IMPORTANT INFORMATION
For a moment, following Dick's challenge, there was no answer, and then,
off in the darkness, beyond the circle of light from the campfire, made
of pieces of a broken wagon the boys had found, came a voice, saying:
"I am a stranger in a strange land. Who are you that you make the night
melodious with your music and song?"
The boys felt the tension leave them as they heard the note of culture
in the voice, for plainly they had to deal with a gentleman of birth and
breeding.
"Come on up, and make yourself at home," invited Dick. "Are you lost?
Hungry or thirsty, perhaps?"
"Neither one nor the other, may it please you," was the somewhat
whimsical retort. "Yet I will join you if only for a little while. Then
I must get back, or my guards will be thinking that I have escaped."
"Guards," murmured Paul, in a low voice. "He must be a prisoner--but in
this lonely place----"
"I thought we were the only ones here," added Innis.
"Hush! Here he comes!" cautioned our hero.
A man advanced into the glare of the firelight. He was seen to be a
young fellow, of about twenty-five perhaps, of rather frail build,
dressed in a negligee costume, well suited to that hot climate, and yet
his clothing, as Innis instinctively noticed, was well tailored and
fitted him perfectly. Innis was more fastidious about his dress than
either of his chums, and naturally noticed the garments of others more
closely.
"Greeting, fair sirs!" exclaimed the newcomer. "It is very kind of you
to extend your hospitality to a stranger, and I thank you. Permit me to
make myself known to you. I am Harry Cameron, sometime of San Francisco,
at present of the desert waste; an engineer by profession, a
dilly-dallier of verse by avocation, and actually in durance vile for
the time being. Such is my brief but not unhappy history."
The three chums looked at one another, hardly knowing what to make of
their visitor, who took a seat on part of the old broken wagon--a
"prairie schooner" of a bygone age--and stretched out his legs in a
comfortable attitude, gazing at Dick's party.
"An escaped lunatic," thought Innis, rather thankful that the stranger
seemed to be of the mild type.
"Somebody who has been crazed by the heat perhaps," was Paul's mental
comment. Yet he could not account for the freshness of the man's
appearance and attire.
"He's stringing us," was Dick's thought. "Well, if he is, I'll give him
as good as he sends." Then he spoke:
"We are college professors, searching in the desert for traces of a lost
glacier, last reported to be headed for the salt lake. We want to get
some specimens of the tail."
The young man started, looked keenly at Dick, and then, with a quizzical
smile, remarked:
"You are pleased to joke, I see. I wish I had the chance to accompany
you on your search. But it is denied me. Still, lest perchance you think
that I, too, am a jester, there is my card," and, with a quick and
skillful motion, he scaled a bit of pasteboard over so that it fell
exactly on Dick's outstretched leg. "He who sits may read," went on Mr.
Cameron.
Dick picked up the card, feeling a little ashamed of his bantering
retort. By the light of the fire he read the name as given by their
visitor. There was also an address in San Francisco, and, the letters C.
E.--denoting his profession.
"I beg your pardon!" exclaimed Dick, quickly. "I--er--I thought----"
"You thought I was stringing you, I guess," interrupted Mr. Cameron,
with a smile. "I was not. I'll tell you----"
"I beg your pardon," interrupted Dick. "Let me introduce myself and my
friends," and he presented Paul and Innis in turn, and mentioned his own
name.
"And the glacier?" asked Mr. Cameron.
"Was a joke, too," said Dick. "We are merely traveling for pleasure.
That is our car," and he waved toward where the _Last Word_ was fast in
the sand. "We ran into a sort of bog hole and decided to wait until
morning to extricate ourselves. But where are you staying?" Dick asked,
looking around on the sandy waste, now shrouded in darkness.
"Over there," replied Mr. Cameron, with an indefinite wave of his hand
in the direction whence he had come. "We are camping out."
"Camping out!" exclaimed Paul. "In this desert?"
"It does seem rather foolish; doesn't it?" asked their visitor. "And the
reasons are peculiar. I was thinking so myself as I strolled out after
supper, and saw the gleam of your campfire. I wanted to see who else was
as foolish as my friends."
"Then you have friends with you?" asked Innis.
"They call themselves such," was the answer, "but I prefer to think of
them as my guards."
"Guards!" cried Dick.
"I surprise you, I see. Let me explain why I am out in this sandy waste.
I am a lost man!" and he waved his hand with a gentle air, as though
being lost was the most delightful of occupations.
"Lost!" murmured Paul, again wondering whether they did not have an
insane man to deal with.
"Legally lost, perhaps I should have said," went on Mr. Cameron. "As you
are not likely to interfere with the plans of my--er--friends, and as
you will probably never think of the matter again, I shall tell you the
circumstances. Particularly as those who call themselves my friends
don't want me to.
"I like being different, and doing the unexpected," he continued. "Also
because it will give those fellows back there something to worry about,
I am going to tell you a secret. I won't even ask you not to repeat it,
because I don't see what object you could have in doing so.
"Know, then, that I am sequestered here in this desert in order that I
may not jeopardize certain interests in giving testimony in a big
lawsuit. I am to be kept out of the way for a certain time, and I am
well paid for being lost. I have promised, for a certain stipulated sum,
and because of certain representations made to me, not to go back to
beloved 'Frisco until after September third.
"Should I go, certain persons who are antagonistic to those who have
hired me, might get hold of me, compel me to give certain testimony in
court, and then--as the poet would say--all the fat would be in the
fire. So I have to stay here where the other fellows can't find me,
and--well, I am as happy as I can be, in such a dog's hole! It is the
most out-of-the-way place they could find to conceal me, and yet be
within touch of civilization. There you have the story in a nutshell.
