CHAPTER XXIII.
ARRESTS ARE MADE
There was a tremendous din in the cavern as the bear shot out of the opening. The wailing of the cubs at the rear, the volley of rifle shots at the front, and the smell of powder smoke confused Carl for a moment. Then he crept forward to the entrance, almost entirely concealed by the smoke, and looked out into the brilliant sunlight.
The bear lay dead on the slope, but the men gathered about her were not congratulating themselves on their victory, or, in fact, paying any attention to the vanquished enemy. Their eyes were fixed on an aeroplane which was speeding in from the west, evidently heading for the summit just above the camp.
“That’s not one of the machines belonging to the boys,” Carl heard some one say.
“I thought,” another man complained, “that we were getting out of the zone of civilization when we struck British Columbia.”
“I thought so, too,” another voice said, “but we’re running up against impertinent Britishers, and flying machines, and many other nuisances which belong entirely on the paved streets and in the air above the town.”
The machine was now so close to the group, and also to the entrance to the cavern, that the rattle of the motors well-nigh drowned the sound of conversation. Still, directly, Carl heard some one shout that there were three men on the machine, and that one of them was Dick Sherman, the chief of the mounted police of that district.
The boy uttered a sigh of relief and moved out of the cavern to be greeted with shouts of laughter and many alleged jokes.
“How do you like living with the bears?” one of the hunters demanded.
“Bears are all right!” replied Carl. “There’re about a dozen baby bears in there! They seem to be cute little fellows, with good voices.”
“What do you say, boys; say we all take a baby bear home with us!” asked one of the hunters.
The question was greeted with applause, and half a dozen men immediately made a dash for the cavern. Before long two came out carrying cubs, probably from four to eight weeks of age.
“Where are the others?” asked Carl. “Why didn’t you all get one?”
“There were only two!” was the answer.
“Only two!” repeated Carl. “They made noise enough for two hundred! I thought all the forty bears who came out of the wilderness and devoured the two children were on deck!”
“I guess you’re mixed in your Sunday school lesson!” one of the men remarked.
“Perhaps,” Carl admitted. “It might have been two bears and forty children. I don’t know. What I intended to convey was the idea that there was noise enough in there to represent a thousand bear cubs.”
The aeroplane, sailing very low, now passed almost through the group of men, and Dick Sherman waved a hand in greeting at the boy.
“Do you know him?” asked one of the hunters turning to Carl.
“Sure I know him!” answered Carl. “I got him a supper down at our camp which put two inches of fat on his ribs.”
“Then if you know him well,” the hunter went on, “tell him, for the love of Mike, to quit nosing around our camp looking for some criminal who is probably in Washington, D. C.”
“Has he been watching your camp?” asked Carl in wonder.
“He certainly has!” was the reply. “He’s been nosing about here, at times, ever since we came in! What do you think he wants now?”
“I think he came after me!” replied Carl.
The aeroplane was now seen to land on the level space between the tents on the plateau, and Sherman and his two companions left their seats and approached a group of men standing by the fire.
One of the men, Carl saw, was Neil Howell, and the other was the burly fellow who had ordered him into his tent that morning. At that time the boy did not know Howell by sight, although he had often heard his name spoken there. It was only after a time that he learned who the second man was. Before the boy and those with him reached the tents, they saw a gleam of steel and the suddenness with which handcuffs were clasped on the wrists of Howell and his burly companion almost took their breath away. The men gazed at each other inquiringly.
“Do you know what it means?” one of them asked Carl.
“I haven’t the least idea!” was the answer.
“Why, that’s Neil Howell, the noted Wall street operator! I don’t understand what he’s placed under arrest for!” one of the men declared.
“I presume Dick Sherman knows what he’s doing!” Carl suggested.
“I don’t doubt that!” the man replied.
The three officers were now walking swiftly about the camp in opposite directions, evidently searching for some one not in view. A hunter standing by the boy’s side glanced his eye over the group.
“It must be Frank Harris they want,” he said. “He’s the only one that isn’t here.”
“Frank Harris went down the slope to the west not long ago!” another said. “I guess he’s looking for another bear cub.”
But if Frank Harris was indeed looking for the third bear cub his search must have been a long one, for neither then nor at any other time did any member of the hunting party set eyes upon him again. Secret service men are looking for him to this day. How he got out of the wilderness no one knows, but get out he did, and out of the country, too, for that matter.
After concluding the search, Dick Sherman came to where Carl was standing by the machine.
