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CHAPTER XXI.
THE BOY AND THE BEAR

Carl slept little that night. The man who had given his name as Frank Harris occupied the tent with him and the two talked until a very late hour. The boy saw from the first that his inquisitor was trying to obtain all the information in his possession regarding the purpose of the Flying Machine Boys in visiting British Columbia.

It is needless to say that no mention was made of the Colleton case. Carl knew that the fellow was talking round and round the subject, but he did not see fit to swallow the bait and mention the name of the abducted post-office inspector.

Harris talked a great deal about Wall street and the chances for young boys there, and repeatedly suggested that Carl and Jimmie join his office force. The boy understood what this all meant, and did not “fall for the fly,” as Jimmie might have expressed it.

“I’d like to know how I’m ever going to get back to our camp,” Carl said, as Harris mentioned the possibility of his return the next day.

“Why,” Harris replied, in apparent amazement at the remark, “one of your friends will come after you in a flying machine, I suppose!”

“I don’t know whether they will or not!” answered Carl. “You fellows scared Jimmie away so he won’t be likely to return right off.”

“He needn’t have been afraid,” Harris laughed. “We wanted to entertain the two of you, and, besides, some of the fellows wanted to take a look at the machine!”

“And you wanted to know all about the Englishman, too, didn’t you?” chuckled Carl.

“Oh, we’ll capture the Englishman without much trouble,” Harris replied. “As I told you before, we have men out after him.”

“I should think you fellows would be afraid of the smugglers!” Carl suggested. “I’ve heard stories about smugglers being in this country!”

“What kind of smugglers?” asked Harris.

“Whiskey smugglers!”

“Oh, they’re a cheap lot!” declared Harris. “They wouldn’t dare molest a party of gentlemen out on a hunting trip!”

“Had you heard anything about smugglers being here?” asked Carl.

“Certainly not!” was the reply.

Carl chuckled to himself softly in the darkness of the tent. The red and green signals had, of course, informed him that this party of alleged gentlemen was holding communication with some one on the shelf which had been occupied by the smugglers, and also holding communication with the same signals which had been used from the smugglers’ fire.

Naturally the boy was anxious for the safety of Mr. Havens, temporarily unable to defend himself in case of attack, and his chums. When daylight came he moved out of the tent hoping to be able to get away on foot without attracting attention.

In a moment he was undeceived as to this, for a burly fellow who was rebuilding the fire motioned him back to the tent with an oath. The attitude of the guard disclosed the hostility of the whole camp, notwithstanding the insincere conversation of Harris.

After breakfast Harris beckoned to the boy and the two proceeded up the plateau to the steep ascent which led to the summit of the ridge.

There Harris paused and drawing forth a field-glass looked intently in the direction of the shelf at the foot of the gully.

“Friends over there?” asked Carl knowing very well what the man was looking for.

“Why, some of our fellows who went out in search of the Englishman may have brought up over there!” Harris replied in a hesitating way.

“Can you see any of them?” asked the boy.

“I see people moving about on the ledge over there!”

“But you can’t tell who they are?” asked Carl.

“Hardly,” was the reply. “The distance is too great.”

Harris leveled his glass at the distant ledge once more, and seeing him thus occupied the boy crept down the incline to the west of the slope, and disappeared in a narrow and rather dismal-looking opening in the cliff.

At first he passed only a yard or so into what appeared to be a rather deep cavern. He knew that his flight would be instantly discovered and had a curiosity to know which direction the pursuit would take.

Directly he heard Harris calling out:

“Hello, kid!”

Carl crept farther into the crevice.

“There’s no use in your hiding,” Carl heard the man say. “Even if you should get away now, you’d starve to death in the hills!”

Directly Carl heard footsteps scrambling down the slope, and knew that Harris was not many feet away from his hiding-place.

Had he been armed the fellow’s life might have been in danger at that time, but his automatic had been removed as soon as he had been taken to the tent. However, a small pocket electric searchlight had not been discovered when the careless search of his clothing had been made.

Harris came on grumbling and swearing, and the boy thought best to move farther back into the cavern. The chamber into which he made his way grew wider as he advanced. It seemed to be one of the caverns formed by the action of water washing out soft strata of rock.

