top. If you can get up here, we can manage to
+displace enough slate to let you through."
+
+The boys fired volley after volley, but the rats came on viciously.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+STICK OF DYNAMITE
+
+
+By this time Jimmie and Dick had their automatics out and were firing
+into the horde of rats. They killed the rodents by the score, yet for
+every one slaughtered a dozen seemed to appear.
+
+Presently the chamber became so full of powder smoke, the air so
+stifling, that the lads were obliged to cease firing.
+
+"Work your way up this wall," Tommy cried out to the lads as he heard
+them panting below. "Work your way up so we can catch hold of you, and
+you'll soon be out of that mess!"
+
+"There's a dozen rats hanging to my boots!" cried Dick.
+
+"And mine, too!" declared Jimmie.
+
+The three boys on the outside continued to hurl refuse from the top of
+the wall into the chamber. This in a measure kept the rats back, and
+before many minutes Jimmie and Dick were drawn to the top of the
+barrier.
+
+Their rubber boots were cut in scores of places by the sharp teeth of
+the rats, and even their clothing as high up as their shoulders showed
+ragged tears. A dozen or more rats hung to the boys' boots until the top
+was reached, then they dropped back screaming with baffled rage.
+
+"Talk about your wild Indians!" exclaimed Tommy. "I never saw anything
+as vicious as that was! I told you boys not to open up an argument with
+those fellows! Mine rats are noted for their courage when attacked."
+
+"How many bites did you get?" asked Elmer anxiously.
+
+"I got half a dozen nips!" answered Jimmie.
+
+"And so did I," Dick cut in.
+
+"Well, you boys ought to get back to the room right away," Tommy
+suggested, "and have peroxide applied to the wounds. I've known of
+people dying of blood poison occasioned by rat bites."
+
+"Have you got it in camp with you?" asked Elmer.
+
+"We're the original field hospital!" laughed Tommy. "We never leave
+Chicago without taking with us everything needed in the first aid to the
+wounded line. We'd be nice Boy Scouts to go poking about the country
+with nothing with which to heal our wounds!"
+
+"Boys," Elmer now said, with a mischievous grin on his face, "I want to
+introduce you to Jimmie Maynard and Dick Thompson. I've heard that your
+names are Sandy and Tommy, but that's all I know about it!"
+
+"Green and Gregory!" laughed Tommy. "My name's Gregory. Sandy's name
+isn't Sandy at all, but Charley. We call him Sandy because he looks like
+he'd been rolled in sand."
+
+"Well, we may as well be getting back to headquarters!" declared Sandy
+after these original introductions had been made. "But hold on," he
+continued turning back to Jimmie and Dick, with a look on his face
+intended to be severe, "aren't you going to bring our provisions back?"
+
+"The provisions," laughed Jimmie, "were hidden in the chamber where the
+rats were, and you're welcome to all you can get your hands on now!"
+
+"Oh, well," Sandy groaned, "I suppose we'll have to buy more."
+
+"One difficulty about passing in and out of the mine so frequently,"
+Tommy stated, "is that this man Ventner is likely to catch us at it.
+There's no knowing what he'll do next if he finds that we're searching
+the place. According to Elmer, you know," he continued, "we didn't
+finish our job when we landed on you boys. He says the real game is now
+about to begin."
+
+"He's right there!" declared Jimmie.
+
+"Strange thing Mr. Horton didn't tell us all about it!" complained
+Tommy. "Where was the use of his sending us down here and making monkeys
+of us? He ought to be ashamed of himself!"
+
+"He wanted to see whether you could find out what you were here for!"
+laughed Elmer. "Perhaps he understood that after you caught us, we'd
+tell you all about it. He's a pretty foxy guy, that man Horton, from all
+I hear about him! I'm going to Chicago some day to meet him!"
+
+"Well, what is it we've got to look for now?" demanded Sandy.
+
+"You just wait till we get to headquarters!" replied Jimmie.
+
+"We ought to do that just as quickly as possible," Tommy ventured,
+"because there's no knowing when that bum detective may return. I'd give
+a whole lot of money right now to know what he is looking for!"
+
+The three strangers regarded each other laughingly, evidently well
+pleased at the puzzled look showing on the faces of their friends.
+
+"Wait till we get to headquarters and get a square meal under our
+belts," Jimmie promised, "and we'll tell you what this bum detective is
+looking for. It won't take long to do it, either."
+
+"You know, then, do you?" asked Tommy.
+
+"Of course, we know!"
+
+"Then why don't you tell?"
+
+"Couldn't think of telling on an empty stomach!" laughed Jimmie
+provokingly.
+
+As the boys walked along the passage, only a short distance from the old
+tool house, they heard a rattling and bumping on the shaft ladders and
+instantly extinguished their lights.
+
+Presently they heard footsteps on the hard floor of the gangway, and
+then a light such as those being used by the boys flashed out.
+
+"Now we're in for it!" exclaimed Tommy.
+
+"For the love of Mike, don't let him see us!" whispered Jimmie.
+
+"It'll spoil everything if he does," Dick submitted.
+
+The boys crowded close against the wall of the gangway and waited
+impatiently for Ventner to pass along.
+
+He was muttering to himself as he moved down the gangway, and his round,
+protruding belly and his little shapeless shoulders reminded the
+watching lads of the gnomes they had read about, living in underground
+cells and preying at night upon the fairies.
+
+Only for a trifling accident the boys would certainly have been
+discovered. Just as the detective came to a position ten or fifteen feet
+from where they were standing, when he was in a position to see their
+faces by the rays cast on ahead by the flashlight, he partly turned his
+ankle in a stumble on the rails, and for a moment the rays of the light
+were directed downward. He hobbled along, raving and cursing, for a few
+steps and then walked briskly on again.
+
+But the ever-watchful eye of the searchlight no longer struck upon the
+wall where the boys stood, and they realized that for the present they
+were safe from discovery. Ventner moved on down the gangway and soon
+disappeared in a cross cutting which ran to the right.
+
+"That's lucky!" exclaimed Jimmie.
+
+"Why didn't we geezle him?" demanded Tommy.
+
+"Because we want his help!" replied Dick.
+
+"His help?" laughed Sandy. "Yes, you'll get his help, all right! That
+fellow would get up in the middle of the night to do you a dirty trick,
+and don't you ever forget it!"
+
+"That's the way he's going to help us!" laughed Elmer. "He'll get up in
+the middle of some dark night to do us a dirty trick, and before he
+knows what he's about, he'll be doing us a great kindness!"
+
+"Suppose I slip back there and see what he's doing?" asked Tommy.
+
+"Can you find your way back to headquarters alone?" asked Sandy.
+
+"If I can't," asserted Tommy, "I won't be sending any wireless messages
+to you! If you think I'm likely to get lost, Dick can go back with me.
+He ought to know every corner in the old mine."
+
+"Sure he does!" laughed Jimmie. "We've been travelling this mine for a
+good many nights now, and we know it like a book."
+
+So Tommy and Dick started back down the passage, the intention being to
+hasten to the spot where Ventner had disappeared from the gangway, and
+then return to their companions immediately.
+
+"We can't stay very long, you know," Tommy explained, "because you've
+got to have that peroxide dope put on your bites. It doesn't pay to fool
+with wounds of that description!"
+
+"We'll be back to the old tool room as soon as they are!" answered Dick.
+"It will take only a minute to run down there and back!"
+
+When the boys reached the cross-cutting into which Ventner had
+disappeared, they saw his light some distance away. It seemed to be in
+one of the chambers connected with the cross-cutting.
+
+As they looked, the detective stepped forward into the circle of
+illumination and began working with a pick.
+
+"Is he always doing that when you see him?" asked Tommy.
+
+"You bet he is!" answered Dick.
+
+"What's he doing it for?"
+
+"You'll have to ask Elmer that."
+
+"But you know, don't you?"
+
+"Of course I know, but I'm not going to tell, because we all agreed that
+the story should never be told by any member of our party until Elmer
+got ready to tell it. So you see you've got to wait!"
+
+"If I had my way about it," gritted Tommy, "I'd go back there and geezle
+that bum detective and wall him up in a chamber until he got hungry
+enough to tell the story himself. Then we wouldn't have to go sneaking
+around the mine in order to keep out of his way!"
+
+"That would be a foolish move," insisted Dick, "because every stroke of
+the pick Ventner takes helps us along in the game we're playing."
+
+"You're the original little mystery boy, ain't you?" said Tommy rather
+crossly. "All right, I'll get even."
+
+The detective now moved farther along the cross-cutting and attacked a
+column of mingled rock and coal which helped to support the roof.
+
+"The blithering idiot is going to try that trick again!" exclaimed Dick.
+"He'll have the whole mine down on our heads if he doesn't stop that
+business. He's always cutting down pillars."
+
+"Just say the word," declared Tommy, "and I'll go stop him!"
+
+"Let him go his own gait," replied Dick. "We'll manage to keep out of
+the way of the falls, and he can run his own chances."
+
+Presently they saw the detective take something which resembled a stick
+of dynamite from a pocket and begin the work of setting it into the
+pillar. The boys moved hastily back.
+
+"Now what do you think of that for a fool?" exclaimed Dick. "He'll have
+the whole mine down on our heads some day, just as sure as he's a foot
+high! I hope he'll be broken in two when the fall comes."
+
+The boys stood some distance away watching the detective as he awkwardly
+manipulated the stick of dynamite.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+CAUSED BY A FALL
+
+
+In the meantime Sandy, Elmer and Jimmie, reaching the old tool house,
+found Will and George very wide awake and doing the most extraordinary
+stunts of cooking.
+
+"You said that your friends would be hungry," laughed Will, "and so
+we're preparing to feed them up fine. After that, you know, you've got
+to go on and tell us why we were sent down here without any real
+information as to the work we were to do."
+
+"Where did you leave Tommy and Dick?" asked George.
+
+"They went back to see what the detective was up to."
+
+"So he's in the mine again, is he?"
+
+"Yes," replied Sandy, "and if I had my way about it, he'd go out so
+quick that he'd think he'd struck a barrel of dynamite."
+
+"If he keeps fooling with dynamite, he's likely to do that anyhow,"
+Elmer cut in. "The boys say that he uses dynamite in the search of the
+mine he is making. He doesn't know how to use it, either!"
+
+"Then he's got to be fired out of the mine!" declared Will. "We can't
+have him around here carrying dynamite in his clothes, and dropping it
+on the ground. You might as well give a baby a box of matches and a
+hammer to play with. Some day there'll be an explosion."
+
+"Aw, leave him alone for a few days!" Jimmie advised. "He's doing us a
+lot of good just now, and we don't want to lose his help."
+
+"His help?" repeated Will.
+
+"He's bully help!" shouted George, with fine sarcasm.
+
+"I guess I'll have to tell you about the mystery of the mine," Elmer
+laughed. "Tommy ought to be here to get the story with the rest, but you
+can tell him about it later on."
+
+"He ought to be here any minute now," Jimmie asserted.
+
+"Oh, he'll be here all right!" George argued. "Go on with the story.
+It's been hours since you came in here with the suggestion that there
+was a story, and you haven't told it yet!"
+
+"Yes," Will interrupted, "get busy and tell us what Mr. Horton neglected
+to say when he sent us down here; and while you are about it," the boy
+went on, "you may as well tell us whether you really became lost in the
+mine, or whether you were sent here to do the very things you did do."
+
+"Also," George broke in, "you may as well tell us what the detective is
+doing here, and how he is helping you in trying to blow up the mine."
+
+"The boys were never lost in the mine a minute!" replied Elmer, with a
+grin, "and Mr. Horton knew it. Mr. Horton received his instructions from
+Attorney Burlingame of New York, and I am positive that Burlingame gave
+his brother lawyer the whole story."
+
+"Foxy game, eh?" laughed Will.
+
+"I guess they wanted you to find out if we boys were of any account, and
+whether we were playing fair!" laughed Jimmie.
+
+"Well, anyway, they expected you to find us and learn the story I'm now
+going to tell," Elmer continued.
+
+"Je--rusalem!" exclaimed Will. "Why don't you get at it. That story has
+been jumping from tongue to tongue clothed in mystery for hours and we
+haven't been favored with it yet!"
+
+"The story opens," Elmer began, "on a cold and stormy night in October
+in the year 1913. As the wind blew great gusts of rain down upon such
+pedestrians as happened to be out of doors----"
+
+"Aw, cut it out!" exclaimed Will. "Why don't you go on and tell the
+story? We don't want any more of that Henry James business! You know he
+always has a solitary horseman proceeding slowly on foot."
+
+"Well, it was a dark night, and a stormy one!" declared Elmer. "If it
+had been clear and bright, Stephen Carson, the Wall street banker,
+wouldn't have received a dent in his cupola. In stepping down from his
+automobile his foot slipped on the wet pavement, and he fell, striking
+on the back of his head."
+
+"What's that got to do with this mine mystery?" demanded George.
+
+"It has a great deal to do with this mine mystery," Elmer answered.
+"Stephen Carson arose from the ground, rubbed the back of his head with
+his gloved hand, and continued on his way to a meeting of a board of
+directors. He appeared to be perfectly sane and responsible for his acts
+at the meeting of the board, and when he left in his machine there were
+no indications that he had suffered more than a slight bruise from his
+fall. He was not seen at home again for two weeks."
+
+"Now you begin to get interesting!" declared Will.
+
+"Where did he go?" asked Sandy.
+
+"That is what his friends don't know," replied Elmer.
+
+"But he must have been seen somewhere!" insisted Sandy.
+
+"He was!" answered Elmer. "He was seen in the vicinity of this mine!"
+
+"Wow, wow, wow!" exclaimed Sandy.
+
+"What was he doing here?" asked Will.
+
+"Wandering about the premises."
+
+"Now I can tell you the rest," Will said with a chuckle.
+
+"Go on, then," advised Elmer.
+
+"From the meeting of the board of directors that night," Will went on,
+whimsically, "this man Stephen Carson went directly to a safety deposit
+vault where three or four hundred thousand dollars' in the way of cash
+and jewelry, were hidden. He took the whole bundle and disappeared. Is
+that anywhere near right, Elmer?"
+
+"Go on!" Elmer replied.
+
+"Then in two weeks time he comes back and says that he don't know where
+he put the jewelry, but that he thinks he hid it in this mine. And, as
+they can't find any place where he hocked the jewelry, or put it up to
+carry out some gigantic Wall street plan, they are forced to believe
+that he really did mislay the jewelry while temporarily out of his head.
+Is that anywhere near right?"
+
+"If you'll amend your report so as to show that he went to the Night and
+Day bank and drew out something over two hundred thousand dollars which
+he had on deposit there, and disappeared with the entire sum, you'll
+come nearer to the truth."
+
+Will gave a long whistle of amazement.
+
+"Two hundred thousand dollars in real money!" exclaimed George.
+
+"Yes, he took two hundred thousand dollars in real money away with him
+that night," Elmer went on, "and when he returned to his home again, he
+was penniless and in rags."
+
+"Was he in his right mind?" asked Will.
+
+"He seemed to be."
+
+"Has he now recovered from the injury he received that night?"
+
+"So the doctors say."
+
+"Then why doesn't he tell what he did with the money?"
+
+"That part of his life is blank. He was seen in the vicinity of this
+mine, yet denies it. He was seen loitering in the woods not far away,
+but insists that he never visited this mine except to attend meetings of
+the board of directors."
+
+"Now I've got you!" laughed Will. "His friends think he hid the money in
+this mine and we've been sent here to find it!"
+
+"That's the idea," agreed Elmer.
+
+"And this bum detective is here for the same purpose!"
+
+"Yes, though where he received his information is more than I know. Upon
+his return to his home, Mr. Carson immediately made good the two hundred
+thousand dollars taken from the Night and Day bank and employed
+detectives to look up the missing coin.
+
+"Is Ventner one of them?" asked Will.
+
+"I don't think so," replied Elmer. "We were sent here to look through
+the mine, with the understanding that you were to come on from Chicago
+in a few days. Mr. Horton recommended you to Mr. Burlingame and so you
+were employed."
+
+"Then this detective has no right here at all?"
+
+"None whatever, so far as I can make out."
+
+"Then why not fire him?"
+
+"Because he may accidentally run across the money some day."
+
+"If he does, he'll get away with it!" declared George.
+
+"No, he won't," answered Elmer, "He'll be watched every minute from now
+on. You may be sure of that!"
+
+"But you didn't seem to know what he was doing tonight," laughed Will.
+
+"But I knew enough to come to the right place for the information I
+desired," replied Elmer.
+
+"Strange thing Tommy and Dick don't come!" Sandy exclaimed, stepping to
+the door of the old tool house and listening intently. "They should have
+been here a long time ago!"
+
+"Perhaps they've butted into Ventner," suggested Jimmie.
+
+"They wouldn't do that," Elmer replied. "Every blow he strikes with his
+pick saves us the trouble of making one."
+
+"You don't think he had any directions from anyone, do you?" asked Will.
+"You don't, think he knows where to look for the money any more than you
+do?"
+
+"No, I think he just heard of the loss of the money and came down here
+on his own account."
+
+"Well, if he's using dynamite in the mine," Will continued, "he ought to
+be turned out of it. If Mr. Carson really hid two hundred thousand
+dollars in currency in here, it's in some little pocket easy to find if
+we get into the right chamber. The use of dynamite might bury it twenty
+feet deep under a load of shale that would never be removed!"
+
+"That's a fact!" cried Elmer.
+
+The boys now stepped to the door and listened again, attracted by the
+sound of running feet.
+
+"There's something doing!" exclaimed Sandy. "When Tommy comes home on a
+run, there's always something going on."
+
+Directly the boys came panting up, stopping in the doorway to look
+behind them. They were both well winded.
+
+"That bum detective back there," Tommy exclaimed, as soon as he could
+catch his breath, "is putting in dynamite enough to blow up the whole
+mine. He's attaching a long fuse, so he can get out before the explosion
+comes. We cried to get down far enough to choke off the fuse, but
+couldn't do it. In just about another minute, you'll hear something like
+a Fourth of July celebration!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE SIGNS IN STONES
+
+
+"We thought he'd send the shot off before we got up the ladders!"
+exclaimed Dick. "We're expecting to hear the roar of it every minute
+now!"
+
+"Perhaps something went wrong," suggested Will.
+
+"What part of the mine is he in?" asked Jimmie.
+
+Tommy explained the location of the cross-cutting and Jimmie gave a
+whistle of dismay. In a moment he asked:
+
+"Was he cutting into one of the pillars?"
+
+"Yes," was the answer; "he was getting ready to blow it down with
+dynamite. It's a wonder we don't hear the explosion!"
+
+"If the spot where he's working is the place I think it is," Jimmie
+continued, "the gink stands a pretty good chance of finding something.
+We've been searching in that chamber, and just before you boys showed up
+tonight we thought we were on the right track. Whether the money is
+there or not, it is a sure thing that the walls of the chamber have been
+tampered with. We think, though, that the money is there!"
+
+"Then we mustn't let Ventner get it!" exclaimed Will.
+
+"It won't do him any good to get it after that stick of dynamite
+explodes!" exclaimed Tommy. "It'll blow him to Kingdom Come."
+
+"Well, why don't we go down and see about it?" asked Will.
+
+"Not for me!" exclaimed Tommy.
+
+"He may blow his own head off if he wants to," Dick cut in, "but he
+can't blow off mine, not with my consent. I've got only one head!"
+
+"I don't believe there's going to be any explosion at all!" exclaimed
+Elmer. "He wouldn't be apt to lay a fuse that would burn fifteen or
+twenty minutes, and you've certainly been that length of time coming up
+here, to say nothing of the time we've been talking!"
+
+"All right!" Tommy exclaimed. "Perhaps he was loading up that pillar
+with dynamite just for the fun of it!"
+
+"It would be a nice thing to have him blow that money out of the pillar
+and get away with it, wouldn't it?" scoffed Will.
+
+"Come on, then," shouted Tommy, "I can take you to the firing line in
+about a minute. If you want to see an earthquake in a coal mine, just
+come along with me! You'll see it, all right!"
+
+The boys left the old tool house without spending any more time in
+conversation, and hastened down the ladders to the lower level. On the
+way down the last gangway they heard some one moving about in the
+darkness, and then came a cry of warning.
+
+"Stand clear! Stand clear!"
+
+"That's Ventner's voice!" exclaimed Will.
+
+"There's a blast going off in a minute!" the voice came again.
+
+"Now we've gone and done it!" exclaimed Will. "After all the trouble
+we've taken to make that fellow think we've left the country, we've let
+him bump right into us. I wonder if he really has fired the fuse."
+
+"Stand clear! Stand clear!" shouted the voice.
+
+Almost before the words had died out, the explosion came, tearing more
+than one pillar out of position and dropping a great mass of slate down
+on the floor of the cross-cutting.
+
+For a moment the gases which filled the chambers were overpowering. The
+only wonder was that they were not ignited. The electric lights carried
+by the boys shone dimly through the smoke of the confined place.
+
+"There goes Ventner," whispered Will, pointing to a figure moving
+swiftly through the half-light of the place.
+
+"He's going to see what the shot brought down!" suggested Tommy.
+
+The boys rushed forward in a little group. When they gathered at the
+scene of the explosion, the detective was not there.
+
+"If he got hold of the cash, he knew what to do with it all right!"
+exclaimed Tommy. "He got away with it before we got a chance to see what
+he had. Now we've got to catch him!"
+
+"May as well look for a needle in a load of hay!" grumbled Sandy.
+
+"Look here," Jimmie exclaimed. "There's a way to keep him shut up in the
+mine if we do the right thing. This cross-cutting runs out to a gangway
+on the north, and that, in turn, leads, of course, to the shaft. Now,
+one of you boys duck out to the shaft and see that he doesn't get up.
+You'll have to go some on the way there, because a man with two hundred
+thousand dollars in his pocket will put up some running match!"
+
+"I'm off!" shouted Tommy. "I know I can get to the shaft before he can!
+He's too fat-bellied to run, anyway!"
+
+Tommy started away at a swift pace, and the other boys closed in on the
+gangway, Will alone stopping at the scene of the explosion.
+
+"This gangway," Dick explained, "runs back into the mine for some
+distance, but there are no cross passages. I guess the coal wasn't very
+good here. At least, they never spread out the drive."
+
+"Then we've got him bottled up unless he got out of the shaft!" declared
+Sandy. "We'll soon know whether he got out or not!"
+
+"I don't believe he would try to get out," suggested Elmer. "The chances
+are that he'd make for the back of the mine, thinking to hide away with
+the plunder, provided he had any plunder to hide away with."
+
+"I'm afraid he found the hidden money," Will said, taking a scorched
+ten-dollar bill from a pocket. "I found this back there, where the
+pillar fell. I guess he found the cash all right!"
+
+"And that's a nice thing, too!" exclaimed Sandy. "You boys kept saying
+that Ventner was helping you find the coin. You were right about that,
+for he did find the coin. And now the trick is to get it away from him!"
+
+"I'd like to know whether Ventner got up the shaft or not," suggested
+George, "and I believe I'll take a run up there and see.
+
+"That's a good idea!" advised Will. "If he didn't get up the shaft he's
+surely imprisoned in the gangway. He may be between this cross-cutting
+and the shaft, or he may have gone further in!"
+
+"It'll take a long time to find out about that," suggested Jimmie.
+
+Directly Tommy and George were heard returning from the shaft. They came
+through the gangway flashing their lights in every direction.
+
+"He never went up the shaft!" Tommy exclaimed as they came near. "We've
+got him canned in the mine all right. If he's got the money, we'll take
+it away from him! He wouldn't know what to do with it, anyway!"
+
+"First," suggested Will, "we'd better make sure that the fellow got the
+money. The bank note I found may have never been in the possession of
+Mr. Carson. And even if it was, it may be the only one to be blown out
+of its hiding place by the explosion. It strikes me that we'd better
+give the place a thorough search before we waste much time looking for
+Ventner. If, as Tommy says, he never left the mine by way of the shaft,
+we've got him blocked in, all right!"
+
+The boys now began a careful examination of the cross-cutting where the
+explosion had taken place. As has been stated, more than one pillar had
+been blown out. There was a great heap of debris on the floor, and this
+the boys attacked with a vim.
+
+Tommy and George were now standing guard at the mouth of the
+cross-cutting so that no one could pass down the gangway toward the
+shaft.
+
+"Suppose that fellow did get the money?" asked Sandy, as the boys
+cleared away the heaps of slate, "what then?"
+
+"Then we'll have to take it away from him!"
+
+"We'll catch him first."
+
+"We've got him blocked in, haven't we?" asked Sandy.
+
+"Oh, we know that he can't get out," Dick cut in, "but we know, too,
+that there are a lot of shallow benches along that gangway. We can't
+walk in and pick him out in a minute. Besides," the boy continued, "when
+we find him, we may find his pockets empty."
+
+"That's just what we will do!" Elmer agreed. "He'll hide the money in
+another place, and swear that he never found it!"
+
+"I wish we'd kicked him out of the mine!" exclaimed Sandy.
+
+The boys continued their search until daylight, and then, leaving Tommy
+and George still on guard, they went up to the old tool house for
+breakfast. The lads were by no means elated over what had taken place.
+They believed that Ventner had succeeded in finding the money, and were
+certain that, even if located in the mine, he would deny any knowledge
+of it.
+
+"I guess we got you boys into a mess by insisting on having the
+detective roaming around," admitted Elmer, as the boys were eating a
+hastily prepared breakfast. "I guess we should have listened to you in
+regard to that. There is no knowing how much trouble we have made!"
+
+"He may help us find the money after all!" laughed Will.
+
+"Yes," cut in Sandy, "it may be easier to get it away from him than to
+find the place where it was hidden."
+
+"Oh, yes, if we could lay our hands on him and order him to give up two
+hundred thousand dollars, and he would say: 'Yes, I've been waiting to
+find the owner,' that would be all right, too! But the thing isn't
+likely to turn out in that way! He'll hide the money, and swear he never
+found it! Then, when everything quiets down, he'll sneak back and get
+it!"
+
+This from Jimmie, who seemed to take a rather gloomy view of the
+situation. The boys remained at the old tool house only a short time.
+Their minds were fixed so intently on the work in hand that they hardly
+knew whether they had had any breakfast at all.
+
+As they passed down the ladders to the lower level, they heard something
+which resembled a pistol shot, and almost tumbled over each other
+getting down into the gangway. Will and Elmer were first to reach the
+cross-heading where the explosion of dynamite had taken place.
+
+They called to Tommy and George, but received no answer. They walked for
+some distance down the gangway without hearing any sound indicating the
+presence of their companions, or of any one else.
+
+"Now that's a funny thing!" exclaimed Will. "I don't see why those boys
+should go rambling about the mine at a time like this just for the fun
+of the thing!"
+
+"They never did!" replied Elmer. "You remember the shot we heard!"
+
+"It might not have been a shot!" suggested Will.
+
+As the boy spoke he bent over and pointed to three stones lying on the
+floor of the gangway.
+
+"There!" he said. "The boys have left a record. They not only point out
+the trail, but warn, us that there is danger in following it!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+TWO HOLD-UP MEN
+
+
+"That's Boy Scout talk all right!" exclaimed Elmer.
+
+"Yes, the three stones, piled one on top of the other, mean that there
+is danger in following the trail. I don't understand exactly what kind
+of danger can be threatening us, and so the only thing we can do is to
+go on and find out," Will said with a glance backward.
+
+The other boys now came up and a short consultation was held. It was
+decided to leave Sandy and Dick at the point where the explosion had
+taken place, while Will, Elmer and Jimmie followed on down the gangway.
+
+"Now whatever you do," warned Will as the two boys were left behind,
+"don't leave this gangway for a minute. If Ventner isn't out of the mine
+now, we don't want him to get out. He may have the money or he may not.
+That is one of the things no fellow can find out at this time, but
+whether he has or not, we want him to give an account of himself before
+he leaves the Labyrinth. He's got several important questions to
+answer."
+
+The boys promised to watch the passage faithfully, and the others passed
+on down the gangway, flashing their lights in every direction and making
+no pretense of moving quietly.
+
+"Look here," Jimmie said after they had proceeded some distance into the
+mine and discovered nothing of importance, "I have in my possession a
+great idea! Want to hear about it?"
+
+"Sure!" laughed Will.
+
+"We're making too much noise."
+
+"Making too much noise in order to attract the attention of a couple of
+lost youngsters?" asked Elmer.
+
+"They're not lost!" insisted Jimmie. "They've been lured away or dragged
+away! We don't know how many men were in the mine with Ventner!"
+
+"Well, produce your idea!" Elmer exclaimed.
+
+"Well, my notion is that I ought to go on ahead of you boys, walking as
+quietly as possible and without a light. If there are people waiting to
+snare us, they'll naturally think we've bunched our forces and are all
+coming along together. Then, you see," he continued, "I'll be right in
+among them before they suspect that we have a skirmish line out."
+
+"That's an all right notion, kid!" answered Will.
+
+"Then I'll be on my way," Jimmie replied. "And if I need help at any
+time, I'll give the call of the pack!"
+
+"But you mustn't do that unless you have to," Will cautioned, "because,
+the minute the cry is heard, everybody within eighty rods would know
+what's going on. Have you matches with you?"
+
+The boy felt in the pockets of his coat and nodded.
+
+"Well, then," he said, "if you want to signal, wet your hands and rub
+the phosphorus off the matches. Turn your hands, palms in our direction,
+so no one can see from the other side and wig-wag."
+
+"That will be fine!" exclaimed Jimmie. "I've got this wig-wag system
+down pat. I guess this Boy Scout training is pretty poor, ain't it, eh?
+The darker it is, the better we can talk!"
+
+Jimmie darted away, while Will and Elmer remained stationary for a short
+time in order to give him an opportunity to get out of the range of
+their lights. Directly they heard him whispering back and listened.
+
+"There's another stone cairn here!" he said. "I guess I knocked it over,
+for I can't tell exactly what it is. You can learn that when you come up
+with your searchlights! I think there are three stones."
+
+"All right!" Will whispered back.
+
+When the boys came to the spot from which the voice had been heard they
+found three stones lying side by side on the floor of the gangway. It
+was plain that they had been placed one on top of the other, and so they
+accepted them as another warning of danger.
+
+"I wish we had some intimation of the kind of trouble we are likely to
+get into," Elmer suggested, as they passed along. "I don't like this
+idea of boring a hole in the darkness with a little bit of a light and
+anticipating an attack at any minute."
+
+"I don't like it a little bit myself," replied Will.
+
+"A person so inclined might shoot us down without ever showing himself,"
+declared Elmer. "In fact, the only protection we have lies in the fact
+that Jimmie is on ahead, and would not be likely to pass any one lying
+in wait for us. Bright little boy, that!"
+
+"There he is now!" exclaimed Will. "He's using the phosphorus, all
+right, and I can begin to understand what he's trying to say? There's a
+'W', and an 'A', and an 'I', and a 'T'. That means that he wants us to
+stay where we are. The system works fine, doesn't it?"
+
+The question now was as to whether the lads should extinguish their
+lights. That, of itself, they understood would be suspicious in case
+they should be in sight of their enemies. It would simply proclaim their
+knowledge of the danger they were in, whatever it was.
+
+"I think we'd better keep the lights going until we hear something
+more," Elmer said. "Jimmie will talk again in a minute."
+
+The boys waited patiently for some moments, and then the wig-wag figures
+came again. Will read slowly:
+
+"There's a 'V', and an 'E', and an 'N', and a 'T', and an 'N', and an
+'E', and an 'R'," he said. "Now the boy's starting it again. He says,
+'Ventner is here.' Now wait a minute, there's more coming!"
+
+"The next words are: 'With two others'."
+
+"It's only a question of time when that detective will get next to the
+wig-wag game," Elmer declared. "This gangway smells like a match factory
+already. I wonder how far Jimmie is away from them."
+
+Directly Jimmie began talking the wig-wag tongue again. This time he
+said that Tommy and George were not in sight, and had evidently been
+surprised and taken prisoners. He advised Will and Elmer to come on
+softly with their lights out.
+
+The boys did as requested, but they had advanced only a few paces in the
+darkness when Canfield, accompanied by Sandy and Dick came running up,
+showing both lack of breath and profound excitement.
+
+"Boys," Canfield called. "Boys!"
+
+"Will!" yelled Sandy.
+
+"I guess they're going to bust up the whole combination!" declared Will
+rather sourly. "I wish I had them by the neck!"
+
+"They may have important news," suggested Elmer. "Anyway, we'll have to
+turn on our lights and meet them. If we don't, they'll keep on yelling
+all down the gangway!"
+
+Canfield and the two boys came up as soon as Elmer showed a light, and
+stood for a moment looking cautiously about.
+
+"I don't think you boys ought to go any further into the mine!" Canfield
+exclaimed, breathing heavily from the long chase down the passage. "I
+have just received word that two of the most desperate hold-up men in
+the country have taken refuge here. There's no knowing how they got over
+to the mine, but it is a sure thing that they did get here, for a couple
+of breaker boys saw them climbing into the breaker."
+
+"What time was this?" asked Will.
+
+"Oh, I don't know," replied Canfield. "The matter was reported to me
+early this morning. I couldn't find you before, or you should have had
+the news sooner. It isn't safe for you to go into the mine!"
+
+"Your information," grinned Will, "comes a little bit late, but it's all
+right, just the same! Ventner is in there, and there are two men with,
+him. It's a mystery how they made their way in without being discovered,
+but it seems that they did so."
+
+"What are you going to do?" asked Canfield.
+
+"We're going on into the mine."
+
+"In the face of my warning?"
+
+"It's just this way," answered Will. "We left two of the boys on guard
+in this passage, not so very long ago, and they have disappeared. We
+suspect that Ventner and the two men to whom you refer have good reason
+to know something of their whereabouts."
