Produced by the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
[Illustration: "Say" Cried Frank, "That's a child's face up there!"]
The Boy Scout Camera Club
or
The Confession of a Photograph
By
Scout Master G. Harvey Ralphson
CHAPTER
I LOST: A FOREIGN PRINCE!
II THE HOLE IN THE ATTIC FLOOR
III WHAT THE BOX CONTAINED
IV A CAMP IN THE MOUNTAIN
V JIMMIE AND TEDDY MISS A MEAL
VI SIGNALS IN THE CANYON
VII A MINT IN THE MOUNTAINS
VIII UNCLE IKE PRESENTS HIMSELF
IX A LANK MULE AS A DECOY
X "PACKED AWAY LIKE SARDINES"
XI JACK'S ELEGANT CHICKEN PIE
XII THE BLACK HAND GAME
XIII THREE DAYS TO MOVE IN
XIV POINTING OUT THE TRAIL
XV A NIGHT ON THE SUMMIT
XVI THE CALL OF THE PACK
XVII JUST A LITTLE DARK WASH
XVIII BRADLEY BECOMES INDIGNANT
XIX NED PLAYS THE MIND-READER
XX SHOOTING ON THE MOUNTAINSIDE
XXI TOLD BY THE PICTURES
XXII A RECRUIT FROM THE ENEMY
XXIII RACING MOTORS ON THE WAY
XXIV THE MAN-TRAP IS SET
XXV THE CONFESSION OF A PHOTOGRAPH
The Boy Scout Camera Club
or
The Confession of a Photograph
CHAPTER I
LOST: A FOREIGN PRINCE!
"Two Black Bears!"
"Two Wolves!"
"Three Eagles!"
"Five Moose!"
"Quite a mixture of wild creatures to be found in a splendid clubroom
in the city of New York!" exclaimed Ned Nestor, a handsome, muscular
boy of seventeen. "How many of these denizens of the forests are
ready to join the Boy Scout Camera Club?"
"You may put my name down twice--in red ink!" shouted Jimmie McGraw,
of the Wolf Patrol. "I wouldn't miss it to be president of the United
States!"
"One Wolf," Ned said, writing the name down.
"Two Wolves!" cried Jimmie, red-headed, freckled of face and as
active as a red squirrel, "two wolves! You're a Wolf yourself, Ned
Nestor!"
"Two Wolves, then!" laughed Ned. "Of course Jimmie and I can form a
club all by ourselves, and he can be the officers and I can be the
members, but we'd rather have a menagerie of large size, as we are
going into the mountains of Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina,
Kentucky and Tennessee."
The boys who had not yet spoken were on their feet in an instant, all
clamoring for membership in the Boy Scout Camera Club. Ned lifted a
hand for silence.
"Why this present rush?" he asked. "I've been thinking that Jimmie
and I would have to go to the mountains alone! Why this impetuosity?"
"The mountains!" shouted Frank Shaw, of the Black Bear Patrol. "It is
the mountains that get us! We've been thinking that the club you were
organizing wouldn't get outside of little old New York, but would
loaf around taking snap-shots of the slums and the trees in the
parks. But when you mention mountains, why--"
"I'm going right down stairs and pack my camera!" Jack Bosworth, of
the Black Bear Patrol, declared. "When it comes to mountains!"
The clubroom of the Black Bear Patrol was on the top floor of the
handsome residence of Jack's father, who was a famous corporation
lawyer, and the boys persuaded Jack to wait until they had completed
the organization of the Camera Club before he started in packing for
the journey to the mountains!
"You'll want an Eagle, if you're going to the mountains!" shouted
Teddy Green, of the Eagle Patrol. "I'll fly home and get my wardrobe
right now!"
Teddy Green was the son of a Harvard professor, and was inclined to
follow in the footsteps of his father in the matter of learning--after
he had first climbed to all the high spots of the world and
descended into all the low ones! He insisted on exploring the earth
before he learned by rote what others had written about it!
"All right!" Ned grinned. "We'll need an Eagle!"
"And a Bull Moose!" yelled Oliver Yentsch, of the Moose Patrol.
"You've got to have a Moose along with you!"
Oliver was the son of a ship builder, and had a launch and a yacht of
his own. He was liked by all his associates in spite of his tendency
to grumble at trifles. However, if he complained at small things, he
met large troubles with a smile on his bright face. He now seized
Teddy about the waist and waltzed around the room with him.
"And that's all!" Ned decided, closing the book. "We can't take more
than six."
A wail went up from the others, but they were promised a chance at
the next "hike" into the hills, and soon departed, leaving the six
members of the Camera Club to perfect arrangements for their
departure. It was a warm May night, still Ned closed the door leading
out into the wide corridor which ran through the house on that floor.
"We can't afford to take others into our plans," he said, "for this
is to be another Secret Service expedition."
"For the Government?" demanded Frank Shaw. "Then," he added, without
waiting for a reply, "I'll call up dad's editorial rooms and have a
reporter sent up here. Top of column, first page, illustrated! That's
our Camera Club in the morning newspaper!"
Frank's father was owner and editor of one of the big New York
dailies, and the boy always took along, on his trips, plenty of blank
paper for "copy," but never sent in a line! His letters to his
father's newspaper were usually addressed to the financial
department, upon which he had permission to draw at will!
"Huh!" Jimmie commented, wrinkling his freckled nose, "if you should
ever furnish an item for your daddy's newspaper he'd never live it
down! You've been on all our trips with Ned, and never wired in a
word!"
