The Flying Machine Boys on Secret Service

He did not relish the idea of wounding the mother bear with his knife, but still less did he like the notion of himself being wounded by the sharp teeth and claws of the animal. He knew that if he could keep the bear in the narrow passage his pursuers could not enter, but at the same time he understood that this situation could not long endure.

“I wonder if the old lady would overlook me long enough to get to her babies if I should let her pass?” mused the boy.

The lad was not called upon to answer that question, for while he hesitated a shout came from the outside, and the man who had been creeping in withdrew, his bulky body giving place to a slant of sunshine.

“They’ve got the machine!” he heard some one saying.

“I don’t believe it!” another voice declared. “If you see a machine it isn’t one of the three belonging to the boys.”

“I don’t know who it belongs to,” the first speaker insisted, “but I know there’s a machine coming this way from the shelf of rock!”

“Perhaps they have captured a machine and they are bringing that blasted Englishman over,” still another voice cut in.

At that moment the desperate bear in the passage charged.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE DOG IN THE CAVERN

When Ben returned with DuBois, Mr. Havens regarded the Englishman quizzically for a moment before speaking.

“I didn’t expect you to return at this time,” he said.

“I couldn’t have kept him away with a cannon,” Ben cut in. “You see,” the boy continued, “when we got to Field, I had to get a whole lot of folks out of bed. The clatter of the motors had already awakened about half the town, and I had to wake up the rest.”

“I don’t see why!” said Mr. Havens.

“Well,” Ben explained, “I had to wake up the express agent to get the hand-bag nailed up in a peach of a hard wood box, and locked up in his safe. Then I had to wake up a couple of men to induce the telegraph operator to come to his office. He said he wanted to sleep.”

“Why didn’t you let him sleep?” asked Mr. Havens.

“I did let him sleep, after I kicked his window in, until I got the two husky men from a miners’ camp to pull him out of bed.”

“You must have made quite a sensation in that little burg.”

“Don’t you know,” cut in the Englishman, “I never felt so conspicuous in all me life.”

“We were conspicuous, all right!” laughed Ben. “Well,” he continued, “the operator bucked on working the wire after we got into the office, but after DuBois held a private conversation with him in the corner he set to work like he enjoyed being waked up nights.”

“How much did you give him, Mr. DuBois?” asked Jimmie.

The Englishman made no reply, and Mr. Havens went on with his questions.

“Why did you want to get him to the telegraph office?”

“Well,” began Ben, “you remember when we were talking about the disguise, the dickey, the sporty coat and false beard and all that? This little Jimmie had the nerve to say that the abductor buffaloed Colleton into opening the safe and taking out the papers.”

“And I’ll stick to that, too!” declared Jimmie.

“And the rascal said, too,” Ben went on, “that when Colleton opened the safe, the brigand shut the discarded clothing into it!”

“And I’ll stand by that, too!” declared Jimmie. “They searched the room, didn’t they? They didn’t find the articles of clothing, did they? Well, then, they must have been put in the safe!”

“That’s a poor deduction!” declared Ben.

“Well, you go on and tell what you telegraphed to Washington about,” Jimmie insisted. “Tell the truth, now!”

“I didn’t say I telegraphed to Washington,” Ben insisted.

“But you did, though, didn’t you?”

“Look here,” Ben exclaimed. “If you’re going to tell this story, you just go right ahead and tell it. You’re always butting in!”

“All right!” grinned Jimmie with a wink at Mr. Havens. “I can go ahead and tell it. I know what you telegraphed to Washington for, and I know what you found out!”

“Go on and tell it, then!”

“You telegraphed to Washington in Mr. Havens’ name, and asked if there were any new developments in the Colleton case.”

“That’s right,” admitted Ben.

“The people at Washington had to get some one out of bed, and the person they got out of bed had to find out whether you were alive or dead, and whether they had a right to tell you what you wanted to know, and unwind a lot of red tape, and then you got the information you sought!”

“What’s the use of sparring for wind?” demanded Ben. “Why don’t you go on and tell about it?”

“You just wait until I turn over another leaf of my dream-book and I’ll tell you all about it. That is, I could tell you all about it if I wanted to, but I ain’t going to.”

Ben was shaking with laughter and the sober-faced Englishman was actually smiling.