And when September third comes, I shall hie me back to civilization."
During this recital Dick's wonder had been growing. He could scarcely
believe what he heard, and the odd part of it was that it fitted so in
with the scheme he had undertaken to help Mr. Wardell.
Paul and Innis also felt a growing wonder, for they knew some of the
details of Dick's plan to save the Wardell fortune.
"Now you understand why I am here," went on Mr. Cameron. "There is a
water hole about a mile from here, and one of those rare occurrences in
the desert, a little oasis of trees, and a hill. There we have made a
camp, which not one in a thousand would ever find. We are comfortable
enough, in a way, but I lack for society.
"That is why, wandering away, I saw the gleam of your fire, and hearing
the music, I could not help but join in. I trust you will pardon me. But
when you have with you two men who do nothing all day but smoke
cigarettes, and play some mysterious card game known as 'Seven-up' and
whose only conversation seems to be along the line of said game--why,
life gets rather monotonous, you see."
"I should say so," agreed Dick. And then he resolved on a bold plan. Mr.
Cameron had revealed something without being asked. Dick was under no
promise of silence. And he saw a chance to defeat the enemies of Mr.
Wardell.
"Can it be, by any chance, Mr. Cameron," the young millionaire asked,
"that your case has any connection with the Citrous Junction Railway?"
"It has!" cried the engineer, springing to his feet. "But how did you
guess it? I never mentioned it--I was careful about that."
"No, you did not," agreed Dick, "but your mention of the date--September
third--gave me the clue."
"You are looking for clues, then?"
"In a way, yes. I am seeking some means of getting back to Mr. Wardell
the control of the railroad that is about to be taken from him. I was on
my way to San Francisco to file a certain paper before September
third--the date you mentioned. By the merest accident, happening to pick
up a newspaper, probably tossed from a train, I learned that my efforts
would be of no avail, because of testimony given by a new witness. And
you----"
"I am that witness!" cried Mr. Cameron. "Great Scott! but this is queer.
To think of me telling the secret to some one--in all the world--who
knew the other half of it. It's astounding! May I ask how you figure in
it?"
"Because my uncle, Mr. Ezra Larabee, is the man who is trying to get Mr.
Wardell's fortune, and, for the honor of the family, I am trying to
prevent him."
"You Ezra Larabee's nephew! Well, of all things in the world that I
should meet you here! Why, young man, Ezra Larabee--or, rather, his
agent--is paying me to remain away so that the other side can't get hold
of me. For, you must know that Mr. Wardell does not own all the stock in
the railroad. There are some minor shareholders, and it is they who are
trying to get me to go to court on their behalf. But I have accepted
money from Mr. Larabee, and, as far as I know, he is in the right. I
cannot go back on him, merely because you happen to be for the other
side.
"And so you are Larabee's nephew. You don't look much like him, which is
a consolation."
"Have you seen him?" asked Dick.
"He came to 'Frisco to see me," explained Mr. Cameron. "He made a flying
trip, and hurried back so as to save the other half of his excursion
ticket, which was limited."
"That's like him," laughed Dick.
"It seems so. Well, he made certain representations, and it seemed that
he was in the right. He hired me to disappear, and so you behold--a lost
man."
Dick thought for a moment.
"Would you mind telling me," he said, "just what your testimony consists
of?"
"Well, since you know so much, perhaps it can do no harm to tell you
more. I am, as I said, a civil engineer. When this contest over the
railroad came up, I was engaged to make certain maps and copies of
records. It seems that the Citrous Junction is a short line, connecting
two important trunk lines in a well-known orange region. That is what
gives it its importance.
"Accidentally, while going over some old records, I came across some
papers that changed the whole situation. I am not enough of a lawyer to
know just how, except that if the papers were produced in court this Mr.
Wardell and the other stockholders, no matter what was done by the other
side, would get their rights. Mr. Larabee and his crowd could not keep
them from so doing.
"I showed to those who had hired me the papers I had found, and at once
there was a great how-de-do. It was plainly seen that if they were
allowed to get into court your uncle's case would be knocked higher than
Gilderoy's kite, even if Wardell did not file certain papers which, I
understand, could, at one time, have been filed.
"Your uncle and his lawyers determined on a bold move. They had me give
certain testimony that would knock out the other side if they should
file certain papers, and then they had me disappear, so I could not be
brought into court to give the rest of my evidence and tell of the old
document I had accidentally discovered. So I agreed to come to this
lonely place, to live until after September third. After that date
nothing Wardell can do will save the railroad for himself and the others
associated with him."
"And you agreed to do this?" asked Dick, bitterly. "You consented to see
a man cheated out of his fortune?"
"Not at all," said Mr. Cameron, calmly. "As it was represented to me
this Mr. Wardell tried to do others out of their holdings, and he got
caught at his own game. That is why I agreed to do something that, while
perfectly legal, might be considered a trick. I did it to help out your
Uncle Ezra."
"If I were to show you," went on our hero, "that matters had been
misrepresented to you, and that you were doing Mr. Wardell a grave
injustice, what would you do?"
"Misrepresented!" cried Mr. Cameron. "If you can prove to me that
they've been fooling me--telling me things that aren't so--for the
purpose of keeping me out of court, why, Dick Hamilton, I'll go back to
San Francisco to-morrow and rip their case apart in the highest court in
the land! That's what I'll do!" and he leaped to his feet at the words.
"Then," said Dick, quietly, "that is just what I am going to prove to
you!"