CHAPTER XVI.STILL ANOTHER GUEST.
“You bet he wouldn’t!” declared Carl, who had come into the tent during the progress of the conversation. “He’d be more apt to carry a gun! What did he want to lug his toilet articles away for?”
“Perhaps he wanted to get that bag out of camp!” suggested Jimmie.
“What’s the answer to that?” asked Carl.
“Suppose this Neil Howell recognized that bag as one formerly owned by the man he played cards with?”
“That’s another dream!” Carl laughed.
“Anyhow,” Jimmie said, “I’m going up in theLouiseand find that camp!”
“And I’m going with you,” Carl grinned.
“Can’t I go anywhere without one of you boys tagging along?” demanded Jimmie in mock anger.
“It’s a shame for you to say such things!” declared Carl. “After the number of times we’ve saved your life!”
“All right!” laughed Jimmie. “Come along if you want to!”
“If I were you,” Mr. Havens advised, “I wouldn’t try to land near the camp if you succeed in locating it. The song of the motors can be heard a long way off, you know, and the campers will be sure to know that an aeroplane is in the vicinity.”
“That’s a good idea!” Carl agreed. “We ought to find the camp and sail over it, and around it, and then duck away as if we belong out on the Pacific coast somewhere. Then we can go back on foot, if it isn’t too far away, and see what sort of a crowd the Englishman traveled with.”
“That’s my idea of the situation,” Mr. Havens said.
“And we ought not to say anything to the Englishman about where we’re going!” Jimmie suggested. “Because he’ll be eager to know what we find out, and may decide not to remain with us at all after we discover why he left his companions.”
“We don’t know that he hasn’t told the absolute truth about his departure from camp,” Mr. Havens suggested, “but it will do no harm to work on the theory that a man merely in quest of mountain adventurewould not leave his camp carrying a hand-bag. As Carl says, he’d be more likely to carry a gun!”
Ben came into the tent and stood listening to the conversation. He agreed with the others that there was something queer about the Englishman’s sudden appearance with the hand-bag, but said that the fellow had really possessed a gun when he reached the fire where he had been found.
“He told me,” Ben went on, “that Crooked Terry had taken his gun and other articles, including his money, from his person.”
“Why didn’t you snatch Crooked Terry bald-headed and make him give ’em up?” asked Jimmie.
“Because DuBois didn’t tell me about his being robbed until after we had left the crook asleep in the cavern. I think, by the way,” Ben continued, “that I’d better go up to the smugglers’ den to-day and see what I can learn regarding those two men.”
“Is this a conspiracy to leave me all alone in the camp again?” asked Mr. Havens. “I’m getting about enough of solitude.”
“Why, there’s the Englishman,” suggested Jimmie.
“Don’t you ever think he won’t want to go, too,” Ben laughed. “He’s the craziest man about flying machines I ever saw.”
“But early this morning,” Jimmie argued, “he said that he didn’t care about going into the sky again to-day.”
“Perhaps that’s because you suggested hunting up his camp,” laughed Ben. “Somehow he don’t seem to want to find that camp.”
“Suppose,” suggested Mr. Havens, “you boys go in relays. Let Jimmie and Carl go and look up the camp first, and after they return Ben and DuBois can visit the smugglers’ camp.”
“That’s all right,” Ben exclaimed. “I’ll remain here until Jimmie and Carl return, if they’re not gone too long!”
“Did you see anything of intruders while we were gone?” asked Jimmie turning to Mr. Havens.
“Why,” replied the aviator, “I did see a man looking toward the camp from the valley to the north, but no attempt to molest me was made.”
“So that’s why you don’t want to be left alone!” laughed Jimmie. “You think perhaps those fellows are hanging around here yet!”
“They may be, at that!” Carl suggested.
“We have the faculty of getting into a storm center,” Jimmie complained. “We get a collection of humanity around every camp we make! If we should go and make a camp on top of the Woolworth building, in little old New York, people would be making a hop-skip-and-jump from the sidewalk and inviting themselves to dinner!”
“Well, go on out and stir up another mess of visitors,” laughed Mr. Havens. “And when you find this camp,” he added, “don’t land anywhere near it and try to creep in on the campers. All you’ve got to do is to come back and tell us where it is!”
“All right!” laughed Jimmie. “I’ll make a map of the country so any one can find it.”
The two boys were soon away in theLouise, and then Ben and the Englishman went to Mr. Havens’ tent to further talk over the situation. The millionaire was very much inclined to ask the Englishman just why he had left his camp, but finally decided not to do so.
DuBois was very thoughtful and not inclined to join in the conversation. More than once they saw him step to the flap of the tent and look out over the valley. On such occasions he seemed nervous and anxious.
“Are you expecting company?” Ben asked after one of these visits.
“I heard some talk about people watching the camp, don’t you know,” the Englishman replied, “and it rawther got on me mind!”
“There won’t any one come here in the daytime,” Ben urged.
“Did you see the faces of the men who came this morning?” asked the boy turning to Mr. Havens.
“I didn’t say that I saw men,” smiled the aviator. “I said that I thought I saw a man looking toward the camp.”
“Did you see his face?” insisted the Englishman.
