TRAILING RHODES
Scrambling over rocks and through a tangle of vines and bush, the two
Scouts sought to obtain the cylinder before the mining engineer could do
so.
At the risk of a bad fall, Jack half slid down a steep slope. The
cylinder had tumbled into a crevice but he retrieved it before Rhodes
could get there.
There was no opportunity to examine the message. In a matter of moments,
Rhodes had joined him, moving cautiously because of his useless arm.
“Let me have that cylinder!” the engineer ordered.
Jack shook his head. Turning his back, he started to climb the rocks to
rejoin Ken on a ledge above.
“Your friends dropped a message!” Rhodes accused. “You’re working with
them to make it hard for me here! What’s your game?”
Jack still made no answer. He climbed steadily, handing the cylinder up
to Ken who passed it on to Mr. Livingston.
Impeded by his injured arm, Rhodes had to climb very slowly. While Ken
and Mr. Livingston went to their camp with the retrieved cylinder, he
waited to give the engineer a helping hand up the steepest part of the
slope. Rhodes did not thank him.
Instead, the engineer gazed at the youth with undisguised hatred.
“You and your friends have ruined me here!” he asserted wrathfully.
“Except for you, everything would have gone off well. What was the
reason for that plane circling this camp?”
Jack’s answer was a smile and a shrug.
“All right, don’t answer!” Rhodes snapped. “But if you think you’ve won
this little game, you have another guess coming! I might have helped you
find Corning. Now I’ll never do it!”
With that, the engineer strode off to the cottage.
Jack quickly joined Mr. Livingston and Ken at the tent camp. The other
two had opened the cylinder and already were scanning the somewhat
lengthy message from Ken and Willie.
“Read it aloud,” Jack urged.
“Okay,” Mr. Livingston agreed. “Rhodes isn’t sneaking up here to listen,
is he?”
“He went to the cottage in a dreadful fury,” Jack answered. “I’ll keep
an eye out for him though.”
Mr. Livingston began to read slowly so that every word of the message
could be grasped.
“Emerald sample assayed. Highly favorable—”
“Highly favorable!” Ken broke in excitedly. “Then Rhodes lied again!”
Mr. Livingston nodded and read on: “Mrs. Rhodes tried several tricks,
substituting poor grade emeralds for one of top quality. Certain she is
teamed up with Ferd Baronni on deal to defraud company. We went over
their heads and got the emerald sample to higher officials.”
“Good lads!” Jack chuckled. “I knew we could depend on ’em. What else do
they say?”
Mr. Livingston continued to read: “Only visible habitation in mine area
a group of huts above Emerald Valley. This may be bandit hide-out.
Returning to Bogota.”
A map had been included with the hastily scrawled message. Studying it,
Mr. Livingston and the Scouts estimated that the cluster of huts might
be about seven miles from the mining camp in the more rugged area.
A portion of the way could be traveled by means of the narrow trail
which gave access to the outside world. But to reach the hide-out, if
such it was, would require a hard trek over a bisecting path in a
densely overgrown area.
“Willie and War have done their part well,” Mr. Livingston asserted.
“Now the rest is up to us.”
“Maybe we can get in there,” Jack urged. “It’s a cinch we’ve learned all
we can here. No use hanging on even another day.”
“When do we start?” Ken demanded, eager to be off. “Right away?”
“We may as well,” the Scout leader nodded. “We can let Rhodes assume
we’re starting for Bogota.”
“How about taking Phillipe along?” Jack suggested.
“Good idea, if you can persuade him,” Mr. Livingston nodded. “With the
camp here closing down, he should be willing to come with us, and he’ll
be useful. See what you can do, while Ken and I round up the mules.”
Jack found Phillipe in his shack, sharing a meal with his family.
However, nothing he could say would induce the miner to become a member
of the exploring party. Firmly, the man rejected an offer of money.
“Senor, I am not a coward,” he said, “but I would not face Carlos in his
own lair! No, Senor. You are very brave to attempt it.”
Discouraged by his failure to interest Phillipe in the expedition, Jack
started back to the tent camp.
In passing the little office, he heard someone stirring around inside,
and impulsively opened the door and peered in.
Rhodes was in the inner room, beside the safe. For a moment he did not
hear or see the youth. The engineer was deeply engrossed in emptying the
vault of valuables, including the little box of newly mined emeralds.
“So the vein has been producing?” Jack remarked to draw the man’s
attention.
Rhodes whirled around, thrusting the emeralds into his pocket.
“These samples are worthless,” he muttered, his eyes smoldering.
“Then why bother to take them with you? You are leaving, aren’t you?”