“If I wanted to,” continued Jimmie, “I could tell you that the man at Washington wired that the safe in Colleton’s office had at last been opened by an expert. I could also tell you that he admitted that the coat and hat of the post-office inspector were found in the safe. I could also tell you that there began to be a faint suspicion in Washington that Colleton had walked out of his office with the man in brown and had been carried out of the city in the private stateroom of a Pullman-car. But look here,” the boy continued with a very annoying grin, “you’ve been making so much fun of my dream-book lately that I’m not going to tell you a thing about it!”

“Is that the correct story, Mr. DuBois?” asked Havens.

“That comes very near to being the correct story, don’t you know!” the Englishman replied.

“Is it?” demanded Jimmie, fairly dancing up and down.

“That’s the story they told,” Ben admitted.

“Say,” Jimmie shouted, “when I get back to New York, I’m going to open an office for the purpose of disclosing the future, and I’m going to write a new dream-book, and guarantee all the dreams on an extra payment of five dollars per!”

“Look here, kid,” demanded Ben, “how the dickens did you ever dream this all out?”

“No dream about it!” argued Jimmie. “Colleton had to get out of his room, and he couldn’t go up through the ceiling or down through the floor. He had to pass out of the door. Anybody with the sense of geese ought to know that the two men seen in the corridor had just passed out of Colleton’s room. It’s the only solution there is to the mystery!”

“Oh, it all looks easy now as soon as we get as far as the hindsight!” said Ben.

“Well,” Jimmie laughed, “I’ve done a lot of guessing in this case, and I’m glad I guessed one proposition correctly. I was just certain that Colleton’s clothing would be found in the safe, but still I was a little leary when Ben came back with his story that he had been using the wire. You see, I understood without his saying so that he’d been talking with Washington.”

“Well,” Mr. Havens said after a moment’s thought, “we’ve got the papers, and we’ve got the disguise, but we haven’t got Colleton. In fact, we’re no nearer getting hold of him than we were the first day we took the case!”

“Don’t you ever think that!” declared Jimmie. “We’ve connected Colleton with a number of people who might have had a hand in his abduction. If this work hasn’t brought us to the man himself, it has put us in position to find out where he is.”

“But the man who actually took the inspector from his office is dead!” Mr. Havens argued. “We can’t bring the dead to life, and it may be that no other person on earth knew of the personality of the men back of the whole plot.”

“What’s the matter with this Neil Howell?” asked Jimmie.

“That is only a faint clue!” declared Mr. Havens.

“Anyway,” insisted Jimmie, “we’re on the right track, and I’m tickled to think that we struck British Columbia!”

“I wonder if Carl is?” asked Ben with a sudden drawing down of his face. “I hope the boy will soon show up!”

“They won’t permit him to leave their camp, don’t you know,” the Englishman interposed, “until they find out more about the exact situation of affairs. The decent fellows in the camp won’t stand for his being abused, but he won’t be permitted to depart.”

“Aw, what right have they got to go and tie a chum of ours up?” demanded Jimmie. “They’re a lot of fresh guys anyway, and they called me a lot of names just because they couldn’t get their hands on the machine. I wish I’d ’a’ had a hot water hose. I’d ’a’ cooked their skins good and plenty! They’re too fresh!”

“Second the motion!” cried Ben. “Why ain’t we on our way to Carl instead of loafing before this fire?”

“We’ll be on our way there quick enough if Carl doesn’t show up pretty soon!” declared Jimmie.

Crooked Terry, who had been sleeping behind one of the tents, now came staggering up to the fire and stood weaving back and forth as if he had some unpleasant communication.

“Look here, you fellows,” he said in a moment, speaking in the husky tone common to tipplers, “I forgot something! I’ve got to go back to the cavern!”

“You might have brought another bottle with you, then,” laughed Jimmie.

Terry meandered deliberately to the rear of the tent and returned in a moment with two full bottles of liquor, which he held out to the boys with a sly wink.

“I don’t want to go back after whiskey!” he said. “I’m stinting myself to a bottle a day for two days. I’m going to swear off! I never got into trouble when I was sober. The minute I get drunk I go and do the very thing I ought not to do. Therefore, I’m going to swear off!”

“Going to keep sober, are you?” asked Jimmie.

“You know it!”

