CHAPTER I.
THE FALL OF THE BEAR
Two aeroplanes lay in a green basin in the heart of the Rocky mountains. To the east of the basin lay a slope of half a mile or more. At the top of the slope stretched a summit not more than half an acre in extent. Thirty miles away lifted the snowy peaks of the Continental Divide. To the west a broken country stretched to the Pacific.
The flying machines lying in the valley were the Louise and the Bertha. They had arrived from New York city that day, and the aviators, weary from their long journey, were lying about a great fire of dry jack pines and spruce. Thick porterhouse steaks, brought in from Spokane, were broiling over a nest of coals, and a great coffee-pot was sending forth its fragrance on the evening air.
Those who have read the previous books of this series will scarcely need an introduction to Ben Whitcomb, Jimmie Stuart, or Carl Nichols. Sturdy, adventurous lads of seventeen, they had entered the employ of Louis Havens, the noted millionaire aviator, a few months before, and under his direction had visited the mountains of Mexico, Southern California and Peru. While on their Peruvian trip they had assisted greatly in the capture of a cashier who had stolen several million dollars from a New York trust company. This incident had led to their visit to British Columbia.
On the very night of their return from Peru, Mr. Havens had suggested that they enter the service of the federal government and assist in the capture of a group of mail-order outlaws who were believed to have caused the abduction of a post-office inspector who had long been investigating their peculiar methods of doing business.
Although Mr. Havens had not at that time given the boys the full details of the case, they had at once joyfully accepted the mission and almost immediately taken their departure for the Pacific coast.
It was believed at the time of their departure that the inspector who had been abducted had been taken to the mountains of British Columbia for safekeeping. Just how this information had reached the secret service department no one outside of the private office of the chief knew.
All the papers collected by the inspector, many of them of great importance as supplying convincing proof against the fraudulent mail-order operators, had been removed from the inspector’s office at the time of his abduction. The documents, of course, could not be replaced.
The boys had traveled directly from New York to a point in the Rocky mountains not far north of Crow’s Nest, where they had crossed the great range. So far as practicable they had traveled nights and at a low altitude.
Naturally the passage of two large flying machines over the country had attracted attention, but the boys had kept away from cities so far as possible, and it was believed that no one connected with the group of mail-order operators had any intimation of the purpose of the trip.
For a portion of the distance the boys had been accompanied on the trip by Mr. Havens, riding the Ann, probably the largest and fastest aeroplane ever constructed. The millionaire aviator, however, had halted at Denver for the purpose of receiving definite instructions from the secret service department at Washington, while the boys had proceeded on their way. His arrival was momentarily expected.
While the steak broiled and the coffee bubbled the three boys sat looking over the great slope above. They spoke little for a time. The scene was so grand, so near to the very heart of nature, that all the little things of life seemed inconsequential. For a space they forgot the mighty skyscrapers and canyons of New York and the level prairies over which they had journeyed. The mountain scene dominated everything in their minds.
Presently Ben Whitcomb, brown-eyed, athletic, and rather inclined at times to take little troubles to heart, sprang to his feet and pointed to the north. The others were at his side in a moment.
“Look there!” he said passing a field-glass to Jimmie.
Jimmie, red-headed, freckle-faced and shorter in stature than his companion, looked through the glass for a moment and passed it on to Carl.
“Is that an elk?” Jimmie asked in a moment.
“That’s what it is!” answered Ben. “It’s a full-grown bull elk!”
Carl, blue-eyed, broad of shoulders, and always ready to meet an emergency with a joke, handed the glass back to Ben and hastened to the broiling steaks.
Somewhat farther up on the slope of the basin where the green timber halted, crowded down by the rock, an elk walked out into the middle of an especially inviting patch of grass and looked about. He carried a good pair of antlers and looked big and beautiful. For about five minutes he grazed on the tender grass then marched to the edge of the basin and browsed on green branches. Finally he vanished in the thick green timber, and was not seen again.
“Cripes!” exclaimed Jimmie. “Wouldn’t that be a sight for the great White Way? He’d look fine down at Forty-second street, wouldn’t he?”