“That’s right,” Rhodes returned with a sneer. “I’m shaking the dust of
this mine from my feet forever. Why should I worry what becomes of the
place or whether bandits take over as soon as I’ve cleared out? Why
should I worry about the company? Did it ever do anything for me?”
“Going to Bogota?”
“I am! I’ll be away from here within the hour, to join my wife. I hope I
never see you or the lousy place again!”
“Corning?”
“What about him?”
“You’re not forgetting that he’s still missing? A prisoner probably of
the bandit, Carlos?”
“Corning is nothing to me, and I don’t mind telling you so! Didn’t he
set himself up here as engineer in my place? He made me look bad to the
company—convinced them that I was stealing half the emeralds that were
mined.”
“You weren’t, of course.”
“If I could salvage anything for myself, I’d be entitled to it,” Rhodes
retorted. “I gave the best years of my life to the company for very
little return. I’m fed up! I’m getting out.”
“Before you leave, why not tell us what really became of Corning?” Jack
urged earnestly.
Rhodes slammed the safe door shut and turned slowly to face the Scout.
For just an instant, Jack was hopeful that the engineer meant to make a
full revelation of the facts. Then, the man’s mood changed again.
“I’ve told you exactly what happened,” Rhodes said shortly. “Carlos
raided the place and took Corning as hostage. There’s been no ransom
demand, so I assume your friend is dead.”
“Mr. Livingston never will be satisfied unless we establish the truth.”
“Let him go ahead if he wants to,” Rhodes shrugged. “Who’s stopping
him?”
“You know this country well. You could help us if you would.”
“I’m heading for Bogota to join my wife! Nothing will make me change my
mind.”
“At least tell us where Carlos has his hide-out.”
“I haven’t the slightest idea. He shifts from place to place. To find
Carlos would be very much like chasing a humming bird.”
Jack realized that it was useless to try to obtain the cooperation of
the engineer. Giving up, he went back to report to Mr. Livingston and
Ken.
“I’m almost certain he’s made a big haul of emeralds and is taking the
pile to Bogota for his own use,” he concluded his account. “What’ll we
do? Try to stop him?”
“He’s armed,” the Scout leader pointed out. “Besides, we have no
absolute proof that he won’t turn the gems over to Baronni when he
reaches the home office.”
“We’ll return to Bogota with him?”
“Not with him, Jack. We’ll trail along behind to see if we can find that
village Willie and War spotted from the air.”
The Scouts resumed their packing. Long before they had finished, they
saw Rhodes ride away from camp, carrying only the necessities of the
trail.
After giving the engineer a little start, the Scouts followed. Burdened
by camping equipment, they fell farther and farther back. As dusk
approached, they began to feel uneasy lest they lose him entirely.
“I don’t like to make camp after dark,” Mr. Livingston said. “On the
other hand, if Rhodes can press on, I guess we can too.”
Eager to make time, the Scouts did not halt to cook supper. Instead,
they ate cold snacks as they jogged on over the uneven trail. Presently,
they gained on Rhodes and in the gathering darkness dimly could make out
his figure ahead.
The party approached the bisecting path which Willie and War had marked
on their crude map dropped from the plane. Mr. Livingston was consulting
it with a shielded flashlight, when Jack, who was leading, suddenly
halted his mule.
“Hey, what’s the idea?” Ken demanded.
“Rhodes is at the trail junction!” Jack informed him in a whisper.
“Something’s wrong! I think he’s been held up!”
“Held up!” Ken echoed, peering ahead. “Jeepers!”
From the bushes on the trail some distance below them, a dapper little
man had emerged. By his body build, the Scouts were sure that it was
Carlos, the bandit. Though they could not see plainly, they knew that
the man must have the engineer covered.
“We haven’t been detected yet,” Jack warned in a whisper. “Those sharp
bends in the trail protected us from view. Let’s see what happens!”
The Scouts could hear heated conversation in Spanish and Rhodes’ violent
protests. But they were to no avail. The engineer was forced to dismount
and set his mule free. Carlos then ordered him to start afoot ahead of
him up the steep bisecting trail.
“Can you beat that!” Jack muttered. “Rhodes a captive! What do we do?
Try to rescue him?”
“He’s not worth the trouble,” Ken said in disgust.
Mr. Livingston, however, had another opinion. “Evidently, Rhodes is
being taken to the bandit village,” he said thoughtfully. “The one
Willie and War spotted. This, I think, is our chance!”
“To trace Corning?” supplied Jack.
Mr. Livingston nodded as he dismounted. “We’ll have to rescue Rhodes,
but there’s no great hurry. Let’s follow Carlos and his captive for
awhile, and learn where the trail leads.”