“Where’s that Englishman of yours?” he asked.
“Do you want the Englishman, too?” demanded the boy.
“Of course I want the Englishman!” replied the officer. “Do you think I’d be apt to find him over at your camp?”
“I haven’t a doubt of it!” answered Carl. “Although I haven’t been to the camp since yesterday. This man Howell and his chums were so stuck on my sweet society that they kept me here all night!”
“I’d keep you here about fifteen minutes if I had my way now!” Howell muttered.
“He thinks you sent out information which led to his arrest!” commented one of the hunters. “He’ll get even with you yet!”
“I didn’t have any information to send out!” declared Carl.
“Then who did send it out?” shouted Howell.
“You can search me!” Carl replied.
Dick Sherman looked over to one of his deputies with a smile but said nothing. He merely ordered the two prisoners on to the machine and prepared to take to the air.
“I’ll take these fellows over to your camp,” he said to Carl, “and send one of the boys back after you and my deputies. They can come with one of your machines, and this one of mine, and bring the whole crowd at one trip.”
“All right,” laughed Carl, “I’ll be mighty glad to get back to that good old camp again! You see,” he explained, “when we get out on a trip of this kind, we usually pitch our tents and then go off and leave them. I haven’t slept there one night since we built the first camp-fire!”
“How long will it take?” asked one of the hunters.
“Probably an hour each way,” was the reply.
“Well, we’ll see that the boy is taken good care of while you’re gone!” the hunter said with a smile.
“And when you get settled down to conversation with this kid,” suggested another hunter, “you just ask him to tell the story about the two bear cubs in the cavern. He’s a nervy little fellow!”
In something less than two hours, two machines came sailing over the valley, making for the plateau. When at last they landed, Carl was greatly surprised at seeing Mr. Havens seated on the Ann. Dick Sherman was riding his own machine.
“I thought you couldn’t get out of bed!” shouted Carl to the millionaire.
“I’m fit to ride a thousand miles to-day,” smiled the millionaire, “but I don’t think I could walk ten feet to save my life!”
“When I got over to your camp,” Dick Sherman explained, “I found Mr. Havens alone. He says you boys have left him alone every minute of the time since the camp was built.”
“Not quite so bad as that,” laughed the aviator.
“It’s pretty near as bad as that,” Carl admitted.
“When I got over to the camp,” the official went on, “Mr. Havens told me that the others had gone to the smugglers’ cavern. There’s something queer going on over there,” the official continued, “but Mr. Havens wouldn’t tell me what it is. He said for me to tie my prisoners up good and safe and come along with him, if I wanted to find out what was doing.”
“I hope you tied ’em up good and safe!” Carl suggested.
“They’re safe enough!” replied Mr. Havens.
Carl now stepped into the Ann with Mr. Havens and the two, after bidding good-bye to the friendly hunters, shot away down the valley toward the smugglers’ cavern, closely followed by the official machine and the three officers.
As soon as the machines departed the hunters set about breaking camp, as they had decided to leave that night.
“Ever since we’ve been here,” one of them declared, “we’ve been heels over head in trouble. Who introduced us to this Neil Howell and Frank Harris, anyway?”
“I’ll be blessed if I remember,” another answered. “The first time I saw Harris he came to us in company with the Englishman and asked me to join in a hunting trip.”
“By the way, where is the Englishman?” asked the other.
“That’s one of the mysteries of the camp,” the first speaker replied. “He disappeared most unexpectedly one morning and Howell and Harris both began calling him a thief and telling what he’d stolen.”
“I heard that story about his stealing a burro and a lot of money,” said the other, “but I never believed it.”
“No one believes it!” was the reply and the hunters standing about quickly assented.
“And here’s another thing I never understood about this camp,” another declared, “and that’s the red and green signals we’ve seen in the fire nights. What did they mean?”
“Harris and Howell said they were sending beacons to a friendly camp across the valley,” one of them answered, “but I never believed that. Who knows what Howell and Chubby were arrested for?”
No one knew at that time, and no one suspected, until they read the sensational stories of the Colleton case in the San Francisco newspapers.
At sundown the men had their mules brought in from pasture and given a feed of oats preparatory to the work of the next day.
They went to sleep with their belongings all made up into neat bundles, and by sunrise they were away, headed for the nearest town on the Canadian Pacific line.
CHAPTER XXIV.
CONCLUSION
“You’re sure that’s a dog in the cavern?” demanded Ben as the three crossed the summit and entered the gully, after leaving their machine on the shelf to the east.
