A CHASE IN THE NIGHT
Shortly after dinner Johnson decided to make a start on his return trip
at once. It would take him, he said, two days in addition to the half
day to reach Green River, and he was due in San Francisco on the evening
of the third day. One of the burros was relieved of his burden of
provisions and the young man started away, leaving the boys feeling
rather lonely and also rather overloaded with responsibility!
"Do you really think Wagner and the boy are out of provisions?" asked
Tommy as twilight settled down over the camp.
"I don't see how they can procure provisions," Will suggested.
"We've just got to find out!" exclaimed Sandy. "You must remember," he
continued, "that this Chester Wagner is a Tenderfoot in the Beaver
Patrol, Chicago. He's afraid of us, but we've just got to help him out!
We wouldn't be good Boy Scouts if we didn't! Suppose we put up a smoke
signal for help and see if he'll come."
"Oh, yes, he'll come--not!" exclaimed Tommy.
"We can try it, anyway," insisted Sandy.
The lad carried embers from the campfire a short distance to the west
and built another roaring fire. Then he set about gathering green grass
in order to make a greater volume of smoke.
"You'll have to hurry with your telegraph apparatus," laughed George,
"if you want the boy to read your signal by daylight. It'll be so dark
in half an hour that he couldn't see a column of smoke fifty feet away!
Perhaps he isn't near enough to see them, anyway!"
"If I do all I can," Sandy declared, "I won't be to blame if he doesn't
see them. I believe we ought to find some way to help that kid!"
The fires were now burning at a great rate, and Sandy heaped huge
armfuls of green grass on top of the blazing sticks, with the result
that two great columns of white smoke lifted to the evening sky.
When the grass burned out and the smoke became thinner the boy put on
more and sat listening patiently for some sound, watching intently for
an answering signal from the hills.
"I guess it's no good!" Sandy declared, mournfully, as the third supply
of grass burned down. "The chances are that the train robbers and the
imitation detectives have frightened Wagner and the kid out of the
hills."
"I don't believe he'll come if he does see it," Will declared.
After a time the boys permitted one of the fires to die out and began
preparations for supper. Tommy went back to one of the tents for the
knives and forks directly, and in a moment came rushing back without any
knives or forks but with a folded paper in his hand.
"Look here," he exclaimed excitedly, "while I was entering the tent
something hit me a clip on the back. When I turned around to see what
foolishness you fellows were up to, I found a piece of rock lying on the
ground at my feet and close beside it, this piece of paper."
"Do you think the paper was wrapped around the rock?" asked George.
"Of course it was!" replied Tommy. "You can see the folds now, and
there's the place where a a corner of the rock cut a hole!"
Will turned a searchlight on the paper, now held outstretched in Tommy's
hands, and burst into a laugh as he read the words written there:
"Nix on the help signal."
"The little rascal!" exclaimed Tommy, reading the sentence.
"He's wise, that boy!" declared Sandy.
"He thinks we're setting a trap for him," Will explained, "and I can't
say that I blame him much for sending just that kind of a message."
"Anyway," Tommy went on, "it shows that he isn't far away. If he'll only
hover around within reaching distance, we'll soon convince him that we
don't mean him or his father any harm."
"I wonder if he took any provisions with him when he ran away this
time!" laughed George. "I really hope he did. That is, if they haven't
got any in their own camp."
The boys looked at the provisions which had been taken out for supper,
and discovered that two loaves of bread and several tins of preserved
meats had been taken.
"Good for him!" shouted Tommy.
After supper it was arranged that two of the boys should watch the camp
until one o'clock, and then awake the others, who were to stand guard
until morning. Tommy and Sandy were to take the first watch.
"I don't think there's much use of anyone standing guard!" exclaimed
Will. "Our lovely burros over there will probably lift up their voices
if any stranger comes nosing around in the dark."
"Anyhow," Tommy suggested, "we may be able to get sight of young Wagner
if we keep watch all night."
Will and George were in bed by nine o'clock, and then Sandy and Tommy
began planning the excursion into the hills which each one, independent
of the other, had determined to make.