+
+"They won't injure the boys!" pleaded Canfield.
+
+"We don't mean to give them a chance!" insisted Elmer. "We're going to
+jerk those boys out so quick it'll make their heads swim!"
+
+"But it's positively dangerous!" urged the caretaker.
+
+"If there wasn't an element of danger in the situation, we wouldn't be
+here!" replied Will. "I don't see as we need to run away from two
+hold-up men, anyway," the boy went on. "Here are five boys and one full
+grown man in the gangway. We ought to give a pretty good account of
+ourselves, in case some one starts anything!"
+
+"Where's the fifth boy?" asked Canfield. "It seems to me that you're
+getting quite an accumulation of boys in here!"
+
+"Two of the boys are Jimmie Maynard and Dick Thompson!" answered Will.
+"You know you informed me quite positively not long ago that the two
+lads were hundreds of miles from this place by this time."
+
+"You might barricade the hold-up men and starve them out," suggested
+Canfield, "that is, if you're sure they're in there!"
+
+"We have just had a wireless from the interior," Elmer answered. "There
+are three men in there, all right!"
+
+"Well, it won't take any longer to starve three out than it would one!"
+declared Canfield.
+
+"Yes," Elmer cut in, "and about the first time the hold-up men got good
+and hungry, they'd be sending out Tommy's ears or one of George's
+fingers just as a warning to us not to meddle with their appetites."
+
+Before long Jimmie began wig-wagging again, but before any words could
+be formed the waiting boys heard a distant scuffle, a short, quick cry
+of alarm, and then the phosphorus-covered palms disappeared from sight.
+
+"They've got Jimmie!" Elmer said in a tone of dismay.
+
+"Well, what are we going to do?" demanded Sandy. "We've got to do
+something right away, and that's no story out of the dream book!"
+
+"I don't suppose it would be of any use to rush them," suggested Elmer.
+
+"They'd mow us down like rats!" declared Dick.
+
+"It strikes me," Sandy said, "that we'd ought to get back further and
+keep out of sight until we can decide upon some definite plan of
+action."
+
+"I've got an idea wandering around in the back of my brain," Will said.
+"If the situation is exactly as I think it is, we may be able to get the
+best of those hold-up men after all."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE MONEY IN SIGHT
+
+
+"Not while they have possession of the boys," Canfield declared,
+dolefully. "They'll murder those boys if we shut off their supplies!"
+
+"Oh, I don't know about that!" suggested Dick. "We've been mixed up in a
+great many awkward situations, but we've always managed to save our
+necks. We'll get the boys out in some way!"
+
+"Look here, Mr. Canfield," Will said, "how well do you know this mine?"
+
+"Every inch, of it!" was the reply.
+
+"Every inch of every level," asked Will.
+
+"Yes, sir!" replied the caretaker, rather proudly. "I can go into any
+part of it without a light!"
+
+"Then look here, Dick," Will directed. "You chase back to the old tool
+house and bring back a long rope. And when you return, stop at the
+second level. Some of us will meet you there."
+
+"I hope you don't expect to pull these boys up through fifty or a
+hundred feet of shale?" asked the caretaker.
+
+"I don't know whether my scheme will work or not," Will answered, "but
+it's worth trying! We shall have to leave at least two here, well armed,
+and take the others with us. You'll have to act as guide, Mr. Canfield,
+and we'll meet Dick when he comes down to the second level with the
+rope. As soon as we get the boys out of their trouble, we can leave the
+three outlaws in full possession of the mine. If we watch the shaft at
+the old tool house, they can never get out without our knowing it!"
+
+"I don't understand what you have in mind," faltered Canfield.
+
+Leaving Sandy and Elmer in the gangway from which the wig-wag signals
+had been shown, the others hastened up the ladder to the second level.
+Then Dick ran away to bring the rope, while Will questioned the
+caretaker regarding the fall between the two levels.
+
+"You remember the old shaft, cut through years ago, and doubtless
+deserted when the vein ran out, which at one time connected the two
+levels, don't you?" asked the boy of the caretaker.
+
+"There is such a place," replied the caretaker.
+
+"Can you find it?"
+
+"Of course I can."
+
+"Does the fall open into the system of chambers in the center or to the
+north? You understand what I mean! Is it possible to enter any of the
+benches or chambers connecting with the north gangway on the lower level
+by means of this deserted shaft?"
+
+"I am not quite certain about that," replied Canfield, "but my idea is
+that the north benches and chambers can be reached by means of that
+opening. I am glad you thought of that," he went on.
+
+Dick now returned with the rope, and the three proceeded down the second
+level until they came to a confusion of passages and benches which would
+certainly have bewildered any one not familiar with the mine.
+
+"Unless I am very much mistaken," Canfield went on, "this passage, the
+one straight ahead, runs almost directly over Tunnel Six. If I am right
+in this, the deserted shaft is here."
+
+"And Tunnel Six is the haunted corridor, isn't it?" asked Dick.
+
+"That's where the lights have been seen!" replied the caretaker.
+
+"You never believed in the ghost stories told about Tunnel Six?" asked
+Will. "I should think you'd begin to see now that the alleged ghosts
+were pretty material things."
+
+"Well, I don't know about the ghosts," replied the caretaker, "but I
+really was getting a little bit nervous when you boys arrived. You
+know," he continued, "that we all feel a little shivery when we butt
+into anything which we can't understand."
+
+"Well, suppose you follow this passage to the end and see if you
+discover anything like the deserted shaft," suggested Dick.
+
+"You're not going to venture into the lower level again, are you?" asked
+Canfield. "I don't blame you boys for wanting to rescue your companions,
+but, at the same time, I don't want to see you throw your lives away.
+Those are desperate men in Tunnel Six!"
+
+"If my idea is worth anything at all," replied Will, "we'll get the boys
+out without ever letting the hold-up men know that we are within a mile
+of them. You know we had very little difficulty in getting out of the
+chamber where we left the boat."
+
+"Trust you boys for inventing ways of doing things!" exclaimed Canfield.
+
+"Of course," Will said hesitatingly after a time, "it may be that this
+deserted shaft doesn't connect with Tunnel Six, but even if it doesn't,
+we'll find some way of getting to our friends from the new position. We
+can only try, anyway!"
+
+"I'm pretty certain that it connects with Tunnel Six," replied the
+caretaker. "But you mustn't show your light when you approach the old
+shaft," he went on, "because if it does connect with the chamber we
+seek, and the chamber in turn connects with the north passage, the
+robbers will see what we're doing."
+
+"That's a valuable suggestion!" replied Will.
+
+"I'll go on ahead," Canfield continued, "and find the old shaft. Then
+you can follow on with the rope, and one of you boys can drop down and
+see what can be discovered."
+
+"It's dollars to apples," chuckled Dick, as the boys trailed along after
+the caretaker, "that we find the three kids trussed up like a lot of
+hens ready for the market in the chamber where you came so near getting
+wet. I hope we do, at any rate!"
+
+"There's one thing we overlooked," Will said as Canfield whispered to
+them that he had found the deserted shaft, "and that is this: We should
+have directed the boys in the gangway to have attracted the attention of
+the outlaws by a little pistol practice while we are communicating with
+our friends. They may be all packed away in the chamber together."
+
+"Yes, we should have attended to that," replied Dick. "Perhaps I'd
+better go back now and tell them to get busy with their automatics."
+
+"We may as well investigate the situation here first," the other
+answered.
+
+The boys heard the caretaker creeping about in the darkness, and
+presently a piece of shale or coal was heard rattling down the old
+shaft.
+
+"We'll have to get that blundering caretaker away from there," whispered
+Will. "If we don't, he'll notify the hold-up men that we're getting
+ready to do something! I've heard that about three-fourths of the people
+in the world object to doing anything unless they can take a brass band
+along, and I guess it's true."
+
+"Say," Canfield whispered, calling back to the lads, "when that stone
+dropped down, I heard something that sounded like a paddle slapping down
+on the water. That room can't be wet yet, can it?"
+
+"The Beaver call!" whispered Will.
+
+"Right you are!" replied Dick. "The boys are there, all right!"
+
+"Now the next thing to do is to find out if those highwaymen are
+watching them," declared Will.
+
+"I'll tell you that in a minute," Dick whispered.
+
+As the boy spoke, he passed one end of the rope to Canfield.
+
+"Hang on to it, whatever takes place!" he whispered, "and I'll drop down
+and see what's going on."
+
+"You must be very careful," warned Canfield.
+
+"That's all right," answered Dick, "but we can't stand here all day
+figuring out precautions. We've got to know right off whether there's
+anyone in that chamber watching the boys!"
+
+"What a joke it would be to put on a ghost in Tunnel Six!" laughed Will,
+in a decidedly cheerful frame of mind, now that rescue seemed so near.
+
+"Don't try any foolishness!" advised Canfield. "Let's rescue the boys if
+possible and make our way out of this horrible place."
+
+Will crawled to the edge of the shaft with Dick and whispered as he
+lowered him into the dark opening below:
+
+"Remember," he said, "that Ventner may have discovered the money. If so,
+we must secure it before we leave the place! It will be just like him to
+stow the bank notes away in some chamber like the one you are about to
+enter. When you strike bottom, if there is no one in sight except the
+boys, turn on your searchlight and take a good look over the interior of
+the chamber.
+
+"We were in there not so very long ago, but at that time we weren't
+thinking of making a search there for hidden money. You'll have to use
+your own judgment about turning on the light, of course. The outlaws may
+be out in the gangway, some distance from the entrance to the chamber,
+or they may be within six feet of where the boys are held as prisoners."
+
+"Tommy ought to be able to tell me the minute I strike the heap of shale
+whether the outlaws are close by or not!" Dick suggested.
+
+"Of course!" answered Will, "if he knows. If the men are not in sight,
+and he doesn't know where they are, you'll simply have to take chances.
+If you get caught in there, you'll have to shoot, and shoot quick!"
+
+Dick, dropped down into the old shaft and directly the anxious watchers
+above heard the rattle of shale as it dropped from the pyramid under the
+opening. Will, still clinging to the rope, lay on his stomach and peered
+downward, watching with all anxiety for some show of light, or some
+sound which might indicate the situation below.
+
+Directly Will felt a soft, steady pull at the rope, and knew that one of
+the boys was ready to be assisted to the top.
+
+Dick came up first, chuckling as he landed on the edge of the break in
+the rock, and was immediately followed by Jimmie.
+
+"Where's Tommy and George?" asked Will in a whisper.
+
+"They're down there looking for the money!"
+
+"Looking for the money in the darkness?"
+
+"Sure!" was the reply. "You see," he went on, "those ginks tied us up
+good and tight, and then threw the money around promiscuous like!"
+
+"So the money is there?" asked Will.
+
+The news seemed too good to be true!
+
+"It was there when we were first thrown into the chamber," replied
+Jimmie, "but I have an idea that Ventner sneaked in and removed it so as
+to prevent his mates getting any share."
+
+A light flashed out from below, followed immediately by a pistol shot!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+SANDY IS DISCHARGED
+
+
+Elmer and Sandy, guarding the gangway variously called the North section
+and Tunnel Six, presently heard voices coming from the direction of the
+shaft, and the latter moved back a few paces in order to inspect the
+new-comers. In a moment he saw three rather pompous looking men
+approaching him, their footsteps being directed by a man clothed as a
+miner.
+
+"Here, boy!" shouted one of the pompous men. "Can you tell me where
+Canfield, the caretaker of this mine, may be found?"
+
+"He's up on the next level," replied Sandy.
+
+"I was told he was down here," growled the speaker, who was very short
+and fat, and very much out of breath.
+
+"He was here a little while ago," answered Sandy.
+
+"What's the meaning of this show of firearms?" demanded the fat man,
+after glancing disdainfully at the automatic in the boy's hand.
+
+"We've got three robbers cooped up in the mine," replied Sandy.
+
+"That's the old, old story!" exclaimed the fat man. "I don't know that I
+ever knew of a mine that wasn't haunted, either by ghosts or robbers!
+Mysteries seem to breed in coal mines!"
+
+Sandy walked back to the place where he had left Elmer, and the three
+men and their guide followed him. When Elmer caught a view of the fat
+man's face and figure, he gave a sharp pull at Sandy's sleeve.
+
+"That's Stephen Carson!" he said. "I guess I'd better keep out of sight,
+because I don't care about getting into an argument with him. He's the
+most contrary person I ever saw in my life, and never fails to get up an
+argument about something or other with yours truly."
+
+"You seem to know him pretty well," whispered Sandy.
+
+"I ought to," returned Elmer, "he's my Uncle! The two tall men in the
+party are my father and the cashier of the Night and Day bank. I'll take
+a sneak, and that will shorten the session."
+
+Accordingly, Elmer strolled along the gangway and came to a halt some
+distance from where the three men had drawn up.
+
+"My boy," Carson went on, looking condescendingly at the youth, "will
+you kindly run up to the second level and tell Mr. Canfield that his
+presence is required by the president of the mining company?"
+
+"I'm not allowed to leave this place, sir," replied Sandy, taking
+offense at the man's air of proprietorship.
+
+"All persons in and about this mine," Carson almost shouted, "are
+subject to my orders. Run along now, you foolish boy, find don't make
+any further trouble for yourself!"
+
+The man's manner was so unnecessarily dictatorial and offensive that
+Sandy found it impossible to retain his temper. He was not naturally a
+"fresh" youngster, but now he had passed the limit of endurance.
+
+"Aw, go chase yourself!" he said.
+
+"You're discharged!" shouted Carson.
+
+"You didn't hire me!" retorted Sandy. "You haven't got any right to
+discharge me! I'm going to stay here until I get ready to leave!"
+
+"If you don't get out of the mine immediately, I'll have you thrown
+out!" shouted Carson. "I never saw such impudence!"
+
+"If I do get out," replied Sandy with a grin, "you'll wish I hadn't!"
+
+Carson turned to Elmer's father and the bank cashier, and the three
+consulted together for a short time. Then Elmer's father came closer to
+where Sandy was standing.
+
+"Why do you say that?" he asked. "Why do you think we will wish you had
+remained in case you are sent out of the mine?"
+
+"Because I was left here to prevent robbers getting out of the gangway.
+They're further in, and have captured three of my chums."
+
+"All nonsense!" shouted Mr. Carson breaking into the conversation
+impatiently. "These breaker boys never tell the truth!"
+
+"Are you Mr. Buck?" asked Sandy, speaking in an undertone to Elmer's
+father. "Because if you are, you'll find Elmer just a short distance
+ahead. He's on guard, too. He didn't want his uncle to recognize him,
+because he says he's always getting up an argument with him."
+
+"I'm glad to know that Elmer is attending to his duty," Mr. Buck
+answered. "Somehow," he continued with a smile, "Stephen Carson always
+rubs Elmer the wrong way of the grain."
+
+"What's he butting in here for?" asked Sandy, while the cashier of the
+Night and Day bank and the miner stood by waiting for the peace
+negotiations to conclude.
+
+"Why, he came in to get his two hundred thousand dollars!" replied Mr.
+Buck. "He thinks he knows How right where he left it."
+
+"Does he often get foolish in the head like that?" asked Sandy with a
+grin. "If he does, he ought to hire a couple of detectives to keep track
+of him when he goes wandering out in the night!"
+
+"Oh, Stephen is usually a pretty level-headed sort of a fellow!" replied
+Mr. Buck. "He is out of humor just now because he has always denied that
+he visited the mine during his two weeks of absence. He is one of the
+men who dislike very much to be caught in an error of any kind."
+
+"So he knows where the money is?" asked Sandy.
+
+"He says he can find it if he can secure the services of Canfield, the
+caretaker. He remembers now of getting in the mine, and of hearing
+footsteps in the darkness. His impression at that time was that robbers
+had followed him in, so he unloaded the banknotes in a small chamber
+which he is now able to describe accurately but which he cannot, of
+course, find."
+
+"Was the money hidden on this level?" asked Sandy.
+
+"Yes, on this level."
+
+"In this gangway?"
+
+"He thinks it was hidden here."
+
+"Right about here, or further on?"
+
+"Why," was the answer, "he seems to remember something about Tunnel Six.
+He thinks he hid the money there! As soon as he finds Canfield, the
+caretaker will probably be able to tell him exactly how Tunnel Six
+looks."
+
+"It looks all in a mess right now! I can tell you that," grinned Sandy.
+
+"What do you mean by that?"
+
+"I mean that there's been doings here!" replied Sandy.
+
+"Are there really robbers in there?"
+
+"Sure, there are robbers in there!"
+
+"Then perhaps we'd better bring in a squad of deputies."
+
+"If you'll just let us boys alone," Sandy said, "we'll bring the money
+out if it's anywhere in the mine, but if this man Carson goes to butting
+in at this time, he'll have to dig out his own money. He won't believe
+there's any robbers in there, and he wants to fire me out of the mine,
+so I guess we'd better let him go his own gait a little while."
+
+"He'll do that anyhow no matter what you say!" replied Mr. Buck.
+
+"Look here!" shouted Carson, starting forward, with his stomach out and
+his fat shoulders thrown back, "what's all this conversation about? Why
+don't some one go up and get Canfield, and why isn't that young rowdy
+thrown out of the mine? I won't have him in here!"
+
+"Say," Sandy broke in, "Mr. Buck says that you're looking for Tunnel
+Six. If you are, I can show you right where it is!"
+
+"Do so, then!" shouted Carson.
+
+"Go straight ahead," Sandy directed, "and when the robbers begin to
+shoot, you command them to throw down their weapons in the name of the
+law. They'll probably do it, all right, if you tell them to, but you'll
+be lucky if they don't throw them down your throat!"
+
+"Do you mean to tell me," screamed Carson, "that there are actually
+robbers here, and that they have taken possession of Tunnel Six?"
+
+"That's the idea," replied Sandy.
+
+"Why, that's where I put my----"
+
+"That's where you put your money, is it?" Sandy went on.
+
+"I never saw such impudence!" reared Carson.
+
+"Well, go on and get your money!" advised Sandy. "Just go straight down
+the gangway until you come to a face of rock and then switch off to the
+left, and you'll find yourself in a chamber used at present by robbers
+and hold-up men as a winter resort."
+
+"Oh you can't frighten me!" declared Carson. "I believe that you're here
+in quest of the money yourself!"
+
+"That's right!" admitted Sandy. "Go on in, now, and tell the robbers to
+give up your hoarded gold! Just butt in, and tell 'em what you want them
+to do! They'll probably do just as you tell them to!"
+
+"I never saw such impudence in my life!" roared Carson, wiping his
+perspiring forehead with a large red silk handkerchief.
+
+"I don't see where the impudence comes in!" replied Sandy. "You said you
+wanted to find Tunnel Six in order that you might locate your money. I'm
+telling you where it is, and what to do to get it!"
+
+"Old Stephen never took a bluff in his life!" chuckled Mr. Buck, "Now
+see if he doesn't go stalking down that passage and declaring himself in
+the name of the law!"
+
+The banker did exactly what Mr. Buck had predicted. He went storming
+down the passage, giving notice to all intruders to walk out of his mine
+in a peaceable manner. Mr. Buck followed along until he came to where
+Elmer was standing with his back against the wall, and then the two
+paused and entered into conversation. The cashier of the Night and Day
+bank and the miner started back toward the shaft.
+
+"What's the matter?" shouted Sandy. "Why don't you stay and see the fun?
+There'll be shooting here directly!"
+
+The miner and the cashier now took to their heels and were soon out of
+sight. Every moment the boy expected to see a flash of fire in the
+gangway. Carson was now very near to Tunnel Six, and it seemed certain
+that the outlaws must soon open fire on him.
+
+"Come back, Stephen!" shouted Mr. Buck. "Don't make a fool of yourself!"
+
+"This is all pure bluff!" shouted Carson. "There are no robbers here at
+all. This is a scheme to keep me out of Tunnel Six, where I believe my
+money to be hidden!"
+
+They saw Carson halt in his rather clumsy passage down the gangway, and
+draw an automatic revolver from his pocket.
+
+There was a quick shot and the banker rushed ahead!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+"I TOLD YOU SO!"
+
+
+Directly Elmer, Sandy and Mr. Buck heard the banker shouting at the top
+of his lungs and dashed on toward the mysterious tunnel.
+
+"He'll get his head shot off in there!" exclaimed Sandy.
+
+"I don't care if he does!" declared Elmer.
+
+"Your uncle isn't such a bad old fellow, after all," Mr. Buck exclaimed.
+"He has plenty of courage, at any rate!"
+
+"But I don't understand why they don't open fire on him!" exclaimed
+Sandy. "The robbers certainly were in there not very long ago. We heard
+the scuffle when they geezled Jimmie."
+
+"Who fired that shot?" asked Mr. Buck.
+
+"Uncle Stephen did," replied Elmer. "I saw the flash spring out from the
+spot where he stood!"
+
+"Well, what do you know about that?" exclaimed Sandy. "The old chap is
+actually making his bluff good! He's getting into Tunnel Six single
+handed and alone! I guess we'll have to advertise for those three
+outlaws if we find 'em in here! He's a nervy old fellow, isn't he?"
+
+The three now followed fast on the heels of the banker, and soon came to
+where he stood swinging his searchlight at the end of a short drift
+which ended, after sliding under a dip, in a chamber which at first
+glance seemed to be piled high with a mass of shale.
+
+While the three looked on, Carson dropped on his knees beside a crevice
+in the wall and began an eager exploration of the opening.
+
+Directly he sprang to his feet with rage and disappointment showing on
+every feature of his face. He raved about the cluttered chamber for a
+moment, almost dancing up and down in his anger and chagrin, and then
+sat limply down on the pile of shale.
+
+"It's gone!" he said. "The money's gone!"
+
+"So it wasn't hidden back there in that cross-cutting at all?" asked
+Sandy. "We thought sure we had a cinch on the coin several hours ago!"
+
+"It was hidden here in this chamber!" declared Carson wearily. "The
+minute I entered the place I remembered where I had hidden it. And now
+it's gone! I've had all my trouble for nothing."
+
+As he ceased speaking, he glanced suspiciously at Sandy. And Sandy, in
+turn, made a most provoking face.
+
+"I believe you know something about my money!" Carson said.
+
+"Sure I do!" replied Sandy.
+
+"Then where is it?"
+
+"The robbers got it!"
+
+"That's a nice story to tell," howled Carson. "If you think I'm going to
+be defrauded out of my money in this way, you're very much mistaken!"
+
+Without paying any further attention to the threats of the banker, Sandy
+stepped over to Elmer's side and pointed up the deserted shaft.
+
+"There's where the robbers went," he said, "and they doubtless took
+Carson's money with them. I don't understand why Will didn't stop them."
+
+"Will and George probably released their friends and went away,"
+complained Elmer. "I don't think they showed very good judgment in doing
+that, either. The result is that the money has now disappeared entirely.
+A short time ago, Uncle might have reclaimed it."
+
+"We don't know whether the money has gone beyond recall or not," replied
+Sandy. "I don't believe Will and George ever left the old shaft
+unguarded. They are still somewhere in this vicinity!"
+
+Carson now blustered up to Sandy and pointed an accusing finger into the
+lad's face. Sandy regarded him with indifference.
+
+"Now that your story of the robbers has been disproved," Carson shouted,
+"you may as well tell me who took my money. If I had not the courage to
+make this investigation in person, that cheap story of the robbers would
+have held good for all time!"
+
+"That's a horse on me, all right!" admitted Sandy. "I don't know where
+the robbers are, unless they went up through that old shaft, and it
+doesn't seem as if the boys would permit that!"
+
+"Too thin! Entirely too thin!" declared Carson. "A moment ago you tried
+to tell me that the money wasn't hidden near Tunnel Six at all, but was
+hidden back there near the cross-cutting."
+
+"We had good reason to believe it was hidden there!" replied Sandy. "We
+found a burned ten-dollar banknote there just after a dynamite explosion
+had taken place."
+
+"That would naturally lead to the supposition that the money had been
+hidden there!" Mr. Buck exclaimed.
+
+"Come to think of it," Sandy went on, "I believe that was one of
+Ventner's tricks. I believe he blew down those pillars and burned the
+banknote for the express purpose of making us search two or three weeks
+in the wrong place. I guess we have under-estimated that fellow's
+ability. He's a keener man than I supposed!"
+
+"I don't quite see the point to that," Elmer suggested. "When you say
+that Ventner probably caused you to dig in the wrong place, you admit
+that he must have known something about the right place. Now, how could
+he have known anything about where to look for that money?"
+
+"I don't know," replied Sandy. "But when you say that he might have
+known exactly where to look, you set him down as a fool, because he has
+been searching a long time and never came upon it until today."
+
+"I think I can understand that," Mr. Buck said. "This man you speak of
+probably knew where to find the money provided he could discover the
+right drift, bench, chamber or tunnel. Like Mr. Carson, here, he could
+doubtless go straight to the cache if directed into the right
+apartment."
+
+While the four stood together at the bottom of the chamber, their
+searchlights making the place as light as day, an exclamation came from
+the shaft above, followed by two pistol shots.
+
+Carson dropped to his knees and began twisting at his automatic, which
+had in some way become entangled in the lining of his pocket.
+
+"There are your robbers!" he shouted. "Put out your lights!"
+
+"Don't you do anything of the kind!" argued Sandy. "Get out of range of
+the old shaft and keep your lights burning so you can shoot any one who
+drops down! I guess we have them hemmed in!"
+
+"It's a scheme to get away with my money!" shouted Carson.
+
+"I wish you had your old money chucked down your throat!" exclaimed
+Sandy. "I'm getting sick of the sound of the word!"
+
+All members of the party now drew back toward the dip, where they were
+entirely concealed from any one in the old shaft.
+
+Directly there was a rattling of shale and slate, and then the lights
+showed the figure of Tommy sitting astride the peak of the pyramid.
+
+"What you fellows trying to do down there?" he asked.
+
+"We're looking for Carson's money?" replied Sandy.
+
+"Did you get it?" the boy demanded.
+
+"Not yet!"
+
+"That's the boy that's got my money!" shouted the banker.
+
+"Money's a good thing to have!" grinned Tommy.
+
+"What have you done with the highwaymen?" asked Sandy.
+
+"Why continue this senseless talk about highwaymen?" demanded Carson,
+"when you know just as well as I do that there are no robbers here other
+than yourselves! Mr. Buck," he added, turning to Elmer's father, "I call
+upon you to assist me in restraining these robbers until the proper
+officers can be summoned."
+
+"Where did that fat man come from?" asked Tommy.
+
+"You impertinent rascal!" shouted Carson.
+
+"Sure!" answered Tommy. "But where did you say you came from?"
+
+"I'm president of this mining company!" screamed Carson, "and I'll have
+you all in jail if you don't produce my money!"
+
+"Is this the gentleman who went batty and lost two hundred thousand
+dollars?" asked Tommy, sliding down from the slate pyramid and standing
+beside Sandy.
+
+"That is believed to be the man!" laughed Sandy.
+
+"Believed to be!" roared Carson.
+
+"Does he know where he left the money?" asked Tommy.
+
+"Sure I know where I left my money, you young jackanapes!" declared
+Carson. "I pointed out the exact hiding place only a few moments ago!"
+
+"You found it empty?"
+
+"Yes, I found it empty," roared Carson.
+
+"Then," Tommy suggested, "we've all got to get busy."
+
+"What do you mean by that?" demanded Carson.
+
+Before Tommy could reply, Will came sliding down the rope and landed
+within a few feet of where the little group stood.
+
+"Look here, Will," Tommy said, "are you sure we made a good search of
+those three ginks? They've got the money all right!"
+
+"How do you know they did?" demanded Will.
+
+"That fat man over there who looks as if he was about to bust," Tommy
+grinned, "is Mr. Carson, the man who hid the money and couldn't find it
+again. He's just been looking in the place where he concealed it, and it
+isn't there! We've got to get busy!"
+
+"I don't understand this at all," Mr. Buck interrupted.
+
+"It's just this way," Will said, facing the speaker "we caught the three
+men who were wandering about in the mine. We rescued our chums first,
+and then when the outlaws heard your party advancing they scrambled up
+the old shaft and took to their heels, supposing, of course, that we had
+lost no time in getting out of the mine."
+
+"And you geezled them all?" asked Sandy.
+
+"The whole three!" replied Will. "All we had to do was to stretch a rope
+across a passage, trip them up, and do a little winding around their
+great big forms before they could get their breath. They're all tied up
+good and tight now."
+
+"And you searched them for the money and didn't find it?" shouted
+Carson.
+
+"And we searched them for the money and didn't find it!" repeated Will.
+
+"I don't believe it!" shouted Carson. "You'll be telling me in a moment,
+when I ask you to produce your robbers, that they have broken their
+bonds and escaped!"
+
+At that moment, George's voice was heard calling down the shaft:
+
+"Break for the main shaft!" they heard him saying. "Head those fellows
+off! They cut their ropes and got away!"
+
+"I told you so!" thundered Carson.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+"Bright boys up there!" exclaimed Will, as the unwelcome news of the
+escape of the robbers came down the old shaft.
+
+"Me for the elevator!" shouted Tommy.
+
+All four boys, Will, Elmer, Tommy and Sandy, started in a mad race down
+the gangway. As they carried their searchlights with them, and as Mr.
+Carson and Mr. Buck moved at a slower pace, the latter gentlemen were
+soon feeling their way through a dark tunnel.
+
+"We've just got to head 'em off!" grunted Tommy, as the boys passed
+along at a pace calculated to break the long distance running records.
+
+"I don't believe they'll make for the main shaft anyway," Sandy panted.
+
+"I don't believe they will, either," Will declared, "but if we get to
+the lift first, we'll be dead sure they don't get out!"
+
+Will was in advance as they swung into the lighted space about the
+shaft. The first thing he observed was that one of the cages was just
+starting upward. He sprang to the push button and almost instantly the
+cage dropped back to the third level again. The power was on in honor of
+the visit of the president of the company.
+
+"Pile in, boys!" he shouted. "We'll stop at the second level!"
+
+The man at the top responded nobly to the quick signals given to start
+and stop, and in a very short space of time the elevator stood at the
+second level. The bar was down, but Will threw it aside and stepped out
+into the passage. There he saw the bank cashier and the miner standing
+cowering against the wall only a few feet from the shaft.
+
+"What are you doing here?" asked Will.
+
+"We started to the top," the miner replied, "but stopped here because we
+thought there might be need of our assistance on this level."
+
+"Why on this level?" asked Will, observing that the miner was pretty
+thoroughly frightened. "I haven't heard of any disturbance here!"
+
+"But there has been a disturbance here!" insisted the cashier. "We heard
+scuffling out there in the darkness, but as we had no lights, we could
+not investigate. My friend, the miner, had a light on the lower level,
+but he lost it as we made our way out to the shaft."
+
+"Has any one passed up the shaft?" asked Will.
+
+The miner shook his head.
+
+"Then we're in time all right!" cried Will exultantly. "We have the
+outlaws headed off!"
+
+The heavy voices of the two men who had been left on the lower level now
+came rumbling up the shaft.
+
+"What do you mean by leaving us in this plight?" demanded Carson. "Lower
+the cage instantly, and take us to the top!"
+
+"Stay down there and look after your money!" cried Sandy, mockingly.
+
+"I think I know where my money is!" shouted Carson.
+
+"I wish I knew!" returned Sandy.
+
+In the moment of silence which followed the boys heard the call of the
+Beaver Patrol ringing down the second level.
+
+"George seems to be alive anyway!" laughed Tommy.
+
+A moment later a snarling sound which seemed to emanate from a whole
+pack of Wolves reached the ears of the boys.
+
+"Why didn't you tell me there were wild animals in the mine?" shouted
+the cashier. "Let me into that cage immediately!"
+
+"Don't be in a hurry," advised Tommy. "All the Wolves and Beavers you'll
+find in here won't do you any harm!"
+
+While Carson and Elmer's father continued to call from below, and while
+the Boy Scout challenges rang in the second level, two pistol shots were
+heard not far away from the shaft.
+
+The cashier and the miner both broke for the cage, but were turned back
+at the point of Sandy's automatic revolver.
+
+"You stopped here because you thought you might be of some assistance,
+you know," the boy said. "Now you just remain here long enough to help
+out."
+
+"But there are people being murdered in there!" cried the cashier.
+
+Two more shots came from the gangway and then the stout figure of the
+detective came staggering into the circle of light around the shaft. He
+had evidently been wounded seriously, for he fell as he drew near to
+where the boys were standing and raised his eyes in a piteous appeal for
+help. Will stooped over and felt of his pulse.
+
+"You're about done for!" the boy said in a husky tone. "Who did it?"
+
+"Those two hold-up men," was the faint reply.
+
+"Where are they now?" asked Will.
+
+"I fired back," replied the detective with a grim smile, "and I guess
+they're lying on the floor of the passage!"
+
+Will bent closer over the wounded detective while Tommy and Sandy
+started down the gangway on a run, closely followed by Elmer.
+
+"Why did they shoot you?" asked Will.
+
+"I found the money," Ventner replied, "and hid it in a crevice in the
+wall, and they found it. When we managed to escape by cutting the ropes
+I saw them take the money and disappear in the darkness. I followed on
+and accused them of the act and they shot me! Then I shot back, and I
+guess it's a pretty bad mess, when you take it altogether!"
+
+"Where is the money?" asked Will.
+
+"They have it in their possession," was the reply, "if they haven't
+hidden it again."
+
+Before the wounded detective could continue, George, Jimmie, Dick,
+Canfield, Sandy and Tommy came running out of the gangway.
+
+"Where's Elmer?" asked Will.
+
+"We left him back there talking with one of the hold-up men," replied
+George. "They're both badly hurt, and won't last long!"
+
+"I'm not sorry!" moaned Ventner.