“Sure it’s a dog in the cavern!” insisted Terry. “And look here,” he went on, glancing keenly about, “there’s two fellows hanging around here somewhere. They’re the chaps who set me to watching the Englishman early last night. They claim to be connected with the business men who are hunting over on the other side of the valley, but I guess they are just plain mountain hoboes who have been hired to do the dirty work for the sportsmen.”
“I don’t see them anywhere around!” Ben suggested.
“I don’t think they’re here, don’t you know!” DuBois put in, looking far down the gully. “You see,” he continued, “the camp-fire has gone out, and there hasn’t been any breakfast cooked here this morning.”
“They probably made a sneak after you got away,” Ben replied. “They knew they wouldn’t get any money for what they did after that, so they probably took to their heels.”
“They may be watching around, don’t you know,” the Englishman insisted. “I don’t like the idea of hanging around here without knowing whether they are watching us from some of these bloody rocks.”
The three hunted faithfully for a long time, notwithstanding the fact that Terry was constantly complaining that the dog would be almost starved to death. At last, however, they gave over the quest and moved on to the entrance to the cavern.
Just before they entered, Ben caught the Englishman by the shoulder and faced him around toward the valley.
“Look who’s here!” he said.
What they both saw was the Ann and a strange aeroplane moving swiftly in their direction.
“I guess Mr. Havens is moving the whole camp over!” Ben suggested. “And I haven’t got a word to say against it if he is! It’s rotten the way we’ve left him alone.”
“I think that’s Mr. Havens in the Ann!” declared Jimmie handing the field-glass to Ben. “And I think that’s Carl with him!”
Ben inspected the approaching flying machines through the glass and declared that Mr. Havens and Carl were on board the Ann, and that Dick Sherman and two unknown men were on the strange machine.
“I’d like to know what they’re coming here for!” Jimmie exclaimed. “Just as we get the thing all ready to make a home run, and get a hungry dog out of a hole in a wall, they come butting in to split the glory!”
“And the reward!” added Ben with a grin.
“I don’t know where the machines can land, don’t you know!” suggested DuBois.
The aviators, however, found landing-places. Mr. Havens lighting on the shelf where the fire had been, and Dick Sherman coming to earth close beside the machine Ben had brought.
In a short time the two parties met almost directly in front of the cavern. To the surprise of the other members of the party, Dick Sherman called the Englishman aside and spoke to him earnestly for a few moments. At the conclusion of the conversation, the Englishman’s face fairly beamed with good nature.
“I’d like to know what’s coming off here!” cried Jimmie.
“That’s what I’d like to know,” put in Terry tipsily. “Here we’ve got a perfectly good breakfast in this basket getting cold, and I don’t know what that dog’ll say when we give him a frosty meal! I wish now that I’d gone and fed him while you boys were hunting for those two outlaws you didn’t find!”
“What do you think, Mr. DuBois,” Carl broke in. “Dick Sherman arrested Neil Howell and Chubby over there at the hunters’ camp and left them handcuffed and tied up in one of our tents.”
“Yes, he was just telling me about that, don’t you know,” replied the Englishman.
“Well, how the old scratch did he get any information against them?” demanded Ben. “If he’s got them under arrest for complicity in the abduction of inspector Colleton, why doesn’t he say so?”
“Suppose they are implicated in the abduction case,” demanded Carl, “how did Officer Sherman come to know anything about it? He hasn’t been working on the case.”
Ben broke into a shout of laughter, and Terry, who was beginning to think the breakfast never would be needed, turned hastily into the cavern.
“Look here,” Ben said in a moment, “I didn’t tell you boys everything that took place at Field last night. After I got done telegraphing, Mr. DuBois took the wire and held a long conversation with Officer Sherman. How he found Sherman I don’t know, but the operator seemed to help a lot, after Mr. DuBois gave him a roll of bills that would choke a cow, and in the end they routed out the officer, and the arrest of Howell and Chubby is the result of that conference.”
“Oh, come, don’t you know!” pleaded the Englishman. “I only told Mr. Sherman what I suspected. You see this man Howell appeared to recognize that bag, and his manner showed me that he was in cahoots with the man in brown who was killed in the race.”
“Come on, come on!” yelled Terry. “I’ve got a patient in here starving to death!”
“We really ought to hurry,” advised Ben. “I’m afraid we’ve been too full of our own schemes to appreciate the exact situation.”
“Come along, then,” advised Terry.