“Huh!” answered Carl. “I guess there’s Elks enough on Broadway now!”
“More than there are in all these mountains,” Ben suggested.
Directly Ben took the steak and coffee from the fire and Jimmie and Carl brought dishes and knives and forks from the flying machines. Then they spread a white table cloth on the turf not far from the fire and laid out their meal. Besides the meat and coffee there was plenty of bread, canned beans and tomatoes.
“I’m going hunting to-morrow!” Jimmie declared. “I’d like to know what’s the use of paying fifty dollars apiece for a hunting license and then bringing beefsteak in from Spokane.”
Ben took out one of the non-resident hunting licenses and read it over carefully.
“This gives me a right,” he said, “to slay three mountain goats; three mountain sheep rams; three deer; one bull moose, and all the grizzly bears I can come up with.”
“Are they all good to eat?” demanded Carl.
“They’re all good to eat in a way,” replied Ben, “but I don’t think the people hereabouts feast very much on mountain sheep, or grizzly bears either, when they can get anything else.”
“We ate bear in southern California!” cried Jimmie.
“Yes, and it was all right, too!” Carl declared.
“What’s the matter of going out hunting to-night?” Jimmie asked in a moment. “Then we’ll be sure to have something for breakfast.”
“I think we’d better remain in camp to-night,” Ben replied. “We’ll put up our oiled silk shelter-tents, and get the blankets and pillows out of the flying machines, and make ourselves comfortable right here until Mr. Havens comes. He may not be here for two or three days.”
“But he said he wouldn’t be ten hours behind us!” argued Carl.
“When a man’s doing business by wire with the secret service department at Washington,” Ben explained, “he doesn’t know whether he’ll be ten hours or ten days finding out what he wants to know!”
“Why didn’t he find out before he left New York?” asked Jimmie.
“He did find out all they knew regarding the whereabouts of post-office inspector Larry Colleton before we left New York!” answered Ben. “He stopped at Denver to find out if anything new had developed.”
“Are you sure this is the basin he told us to camp in?” asked Carl.
“Certain sure!” answered Ben. “He told us to cross the divide at the Crow’s Nest and keep on north between the Elk river and the mountains until we came to a large grassy valley.”
“Then this is the place all right!” Carl agreed.
After supper the boys set up their shelter-tents and prepared to pass a comfortable night. They had spent nearly two weeks crossing the continent, and had been in the air most of the nights, so they looked forward to a long sleep with pleasant anticipations.
While the boys were putting the finishing touches on the bed in one of the shelter-tents, a great rattling of stones was heard and in a moment rubble from the size of a marble to that of an apple came rattling down the long slope to the east. Startled by the unexpected shower, which pelted about the camp like hailstones in a northern blizzard, the lads rushed from the tent to ascertain the cause of the sudden commotion.
Twenty rods up the mountain they saw what appeared to be the body of a great grizzly bear half-sliding, half-tumbling toward the valley. At times the lumbering animal retarded his fall by clinging with his claws to the uncertain slope. Again, he rolled over and over for several yards, until his claws secured another hold. The beast was uttering savage growls as he came down, and every bump he received appeared to bring forth snarls more vicious than those which had gone before.
“Cripes!” exclaimed Jimmie. “Look who’s here!”
“He’ll be here in a minute, plumb on top of the tent!” Carl declared.
“Then why don’t you do something to head him off?” asked Jimmie.
“Yes,” the other argued, “I’d like to get in front of a ton of bear meat coming down a mountain at the rate of forty miles an hour!”
It was fortunate for the boys that the descent of the bear was checked for a little by a narrow shelf which ran along the edge of the slope close to the bottom. Here the great body landed with a thud which knocked out what little breath remained.
“That saved our tents and flying machines, I reckon!” cried Ben, as the bear tipped from the shelf and landed in the grass only a few feet from the Louise.
“He certainly would have smashed something if he had gone on at the clip he was going when we first saw him!” agreed Carl.