+
+A moment later, Elmer came out of the passage with a bill-book of good
+size in his hand. He lifted the book gaily as he entered the
+illumination.
+
+"I'll bet he's got the money!" exclaimed Tommy.
+
+"Sure he has!" replied Will, and Elmer nodded.
+
+The voices of Carson and Buck again came roaring up from below.
+
+"Why don't you lower the cage?" Carson shouted. "I'm going to have every
+one of you arrested as soon as I can find an officer! You can't work any
+of your gold brick schemes on me!"
+
+"We may as well drop down and take them aboard," Will laughed.
+
+Carson was swelling with rage when he stepped onto the platform of the
+list. He shook his fist fiercely under Will's nose, and announced that
+he would have him wearing handcuffs before night.
+
+"How much reward was offered for the return of that two hundred thousand
+dollars?" asked the boy, without paying any attention to the angry
+demonstrations of the banker.
+
+"Twenty thousand dollars!" replied Carson. "But you'll never get a cent
+of it. I hired a party of Boy Scouts to come here from Chicago and look
+into the case, but they never came near me."
+
+"When you write to Chicago again," Will replied, with a smile as the
+elevator stopped at the second level, "just tell Mr. Horton that the
+Beaver's didn't succeed in getting the money, but that the Wolves did.
+Elmer has the money in his possession right this minute!"
+
+"Impossible!" shouted Carson.
+
+"Hand him the money, Elmer," requested Will.
+
+Carson snatched the bill book as it was held out to him and began
+looking through the ten-thousand-dollar banknotes which it contained.
+
+"The next time you get drunk and fall out of your machine, don't accuse
+every one you meet of robbing you!" Sandy cut in.
+
+"Are you the boys who came on from Chicago?" demanded Carson.
+
+"Sure!" replied Will.
+
+"I guess I'm an old fool!" admitted Carson. "Here I've been roaming
+around about half a day accusing you boys of stealing my money, when all
+the time you were planning on returning it to me!"
+
+"Do we get the reward now?" asked Will.
+
+"Twenty thousand and expenses!" replied Carson. "I'll settle with Elmer
+and his chums later on!"
+
+"It's a shame to take the money!" declared Sandy, but Will gave him a
+sharp punch in the back and he cut off any further remarks which he
+might have had in his mind.
+
+The story ends here because the adventure ended with the finding of the
+money. The old tool house was deserted that night. The two hold-up men
+and the detective recovered after a long illness in a Pittsburgh
+hospital. The detective was permitted to go his way after promising to
+keep out of crooked detective deals in the future. He never told how or
+where he received his information about the lost money. The hold-up men
+were given long sentences in prison.
+
+A few weeks later, when the mining company resumed operations at the
+Labyrinth, Tunnel Six was walled up. Mr. Carson, the president, declared
+that it made what few hairs he had left stand on end to think of the
+experiences he had endured there!
+
+However, there are still stories about the breaker, that on dark nights,
+when the wind blows, and the rain falls in great sheets, there are
+mysterious lights floating about Tunnel Six.
+
+Jimmie and Dick often tell exactly how these lights were made, and how
+they enjoyed themselves living down in the bowels of the earth, but the
+superstitious miners still claim that the boys were not responsible for
+all the lights which burned there!
+
+Dick and Jimmie also have their joke with the Beaver Patrol boys
+whenever they meet, declaring that if they had not finally relented and
+dropped the string the boys had carried into the mine for their own
+protection, they would still be wandering around in the Labyrinth Mine.
+
+"And now," Will said as they settled down in their old room on
+Washington boulevard, "we're going to be good boys from this time on and
+remain in Chicago and stay at home nights!"
+
+However, in three days, the boys were preparing for another bit of
+adventure, the details of which will be found in the next volume of this
+series entitled:
+
+"Boy Scouts in Alaska; or, The Camp on the Glacier."
+
+
+                              The End.
+
+
+
+
+  [Frontispiece]
+
+
+
+
+  BOY SCOUTS IN ALASKA
+
+  Or, The Camp on the Glacier
+
+
+
+
+       CONTENTS
+
+
+       Chapter                                     Page
+
+    I--UNDER SEALED ORDERS                           7
+
+   II--THE PRINT OF A THUMB                         14
+
+  III--A MESSAGE IN CODE                            21
+
+   IV--THE LOST PLANS                               28
+
+    V--FISHING IN ALASKA                            35
+
+   VI--A MISSING BOY                                42
+
+  VII--A LOST "BULLDOG"                             49
+
+ VIII--ON THE GULF OF ALASKA                        56
+
+   IX--THE CLUES WILL FOUND                         63
+
+    X--IN LUCK AT LAST                              70
+
+   XI--MAKING NEW PLANS                             76
+
+  XII--ANOTHER LOST "BULLDOG"                       83
+
+ XIII--THE BEGINNING OF THE TRAIL                   89
+
+  XIV--THE LAD WITH THE "DRAG"                      94
+
+   XV--A BREAK IN THE GLACIER                      100
+
+  XVI--GEORGE AND SANDY CAUGHT                     107
+
+ XVII--THE MORSE CODE                              114
+
+XVIII--THE ROCKS TUMBLE DOWN                       122
+
+  XIX--VICTIMS OF THE QUAKE                        130
+
+   XX--DOWN IN THE CHASM                           137
+
+  XXI--EXPLAINING CORDOVA INCIDENTS                142
+
+ XXII--THE PLANS AT LAST                           148
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+UNDER SEALED ORDERS
+
+
+An August night in Alaska.
+
+To the North, the tangle of the Chugach Mountains; to the East, Bering
+Glacier; to the South, the purple waters of the Gulf of Alaska; to the
+West, Prince William Sound. All around, the grandeur of a world in the
+making--high mountains, rugged summits, deep cut valleys, creeping
+glaciers.
+
+In a log cabin standing in the center of a small forested moraine four
+boys of about seventeen were grouped together. The one door and the two
+windows of the structure were covered with mosquito wire. The hum of
+insect life came into the room with the monotony of the murmur of the
+sea. Although it was after ten o'clock in the evening, the sun still
+rode high above the horizon.
+
+A few hundred feet from the outer edge of the ice-cliff, the forested
+moraine became a "dead" glacier. When a glacier advances no longer, but
+draws back year by year, it is said to be "dead." The live glacier is
+simply a river of ice pouring down precipices and into gorges and
+fiords.
+
+As a matter of fact, the log cabin was built upon a glacier, for under
+the luxuriant summer undergrowth, under the flowers, and under the
+bright green of the hemlocks, lay a great bed of ice which, however, was
+slowly receding. In times gone by the current of ice had flowed into the
+Gulf of Alaska, but now, because of drainage in another direction, the
+glacial ice swept off to the west, in the direction of Copper river.
+
+The four boys in the cabin had just finished supper, the cooking having
+been done over a gasoline "plate," and they were now discussing the
+advisability of spending the remaining hour of daylight in the
+investigation of the strange, wild land in which they now found
+themselves.
+
+Two days before they had landed at Katalla, and had spent the
+intervening time in transferring their supplies to the log house on the
+glacier. They had traveled northward by the inland route, and landed in
+the vicinity of Controller bay, bringing with them provisions sufficient
+for a long stay in the wonderful North.
+
+Those who have read the previous volumes of this series will well
+remember the adventures of Will Smith, Charley (Sandy) Green, George
+Benton and Tommy Gregory. After startling experiences among the Pictured
+Rocks of Old Superior, in the mysterious swamps of the Everglades, in
+the rocky caverns of the Continental Divide, amidst the snows of the
+Hudson Bay wilderness, and in the coal caverns of the Pennsylvania
+anthracite region, they had decided to spend a portion of the summer in
+Alaska. They had reached Controller bay without serious accident, and
+now found themselves in one of the most picturesque sections of the
+great territory, with plenty of provisions and ammunition.
+
+The lads were all dressed in the khaki uniform of the Boy Scouts of
+America, the badges showing membership in the Beaver Patrol of Chicago.
+Their coat sleeves showed medals proclaiming the fact that they had
+passed examinations and were well qualified to serve as Stalkers,
+Seamen, Pioneers, or in the Ambulance squad. The pennant of the Beaver
+Patrol flew above the door of the cabin.
+
+Tommy Gregory separated himself from, the group about the supper table
+and walked to the heavily-screened doorway. His face was covered by an
+Alaska head-net, and he wore a pair of strong leather gloves.
+
+"Why didn't some of you boys tell me that the mosquitos here are as
+large as robins?" he asked.
+
+"Because they are only half as large," replied Sandy Green with a grin.
+
+"If some one will hand me my gun off the table," Tommy went on, with a
+wrinkling of his freckled nose, "I'll shoot one, and we can have him for
+supper! One of the outlaws ought to make a good meal for us four!"
+
+"Better do the killing with a handspike," advised Sandy, "for we haven't
+any ammunition to throw away. Besides," the boy went on, "I don't
+believe a thirty-eight would kill one of these wild animals, anyway!"
+
+"Up on the Yukon," George Benton interrupted, "when they sentence a man
+to death, they don't hang him. They send him down the river in an open
+canoe, and give the mosquitos a crack at him!"
+
+"You stated that in the way of an exaggeration," Will Smith suggested,
+"but it is the absolute truth, for all that! Men lost among the
+nigger-heads have been found later on with their bones picked dry."
+
+"What's a nigger-head?" asked Tommy.
+
+"A nigger-head is a bog," was the reply. "When I say a bog, I don't mean
+a swampy hole, either. I mean a grassy knoll sticking up out of a swamp
+full of mud. If you keep on the bogs, or nigger-heads, you are
+reasonably safe, but if you drop down into the mud, you are likely to go
+in over your head."
+
+"How far down does this mud go?" demanded Sandy.
+
+"Down to the ice," replied Will. "This entire country," he went on, "is
+lined with ice! Ten or twelve feet below the foundation of this cabin,
+the ice is almost as hard as steel. Sometimes the earth-crust over the
+ice is a foot thick, and sometimes it is ten feet."
+
+"Are those brilliant flowers growing over a glacier?" asked Tommy,
+pointing to a group of violets growing not far away.
+
+"Sure!" replied Will. "If it wasn't for the ice, there wouldn't be any
+violets here. The glacier supplies water as well as soil."
+
+"What'd you say about going up to the end of the moraine?" asked Sandy,
+joining Tommy at the screened door of the cabin.
+
+"Isn't it quite a climb?" asked Will.
+
+"It isn't so very steep," replied Tommy, "but the way seems to be rather
+rocky. I'd like to know where all these round stones come from!"
+
+"They are brought down by the glacier ice and rounded into shape by the
+same force which discharges the ice stream into the gulf. There is
+always a line of moraine at each side of a glacier, and usually several
+ridges in the middle of it. Those at the edge are called lateral
+moraines, those in the middle, medial moraines, and those at the end,
+terminal moraines. And that's about all I know of Alaska," Will added,
+with a smile.
+
+The lads passed up the moraine for some distance, until, in fact, they
+came to a point where vegetation became thinner, and hemlocks of smaller
+growth. Then they turned toward the west and stood for a long time
+watching the yellow glory of the sunset.
+
+But the heat of day passes swiftly in Alaska when the direct rays of the
+sun fail, and so the boys were soon glad to return to their cabin, which
+they had found standing unoccupied.
+
+"I'd like to know the history of this old shack," Sandy said, as they
+paused in the gathering darkness at the doorway.
+
+"There's no knowing how long it has stood here, waiting for us to come
+and gladden its dirty old walls with our presence and our scrubbing
+brushes!" laughed Tommy. "I've seen a good many cleaner cabins in my
+life!"
+
+"And there is no knowing how many tragedies have been enacted here,
+either!" exclaimed George. "It must have witnessed many a queer sight!"
+
+"It must have been built within a year or two," Will observed, "for the
+logs do not yet show decay."
+
+"What I can't get through my noodle," George said, with a puzzled look,
+"is why any one should construct such a habitable little cabin in this
+out of the way spot, and then go away and leave it. We must be at least
+twelve or fifteen miles from the nearest neighbor."
+
+"We're farther than that," observed Sandy, "judging from the time it
+took us to row our supplies over from the floating dock where we landed.
+I hope we'll be ready to go out by the time our provisions run short."
+
+"Look here, Will," Tommy questioned, "did Mr. Horton direct you to this
+exact spot, or did he only tell you to locate somewhere in this
+vicinity? You never told us what he said."
+
+"He told me," was the guarded reply, "that I might be able to find a
+deserted cabin on this moraine."
+
+"And he told you right where to find the moraine?" asked Sandy.
+
+"Of course he did!"
+
+"And you said nothing to us about that, either," complained Tommy.
+"You're always holding something back from us!"
+
+"Well, now that we're here," George suggested, "perhaps Will can be
+coaxed into telling us exactly what we're here for."
+
+"I should say so!" exclaimed Tommy. "We don't, know at the present
+moment whether we're here to trap brown bears, or to box and ship
+Northern Lights to the eastern markets."
+
+"Don't get sarcastic, boys!" replied Will. "I was instructed by Mr.
+Horton to communicate to you all the information in my possession on our
+first night in camp, and I'm ready right now to obey orders. Shall we go
+inside? The bugs are pretty thick out here!"
+
+"I should say so!" shouted Tommy. "I'm pretty well hedged in from the
+blooming insects," he went on, "but it makes me nervous to hear them
+blowing their dinner horns every minute."
+
+"Gee!" exclaimed Sandy. "Whenever I get into this anti-mosquito rig, I
+feel like an armored train!"
+
+Twilight lay heavy over the landscape now, and so the boys were
+confronted by a dark interior as they stepped into the cabin.
+
+"Who's got a searchlight handy?" asked Will.
+
+Tommy replied that he would have a light on in a second, but before the
+finger of light from the electric shot into the room, Will half fell
+over a yielding figure which lay on the floor not for away from the
+table.
+
+Then the circle of light, thrown hastily down, rested upon the white,
+drawn face of a boy not far from sixteen years of age. There was a
+little showing of blood on the floor, and his eyes were tightly closed,
+indicating that he had been rendered unconscious by a wound.
+
+The lad was dressed in the khaki uniform of the Boy Scouts of America,
+and the badge on his hat showed that he was Leader of the Fox Patrol.
+
+A long envelope torn open at one end and bearing the name of Will Smith,
+lay empty by the lad's side.
+
+"Where did he come from?" cried Tommy, "and who is he?"
+
+"Must have dropped out of the sky!" declared Sandy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE PRINT OF A THUMB
+
+
+"The Fox Patrol!" exclaimed George. "I wonder if that means the Fox
+Patrol of Chicago? It doesn't seem to me that this kid could have
+followed on our heels across the continent!"
+
+Will lifted the torn envelope from the floor and examined it critically.
+
+"That's your name isn't it?" asked Sandy looking over his shoulder.
+
+"It certainly is!" replied Will.
+
+"Well, you've got the address left, anyhow!" said George.
+
+"Say," Tommy suggested, opening his eyes very wide, "some gink followed
+the boy here, bumped him on the coco, and stole the communication! I
+reckon we're getting into the center of population again. Here we are,
+several hundred miles from nowhere, and we've unearthed an innocent
+messenger and a bold highwayman already!"
+
+"Have you any idea what the stolen paper contained?" asked George.
+
+"Not the slightest!" replied Will.
+
+"Wasn't it arranged that Mr. Horton should communicate with you after we
+reached this point?" asked Sandy.
+
+"Certainly not!" was the reply. "He gave me full instructions before we
+left Chicago. If I found a deserted cabin at this point, I was to make
+camp here. If I did not, I was to keep along the coast toward Bering
+Glacier until I discovered one answering this description."
+
+"But where did this kid come from?" insisted Tommy. "How did he ever get
+here all by his lonely? We had two guides to help us in, and it seems
+that he came alone, that is, as far as we can see."
+
+"I don't think he came alone!" replied Sandy pointing to the wound on
+the boy's head. "He never got a bump like that in a fall!"
+
+"Oh, we'll have to wait until the kid wakes up!" Tommy cut in. "We'd
+better be doing something to help him out of his trance, instead of
+standing here guessing. He may be badly hurt!"
+
+The limp figure was lifted from the floor and placed on one of the bunks
+fastened to the wall of the cabin. The lad groaned slightly as the
+change was made, but did not open his eyes.
+
+"I guess he got a bad bump," Will suggested. "And I'm sorry to say that
+his wound requires a piece of surgery far beyond my ability to perform.
+I'm afraid we'll have to send out for a doctor!"
+
+The boys used every means within their knowledge to bring the lad back
+to consciousness, but all their efforts proved unavailing. The lad lay
+in a comatose condition long after all their resources had failed.
+
+So busily engaged were the boys in their efforts at resuscitation that
+they did not for a moment remember that they, themselves, might be in
+danger from the same hand which had struck down the boy.
+
+As they worked over the lad, bathing the wound with hot water and
+endeavoring to force stimulating drinks between the set teeth, they did
+not observe a bearded face was pressed for a moment against a window
+pane. It was an evil face, and was gone on the instant.
+
+After three hours of steady exertion, the boys relaxed their efforts and
+sat down to consider the situation. They had searched the boy's
+clothing, but had found nothing giving a clue to his name or residence.
+
+"Right out of the air!" exclaimed Sandy. "If we should blunder into a
+camp devoid of a mystery, we'd have to move out or die of suffocation!"
+
+"I'd like to know who the boy is, and where he came from," Will said,
+after a short pause, "but the principal question now is this: What was
+in the paper that was stolen from the envelope?"
+
+"Probably some information directed to you," suggested Tommy.
+
+"Undoubtedly," Will answered.
+
+"And now, instead of coming into your hands," George remarked, "the
+warning, or the command, or whatever you may call it, passes over to the
+man who attempted murder in order to secure it!"
+
+"That's just the size of it!" Tommy agreed.
+
+"It strikes me," George suggested, "that we'd better set a guard through
+the rest of the night. The fellow who struck this blow may be waiting to
+strike another!"
+
+"How long were we gone from the cabin?" asked Will.
+
+"Less than an hour," replied Sandy.
+
+"Then, if we had at once set up a search for the assassin," Will went
+on, "we might have discovered him."
+
+"Not in a thousand years, in this wild country!" exclaimed Tommy.
+
+Will went to the door and looked out toward the east.
+
+"It will be daylight directly," he said, "and then we will see what can
+be accomplished in the way of finding clues."
+
+"Nix on the clue!" argued Tommy. "The gink who bumped our friend on the
+cupola came after the paper. He got the paper and ducked, and that's all
+there is to it! If there were any secret communications concerning our
+mission in the paper, the robber got them!"
+
+"And where does that leave us?" asked Sandy.
+
+"Up in the air!" grumbled Tommy.
+
+"So far as I can see," Will stated, "you boys have the situation sized
+up correctly! The boy was sent here to convey certain information to me.
+He made his way to the cabin before being attacked. Then he was struck
+down and the important paper abstracted from the envelope."
+
+"I've got an idea!" cried Tommy springing to his feet and walking up and
+down the cabin floor. "I've got a bully idea!"
+
+"Pass it around," advised Sandy.
+
+"This lad wasn't followed in at all!" Tommy went on. "The man who
+attacked him and stole the paper was waiting for him at this cabin! The
+lad was mistaken for the boy whose name appears on the envelope, and so
+he got what was meant for some one else!"
+
+"But look here," George argued, "if the assassin was waiting here for
+the boy to come, why didn't he jump us as soon as we made our
+appearance?"
+
+"That's another question I can't answer," Tommy admitted. "I might say
+that the man reached the cabin and found this boy sitting here alone,
+but that would be only guess work."
+
+Will arose and walked over to the bunk where the wounded boy lay.
+
+"Half a dozen words from his lips would settle the whole question," he
+said, "but it appears to me that it will be a long time before he will
+be able to speak a word. All our Boy Scout learning in the matter of
+wounds is ineffective here!"
+
+"There's one thing clear to me," George argued, "and that is that some
+one in this wild region now knows more about our mission here than we do
+ourselves. Of course, Will may know quite a lot regarding it," he added,
+with a wink, "but, if he does, he hasn't yet confided the story to us."
+
+"That's a hint that you get busy and tell us what we're here for,"
+suggested Tommy with another wink.
+
+"I'll tell you what I know about the matter," Will answered, "but in the
+face of the fact that a more recent reading of the case is known to
+exist, the chances are that any explanations I may make may prove to be
+worthless."
+
+"Can you answer a straight question?" asked Tommy.
+
+"I think so," answered Will.
+
+"Will you answer a straight question?" persisted the boy.
+
+"Certainly!"
+
+"Then answer it. What are we here for?"
+
+"We are here," replied Will, "to secure the print of a thumb!"
+
+"Has the shock of this incident turned your head?" asked Tommy.
+
+"I answered the question correctly!" replied Will. "We came all the way
+from Chicago to find the print of a man's right thumb!"
+
+"Where do you expect to find it?" demanded Sandy.
+
+"Somewhere among the mountains and glaciers," smiled Will.
+
+"I can get all the thumb prints I want on South Clark street!" declared
+Tommy. "Of course, it's fun to come out here, under any pretext
+whatever, but I think Mr. Horton might have given us a more sensible
+errand than that. This is worse than the trip to the coal mine!"
+
+"Now tell us the excuse Mr. Horton gave for wanting this print of a
+man's right thumb," smiled Sandy.
+
+Will arose and went to the door. The sun was lifting through a narrow
+pass in the mountains, and the creatures of the thickets and the air
+were astir. A flock of water fowl was winging swiftly to the north, and
+what seemed to be the keen eyes of a wolf looked out from the shelter of
+the undergrowth. The air was clear and invigorating.
+
+"Why don't you answer my question?" asked Sandy.
+
+"Did you hear footsteps outside?" asked Will.
+
+Sandy shook his head, but the two boys, after drawing on their
+head-nets, stepped out into the glorious morning.
+
+"There is no reason," Will decided, "why the person who attacked the boy
+and stole the paper should find it necessary to leave this section
+without trying to find out something more. I have an idea that whoever
+injured the lad is still in this vicinity--that he will remain in this
+vicinity as long as there is a prospect of his securing additional
+information."
+
+"The mosquitos will eat him up if he remains around here without proper
+shelter!" Sandy suggested.
+
+"That is one way of fighting off mosquitos," Will said, catching the boy
+by the arm and pointing off to the east, where a faint line of smoke was
+making its way through the still air.
+
+"There's some kind of a camp there, all right!" exclaimed Sandy.
+
+Tommy and George now came out of the cabin and the four boys stood for
+some moments watching the column of smoke which seemed to grow more
+dense every moment. While they looked, a second column appeared beside
+the first.
+
+"If we were in a Boy Scout country," Tommy exclaimed, "I should say that
+was an Indian signal for help."
+
+"In a Boy Scout country!" repeated Sandy. "If this isn't a Boy Scout
+country, what is it? Every inhabitant, so far as we know, belongs to the
+order!"
+
+"Well, there's a Boy Scout call for assistance," urged Tommy, excitedly,
+"and I think we'd better get a move on and see what it means!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+A MESSAGE IN CODE
+
+
+"We mustn't all go," Will said, as his companions started on a run in
+the direction of the smoke signals.
+
+"I should say not!" exclaimed Sandy. "If we should all go away at one
+time we might find another wounded boy in the cabin on our return!"
+
+"Suppose you keep watch, then," Tommy suggested.
+
+"All right," Sandy agreed. "I'll stay if you'll stay with me."
+
+Tommy grumbled a little at the idea of missing a little possible
+excitement, but the two lads entered the cabin and closed the door while
+Will and George started away toward the signals.
+
+The moraine over which they passed was something like a floor of loose
+rocks of different sizes, with mats of mosses, lichens, sedges, and
+dwarf shrubs scattered here and there, so the traveling was by no means
+easy. Now and then the boys came to a place where the rocks were
+entirely bare, and here their progress was more rapid.
+
+The columns of smoke grew more distinct as they advanced, and, after
+traveling a mile or more, they came to a position from which a figure
+could be seen moving back and forth between the two fires.
+
+"That's a kid all right!" Will decided, watching the figure closely
+through a field glass. "And he's wearing a Boy Scout uniform, too!"
+
+"I have an idea," George declared, with a sly wink at his chum, "that if
+we should ascend to the Mountains of the Moon and drop into a gorge a
+thousand feet deep, we'd find a Boy Scout in a khaki uniform at the
+bottom."
+
+"I'm not kicking at the discovery of a Boy Scout," laughed Will. "The
+more Boy Scouts we come across in this desolate land the happier we
+shall be."
+
+"I'm not kicking, either," replied George. "I was only commenting on the
+queer fact that we find Boy Scouts in every region we chance to visit."
+
+"You'll find the little fellows scattered all over the world!" declared
+Will. "And they're always doing something wherever they are."
+
+Will now handed the field glass to George and he, in turn, made a short
+study of the figure passing back and forth between the two fires, piling
+wood now on one and now on another.
+
+"It's dollars to doughnuts," Will observed, "that the boy by the fires
+came in with the one who lies in the cabin with a busted head."
+
+"I've been considering that proposition," George said.
+
+"Then, perhaps, we may be able to solve a portion of the mystery as soon
+as we get into conversation with the lad," Will continued.
+
+"I wonder why he didn't come to the cabin during the night?" asked
+George. "He surely must have seen the lights shining from the windows."
+
+Will turned and looked back over the route they had followed.
+
+"We can't see the cabin from here," he said.
+
+"That's a fact," George agreed, "and if the smoke hadn't been going up
+good and plenty we would never have seen that!"
+
+The next moment the lad at the fires saw Will and George approaching and
+ran forward to meet them, uttering as he ran the sharp, quick bark of
+the fox. The boys responded with the challenge of the Beaver Patrol.
+
+The lad met the two with anything but a serious or anxious expression on
+his face. He grasped them heartily by the hand and pointed toward the
+columns of smoke, still rising into the sky.
+
+"No matter where you start a signal fire," he said with a smile, "you're
+sure to find some Boy Scout who will understand and answer."
+
+"Even in Alaska!" George grinned. "A thousand miles from nowhere you can
+dig up a nest of Boy Scouts by sending up an Indian sign for help."
+
+"Are you Will Smith?" the boy asked after a few more words of greeting
+had been exchanged. "If you are, I've come along way to find you!"
+
+"Yes, I am Will Smith," the boy answered.
+
+"How'd you guess it?" asked George. "Why didn't you ask me if I was the
+boss of the bunch? Don't I look dignified enough?"
+
+"I have a description of Will Smith lying nicely tucked in at the back
+of my brain!" replied the boy. "Mr. Horton told me where I'd be apt to
+find him. It seems that I've found him all right, but in doing so, I've
+lost my chum! Haven't seen anything of a stray Boy Scout, have you?"
+
+Will did not reply to the question immediately, yet he did not care to
+convey to the boy the news of what had occurred until after a clear
+understanding of the situation had been reached.
+
+"What's your name?" asked George.
+
+"Frank Disbrow, Fox Patrol, Chicago," was the reply.
+
+"And your chum?" asked Will.
+
+"Bert Calkins, Fox Patrol, Chicago."
+
+"Do you mean to tell me that you have followed us boys from Chicago?"
+asked George. "You've had a long chase if you have done so!"
+
+"No," answered Frank, "we were very much surprised, one day, to receive
+a wireless telegram from my father, who is connected in various business
+operations with Lawyer Horton. The wireless stated that father had work
+for us to do in Alaska, and the result of it all was that we received a
+long message in code from Mr. Horton."
+
+"In code?" asked Will, excitedly.
+
+"Exactly! In code."
+
+"In whose code?" asked Will.
+
+"Father's," was the reply.
+
+"I see," said Will. "And you, of course, understand your father's code?"
+
+"Certainly!" was the answer.
+
+"What did the message in code say?" asked George.
+
+"It was addressed to Will Smith," was the answer, "and I, following
+instructions, did not translate it."
+
+"The message to you simply requested the delivery of the code message?"
+asked Will.
+
+"Yes, that's all it told us to do."
+
+"Do you know what the code message contained?" asked Will.
+
+"I do not!" was the reply. "You see," the boy went on, "Bert Calkins and
+I were at Cordova on a vacation. If the wireless message had been two
+hours later it would have found us on the way to Cook Inlet."
+
+"Just traveling about for the fun of the thing, eh?" asked George.
+
+"That's the idea," replied Frank.
+
+"Perhaps we'd better return to the cabin before we get the history of
+this boy's life," suggested George, with a grin. "I don't like the way
+these mosquitos howl about my ears. I'm afraid they'll devour the net
+and begin on me."
+
+"The cabin?" repeated Frank. "Did you find the cabin?"
+
+"Sure we did," answered George. "And we left the cabin for an hour or so
+last night, and when we came back we found a member of the Fox Patrol
+asleep on the floor."
+
+"So that's where Bert went, is it?" asked Frank. "You see," the boy went
+on, "I got separated from Bert just this side of Katalla. He loitered
+behind to view the scenery, or something of that sort, and I came on
+ahead."
+
+"And he never caught up with you?" asked George.
+
+"He never did," was the reply, "although I saw him at different times
+during yesterday. I thought he headed off in this direction, and so came
+here. I've had rather a bad night looking for him."
+
+"He had the code message addressed to Will?" asked George.
+
+"Yes," was the reply.
+
+"The untranslated code message?" Will asked.
+
+"Yes, the untranslated code message."
+
+"Glory be!" shouted George.
+
+Frank looked at the boy in wonder for a moment, and then turned to Will
+with a question in his eyes.
+
+"It's a long story," Will said in answer to the look, "and we'd better
+wait until we get to the cabin before entering upon it."
+
+"Is Bert all right?" asked Frank.
+
+"He got a little bump on the head somewhere," answered George, "but
+he'll come out of that all right, in time. I wasn't rejoicing because
+your chum got a poke on the belfry," George went on, whimsically, "I was
+shouting because the man who stole the code message didn't accomplish
+anything."
+
+Frank, who was now standing by the fire collecting such bits of wardrobe
+as had been removed from his handbag, and also collecting the remains of
+the solitary lunch of which he had partaken that morning, again turned
+to Will with an interrogation point in each eye.
+
+"Was the code message stolen?" he asked.
+
+"It certainly was!" Will answered. "At least a large envelope with my
+name written across the front was found, with the end torn open, by your
+friend's side as he lay on the floor."
+
+"That's the work of the man who followed us in!" declared Frank.
+
+"We'll get this story all out of you pretty soon," laughed George.
+
+"Suppose we go to the cabin before we uncork the entire yarn," suggested
+Frank. "To tell you the truth, boys, I didn't have half enough
+breakfast, and I'm about starved to death!"
+
+"All right," Will replied. "There's nothing to keep us here that I know
+of. Did you see any one around your camp in the night?" he continued.
+"What kind of a night did you pass?"
+
+"A rotten, bad night!" was the answer. "I traveled a long way before I
+came to any wood suitable for building a campfire, and after I got one
+built it seemed to send out a bugle call to every wild animal within
+forty miles of the place. I guess I heard bears, and wolves, and wild
+dogs, and bull moose, and every other form, of wild life known to
+Alaska, at some time during the night!"
+
+"And all the time," grinned George, "you were not more than a mile or so
+from our cabin. It's a wonder you didn't see our light."
+
+"Well, I didn't," Frank replied. "But that's past and gone," he went on,
+in a moment, "and what I'm thinking about at the present time is this:
+Did the man who stole the code message from Bert force the boy to
+translate it for him? Tell me something more about the attack on the
+boy."
+
+"We don't know anything about the attack," replied Will. "We found him
+lying on the floor of the cabin unconscious, and he has been unconscious
+ever since."
+
+"Well," Frank went on, "Bert understands the code, for I taught it to
+him while we were translating the telegrams which came to me. Now, if
+this outlaw took the code before he struck the blow, the chances are
+that he ordered Bert to translate it for him. In that case, something
+which those opposed to you ought not to know is in the hands of your
+foes."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE LOST PLANS
+
+
+"Well, there's a chance that the boy didn't translate the code message,"
+George argued. "Anyway, we ought not to worry about that part of the
+case. Time enough to fret when real trouble comes."
+
+By this time the boys had reached the cabin, after an exhausting journey
+over the moraine. They found Tommy and Sandy standing just inside the
+screened doorway, waiting impatiently for their arrival.
+
+"Where did you find this one?" asked Tommy with a grin.
+
+"Did he drop down out of the sky?" Sandy questioned.
+
+Frank stood back for a moment, eyeing the two critically.
+
+"I know you two kids," he said. "You're Tommy and Sandy. I've read about
+you in the Chicago newspapers, but I never expected to meet you out in
+Alaska. You seem to be getting plenty to eat, judging from your
+condition. And that brings back to my mind the condition of my own
+stomach."
+
+"Boys," Will exclaimed, "this is Frank Disbrow. He started for our cabin
+in company with Bert Calking, the boy we found on the floor last night.
+The two were bringing a code despatch to me, and they became separated
+early yesterday morning."
+
+"A code message, was it?" Tommy asked.
+
+"Yes, a code message," Will answered, "but the bearer of the despatch
+may, for all we know, have been forced to translate the message for the
+benefit of the man who robbed him of it."
+
+In a moment Frank was by the side of his chum, gazing down into a white
+and haggard face. He turned away in a moment with a little shiver of
+anxiety. His face, too, was pale.
+
+"I'm afraid that's a serious wound!" he said.
+
+"If we only had a surgeon," Sandy suggested.
+
+"I'll go get one," offered Tommy. "I can cut across to Katalla in no
+time and bring back the best doctor there is in the country."
+
+"I'll go with you," offered Sandy.
+
+"Now, wait a minute, boys!" Will said in a moment. "Let's think this
+matter over. If you go to Cordova instead of Katalla, you can
+communicate with Frank's father at Chicago, and so get in touch with Mr.
+Horton. In this way, we can learn the contents of the code despatch.