The whole party, save Mr. Havens, trooped into the cavern and turned to the left when they came to the rock which split the subterranean place into two chambers. Keeping straight on, illuminating the cavern with their searchlights as they went, they came to an opening in the south wall which had been temporarily barricaded with rocks and timbers.
When Ben held the searchlight to the small opening between the top timber and the roof of the chamber a pale and frightened face looked out.
“Hello, Colleton!” exclaimed Ben.
“Thank God!” was all the imprisoned man said.
In a short time the barricade was down and the inspector, safe and sound, was out in the open air, talking earnestly with Mr. Havens who, of course, had not entered the cavern.
“I never expected to see the light of day again!” the inspector said in a trembling voice.
“Now, don’t begin to tell us the story of your life,” warned old Terry, advancing with the basket of provisions. “You eat this good breakfast!”
“But, look here, Terry,” Jimmie grinned. “You said you wanted that breakfast for a dog!”
“Sure!” exclaimed the old crook. “I forgot all about the dog!”
He raced back into the cavern and soon returned carrying a little puppy in his arms.
“He was asleep when you brought me out!” Colleton explained. “I forgot all about him. He’s been a great deal of comfort to me!”
“Do you mean to say, Terry, that you ordered all that breakfast for that little puppy?” demanded Jimmie.
“Well,” replied the old crook, “I really wanted the breakfast for the dog, but I didn’t know but the man might eat part of it! You see,” he continued, “I promised the outlaws that I wouldn’t tell where this man,” pointing to Colleton, “was, and I promised that I wouldn’t lead any one to him, so I had to keep my word, don’t you see?”
“But you did tell us where he was and you did lead us to him!” laughed Jimmie.
“No, I didn’t,” argued Terry, “I told you where there was a hungry little puppy, and I took you to where he was. Of course, if you discovered the man when we went to feed the puppy, I’m not to blame for that.”
“You’re an old fraud, Terry!” cried Jimmie.
“Yes, he’s an old fraud,” laughed Dick Sherman, “but I’m going to see that he gets out of this little scrape and leads a decent life. He’ll be all right if he only quits the booze act.”
“I’ve quit now!” insisted Terry. “I’ve limited myself to two pint bottles a day!”
“Well,” Mr. Havens said, “so far as I can see, the case is closed. The man who abducted Colleton is dead. Two of the men who assisted in his abduction are under arrest, and the proof which points to the Kuro mail-order company as the principal in the crime is complete. All that remains for us to do is to see that the prisoners get to Washington and that the proof is placed before the grand jury. That will close the case so far as we are concerned.”
“Then,” said Jimmie with a sly grin, “I move we stay in the mountains a couple of weeks and have a little fun before we go to Washington.”
“That would please me!” replied Dick Sherman, “but I’ve got to get busy getting this whiskey out, and looking up proof against the smugglers now under arrest.”
All the others returned to the old camp, from which the prisoners were taken that night by the officer, and a great feast was spread in honor of the victory which had been gained.
The boys hunted game, fished in the clear mountain streams, and sailed over valley and mountain in their aeroplanes for two glorious weeks and then returned to New York.
When they reached the big city, the Colleton case was entirely disposed of. Howell and Chubby had pleaded guilty and received long sentences, and the members of the fraudulent mail-order company had been convicted and sentenced to ten years each.
The large reward which had been offered for the discovery of Colleton and the arrest of the perpetrators of the outrage was paid to Mr. Havens, according to his previous bargain with the secret service department. In time, of course, the most of the cash found its way into the hands of the three boys.
When Colleton came to relate the story of his abduction it was discovered that Ben and Jimmie had actually reasoned out the events practically as they had taken place. The inspector had been drugged in his office by a cigar, disguised there, forced to open the safe and desk and bring out the papers, and had been taken across the continent in a Pullman stateroom as stated. He remembered little or nothing after opening the safe in his own office in Washington until he found himself in the smugglers’ cavern, having been kept under the influence of opiates during all that time. To this day Colleton occasionally asks Jimmie if every one of the excerpts from his “dream-book” come true.
The Englishman remained for some months in New York, the guest of Mr. Havens at the hangar on Long Island, and on many occasions he was asked to tell the story of the mysterious hand-bag bought of the porter on the Pullman train, and to relate in full the adventures of the bag and its contents until the day the disguise and the documents it had contained landed a prominent and wealthy mail-order firm in the penitentiary, and Mr. Havens was often called upon to relate the events leading up to the Capture in the Air.