“Speaking about going hunting to-night or to-morrow!” laughed Ben, “it strikes me that we don’t have to go hunting in this philanthropic country. Fresh meat seems to rain down from the skies!”
The three boys now advanced to the side of the animal and looked him over. He was not quite dead, but it was evident that he had received injuries from which he could not recover.
“We may as well put him out of his trouble,” suggested Ben, drawing an automatic revolver. “He made a fight for life and lost!”
“Wait a minute!” exclaimed Jimmie, standing now at the bear’s head, “here’s a fresh bullet wound now!”
“Do you suppose that’s what made him fall?” asked Ben.
“Of course!” returned Jimmie. “He was up on the mountain and some one shot him, and that’s why he came tumbling down in that ridiculous way.”
“Is the wound still bleeding?” asked Carl.
“Still bleeding!” replied Jimmie. “It looks like a wound about five minutes’ old. The bullet is somewhere inside the grizzly’s head, and I don’t believe he was in his right mind when he was sticking his claws into the rocks on the way down!”
The three boys looked at each other with questioning glances.
“Ask it!” grinned Jimmie.
“Ask it yourself!” Carl exclaimed.
“I’ll ask it!” Ben said with a grave face. “Who fired that shot?”
“The answer is ‘Yes’, so far as I know!” laughed Jimmie.
“No foolishness now!” Ben continued. “Some one fired that shot, and that means that some one is prowling around our camp!”
“The man who fired the shot,” suggested Carl, “may be over on the other side of the mountain!”
“Then he’d be more than half a mile away!” scoffed Jimmie.
“That’s a fact!” Carl admitted. “And, besides,” the lad went on, “a man high up on the mountain wouldn’t be apt to shoot game lower down, unless he wanted a good chase after it.”
“And all this indicates,” Ben said, “that the man who did the shooting is somewhere near this camp. Also it indicates that he has a Maxim silencer on his gun, and that’s a thing natives hereabouts don’t have. Every time we go out on a trip we seem to bunt into a mystery first thing, and we’ve got one now, all right!”
“I wish Mr. Havens would come!” Carl cut in. “It may be that some one out here knows what we’re up to and intends to make trouble.”
While the boys talked a shout was heard in the distance, and two husky, roughly-dressed men made their appearance, heading directly for the camp-fire. The boys laid their hands on their automatics.
CHAPTER II.
A WOBBLING AEROPLANE
The boys stepped back from the bear as the men came up. It was growing dusk now, and as the men drew nearer their faces were seen only by the dancing flames of the fire. They were not prepossessing faces, and the boys wondered if it was the illumination which produced the shifty and suspicious glances they caught.
The two bent over the bear for an instant, and then one aimed his rifle slowly and fired a bullet into the animal’s head. No report followed the shot, and then it was observed that the weapon carried a Maxim silencer. This doubtless accounted for the fact that the shot which had brought the bear down had not been heard at the camp.
After talking together in whispers for a moment, as the acrid smell of powder drifted out into the sweet air of the valley, the men turned questioning looks toward the boys. From the youthful faces their eyes soon roved to the two aeroplanes not far away.
There was more whispered talk, and then the two stepped over to the Louise and began a careful and rather impertinent inspection of the motors. The boys looked on angrily but said nothing.
“Rather fine machines you have there,” one of the fellows said, after the deliberate examination had been completed.
“We think so!” Ben answered shortly.
“Where are you from?” asked the other intruder.
Ben gave Jimmie and Carl a sly nudge to remain silent and answered the question in a manner which, while the exact truth, did not reveal the starting place.
“Denver,” he said.
The fellow bent down and read the names of the machines from little silver plates screwed to the frames.
“The Louise and the Bertha,” he said. “It appears to me that I have heard something of these aeroplanes before.”
“The names are common enough,” Ben answered.
“The machines I refer to,” the visitor went on, “belong in New York. Are you sure you didn’t bring these machines from a hangar on Long Island?”