+There surely was some strong reason for sending it, and it seems as if
+we ought to know its contents."
+
+"That's a good idea, too," exclaimed Tommy. "We'll go to Katalla, and
+perhaps we can find a boat about ready to sail for Cordova. In that case
+we ought to get up to the wireless station and back in a couple of days.
+The distance isn't great, but it's rough traveling."
+
+"I wish we could take Bert with us," suggested Frank.
+
+"Are you thinking of going?" asked Will.
+
+"Yes," was the reply, "if I could take Bert out."
+
+"Bert is in no condition to be taken out," Will answered, "and even if
+he were it would take so long to make the journey that we could get a
+surgeon out here before we could land him in a hospital."
+
+"I think," Frank said, "that I ought to go with the boy who is sent out
+after a surgeon. It is not certain that father will communicate by
+wireless save to his son. Anyway, I can find out a great deal more by
+talking with him than could any one else."
+
+"I guess that's right!" Will replied.
+
+"Then I'll go with him!" Tommy shouted. "I want to see what's going on
+in the world of fashion, anyway!"
+
+"All right," Will said. "Pack up your provisions and get ready to move.
+Of course you'll need provisions."
+
+"I usually do!" grinned Tommy.
+
+The lads packed up the good supply of sandwiches and started off towards
+Katalla. It was somewhere near noon when they left the cabin, and they
+expected to reach the town on the coast before twilight fell, the
+distance being not more than fourteen miles.
+
+"If you don't get to town when night falls," Will warned, "don't try to
+camp out in the open, but keep going until you find some human
+habitation. You remember what happened to Bert!"
+
+"Any one who comes within a half a mile of me in a lonely place," Tommy
+put in, "will scrape the acquaintance of a bullet."
+
+"And here's another thing," Will advised, "don't travel without a wet
+cloth or a bunch of green leaves inside your hat. It'll be ninety in the
+shade before the afternoon is over!"
+
+"Yes, and a hundred in the sun!" declared Sandy.
+
+"That's a nice weather for the Arctic regions, isn't it?" asked Frank.
+
+"We have to take it just as we find it!" replied Will.
+
+The boys started away on a brisk walk, and were accompanied by their
+chums some distance down the faint trail which led to the coast. At one
+time in the history of the country one large glacier had completely
+covered that section. But now, thousands of subordinate canyons and
+hollows on the mountains were filled with independent masses of ice.
+
+All that section of Alaska, from smoking Wrangell to the Pacific coast,
+shows volcanic peaks. There are many dead craters, and some which are
+not so dead! There are still peaks of fire as well as rivers of ice.
+
+After the departure of the two boys, Will and the others devoted
+considerable attention to the wounded lad. They did their best with the
+simple means at hand, but never, for an instant, did the boy regain
+consciousness.
+
+"I don't think we can do anything for him until the surgeon comes," Will
+said as he threw himself disconsolately into a chair.
+
+"If we only knew whether he was forced to translate the code message for
+the benefit of the man who robbed him," Sandy suggested, "there wouldn't
+be so much doubt as to what course we ought to take."
+
+"The code message," Will argued, "may change the whole scheme."
+
+"Yes," Sandy complained, "and we won't know what to do until Frank comes
+back with the duplicate."
+
+"We won't know what to do then unless Will loosens up!" laughed George.
+
+"Referring, of course," Sandy laughed, "to the prospective story of the
+mark of the human thumb. Will was about to tell us all about it when we
+saw the signals sent up by Frank."
+
+"That's a fact," Will replied. "I didn't get any further than the
+mention of the human thumb, did I?"
+
+"We're waiting to hear the rest of it now!" declared Sandy.
+
+"Well," Will began, "there was a safe robbed in Chicago one night, and
+two men were accused of the crime. The accused men were in the employ of
+the manufacturing concern whose safe was entered. They admit that they
+were in the private office of the firm during the night, but they deny
+that they opened the safe."
+
+"Of course!" laughed George.
+
+"Now don't form any hasty conclusions," Will went on. "There was a third
+person in the office that night, according to the stories told by the
+two men who are accused, but this third person says he wasn't there!"
+
+"Then this third person may be the one who opened the safe."
+
+"That is the theory of the defense," Will explained.
+
+"But what's all this got to do with the mark of a man's right thumb?"
+asked George.
+
+"I'm coming to that," Will went on. "The three men who were in the
+office that night--we are supposing for the sake of the argument that
+there were three men there, and that the man who says he wasn't there is
+lying about it--were looking over a set of plans for a new machine which
+the company was arranging to manufacture."
+
+"I've got you now!" laughed Sandy. "The thumb print of the third man was
+left on the drawings!"
+
+"That's the idea," admitted Will. "The two men say that they were not a
+little annoyed during the course of the evening because this man,
+Babcock, persisted in pawing over the plans with dirty hands. They
+declare that the marks of both thumbs are to be seen on drawings, not in
+plain dust and grime, but in ink."
+
+"He must have spilled the ink," suggested George.
+
+"That's what they say," Will replied.
+
+"Well, go on!" urged George.
+
+"The statement is made by the two accused men that they worked over the
+plans until after midnight, and that they left this man Babcock at the
+office when they went to their homes. Babcock denied that he was in the
+office at all that night."
+
+"Where are the plans?" asked George.
+
+"In Alaska," answered Will.
+
+"But whereabouts in Alaska?"
+
+Will looked at the boy quizzically for a moment before he answered.
+
+"That's just what we're here to find out!" he finally said.
+
+"But why, when, where, how?" began the boy.
+
+"One at a time!" laughed Will. "On the morning following the robbery,
+the plans having been rejected by the two men who were accused of
+robbing the safe, were sent to a mining company having an office at
+Cordova. So far as the defense is concerned, they have never been seen
+since that time."
+
+"Were they actually sent?" demanded George.
+
+"Yes, they were sent. The manager of the mining company admits having
+received them. He says they were turned over to a clerk for examination.
+From the time they passed into the hands of this clerk, no one had seen
+them. The clerk says he never had them."
+
+"Do the manager and the clerk know what the defense in the robbery case
+expects to prove by the papers if they can be secured?" asked George.
+
+"They are not supposed to know," Will answered.
+
+"But you think that they may know, for all that?"
+
+"At the time of leaving Chicago, I had no idea that there would be any
+trouble at all in securing the plans. In fact, until Bert was found
+lying on our floor last night, I believed that we should discover the
+papers as soon as we came upon one Len Garman, a miner who has, against
+the advice of his friends, been prospecting in this district, and who is
+known to have at one time occupied this cabin."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+FISHING IN ALASKA
+
+
+"Are you sure this is the same cabin?" asked George.
+
+"Yes, I am sure this is the same cabin. At any rate, the description is
+perfect, both as regards the structure and the surroundings."
+
+"I may be somewhat dense," George went on, "but I can't understand why a
+miner who is fool enough to prospect for gold on a dead glacier should
+take pains to conceal plans concerning the manufacture of a machine.
+What did he want of the plans?"
+
+"I didn't say that he was concealing the plans," laughed Will.
+
+"Well, you inferred as much!"
+
+"As a matter of fact, I think he is hiding the plans."
+
+"Does he expect to go into the manufacturing business?" grinned Sandy.
+
+"I don't know about that," Will replied, "but there is talk that the
+clerk and the miner conspired to lose the plans."
+
+"Because of the thumb prints?" asked Sandy.
+
+"No; because the machine outlined in the plans is a mining machine, and
+because this clerk, Vin Chase, his name is, and this miner, Garman, have
+a notion in their head that they can steal the idea and bring forth a
+machine of their own. At least that is the supposition in Chicago."
+
+"The plot deepens!" laughed George, "We'll be doing business with the
+Patent Office the first thing we know!"
+
+"Are the plans which are claimed to hold the thumb prints of any value?"
+asked Sandy. "What I mean is, is the alleged invention of any account?
+You know there are plenty of inventions which are not worth the paper
+they are drawn on."
+
+"Spaulding and Hurley, the two men accused of stealing the money," Will
+answered, "declare that the plans are absolutely without value."
+
+"Why didn't you tell us all this before we left Chicago?" asked George.
+"I don't see any necessity for your keeping the story of the plans such
+a profound secret!"
+
+"Well," answered Will, "the principal reason why I didn't tell you the
+whole story in Chicago is that I didn't care to clutter your minds up
+with a puzzling proposition which might be solved in a moment at the end
+of the journey. I expected to find Garman and the plans in this cottage.
+In that case, I should have shipped the plans back to Chicago and we
+should have gone with our playful little vacation under the North Star."
+
+"Then you wouldn't have told us anything about the plans or the
+robbers?" questioned Sandy.
+
+"Certainly not," was the reply. "You see, boys," Will went on, observing
+the injured look on the faces of his chums, "we've always been mixed up
+in some mystery, ever since the day we started out to visit the Pictured
+Rocks of Old Superior. So I thought you might like one trip free of
+puzzles and excitements."
+
+"Don't you never permit us to lose sight of a mystery!" exclaimed
+George. "I eat mysteries three times a day, and then dream of mysteries
+at night! And Sandy," he went on, "just gets fat on mysteries!"
+
+"All right," Will agreed. "If you want to tie your intellect all up into
+knots studying out such Sherlock Holmes puzzles as come to me, I have no
+objections."
+
+"Well, we've found the cottage," George observed presently, "but we
+haven't found the man."
+
+"Perhaps Bert Calkins found him," contended Will.
+
+"Do you really think the miner is still hanging around this cabin?"
+asked Sandy. "Do you think he is the man who gave Bert the clout on the
+head? If you do think so, we'd better keep a sharp lookout."
+
+"Garman wouldn't know anything about our coming here after the plans!"
+suggested George.
+
+"Any man who steals another man's invention, or tries to steal it, will
+go to almost any length to protect the thing he has stolen. Even if
+Garman had no previous knowledge of our visit to this place our arrival
+here would at once excite his suspicions."
+
+"I see that now," agreed George, "and the first thing the fellow would
+do would be to try to discover what we were doing here."
+
+"Yes," continued Will, "and that would be sufficient motive for him to
+attack the bearer of the code despatch."
+
+"I guess we've got it all doped out now," laughed George. "All we've got
+to do is to find this man Garman, take the original plans away from him,
+mail them back to Chicago, and go on about our business."
+
+"And the lawyers in Chicago will do the rest!" grinned Sandy.
+
+"It looks easy, doesn't it?" suggested Will.
+
+"Why, if this miner doesn't know anything about what we're here for, we
+can tell him any story we're a mind to. We can tell him we're here on a
+vacation and have money to invest in a mine, if he can find the right
+kind of a mine for us," laughed George. "In twenty-four hours after we
+get hold of him, we can have him eating corn out of our hands, like a
+billy goat."
+
+"You say it well!" laughed Sandy.
+
+"That's all very well," Will agreed, "provided Garman isn't the man who
+took the code despatch from Bert Calkins."
+
+"And provided, too," George declared, "that Garman didn't force the boy
+to translate the despatch for his benefit."
+
+"And provided, also," Sandy cut in, "that the code despatch doesn't give
+away the whole snap to the miner. If he sees the machine plans referred
+to in any way, he'll think we want to get them away from him, because
+they are the stolen plans, and then it will be all off for us!"
+
+"And so, when you come to round up on the proposition," Will argued, "we
+are not much further along than we were when we left Chicago, except
+that we have found the cabin."
+
+"Who said anything about getting dinner?" asked Sandy, after a short
+pause. "I remember having a little snack about twelve o'clock, but that
+wasn't to be considered as a full meal, I hope."
+
+"What have we got to eat?" asked Will.
+
+"Nothing but a lot of canned stuff!" declared Sandy.
+
+"Well, then, go out and get a deer, or half a dozen rabbits, or go back
+here to the little creek that runs into Copper river and see if you can
+get a mess of fish. There ought to be plenty of fish in Alaska!"
+
+"What kind of fish can you get?" asked Sandy.
+
+"Salmon!" answered Will.
+
+"How far is it to the creek?" was the next question.
+
+"Something over a mile, I should say," replied Will.
+
+"It can't be any further than that," George cut in. "The glacier this
+cabin is built on supplies most of the water for it."
+
+"All right, then," Sandy replied. "I'll get myself up a little lunch
+consisting of a couple of slices of bacon and three or four eggs, and go
+out and catch a ten-pound salmon for dinner. Want to go with me,
+George?" he added. "No need of all three staying here."
+
+"Let Will go," replied George. "I'm tired, and there's a particularly
+interesting book I'd like to finish this afternoon."
+
+Will went pawing among the fishing tackle, and finally called out to
+George who was just crawling into a bunk with his book:
+
+"What do they catch fish with in Alaska?"
+
+"Hooks!" replied George.
+
+"Hooks and eyes?" asked Will, with a chuckle.
+
+"Sure! Hooks and eyes! You see 'em with the eyes, and grab 'em with the
+hooks!"
+
+"Aw, never mind that gink!" laughed Sandy. "He doesn't know any more
+about fishing in Alaska than a hog knows about Sunday! Bring along all
+the flies we've got and some red flannel, and some pieces of dirty
+bacon, and we'll manage to get fish. If one bait won't answer, another
+will."
+
+"Do we have to cut a hole through the ice?" asked Will.
+
+"Cut a hole through the ice!" repeated George. "Eighty or ninety in the
+shade! If you don't get this boy out of here, Sandy," George added,
+"I'll give him a poke in the eye!"
+
+After selecting such flies, hooks, and lines as they thought might prove
+alluring to the fish, Will and Sandy started away in the direction of
+the little stream which ran out of the glacier a mile or so to the north
+and took a general direction toward Copper river.
+
+After walking half a mile or more, they came to a line of rocks which
+seemed to extend from the open ice of the glacier to the coast, a
+distance of perhaps five or six miles. West of this line of moraine
+rocks the land sloped gradually to the northwest and here the headwaters
+of the little creek they sought were found.
+
+Straight away to the north, west of the glacier, rose a range of wooded
+hills just now bright with blossoms and swarming with insect life. The
+little creek crept along to the south of this range, and, further down,
+separated the ground to the south from the hills.
+
+Sandy leaped across the little rivulet as it came bubbling out of the
+ice hidden under the moraine and started down the bank next to the line
+of hills. Will kept to the other side.
+
+"Why don't you come across?" shouted Sandy.
+
+"What's the good of crossing over at all?" Will asked. "Before long the
+stream will be so wide that you can't cross back, and then you'll have
+to retrace your steps clear to the headwaters!"
+
+"I can swim, can't I?" laughed Sandy.
+
+"Not in that cold water!" replied Will.
+
+Sandy only laughed in reply to the warning, and the two boys proceeded
+downstream, one on each side of the rivulet.
+
+Within half an hour they caught half a dozen salmon of fair size,
+weighing from four to six pounds, using only red flannel for bait.
+
+"What do you think of a fish in his right mind that'll try to eat red
+flannel?" asked Sandy, speaking from the opposite side of the creek.
+
+"Boys do more foolish things than that!" answered Will.
+
+"Explanation!" grinned Sandy.
+
+"They smoke cigarettes, for one thing!" replied Will. "Even a fish that
+tries to make a meal off red flannel won't smoke a cigarette."
+
+"We don't seem to get anything very big!" shouted Sandy.
+
+"Well," Will answered back with a faint smile, "take a look up the
+hillside and see if that bear coming is large enough for you!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+A MISSING BOY
+
+
+"Bear nothing!" laughed Sandy. "There isn't a bear within a hundred miles
+of us! You can't fool your Uncle Isaac!"
+
+"Look back and see!" advised Will.
+
+Sandy paid no attention to the remark, but kept on fishing, following on
+down stream until he was some yards in advance of his chum.
+
+So interested was he in the sport in which he was engaged that he
+thought no more of what had been said to him regarding the bear until a
+pistol shot reached his ears.
+
+Then he glanced quickly in the rear, taking in the whole line of the
+hillside at one glance.
+
+Just at that moment the whole landscape seemed to consist principally of
+bear! Will had wounded a great brown bear, and he was charging down
+toward the place where Sandy stood. The boy drew his automatic and faced
+about, hardly knowing what else to do, as the creek was too wide to leap
+across. The bear came on with a rush.
+
+"Run!" shouted Will.
+
+"I guess you'll have to show me a place to run to!" Sandy shouted back.
+"This bear seems to have taken possession of about all the territory
+there is on this side of the creek."
+
+"Shoot, you dunce, shoot before he gets up to you!" shouted Will. "If he
+gets one swipe at you with that paw, you'll land out in the Gulf of
+Alaska! Fill him full of lead!"
+
+Sandy began firing, but the bear came steadily on.
+
+"You'll have to swim for it!" shouted Will in a moment. "You mustn't let
+that big brute get near enough to hand you one with that educated left
+of his. Jump in and swim and I'll help pull you out!"
+
+Sandy looked at the creek and shivered. The water looked blue, as if
+shivering from the cold. He faced about and decided to take a few more
+shots at the bear before risking his life in the cold water.
+
+"You'll have to jump!" Will shouted from the other side.
+
+"I wouldn't have to jump," Sandy cried back, "If you'd do more shooting
+and less talking! Go on and use up your lead!"
+
+In the excitement of the time, Will had, indeed, forgotten to keep his
+automatic busy. He now began shooting as fast as the weapon would carry
+the lead away, and bruin seemed to take offense at the activity with
+which the bullets flew about him. He was bleeding in several places, and
+was in a perfect frenzy of rage.
+
+"I guess that's an armored bear!" Will shouted across the creek. "I
+don't believe our bullets have any effect on him!"
+
+By this time the bear was within a few paces of Sandy. The boy's
+automatic was empty now, yet he obstinately refused to spring into the
+water. Bruin reached out one paw and Sandy ducked, coming up behind the
+clumsy animal and landed a blow with the butt of the automatic on his
+head.
+
+The next few moments were something of a blank in the mind of the boy.
+He heard Will calling to him, he knew that he had been struck by the
+bear, knew that his chum's bullets were still flying across the river,
+and knew that things were turning black around him.
+
+Then he felt a dash of cold water in his face, and looked up to see Will
+standing over him, pouring water out of his hat.
+
+"What did I do to the bear?" he asked faintly.
+
+"Wait till you get to a mirror and see what the bear did to you!"
+replied Will. "What you got was a plenty!"
+
+"Why didn't I jump in and swim across?" asked Sandy feebly.
+
+"Because you're the most obstinate little customer that ever drew the
+breath of life," answered Will. "You took a chance on being eaten alive
+by a bear rather than get your feet wet!"
+
+"Did I get my feet wet?" asked Sandy.
+
+"No, but I did!" answered Will. "I had to swim across. The bear handed
+you one between the eyes and then dropped dead. I was afraid you'd lie
+here all night if I didn't do something, so I swam over."
+
+"So you're the one that got wet?" grinned Sandy.
+
+"Yes, I'm the one that got wet, but you're the one that got beat up!"
+replied Will. "Do you think you can walk home now?"
+
+"Sandy straightened out one arm at a time, then one leg at a time, then
+arose to a sitting position.
+
+"I don't know why not!" he replied.
+
+"Get up and see if you can walk!" advised Will.
+
+"'Course I can walk!" replied Sandy. "I just went down for the count!"
+
+He scrambled slowly to his feet and turned about to gaze at his late
+antagonist. The bear was lying stone dead close to the stream.
+
+"He's a big one, isn't he?" he asked.
+
+"He certainly is," was the reply. "If he'd got a good swipe at you
+before he became weak from loss of blood, you'd be in the 'Good-night'
+land all right now!" the boy added, with a grin.
+
+"Well, I'm glad he didn't, then!" answered Sandy.
+
+"Do you think we can carry the rug home?" asked Will.
+
+"Perhaps you can," replied Sandy. "I don't feel as if I could carry an
+extra ounce. I guess Bruin did pass me a stiff jolt!"
+
+"You bet he did!" replied Will. "Anyway," he added, "we'll have to leave
+the rug until some other time, because we've got quite a lot of fish to
+carry. If any one steals the hide, we'll have to stand it."
+
+"We might skin the bear and put the hide up in a tree," suggested Sandy.
+"We'll have to tan the pelt in the sunshine, anyway!"
+
+"That's a good idea, too!" exclaimed Will, getting busy at once with his
+knife. "And that reminds me that we can have bear steak for supper if we
+want it. We all like bear steak, you know!"
+
+"I should say so!" replied Sandy.
+
+It took the boys only a short time to remove the pelt from the bear and
+provide themselves with a few pounds of steak. Then leaving part of
+their fish, they started away up the creek toward the cabin.
+
+Now and then Will stopped in the hurried walk to look toward Sandy and
+grin in the most provoking manner.
+
+"If you see anything about me you don't like," Sandy said, half-angrily,
+on the third or fourth inspection, "you can just step over here and
+knock it out of me! What are you making fun of me for?"
+
+"You look like you'd been through a battle with a cage of monkeys,"
+replied Will. "You've got a swipe on the side of the face, and your
+cheek is scratched and bloody, and you got a swipe on your shoulder, and
+there's a tear on your shoulder, in the flesh as well as in your coat,
+and one eye will be black as soon as the blood settles under the
+contusion. Take it up one side and down the other, you're a pretty
+disreputable looking object!"
+
+"You wait until you get into a fight with a bear, and see how you come
+out! I'll bet you won't look as if you'd just dropped in from a pink
+tea! You'll look about like thirty cents!"
+
+"When I see a bear coming," replied Will, "I hope I'll have the sense to
+run! I won't stay and get into a knock-down argument with him!"
+
+It was nearly sundown when the boys came in sight of the cabin. They
+looked eagerly through the twilight for a light, expecting that George
+would have the great acetylene lamp in working order.
+
+But no light showed from the cabin, and all was still as they approached
+the door. When Will looked in he saw the interior was in confusion.
+
+"I should think George might straighten things out a little bit," he
+grumbled. "I'll bet he's been asleep all the afternoon!"
+
+"I presume he has," agreed Sandy.
+
+Will reached to the top of a shelf for an electric flashlight and swung
+the circle of flame about the room.
+
+"Why, look here!" he said excitedly, "what do you know about that?"
+
+"About what?" demanded Sandy, who was looking the other way.
+
+"About Bert's bed being empty!"
+
+"That's another joke!"
+
+"Not on your life!" exclaimed Will.
+
+Sandy turned around, gave one glance at the vacant bunk, and dropped
+weakly back into a chair.
+
+"Do you think he got up and walked away?" he asked.
+
+"No," replied Will, "I don't!"
+
+"Then, who carried him away?" demanded Sandy.
+
+Will turned the rays of the searchlight on the bunk where he had seen
+George cuddle down and then walked over toward it.
+
+"George didn't!" he answered, "because George is here sound asleep!"
+
+"Sound asleep?" repeated Sandy. "Do you suppose he'd lie here and sleep
+and let some one come and carry away Bert?"
+
+Will took hold of the boy's leg and half drew him out of the bunk.
+
+"Wake up, here!" he shouted.
+
+George yawned and rubbed his eyes.
+
+"First good sleep I've had in a week!" he said.
+
+"Did you sleep all the afternoon?" asked Will.
+
+"I guess I did!"
+
+"Hear any one around the cabin?"
+
+"How could I, when I was sound asleep?"
+
+"Well," Will went on, "while you were having that fine sleep, some one
+came to the cabin and carried off Bert Calkins!"
+
+"What are you talking about?" demanded George.
+
+"Look in his bunk and see!" advised Sandy.
+
+"How was it ever done?" demanded George.
+
+"I'm not asking how it was done," Will returned. "What I want to know
+is: Why was it done? What object could any one have in carrying away
+that kid? I wouldn't believe he was gone if I didn't see the empty
+bunk."
+
+"It's something connected with that code message!" Sandy suggested.
+
+"I've got it!" replied Will. "The man took the message away before he
+knew whether he could read it or not. When he found he couldn't read it,
+he came back to get Bert to read it for him."
+
+"But Bert is in no condition to be kept prisoner," George insisted. "He
+won't give the information the man seeks, and the man will probably
+mistreat him because he can't! What we've got to do is to get a move on
+and find the boy before he is starved or beaten to death."
+
+"That's just what we've got to do!" agreed Will. "We've got to drop
+everything until we find that boy!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A LOST "BULLDOG"
+
+
+"How much do you know about this case?" asked Tommy of Frank, as the two
+stumbled over the uneven moraine.
+
+"How much do I know about what?" asked Frank.
+
+"Why, this case that your father talked with you about when he used the
+wireless; the case referred to in the code message."
+
+"Why, I know that you boys are out here in search of the print of a
+man's right thumb!" laughed Frank.
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"Yes, I know a little more than that. I know that two men are soon to be
+tried for burglary, and that the discovery of the thumb marks is quite
+essential to a successful defense."
+
+"Did your father tell you all that?"
+
+"Oh, we talked quite a lot by wireless."
+
+Tommy considered the situation for a moment and then said:
+
+"I wish you'd tell me all you know about it."
+
+In as few words as possible, Frank related the story practically as told
+to George and Sandy by Will.
+
+"Does Bert know all about this?" asked Tommy when the recital was
+finished. "Did you talk the matter over with him?"
+
+"I certainly did."
+
+"I hope," Tommy mused, "that he wasn't forced to tell anything about the
+thumb marks when the man robbed him."
+
+"I don't think he would do that," suggested Frank. "He would be apt to
+plead ignorance."
+
+The boys came, about nine in the evening, to the little station of
+Katalla, which is just a mite of a town sitting perched high above the
+Gulf of Alaska. The first thing they did was to make inquiries at the
+water front regarding transportation to Cordova.
+
+As they passed swiftly from point to point, consulting a half-breed
+here, an Esquimaux there, and an American trader at another point, they
+noticed that they were being followed. Finally Tommy drew back and
+waited until the man who seemed to be pursuing them came up.
+
+"Are you looking for me?" he asked.
+
+"I would like to speak with you," was the reply.
+
+"Well, then, why didn't you come up like a man and say so?" demanded
+Tommy. "You needn't have skulked along in the dark!"
+
+"Fact is," the man answered, "that I heard you making inquiries
+regarding the possibility of getting to Cordova tonight."
+
+"Yes, that's where we want to go."
+
+"Have you secured transportation yet?"
+
+"We have not!" Tommy answered.
+
+"Well, I was going to let you inquire at one more place," said the
+other, "and then tender you the use of my boat."
+
+"Why were you going to wait?"
+
+"Because I wanted you to exhaust your last chance so that I could get my
+own price for the service."
+
+"You must be a Yankee!" laughed Tommy.
+
+"Right!" was the reply. "I'm a Yankee direct from Boston. I don't have
+many opportunities of acquiring wealth out here, and I smelt real money
+as soon as I saw you boys come to town a couple of days ago."
+
+"What kind of a boat have you?" asked Tommy.
+
+"A swift little motor boat."
+
+"Can you get us to Cordova and back by seven or eight in the morning?"
+
+"I don't think I can do the job as soon as that, but I'll do the best I
+can! Why are you in such a hurry?"
+
+"There's a boy sick at the camp!" was the short reply.
+
+"How much are you going to charge for the use of your boat?" asked
+Frank. "We're willing to pay for fast service."
+
+"I think a couple of hundred dollars will be about right," was the
+reply. "It's a little bit risky going out in the night."
+
+Tommy was about to protest against the exorbitant charge, but Frank
+motioned him to remain silent.
+
+"The price is satisfactory," he said. "When can you start?"
+
+"In an hour," was the answer.
+
+After promising to meet the boys at the floating dock in an hour's time,
+the owner of the motor boat took his departure, and the two lads dropped
+into a smoky and smelly restaurant for supper.
+
+The place was foul with evil language as well as evil smells, and the
+boys did not remain long. Instead of sitting down at the table and
+ordering their meal, they bought such provisions as they could get and
+took their way to the water front. When they sat down to eat their
+rather unpalatable repast, they saw that a boy of about their own size
+and age was loitering not far away.
+
+"I'll gamble you a five cent piece," Tommy whispered to Frank, "that
+that is a Boy Scout! What do you say?"
+
+"You're on!" exclaimed Frank.
+
+Tommy struck three times on the planking of the dock with his open hand.
+Instantly there came back to his ears the low snarling voice of a
+bulldog. Then footsteps advanced down the dock, and the boy soon stood
+close to the others.
+
+"You're a Beaver?" he asked.
+
+"And you're a Bulldog!" said Tommy.
+
+The boys presented their hands, palm out, in the full salute of the Boy
+Scouts and then stood examining each other's faces.
+
+"Where's the Bulldog Patrol located?" asked Tommy.
+
+"Portland, Oregon," was the reply.
+
+"Do you live here now?" asked Frank, who had already been introduced as
+a member of the Fox Patrol.
+
+"I'm obliged to live here," was the answer, "because I can't get out of
+town. I wish I could get away!"
+
+"You may go with us," offered Tommy.
+
+"Where?" was the question.
+
+"To Cordova tonight, and to a camp out on a glacier tomorrow."
+
+"Tickled to death!" exclaimed the boy.
+
+"You're welcome!" declared Tommy;
+
+"Who're you going with?" was the next question.
+
+"He didn't give us his name, but he said he owned a fast motor boat, and
+he said he'd get us there and back before noon tomorrow!"
+
+"Jamison is the only man here who has a motor boat, but you want to look
+out for him. He's as crooked as a corkscrew!"
+
+"That's the impression I received when he fixed his price."
+
+"Well," the stranger said in a moment, "I've got a little baggage up the
+street and I'll go and get it."
+
+He was gone perhaps half an hour, and when he returned the boys saw an
+anxious expression on his face.
+
+"Are you sure that man Jamison is going out with you tonight?" he asked.
+
+"He said he would," was the reply.
+
+"He's up there loading in whiskey," the boy, who had given his name as
+Samuel White, continued, "and has surrounded himself with about as tough
+a bunch of crooks as there is in all Alaska."
+
+"Perhaps he wants them to help run the boat," suggested Tommy.
+
+"No, there's something crooked on foot!" declared Sam. "The fellows are
+whispering together in a bar-room up the street, and pounding the
+tables, and letting cut great shouts of laughter as if they had a good
+joke on some one."
+
+"Do you know any of the men with Jamison?" asked Frank.
+
+"One of them," the boy replied, "is a crooked mine agent, and one is a
+fellow who hangs around town without revealing any business whatever,
+but seems to have plenty of money."
+
+While the boys talked, Jamison, accompanied by two men who seemed to be
+somewhat under the influence of liquor, came down to the dock.
+
+After nodding familiarly to the lads, he gave a signal with a lantern
+which he carried in his hand, and in a short time a very capable looking
+motor boat came puffing out of the darkness.
+
+"There you are, boys!" he said. "Jump in, and I'll have you up to
+Cordova in no time. I've got a good crew on board, and I may be able to
+get you back long before noon."
+
+The boys did not exactly like the looks of the "good" crew, but they
+said nothing as they took their seats in the little trunk cabin and
+waited for the boat to get under motion.
+
+When at last the motors began whirling and the rocking motion told the
+lads that they were out among the high waves, Jamison came in and seated
+himself by Tommy's side.
+
+"Little bit bumpy tonight," he said, "but you'll soon get used to that.
+If you have the money ready, I'll collect fares now."
+
+Frank took two hundred dollars in bank notes from a pocket and passed it
+over to the owner of the boat.
+
+"A hundred apiece," Jamison said. "I was to have a hundred for each
+passenger. You owe me a hundred more."
+
+"Don't pay any hundred for me," Sam White exclaimed, springing to his
+feet. "I'll jump overboard and swim back."
+
+Frank laid a hand on the boy's arm and pushed him back into a seat.
+
+"It's all right," he said. "I did agree to pay a hundred dollars a
+passenger. You're quite welcome to the ride at my expense."
+
+As Frank spoke he took a roll of bank notes from another pocket and
+stripped off one of the denomination of one hundred dollars.
+
+Jamison saw large denominations, some as high as five hundred dollars,
+in the roll, and his evil eyes glittered greedily.
+
+When Frank put up the roll, the fellow's eyes followed it until it
+passed out of sight in the pocket. Other members of the crew had seen
+the money also, and Tommy was decidedly uncomfortable as he thought of
+the situation they were in.
+
+Having received his pay, Jamison grew very friendly and confidential,
+and began pointing out the show places along the dim coast.
+
+Presently Sam whispered cautiously in Tommy's ear:
+
+"He is headed for the Barren islands, and not Cordova," he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+ON THE GULF OF ALASKA
+
+
+"Where are the Barren islands, and why should he want to take us there?"
+asked Tommy, apprehensively.
+
+"The Barren islands," replied Sam, "lie in the Gulf of Alaska, just
+south of the mouth of Copper river, west of Controller bay. They extend
+along the coast, only a short distance out, for twenty miles or more,
+and are just what the local name signifies, Barren islands."
+
+"But why should he want to take us there?" insisted Tommy, slipping a
+hand toward his hip pocket to make sure that his automatic was ready for
+any emergency.
+
+Sam did not answer the question, for Tommy's quick start of surprise,
+his low exclamation of dismay, checked the words which were on his lips.
+Instead, he pushed closer to the lad and asked:
+
+"What is it? What's wrong?"
+
+"My revolver has been taken!" replied Tommy.
+
+Frank, sitting close to his chum on the other side, now pushed his hand
+into his hip pocket and brought it forth empty.
+
+"So is mine!" he said.
+
+The boys looked at each other for a moment in the gathering darkness
+without speaking. The situation was a serious one.
+
+"Who did it?" asked Tommy presently.
+
+"No one has been near me except that man Jamison," replied Frank.
+
+"He's the only one who's been within reaching distance of me," Tommy
+observed. "He must be a clever pickpocket!"
+
+"I saw him eyeing that roll of money rather greedily," Sam cut in,
+speaking in a very low tone, for Jamison had new turned back from the
+prow and was looking in their direction.
