THE LOSS OF A BOY!
“They seem to be celebrating our arrival,” Ben said, looking down on the
signal fire with a grin, “only I don’t hear any bands,” he continued, as
the flames streamed up and cast a red light over the waters of the
Pacific ocean.
“That’s about the strangest proposition I ever came across,” Carl said,
looking down on the dark canyons, laying like black lines in a drawing,
on the landscape below. “I’d like to know what it means.”
“Don’t you ever think,” Jimmie went on, “that Phillips and Mendoza have
anything to do with that fire! That beacon light was put there for some
purpose by an entirely different set of outlaws.”
“But why ‘outlaws’?” asked Carl. “The people we see about the fire may
be fishermen, and there are lime quarries and kilns somewhere in this
section, and these men may be signaling to schooners.”
Below the aeroplanes lay a great peak extending four thousand feet above
the level of the sea. To the west the Pacific beat fiercely against its
side. To the south the Sierra raised its lofty crags, apparently,
straight out of the ocean. To the north a succession of summits lifted
above the range. Off to the east lay a faint trail connecting, by
devious turns and twists through the mountain wilderness, with the
Southern Pacific railroad.
The beacon fire rose straight from a headland which jutted for some
distance out into the ocean. The beat of the waves against the breakers
at the foot of the headland came dimly up to the boys like the stir and
rustle of a crowded street.
There had been a fog, but it was lifting now, and here and there traces
of green might be seen wherever the flames revealed the surface of the
ground. After a time Ben turned back with the _Bertha_ and signaled to
the others to help in the search for a safe landing-place.
This was by no means an easy task, as it was deep twilight now on the
lower stretches of the mountain, and most of the canyons seemed mere
yawning pits whose open mouths gaped eagerly for the prey in the air.
The boys turned to north and south in their machines and, sailing low,
scrutinized the dim country in the hope of discovering some level spot
where the flying machines could be brought to the ground with safety.
At last, perhaps two miles to the south of the headland, where the
beacon light still sent its red flames into the air, Ben came upon a
canyon or gully which had evidently once been the bed of a rushing
mountain torrent. The wash of water from the steep surfaces, however,
had, in distant years, filled the narrow slit between the summits with
fine white sand.
It was by no means a large place, but was quite sufficient for the
purpose. Ben felt his way carefully down, dropping into what seemed to
him to be a fathomless pit between peaks until the white, hard floor
below came faintly into view. After examining the place as thoroughly as
possible with an electric searchlight, he volplaned down, much to Kit’s
amazement, and soon had the satisfaction of feeling the rubber-tired
wheels beneath the machine running evenly over a smooth surface.
It had been a great risk, however, this dropping down into the darkness
between two mountain peaks, and Ben was not certain, even after landing,
that he had done the correct thing. His light showed a level surface for
only a short distance. The opening of the canyon faced the Pacific. To
left and right were almost perpendicular walls. To the east a great crag
was worn far under a shelving side by the action of the waves which at
some distant time must have forced their way through the split in the
mountains.
One thing which troubled the boy not a little was the question as to
whether the space into which he had brought his flying machine was
sufficient in size for both the _Bertha_ and the _Louise_. They might be
packed into the canyon, without doubt, but there was always the matter
of room for the flight outward. Still, the place was ideal in that it
appeared to be secure from observation from any position except the open
sea.
The mountain summits to the north and south seemed entirely
inaccessible, while the crag to the east, under which the cave-like
excavation showed, looked more like the sharp blade of an upturned knife
at the top than a surface capable of being ascended.
Ben waved his light back and forth, indicating to Jimmie and Carl that
they should approach the canyon cautiously and from the east. He held an
eye of flame to the summit of the crag to show that the drop must not
come too suddenly in that direction.
His idea, of course, was to bring the _Louise_ in so that her outward
flight would be toward the sea. His own machine had come in from the
west, and he knew that it would have to be lifted and wheeled about
before she could be sent into the air.
Besides offering a comparatively safe hiding-place for the machines, the
canyon also seemed to offer protection from the weather for the boys.
Ben did not fully investigate the excavations under the crag at that
time, but he knew that the soft lime-rock had been washed away to a
considerable extent, and that the face of the cliff was honeycombed with
small caves.
Jimmie circled about the canyon for a moment, caught sight of the crag
under the flashlight, and passed its sharp edge with only a foot to
spare. In a moment more, directed by the light in Ben’s hand, he drove
the _Louise_ along the hard floor until she stood at rest by the side of
the _Bertha_.
Jimmie and Carl hastened to make themselves acquainted with the
situation in the canyon by means of their electric searchlights. They
ran here and there glancing up at the almost vertical walls to the north
and south and throwing long fingers of light into the depressions in the
crag. By this time Kit was asleep on the sand!
“Looks like one of the East-Side apartment houses,” grinned Jimmie,
flashing his light upward. “See, there’s a row of windows, and there’s
something that looks like a fire-escape!”
“Your row of windows,” laughed Ben, “consists of holes where lime-rocks
have been worn away by the action of the water, and your fire-escape is
only a long seam in the granite, with frequent cross sections.”
“Aw, what’s the use of busting up illusions,” asked Jimmie. “I was
having a pleasant dream of the East Side. And the East Side made me
think of the little old restaurant on Fourteenth street, near Tammany
Hall. And the thought of the restaurant reminded me that I hadn’t had
anything to eat since noon. Why didn’t you let me dream?”
“Any old time, it takes Tammany Hall, and Fourteenth street, and a
fire-escape on a rock, to make Jimmie remember that he’s hungry!”
laughed Carl.