"Now it's just this way," Tommy began, "wherever those fellows are, they
have a fire. It's September, but the nights are cold here, just the
same. Now, you remain here and watch the camp and I'll make my way to
one of the summits to the north and take a peep over the country. If I
see a campfire, and it isn't too far away, I'll sneak down and see
whether it belongs to Wagner, to the cheap detectives, to the train
robbers, or to the cowboy vigilantes."
"That's quite a collection of interests to be assembled in one spot on
the Great Divide!" laughed Sandy.
"Oh, we always get into some kind of a mess like this," grumbled Tommy.
"We could have a nice peaceful time catching Wagner if the detectives,
and the train robbers, and the cowboys had remained away. I hope the
cowboys will catch the robbers and lug them out, anyway!"
"I have an idea that the detectives will soon get tired of wandering
around in the hills and meeting grizzly bears, and rattlesnakes, and
wolverines every half hour."
"Grizzly bears!" exclaimed Tommy. "What are you talking about grizzly
bears for?"
"There are more grizzly bears in Wyoming," declared Sandy, "than in all
the other western states put together. The Bad Lands are full of them,
and up in the Yellowstone National Park, they have them trained to eat
with a knife and fork!"
"All right!" exclaimed Tommy. "I'll take your word for it, but I don't
believe it! I know there are rattlesnakes, all right, but I don't
believe there's a grizzly bear within a hundred miles of this spot!"
The words were hardly out of the boy's mouth before a rumbling growl
came to the ears of the watchers.
"There!" cried Tommy. "You've called the roll and that's the first
response. But I'll bet he's the only one around here!" the boy added.
Sandy laid a hand on his friend's shoulder to invoke silence.
"Listen," he said, "that's no bear!"
"Perhaps it's a rattlesnake, then!" scorned Tommy.
"It's a boy!" declared Sandy. "That's what it is!"
Both lads darted into the darkness, waving electric searchlights as they
advanced, and calling out in such words as a Boy Scout would be apt to
understand. They ran for some distance, until they fell over a bit of
rocky ground, and then stood looking toward a point in the darkness from
which a sound of footsteps came.
"You go on back to camp," whispered Tommy to Sandy, "and make all the
noise you can going, and talk to yourself, so he'll think we're talking
together. I'll put out my light and follow that chump by the noise he
makes. I guess I can do it all right!"
"Aw, let's both go," pleaded Sandy.
"One's got to go back to camp to put him off his guard!" insisted Tommy,
"Run along, like a good little boy, now," he added with a grin.
Sandy departed, talking to himself, and trying his best to make noise
enough for two boys, while Tommy turned off his light and crept forward
in the darkness in the direction of the sounds he had heard.
For a time he seemed to gain on the person who was making his way some
hundred yards or more ahead of him, but at last, try as he might, the
sound of footsteps gradually died away, and there were only the sounds
of the night in the boy's ears.
He paused, after a time, and threw himself down on the rocky slope. The
campfire seemed to be a long distance away, now, and the boy had just
decided to give over his search at that time and return to the camp.
When he started to rise, however, he found a heavy hand pressed down on
either shoulder. His amazement was so great that for a moment he sat
perfectly still.
But there were cowboy vigilantes, train robbers, and detectives
somewhere in the hills, so the boy was not quite so sure of the
personality of the other as he had been at the first instant of contact.
"Well?" he said in a moment.
"Who are you?" came the question, not in the voice of a boy, but in the
gruff tones of a man who was taking no pains to make a good impression.
"A boy from the camp down yonder," Tommy answered.
The boy was thinking fast. This might be one of the detectives, or it
might be one of the train robbers, or it might be one of the cowboys, or
it might be the escaped convict himself.
"What are you boys camping there for?" was asked.
"Vacation!" was the reply.
"Which way did the cowboys go?" was the next question.
Tommy needed no further introduction to the man who was clinging to his
shoulders with a grip that was positively painful. No one but the train
robbers would be apt to be interested in the direction taken by the
cowboys. Tommy declares to this day that he felt the hair rising
straight up on his head when he realized that he was talking with one of
the hold-up men. He also says that his teeth chattered with fright.
"The last we heard of the cowboys," he answered, "they were going
straight north. I thought you went that way, too," he added.
"We couldn't get too far away from our base of supplies," replied the
other with a cynical laugh. "We were just thinking of going back to your
camp for a square meal when we heard you blundering up the slope. You'll
have to feed us for a few days, young fellow!"