+
+"I noticed that, too," Frank answered. "I'm afraid we're going to get
+into trouble with that gink. Anyway," he continued, "he's started in
+right. He did well to get our guns before he started anything!"
+
+"He didn't get my revolver," Sam said with a low chuckle. "It's a little
+bit of a baby thing, but it's a great deal better than none!"
+
+"It will shoot, won't it?" asked Tommy.
+
+"It will shoot, all right, but it's only a twenty-two," replied the boy.
+"I've been trying for the last two days to get a square meal on it, but
+couldn't get even a ham sandwich. They don't look with favor on baby
+guns up in Alaska. They want the real thing!"
+
+"Well, keep your gun where you can reach it at any moment!" advised
+Frank. "Even a twenty-two caliber may prove effective at short range."
+
+"I presume," Sam went on, "that my coming on board in shabby clothes,
+and as an object of charity, convinced Jamison that I wasn't worth
+searching. I saw him looking me over, though!"
+
+"Object of charity--not!" returned Frank. "We're mighty glad you're with
+us right now! You say he's taking us to the Barren islands. Well, we
+wouldn't know the Barren islands from any other place without you.
+You've put us on our guard, at least, and that's worth more than the
+price of the ticket! We're glad of your company, too!"
+
+"Now, see here, boys," Tommy whispered, "we mustn't let this man Jamison
+know that we have discovered that we have been robbed. The minute he
+knows that we are suspicious of him, the matter will come to a focus
+immediately. We've got to have time to think this matter over before
+anything is done."
+
+This plan of action was agreed to, and the boys sat for some minutes in
+silence. After a time Jamison came to where they were seated, just at
+the doorway of the trunk cabin, and began asking questions about the
+need for a doctor. Tommy explained that a member of their party had been
+injured by a fall, and that they were going to Cordova in quest of a
+surgeon. He again asked Jamison to put on full speed.
+
+"There's a man over here on the coast, this side of Katalla, who is said
+to be a fine surgeon," Jamison explained, after Tommy had finished his
+statement. "He's a sort of a recluse, people say, and lives alone in a
+shabby hut, high up above the tide. You might stop and consult him. That
+would be better, it seems to me, than going away up to Cordova. Still,"
+he went on with a grim smile, "I've been paid to take you to Cordova and
+back, and, if you insist, I mean to live up to my bargain!"
+
+Sam gave Frank a quick poke in the ribs and whispered in his ear:
+
+"Yes, he does!"
+
+"Let him play out his string," whispered Frank in return.
+
+"This surgeon," Jamison went on, "is a queer old fellow. Sometimes he'll
+take a case, and sometimes he won't. If he feels in an ugly mood, he's
+likely to kick us out of his cabin."
+
+Tommy listened with apparent interest to what the treacherous Jamison
+was saying, but it is needless to remark that he did not accept it as
+truth. It was his belief that the fellow was manufacturing a pretext for
+getting himself and his friends quietly on shore as soon as one of the
+Barren islands was reached.
+
+There were three men on board the motor boat besides Jamison. They were
+evil-looking fellows, and spent most of their time on the forward deck,
+where the steering wheel and the motors were located.
+
+The men frequently drank out of a black bottle, and were fast becoming
+intoxicated. Instead of attempting to restrain the fellows, Jamison
+seemed to encourage them in their debauch.
+
+"He's getting them in trim to start something," Sam whispered, as the
+three men broke into a rough drinking song.
+
+"Yes," agreed Tommy, "I imagine that he wants whatever takes place on
+board the boat tonight to be regarded as the acts of men made
+irresponsible by whisky. You'd better keep your gun handy, Sam!"
+
+"I've got my hand on it every minute!" replied the boy. "And if anything
+is started here, Jamison will be the first one to know that I've got it!
+He's the man that needs the lesson!"
+
+It was very dark now, and the sea was rough. The motor boat plunged
+about like a leaf, tossing from wave to wave, and dropping into one
+trough after another. It was plain that the members of the crew were
+becoming too drunk to handle the boat.
+
+Jamison finally approached the cabin doorway and sat down on one of the
+stationary seats. Notwithstanding the fact that the boat was taking
+water at almost every jump, the fellow's face bore a satisfied look.
+
+"What are those fellows trying to do with the boat?" asked Tommy.
+
+"Oh, they're all right!" answered Jamison.
+
+"Looks to me like they were trying to drop us to the bottom," Frank
+said. "There won't be any boat left directly!"
+
+"I guess they have got a little too much John Barleycorn on board!"
+laughed Jamison, as the boat gave a lurch which sent him head foremost
+from his seat. "I'd go and take the wheel myself, only I don't know much
+about running a motor boat under present conditions."
+
+Frank gave Tommy a quick nudge in the side.
+
+"I can run the boat," he whispered, "shall I?"
+
+"If he'd let you, yes!" replied Tommy.
+
+"Where shall I take her?"
+
+"To Cordova, of course, but perhaps you'd better wait until the men get
+a little bit drunker. Jamison will become frightened for the safety of
+his boat before long, and then he won't object to your taking charge of
+her. He's beginning to look sick already."
+
+"If I ever get hold of that wheel," Frank whispered to Tommy, "I'll send
+her flying toward Cordova! I hope the members of the crew will be too
+drunk to know which, way I'm taking them."
+
+Directly the boat gave another tremendous lurch, soaking the boys with
+cold salt water. Jamison rose to his feet with an oath and, steadying
+himself by clinging to the top of the cabin, shook a fist angrily at the
+man at the wheel. The man frowned back.
+
+"What are you doing, you drunken hobo?" shouted Jamison.
+
+The man grinned foolishly but said not a word.
+
+"I wish I knew how to operate a motor boat as well as he does when he's
+sober," gritted Jamison.
+
+"The owner of a boat ought to know how to run her!" suggested Frank.
+
+"I bought the boat only a few days ago," replied Jamison.
+
+"Look here," Frank said, as the boat gave another sickening whirl, "I
+can run a boat all right. Shall I take hold?"
+
+"No," replied Jamison sourly, "we've got to land!"
+
+"But there is no place to land," urged Sam.
+
+"There is a place on the point where the doctor lives," answered
+Jamison, "where we can land in a rowboat. I'm glad now that I brought
+the dinghy along with us. We can anchor the motor boat under the point
+and take refuge in the doctor's cabin until this storm blows over."
+
+The boys were greatly disappointed at this decision on the part of
+Jamison, but they dare not argue the point with him for fear that he
+would suspect that they were watching his every movement.
+
+In a few moments a dark bulk showed directly in front of the racing
+motor boat, and only the quick action of the man at the wheel prevented
+a collision with a bold headland which showed dimly under the light of
+the few stars which looked down from the cloudy sky.
+
+In a moment the boys saw a light, and then Sam whispered to Frank:
+
+"That's not a coast point," he said. "It's one of the Barren islands. I
+don't believe there's any doctor there, as he said! What shall we do if
+he asks us to go ashore?"
+
+"We'll have to go, I suppose," returned Tommy, "but, all the same," he
+went on, "if we get a chance to get possession of the boat, we'll let
+these outlaws take a swim to the shore!"
+
+Presently the boat came under the shelter of the headland, and then a
+member of the crew, in obedience to whispered orders from Jamison,
+dropped into the dinghy which had been trailing behind, and shouted to
+his mate to follow. Then Jamison himself stepped into the dinghy, which
+was swinging about wildly in the surf.
+
+"Now boys," he said, "if you'll get aboard, we'll take you ashore for an
+interview with the doctor. He'll demand big pay, but he's skillful and
+you ought to secure his services if you can."
+
+"Only one man on board now," cried Tommy, "Now's our chance!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE CLUES WILL FOUND
+
+
+"I wish one of you boys would give me a good swift kick," George
+exclaimed as the three lads stood in the cabin discussing the strange
+disappearance of Bert Calkins.
+
+"I'd do that all right if it would accomplish anything!" laughed Will.
+
+"I'll do it anyhow, if you insist upon it!" grinned Sandy.
+
+"It was a rotten thing for me to do!" exclaimed George. "I never
+expected to go to sleep when I lay down in my bunk, but I did go to
+sleep, and some one walked into the cabin and carried Bert away! I'll
+never get over it if anything serious happens to him!"
+
+"Aw, cut it out!" exclaimed Sandy. "We'll find him all right. The
+question before the house right now is whether we're going to get supper
+before we start out on a hunt for the kid."
+
+"We may as well get supper," Will advised. "There's no use whatever of
+our running around in circles in the dark. We've got to sit down here
+and reason it out. Before we do anything at all, we ought to reach some
+conclusion as to why the poor kid was taken away."
+
+"Why, I thought that was all understood," Sandy interrupted. "I thought
+we decided not long ago that the man who stole the code wireless came
+back to get Bert to translate it for him."
+
+"There was some talk of that kind," Will agreed, "and I guess it's as
+near to the truth as we can get with our present knowledge of the
+incident. Anyway, I can conceive of no other reason for the abduction."
+
+"Then we may as well get supper while we're studying out the
+proposition," George said, "and, by way of penance, I'll do the
+cooking!"
+
+The lad turned to Sandy to ask a question regarding the sudden
+appearance of the bear steak, and then for the first time noted his
+dilapidated and generally disreputable condition.
+
+"Where did you get it?" he asked, pointing to the bruised face and torn
+garments. "You've gone and spoiled a perfectly good Boy Scout suit."
+
+"And the bear we're going to have for supper," Will chuckled, "came very
+near spoiling a perfectly good Boy Scout."
+
+"Did the bear hand him that?" asked George.
+
+"He certainly did!" replied Sandy. "And he put me out for the count,
+too!"
+
+"Then I'll take great joy in eating him!" declared George.
+
+While George fried the bear steak over the gasoline "plate," Sandy told
+the story of the fishing trip, while Will listened with a grin on his
+face, now and then interrupting with what Sandy declared to be an
+entirely irrelevant remark.
+
+The big acetylene lamp which, had come in with the boys' baggage had not
+been set up, so the cabin was now lighted only by flashlights. This made
+cooking difficult, and George protested against it, so Will went to work
+setting up the tank and getting the big lamp into use.
+
+"That's better!" exclaimed George, as the great light flashed out. "Now,
+while I'm cooking the supper, you might look about and see what you can
+discover in the way of clues. There is an old theory, you know, that no
+person can enter a room and leave it without their leaving behind some
+trace of having been there!"
+
+"That's a part of the Sherlock Holmes business that I entirely
+overlooked!" laughed Will. "Come to think of it, the fellow must have
+left some clue here. We'll see if we can find it!"
+
+While Sandy and George worked industriously over the gasoline "plate,"
+frying bear meat and fish, and making toast and coffee, Will began a
+thorough search of the cabin floor. He moved about for some moments on
+his hands and knees, studying the rough boards through a microscope.
+
+When he came to the bunk he examined that in the same careful and
+painstaking way. Sandy and George pretended to be very much amused at
+his alleged posing as an investigator, but the boy paid no attention to
+their smiles and sarcastic remarks.
+
+All through the meal Will kept his own counsel as to what he had
+discovered, if anything. His chums quizzed him unmercifully, but he gave
+out no information regarding discoveries until after the meal was
+completed and they sat, wrapped in their heavy coats, before the
+stripped table, now bearing only empty dishes.
+
+"Now tell us about it!" demanded Sandy. "How tall was this man who
+carried Bert, away?"
+
+"Five feet six," replied Will.
+
+"Black or white?"
+
+"Black hair and eyes and whiskers."
+
+"Fat or lean?"
+
+"Neither, just heavily built."
+
+"Come, Smarty," Sandy laughed, "perhaps you'll be kind enough to go on
+now and tell us the color of his necktie."
+
+"He didn't wear any necktie!" answered Will. "He wore a leather hunting
+shirt and leather leggings. His hands were protected from the mosquitos
+by leather gloves. He wore moccasins."
+
+"Will you be kind enough to tell us what he had for supper last night?"
+asked Sandy. "Also, can you tell us which side he sleeps on nights?"
+
+"This is no joke!" Will answered. "I really think I have a good
+description of the man who abducted Bert. And I think, too, that the
+description will serve to locate him."
+
+"That's all right!" laughed George, "when Tommy comes back, we'll have
+him get out his dream book and read you to sleep!"
+
+"Yes," Will said gravely, "when Tommy comes back with the surgeon."
+
+"It would be a rotten proposition, wouldn't it, if Tommy should get back
+with the surgeon before we found Bert?"
+
+"It certainly would," answered Will.
+
+"Tommy can't possibly get back before some time tomorrow night," Sandy
+argued, "and we ought to be able to find the boy before that time!"
+
+"Especially as Will has a perfect description of the outlaw," said
+George with a wink at Sandy.
+
+Then the boy added with a laugh:
+
+"Go on, Will, and tell us how you know the man's size and weight."
+
+"Yes," Sandy broke in. "Tell us how you know he's exactly five feet six.
+You weren't here to measure him!"
+
+"The wall measured him!" replied Will.
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Sandy with a grin.
+
+"Back there by the door," Will went on, "the man leaned against the wall
+for some purpose. Of course, I don't know why, but I suspect that he
+leaned there for a moment to get the boy well balanced in his arms
+before stepping outside. At any rate, he stood there for an instant with
+a broad back braced against the dusty logs. You can see where the top of
+his head came, without getting up."
+
+"That's reasonable!" replied Sandy. "Now tell us how you know he has
+black hair and eyes."
+
+"He left half a dozen hairs on the pillow at Bert's bunk," replied Will.
+"Also he left coarser black hairs which evidently came from his face.
+They lie there on the table."
+
+The boys examined the hairs curiously, and then Will asked:
+
+"What do you think of it?"
+
+"I think," replied Sandy, "that Bert regained consciousness while he was
+being lifted from the bunk and got in a couple of digs at the fellow's
+hair and whiskers."
+
+"The motion which removed the hair and whiskers," suggested George,
+"might have been entirely involuntary."
+
+"That's very true!" answered Will. "It doesn't seem to me that the boy
+regained consciousness. If he had, he would have made such objections to
+being taken away that George would have been awakened. At any rate the
+hairs are here, and that is sufficient!"
+
+"Now tell us how you know about the bulk of the fellow."
+
+"The marks on the wall show that," replied Will.
+
+"What do you know about his leather leggings, hunting shirt and gloves?"
+asked Sandy. "I know about the moccasins, because I saw the tracks on
+the floor myself. He must be an Indian if he wore moccasins."
+
+"I never saw an Indian with long whiskers!" replied Will.
+
+"Well, go on and tell us about the leather he wore," urged George.
+
+"The hunting shirt," Will replied with a smile, as he pointed to a small
+piece of leather lying on the table, "was patched and in the struggle at
+the bunk the patch was torn away. A cloth garment, you know," he
+continued, "wouldn't be apt to be patched with leather."
+
+The boys looked at the leather patch, not much larger than a silver
+dollar, and nodded their heads.
+
+"The marks on the wall where the outlaw seems to have balanced his
+burden, show that he wore leather gloves," Will continued. "You can see
+the blunt mark where he threw up a hand to steady himself. The fingers
+of a cloth glove would have shown narrower."
+
+"I guess you've got the Sherlock Holmes part of it all right!" said
+George, "so all we've got to do now is to find the boy!"
+
+"But this will help!" Sandy argued. "At least we know what kind of a man
+to look for. By the way, how did you know that he wore leather
+leggings?"
+
+"He lost a buckle!" replied Will. "I found it on the floor under Bert's
+bunk. And so, you see," the boy went on, "when we find a man wearing
+leather leggings from which a buckle has been lost, we'll be perfectly
+justified in keeping close watch of him."
+
+"It seems as if there must have been a struggle here!" George argued in
+a moment. "The man lost hair, whiskers, a buckle, and a patch off his
+hunting shirt! I don't see how I could have slept through it all!"
+
+"Well, you did!" returned Sandy, "and that's all there is to it!"
+
+"Are we going out tonight?" asked George.
+
+"Of course, we are!" answered Sandy. "We're not going to crawl into bed
+in comfort and leave Bert in the hands of some brigand!"
+
+Will held up his hand for silence, and the boys sat looking at each
+other with questioning eyes as a soft knock came on one of the windows.
+
+In an instant their eyes were turned in the direction of the sound, and
+what they saw caused them to spring excitedly to their feet.
+
+During the silence which followed, the sound of a heavy footstep was
+heard at the door of the cabin. When they looked again nothing was to be
+seen at the window.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+IN LUCK AT LAST
+
+
+Instead of moving toward the dinghy, the boys sprang to the top of the
+trunk cabin and dashed forward toward the wheel.
+
+With an oath Jamison tried to clamber back to the deck of the motor
+boat, but the dinghy was just then performing a bit of nautical
+gymnastics at the bottom of a trough and he did not succeed in reaching
+the desired footing. He fell back into the bottom of the boat, cursing
+the two rowers because they had not assisted him.
+
+As Frank and Tommy sprang forward over the cabin the man at the wheel
+released his hold and reached for a pistol. The boat swung around and
+would have been capsized only that Frank seized the wheel and brought
+her head to the waves again.
+
+The wheelsman struck a savage blow at the boy as he threw the wheel
+around, and was in turn the object of attack from Tommy. The two went to
+the deck together and came near being thrown into the sea.
+
+When the short battle ended the wheelsman lay on the deck unconscious,
+his head rolling from side to side as the boat tossed about on the
+waves. In the fall his head had struck the rail.
+
+Seeing that Jamison and the rowers were still trying to board the motor
+boat, Sam rushed to the after deck and threatened them with his
+revolver. In a moment Jamison presented a thirty-eight at the boy's
+head.
+
+"This is piracy!" he shouted. "Surrender, or I'll blow your head off!
+This is piracy, I tell you!"
+
+The only reply to the man's threat was the increased clatter of the
+motors. Tommy had turned on full power, and Frank was heading the craft
+for the mouth of Copper river. As she drew away from the dinghy, several
+harmless shots were fired.
+
+"That was a close shave!" Tommy declared as the three boys gathered on
+the forward deck. "If Jamison hadn't been a fool, we couldn't have done
+it! Can you find your way to Cordova, Frank?" he added.
+
+"Sure I can!" was the reply, "but I take it that we don't want to go
+there just now."
+
+"And why not?" asked Tommy is surprise.
+
+"Because this is piracy, all right!" exclaimed the boy. "Old Jamison was
+right, and he'll have all the officers along the coast after us as soon
+as he gets to land. We're in bad with the cops now."
+
+"But Jamison won't be able to get to land tonight!" suggested Sam.
+
+"Indeed he won't!" agreed Frank. "He'll have to pull in toward the
+island and lie there on his oars until daylight."
+
+"Can't he land?" asked Tommy.
+
+"I don't think he can land in the dark!" was the reply.
+
+"Why can't we get to Cordova and get back here with the surgeon before
+he can communicate with the officers?" asked Tommy. "We can't afford to
+go into hiding just now. We've got to get the doctor up to the cabin,
+and we've got to find out what that code message contained."
+
+"How far is it from here to Cordova?" asked Frank.
+
+"It must be about thirty-five or forty miles," replied Sam. "If the waves
+wouldn't keep us traveling up and down all the time, we ought to make it
+in about three hours."
+
+"Jamison was trying to make us believe he was doing a fine thing if he
+took us to Cordova and back in ten or twelve hours!" said Tommy.
+
+"I don't think he intended to take us to Cordova at all!" insisted Sam.
+
+"Well," Tommy argued, "there's no way he can stop us until we get to
+Cordova, and he can't stop us then unless he reaches the coast or gains
+the wireless station before we leave the town. Once out on the gulf
+again, with the surgeon on board, we'll reach Katalla in spite of
+Jamison, and start the doctor toward the cabin."
+
+"Then here goes for the town!" cried Frank, turning on an extra bit of
+power and sending the boat through the waves like a meteor.
+
+It was rough riding, but the boys were fairly good seamen and stood the
+shaking up well.
+
+About midnight the wheelsman began showing signs of consciousness. He
+sat up on the swaying deck and motioned for water.
+
+"Tip him overboard!" advised Sam.
+
+"Aw, give him a drink," argued Tommy. "If you'd had had as much red
+liquor during the last few hours as he's had, you'd want to connect with
+the water cooler, I guess! Give the man a show!"
+
+"Where are you taking the motor boat?" asked the wheelsman.
+
+"Cordova."
+
+"Is that right about your wanting a surgeon?"
+
+"That is right!" replied Tommy.
+
+"Where is he wanted?" asked the wheelsman, who had given the name of
+Boswell. "Why didn't you bring the sick boy out with you?"
+
+"Because we thought it better to take the surgeon to him!" replied
+Tommy. "The boy really wasn't able to be moved!"
+
+"Fever?" asked Boswell.
+
+Tommy hesitated a moment before replying. He was in doubt as to just how
+much he ought to tell Boswell. The fellow seemed to be friendly enough,
+and might be useful in case the lads were arrested for piracy, as, if he
+saw fit, he could testify that Jamison was not carrying out his
+agreement with them, but, instead, was planning to maroon them on a
+barren island in the gulf. Owing to these considerations it seemed best
+to keep on good terms with the fellow, and yet Tommy did not care to
+describe in full what had taken place at the cabin.
+
+"No, the boy isn't sick of fever," Tommy finally answered. "He received
+a wound on the head and lies unconscious."
+
+Both boys thought they saw Boswell give a quick start, but in a moment
+his face was as impassive as ever.
+
+"Do you know what Jamison was up to?" asked Sam after a short pause.
+
+Boswell looked keenly at the boy before answering.
+
+"I only know what he told me!" he replied.
+
+"What did he tell you?"
+
+"He said he had a joke on you boys; that he was charging you three
+hundred dollars for a trip to Cordova, and that he meant to leave you on
+the first little island in the gulf that he came to."
+
+"Did he tell you why he was going to do that?" asked Tommy.
+
+Again Boswell looked keenly at his questioner.
+
+"I guess I'd better not answer that question," he said finally.
+
+"I wish you would answer it," Tommy urged. "I ought to know just what
+motive the fellow has for throwing obstacles in my way.
+
+"He thinks it's funny!" answered Boswell.
+
+"That isn't the correct answer," Tommy insisted. "He has some motive for
+what he is trying to do. I'd like to know what that motive is."
+
+"You can't find out from me!" declared Boswell.
+
+"You must be a chum of his!" sneered Sam.
+
+"I hate the ground he walks on!" replied Boswell. "I wouldn't have hired
+out to him at all if I hadn't been drunk. But I'm not going to repeat to
+any one what he told me in confidence!"
+
+"We shall have to put you off some distance this side of Cordova," Tommy
+suggested, "because if we don't you're likely to make us trouble by
+reporting the case of alleged piracy as soon as we land."
+
+"You needn't trouble yourself about my reporting anything," Boswell
+answered. "I'm not mixing with Jamison's affairs! If you boys are
+arrested for piracy, I'll tell all I know about it, and that won't do
+you any harm."
+
+Dawn came slowly that morning, for heavy clouds were gathering in the
+sky. The short Arctic night came to an end at last, however, and in the
+murky distance the boys saw the long coast line. Shortly after three
+o'clock they passed the wireless station and landed, not without some
+difficulty at Cordova.
+
+They found the town asleep, of course, but after a time an early riser
+directed them to the residence of a surgeon. They arranged with him to
+meet them later in the day and at once set out for the wireless station.
+It was two hours before they saw the operator coming to his post of
+duty.
+
+He remembered Frank, and willingly promised to at once open
+communication with Seattle and take up the work of securing a duplicate
+of the code message. He explained that a copy had been kept, but that it
+had been destroyed by a careless janitor, who had said that he could
+make nothing at all of the jumble of words and letters!
+
+As soon as Seattle answered the Cordova call, a duplicate of the code
+telegram was asked for, and Seattle undertook to place the request on
+the wire and cause it to be rushed through to Chicago.
+
+"We ought to receive the answer some time this afternoon," the operator
+said as the boys started away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+MAKING NEW PLANS
+
+
+When the boys returned to the floating dock at which the motor boat had
+been tied during their absence at the station they found Boswell sitting
+in the cabin in a crouching attitude.
+
+"Did you get what you wanted?" he asked.
+
+Tommy shook his head.
+
+"Then," continued the sailor, "you'd better give over trying to get it
+for the present and duck away from here! You'll have trouble if you
+don't!"
+
+"What do you mean by that?" asked Frank.
+
+"Do you see the tug coming up the bay?" asked Boswell.
+
+"Certainly!" was the reply.
+
+"Well, she's been signalling to have this boat held until she arrives!
+And the chances are that she picked up Jamison and his pirates somewhere
+near the island where you left them."
+
+"Then, of course, Jamison will want us arrested for piracy?" asked Tommy
+tentatively. "I presume that's what it means."
+
+"Well," Boswell replied, "when you take another man's boat and leave him
+afloat in a dinghy, you must expect something to come of it besides
+kisses. Of course you'll be arrested!"
+
+Frank gave a long, low whistle of dismay.
+
+"Then," he said, "we'll have to go and notify the surgeon of what's
+coming off and get him to go on to the cabin alone."
+
+"Yes," Tommy added, "and we can tell him to inform the boys what's going
+on here. We may have to remain here for several days if we are actually
+arrested."
+
+"But how about the code duplicate?" asked Sam.
+
+"I presume that will have to remain with us unless it comes before the
+doctor leaves for the cabin," Tommy answered.
+
+"Look here," Sam said, "you two boys are the fellows Jamison wants. He
+won't put up much of a search for me. You go back to the wireless
+station and tell the operator to deliver the code duplicate to me and
+I'll see that it gets to the cabin."
+
+"It's all right of you to make the offer," Tommy replied, "but there's
+no one at the camp that can read it."
+
+"Then why can't Frank slip away and get the message to camp?" inquired
+Sam.
+
+"Will certainly ought to have it," suggested Tommy.
+
+"I'll tell you what we'd better do," Frank advised. "We'd better make a
+rush for the Cordova dock before that tug gets in. Then we can arrange
+with the doctor to go on to the cabin by any conveyance he can secure
+while we take a sneak into the wilderness and get back when we can and
+as we can. That's better than being arrested."
+
+"I'm for it!" declared Sam. "But how will you obtain possession of the
+wireless when it comes if you duck away in advance of the arrival of the
+tug? The message won't be here as soon as the tug is."
+
+The boys pondered over this proposition for a moment, and then Frank
+came to the front with another suggestion.
+
+"I'll go back to the wireless station," he said, "and arrange for the
+operator to leave the message in some secret hiding place where we can
+get it after nightfall."
+
+"I don't like this fugitive-from-justice business!" exclaimed Tommy.
+
+"I don't either," replied Frank, "but it's a long ways better than lying
+in some dirty old jail. We can arrange here with father's agent to find
+out what sort of a case they've got against us, and pick out a good
+lawyer to represent us, so we'll be all ready to defend ourselves when
+the arrest is finally made."
+
+"Your father has an agent here?" asked Tommy, regarding Frank
+suspiciously. "What business is he in?"
+
+"Oh, quit it!" replied Frank. "We haven't any time to talk about private
+affairs. What we've got to do right now is to find out how we're going
+to escape arrest at this time. I'll go and make the arrangement with the
+operator, and we'll all make the arrangements with the doctor, and then
+we three boys will start across country to the little old log cabin in
+the lane!"
+
+"There ain't no lane there!" grinned Tommy.
+
+"There may be some time, when that part of the country becomes a suburb
+of Cordova!" laughed Frank. "But I reckon I'd better be getting back to
+the wireless office. That tug's coming in hand over hand!"
+
+The boy was back from the office inside of ten minutes, but by that time
+the tug was so near that the motor boat was obliged to shoot ahead at
+full speed in order to keep clear of her. The boys saw Jamison standing
+by the captain urging him to greater efforts in the speed direction, and
+saw him shake a huge, ham-like fist in their direction as the motor boat
+left the tug behind.
+
+"I'll tell you why I want to leave the case in the hands of a lawyer
+here," Frank said, as the boat shot toward the Cordova dock, "Jamison
+doesn't want to prosecute us boys for piracy. He's interested in some
+way in this case you are here to handle, and he wants to keep us under
+lock and key until something he wants done can be accomplished."
+
+"I'm sure that's right!" Tommy answered.
+
+"I don't know much about this thumb-print case," Frank went on, "but I
+believe that this man Jamison is trying to make sure that you boys don't
+get hold of the drawings you are looking for. Of course I have no proof,
+but I'm sure that, in the long run, you'll find that I'm right?"
+
+The motor boat made such good time in the run for the Cordova dock that
+the tug was nearly out of sight when the boys climbed into the main
+street of the town.
+
+"Now," Tommy said, as they all stood together at the principal business
+place of the town, "Frank can go and make sure that the doctor will
+start for the cabin immediately, and Sam and I will go and buy
+provisions for the cross country trip. We may be two or three days in
+making it, and we'll surely want to eat on the way."
+
+"But we can't get the wireless until night!" urged Frank. "He's going to
+bring it to Cordova tonight and leave it in the old blacksmith shop just
+back of the line of store buildings."
+
+"Well, we can get all ready to go," Tommy urged. "We don't want to take
+any chances on being pinched just as we get ready to leave!"
+
+"We'll meet at the old shop in half an hour," Frank suggested, "and then
+we can make all the plans necessary."
+
+Tommy noticed that afternoon that a strange fatality seemed to accompany
+all of Jamison's efforts to cause the arrest of the boys. First, there
+was no Federal officer in the town. Next, there was no judicial or
+ministerial officer before whom a complaint of piracy could be made.
+Next, the motor boat owner and his two outlaws accosted Boswell on the
+street and made to him insulting remarks concerning his championship of
+the boys.
+
+Following this there was a general mixup, in which Boswell was not
+permitted to fight alone, and the result was that Jamison and his two
+sailors were badly beaten up. However, while the lads knew exactly what
+was taking place, and understood the hostility of the town toward
+Jamison, they understood, too, that it would be the duty of almost any
+officer to arrest them if they should make their appearance on the
+public street.
+
+Tommy wondered vaguely at the hostility displayed toward Jamison, but
+Frank explained it all by saying that the fellow was a common loafer and
+hadn't a friend in town.
+
+The boys might have been arrested a dozen times that day had the
+hostility to Jamison and his men not taken such positive form. But while
+Jamison, half-intoxicated, roared about the street, the boys kept as
+quiet as possible and so escaped general notice.
+
+About two in the afternoon the boys were very much surprised to see a
+gentleman who had been pointed out to them as the surgeon walk into the
+old blacksmith shop where they sat. He beckoned Frank to one side and
+the two engaged in a short but apparently satisfactory conversation, at
+the conclusion of which the doctor shook the boy's hand heartily.
+
+"All right," he said on taking his departure, "I'll attend to the matter
+at once! I know the operator and it'll be all right there."
+
+"Now, what's up?" demanded Tommy suspiciously.
+
+"I've got a new scheme!" replied the boy.
+
+"Pass it around!" urged Tommy.
+
+"Now, you just wait until I see whether the doctor gets the message or
+not!" replied Frank. "If he does, it's us for a ride home!"
+
+"I'd like to steal that old drunkard's motor boat!" Tommy said.
+
+Frank broke into a hearty laugh.
+
+"You just wait and see!" he said. "We've got to be mighty careful to
+keep away from the Federal officers, for a deputy marshal has been sent
+for. Can you get up a good hot run if you have to?"
+
+"You bet I can!" answered Tommy.
+
+"Well, we may get a signal to make a hot foot to the dock directly," the
+boy went on, "and if we do, there mustn't be any mistake about the pace
+you set."
+
+"Are you really going to steal the motor boat?" asked Sam.
+
+"I don't know!" replied Frank. "We've been waiting around here all day
+for something to take place, and I guess it's about time there was
+something doing."
+
+"I thought you were going to wait until night before sneaking out with
+the despatch," suggested Tommy, eyeing his friend suspiciously.
+
+"When we made those plans," replied Frank with a grin, "I didn't know
+how many friends I had in town."
+
+"Is the doctor going with us?" asked Tommy.
+
+"No," was the reply, "we are going with him!"
+
+"Aw, have it your own way," Tommy exclaimed. "I never could get any
+satisfaction talking with you!"
+
+The doctor returned to the old blacksmith shop in an hour and called
+Frank outside. The two talked together for a moment, and then the boy
+called out the wonderful news that they wouldn't even have to run to the
+dock; that a carriage was waiting for them!
+
+"Something mighty funny about this!" mused Tommy. "I'd like to know who
+that boy is that has such luck in Alaska! Anyone would think he owns the
+town, the way things are shaping themselves here!"
+
+A moment later a wagon drawn by a pair of sturdy horses made its
+appearance in front of the old blacksmith shop, and the boys took their
+seats. As they did so the sound of a pistol shot came from around the
+corner and Jamison dashed into view, hatless, coatless, very red in the
+face and very excited as to manner.
+
+By his side appeared a man whom the doctor at once recognized as a
+Federal officer. He came to a halt when he saw the boys in the wagon.
+
+"Wait!" he commanded, "I have warrants for your arrest!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+ANOTHER LOST "BULLDOG"
+
+
+The step outside the cabin door halted, and the boys stood silent for a
+moment, hardly knowing whether to dispute the stranger's entrance or to
+admit him with a show of courtesy.
+
+While they waited, Will glanced at the window and saw the flutter of a
+white hand on the pane.
+
+"That's the Boy Scout salute!" he said.
+
+"Another Boy Scout?" whispered Sandy. "I wonder if it rains Boy Scouts
+up here in Alaska!"
+
+"I wish there were a thousand here!" George declared.
+
+"I don't care how many Boy Scouts show up just now," Will argued, "but I
+would like to know where they all come from!"
+
+There now came a knock on the door and a gruff voice demanded
+admittance.
