The Boy Scout Camera Club Part 23

"In two hours. That will be about midnight. Between now and that time I'm going to get a little sleep. Wake me at twelve, will you--and, by the way, say nothing to the others about it. They'll all want to go!

We can notify whoever is on watch when we get ready to start."

Ned hastened to his bunk and lay down. Five minutes later, when Frank looked in, he was studying a French dictionary by the light of his electric candle. Ten minutes later he was sound asleep. At twelve the boys were ready to start, and Teddy, who was on watch, was warned to keep wide awake and listen for noises from the south.

"If you hear shooting," Ned said, "two of you jump on Uncle Ike and charge along the summit to the south. Make all the noise you can!

Don't go down the slope, but keep to the summit."

"Now where?" asked Frank, as they walked over the rocks and wound around jutting crags. "If you'll give me time I'll take some moonlight pictures for Dad's newspapers. He must be expecting some by this time!"

"Poor old Dad!" laughed Ned. "By this time he must have given up sitting around the New York postoffice, waiting for your pictures to come!"

"I'm going to send him some on this trip, sure!" declared the boy.

"He deserves them, you know, and his newspaper needs them! Besides, we are planning another Boy Scout trip, and I shall want a whole lot of money!"

"I see!" cried Ned. "You are casting an anchor to windward!"

"In other words," grinned Frank, "I'm laying the foundation for another appropriation! I'm going to send on some of the pictures of the counterfeiters' den!"

The summit of the ridge was by no means a level pathway. There were peaks, canyons, gulleys and twistings to east and west which caused the boys to travel two miles or more for every mile they advanced toward the point where the two men Jack had followed had taken refuge.

It was about two o'clock in the morning when they came in sight of the chimney rock which Ned had noted on the trip of the afternoon. It rose from the west slope of the mountain like a tower, tall, bulky, forbidding.

Looking down upon it from the east, Ned saw that there was a small canyon in between it and the slope, much the same as the formation near the cave of the counterfeiters. It was evident that the rock had been cast down from the summit, and had caught there--on a projecting ridge of stone.

"Looks like a fortress!" Frank whispered as the rock sparkled in the light of the moon. "Notice the campfire in the canyon?" "There were two there this afternoon," Ned said, "and we thought one of them was there simply to make the second column--the Boy Scout call for a.s.sistance."

"If Jimmie isn't tied up hand and foot," Frank suggested, "if he is allowed to move about, under guard, and help in the cooking, he could easily build two fires, and the outlaws wouldn't know what he was up to. That is how Dode came to signal to us, you remember. The counterfeiters never suspected that he was making Indian talk!"

"I think it was Jimmie," Ned declared. "He would find some way to make the signal, if he wasn't tied hard and fast! Anyway," the boy added, "I'm going down the slope right now to see if he is there!"

CHAPTER XVI

THE CALL OF THE PACK

Ned and Frank stood in the shadow behind a protecting rock and peered down into the moonlit canyon for a long time. At first there was no one in sight below, but presently a man came out by the fire, which was burning low now.

It appeared to the boys that he must have crawled out from under the chimney rock itself! He appeared so suddenly that they knew that, at least, there must be an underground hiding place in which he had been concealed when they had first come in view of the canyon and the rock.

The man mended the fire, gathering up the ends of the logs and limbs which had burned through in the middle and placing them back on the coals. Then he opened a box which he had brought from some out-of-sight place and took out canned food and cooking utensils. He was evidently going to get an early breakfast.

Presently a second man joined the first arrival, and they sat down by the fire to wait for water in a great pot to boil. At least, the boys supposed that they were waiting for it to boil.

"I'd like to know what they are talking about," Frank said. "I'm going to see if I can get close enough to them to find out."

"I was just thinking of that myself," Ned responded, "so we may as well be on our way. Keep your gun handy, but don't shoot unless one of them seizes you."

"I'll take good care they don't get hold of me," Frank answered.

"Say," he went on, "if Jimmie is there, he must be in some hole under that rock--the one they came out of! If they turn away, I may be able to get in there and see."

"Wait until there is little danger of detection," Ned advised. "We don't know how many men there are in the party, remember."

The boys walked softly back to the north, keeping ridges and outcropping rocks between the canyon and themselves, and then crept softly down the slope so as to come out at the north end of the little cut. The men they were watching were frying bacon and boiling coffee now, and appeared to be thoroughly occupied with their tasks.

In a few moments both boys were within hearing, distance. The men were not talking much, however. In fact, they both seemed to be harboring a grouch, from the infrequent low, grumbling complaints which the boys overheard.

"I'm through with the bunch after this!" one of the men said. "I'm not going to do all the work and let some one else draw all the money."

"It is time we got out of here anyway," the other said. "Those fresh boys were around here this afternoon."

"Why didn't you plug them if you knew they were here?" demanded the other.

Frank nudged Ned in the side with his fist.

"Cheerful sort of people!" he said. "I'm looking to see something start soon."

"I didn't know at the time that they were here!" the man replied, with a snarl. "I'm no Indian sleuth. After they left I started through the grove and found their tracks. Good thing for them that I saw their tracks instead of their heads!"

"Well," the other grunted, "if we are agreed that it is time for us to get out, why don't we get out? I'm not going to take all the chances! Why don't the others come? They won't come, and that's all there is to it. They're waiting for us to do the job! Then they'll claim the pay."

By this time the bacon was crisp and the coffee was simmering fragrantly in the pot and the two men fell to with an appet.i.te. Frank watched them eat with an appet.i.te of his own, rubbing his stomach and trying to show how near the point of starvation he was, although it had been only a short time since he had eaten a hearty meal!

"They don't trust us!" one of the men muttered, at length.

"We haven't got a thing on them, if they see fit to welch on us," the other admitted.

"But if we obey orders, they will have so much on us that we won't dare say a word, even if they make us walk back and buy our own meals on the way!"

"Is it agreed, then, that we're going to cut it?" asked one. "If it is, we may as well go now as at any future time."

"All right."

"Now?" asked the other.

"Why not? It will soon be daylight."

"Good idea, for we can't be seen trailing that kid along with us in the broad light of day," was suggested. "Let's move right now!"

"Now," whispered Frank, "do they mean Jimmie, when they speak of the kid, or some one else? And if they are speaking of some one else, here's a question: Is it the prince, or is it Mike III.?"

"It seems to me," Ned whispered back, "that I've heard something like that before."

"Well, get the kid out and feed him!" one of the men commanded.

"We've got to keep him with us until we get pay for what we have already done."

"Now we'll know!" Frank suggested, as one of the men turned toward the rock. "If it is Jimmie we'll soon know it. What?"