The Boy Scout Camera Club Part 10

When he reached the camp Jack was in the land of dreams, and he decided not to awake him. He could go alone just as well!

He went on down to the feeding ground and presented Uncle Ike with a lump of sugar. The mule thanked him with wiggling ears and dived a soft muzzle into his coat pocket for another lump.

"Not until you come back, Uncle Ike!" Oliver explained. "If you do a good job traveling up and down the mountainside, you're going to have another piece of sugar when we get back!"

The boy saddled and bridled the animal, mounted, and urged him away from the feeding ground. Uncle Ike, thinking his day's work finished, objected to being put into harness again, and reared and kicked until Oliver was obliged to dismount and bribe him with more sugar.

"Will you go now, you fool mule?" he asked.

Uncle Ike finally decided to go, and his sure feet were soon pressing the slope toward the campfire. Oliver struck the canyon just about where Jimmie and Teddy had entered it.

He left Uncle Ike there and advanced toward the campfire on foot.

There were only a few embers left, and no signs of the fires which had sent up the two columns of smoke! There was no one in sight from the place where Oliver first came in direct view of the blaze.

He stepped along cautiously, listening as he walked, and soon came to a second fire. This, too, was burned down low. Beyond this he saw the dark opening of a cave in the outcropping ridge.

As Oliver stepped toward it, thinking the boys might have taken refuge there for the night, he stumbled over something which rolled under his foot and nearly fell to the ground. When he stooped over to see what it was that had tripped him, he saw an electric flashlight lying before him.

"The boys have been here, all right," he mused. "Now, I wonder if this was taken from them, or whether they lost it, or whether it was placed here to mark the trail? Either supposition may be the correct one!"

The question was settled in a moment, for a voice which he knew came out of the darkness.

"Found it, eh? Give it to me!"

"Jimmie!" whispered Oliver.

"Get in here out of the light of the fire!" Jimmie whispered, "and bring the electric in with you. Come on in, and see what we've found."

The opening in the ridge was a shallow one, Oliver discovered as he entered it. To his surprise he found three lads there instead of the two he had been looking for.

"You saw the fires?" asked Jimmie, in a low tone.

"Of course I did. Why didn't you come to camp?"

"This is the boy that built the Boy Scout signals!" Jimmie said, bringing the other forward. "His name is Dode Surratt, and he's a bold, bad boy, being at present lookout for a gang of counterfeiters!"

"That's a nice clean job," Oliver replied. "Where are the counterfeiters?"

"At work in a hole in the ground. Hear the click of their machines?

They are turning out silver dollars faster than we can spend them. We hid around until they went to work, then came up to talk with Dode."

Jimmie pointed to a crevice in the rock and invited Oliver to look. A lance of light came up into the cave, and the boy's eyes followed it.

He could see a square room below, with a bright fire burning at one end and figures moving about it.

"Making counterfeit money, are they?" asked Oliver.

"That's what they're doing! We were just thinking of getting out when you came. Dode wants to go with us, but we tell him to remain with the gang until they can be rounded up by the officers."

Dode started to make some remark, but Jimmie stopped him.

"They haven't got any consideration coming from you, have they?" he asked. "They stole you, didn't they? They brought you here from Was.h.i.+ngton to make a thief of you, didn't they?"

"And they beat you up for making the signals, too," Teddy put in.

"And they're coming out now!" he added. "So we'll all git--but Dode!"

CHAPTER VIII

UNCLE IKE PRESENTS HIMSELF

Mrs. Brady and Buck walking together, Ned and Frank discussed the situation thoroughly as they descended the mountainside.

"This may be a frame-up," Ned observed, "but it is up to us to see it through. The boy who has just been brought in may be the prince, or he may be the grandson, and we are here to get the answer."

"Or there may be no boy at the cabin at all!" Frank suggested. "The conspirators know that we are in the mountains for the purpose of looking up the prince. What better plan than the one now working could they have settled on? If they are sharp at all, they would understand that a story of a child brought on from Was.h.i.+ngton would set us in motion--would be likely to get us into a trap!"

They scrambled on down the slope for some distance, too busy keeping upright to do any talking, then Frank went on.

"You know very well that I'm no prophet of evil, Ned, but it looks to me that we have betrayed our mission here by taking such an interest in the child. Would a lot of boys looking for snap-shots trail off in the night to see a boy when they might have taken a look at him the next day?"

"If I know anything about human nature," Ned answered, "those two people ahead of us are honest. If it is a frame-up, they are not in it."

"Anyway," Frank went on, "I'm glad the plans were changed by the arrival of Buck. It is much better for us to meet whatever is coming to us side by side than to have me sneaking back in the distance!"

Ned agreed to this, and the two quickened their pace in order to come up with Buck and Mrs. Brady, who were now turning from the west to the south, keeping along the slope of the mountain. Directly they came to a narrow trail which led into a green valley.

Following this, they soon came to a couple of acres of cleared land, in the middle of which stood a rough cabin of peeled logs. A dim light came from a square window by the door, and there came from the interior the sound of a man's voice humming a song.

The woman drew up and looked suspiciously at Buck.

"Who is that?" she asked. "You didn't tell me my son came, too."

"No," replied Buck, "I didn't, because, you see, Mike didn't come! He sent this young fellow in with the kid, bringing word that he would be along later."

"And who is it?" demanded the woman.

"A likely young chap," was the reply. "He asked me to get you home to-night, because he wants to leave early in the morning."

"He won't leave early in the morning if he sees us here," Ned whispered to Frank. "If that is the prince in there, the man with him may be the fellow who made his way into Jack's house and listened from the attic."

"What are we going to do about it, then?" asked Frank, anxiously.

"We've got to meet him," Ned replied. "Whoever he is, he knows from Buck that Mrs. Brady went up the mountain to visit a camp of strangers. We've got to go in and face him! I wish we had kept away from here to-night."

Mrs. Brady and Buck now opened the door and entered the cabin, the boys close behind them. A log fire was burning on a stone hearth, and a tall, rather handsome young man with light hair and blue eyes was sitting in a homemade chair before it.