“I’ve got a picture of your keeping sober!” Ben laughed.

“You don’t know what you’ve talking about, kid!” Terry continued. “It’s easy enough to keep sober if you can get sober to start with. It won’t be any trouble for me to keep on the water wagon after I get the booze out of my system!”

“You haven’t told us what you’ve got to go back to the cavern for,” Mr. Havens reminded him.

“Well,” Terry began, dropping his glance to the ground, “the fact of the matter is that I left a—a—a—dog fastened up in a hole in the wall back there, and he’ll starve to death if I don’t go back.”

“What’d you go and do that for?” demanded Jimmie. “Why didn’t you let him out before you came away?”

“When we came away,” Terry replied with a ferocious wink, “we wasn’t thinking about dogs packed away in holes in the walls! I was fuller than a goat, anyway, and I wouldn’t have thought of—of—this dog if I’d been walking away under a peaceful summer sky with no danger in sight.”

“Perhaps the fellows we left on the shelf will find the dog and feed him,” suggested Mr. Havens.

“No, they won’t find him!” declared Terry. “When I hide a dog, they don’t everybody come along and find him!”

“If you fellows’ll fix up a nice breakfast for the dog and take me up in the machine, I’ll go and feed him!”

“What should you say this imprisoned animal would like for breakfast?” asked Jimmie.

“Well,” Terry went on with another elaborate wink, “I have an idea this dog would like some broiled ham, and some fried eggs, and some German potatoes, and some bread and butter, and a quart or two of coffee. You see,” he went on, “this dog didn’t have any supper last night, on account of my getting a skate on, and he hasn’t had any breakfast this morning because I eloped from the whiskey den last night, and he’ll be pretty hungry.”

Jimmie caught the crook by the arm and led him away to the other side of the fire, winking in the direction of the others as he did so.

“Tell it to me!” the boy said.

“All right!” Terry remarked. “Tell me what to tell to you!”

“Tell me who’s hidden in the cavern!”

“There’s a dog hidden in the cavern.”

“Only a dog?” demanded the boy.

“A dog,” repeated Terry. “I said a dog!”

“If we go with you with the breakfast in the machine,” Jimmie asked, “will you tell us all about how the dog came to be hidden in the cavern and who helped hide him there?”

“It ain’t no secret about hiding the dog!” replied Terry.

“Just the same,” Jimmie replied, “I’ve got a hunch that no dog is due for such a breakfast as you’ve ordered.”

CHAPTER XXIII.

ARRESTS ARE MADE

There was a tremendous din in the cavern as the bear shot out of the opening. The wailing of the cubs at the rear, the volley of rifle shots at the front, and the smell of powder smoke confused Carl for a moment. Then he crept forward to the entrance, almost entirely concealed by the smoke, and looked out into the brilliant sunlight.

The bear lay dead on the slope, but the men gathered about her were not congratulating themselves on their victory, or, in fact, paying any attention to the vanquished enemy. Their eyes were fixed on an aeroplane which was speeding in from the west, evidently heading for the summit just above the camp.

“That’s not one of the machines belonging to the boys,” Carl heard some one say.

“I thought,” another man complained, “that we were getting out of the zone of civilization when we struck British Columbia.”

“I thought so, too,” another voice said, “but we’re running up against impertinent Britishers, and flying machines, and many other nuisances which belong entirely on the paved streets and in the air above the town.”

The machine was now so close to the group, and also to the entrance to the cavern, that the rattle of the motors well-nigh drowned the sound of conversation. Still, directly, Carl heard some one shout that there were three men on the machine, and that one of them was Dick Sherman, the chief of the mounted police of that district.

The boy uttered a sigh of relief and moved out of the cavern to be greeted with shouts of laughter and many alleged jokes.

“How do you like living with the bears?” one of the hunters demanded.

“Bears are all right!” replied Carl. “There’re about a dozen baby bears in there! They seem to be cute little fellows, with good voices.”

“What do you say, boys; say we all take a baby bear home with us!” asked one of the hunters.

The question was greeted with applause, and half a dozen men immediately made a dash for the cavern. Before long two came out carrying cubs, probably from four to eight weeks of age.

“Where are the others?” asked Carl. “Why didn’t you all get one?”

“There were only two!” was the answer.