Looking back he saw the figure of his pursuer darken the entrance, and so stumbled on blindly in the darkness, his hands brushing against one side of the cavern as he advanced.

For all the boy knew there might be breaks in the fairly level floor of the cave. He well knew that subterranean streams often cut through the floors of such caverns. To fall into such a stream meant death, but he dare not expose even the tiny light of his electric, so he kept on in the darkness, feeling his way as best he could.

Directly he heard Harris calling from the entrance, using persuasive language at first, and declaring that the boy would be immediately returned to his own camp if he gave up his mad attempt to make his way back on foot. Carl crouched closer against the wall and remained silent. He knew from the sounds coming from the entrance that Harris was creeping into the cavern. He had just decided to press on farther in spite of the danger when a blood-curdling growl and a rattling of strong claws on rocks came to his ears.

Carl declares to this day that his hair rose so swiftly at the sound of that growl that half of it was pulled out by the roots!

He had no weapon with which to defend himself, and to flash his light into the eyes of the brute would be to betray his presence to his pursuer.

Once possessed of the knowledge of his whereabouts, it would not be necessary for Harris to follow on into the cavern. He would only have to wait at the entrance for the boy to make his way out.

In a moment the boy realized that the bear was passing the spot where he stood. He could hardly believe his senses when he heard the clatter of claws on the floor and saw the black bulk of the animal obstructing the narrow shaft of light creeping in from the slope.

Before long he knew by the exclamations of alarm and the hasty pounding of feet that Harris was making his way out of the cavern. Remembering the long, narrow passage through which he had made his way before coming to the chamber, Carl followed the animal toward the entrance and, as soon as the sound of Harris’ flight had vanished, turned on his light.

The bear was in the narrow passage. His great bulk almost shut out the daylight. He gave a great snarl as Carl approached from behind and turned his head to one side, but the passage was not wide enough for him to turn around. He must either pass out and come in head first or back up to where the subterranean place widened.

For a time the bear seemed undecided as to what he ought to do. He growled fiercely at the boy, but could not reach him. He moved toward the slope occasionally, but always hesitated before pushing his nose into the daylight. From this the boy argued that Harris stood near the entrance, and the bear was afraid to attack him.

Carl took out his pocket-knife and stationed himself at the end of the narrow passage.

“He can’t eat me with his hind legs!” he grinned, “and if he tries to back I’ll give him a few slashes that will send him out into the open.”

The bear tried to back and didn’t like it. He rushed toward the entrance again snarling angrily, but, evidently sensing danger there, drew back once more.

“Drive the brute out, kid!” advised Harris from the outside.

“He’ll bite you if I do!” chuckled Carl.

“No, he won’t; I’ve got a gun ready for him!”

“You go on away,” Carl suggested, “and I’ll come out.”

“The bear will escape if I go too far away.”

“Aw, let him get away if he wants to!”

“And let you get away, too, I suppose?” suggested Harris.

“Why not?” asked Carl.

“Because we want information which we believe to be in your possession!” replied Harris.

“You pumped me dry last night!” insisted the boy.

“Come, hurry up,” advised Harris. “Give the bear a couple of pokes and drive him out! I’ll take care of him, and you, too,” he added under his breath.

The last part of the sentence was not intended to be overheard by the boy, but his quick ears caught the words. He knew that the present situation could not long continue, but was hoping all the time that some one would come to his assistance.

Men from the camp below now began gathering about the entrance to the cavern, and many observations intended to be humorous were passed to and fro as they grouped about.

“Are you coming out?” demanded Harris directly.

“No,” answered Carl.

“Then we’ll come in and get you!”

“The bear’ll bite you if you come in here!” answered Carl.

The men stood talking outside for a long time. The bear did not back up against the boy again, and so received no more wounds. The beast was, however, evidently growing more savage every moment. It seemed to Carl that he must soon rush out of the cavern and attack the men in front.

After a long time a succession of whines came from the rear, and Carl knew that the crisis was at hand. It was plain now that he had entered a bear home which was abundantly supplied with babies.

When the cubs lifted their voices in protest against the absence of their mother, the animal in the narrow passage began to back again. The men outside apparently knew what was taking place, for the opening was darkened by a sturdy figure as the animal pressed back to where Carl stood. The boy hesitated for a long time trying to decide upon the best course to pursue.

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.”