“I did not!” was the reply.
“Can you describe him in any way?”
“I’m afraid not!”
The Englishman walked to the flap of the tent again and looked out.
“For instance,” he said looking back into the tent, “was the general appearance of the fellow anything like the general appearance of the man who is approaching the fire from the other side?”
The aviator gave a quick start of surprise and Ben sprang to his feet and walked out to the fire, closely followed by the Englishman. The man approaching from the south was evidently not a mountaineer. He was remarkably well-dressed, although his garments showed contact with mountain thickets, and his walk was unsteady and like that of one unfamiliar with rough ground. He wore a derby hat, a silk tie, and a gold watch-chain traversed his vest from left to right. He was, in fact, about the cut of a man one would expect to meet in the business district of New York.
Instead of watching the visitor, Ben turned his eyes toward the Englishman, determined to see if any signs of recognition showed on the face of the latter. His first impression was that this man had in some way found his way there from the camp which the Englishman had deserted.
DuBois’ face expressed only curiosity and surprise as the visitor came closer to the fire. Ben turned to the newcomer.
“Good-afternoon!” he said.
“Same to you!” replied the other. “You can’t understand,” he added with a faint smile, “how glad I am to see once more a face that reminds me of civilization.”
“That’s me!” laughed Ben winking at the Englishman.
“That’s both of you, and the man in the tent, too!” laughed the other. “I’ve been wandering around this everlasting, eternal, Providence-forsaken valley for three or four days, living on ground squirrels and seeking to become intoxicated on river water.”
“Did you lose your camp, too?” asked Ben with a chuckle.
“I never had any camp in this country!” was the reply. “I came in by way of Crow’s Nest, with a pack of provisions on my back, looking for land worth squatting on. I ate my provisions the first week, lost my way the second, and traveled on my nerve the third.”
“Did it make good going?” asked Ben with a grin.
“Fairly good!” was the reply. “You see,” he went on, “I had a couple of automatic guns and plenty of cartridges, so I’d shoot red ground squirrels when ever I got hungry and build a fire in among the tall trees and cook ’em. Then I’d go to sleep by the fire and wake up that night, or the next morning, or the day after the next morning, or any old time. And that’s the kind of an existence I’ve been having.”
“That’s the wild, free life, all right!” Ben agreed.
“I’ve been chased by bears, and kept awake at night by lynxes, and wolverines, until it seems to me as if I had butted into the Central Park Zoo! And right this minute,” he added, looking around the camp with wistful eyes, “I’m about as hungry as a human being can be and stand on his feet. I haven’t had a drop of coffee for a month!”
“I was waiting for that!” Ben grinned as he moved toward the coffee-pot and provision box. “Everybody that comes here is hungry! I’ve got so I make a break for the coffee-pot and the grub the minute I see a stranger approaching.”
“I’m glad you’ve got the habit,” laughed the other. “I’ve butted into camps in this country before now where a man wasn’t welcome to take a second breath out of the atmosphere!”
“Recently?” asked Ben.
“Why, only three or four days ago,” the stranger answered, “I struck a camp where they had tons and tons of provisions, and they wouldn’t give me the second meal! Yes, sir, they fired me out after I’d had a few egg sandwiches and a cup of coffee substitute.”
“How long ago was this?” asked Ben, glancing quietly at the Englishman.
“Three or four days ago!” was the answer. “I’ve been traveling nights to keep warm, and to keep out of the clutches of the wild animals, and sleeping days so long that I’ve lost all track of time. It may have been three days ago and it may have been four days ago.”
“Can you give me the direction of this camp?” asked the Englishman. “I’d like to know something about the fellows there, if you don’t mind.”
“Oh, I don’t know which way it is from here. I couldn’t find it if I wanted to, and I’ll give you a straight tip right now that I don’t want to! Just for company’s sake, understand, I tried to get a night’s sleep within sight of their camp-fire. I rolled myself in a blanket and was just dreaming that I was eating a porterhouse steak at Sherry’s, when the midnight concert at the camp began. I guess they were all good and drunk before morning.”
“Do you know,” began the Englishman, “that I half believe that you found the camp I belonged in!”
“If you were in the camp when I tried to sleep near it,” the stranger went on, “you probably got a good souse before morning.”
The Englishman turned away to the tent, and Ben busied himself in preparing dinner for the stranger who gave his name as Martin Sprague.
“I see,” Sprague went on, while the dinner cooked, “that you boys have a couple of fine flying machines. Was that your machine that lit out over the valley a short time ago? When I saw that machine, I said there must be a camp in this side of the valley, so I followed my nose and here I am.”
After a time, Ben placed a substantial meal before Sprague and then, to an answer to a gesture from the Englishman, hastened back to the tent.
“Do you know,” DuBois said, as the two stood together at the flap, “that fellow who just came in was with Neil Howell in San Francisco! I saw the two together there often. If he went to our camp, he found Neil Howell there, and he received no such treatment as he reports.”
“Then you think the fellow’s a fraud, do you?” asked Ben.
“I don’t know about that!” the Englishman replied, “but I do know that he is trying to deceive you, and my private opinion is that he came to this camp for a purpose, and with the consent of Neil Howell.”