“Only two!” repeated Carl. “They made noise enough for two hundred! I thought all the forty bears who came out of the wilderness and devoured the two children were on deck!”

“I guess you’re mixed in your Sunday school lesson!” one of the men remarked.

“Perhaps,” Carl admitted. “It might have been two bears and forty children. I don’t know. What I intended to convey was the idea that there was noise enough in there to represent a thousand bear cubs.”

The aeroplane, sailing very low, now passed almost through the group of men, and Dick Sherman waved a hand in greeting at the boy.

“Do you know him?” asked one of the hunters turning to Carl.

“Sure I know him!” answered Carl. “I got him a supper down at our camp which put two inches of fat on his ribs.”

“Then if you know him well,” the hunter went on, “tell him, for the love of Mike, to quit nosing around our camp looking for some criminal who is probably in Washington, D. C.”

“Has he been watching your camp?” asked Carl in wonder.

“He certainly has!” was the reply. “He’s been nosing about here, at times, ever since we came in! What do you think he wants now?”

“I think he came after me!” replied Carl.

The aeroplane was now seen to land on the level space between the tents on the plateau, and Sherman and his two companions left their seats and approached a group of men standing by the fire.

One of the men, Carl saw, was Neil Howell, and the other was the burly fellow who had ordered him into his tent that morning. At that time the boy did not know Howell by sight, although he had often heard his name spoken there. It was only after a time that he learned who the second man was. Before the boy and those with him reached the tents, they saw a gleam of steel and the suddenness with which handcuffs were clasped on the wrists of Howell and his burly companion almost took their breath away. The men gazed at each other inquiringly.

“Do you know what it means?” one of them asked Carl.

“I haven’t the least idea!” was the answer.

“Why, that’s Neil Howell, the noted Wall street operator! I don’t understand what he’s placed under arrest for!” one of the men declared.

“I presume Dick Sherman knows what he’s doing!” Carl suggested.

“I don’t doubt that!” the man replied.

The three officers were now walking swiftly about the camp in opposite directions, evidently searching for some one not in view. A hunter standing by the boy’s side glanced his eye over the group.

“It must be Frank Harris they want,” he said. “He’s the only one that isn’t here.”

“Frank Harris went down the slope to the west not long ago!” another said. “I guess he’s looking for another bear cub.”

But if Frank Harris was indeed looking for the third bear cub his search must have been a long one, for neither then nor at any other time did any member of the hunting party set eyes upon him again. Secret service men are looking for him to this day. How he got out of the wilderness no one knows, but get out he did, and out of the country, too, for that matter.

After concluding the search, Dick Sherman came to where Carl was standing by the machine.

“Where’s that Englishman of yours?” he asked.

“Do you want the Englishman, too?” demanded the boy.

“Of course I want the Englishman!” replied the officer. “Do you think I’d be apt to find him over at your camp?”

“I haven’t a doubt of it!” answered Carl. “Although I haven’t been to the camp since yesterday. This man Howell and his chums were so stuck on my sweet society that they kept me here all night!”

“I’d keep you here about fifteen minutes if I had my way now!” Howell muttered.

“He thinks you sent out information which led to his arrest!” commented one of the hunters. “He’ll get even with you yet!”

“I didn’t have any information to send out!” declared Carl.

“Then who did send it out?” shouted Howell.

“You can search me!” Carl replied.

Dick Sherman looked over to one of his deputies with a smile but said nothing. He merely ordered the two prisoners on to the machine and prepared to take to the air.

“I’ll take these fellows over to your camp,” he said to Carl, “and send one of the boys back after you and my deputies. They can come with one of your machines, and this one of mine, and bring the whole crowd at one trip.”

“All right,” laughed Carl, “I’ll be mighty glad to get back to that good old camp again! You see,” he explained, “when we get out on a trip of this kind, we usually pitch our tents and then go off and leave them. I haven’t slept there one night since we built the first camp-fire!”

“How long will it take?” asked one of the hunters.

“Probably an hour each way,” was the reply.

“Well, we’ll see that the boy is taken good care of while you’re gone!” the hunter said with a smile.

“And when you get settled down to conversation with this kid,” suggested another hunter, “you just ask him to tell the story about the two bear cubs in the cavern. He’s a nervy little fellow!”

