THE HIDDEN PLUNDER
"That's the fellow who brought the package of silk to old Ames,"
whispered Zeph, staring hard from under covert at Slump.
"Yes, I recognize him," responded Ralph in quite as guarded a tone.
"Quiet, now, Zeph."
Ike Slump and Mort Bemis continued to linger at the tree. They were
looking at the wagon and beyond it.
"Say," spoke the former to his companion, "what's wrong?"
"How wrong?" inquired Mort.
"Why, some way our plans appear to have slipped a cog. There's the
wagon broken down and the boy has gone with the horse. Two of our men
were to stop him, you know, and keep him here while we used the
wagon."
"Maybe they're behind time. What's the matter with our holding the boy
till they come?"
"The very thing," responded Ike, and, leaving the basket where it
was, he and Mort ran after Limpy Joe and the horse.
"Get out of here, quick," ordered Ralph to Zeph. "If we don't, we
shall probably be carried into the camp of the enemy."
"Isn't that just exactly the place that you want to reach?" inquired
the farmer boy coolly.
"Not in this way. Out with you, and into the bushes. Don't delay,
Zeph, drop flat, some one else is coming."
It was a wonder they were not discovered, for almost immediately two
men came running towards the spot. They were doubtless the persons Ike
Slump had referred to, for they gave a series of signal whistles,
responded to by their youthful accomplices, who, a minute later, came
into view leading the horse of which Limpy Joe was astride.
"We were late," panted one of the men.
"Should think you were," retorted Ike Slump. "This boy nearly got
away. Say, if you wasn't a cripple," he continued to the young
restaurant keeper, "I'd give you something for whacking me with that
crutch of yours."
"I'd whack you again, if it would do any good," said the plucky
fellow. "You're a nice crowd, you are, bothering me this way after
I've probably saved you from starvation the last week."
"That's all right, sonny," drawled out one of the men. "We paid you
for what you've done for us, and we will pay you still better for
simply coming to our camp and staying there a prisoner, until we use
that rig of yours for a few hours."
"If you wanted to borrow the rig, why didn't you do so in a decent
fashion?" demanded Joe indignantly.
"You keep quiet, now," advised the man who carried on the
conversation. "We know our business. Here, Slump, you and Mort help
get this wheel on the wagon and hitch up the horse."
They forced Joe into the wagon bottom and proceeded to get ready for a
drive into the woods.
"Bet Joe is wondering how we came to get out of that wagon," observed
Zeph to Ralph.
"Don't talk," said Ralph. "Now, when they start away, I will follow,
you remain here."
"Right here?"
"Yes, so that I may find you when I come back, and so that you can
follow the wagon when it comes out of the woods again if I am not on
hand."
"You think they are going to move some of their plunder in the
wagon?"
"Exactly," replied the young fireman.
"Well, so do I. They won't get far with it, though, if I am after
them," boasted Zeph. "Wish I had a detective star and some weapons."
"The safest way to do is to follow them until they get near a town or
settlement, and then go for assistance and arrest them," advised
Ralph. "Now, then, Zeph, make no false moves."
"No, I will follow your orders strictly," pledged the farmer boy.
The basket was lifted into the wagon by Ike, who, with Mort, led the
horse through the intricate timber and brushwood. Progress was
difficult and they proceeded slowly. As soon as it was safe to do so,
Ralph left Zeph. The two men had taken up the trail of the wagon,
guarding its rear so that Joe could not escape.
Ralph kept sight of them for half-an-hour and was led deeper and
deeper into the woods. These lined the railroad cut, and he wondered
that the gang of robbers had dared to camp so near to the recent scene
of their thieving operations.
At last the young fireman was following only two men, for he could no
longer see the wagon.
"Perhaps they have left Ike and Bemis to go ahead with the wagon and
they are reaching the camp by a short cut," reflected Ralph. "Why,
no," he suddenly exclaimed, as the men turned aside to take a new
path. "These are not the same men at all who were with the wagon. I am
off the trail, I am following some one else."
Ralph made this discovery with some surprise. Certainly he had got
mixed up in cautiously trailing the enemy at a distance. He wondered
if the two men he was now following belonged to Ike Slump's crowd.
"I must assume they do," ruminated Ralph, "at least for the present.
They are bound for some point in the woods, of course, and I shall
soon know their destination."
The two men proceeded for over a mile. They commenced an ascent where
the cliffs lining the railroad cut began. The place was thick with
underbrush and quite rocky in places, wild and desolate in the
extreme, and the path they pursued so tortuous and winding that Ralph
at length lost sight of them.
"Where have they disappeared to?" he asked himself, bending his ear,
keeping a sharp lookout, and with difficulty penetrating the worst
jungle of bushes and stunted trees he had yet encountered. "I hear
voices."
These guided Ralph, and he followed their indication. At last he came
to a halt near an open space, where the men he was following had
stopped.
"Here we are, Ames," were the first distinct words that Ralph heard
spoken.
"Why, one of these men must be the farmer that Zeph worked for,"
decided Ralph.
"All right, you're safe enough up here. Got the plunder here, have
you?" was asked.
"Yes. I will show you the exact spot, and you come here after we have
got the bulk of the stuff to a new hiding place, take it as you can,
dispose of it, and keep us in ready money until we feel safe to ship
our goods to some distant city and realize on them."
"I'll do just that," was replied. "What are you leaving here for?"
"Adair, the road detective, is after us, we understand, and this is
too dangerously near the railroad."
"That's so," replied the person Ralph supposed to be Ames. "All right,
I'll not miss on my end of the case. Only, don't send any more
packages of the silk to friends. The one Slump sent might have got you
into trouble."
"I never knew he did it at the time," was responded. "I raised a big
row when I found out. You see, Evans, the man he sent it to, is in
with us in a way, and is a particular friend of Ike Slump, but it was
a big risk to send him goods that might be traced right back to us.
Safe hiding place, eh?"
The speaker had proceeded to some bushes guarding the entrance to a
cave-like depression in the dirt, gravel and rocks. He re-appeared
with some packages for his companion. Then both went away from the
spot.
"Why," said Ralph, with considerable satisfaction, "this is the hiding
place of the plunder. I am in possession, and what am I going to do
about it?"
The discovery had come about so easily that the young fireman could
scarcely plan out a next intelligent move all in a moment.
"Ames is an accomplice of the thieves," he decided, "who are going to
use Joe's wagon to remove the bulk of this plunder. They will soon be
here. What had I better do--what can I do?"
Ralph went in among the bushes as the men had done. He took a glance
at a great heap of packages lying in a depression in the rocks. Then
he advanced a few steps towards the edge of the cliff.
Ralph looked down fully two hundred feet into the railroad cut. This
was almost the spot where the landslide had stopped the Dover night
freight. The main tracks were clear now, but on a gravel pit siding
were several cars.
"Why," exclaimed Ralph suddenly, "if I only have the time to do it in,
I have got the whole affair right in my own hands."
A plan to deprive the railroad thieves of their booty had come into
the mind of the young fireman. Ralph filled his arms with the
packages of silk, advanced to the edge of the cliff, threw them over,
and continued his operation until he had removed the last parcel from
its hiding place.
"Something more to do yet," he told himself, when this task was
completed. "When the thieves discover that their plunder is gone, they
may surmise that it disappeared this way. Can I make a safe descent?"
Ralph had a hard time getting down into the railroad cut. Once there,
he hastily threw the silk packages into a half-filled gravel car, with
a shovel covered them all over with sand and gravel, and then started
on a run for Brocton.