CHAPTER VIII.
THE LOSS OF A BOY!
THE LOSS OF A BOY!
THE LOSS OF A BOY!
“They seem to be celebrating our arrival,” Ben said, looking down on the signal fire with a grin, “only I don’t hear any bands,” he continued, as the flames streamed up and cast a red light over the waters of the Pacific ocean.
“That’s about the strangest proposition I ever came across,” Carl said, looking down on the dark canyons, laying like black lines in a drawing, on the landscape below. “I’d like to know what it means.”
“Don’t you ever think,” Jimmie went on, “that Phillips and Mendoza have anything to do with that fire! That beacon light was put there for some purpose by an entirely different set of outlaws.”
“But why ‘outlaws’?” asked Carl. “The people we see about the fire may be fishermen, and there are lime quarries and kilns somewhere in this section, and these men may be signaling to schooners.”
Below the aeroplanes lay a great peak extending four thousand feet above the level of the sea. To the west the Pacific beat fiercely against its side. To the south the Sierra raised its lofty crags, apparently, straight out of the ocean. To the north a succession of summits lifted above the range. Off to the east lay a faint trail connecting, by devious turns and twists through the mountain wilderness, with the Southern Pacific railroad.
The beacon fire rose straight from a headland which jutted for some distance out into the ocean. The beat of the waves against the breakers at the foot of the headland came dimly up to the boys like the stir and rustle of a crowded street.
There had been a fog, but it was lifting now, and here and there traces of green might be seen wherever the flames revealed the surface of the ground. After a time Ben turned back with theBerthaand signaled to the others to help in the search for a safe landing-place.
This was by no means an easy task, as it was deep twilight now on the lower stretches of the mountain, and most of the canyons seemed mere yawning pits whose open mouths gaped eagerly for the prey in the air.
The boys turned to north and south in their machines and, sailing low, scrutinized the dim country in the hope of discovering some level spot where the flying machines could be brought to the ground with safety.
At last, perhaps two miles to the south of the headland, where the beacon light still sent its red flames into the air, Ben came upon a canyon or gully which had evidently once been the bed of a rushing mountain torrent. The wash of water from the steep surfaces, however, had, in distant years, filled the narrow slit between the summits with fine white sand.
It was by no means a large place, but was quite sufficient for the purpose. Ben felt his way carefully down, dropping into what seemed to him to be a fathomless pit between peaks until the white, hard floor below came faintly into view. After examining the place as thoroughly as possible with an electric searchlight, he volplaned down, much to Kit’s amazement, and soon had the satisfaction of feeling the rubber-tired wheels beneath the machine running evenly over a smooth surface.
It had been a great risk, however, this dropping down into the darkness between two mountain peaks, and Ben was not certain, even after landing, that he had done the correct thing. His light showed a level surface for only a short distance. The opening of the canyon faced the Pacific. To left and right were almost perpendicular walls. To the east a great crag was worn far under a shelving side by the action of the waves which at some distant time must have forced their way through the split in the mountains.
One thing which troubled the boy not a little was the question as to whether the space into which he had brought his flying machine was sufficient in size for both theBerthaand theLouise. They might be packed into the canyon, without doubt, but there was always the matter of room for the flight outward. Still, the place was ideal in that it appeared to be secure from observation from any position except the open sea.
The mountain summits to the north and south seemed entirely inaccessible, while the crag to the east, under which the cave-like excavation showed, looked more like the sharp blade of an upturned knife at the top than a surface capable of being ascended.
Ben waved his light back and forth, indicating to Jimmie and Carl that they should approach the canyon cautiously and from the east. He held an eye of flame to the summit of the crag to show that the drop must not come too suddenly in that direction.
His idea, of course, was to bring theLouisein so that her outward flight would be toward the sea. His own machine had come in from the west, and he knew that it would have to be lifted and wheeled about before she could be sent into the air.
Besides offering a comparatively safe hiding-place for the machines, the canyon also seemed to offer protection from the weather for the boys. Ben did not fully investigate the excavations under the cragat that time, but he knew that the soft lime-rock had been washed away to a considerable extent, and that the face of the cliff was honeycombed with small caves.
Jimmie circled about the canyon for a moment, caught sight of the crag under the flashlight, and passed its sharp edge with only a foot to spare. In a moment more, directed by the light in Ben’s hand, he drove theLouisealong the hard floor until she stood at rest by the side of theBertha.
Jimmie and Carl hastened to make themselves acquainted with the situation in the canyon by means of their electric searchlights. They ran here and there glancing up at the almost vertical walls to the north and south and throwing long fingers of light into the depressions in the crag. By this time Kit was asleep on the sand!
“Looks like one of the East-Side apartment houses,” grinned Jimmie, flashing his light upward. “See, there’s a row of windows, and there’s something that looks like a fire-escape!”
“Your row of windows,” laughed Ben, “consists of holes where lime-rocks have been worn away by the action of the water, and your fire-escape is only a long seam in the granite, with frequent cross sections.”
“Aw, what’s the use of busting up illusions,” asked Jimmie. “I was having a pleasant dream of the East Side. And the East Side made me thinkof the little old restaurant on Fourteenth street, near Tammany Hall. And the thought of the restaurant reminded me that I hadn’t had anything to eat since noon. Why didn’t you let me dream?”
“Any old time, it takes Tammany Hall, and Fourteenth street, and a fire-escape on a rock, to make Jimmie remember that he’s hungry!” laughed Carl.