In something less than two hours, two machines came sailing over the valley, making for the plateau. When at last they landed, Carl was greatly surprised at seeing Mr. Havens seated on the Ann. Dick Sherman was riding his own machine.

“I thought you couldn’t get out of bed!” shouted Carl to the millionaire.

“I’m fit to ride a thousand miles to-day,” smiled the millionaire, “but I don’t think I could walk ten feet to save my life!”

“When I got over to your camp,” Dick Sherman explained, “I found Mr. Havens alone. He says you boys have left him alone every minute of the time since the camp was built.”

“Not quite so bad as that,” laughed the aviator.

“It’s pretty near as bad as that,” Carl admitted.

“When I got over to the camp,” the official went on, “Mr. Havens told me that the others had gone to the smugglers’ cavern. There’s something queer going on over there,” the official continued, “but Mr. Havens wouldn’t tell me what it is. He said for me to tie my prisoners up good and safe and come along with him, if I wanted to find out what was doing.”

“I hope you tied ’em up good and safe!” Carl suggested.

“They’re safe enough!” replied Mr. Havens.

Carl now stepped into the Ann with Mr. Havens and the two, after bidding good-bye to the friendly hunters, shot away down the valley toward the smugglers’ cavern, closely followed by the official machine and the three officers.

As soon as the machines departed the hunters set about breaking camp, as they had decided to leave that night.

“Ever since we’ve been here,” one of them declared, “we’ve been heels over head in trouble. Who introduced us to this Neil Howell and Frank Harris, anyway?”

“I’ll be blessed if I remember,” another answered. “The first time I saw Harris he came to us in company with the Englishman and asked me to join in a hunting trip.”

“By the way, where is the Englishman?” asked the other.

“That’s one of the mysteries of the camp,” the first speaker replied. “He disappeared most unexpectedly one morning and Howell and Harris both began calling him a thief and telling what he’d stolen.”

“I heard that story about his stealing a burro and a lot of money,” said the other, “but I never believed it.”

“No one believes it!” was the reply and the hunters standing about quickly assented.

“And here’s another thing I never understood about this camp,” another declared, “and that’s the red and green signals we’ve seen in the fire nights. What did they mean?”

“Harris and Howell said they were sending beacons to a friendly camp across the valley,” one of them answered, “but I never believed that. Who knows what Howell and Chubby were arrested for?”

No one knew at that time, and no one suspected, until they read the sensational stories of the Colleton case in the San Francisco newspapers.

At sundown the men had their mules brought in from pasture and given a feed of oats preparatory to the work of the next day.

They went to sleep with their belongings all made up into neat bundles, and by sunrise they were away, headed for the nearest town on the Canadian Pacific line.

CHAPTER XXIV.

CONCLUSION

“You’re sure that’s a dog in the cavern?” demanded Ben as the three crossed the summit and entered the gully, after leaving their machine on the shelf to the east.

“Sure it’s a dog in the cavern!” insisted Terry. “And look here,” he went on, glancing keenly about, “there’s two fellows hanging around here somewhere. They’re the chaps who set me to watching the Englishman early last night. They claim to be connected with the business men who are hunting over on the other side of the valley, but I guess they are just plain mountain hoboes who have been hired to do the dirty work for the sportsmen.”

“I don’t see them anywhere around!” Ben suggested.

“I don’t think they’re here, don’t you know!” DuBois put in, looking far down the gully. “You see,” he continued, “the camp-fire has gone out, and there hasn’t been any breakfast cooked here this morning.”

“They probably made a sneak after you got away,” Ben replied. “They knew they wouldn’t get any money for what they did after that, so they probably took to their heels.”

“They may be watching around, don’t you know,” the Englishman insisted. “I don’t like the idea of hanging around here without knowing whether they are watching us from some of these bloody rocks.”

The three hunted faithfully for a long time, notwithstanding the fact that Terry was constantly complaining that the dog would be almost starved to death. At last, however, they gave over the quest and moved on to the entrance to the cavern.

Just before they entered, Ben caught the Englishman by the shoulder and faced him around toward the valley.

“Look who’s here!” he said.

What they both saw was the Ann and a strange aeroplane moving swiftly in their direction.

“I guess Mr. Havens is moving the whole camp over!” Ben suggested. “And I haven’t got a word to say against it if he is! It’s rotten the way we’ve left him alone.”