+
+"Shall I open the door?" whispered Will.
+
+"May as well," answered George.
+
+When the door swung open, a stout man of middle age presented himself in
+the opening. After casting a keen glance about the interior he stepped
+inside and closed the door.
+
+"You boys seem to have taken possession of my home!" he said.
+
+"We found the cabin unoccupied, and took the liberty of using it," Will
+answered in a conciliatory tone.
+
+"Oh, it's all right!" returned the other. "That's the way I took
+possession of the place! I found the cabin deserted and just moved in."
+
+"We can vacate if necessary," Will suggested.
+
+"Oh, there's room enough for all of us, I take it!" answered the
+stranger. "My name is Cameron, and I spend only a day or two here
+occasionally. I was hoping when I saw your light that you were having a
+midnight supper. How about something to eat?"
+
+"There's plenty in the cabin!" George replied. "We can give you either
+fish or bear steak for supper."
+
+"Then I'm glad to find you here!" laughed the other, "for I've been
+traveling all day and I'm as hungry as a wolf!"
+
+The visitor threw himself into a chair and began a careful survey of the
+interior, far more searching than the one made from the doorway.
+
+"My name is Cameron, as I said before," he said, "and I'm prospecting
+for gold."
+
+"Prospecting for gold on a glacier?" asked Will.
+
+"Young man," Cameron replied, "there is plenty of gold in this vicinity.
+The ice brought it here. I'm being laughed at by my friends," he
+continued, "because I'm searching for the mother lode. But, all the
+same, I've every prospect of discovering it!"
+
+"The mother lode in a glacier?" asked Sandy.
+
+"It is my theory," Cameron went on, "that the range of mountains to the
+north holds gold in large quantities. It is a part of my theory, too,
+that the drifting ice brought tons of it down to the moraine. If I find
+any gold here at all, I'll find it in quantities sufficient to clog the
+money markets of the world!"
+
+Cameron looked from face to face as he spoke, apparently anticipating a
+burst of enthusiasm from his listeners.
+
+"Up on the Yukon," he went on, "the gold was found under the ice, where
+it had been deposited by glaciers which are now dead. The same
+conditions exist here. For all we know, there may be tons of the
+precious metal at the bottom of the first layer of ice."
+
+"That's very true!" replied Will. "And if you don't mind, we'll stick
+around a short time and see what you discover."
+
+"Remember," Cameron said then, "that this is my claim!"
+
+"Of course," Will answered, "we wouldn't attempt to rob you of any
+legitimate discovery."
+
+In the meantime George and Sandy were preparing a supper for the
+visitor. With their heads bent low over the gasoline "plate," they
+discussed the personality of the man and his theory in low conversation.
+
+"How tall should you say that fellow was?" asked Sandy.
+
+"About five foot six!" was the reply.
+
+"And he's stout!"
+
+"Decidedly so."
+
+"And he wears a leather hunting shirt, and leather leggings, and he took
+off a pair of serviceable leather gloves when he entered?"
+
+"I see what you're getting at," George replied, "Can you see whether
+there's a buckle missing from his leggings?"
+
+"There is!" answered Sandy.
+
+"And a patch missing from his hunting shirt?"
+
+"Just as sure as you're a foot high!"
+
+"Did you ever see such nerve?" whispered George. "He comes here and
+steals a sick boy, and then has the nerve to return and claim the
+cabin!"
+
+"Well, I'm glad he came," Sandy whispered back. "All we've got to do now
+is to play the sleuth when he leaves the cabin."
+
+"You mean that if we follow him in his journeys over the country we'll
+be apt to find Bert?" asked George.
+
+"That's just the idea!" replied Sandy. "I wonder if his mug is sore
+where Bert extracted the whiskers?"
+
+"I wonder if he expects to get a good night's sleep, with Bert lying in
+some uncomfortable hiding place?" George asked. "I'd like to poke him in
+the mug, just for luck!"
+
+"That wouldn't help us find Bert," Sandy cautioned. "We've just got to
+be good to him and follow him wherever he goes."
+
+"Watch me put him off his guard," George suggested.
+
+"How long have you been in this neighborhood?" he asked, turning to
+Cameron. "I ask," the boy continued, "because one of our chums wandered
+away from the cabin while we were out fishing and hasn't returned."
+
+Cameron's eyes sought the floor for a moment.
+
+"I have just returned from the coast," he said, "so, unless your friend
+strayed off in that direction, I wouldn't have caught sight of him. Do
+you mean that he strayed away in the darkness?" he asked.
+
+"No," replied George, "he strayed away this afternoon while temporarily
+out of his mind. My friends were out fishing, and I was asleep at the
+time. He received a slight wound on the head, from a fall, not long ago,
+and that is probably the cause of his aberration of mind."
+
+The boys thought they saw a sudden expression of satisfaction creep over
+Cameron's face as George finished his explanation.
+
+"If you'll serve Mr. Cameron's supper," Sandy said, giving George a sly
+wink, "I'll go with Will, and we'll take different directions so as to
+cover more ground. We are getting anxious about Bert."
+
+Of course the object of the boys in leaving the cabin was to meet the
+Boy Scout who had signalled to them from the window. When they turned
+the corner of the cabin, they found a thin, pale lad in a torn and faded
+khaki uniform leaning against the outer wall.
+
+"Why don't you come in?" asked Will.
+
+"Is the miner in there yet?" asked the boy.
+
+"Yes, he says the cabin belongs to him, and he's going to remain all
+night! What do you know of him?"
+
+"Nothing at all!" replied the boy, "except that I've been following him
+for half a dozen miles in the hopes that he would lead me to some place
+where I could eat and sleep."
+
+"Did you call out to him?" asked Will.
+
+"No," was the answer. "I was afraid he would send me back if I did.
+Miners in this section are not fond of leading strangers to their
+claims."
+
+"Where do you belong?" asked Sandy pointing to the Bulldog badge
+displayed on the boy's ragged coat.
+
+"Bulldog Patrol, Portland," was the reply.
+
+"How'd you get out into this country in such a plight?" asked Will.
+
+"My chum and I," was the reply, "started out to seek our fortunes. We
+got to Katalla and couldn't get a thing to do. Sam--his name is Sam
+White--insisted on remaining in town, but I made a break for the
+country."
+
+"How long since you've had anything to eat?" asked Sandy.
+
+"About twenty-four hours," was the reply.
+
+"Well, come on in, then, and we'll feed you up."
+
+"Of course I'll go, now that I know that you are running the camp,"
+replied the boy. "I suppose I should have gone in anyway, directly, for
+just as I came up I heard the man knocking at the door. I was still
+afraid I'd get kicked out if I put in an appearance at any miner's cabin
+and asked for food, but I should have risked it."
+
+"I didn't know that miners did such things," Sandy observed.
+
+"Some of them do, and some of them don't," replied the boy.
+
+"You haven't given us your name yet," suggested Will.
+
+"Ed Hannon," was the reply.
+
+"Well come on in the cabin, Ed Hannon," laughed Sandy, "and we'll fill
+you up, but you mustn't say a word about having seen that miner, and if
+he talks to you about the route by which you approached the cabin lie
+like a thief! Which way did he come from, anyway?"
+
+"He came from the west," was the reply. "I plumped into him not far from
+one of the little rivulets which joins Copper river not very far away."
+
+"There!" said Sandy. "Now I guess we've got something tangible."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE BEGINNING OF THE TRAIL
+
+
+When Will and Sandy entered the cabin with Ed Hannon, Cameron sprang up
+to meet them. There was a show of excitement in his manner as he
+exclaimed:
+
+"So you found the lost boy, did you?"
+
+"No," Will replied, "this is not the lost boy, but it is a lost boy!"
+
+"Where did you come from?" asked Cameron hastily, regarding Ed with a
+pair of bold, black eyes. "How long have you been in this district?"
+
+"I came from Katalla today," answered the boy.
+
+"Tonight, you mean," corrected Cameron.
+
+"I started early this morning," replied Ed, "but I guess I've been
+wandering around the country a good deal. It seems that I came up to the
+cottage from the north."
+
+Cameron sank back into his chair with a look of satisfaction on his
+face. The boys now busied themselves getting a substantial meal for Ed,
+and the boy was soon attacking a generous slice of bear steak.
+
+If Cameron had the plans bearing the thumb marks, he was certainly the
+man to keep them concealed if he believed them to be of any value
+whatever to any one. If he did not have charge of the plans, then the
+chances were that Vin. Chase, the crooked clerk, had them and that any
+reference to them in the presence of Cameron would be communicated as
+soon as possible to the actual holder.
+
+Will was certain that Cameron was the man who had given the name of Len
+Garman by Mr. Horton in the interview in which he had received his
+instructions. At that time he did not believe that Cameron, or Garman,
+whichever his name was, knew anything whatever of the thumb prints on
+the plans.
+
+He did believe, however, that the fellow would fight to the death for
+the drawings, not because he believed them to be of value as evidence,
+but because he believed them to be of great value to one in quest of
+mining machinery suitable for that section of the country.
+
+Directly Cameron began pacing to and fro in the cabin and occasionally
+glancing out of the window. There were only a few stars in sight and no
+moon, but for all that the fellow appeared greatly interested in the
+landscape outside.
+
+"Are you expecting some one?" Will finally asked.
+
+"Certainly not," was the reply. "Why do you ask such a question?"
+
+"Because you seem anxious about something."
+
+"I am anxious about something," replied Cameron seating himself by Will
+once more. "I don't like the idea of this boy coming in here with his
+story of being lost on the moraine.
+
+"You think he came here for a purpose?"
+
+"I must say that I do!"
+
+Will saw that Cameron was fearful that Ed had brought in a message of
+some kind, and so talked to the point for some moments in the hope of
+drawing the miner out. But the miner only stared at Ed with his evil
+eyes and said nothing of importance.
+
+"I know what's eating you, old fellow," Will thought to himself. "You
+think that there's a gang of Boy Scouts scattered over the moraine
+looking for Bert, and you're afraid they'll find him!"
+
+Sure enough this prognostication seemed to be the true one, for directly
+Cameron drew on his head net and leather gloves and walked to the door.
+He paused there a moment and turned back to say to Will:
+
+"It will soon be morning, and I desire to get to the point of my
+investigation before daylight. I have been very courteously entertained
+and shall return to your cabin at night, with your permission."
+
+"I guess it's your cabin rather than mine!" replied Will with a smile.
+"I think you are acting very decently about our taking possession of it.
+Of course you'll always find food here as long as we remain."
+
+With a wave of the hand at the group of boys gathered about the table,
+Cameron went out and closed the door. They heard him moving heavily
+along toward the east and then came silence.
+
+"He's stopping to see if he's watched," suggested Sandy.
+
+"He'll be watched all right!" George declared.
+
+"But how?" asked Sandy.
+
+"I'm the original sleuth!" George replied with a grin. "I can follow the
+fellow by the sound of his footsteps, even if he is wearing moccasins!"
+
+"Does any one doubt that Cameron is the man formerly known as Len
+Garman?" asked Will.
+
+The boys all shook their heads, but Ed turned an inquiring face toward
+the speaker.
+
+"He gave the name of Cameron here, did he?" he asked.
+
+Will nodded.
+
+"Well, that isn't the name I heard him called by at Katalla," Ed
+declared.
+
+"So you saw him at Katalla, did you?" asked Sandy.
+
+"Yes, I saw him at Katalla two days ago. He seemed to have a lot of
+business with a young fellow who appeared to be a stranger in the town."
+
+"What name did he give there?"
+
+"Brooks!" replied Ed.
+
+"Well, we mustn't stand here chinning while the fellow is getting out of
+sight," suggested George. "I'm going to take after him right now!"
+
+"Wait," Sandy suggested, "and I'll go with you."
+
+"Do you think he will go straight to Bert?" asked Will.
+
+"I have no doubt of it!" was the reply.
+
+"It's just this way," George went on, "Cameron is suspicious that a
+great effort is being made to discover the whereabouts of the kidnapped
+boy, and he can't rest easy until he knows that he is safe. Besides, the
+fellow would like to know whether Bert had regained consciousness."
+
+"Yes, I presume he is anxious to learn what the code despatch he stole
+contains," Will answered.
+
+"There was some talk," Sandy said, directly, "about Bert regaining
+consciousness before he left the cabin. Do you think that possible?"
+
+"No, I don't!" replied George. "I should have heard a struggle had
+anything of the kind taken place. The fact of the matter is," the boy
+went on, "that Cameron thinks some one is after the drawings he values
+so greatly. He found Bert here with the code message and naturally
+concluded that the cipher referred in some way to his plans."
+
+"Well, come on, then," Sandy urged. "We'll have to be moving if we
+follow Cameron. I think we've talked too long already."
+
+"Don't you worry about that," Will declared. "Cameron will hang around
+the cabin for half an hour or more in order to see if any one leaves.
+Before any one goes out, we'll turn off the light and make a noise like
+going to sleep. Then, when all is good and dark, you two can slip out
+and locate the miner if you can."
+
+"Locate him?" repeated Sandy. "We've got to locate him. He'll go
+straight to Bert and that's exactly where we want to go."
+
+The boys made a great commotion in the cabin as if preparing for bed,
+and finally the lamp was extinguished, leaving the room in complete
+darkness.
+
+"Now, be careful when you open the door," whispered Will.
+
+For a wonder the door opened noiselessly on its hinges, and was closed
+without the slightest jar. Directly Will heard a soft tap at the window
+and pressed his face against the pane.
+
+"Cameron is still in sight," Sandy's voice said, "and not very far away.
+He seems to be satisfied that we've all gone to bed, and is heading for
+the west. Looks like he was following the trail we followed when we went
+out after fish."
+
+"Go to it, then," Will said. "Don't expose yourselves by being too rash,
+and don't come back in the morning without bringing Bert with you."
+
+"You watch me!" Sandy replied, and then he was gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE LAD WITH THE "DRAG"
+
+
+When the federal officer appeared in front of the spirited team,
+announcing that he had a warrant for the arrest of the boys, Tommy and
+Sam both whispered to the driver to cut loose with the whip.
+
+"Run him down!" Tommy insisted.
+
+"Jump the rig over him!" Sam advised.
+
+The doctor, however, stretched forth a detaining hand and the driver
+held in the horses.
+
+"That's right!" Frank exclaimed.
+
+"You mustn't get into any quarrel with the officers," Dr. Pelton
+suggested. "We can soon settle this matter."
+
+"Je-rusalem!" exclaimed Tommy. "Here we've been hanging around an old
+blacksmith shop all day, and skulking through the streets, and not
+getting half enough to eat, only to get pinched at the last minute! If I
+had my way, I'd bump that officer on the coco and make for the landing.
+We can't stay in this blooming little burg all the rest of our natural
+lives. Will will be anxious."
+
+"Now don't get excited!" laughed Frank. "We'll get out in, a few
+minutes, all right."
+
+"If it was so easy to get out in a few minutes," argued Tommy, "why
+didn't you get out hours ago?"
+
+Frank only laughed as the impatient question and sprang out of the
+carriage. The doctor alighted, too, and they both stood for a moment in
+close consultation with the officer.
+
+Jamison, who was now very drunk, stood weaving about in the street,
+demanding that all the boys, and the doctor, and the driver of the
+carriage, be thrown into jail on a charge of piracy.
+
+"Don't you think," Frank suggested to the officer, "that this man is too
+drunk to be out on the street?"
+
+"Why, of course he is," replied the officer beckoning to an associate
+who stood watching the group from the next corner.
+
+When the associate came up, Jamison was ordered under arrest, and was
+taken away with many threats and exclamations of rage.
+
+"I don't like this man Jamison any better than you do," the officer
+said, speaking to Frank and Dr. Pelton, "but the case did look rather
+bad for the boys, and I had to do something."
+
+"He collected three hundred dollars of me, for a trip to and from
+Cordova," Frank explained, "and then tried to maroon us on one of the
+Barren islands. There's a member of his crew back here in the blacksmith
+shop who will tell you the same story."
+
+"So you paid him three hundred dollars, did you?" asked the officer.
+
+"Yes, sir," answered the boy.
+
+"And you have proof that he tried to maroon you?"
+
+"Yes, sir!"
+
+"And you took the boat only to enforce the contract you had made?"
+
+"That's the idea!" replied Frank.
+
+"Then I'm not going to bother with the case at all!" replied the
+officer. "If you had come to me with this story the minute Jamison began
+to rave about arrest, you wouldn't have been put to all this
+inconvenience."
+
+"I think," grinned Frank, "that Jamison ought to pay us back the three
+hundred dollars, because he never brought us to Cordova at all, and even
+if he had, he wouldn't have earned the money until he returned us to
+Katalla. He ought not to keep the money."
+
+"That's a fact!" exclaimed the officer with a smile at the boy. "I'll go
+down to the jail and make him give it back."
+
+The officer started away, and Tommy and Sam sat in the carriage
+regarding Frank with wide open eyes.
+
+"Say, who is that kid?" Tommy asked.
+
+"I don't know," replied Sam.
+
+"Did you notice that any time he said anything to the officer that the
+officer just fell right in with his ideas?"
+
+"Sure I did," was the reply.
+
+"And did you notice how the doctor paid special attention to every
+remark he made?"
+
+"I couldn't help but notice it," was the reply.
+
+"Well, that kid's got these fellows up here buffaloed all right," Tommy
+declared. "And that being the case, I wonder why he didn't use some of
+his influence hours ago and get us started on the road to Katalla."
+
+"I give it up!" Sam replied.
+
+Frank and the doctor stood talking together for a few moments, and then
+the federal officer returned and handed two hundred dollars in bank
+notes over to Frank.
+
+"Jamison thinks he ought to have a hundred dollars because he paid the
+tug for bringing him and his crew in," the officer said, "and because
+he's going to let you run his motor boat up to Katalla."
+
+"What do you know about that?" whispered Sam.
+
+"I'll bet that boy's father is president of the United States," replied
+Tommy. "Or he may be king of England."
+
+"Whoever he is, he's got a pull," replied Sam.
+
+"Drag!" exclaimed Tommy. "Whenever a man's got a dead sure cinch like
+that, it's a drag and not a pull!"
+
+"Well," the doctor said, "we're losing time! We may as well go to the
+wireless office and get our code message. I presume it's ready for
+delivery by this time."
+
+"It's about time we were thinking about that boy with his head in a
+sling, too!" Tommy suggested.
+
+"It won't take us long to get there now," Doctor Pelton remarked.
+
+The Gulf of Alaska was remarkably smooth, when the vicious habits of
+that body of water are taken into consideration, and the boys made the
+run to Katalla without accident in little less than three hours,
+arriving at the floating dock with the sun still more than three hours
+in the sky.
+
+"Now for the rotten part of the journey," Tommy suggested. "If we hadn't
+had to wait for the wireless after we landed at the dock we should have
+arrived here in time to reach the cabin before dark."
+
+"Who's got the wireless?" asked Sam.
+
+"Frank's got it tucked away under his uniform!" laughed Doctor Pelton.
+"He wouldn't even let me take a look at the envelope!"
+
+"Do you know what's in it, Frank?" asked Tommy.
+
+"Sure I do," was the reply.
+
+"Then, what's all this mystery about? Why don't you pass the information
+around?" demanded Tommy impatiently.
+
+"All in good time!" laughed the boy.
+
+"I don't see any use of all this mystery!" Tommy grumbled, turning to
+Sam, "I get shut out of the inside features of every game I'm in!"
+
+"Now, how do we get to the cabin?" asked the doctor.
+
+"Walk, I suppose," grumbled Tommy. "It's only about fourteen or fifteen
+miles, and the country between the two points is mostly on end. We ought
+to get there by an hour or two after midnight, if we don't stop to play
+marbles on the way."
+
+"If you will all wait here a few moments," Frank said, "I'll go and see
+what I can do in the shape of a rig."
+
+"A rig!" repeated Tommy. "Fat lot of fun you'd have driving a rig over
+that moraine!"
+
+"Of course we can't drive clear to the cabin," Frank replied, "but we
+can get quite along way from the coast if we have a strong team and a
+good wagon!"
+
+"Yes, I remember smooth country somewhere on the route," replied Tommy.
+
+"But even at best," Frank explained, "we shall have to walk five or six
+miles, so we may as well be getting busy."
+
+In a very few minutes Frank returned with a pair of strong horses and
+wagon more desirable for its strength than its comfort.
+
+"Where'd you find it?" asked Tommy.
+
+"Sent a wireless ahead asking for it!" replied Frank.
+
+"I wish you'd send a wireless over to the cabin," Tommy grinned, "and
+ask the boys to have supper all ready when we get there, and you might
+suggest that Sandy and George meet us a half a mile this side with a pie
+under each arm."
+
+"I believe if that kid should ask to have some one dip him a blue blazer
+out of an ice cold spring it would be done," Sam whispered to Tommy, as
+the party clambered into the wagon.
+
+"He's certainly got a drag somewhere!" replied Tommy.
+
+"Things are running pretty smoothly boys," suggested Doctor Pelton as
+the straggling buildings of the coast town disappeared from view.
+
+"They're running too smoothly!" exclaimed Tommy. "First thing we know,
+there'll be a cylinder head blowing out, or a volcanic eruption, or
+something of that kind. We've been having things altogether too easy
+ever since we landed at Cordova."
+
+"Just listen a moment," Frank said, "I guess there's something going to
+happen, right now!"
+
+There came a long, low rumbling sound, apparently moving from east to
+west, followed by a tipping of the moraine which almost brought the
+horses to their knees.
+
+"It would never answer," Tommy grumbled, "for us to make a trip to
+Alaska without bunting into a glacier ready to smash up things!"
+
+"That's not a glacial slide!" Frank said. "It's an earthquake!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+A BREAK IN THE GLACIER
+
+
+"An earthquake?" repeated Tommy. "I thought they never had earthquakes
+in Alaska any more!"
+
+"There are few weeks when there are no earthquakes!" was the reply.
+
+"Well, when's it going to stop quaking?" asked Sam, springing out of the
+wagon. "It seems to me that we're getting a sleigh ride!"
+
+The others followed his example, and stood in a moment within fifty feet
+of a slowly widening chasm which seemed to run from east to west across
+the entire moraine. They had just reached the timber line when the
+disturbance began, and now they saw trees a hundred feet in height and
+from six to eight inches in diameter dropping like matches into the
+great opening in the earth.
+
+"Gee!" exclaimed Tommy. "The breath of the earthquake is enough to
+freeze one! I wish I had a couple of fur coats!"
+
+The boy expressed the situation very accurately, for the opening of the
+moraine revealed the mighty mass of ice which lay under it. The glacier
+which had lain dead under the mat of vegetation for how many hundred
+years no one would ever know, showed far down in the great cavern, and a
+gust of wind sighing through the ragged jaws laid a chill over the
+little party.
+
+Slowly the chasm widened. The ground under the boys' feet seemed to be
+unsteady. With a swaying motion it dropped off toward the coast, except
+at the very edge of the cavern, which seemed to be doubling down like a
+lip folded inside the mouth.
+
+"It strikes me," Frank said, "that we would better be getting the team
+out of the track of that chasm! If we don't, the horses and wagon will
+take a drop."
+
+Tommy and Sam both sprang forward, but it was too late! The southern
+line of the chasm seemed, to drop away for fifty feet or more, and trees
+and rocks crashed into the opening. The horses and the wagon went down
+with the rest. The screams of the frightened horses cut the air for an
+instant, and then all was silent.
+
+"Rotten!" cried Tommy.
+
+"Fierce!" shouted Sam.
+
+"Awful!" declared Doctor Pelton.
+
+Frank stood looking at the ever-widening chasm for a moment and then
+faced toward the coast.
+
+"We'll have to walk around it now, I'm thinking," Tommy said, in a
+moment. "And a nice job we've got!"
+
+As far as the eye could see the chasm extended, now growing in size, now
+contracting. A pale blue mist rose out of the opening, and the air was
+that of an August day no longer.
+
+The sliding motion continued, and the chasm increased its width.
+
+"Will it never stop?" asked Sam, almost thrown to the ground by a quick
+convulsion of the surface.
+
+"Not just yet!" replied the Doctor gravely. "I can tell you in a moment
+just what has taken place. The weight of soil and timber on top of the
+dead glacier is shifting. The volcanic action tipped the moraine to the
+south and it broke, opening the way to the ice below. There is no
+knowing how serious the break may be. For all we know, the upheaval may
+send this whole moraine into the Gulf of Alaska."
+
+"That's a cheerful proposition, too!" Tommy exclaimed.
+
+"I wish I could get close enough to the chasm to look down," Sam
+observed. "I'll bet it's a thousand feet!"
+
+"You'd better not try that!" advised Frank.
+
+"The question before the house at the present moment," the doctor said,
+"is how I am going to get to my patient."
+
+"Can't we get across this little crack in the earth?" asked Sam.
+
+"That depends on the length of it!" answered Frank. "If the Doctor's
+theory is correct, this whole point has cracked away from the glacier
+above. In that case, we may be obliged to in some way work ourselves to
+the bottom of the chasm and up on the other side."
+
+"We never can do that!" Sam insisted.
+
+"Alaska is full of just such gorges as this one," Frank explained. "The
+whole country is resting on an icy foundation, and earthquakes find
+congenial conditions when it comes to cracking the crust. We don't know
+how long this chasm is, but the chances are that it isn't as long now as
+it will be!"
+
+"Yes," agreed the doctor. "The chances are that the chasm started here
+today will continue to grow in length until it cuts across the point of
+land between Controller bay and the Bering glacier. I have known chasms
+of this character to travel fifty miles in a night, and I have known
+them to walk with such dignity that it took them ten years to go ten
+miles."
+
+"But there must be some way of getting across it!" exclaimed Tommy.
+"Everything has been going all right up to now, and we're not going to
+be kept away from the cabin by any such playful little earthquake as
+this!"
+
+"We'll do the best we can," Frank said gravely.
+
+The boys turned to the east and west and traversed the line of the chasm
+for long distances. In places the width was not more than thirty feet.
+In others it was at least a hundred. Occasionally the walls of soil and
+ice sloped down at an angle of forty degrees, in other places the wall
+was vertical.
+
+Within an hour the sound of running water was plainly heard, and the
+boys understood that the convulsion of nature had opened a reservoir
+somewhere in the glacier, and that the long chasm would soon become a
+rushing torrent. The prospect was discouraging.
+
+"I wish we had an airship!" suggested Tommy, as they came back to the
+starting place, a few minutes before the night closed down upon the
+moraine. "It's provoking to think that we can't get across a little
+chasm not any wider than a street in old Chicago!"
+
+"I think I could get along very well with a derrick!" said Sam.
+
+After a long conference, it was decided to keep to the west and endeavor
+to pass around the chasm in that direction.
+
+"We certainly can't remain here inactive," the doctor argued. "We've got
+to go one way or the other, and I think the chances are better toward
+the west!"
+
+"It will soon be good and dark," cried Tommy, "and then we'll have to
+make some kind of a camp for the night."
+
+"I've got a searchlight with me," suggested Frank.
+
+"So've I," answered Tommy.
+
+"I'll tell you one thing we forgot," Sam cut in. "You didn't make
+Jamison give up your automatics!"
+
+"Don't you ever think we didn't," Tommy answered. "That is," he
+continued, "the officer made him give them up. At least he brought them
+back when he came from the jail!"
+
+"Seems to me," Tommy added, looking at Frank critically, "that you've
+got some kind of a drag with the people at Cordova."
+
+"Never mind that now," Frank replied. "What we need now is some kind of
+a drag to get us across this chasm."
+
+The electrics illuminated only a narrow path, but the boys and the
+doctor made fairly good time as they advanced toward the west.
+
+After walking at least a mile and finding no narrowing in the surface
+opening, the boys stopped once more for consultation.
+
+While they stood on the edge of the chasm considering the situation, a
+bright blaze leaped up some distance to the north.
+
+"Some one's burning green boughs!" exclaimed Tommy.
+
+"How do you know that?" asked Sam.
+
+"Look at the white smoke!" answered Tommy. "I guess if you had made and
+answered as many Boy Scout smoke signals as I have, you'd know how to
+make a smudge."
+
+"It's so bloomin' dark I couldn't tell whether the smoke is while or
+black!" declared Sam. "I can see only the bulk of it."
+
+"If it was good and black," Tommy answered, "we couldn't see it so
+plainly. And, come to think about it," he added, laying a hand excitedly
+on Frank's shoulder, "there are two columns of smoke."
+
+"I see the two now," Frank answered. "One column has just begun to show.
+You know what that means, of course!"
+
+"It means a Boy Scout signal for assistance," replied Tommy.
+
+Doctor Pelton turned to the boys with an anxious face.
+
+"Do you really mean that?" he asked.
+
+"Sure we do!" replied Tommy. "Two columns of smoke ask for help."
+
+"Then there must be Boy Scouts in trouble on the other side of the
+chasm!" the doctor concluded.
+
+"That's about the size of it!" Frank exclaimed.
+
+"Look here," Tommy declared, "we've just got to get across that crack! I
+wonder if it would be possible to find walls so slanting that we could
+pass down this side and up the other."
+
+"Well, even if we did," Sam argued, "there's a rush of water at the
+bottom. I don't see how we could get across that."
+
+"I know how we can get across it if we find the walls accommodating,"
+Tommy exclaimed. "You saw how the trees tumbled into the chasm, didn't
+you? Well, if we can find a place where the moraine was heavily wooded,
+we'll find a bridge of tree trunks across any water there may be at the
+bottom! And the bridge may not be very far down, either!"
+
+"Great head, little man!" laughed Frank.
+
+"You ought to consider the matter very seriously before entering the
+chasm at all," suggested the doctor. "Remember that it is uncertain as
+to size and that the walls are liable to crumble."
+
+"But see here," exclaimed Tommy, "there's a Boy Scout signal for help on
+the other side, and we've just got to get across! For all we know, the
+cabin may have been wrecked by the earthquake, and the boys may have
+been injured in some way!"
+
+"I'm game to go!" shouted Sam.
+
+"Of course I'll go with you," the doctor went on. "In fact, I am
+satisfied that you are doing the right thing in making the attempt to
+cross. I only uttered a warning which we must all heed whenever we come
+to a place where a crossing seems possible."
+
+The boys soon discovered a place where the walls did not appear to be
+very steep and where the mass of trees which had fallen completely
+covered the bottom. Then, cautiously feeling their way, they crept down.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+GEORGE AND SANDY CAUGHT
+
+
+When George and Sandy left the cabin they saw the figure of the miner
+very dimly outlined away to the west.
+
+"We ought to get closer," Sandy whispered. "First thing we know, he'll
+duck down into some hollow, and that'll be the last of him for the
+night. I guess we can creep up without his catching us at it."
+
+"Of course we can!" replied George. "He's making so much noise himself
+that he can't hear us! He wouldn't make much of a Boy Scout when it came
+to stalking, would he?"
+
+The boys succeeded in getting pretty close to the miner; so close in
+fact, that occasionally they heard him muttering to himself as he
+stumbled over rocks and occasionally became entangled in such underbrush
+as grew along the top of the moraine.
+
+"We can't be very far away from the place where the bear tried to beat
+me up," Sandy whispered, as they drew up for a moment. "I wouldn't mind
+having a bite out of that same bear just about now!"
+
+After a time they came to the head waters of the creek in which Will and
+Sandy had fished, and saw Cameron standing on the other side.
+
+"He's going into the mountains!" whispered Sandy.
+
+"That's exactly where he's keeping Bert," George agreed.
+
+In a short time Cameron paused in his walk and uttered a low whistle.
+
+"What do you think of that?" asked Sandy. "He's going to meet some one
+here. And that means," the boy went on, "that he's had a pal watching
+Bert while he's been away."
+
+"And it also means," George added, "that we can't be very far from the
+spot where Bert is concealed. I hope so, anyway, for I'm about tired
+enough to crawl into my little nest in the cabin."
+
+"I should think you'd talk about sleep!" scoffed Sandy. "You slept all
+the afternoon!"
+
+"If you mention that long sleep of mine again," George said
+half-angrily, "I'll tip you over into the creek. I'm sore over that
+myself!"
+
+While the boys stood waiting end listening an answering whistle came
+from the side of a mountain not far from the rivulet.
+
+"There's his chum!" whispered Sandy. "If we get up nearer, we may be
+able to hear what they say."
+
+The boys crept along under the dim light of the infrequent stars, and
+finally crouched down behind an angle of rock which was not more than
+twenty feet removed from where Cameron stood.
+
+They had hardly taken their position when a second figure made its
+appearance. The two stood talking together in whispers for a short time
+and then started to walk away.
+
+"There's something doing, all right!" exclaimed Sandy.
+
+"Yes, indeed, there is!" agreed George. "They wouldn't come out into
+such a hole as this after midnight to tell each other what good fellows
+they are, or anything like that."
+
+"I'm getting suspicious!" Sandy chuckled.
+
+"Why suspicious?"
+
+"Because those fellows whispered!"
+
+"I see the point," replied George. "From our standpoint those fellows
+were all alone here in one of the wild places of Alaska, yet they drew
+close together and whispered when they communicated with each other!"
+
+"They wouldn't do that," urged Tommy, "unless they were afraid of being
+overheard. It shows that they believe some one to be watching them."
+
+The two men were now moving quite swiftly up the slope of the mountain.
+At times they were entirely hidden by the luxuriant growths, and at
+times they came out on little bald spots where rock outcropped to the
+exclusion of vegetation. The boys followed on into the thickets, pausing
+now and then to listen for the sounds of the advance of the others.
+
+Presently they came to a shelf of rock which overlooked the valley of
+the rivulet. They paused for a moment to listen for the sounds of those
+in advance when a strong electric searchlight was thrown on their faces
+and they saw the grim, round barrel of an automatic pointing at their
+breasts.
+
+"You may as well hand over your automatics, boys!" Cameron said.