The Boy Scouts of the Black Bear and Wolf Patrols had been through
many exciting experiences with Ned Nestor, who, young as he was, was
often in the employ of the Secret Service department of the United
States government. Frank, as Jimmie said, had been with Ned from the
start, and had never sent in a line of "copy" for the paper.
"I'm going to furnish a column a day this trip!" Frank declared,
making a motion to seize Jimmie. "We're going to take pictures,
aren't we? We'll take 'em by the acre, and dad's newspaper is going
to catch every one of them."
"Huh!" Jimmie declared, with a freckled nose in the air. "I'm a
newspaper man, too. You needn't think you're the only cherry in the
pie! I used to sell newspapers before I got into the Secret Service
with Ned!"
From his earliest years Jimmie had indeed been a newsboy on the
Bowery. He had never had a home except that provided by himself, and
this, in the early days of his life, had as often been a box or
barrel in an alley as anything else.
"Why the mountains?" asked Frank Shaw, presently. "Do you have to go
to the hills on this trip? I'm glad if you do, of course, but I'd
like to know something about it before we start. Dad will have to be
shown this time, I reckon! He thinks we rather _overdid_ the stunt
when we went to Lady Franklin bay!"
"Never had so much fun in my life!" laughed Jimmie. "When you get
where it is forty below, there's some delight in living!"
"What are we going to take pictures of?" demanded Teddy Green.
"Moonshiners!" laughed Frank. "Isn't that right, Ned?"
"Not exactly," was the answer. "This is not a whisky case at all."
"Counterfeiters, then?" queried Oliver. "They live in the hills!"
"No, not counterfeiters, either," Ned replied. "The government has
plenty of men to look after counterfeiters and moonshiners. All we've
got to do is to go into the mountains and take pictures, and keep our
eyes open."
"Open for what?" insisted Jimmie. "My peepers will be open for a
venison steak about the first thing! You remember how fine the
venison steaks were up in British Columbia? That Columbia river trip
was some exciting! What?"
"Well," Ned began, "you all know that I'm in the Secret Service, for
you've been with me, some of you, at Panama, in China, and under the
ocean, so we'll let the details go without explanation. I'm going to
the mountains to look after a precious package stolen from
Washington--from almost under the eyes of the president--three days
ago!"
"Papers?" asked Jimmie. "You know we went to Lady Franklin bay after
papers."
"And they think the mountaineers stole this package?" asked Oliver.
"Tell us what it was that was taken first!" insisted Frank. "I'm
beginning to see a front-page story in this, right now!"
"The package stolen," Ned went on, with a smile, "was more precious
than any bundle of papers could be! It wasn't of gold, silver,
diamonds, or anything possessing that kind of value. It was of flesh
and blood!"
"A child stolen!" cried Frank. "This goes to dad's sheet right now!"
"Boy or girl?" asked Oliver. "Age, please!"
"Boy," answered Ned. "A boy belonging to one of the ambassadors! Age
seven!"
"But why should the mountaineers steal such a child?" asked Jimmie.
"I said the boy belonged to one of the ambassadors," Ned corrected
himself. "I should have said he belonged at one of the foreign
embassies."
"The son of one of the attaches?" asked Teddy. "That's strange! Why?"
"Teddy," reproved Jimmie, "you can ask more questions in a minute
than a motion picture machine can take in a hundred years."
"The stolen boy is in no ways related to any one in this country,"
Ned answered, "yet his safety is of the utmost importance. It is up
to us to find him."
"But why should the mountain men make a grab at a kid?" insisted
Jimmie. "I've asked that question numerous times now," he added, with
a wrinkled nose.
"It is not believed that the mountain men know anything about the
matter," Ned replied. "No one suspects them of taking the child.
Mountain men are not up to that sort of thing, as a rule. They will
make moonshine--some of them will--and may hide a counterfeiter, but
they don't steal children!"
"Then who did steal him?" asked Frank. "Don't be so mysterious."
"I want the matter to sink deep into your alleged minds!" was Ned's
smiling rejoinder, "and that is the reason I'm drawing the
explanation out. It is thought the boy was stolen by some one who
came over the sea to do the job--some one never before in this
country."
"I twig!" Jimmie declared, skipping about the room. "The stolen boy
is next of succession to some measly old throne! What? And he was
sent out here to get him out of the zone of danger, and now he's been
nipped?"
The boys looked at Ned with redoubled interest. It had been
interesting, the very idea of going into the mountains in quest of an
abducted child, but the thought of going after a boy who would one
day be a king! That was exciting indeed!
"I can't tell you who the boy is." Ned went on, "but I can tell you
that he must be found! The Secret Service men at Washington have a
pretty good idea as to who got him, and they believe the criminals
are not above committing the crime of murder. In a certain sense,
this boy is in the way in the old country!"
"Oh, they wouldn't kill a kid like that!" Jimmie asserted.
"Wouldn't they?" demanded Teddy Green. "If you read up on history,
you'll soon find out whether ambitious men will murder children who
stand in their way! I half believe the boy was murdered at the very
moment he was taken!"
"He has been seen alive since that time," Ned responded. "This is
Thursday. He was taken on Monday, and was seen yesterday. Or a boy
believed to be the prince was seen yesterday, on a launch on the
Potomac river."
"Prince, eh?" cried Frank. "It is a prince, is it? Say, but won't dad
be glad to hear about this? I'd like to write the headlines!"
"We may as well call him the prince," Ned laughed.
Before more could be said, a servant knocked at the door and Jack
opened it so as to look out. In a moment he turned back inside with a
flushed face.
"Say, boys," he said, "there's something strange going on here
to-night!"