“Well, if you’re hungry,” Ben suggested, “why don’t you go on and get
supper? You’re the cook to-day, anyway.”
“Is it safe to build a fire?” asked Carl.
Ben shook his head and pointed to the walls on either side.
“The flame might not be seen,” he said, “but the reflection might, so I
presume we’d better do our cooking on the alcohol stove.”
“Jerusalem!” exclaimed Jimmie. “I don’t want any cafeteria, Y. M. C. A.,
luncheon to-night. I want to get out about a dozen cans of beans, and
tinned roast beef, and four or five pounds of ham, and a couple dozen
eggs, and have a square meal. We’ve been sailing over the country for
five or six days now eating wind sandwiches and drinking brook water.”
“Perhaps,” Carl observed pointing to the openings to the east, “we can
find a place in there where a fire may safely be built.”
“Where’s your wood?” asked Ben.
“There’s always driftwood in a place like this,” Jimmie asserted.
“There’s always trees falling down from the timber line and rotting in
the canyons. I’ll find wood, all right, if we can find a place where
it’s safe to build a fire,” he added with a chuckle of delight at the
thought of a large meal. “What I need right now is plenty of
sustenance!”
“Go to it!” laughed Ben. “Mr. Havens advised us to camp out in some spot
about like this, and make excursions over the mountains in search of
Phillips and Mendosa, so I don’t see why we’ll have to move our camp at
all. Therefore, a neat little kitchen won’t come amiss.”
Jimmie started for the cliff with a chuckle. For some minutes his
flashlight was seen dodging in and out of the water-worn caverns, and
then it disappeared entirely. Carl, who was gathering driftwood, paused
at Ben’s side and pointed toward the spot where Jimmie’s light had last
been seen. His face was a trifle anxious as he said:
“You don’t suppose he’s gone and got into trouble, do you?”
“My guess is that he has found a deep cavern,” said Ben.
“I hope so,” Carl answered. “Say!” the boy went on, in a moment, “your
speaking of Mr. Havens just now reminded me of the fact that he hasn’t
communicated with us in any way since we started. I’m getting worried
about that man! He might have overtaken us by fast train if he had seen
fit to do so, but he didn’t.”
“I don’t see how he could have communicated with us in any way,” replied
Ben. “We have never left an address, and always his people at the hangar
declared in answer to our messages that he had not been heard from since
the night he had so mysteriously left the stateroom of the Pullman car.
They’re getting anxious about him in New York.”
“There’s one thing,” Carl went on, “and that is that the only clue which
connects Mendosa and Phillips with the burglary of the Buyers’ Bank, and
with the murder of the night-watchman, is in the possession of Mr.
Havens. We can’t do very much until Havens comes.”
“We can locate the men, can’t we?” asked Ben. “So far as the clue is
concerned, that will be needed only at the trial. What the New York
chief of police wants is for us to locate the murderers and turn our
information over to the California officers.”
“Anyway,” Carl insisted, “Mr. Havens was carrying a stone and a gold
claw broken from a ring believed to have been worn by Mendosa on the
night of the murder. The outlaws would go a long ways in order to secure
possession of those articles. I’m getting frightened over Havens’
absence.”
“Suppose Mendosa should destroy the ring?” asked Ben. “That would render
the clue valueless, wouldn’t it?”
“Indeed it wouldn’t!” answered Carl. “Mendosa is well-known to the
police, and that ring was as well known to New York detectives as was
the man’s face. I understand, too, that there are witnesses who saw
Mendosa on the day following the burglary who noticed that one stone had
disappeared from the ring, and that a claw had been broken off.
Besides,” continued Carl, “Mendosa wouldn’t destroy that ring, or sell
it, or give it away. He would lay it aside in some secure place until he
could have the damage repaired. Mendosa is said to be foolish in the
head like a fox!”
“You’re some detective, I reckon!” laughed Ben. “What you ought to do is
to connect with some newspaper reporter and write stories for the
magazines. Perhaps you could get one printed!”
“All right,” grinned Carl, “you can’t figure it out any other way. If
the right steps are taken, and the stone and the claw are not stolen
from Havens by agents of the outlaws, that ring will eventually convict
the murderers of the night-watchman!”
The boys talked for some moments, sitting on the hard, white sand at the
side of the machines. They had collected quite a quantity of dry
driftwood, and were now waiting for Jimmie to return from his excursion
in search of a safe and convenient cook-room.
“Look here, Ben,” Carl said in a moment, “we don’t want to go away and
leave the machines, not even for a minute, not even if we are in a
lonely spot, but some one ought to go and look for Jimmie. You know
there’s a lot of places a boy might fall into in these mountain
caverns!”
“All right,” Ben said, rising from the ground, “I’ll go and wake Kit. He
was so sleepy when I brought the _Bertha_ down that I lifted him out of
the seat and laid him away against a wall! I don’t think he ever knew
when I took him off the machine. I’ll give him a searchlight and send
him to look after Jimmie.”
“Where did you put him?” asked Carl, “I’ll go and wake him up.”
“On a bed of nice hard, white sand close to the south wall,” replied
Ben. “There’s an old coat which I had to wrap around my shoulders in the
higher altitudes under his head. Bring that along, too; we’ll need it
later.”
Carl went away whistling with his hands in his pockets, taking great
breaths of fresh mountain air into his lungs, and believing that he was
about the happiest boy on the face of the earth. It was all so different
from the crowded streets of New York! In a moment Ben heard him calling.
“You must have mislaid him!” the boy said. “Here’s the coat, but the kid
isn’t here! It looks like there’d been a scrap here on the sand. Perhaps
a mountain lion carried him off.”
Ben sprang to his feet and rushed out to Carl.