Jimmie could restrain himself no longer. From the first he had felt a feeling of aversion for the men, and he had inwardly resented not only the question asked but the impudent and uncalled-for examination of the aeroplanes. In spite of a warning hand from Ben he blurted out:
“What do you care where we came from?”
The two intruders eyed the boy sharply for a moment, as if trying to look him out of countenance, and then one of them said:
“None of your lip, now, youngster!”
“Well!” exclaimed Jimmie. “You’ve got your nerve with you!”
The man who had spoken before seemed about to make an angry reply, but his companion drew him away, and again they talked together in whispers.
“What are you fellows doing here, anyhow?” Jimmie demanded. “If you think you’re going to work the third degree on us, you’ve got another think coming! You’re too fresh, anyway!”
Presently the men turned back to the boys again, and the light of the fire on their bearded faces showed that they were about to adopt a new course of conduct. The fellow who spoke smiled as he did so.
“I can’t blame you for resenting our supposedly unwarranted interference,” he said. “We should have informed you at first that we are in the employ of the Canadian government as mounted policemen.”
“Where’s your horses?” demanded Jimmie.
“At the other end of the valley.”
“Where’s your uniforms?”
“We rarely wear uniforms in rough mountain work.”
The fellow answered the two questions with apparent frankness, but there was a set expression on his face which showed that he was restraining a naturally vicious temper by great effort.
Ben now stepped forward and extended a hand in greeting.
“We’re glad to see you, I’m sure!” he said. “Still, I hardly think you will blame us for resenting apparently impertinent questions.”
“That’s all right, boy!” replied the other, trying his best to bring a conciliatory expression to his sullen face. “It’s part of our duty, you understand, to visit camps in the mountains and make inquiries as to the intentions of strangers.”
“We understand that, of course,” Ben answered. “We are willing to answer any questions you care to ask, now that we know who you are.”
“I hope you’ll answer my first question in a manner entirely satisfactory to myself!” laughed the other.
“I shall try,” answered Ben, “what is it?”
“Have you any coffee left?”
“You bet we have!” replied the boy. “And if you’ll sit down here by the fire, we’ll make you a quart inside of ten minutes.”
Jimmie turned away to the provision box of the Louise to bring out fresh coffee with apparent willingness, but both his companions saw an angry expression on his face.
Carl followed him back to the aeroplane and whispered as they bent over the coffee sack together:
“You don’t like ’em, eh?”
“They’re snakes!” was the reply.
“But they belong to the mounted police!”
“I don’t believe it!”
“Anyway,” warned Carl, “you’ve got to keep a civil tongue in your head and not let them know that you think they’re lying.”
“You don’t believe that mounted police story yourself!” declared Jimmie. “They don’t look like mounted policemen, either!”
“I hardly know what to believe,” Carl replied, “but I’ve got sense enough not to let them know that I’m still guessing.”
Jimmie returned to the fire with the coffee and sat down on the grass not far from the visitors. While Ben prepared supper one of the men walked out to the carcass of the grizzly and began removing the hide.
Carl rushed up to his side and stood looking down at the clumsy manner in which the fellow was operating.
“Say,” the boy proposed in a moment, “why can’t we all have bear steak for supper? We boys had supper not long ago, but I think I could eat a bear steak right now!”
The man looked up with a puzzled expression.
“Bear steak for supper?” he repeated. “You don’t eat bear meat, do you?”
“Would a duck take to the water?” asked Carl. “Of course we eat bear meat! Sometimes it’s a little tough, unless you know exactly how to cook it, but I can broil a bear steak so it’ll melt in your mouth!”
“Then do so by all means!” the visitor answered.
Carl removed several tender steaks, took them back to the fire and then called Jimmie to one side.
“You’re all right, kiddo,” he said, as the two seated themselves in the shadows some distance from the blaze.
“Have you just found that out?” demanded Jimmie.
“I mean about those imitation mounted policemen,” Carl went on. “They’re no more mounted policemen than I am!”
“Then they’re a long ways from it!” Jimmie laughed. “But why this sudden conversion to my view of the case?”