+
+"And be quick about it, too."
+
+This last sentence came from a thin, cadaverous looking fellow whose
+face was only half revealed through the meshes of the head net.
+
+There was nothing for the boys to do but to pass over their revolvers.
+Their searchlights were also taken from them, and then their hands were
+tied tightly behind their backs.
+
+"Did you have a pleasant tramp through the woods?" asked Cameron.
+
+"Say," growled Sandy, "if you'll just turn my hands loose, I'll give you
+a poke in the jaw!"
+
+"That wouldn't be polite!" sneered Cameron.
+
+"Don't take any lip from the young imps," snarled the other. "They've
+given us enough trouble already!"
+
+"You're a foxy old gink!" exclaimed Sandy. "I wish I had you on South
+Clark street, Chicago, for a few minutes!"
+
+"So that's why you came to the cabin is it?" asked George.
+
+"Certainly," replied Cameron. "I had an idea that you'd follow me away!
+You see I figured it out exactly right!"
+
+"Why did you want to make trouble for us?" asked Sandy.
+
+"Because you're too smart!" answered Cameron.
+
+"What do you mean by that?"
+
+"When you sat sizing me up in the cabin while I was eating supper,"
+Cameron went on, "you informed me as plainly as words could have done
+that you knew me to be the man who had abducted your friend."
+
+"You didn't show that you knew," George suggested.
+
+"I tried not to show that I knew," answered the other.
+
+"What'd you steal Bert for?" asked Sandy.
+
+"I needed him in my business," answered Cameron.
+
+"Come, don't stand here all night talking with the little gutter-snipes!"
+exclaimed Cameron's companion. "We've got work to do!"
+
+"March along, then, boys!" Cameron ordered.
+
+The lads were now pushed forward into a cavern which opened on the shelf
+of rock where they had been taken prisoners. The opening in the mountain
+side seemed to be of considerable size, for the boys passed from an
+outer chamber of fair dimensions to two smaller ones further in.
+
+In the last of these chambers, on a huddle of blankets, lay the boy for
+whom they had been searching.
+
+"Is he dead?" asked Sandy.
+
+"No such luck," snarled Cameron.
+
+"If you'll untie my hands, I'll look after him," George said.
+
+The bonds were cut and George bent over the still figure.
+
+"Has he regained consciousness at all?" he asked.
+
+Cameron turned to his companion.
+
+"Tell them, Fenton," he said, "whether the lad woke up during my
+absence. You were here all the time?" he added.
+
+"Yes, I was here all the time!" answered Fenton. "And the lad never
+opened his eyes once. That was a deuce of a blow you gave him, Cameron!"
+
+"And what did you gain by it?" demanded Sandy.
+
+"We'll show you directly what we gained by it!" Cameron answered.
+
+Seeing a bucket of water at one side of the cavern, George carried it
+over to the heap of blankets where the boy lay and began bathing his
+forehead and wrists. The boy groaned feebly but did not speak.
+
+"What did you hit him with?" asked George angrily.
+
+"The handle of my gun!" was the sullen reply.
+
+"Why?" asked Sandy.
+
+"Because I wanted to get a paper he had."
+
+"Well, you got it, didn't you?" asked the boy.
+
+"Yes, I got it!"
+
+"And much good it did you, too!" said George angrily.
+
+"Look here!" Cameron almost shouted, "can either one of you boys read
+that code despatch?"
+
+George shook his head.
+
+"Is there any one at the cabin who can read it?"
+
+"I have never known of any member of the party reading the cipher,"
+replied George. "I never have seen a code despatch before."
+
+"You are lying to me!" shouted Cameron. "The boy to whom the despatch
+was addressed can certainly read it! Which one of you bears the name of
+Will Smith? Don't lie to me now!"
+
+"Will Smith is at the cabin!" replied Sandy.
+
+"Just my luck!" shouted Cameron.
+
+"What do you want to know about the code despatch?" asked Sandy.
+
+"I want to know what it contains. And what is more, I'm going to know,
+too! I want one of you boys to write a note to this Will Smith and get
+him to come here to this cave."
+
+"Not for mine!" exclaimed Sandy.
+
+George made no verbal reply, but the expression of his face showed that
+he had no intention of doing anything of the kind.
+
+"It will be the worse for you if you don't!" shouted Cameron.
+
+"Oh, you've got the top hand for a few minutes now," Sandy said,
+tauntingly, "but you'll soon find out that you're not the only man in
+the world that's got a gun!"
+
+This last as Cameron flourished an automatic in his hand.
+
+"You'll write the note, or you'll starve to death!" replied Fenton.
+
+"Then we'll starve!" answered George.
+
+"No, we won't starve!" declared Sandy. "We'll get the best of you
+outlaws in some shape, and give you a beating up that will put you in
+the hospital for six months!"
+
+Fenton raised his fist as if to strike the speaker, but Cameron caught
+his arm.
+
+"Not now," he said. "Wait until all other plans have been tried."
+
+"We have other work to do at this time, anyway," Fenton said, with a
+scowl, "so we'll just lock the door on these young gutter-snipes and
+leave them to think the matter over!"
+
+The men passed out of the small cavern, but before they left the outer
+one, they rolled a great stone into the opening they had just passed
+through and blocked it firmly on the outer side.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE MORSE CODE
+
+
+"And this," said Sandy, as the great stone began to render the
+atmosphere of the place close and unpleasant, "is what I call a fine
+little Boy Scout excursion! Did they leave one of the searchlights?"
+
+"Not intentionally," replied George, "but I swiped one!"
+
+"Well, we mustn't show a light until they get some distance away!"
+advised Sandy. "We don't want them to know that we have it."
+
+"And we'll need it badly," George suggested, "if we're to give Bert any
+attention! I wonder if the poor boy has had any care since he's been
+here! It doesn't seem to me that they would be heartless enough to leave
+him here in an unconscious condition very long!"
+
+"You can never tell what such fellows'll do," Sandy observed.
+
+The boys remained silent for a long time, each one busy with his own
+thoughts. After what seemed an aeon, they saw that it was daylight
+outside. Then they turned on their electric and made an examination of
+their wounded chum.
+
+They found that the bandage on his head had been changed, and that his
+pulse was not so high as when he had been discovered in an unconscious
+condition at the cabin.
+
+"I guess they've done the best they could," Sandy observed, "and I'm
+much obliged to them for that! Have you got anything to eat?"
+
+"Now, look here, Sandy," George replied whimsically, "have you any idea
+that I'd ever go away with you without taking something to eat? You got
+up from the table one minute and demand something to masticate the next!
+You're about the most regular boy at your meals I over knew. What'll you
+have now, pie or cake?"
+
+"Pie!" laughed Sandy.
+
+"Well, you get a bear sandwich!" replied George. "I've got four great
+big thick ones wrapped up in paper and stowed away in my pockets. If
+those ginks had suspected anything of the kind, they would have taken
+them away from me. They're a bum lot, those men!"
+
+"Produce one of the sandwiches!" demanded Sandy. "They named me Sandy at
+first because I'm such a hand for sandwiches!"
+
+George brought forth two great slices of bread and about a pound of
+fried bear meat. Sandy's eyes sparkled at the sight.
+
+"We'll have one apiece now," George suggested, "and one apiece tonight.
+But every time they come near the cave, we'll tell them how hungry we
+are. That will make them think we're suffering."
+
+"You don't think we're going to stay here till night, do you?" demanded
+Sandy munching away at his meat.
+
+"I hope not," answered George.
+
+"I wonder if Bert's had anything to eat since he got the wallop on the
+coco?" asked Sandy. "Suppose we mince some of this meat up very fine and
+feed it to him. He may not know when he swallows it, but it will give
+him strength just the same."
+
+The suggested plan was followed, and Bert was given quite a quantity of
+the tender meat. At first it was necessary to pass it down his throat
+with draughts of water, but later, much to the surprise and joy of the
+boys, he began, to swallow naturally.
+
+"He's coming back to life!" shouted Sandy. "A boy's all right as soon as
+he begins to eat! Sprinkle some water in his face and we'll see what
+effect that has."
+
+The boys were so pleased that they almost cheered with delight when at
+length Bert opened his eyes and looked about.
+
+"Time to get up?" he asked.
+
+"Naw," replied Sandy. "Go to sleep again!"
+
+"That you, Sandy?" asked Bert.
+
+"That's Sandy all right!" replied the boy.
+
+"Why don't you open a door or window and let in some air?" asked Bert.
+
+"Aw, go to sleep!" advised Sandy.
+
+"Nice old dive you've got here!" Bert went on. "Here I've walked about
+nineteen thousand miles to find a boy named Sandy and a boy named Will,
+and a boy named Tommy, and a boy named George, and when I find them they
+shut me up in a rotten old morgue."
+
+"How'd you come to ask for Sandy?" demanded the boy.
+
+"The name struck me as being funny!" was the reply. "Where are the
+others? Are you here alone?"
+
+"George is over there on the floor," replied Sandy. "Ring off, now, and
+go to sleep! You're in no shape to talk."
+
+"I remember something about getting a dip on the head," Bert said in a
+moment, evidently after long cogitation. "What was there about it?"
+
+"You got it!" replied Sandy. "Go to sleep!"
+
+"If you'll give me some more of that meat, I'll go to sleep!"
+
+George pushed forward about half of one of the sandwiches and the boy
+began eating it greedily. In a moment, however, his arm dropped to his
+side and he appeared to be unconscious again.
+
+"He's too weak to go at the grub like that," George advised, turning on
+the light. "We'll have to be careful!"
+
+But Bert was not unconscious again. He was only sleeping.
+
+"I'd like to know what brought him out of that trance," remarked George
+as the boys sat regarding the youngster with inquiring eyes.
+
+"I don't know any more about it than you do," answered Sandy, "but, if
+you'll leave it to me, setting the stomach to work put the blood in
+circulation, and that swept the cobwebs out of his brain."
+
+"Sounds all right, but I don't believe it!" replied George.
+
+The day passed slowly. Bert slept continuously until George's watch told
+him that it was nearly four o'clock in the afternoon. Then he opened his
+eyes for a few moments, finished the rest of the sandwich and went to
+sleep again.
+
+"Weak as a cat!" exclaimed Sandy.
+
+The boy had scarcely closed his eyes when Cameron's voice was heard at
+the entrance.
+
+"Are you boys ready to write that note?" he asked.
+
+"Come in here a minute," requested Sandy. "I want to get a good poke at
+that ugly mug of yours!"
+
+"You won't feel quite so lively after going hungry for a day or two,"
+sneered Cameron. "You needn't mind about the letter, anyway," he added.
+"I have information that there's a boy coming in from Cordova who can
+read the code despatch and we're laying for him now."
+
+"I don't want to seem to be irreligious," Sandy replied, "but I beg
+leave to state that if I owed the devil a debt of a thousand of the
+greatest liars on earth and he wouldn't take you and call the debt
+square, I'd cheat him out of it! Your fabrications are too cheap!"
+
+"Don't get fresh now," advised Cameron. "If you do, I'll come in there
+and take it out of your hide!"
+
+"Come on in!" urged Sandy. "I'd just like to get a good crack at your
+crust! I think I could fix you up in about five minutes so you'd want to
+lie in bed for about five months!"
+
+"Aw, what's the good of stirring him up!" whispered George.
+
+"I want to get him so mad that he'll say something that he wouldn't say
+if he wasn't angry!" replied Sandy. "What's your idea about this boy
+coming in, anyway? Do you believe it?"
+
+"No!" was the reply. "There isn't any one to come in. And even if there
+was, there is no way in which he could be notified that he was coming!
+So you see, he's just lying for the fun of it!"
+
+"Well, I'm sorry, boys," Cameron observed, "that you won't take
+advantage of the offer I'm making you. I brought a basket of provisions
+with me, and you might be having a square meal in five minutes if you'd
+only do what I ask you to do."
+
+"I thought you didn't want the letter now!" scoffed Sandy.
+
+"Oh, I'll get it all right whether you write it or not!" answered
+Cameron. "But if you have anything to say to me, you'd better say it
+now, because you won't see me again until tomorrow morning. I've just
+come from the cabin, and the boys there are about wild over your
+disappearance. I explained that I found your hats not far from a piece
+of torn and bloody turf, and that seemed to make them feel worse than
+ever."
+
+"Oh, they're on to you all right!" replied Sandy. "You can't make
+anything stick with them. They know that you're the outlaw who stole
+Bert, and they know that you haven't any more right to the cabin than
+they have. You'll go sticking your nose around that domicile some time
+and get it knocked off! It's a two to one bet right now that they know
+that you've caught George and I in some kind of a trap."
+
+"Let him alone," advised George. "What's the use of starting anything?
+He can make us trouble if he wants to!"
+
+"Run along now," continued Sandy. "We were having a quiet little snooze
+when you butted in. It's all right this time, but don't you ever do it
+again. Here's hoping you remain away until morning!"
+
+Cameron was heard to pass through the outer caverns and all was still,
+about the place. Notwithstanding the assumed lightheartedness of the
+boys, they realized that they were in a serious situation.
+
+"I'm going to dig this stone out!" declared Sandy shortly after the
+departure of the miner. "I believe we can move this beautiful door if we
+go at it right. Come on and help me push."
+
+The boys pushed with all their might, but the stone was firmly blocked
+on the outside, and could not be moved.
+
+"It's after five o'clock," George said looking at his watch, "and if we
+do anything tonight, we'll have to do it right away. What time did Tommy
+say he would be back with the doctor?"
+
+"There was some talk about his being back early in the evening," replied
+Sandy. "And that gives me an idea!" the boy continued.
+
+"Pass it out!" said George.
+
+"First," Sandy said, hesitatingly, "let me ask a question. Do you know
+how the boys are going to get in from the coast? What I mean is, have
+you any idea which way they will take on leaving Katalla?"
+
+"That's all a guess," replied George.
+
+"They may come this way, though," suggested Sandy.
+
+"Yes, if they keep straight to the north until they strike the valley of
+this little creek and then turn east to the cabin, they'll be apt to
+pass this way."
+
+"Here's hoping they do," Sandy said fervently.
+
+"I don't see how that will help," George complained. "We're shut up in a
+hole, and might yell for a thousand years without being heard."
+
+"Just you wait a minute," Sandy advised. "Let me see that searchlight of
+yours. Have you the red and blue caps with you?"
+
+"They're right at the end," replied George. "Just unscrew that cover and
+take them out. I thought you knew where to find everything connected
+with an electric searchlight!"
+
+Sandy unscrewed the false cover at the end of the battery case and
+brought forth two celluloid caps; one blue, and one red.
+
+"It's been so long since we've used these Boy Scout signals," he add,
+"that I've almost forgotten which color we use for the dash and which
+for the dot when we signal in the Morse code."
+
+"The red is the dash," explained. George. "What are you going to do?"
+
+"I'm going to hoist a signal of distress," laughed Sandy.
+
+"Expect it to show through the rocks?"
+
+"I guess it'll show out of any opening we can look out of!" exclaimed
+Sandy. "I'm going to put on the red cap and set the light where it'll
+shine through the two outer caverns. If any of the boys come within
+sight of it, they'll understand the scrape we're in."
+
+"Great head!" exclaimed George. "The boys will be coming back from
+Katalla before long, and Will and Ed will naturally be searching for us,
+so we're pretty sure to have the signal seen and answered before
+morning!"
+
+"That's our only hope!" replied Sandy. "Unless our Boy Scout signal
+brings one party or the other, we're likely to starve to death in this
+rotten old cavern. Let's see how it works," the boy went on, screwing
+the red celluloid cap firmly over the eye of the electric.
+
+After seeing that everything was in order, he switched to the blue cap.
+In both cases the light worked perfectly.
+
+"There you are!" he said with a chuckle. "If one of the boys sees the
+red light, he'll read it for a Morse dash and if he sees the blue light,
+he'll read it for a Morse dot!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE ROCKS TUMBLE DOWN
+
+
+After the departure of George and Sandy from the cabin, Will and Ed
+decided that the best thing they could do would be to go to bed. They
+had been without sleep for many hours, and were thoroughly exhausted.
+
+"I am anxious to know what success George and Sandy have in chasing
+Cameron," Will said, as he disrobed in the dark and tumbled into his
+bunk, "but I don't see how we can help matters any by sitting up."
+
+No answer came from the bunk occupied by Ed save a prolonged snore, and
+Will knew that his companion was already in the land of dreams.
+
+When Will awoke it was broad daylight and the sun was high in the
+heavens. Looking at his watch, he was surprised to see that it was after
+twelve o'clock. In a moment, he heard Ed stirring in his bunk, and then
+the boy sat up, rubbing a pair of sleepy eyes.
+
+"That was a corker!" Will exclaimed.
+
+"Have any of the boys returned?" asked Ed.
+
+"Oh, they're back before this, of course," Will answered. "They've
+probably gone outside in order to give us a chance to sleep!"
+
+"I don't see any indications of their presence," Ed said. "Everything
+looks exactly as it did when we went to bed last night."
+
+Will, after arranging his head net, and drawing on a pair of gloves,
+opened the door and cast an anxious glance over the landscape.
+
+"They haven't been out here!" he said. "What do you think it means?"
+
+"It means that they're giving that fat miner along chase!" answered Ed.
+
+"I'm afraid they're in some trouble," replied Will apprehensively.
+
+"Suppose I look for them while you get breakfast," suggested Ed.
+
+"Good idea," replied Will "I'll get pancakes and coffee and eggs for
+breakfast and then, after we eat, we'll both go out and look for the
+boys. I'm afraid they've been led into a trap!"
+
+"How about leaving the cabin alone?" asked Ed.
+
+"The cabin can go hang!" answered Will.
+
+Ed returned in half an hour and reported that no trace of the lost lads
+had been discovered. The boys then ate breakfast and started away.
+
+"Which way did they go?" asked Ed.
+
+"Sandy said they were headed to the west."
+
+"Then to the west we go," Ed exclaimed, darting forward in advance.
+
+The boys searched patiently until five o'clock without discovering any
+trace of the missing lads. Then, they returned to the cabin and prepared
+supper. As they came within sight of the cabin they saw a stout figure
+dodging away into the grove of trees to the east.
+
+"That's that sneak of a Cameron," Will said. "If he keeps shoving his
+ugly nose into our business, I'll ornament it with lead!"
+
+After supper the boys loaded their pockets with sandwiches and a bottle
+of cold coffee and set forth again.
+
+"I don't think we went far enough to the west," Will said, as they made
+their way over the moraine. "You remember the line of hills across the
+little creek? Well, I have an idea that if the boys have been captured
+they have been taken there."
+
+"And if Bert has been hidden away anywhere in this vicinity," Ed
+answered, "he is there, too! In fact," the boy added, "it is my belief
+that if the miner is responsible for the disappearance of George and
+Sandy the three boys will be found together somewhere!"
+
+"You are probably right!" Will agreed. "The miner and his gang wouldn't
+care about watching two separate points."
+
+"I don't think they'd be apt to murder the boys, do you?" asked Ed.
+
+"No, I don't think they would," Will replied. "Outlaws of the Cameron
+stamp resort to all sorts of tricks and crimes, but they usually fight
+shy of murder. I'm afraid, however, that the boys will be starved or
+beaten up."
+
+It was seven o'clock when the boys finally came to the south bank of the
+rivulet, in the vicinity of the place where Sandy had encountered the
+bear. The sun was now well in the west and the south side of the line of
+cliffs lay in heavy shadows.
+
+"If there's any deviltry going on," Will said, pointing to the summits
+above, "it's right over there under those peaks!"
+
+"I guess there's plenty of room under the peaks for mischief to be
+plotted," Ed suggested, "I can see pigeon holes all along the cliff."
+
+"Caves, do you mean?" asked Will.
+
+"Sure," was the reply. "Those cliffs are of volcanic formation, and some
+of the strata are softer than others, and the water has cut into the
+heart of the range in many places."
+
+"One would naturally suppose that such openings would be filled with ice
+in Alaska," Will suggested.
+
+"They may be filled with ice in the winter," answered Ed, "but in the
+summer time they are hiding places for bears and crooked miners."
+
+The boys advanced to the edge of the stream and Will swept his field
+glass along the distant slope.
+
+Presently he handed the glass to Ed.
+
+"Tell me what you see," he said.
+
+"I see something that looks like the eye of a wild animal looking out
+over the valley!" answered the boy. "What can it be?"
+
+"My first idea was that some one had built a fire in a cave," Will
+answered, "but the more I look at it, the more I suspect that the light
+comes from an electric."
+
+"Then that must be the boys!" exclaimed Ed excitedly.
+
+"But why don't they come on out?" asked Will, anxiously.
+
+"Perhaps they have found Bert and don't want to leave him!" suggested
+Ed.
+
+While the boys watched the red light, which seemed to glimmer from the
+very extremity of the cavern, it turned to blue!
+
+"Now I've got it," cried Will almost dancing up and down in his
+excitement, "you know what that means, don't you?"
+
+"I can't say that I do!" replied Ed.
+
+"It seems to me that the Portland Boy Scouts are not very well posted,"
+laughed Will. "One of the boys--which one, I don't know, of course--is
+talking to us in the Morse code!"
+
+"Still I don't understand," said Ed.
+
+"The red light means a dash," Will explained, "and the blue light means
+the dot. Now we'll see if we can catch what the boy is saying."
+
+"But where does he get the red and blue lights?" asked Ed.
+
+"From red and blue caps screwed over the electric searchlight," was the
+reply. "All of our electrics are provided with these signal caps."
+
+"There, the light is red again!" cried Ed.
+
+"I'll show how it works," Will said, bringing out his own flashlight and
+unscrewing the false cover from the loading end.
+
+Directly he had the blue and red caps out, and then the red one was
+fastened over the eye of the searchlight.
+
+"There, you see!" Will exclaimed turning on the light. "We've got a
+beautiful red light and that means a Morse dash."
+
+"I see," answered Ed. "And when you turn on the blue, that means a dot.
+I learned the Morse code, of course, when I was admitted to the Boy
+Scouts, but I never knew that it was used in that way."
+
+"I wonder if he sees this?" asked Will as he swung the red light back
+and forth in the growing twilight.
+
+"We'll have to wait and see," replied Ed. "Of course, he'll answer if he
+knows we're here!"
+
+Swiftly the light changed from red to blue and from blue back to red
+again. This took place several times and then Will said:
+
+"Now, count!"
+
+"Red," said Ed. "Red again. Red again."
+
+"That's 'O'," exclaimed Will. "I guess we've got him at last!"
+
+"Now there's another red," Ed went on. "Now there's a blue. Then one
+more red. Oh, this seems to be easy!"
+
+"That's 'K'!" cried Will. "O. K., don't you see? O. K. That means that
+he knows we're here!"
+
+"Glory be!" shouted Ed. "The boys are all right or they wouldn't be
+signalling. I hope they've found Bert!"
+
+Will signalled back "O. K.," and then the lads turned back up the
+rivulet, the idea being to cross over to the north side.
+
+"I want to find out why the boys don't show themselves instead of
+signalling," Will explained. "There must be some good reason."
+
+After a walk of half a mile upstream the boys found it possible to cross
+without wading, and then they turned down toward the mouth of the cavern
+where the lights had been seen.
+
+As they did so, two figures detached themselves from a group of trees
+which stood not far to the east and followed stealthily along behind
+them.
+
+If the lads could have heard the conversation carried on at that time
+between Cameron and Fenton, they would have proceeded on their way with
+less confidence.
+
+"Just what we've been looking for!" chuckled Cameron.
+
+"We surely have them trapped now!" replied Fenton.
+
+"They'll naturally step into the outer cavern to see why their chums
+don't walk out, and when they do so, we'll hold them up with our guns
+until we can build up a barrier which will keep them in."
+
+"One of the boys certainly must understand the code we are so anxious
+about," Fenton observed. "That's the kid we want. We've certainly got to
+find out what that message contains! If the people in the east are
+trying to steal our plans, we certainly ought to know it!"
+
+The boys, however, heard nothing of this talk and passed on down the
+north side of the creek. As soon as they came opposite the cavern, in
+sight of the light once more, they stopped and began signalling.
+
+As they did so, Cameron and Fenton came nearer and waited anxiously for
+the lads to enter the cavern.
+
+"I'd like to know what all that signalling means!" said Cameron.
+
+"Boy Scout signals," replied Fenton.
+
+"You can't read them, can you?" asked the miner.
+
+"Of course not," replied Fenton, "I'm no Boy Scout!"
+
+The boys continued to signal back and forth until the situation was
+fairly well understood. Will and Ed knew that Bert had been found and
+that all three were barricaded in the cave.
+
+They were disposed to make their way to the rescue of the boys without
+further delay, but George advised them to wait until it became darker,
+as Cameron might return at almost any moment. The news that Bert had
+regained consciousness was very welcome and, confident of their ability
+to thwart the plans of the miner, the boys looked forward to quiet hours
+in the cabin.
+
+Of course the boys had no suspicion that their enemies were close at
+hand watching every movement. Cameron and Fenton became impatient, after
+a time, and began advancing slowly toward the boys, who were now not
+very far from the mouth of the outer cavern.
+
+Something better than an hour passed, and then George signalled from the
+interior of the cavern that it might be well for the boys to come up and
+begin the work of removing the rocks which barred their egress.
+
+"Sneak In," George signalled. "Don't show yourself more than you have
+to. Cameron may be about! It may be that he has seen our signals
+already!"
+
+Sandy replied that he had not discovered any indications of the presence
+of the miner, and the two boys advanced to the shelf of rock which faced
+the opening. It was nine o'clock then.
+
+"What's that strange noise?" asked Will as they moved along the shelf.
+
+"You've got me!" replied Ed, "The ground's tipping!"
+
+There came a deafening crash and the whole face of the cliff fell away!
+When Will and Ed regained their feet and looked through the dust which
+was rising over the scene, they saw that there was no longer any cavern
+in view. The rock on which they stood was sliding down the slope.
+
+"Buried alive!" cried Will with a sob, "Buried alive!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+VICTIMS OF THE QUAKE
+
+
+The broad rock upon which the boys stood slid down the declivity for
+some distance and brought up against a thicket of trees which stood not
+far from the bank of the creek. The boys were fairly thrown from their
+feet as the rock struck, but fortunately they were not injured in the
+least. It was quite dark now, and the dust rising from the disturbed
+earth made the scene still more dim.
+
+The first thing the boys heard when they scrambled to their feet was a
+faint moan and then a call for help.
+
+"Sandy! George!" called Will.
+
+There was no answer from above, but a faltering voice was heard just at
+the edge of the thicket, where the rock had crushed into a hemlock of
+unusual size.
+
+"Help," the voice said. "Help!"
+
+Will threw his searchlight in the direction of the sound and soon saw a
+writhing figure in the underbrush which had been crushed down by the
+fall of the rock.
+
+"Who are you?" asked Will.
+
+"Fenton," was the answer.
+
+"Where'd you come from?" asked the boy in amazement.
+
+"For God's sake," exclaimed the writhing man, "don't stop to ask
+questions now. My leg is smashed under the rock upon which you are
+standing! It is enough to say that I came here with Cameron!"
+
+"Where is Cameron?" asked Will. Fenton pointed further down the slope.
+
+"He fell over in that direction when a rock struck him," he said.
+
+Will and George made a thorough examination of the slope where the
+cavern had been before wasting any time on their injured enemies.
+
+They called loudly to George and Sandy but received no answer.
+
+"I'm afraid," Ed said, "that the boys were crushed under the falling
+rocks! If they were, we ought to leave the men responsible for their
+death where they are! They are not deserving of human help!"
+
+"And yet," Will replied, "I can't find it in my heart to leave them in
+such a plight. We ought at least to see if we can get them out of their
+present cramped quarters."
+
+After much exertion the boys managed to manufacture something like a
+handspike from one of the broken saplings, and with this they began
+prying at the heavy rock. It gave, but slowly.
+
+While they worked away, hoping every instant to be able to draw Fenton
+from under the stone and so lessen his sufferings, they saw the hand of
+the man they were so unselfishly assisting stealing toward his hip
+pocket.
+
+"Watch him!" whispered Will. "He means to shoot us as soon as he is
+released! That shows what kind of a dirty dog he is!"
+
+As the rock was lifted by slow degrees and propped so that its weight
+was not so heavy upon the unfortunate man the boys saw that his hand was
+creeping closer to his hip pocket.
+
+When at last the weight was removed, Fenton's first act was to attempt
+to draw his weapon. Ed kicked it from his hand and then proceeded to tie
+the fellow's wrists together behind his back.
+
+"You're a dirty sneak," the boy exclaimed, "or you wouldn't try to kill
+the people who have saved your life! From this time on, you get no
+assistance from us!"
+
+"I didn't mean anything!" whined Fenton.
+
+"Don't lie about it!" fritted Will. "Where's Cameron?"
+
+"You'll find him lower down!" was the reply.
+
+"I hope he's broken his neck!" Ed cut in.
+
+But Cameron had not broken his neck. Instead, he had broken an arm, and
+one foot had been badly bruised by a falling stone. He was unconscious
+when the boys lifted him and laid him in an easier position.
+
+The two men were at once searched for weapons and left for the time
+being to take care of themselves. There was no fear of their escaping,
+for one of Fenton's legs had sustained a compound fracture and Cameron's
+foot was badly injured.
+
+"What next?" asked Will as the two boys stood facing the spot where they
+believed George, Sandy and Bert to be buried under many tons of rock.
+"It seems as if we ought to do something for the boys!"
+
+"I'm afraid it's too late!" replied Ed, dejectedly.
+
+"We never can dig under those rocks without help," commented Will,
+"therefore, I think we'd better be on the watch for Tommy and Frank and
+the surgeon. They surely ought to be somewhere near the cottage by this
+time, if not already in it."
+
+"If they've had such blooming bad luck as we have," Ed observed,
+"they're probably in jail somewhere! I don't think I ever saw anything
+in a worse mess! The very Old Nick seems to be after us!"
+
+"This," Will observed with a grave smile, "is what we call a quiet
+little Boy Scout excursion! We have visited the Pictured Socks, the
+Everglades, the Great Continental Divide, the Hudson Bay country and got
+trapped in an anthracite mine in Pennsylvania since we started out on
+our quests for adventure."
+
+"You seem to have found adventure all right!" smiled Ed.
+
+"You bet we have!" replied Will.
+
+The boys made still another inspection of the spot where the cliff had
+fallen, and thought that they heard a faint call from the inside.
+
+"They are there!" cried Will. "I'm sure they're there, and alive!"
+
+"But they can't live there very long!" suggested Ed. "So we'd better be
+doing something to get them, out!"
+
+"The first thing to do," Will stated, "is to signal to the other
+fellows. I'm sure Tommy and Frank must be in with the surgeon before
+this!"
+
+"There'll be plenty of work for the surgeon, I imagine," Ed added.
+
+"I'm afraid so," Will admitted.
+
+"But how are you going to signal to the cabin?" asked Ed.
+
+"Indian smoke signals!" was the reply.
+
+Almost before the words were out of Will's mouth, Ed was gathering both
+dry and green branches from the thicket.
+
+"If the boys are at the cabin, or even on their way there," Will
+continued, "they'll be sure to see the signal, for the night is not so
+very dark now, and the land where we are is considerably higher than the
+moraine upon which the cabin is built. We'll have to get a blazing fire
+of dry wood and then pile on green branches."
+
+"That ought to make a smudge visible ten miles off!" said Ed.
+
+"Not quite so far as that!" smiled Will, "but it's a sure thing the
+signals ought to be seen as far as the cabin."
+
+"Perhaps this earthquake shook the cabin down," suggested Ed. "I heard a
+racket over to the south which seemed to indicate that the moraine was
+being crumpled up like a piece of leather in a blaze."
+
+"It seems to me," Will agreed, "that the earthquake did change the map
+of Alaska in some particulars. Now, if you've got enough dry wood, we'll
+start the fire and in five minutes we'll be ready for the green boughs!"
+
+Two roaring fires were soon going on the mountainside, and then both
+Cameron and Fenton pleaded to be assisted nearer to the circle of
+warmth. They were both shivering with the cold.
+
+"We ought to give you a swift toss into the blaze!" exclaimed Will. "And
+we may do it, too," he went on, "if we find that our chums have been
+brought to their death by your abducting them!"
+
+"We had nothing to do with their being in the cave!" lied Cameron.
+
+"What were you doing in the edge of the thicket?" asked Ed.
+
+"We were watching you and your friends," was the reply. "We thought that
+you were in quest of our mine!"
+
+"Did you see those red and blue lights?" asked Will.
+
+"Certainly we did," replied Cameron.
+
+"Well, they told the story of what has taken place since the boys left
+the cabin to follow your footsteps last night, so you may as well save
+your breath. Lies won't help you any!"
+
+However, the lads managed to bring the two men closer to the fire and
+then set about piling on more green boughs.
+
+"Now," Will said, as he stood regarding the two columns of smoke with no
+little satisfaction, "if our friends are within five miles of us, they
+ought to understand that we are in need of a little friendly
+assistance."
+
+Time and again the two boys went back to the place where the cavern had
+been and listened patiently for some further indication that their
+friends were still alive. Several times they heard the rumbling of a
+voice but they could not distinguish the words of it.
+
+Finally Will went back to where Cameron lay on the ground by the fire
+and asked abruptly:
+
+"Is your name Garman, Cameron or Brooks?"
+
+The fellow gave a quick start of surprise but made no answer.
+
+"Is this man Fenton the clerk who stole the machine drawings?" was the
+next question. "Where are the plans now?"
+
+"I don't know anything about any plans!" declared Cameron.
+
+"What do you fellows expect to do with the plans?" asked Will.
+
+"We haven't got them!" was the surly reply.