“Well, if you’re hungry,” Ben suggested, “why don’t you go on and get supper? You’re the cook to-day, anyway.”
“Is it safe to build a fire?” asked Carl.
Ben shook his head and pointed to the walls on either side.
“The flame might not be seen,” he said, “but the reflection might, so I presume we’d better do our cooking on the alcohol stove.”
“Jerusalem!” exclaimed Jimmie. “I don’t want any cafeteria, Y. M. C. A., luncheon to-night. I want to get out about a dozen cans of beans, and tinned roast beef, and four or five pounds of ham, and a couple dozen eggs, and have a square meal. We’ve been sailing over the country for five or six days now eating wind sandwiches and drinking brook water.”
“Perhaps,” Carl observed pointing to the openings to the east, “we can find a place in there where a fire may safely be built.”
“Where’s your wood?” asked Ben.
“There’s always driftwood in a place like this,” Jimmie asserted. “There’s always trees falling down from the timber line and rotting in the canyons. I’ll find wood, all right, if we can find a place where it’s safe to build a fire,” he added with a chuckle of delight at the thought of a large meal. “What I need right now is plenty of sustenance!”
“Go to it!” laughed Ben. “Mr. Havens advised us to camp out in some spot about like this, and make excursions over the mountains in search of Phillips and Mendosa, so I don’t see why we’ll have to move our camp at all. Therefore, a neat little kitchen won’t come amiss.”
Jimmie started for the cliff with a chuckle. For some minutes his flashlight was seen dodging in and out of the water-worn caverns, and then it disappeared entirely. Carl, who was gathering driftwood, paused at Ben’s side and pointed toward the spot where Jimmie’s light had last been seen. His face was a trifle anxious as he said:
“You don’t suppose he’s gone and got into trouble, do you?”
“My guess is that he has found a deep cavern,” said Ben.
“I hope so,” Carl answered. “Say!” the boy went on, in a moment, “your speaking of Mr. Havens just now reminded me of the fact that hehasn’t communicated with us in any way since we started. I’m getting worried about that man! He might have overtaken us by fast train if he had seen fit to do so, but he didn’t.”
“I don’t see how he could have communicated with us in any way,” replied Ben. “We have never left an address, and always his people at the hangar declared in answer to our messages that he had not been heard from since the night he had so mysteriously left the stateroom of the Pullman car. They’re getting anxious about him in New York.”
“There’s one thing,” Carl went on, “and that is that the only clue which connects Mendosa and Phillips with the burglary of the Buyers’ Bank, and with the murder of the night-watchman, is in the possession of Mr. Havens. We can’t do very much until Havens comes.”
“We can locate the men, can’t we?” asked Ben. “So far as the clue is concerned, that will be needed only at the trial. What the New York chief of police wants is for us to locate the murderers and turn our information over to the California officers.”
“Anyway,” Carl insisted, “Mr. Havens was carrying a stone and a gold claw broken from a ring believed to have been worn by Mendosa on the night of the murder. The outlaws would go a long ways in order to secure possession of those articles. I’m getting frightened over Havens’ absence.”
“Suppose Mendosa should destroy the ring?” asked Ben. “That would render the clue valueless, wouldn’t it?”
“Indeed it wouldn’t!” answered Carl. “Mendosa is well-known to the police, and that ring was as well known to New York detectives as was the man’s face. I understand, too, that there are witnesses who saw Mendosa on the day following the burglary who noticed that one stone had disappeared from the ring, and that a claw had been broken off. Besides,” continued Carl, “Mendosa wouldn’t destroy that ring, or sell it, or give it away. He would lay it aside in some secure place until he could have the damage repaired. Mendosa is said to be foolish in the head like a fox!”
“You’re some detective, I reckon!” laughed Ben. “What you ought to do is to connect with some newspaper reporter and write stories for the magazines. Perhaps you could get one printed!”
“All right,” grinned Carl, “you can’t figure it out any other way. If the right steps are taken, and the stone and the claw are not stolen from Havens by agents of the outlaws, that ring will eventually convict the murderers of the night-watchman!”
The boys talked for some moments, sitting on the hard, white sand at the side of the machines. They had collected quite a quantity of dry driftwood, and were now waiting for Jimmie to return from his excursion in search of a safe and convenient cook-room.
“Look here, Ben,” Carl said in a moment, “we don’t want to go away and leave the machines, not even for a minute, not even if we are in a lonely spot, but some one ought to go and look for Jimmie. You know there’s a lot of places a boy might fall into in these mountain caverns!”
“All right,” Ben said, rising from the ground, “I’ll go and wake Kit. He was so sleepy when I brought theBerthadown that I lifted him out of the seat and laid him away against a wall! I don’t think he ever knew when I took him off the machine. I’ll give him a searchlight and send him to look after Jimmie.”
“Where did you put him?” asked Carl, “I’ll go and wake him up.”
“On a bed of nice hard, white sand close to the south wall,” replied Ben. “There’s an old coat which I had to wrap around my shoulders in the higher altitudes under his head. Bring that along, too; we’ll need it later.”
Carl went away whistling with his hands in his pockets, taking great breaths of fresh mountain air into his lungs, and believing that he was about the happiest boy on the face of the earth. It was all so different from the crowded streets of New York! In a moment Ben heard him calling.
“You must have mislaid him!” the boy said. “Here’s the coat, but the kid isn’t here! It looks like there’d been a scrap here on the sand. Perhaps a mountain lion carried him off.”
Ben sprang to his feet and rushed out to Carl.