“They don’t know about eating bear meat!” was the scornful reply. “One of them just told me that he didn’t know that they ever ate bear steak!”
“That does settle it!” cried Jimmie.
“Of course, it settles it!” agreed Carl. “And now the question,” he continued, “is this: What are they doing here, and why are they posing as mounted policemen? You don’t suppose they’ve got word from New York, do you?”
“Word from New York about what?”
“About our being out looking for the post-office inspector the mail-order brigands abducted not long ago.”
“Of course not!” was the reply. “These fellows are just plain mountain bums! They came here principally to get supper!”
“Or to steal the machines!” suggested Carl.
“We’ll see that they don’t steal the machines!” Jimmie declared.
“Well, I wish Mr. Havens would come,” Carl put in, with rather a longing expression in his voice. “We don’t know anything about the case we’re handling, and we don’t know whether we’re going to remain in this camp an hour or a month. For all we know the men we are trying to find may be in Mexico before this!”
“If they’re in Mexico,” Jimmie suggested, “the United States government can go chase itself for all of me. If you don’t remember what a beautiful time we had in Mexico, I do, and I don’t want any more of it!”
Those who have read the previous volumes of this series will doubtless remember the adventures of the Flying Machine Boys at the burning mountain. During that trip, it will be understood, they suffered the loss of some of their machines, and Jimmie came near meeting his death in a mountain lake known as the Devil’s Pool.
“I’m going wherever Mr. Havens sends me,” Carl answered, “and I’m going to get all the fun out of it there is to get. What’s puzzling me now is to know exactly what we ought to do with these bums.”
“Aw, we can’t do anything with them,” Jimmie grunted. “We’ve just got to feed them and see them hanging around here, trying to steal our machines, and sit peaceful, like a wooden Indian in front of a Bowery cigar store. It makes me sick!”
However, the boys were not called upon to take action of any kind at that time. Ben broiled bear steak enough for the whole party, made some excellent coffee, and brought out a couple of loaves of bread. At the conclusion of this second meal, at least on the part of the boys, the two intruders arose, threw their rifles over their shoulders, and turned away. However, one of them stepped back in a moment.
“We haven’t seen you do any shooting yet,” he said with a smile on his face which Ben regarded as most insincere, “but we don’t know when you will be hunting big game, so you may as well show us your licenses.”
“There!” Jimmie whispered to Carl as Ben produced the three licenses from an inside pocket. “They’ve saved their important question for the last moment!”
“What do you mean by that?” asked Carl.
“Why, those fellows are not mounted policemen!” the boy answered.
“We had made up our minds to that before!”
“Then why should they want to see our licenses?”
“I know!” exclaimed Carl. “I know just why they want to see our licenses! They want to get our names!”
“That’s it!” Jimmie answered. “They never asked to see the licenses in order to make good their bluff about being officers!”
After examining the papers the two visitors left the camp and proceeded down the valley to the west. Upon their departure the boys gathered closer about the fire and seriously discussed the situation.
At first Ben was inclined to argue that the men were actually Canadian officials, but Jimmie and Carl soon reasoned him out of this.
“Why,” Jimmie said, “a mounted policeman would know how to skin a bear without cutting the hide full of holes, and he’d also know that bear steak is considered quite a luxury in British Columbia. They’re frauds all right,” and this view of the case was finally accepted by all.
Throughout the evening the boys kept their eyes open for the return of the unwelcome guests, but nothing was seen of them. At ten o’clock, when the lads were thinking of drawing lots to see who should remain on guard through the night, Jimmie caught sight of a strong light far up in the sky. Ben had his field-glass out in a moment.
“That’s the Ann, all right,” he decided after a long inspection. “There’s no other aeroplane in the world carries a light like that!”
“I’m glad Mr. Havens is coming,” Jimmie said with a sigh of relief.
“I said it was the Ann!” Ben returned after another long look. “I didn’t say Mr. Havens was flying her! It seems to me that the man on board doesn’t know as much about the aviation game as Mr. Havens does. She’s wobbling about something frightful!”