+
+"Don't lie about it!" Will advised. "We know that the plans were sent to
+Fenton's employer and that Fenton stole them."
+
+"How do the plans concern you?" demanded Cameron.
+
+"We don't want the plans because they are alleged to represent a
+valuable invention," Will replied. "We want them because they are needed
+in the criminal court of Chicago."
+
+"I suppose you boys planned this costly and dangerous expedition for the
+purpose of seeing how the plans look!" sneered Fenton.
+
+"That's about the size of it!" replied Will.
+
+"Well, we don't know anything about the plans!" declared Cameron, "and
+we wouldn't give you any information on the subject if we did!"
+
+"All right," Will replied. "We can tie you up out here and the mosquitos
+will do the rest!"
+
+Before Will could ask the question which was on his lips, three quick
+pistol shots came from the south.
+
+"There!" the boy said excitedly, "the signals have brought a response!"
+
+"Friend or foe?" asked Ed.
+
+"That's more than I know!" Will replied.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+DOWN IN THE CHASM
+
+
+When Tommy, Frank, Sam and the doctor started toward the bottom of the
+chasm in order that they might reach the spot from which the smoke
+signal was ascending on the other side, they anticipated rough going,
+but the actuality was much worse than anything which had been expected.
+
+The soil extended only six or eight feet. Passing this they came to a
+point where the solid glacier had been opened by the earthquake.
+
+The break was uneven, there being little shelves and ledges upon which
+the feet might rest, but the going was uncertain for all that.
+
+The roaring of the fast-lifting torrent prevented conversation, and the
+darkness made signalling impossible except when the searchlights were
+held in position.
+
+It was very cold at the bottom of the break, too, and the boys felt
+their hands growing numb.
+
+However, they proceeded with good speed until they came to a point where
+the current had swept the tree trunks far apart and parallel with each
+other. Here it became necessary for them to take the chance of a long
+jump. When it came Sam's turn to make the leap, the log upon which he
+struck rolled under his weight and he went down under the wreckage and
+rush of water.
+
+Frank and Tommy sprang to his assistance at once, reaching down in the
+hope of getting hold of his hand, but the swift current carried the boy
+along until he was beyond their reach.
+
+They saw his head come to the surface and saw him strike out for the
+floating logs on the north side of the chasm.
+
+Then the bushy top of a tree drifted down upon him and he went under.
+
+The boys stood for a moment as if paralyzed at what had taken place, and
+then Tommy sprang into the mass of floating boughs and, clinging to one
+which sustained his weight, called out to Frank to turn his searchlight
+on the place where he stood.
+
+Frank did as requested, but it showed only a half-frozen and dripping
+boy clinging to the boughs of a tree which was already beginning to drop
+down beneath his weight.
+
+The lads had about abandoned all hope of rescue when Sam's head once
+more appeared above the surface. He was within a short distance of Tommy
+and the boy, dropping his searchlight, sprang toward him.
+
+He succeeded in getting hold of the boy's arm.
+
+Then Frank, appreciating the situation, dropped in and, while retaining
+hold of a reasonably firm log on the west side of the chasm, caught the
+rescuer by the hand. Doctor Pelton, who had been creeping nearer to the
+point of danger, now seized Frank by the arm and slowly and with great
+effort the human chain drew the half-drowned boy to the little platform
+of logs and brush upon which the doctor stood.
+
+Sam lay there for a moment panting and shivering, and then sprang to his
+feet. The north wall was still to climb.
+
+The slope here was more gradual and all four soon found themselves at
+the top of the chasm, wet and cold, but on the side where the Boy Scout
+signal had shown.
+
+"We ought to tell the boys we are coming, hadn't we?" asked Tommy.
+
+He drew his automatic from his pocket as he spoke and pressed the
+trigger, but there was no explosion.
+
+"Try mine!" advised Doctor Pelton. "I guess I'm the only person who
+didn't get wet."
+
+As he spoke the doctor fired three quick shots.
+
+"I wonder if they'll answer?" asked Tommy.
+
+"They will if they can," replied Sam. "I don't know your chums, of
+course, but when a Boy Scout sends up a signal for help and shots are
+fired, it is only good manners to acknowledge the courtesy."
+
+No answering shots came for a moment, however, for Will and Ed were at
+that moment some distance away from the place where their automatics had
+been thrown after having been taken from Cameron and Fenton.
+
+The shots came before long, however, and the party of wet and shivering
+boys pressed on.
+
+"I'd like to know what the boys are doing so far away from the cabin,"
+Tommy grumbled. "They ought to have sense enough to stay put!"
+
+The party was met just beyond the illumination of the fire by Will and
+Ed, who greeted their chums with such cordiality that a rather perilous
+situation was at once suspected.
+
+"What are you boys doing out here in the scenery, anyhow?" demanded
+Tommy. "You ought to be at home in the cabin with a hot supper ready for
+us! You always go wrong when I go away!" he added with a grin.
+
+"There's no time to tell long stories now," Will hastened to say. "The
+thing we've got to do is to pry open that mountain and dig George, Sandy
+and Bert out."
+
+"Are they dead?" asked Tommy, turning very white.
+
+"There's some one alive in there," replied Will. "We hear something
+which sounds like the human voice but we can't distinguish any words."
+
+"Earthquake?" asked Tommy.
+
+"Earthquake!" replied Will.
+
+"But how----"
+
+Will cut Frank off with a gesture and pointed to the cliff.
+
+"We've got to get to work!" he said.
+
+Just then a low groan reached the ears of the members of the group and
+Doctor Pelton sprang toward the place where Cameron and Fenton lay.
+
+Tommy dashed after him and looked down on the two men.
+
+"Where did you get 'em?" he asked.
+
+"We didn't get 'em," was the reply. "The earthquake got 'em."
+
+"Then I'll bet they were trying to do something to Bert!" Tommy
+declared.
+
+"Right, little man!" replied Will. "But we haven't got time to talk
+about it now. This, I suppose," he added, turning to the surgeon, "is
+the doctor you brought from Cordova?"
+
+"That's Doctor Pelton," Tommy answered, "and this," he continued,
+pointing to Sam, "is Sam White, Bulldog Patrol, Portland, Oregon. He
+isn't as hungry as he looks to be, for we fed him up good and proper on
+the way out!"
+
+During this brief introduction, Sam and Ed had been eyeing each other
+with half concealed grins.
+
+"You boys seem to know each other," Tommy said.
+
+"That's my chum," Sam replied, pointing to Ed. "I saw fit to seek my
+fortunes in town while he made a break for the mines."
+
+The boys greeted each other warmly and then all turned their attention
+to that portion of the cliff where the caverns had once stood.
+
+"They're still alive," Frank exclaimed as he reached a little fissure in
+the rock and bent downward. "I can hear some one talking!"
+
+"Did you say that George and Sandy and Bert were all in there?" asked
+Tommy, turning to Will. "How did they get in there?"
+
+"They were all in there just before the earthquake," replied Will. "I
+can't stop now to tell you how it all happened. They were signalling to
+us when the shock came."
+
+"Signalling, how?" asked Tommy.
+
+"Morse code, red and blue lights!" replied Will. "It's all the work of
+the miner and his bum friend," Will continued. "The boys were barricaded
+in the cave when the earthquake stirred things up, and the same
+convulsion which wrecked the cave injured the two men who were
+responsible for the condition the boys were in. Now you know all about
+it that I'm going to tell you until we get the lads out and get back to
+the cabin!"
+
+"They're not dead, anyway," Frank exclaimed "I can hear Sandy's voice!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+EXPLAINING CORDOVA INCIDENTS
+
+
+"I've found the door to the hole in the ground!" shouted Tommy, a few
+moments later, as he sent a great rock rolling down the slope.
+
+The boys rushed to the opening so made and were overjoyed at seeing a
+light in the cavity thus exposed.
+
+"Your door isn't big enough!" laughed Frank. "A good-sized cat couldn't
+get through there!"
+
+"What are you boys talking about?" came a voice from the inside.
+
+"Another one of those foolish questions!" laughed Tommy. "We're not
+talking at all, little man!" he continued. "We're getting our shoes
+shined! What are you doing in there?"
+
+"We're not in here at all!" replied Sandy. "We're up on the Masonic
+Temple, watching a Columbia Yacht Club regatta!"
+
+"Aw, cut it out!" advised Will. "Are you boys all safe?"
+
+"Sure we're all safe!" answered Sandy, "George has a grouch because he
+hasn't anything to eat here, but the rest of us are all right!"
+
+"Where's Bert?" asked Frank.
+
+"In here!" was the answer.
+
+"We brought a surgeon for him," Frank went on.
+
+"He doesn't need a surgeon now!" replied George. "What he needs more
+than anything else is a cook!"
+
+"We'll give him two cooks!" shouted Tommy.
+
+"Why don't you hurry up and get us out?" demanded Bert, in a weak voice.
+
+"If you remain in there a few weeks," Tommy laughed, "perhaps you'll get
+so thin you can crawl out of this crack!"
+
+"Well, get to digging!" replied George.
+
+"And for the love of Mike," exclaimed Sandy, "when you get to digging,
+don't drop any rocks on top of us! We have a little hole here now about
+four feet square!"
+
+After making a study of the situation and advising with Doctor Pelton as
+to the proper course to pursue, the boys began prying at a large rock
+which lay almost on top of the shelf upon which the boys had ridden to
+the thicket. The rock moved, but grudgingly.
+
+"If you can move that rock," the doctor said, "I think the one just
+above it will slide down and leave an opening large enough for the boys
+to pass out of. It ought not to be much trouble to move it!"
+
+Notwithstanding the doctor's predictions, the boys worked at the rock
+with their home-made handspikes for an hour before it broke loose and
+rattled down upon the shelf just above the fire.
+
+"Come out of that now," cried Tommy stooping down and looking into the
+cavern. "Come on out, now!"
+
+Sandy was not long in obeying instructions. George came next and then
+the two lads turned about and lifted Bert out of his cramped position.
+
+"That pigeon hole we've been occupying is about four inches square!"
+Sandy declared. "And I'm just about dead for a good long breath of fresh
+air! I never knew before how good air tasted."
+
+Bert glanced around the circle of faces and smiled amusedly as he saw
+that his chum was there with the rest.
+
+"Where'd you go, Frank?" he asked.
+
+Frank hastened to the lad's side and bent over him.
+
+"I headed for the cabin," he answered, "and missed it. The Indian smoke
+signal brought the boys out and they fed me up."
+
+Will now approached the spot where the two boys were talking and pointed
+to Cameron and Fenton now sitting with their faces illuminated by the
+blaze. They both scowled at the inspection.
+
+"Which one of those men gave you the clout on the head?" Will asked.
+
+"That fellow with the alfalfas," replied Bert.
+
+"And he stole the code message you were carrying?"
+
+"I don't know!" replied Bert. "I had it when he came into the cabin and
+began talking with me and I haven't thought of it since. Was it stolen?"
+
+"You bet it was!" replied Frank. "But we've been to Cordova and got a
+duplicate of it!"
+
+Cameron and Fenton scowled fiercely as they listened to the
+conversation.
+
+"Have you got the code message with you now?" asked Will.
+
+"Sure I have!" answered Frank.
+
+"Suppose you read it, then."
+
+Frank took an envelope from his pocket, tore off one end, and brought
+out an ordinary sheet of letter paper bearing the heading of the
+wireless company. The boys gathered about him eagerly.
+
+"It isn't very much!" Frank said with a laugh. "Say, you two fellows,"
+he added, waving the paper in the direction of Cameron and Fenton,
+"would, you like to hear this code despatch read?"
+
+"You bet they would," cut in Sandy. "That's all they've been thinking
+about for the last two days!"
+
+"Well, it's short and sweet and very satisfying!" Frank laughed.
+
+"Aw, read it!" demanded Tommy. "What's the use of making a monkey of
+yourself? Let's see what it has to say for itself."
+
+Frank bent a searchlight on the paper and read:
+
+"Will Smith, in camp near Katalla, Alaska: The machine plans have been
+traced to the cabin to which you were directed. Make close examination
+there before looking elsewhere. Horton."
+
+"What do you know about that, Cameron?" asked Will with a smile. "Are
+the plans really hidden in our cabin?"
+
+"Your cabin!" sneered Cameron.
+
+"I guess the cabin belongs to us as much as it does to you!" Tommy cut
+in. "Are the machine plans hidden there?"
+
+"What do you want of the machine plans?" demanded Cameron.
+
+"They don't belong to you!" roared Fenton.
+
+"We have no claim upon them," replied Will. "In fact, we have no use for
+them at all, except that we want to identify the mark of a human thumb
+which soiled one of the papers."
+
+"All lies!" shouted Cameron.
+
+"I'm telling you the truth," declared Will.
+
+"Then why didn't you come right to me and say so?" demanded Cameron.
+
+"You didn't give us a chance!" replied Will.
+
+"Are the plans hidden in the cabin?" asked Sandy.
+
+"This is all a faked-up story you are telling me!" Fenton shouted.
+"Whoever wired you that the plans were in the cabin didn't know what he
+was talking about! We don't know anything about the plans."
+
+"That doesn't agree with what Cameron just said," Frank laughed.
+
+"Cameron doesn't know anything about the plans, either," raged Fenton.
+
+"Are you the clerk who stole the plans from your employer?" asked Will.
+
+"I tell you that I don't know anything about any plans!" stormed Fenton.
+"Cameron and I are prospecting this moraine for gold, and we have no
+interest in any plans whatever!"
+
+"And yet Cameron gave Bert a crack on the coco and stole the code
+message!" suggested Will.
+
+"He probably thought the message referred to our mining properties!"
+declared Fenton. "We had a right to suppose it had."
+
+"Then you won't tell us where the plans are?" demanded Will.
+
+"I tell you that I don't know anything about the plans," screamed
+Fenton. "I never saw the plans."
+
+"All right," Will replied. "We'll leave you fellows out here to think
+the matter over. By morning you will probably know where the plans are
+hidden. The mosquitos may be able to convince you."
+
+"A little meditation may refresh his memory," Frank said.
+
+"What have you got to do about it, anyhow?" demanded Cameron. "I don't
+think you've got any right to butt in here!"
+
+"Who is that freshie?" asked Fenton.
+
+"Frank Disbrow," replied the doctor with a smile. "He's the son of the
+military officer in charge of the military stations in Alaska."
+
+The boys all turned and regarded Frank curiously.
+
+"So that's why the walls all fell down when you knocked!" exclaimed
+Tommy. "That's why the federal officer refused to make any arrests.
+That's why Jamison returned the money and gave us the use of his motor
+boat. I begin to understand some of the things that took place at
+Cordova now. Why didn't you tell us something about it before we had all
+that trouble?"
+
+"Oh, I didn't want to mix father up in the combination," Frank replied
+with a smile. "Besides," he added, "it did look something like piracy."
+
+"It certainly did," observed Doctor Pelton. "If Frank hadn't been a
+member of the pirate crew, I rather imagine that you boys would be
+cooling your heels in some Alaska prison about now. Of course, you would
+have been released in time, but the affair would have made you
+considerable trouble."
+
+"Who's Bert, then?" demanded Tommy.
+
+"Bert is the son of a prominent federal official at Chicago," replied
+Frank. "But we've had enough of this," the boy declared modestly. "I
+didn't do any more than any other boy would have done."
+
+"You undertook that long trip out to the cabin when you didn't have to!"
+exclaimed Will. "That was good of you!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE PLANS AT LAST
+
+
+With a parting glance at Cameron and Fenton, the boys, accompanied by
+the doctor, turned away in the direction of the cabin.
+
+"Wait!" shouted Fenton. "Don't go off and leave us in this plight! We'll
+starve to death if you do!"
+
+"What about those plans?" demanded Will.
+
+"I'll help you find the plans!" screamed Cameron. "I'll see that you get
+the plans; if you get us out of this scrape!"
+
+"Keep still!" commanded Fenton.
+
+"I refuse to keep still!" declared Cameron. "I'm not going to be left
+here to be devoured by insects. Tell me the truth about the plans," he
+went on, "what do you want of them?"
+
+"We want to introduce the plans in evidence in the criminal court at
+Chicago," replied Will.
+
+"And that will betray our secret," commented Fenton fiercely. "Those
+plans are worth millions of dollars to us! They represent the only
+perfect mining machine ever invented."
+
+"We don't care anything about your mining machine," Will answered.
+
+"Have you noticed anything peculiar about the plans?" Frank asked.
+
+"Nothing except that they are dirty!" was the reply.
+
+"Marked up with thumb prints, for instance?"
+
+"Yes, there are thumb prints," replied Cameron.
+
+"Well, we want the thumb prints," Frank laughed.
+
+"You're a fool if you listen to any such arguments!" screamed Fenton.
+"Why should these gutter snipes want the papers for the thumb prints?"
+
+"That's what we want them for!" insisted Frank. "Are you going to tell
+us where the plans are?"
+
+"I'll tell you!" replied Cameron.
+
+Fenton turned his back on his friend and refused to discuss the question
+further. When the lads started away carrying Cameron on a rude litter,
+they left his follow conspirator lying by the fire.
+
+"Please bring him along," pleaded Cameron. "He'll die if you leave him
+there! I can tell you where the plans are, and I'll do so, whether he
+likes it or not. This has been a misunderstanding all around. We were
+only trying to protect our interest in the mines which we believed to
+exist in this neighborhood, and in the plans, which we believed to be
+very valuable!"
+
+Thus urged, the boys turned back and constructed a second stretcher for
+Fenton. The journey to the cabin was a long one, but the shelter was
+reached about daylight. Then Tommy at once began the preparation of
+breakfast.
+
+"We'll have to get out pretty soon," Will laughed, "because the
+population of this county seems to be increasing with amazing rapidity.
+At the present time we have four Beavers, two Foxes, and two Bulldogs
+besides a very eminent surgeon. In other words," the boy went on, "we
+have this collection of wild animals in addition to a very eminent
+surgeon and two men with busted legs. If some one doesn't bring in
+provisions pretty soon, we'll have to exist on mosquito soup!"
+
+"The mosquitos have been living off us long enough!" Tommy answered.
+"They ought not to find fault if we begin living off them!"
+
+"I heard you boys talking about thumb prints on a set of plans," Doctor
+Pelton said, addressing Will. "I'd like to know what it all means."
+
+"The story is soon told," Will answered. "On a night in Chicago not long
+ago, three men, Spaulding, Hurley and Babcock, worked until nearly
+daylight on the plans which we came to Alaska to find. They are experts
+in their line and were examining the plans of an invention which the
+inventor claimed would revolutionize mining.
+
+"The three men rejected the plans as impractical, and Spaulding and
+Hurley left for home, leaving Babcock at the office. After the departure
+of the two men, the company's safe was broken open and robbed of a large
+sum of money. Naturally the men who had worked in the office during the
+night were questioned concerning the disappearance of the cash.
+Spaulding and Hurley replied, truthfully, that they had left Babcock in
+the office and that the safe was intact at the time of their departure.
+
+"Babcock's reply to this statement was that he had not been at the
+office that night at all, and that he could furnish a perfect alibi
+which he proceeded to do. Spaulding and Hurley were arrested and thrown
+into prison, while Babcock, secure in his fraudulent alibi, was not even
+suspected until Mr. Horton, a noted criminal lawyer, was retained by the
+two respondents.
+
+"In discussing the case, Spaulding and Hurley explained how Babcock had
+participated in the discussion of the plans, and added that if the plans
+could be found, his thumb marks would be noted on the paper. They said
+he handled the attached sheets carelessly, and that the marks of both
+thumbs showed very plainly."
+
+"That will be a perfect defense!" said the doctor.
+
+Cameron and Fenton who had been listening intently to the recital, now
+both spoke at once:
+
+"Were the plans really rejected by the experts?" they asked.
+
+"They certainly were!" replied Will.
+
+"Then we've been through all this trouble for nothing!" exclaimed
+Fenton.
+
+"If you two fellows hadn't been engaged in this dirty game," Will said
+severely, "you would have been mixed up in some other dirty deal, so
+you're probably no worse off than you would have been in any event."
+
+"If you'll go to the peg driven into the wall near the north window,"
+Cameron remarked, "pull out the peg and run your finger into the augur
+hole, you'll find the plans rolled into a very small package."
+
+Will rushed to the peg indicated, and the plans were soon in his hands.
+
+"This settles it!" exclaimed Will. "The case is finished!"
+
+"Are the thumb marks there?" asked Frank.
+
+"Plain as the nose on your face!" replied the boy.
+
+"And to think that they have been right under our nose all the time!"
+exclaimed Tommy. "I shall certainly have to partake of a large meal
+before I can recover my reason!"
+
+"And to think that, after we came all the way to Alaska, we received the
+correct tip regarding the hiding place from Chicago by wireless!"
+
+"I know how the people at Chicago came to discover the whereabouts of
+the plans," shouted Fenton. "There's a sneak of a clerk in the office
+where I was employed who gave me away. He saw me looking over the plans
+and betrayed me."
+
+"Perhaps he didn't want to see you make a fool of yourself!" Will
+suggested. "He probably knew the plans had been rejected."
+
+"I'll settle with him!" declared Fenton.
+
+"If you do," Will replied, "you'll serve a term in an Alaska prison for
+abduction!"
+
+"Yes," Fenton went on, "he probably wired the truth to Chicago after the
+search for the plans began in the office! When he saw me looking over
+the plans, I was obliged to tell him what they represented. I also told
+him where we were going to hide the plans, and of course, he had to wire
+that, too!"
+
+"That clerk must be rewarded!" smiled Tommy.
+
+Such a supper as the boys ate that night!
+
+Notwithstanding the dreary predictions of Tommy, there was plenty of
+provisions in the cabin, and the party feasted on the game which was
+brought in as an addition to the supply until they returned to
+civilization.
+
+They were obliged to bridge the chasm in order to reach Katalla, where
+they found the Jamison motor boat waiting for them.
+
+They also found the wheelsman, Boswell, waiting for them there, he
+having made the trip from Cordova in a tug. At the request of Jamison,
+who had been released after the departure of the boys, he had made the
+journey in order to take possession of the motor boat.
+
+When, after many delightful trips about the Gulf of Alaska, the Boy
+Scouts all turned their faces homeward, the wheelsman was left in charge
+of the boat. They afterwards learned that Jamison never claimed the
+craft, and that Boswell retained undisputed possession of it.
+
+Doctor Pelton saw that Cameron and Fenton were well cared for on their
+arrival at Katalla, and a handsome present was sent to the federal
+officer by Frank Disbrow.
+
+Frank and Bert accompanied the Boy Scouts to Chicago and later on became
+very warm friends. The two members of the Fox patrol, Sam White and Ed
+Hannon, traveled with the boys as far as Portland.
+
+When the boys reached Chicago, Babcock was arrested and the unmistakable
+thumb prints secured the immediate release of Hurley and Spaulding.
+
+"There's one thing we've forgotten," Tommy said as the boys landed in
+Chicago, one autumn morning.
+
+"What's that?" asked Will.
+
+"We neglected to bring back that bear hide!"
+
+"I should think you'd want that bear hide!" laughed Frank.
+
+"I should think you'd be ashamed to look the bear in the face!" declared
+Sandy.
+
+The boys received the promised reward for the discovery of the plans and
+once more settled down in Chicago to take up their studies.
+
+
+                              THE END.
+
+
+
+
+BLACK ART IN CINCINNATI
+
+
+Mr. Quinsey of Cincinnati was not an Apollo; neither had he ever assumed
+a name other than his own. He had never conducted a scheme to defraud by
+use of the mails; nor had he ever robbed a post-office or shot any body;
+yet his character is so interesting that I cannot, in justice to myself,
+omit a passing notice.
+
+Quinsey was known as a mesmerist, a ventriloquist, an illusionist, a
+prestidigitator and a master of the Black Art, and occasionally in
+"pleasing sorcery that charms the sense" he would entertain audiences at
+church fairs, picnics and the like for simple fees, while he found much
+pleasure amusing friends gratuitously at their homes, at his home and
+sometimes at his place of business.
+
+One evening, at a little entertainment given by himself in neighboring
+Glendale, after he had knocked the spots off of several decks of cards;
+after he had taken half a dozen watches that belonged to people in the
+audience from the janitor's pocket; after he had received communications
+from departed spirits; after he had removed the head from a beautiful
+woman and had made the removed head talk; after he had paralyzed four
+men and a woman on the stage and had allowed the committee to stick pins
+in them, and after the curtain had dropped, one of the awe-stricken
+auditors, who had been instrumental in introducing Mr. Quinsey in
+Glendale, asked the wonderful magician why he did not follow this
+business in preference to any other?
+
+The professor smiled blandly and appeared silent, but a voice that
+seemed to come from the bakery underneath the hall, was heard to remark
+in a deep melodious tone: "He has something better."
+
+Quinsey was superintendent of what was known as the night set in the
+registry division of the Cincinnati post-office, and his hours of labor
+were from 10:30 P. M. to 7 A. M. In this set were employed six or seven
+clerks who worked under the superintendant's direction, and who
+performed practically the same kind of work that he did. It was their
+duty to properly record all registered matter that arrived in Cincinnati
+between 4 P. M. and midnight from the various railroad lines centering
+there, rebill it and pouch it in the through registry pouches to be
+dispatched in the morning.
+
+There were something like thirty bills to make out, and the same number
+of pouches to properly close and send out. When the mails were running
+heavy the clerks never had a minute to spare, but when they were light,
+as they frequently were one or two nights each week, there was some
+opportunity for sociability and innocent amusement.
+
+On these occasions Quinsey would sometimes tell the boys how easy it was
+for people to be mistaken; how much quicker was the hand than the eye;
+how it was that frequently things were not what they appeared; how easy
+it was to deceive the keenest intellect by doing something different
+than your actions would indicate, and how figures and objects are
+materialized and made to do their master's bidding.
+
+Sometimes he would illuminate his ideas by a few practical
+illustrations, and after the young men had seen him shake any number of
+big silver dollars, a wheelbarrow full of handkerchiefs, and a lot of
+lanterns from a common gesture, and, in transfixed amazement, had beheld
+ordinary registered letters vanish before their eyes, without being able
+to tell where they went, they longed for the nights to come when the
+work was light. Quinsey was immense!
+
+About this time, while in Chicago, Kidder came to me for conference with
+an armful of documentary evidence of skillful depredations. Here were
+the envelopes in which registered letters had from time to time been
+mailed at offices in Southern Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and West
+Virginia, addressed to offices in all portions of the great Northwest,
+and which had been rifled of large portions of their contents. Everyone
+of the letters had passed through the Chicago post-office, where they
+had been handled during the night time. At first glance one would say it
+surely indicated trouble in Chicago.
+
+But why, if the thief was in Chicago, did he confine himself to
+operations on the letters from this particular section, when he could
+probably have access to those from any other as well. A few minutes
+later when we discovered that everyone of the letters referred to had
+also passed through the Cincinnati office, and in every instance had
+been dispatched from that office in the morning in through pouches to
+Chicago, Kidder adjusted his eye-glasses, and offered as a reward, for
+the capture of the villain, a claim near that beautiful miniature
+salt-water sea, known as Devil's Lake in Dakota.
+
+On the following morning when I tapped Herrick on the shoulder in
+Cincinnati, and asked who wrote the Chicago registry bills at night that
+were dispatched in the morning, he answered, "Quinsey," and seemed so
+amused at my question that he asked why I wanted to know.
+
+"For the reason that I think whoever is doing it is too inquisitive."
+
+"Well, if its Quinsey, I am afraid we'll have our hands full to catch
+him, for he's just a little bit the slickest man in America. He does all
+the seemingly impossible things ever heard of, and he does them right
+before your eyes, too. Quinsey is absolutely marvelous. Why, one night I
+was in the registry room looking around when, suddenly, I discovered my
+watch was gone. I had looked to see what time it was when I entered.
+Well, a little later somebody found it in the Boston pouch, with a tag
+on it marked: 'Covington.'"
+
+"Yes," said Salmon, who was listening, "and I understand he charms
+birds, too; while somebody told me a few days ago that at cards he was
+so expert that nobody would sit in with him; that when it came his deal
+he could hold anything he wanted; that the high cards, figuratively
+speaking, would come to him in carriages; and remain till after the
+show-down."
+
+The next day I went to Lexington, Ky., and while there I wrote a letter
+to Mr. Abram Hayden, of Aberdeen, Dakota, on one of the letter-head
+sheets of Mills, Jackson & Johnson, which read as follows:
+
+ "Dear friend Abe:
+
+  Jim Turner was in from East Hickman half an
+  hour ago and left the enclosed $200 for me to send to
+  you, and he said you would know how to use it. He
+  has just sold a car-load of mules to Springer, of Cincinnati,
+  but he said he believed there was more profit
+  in loaning money at 20 per cent. in Dakota, than there
+  was in raising mules in Kentucky at present prices.
+
+  Say, Abe, when are you coming back after Mary?
+  I heard Min. Stevens and some of the girls in her set
+  say it was considered a sure thing. Hope it is; for of
+  all the real fine blue-grass girls around these parts I
+  think Mary is the----well never mind, old boy, if
+  I wasn't married I'd try and prevent her going to
+  Dakota. You better hurry up.
+
+  Jim just stuck his head in the door and told me to
+  tell you if you couldn't get a gilt edge loan at 20, not
+  to let it go less than 18. Jim is a cuss.
+
+  I suppose your brother wrote you what happened
+  up at Gil. Harper's recently.
+
+  If the cyclones haven't got you by the time this
+  reaches Aberdeen, write.
+
+                          Very truly, your friend,
+
+                           FRANK N. MILLS."
+
+
+This letter I registered at Lexington and at night, about 11 o'clock,
+when I had followed it into the Cincinnati post-office, Herrick and
+Salmon were in the money-order division on a step-ladder, peering
+through a glass transom into the registry division. As soon as possible
+I joined them, and patiently we waited for Quinsey to turn a trick.
+
+It was exactly two A. M. when he commenced on the Chicago bill. He
+reached the letter from Lexington at precisely 2:45. It was fat and
+tempting. Herrick was on the top of the ladder at that instant, and he
+sent a peculiar thrill of surprise through me when he turned and
+whispered:
+
+"Hush, hush, he has picked it up."
+
+"Now he's feeling of it."
+
+"He's looking at the back of the of the R. P. E. (the outside envelope)
+to see how well it's sealed."
+
+"He's laid it down and placed a book over it; somebody is moving
+around."
+
+"It's quiet now and he's looking at the back again."
+
+"Hush, don't move, he's carefully feeling again."
+
+"It's under the blotter now; somebody at the other table got up to get a
+drink. There's no one at his table but himself."
+
+"Hush now, he's making a close examination to see how well its sealed."
+
+"Hush now, for God's sake don't move; he's trying to open it with his
+knife."
+
+"Hush, hush, hush, he'll have it opened in an instant."
+
+"Its open now, and he's looking at the letter envelope very closely."
+
+"There, d----n it, some fellow has moved again and he's shoved it under
+the blotter."
+
+"Hush, hush, don't stir; he's feeling of the letter again."
+
+"Hush, don't breathe, he's trying to raise the flap of the envelope; it
+comes up hard; don't move."
+
+"There, there, there, he's got it up."
+
+"Hush, he's got the money out and is reading the letter."
+
+"He's smiling as he reads."
+
+"We must open the door and rush, in now."
+
+"Come, be quick and be quiet; you know he's chain lightning."
+
+"The door's unlocked; now, all together, go!"
+
+An instant later there was a flutter, and all was over. The great
+conjurer had at last performed an illusion that was not optical--an act
+not mentioned on the bill.
+
+                    Applause. Curtain. Prison.
+
+
+
+
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+
+
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+wrapped in a glazed paper wrapper printed in colors.
+
+
+BOY SCOUT SERIES
+By
+G. HARVEY RALPHSON, of the Black Bear Patrol.
+
+ 1.--Boy Scouts in Mexico; or, On Guard with Uncle Sam.
+
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+
+ 3.--Boy Scouts in the Philippines; or, The Key to the Treaty Box.
+
+ 4.--Boy Scouts in the Northwest; or, Fighting Forest Fires.
+
+ 5.--Boy Scouts in a Motor Boat; or, Adventures on the Columbia River.
+
+ 6.--Boy Scouts in an Airship; or, The Warning from the Sky.
+
+ 7.--Boy Scouts in a Submarine; or, Searching an Ocean Floor.
+
+ 8.--Boy Scouts on Motorcycles; or, With the Flying Squadron.
+
+ 9.--Boy Scouts Beyond the Artic Circle; or, The Lost Expedition.
+
+10.--Boy Scout Camera Club; or, Confessions of a Photograph.
+
+11.--Boy Scout Electricians; or, The Hidden Dynamo.
+
+12.--Boy Scouts in California; or, The Flag on the Cliff.
+
+13.--Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay; or, The Disappearing Fleet.
+
+14.--Boy Scouts in Death Valley; or, The City in the Sky.
+
+15.--Boy Scouts on the Open Plains; or, The Round-up not Ordered.
+
+16.--Boy Scouts in Southern Waters; or, the Spanish Treasure Chest.
+
+17.--Boy Scouts in Belgium; or, Under Fire in Flanders.
+
+18.--Boy Scouts in the North Sea; or, the Mystery of U-13.
+
+19.--Boy Scout Verdun Attack.
+
+20.--Boy Scouts with the Cossacks; or, Poland Recaptured.
+
+
+THE MOTORCYCLE CHUMS SERIES
+By Andrew Carey Lincoln
+
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+
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+
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+Box.
+
+4.--Motorcycle Chums in Yellowstone Park; or, Lending a Helping Hand.
+
+5.--Motorcycle Chums in the Adirondacks; or, The Search for the Lost
+Pacemaker.
+
+6.--Motorcycle Chums Storm Bound; or, The Strange Adventures of a Road
+Chase.
+
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