THE WOLF TALKS IN CODE.
"I can't tell you much about it at this time," replied Nestor. "I can
only say that you ought to get out of the country immediately, and that
Mexico is as good a place to go to as any other. I may be able to tell
you something more after we are on our way."
"Me, too!" cried Jimmie. "Me for Mexico. You can't lose me."
"I'm sorry to say that you'll have to remain here," said Nestor, noting
with regret the keen disappointment in the boy's face. "After we leave
the building you must call a surgeon and see that Mr. Cameron is cared
for. The surgeon will call the police if he thinks it advisable."
"The cops will geezle me," wailed Jimmie.
"I think not," was the reply; "not if you tell them the truth. Make it
as easy for Fremont as you can by saying that he had been here only a
minute when you came in, and that he had just entered the building.
You may say, too, that we have gone out to look up a clue we found
here, in the hope of discovering the assassin. Tell the truth, and
they can't tangle you up."
"They can lock me up," said the boy. "I'll call a surgeon an' duck.
You see if I don't. It is Mexico for mine."
"I suppose you have the price?" laughed Nestor.
"I haven't got carfare to Brooklyn," was the laughing reply, "but that
don't count with me. I guess I know something about traveling without
money."
Having thus arranged for the care of the unconscious man, and tried to
console Jimmie for his great disappointment, Nestor and Fremont left
the big building, seeing, as the latter supposed, no one on their way
out. As they turned out of the Great White Way, still blazing with
lights, directing their steps toward the East River, Fremont turned
about and glanced with varying emotions at the brilliant scene he was
leaving. He was parting, under a cloud, from the Great White Way and
all that the fanciful title implied. He loved the rush and hum of the
big city, and experienced, standing there in the night, a dread of the
silent places he was soon to visit under such adverse conditions.
He loved the forest, too, and the plains and the mountains, but knew
that the burden he was carrying away from the Cameron building would
hang upon him like the Old-man-of-the-Sea until he was back in the big
city again with a name free from suspicion. Nestor stood waiting while
the boy took his sorrowful look about the familiar scenes.
"I know what you're thinking about," he said, as they started on again.
"You're sorry to go not entirely because you love the city, but because
you feel as if you were turning coward in going at all. You'll get over
that as the case develops."
"I'm afraid it will be lonesome down there where we are going," said
Fremont. "I had planned something very different. The Black Bears
were to go along, you know, and there was to be no
fugitive-from-justice business."
"Fugitive from injustice, you should say," said Nestor. "The Black
Bears may come along after a time, too. Anyway, you'll find plenty of
Boy Scouts on the border. I have an idea that Uncle Sam will have his
hands full keeping them out of trouble."
"He'll have a nest on his hands if they take a notion to flock over the
Rio Grande," replied Fremont. "It is hard to keep a boy away from the
front when there are campfires on the mountains."
The two boys passed east to Second avenue, south to Twenty-third
street, and there crossed the East River on the old Greenpoint ferry.
Still walking east, an hour before daylight they came to a cottage in
the vicinity of Newtown Creek, and here Nestor paused and knocked
gently on a door which seemed half hidden by creeping vines, which,
leafless at that time of the year, rattled noisily in the wind.
The door was opened, presently, by a middle-aged lady of pleasant face
and courteous manner. She held a night-lamp high above her
night-capped head while she inspected the boys standing on the little
porch. Nestor broke into a merry laugh.
"Are you thinking of burglars, Aunty Jane?" he asked. Then he added,
"Burglars don't knock at doors, Aunty. They knock people on the head."
"Well, of all things, Ned Nestor!" exclaimed the lady, in a tone which
well matched her engaging face. "What are you doing here at this time
of night?"
"I want to leave a friend here for the day," was the reply. "Come,
Aunty, don't stand there with the lamp so high. You look like the
Statue of Liberty. Let us in and get us something to eat. I'm hungry."
"I suspected it" smiled the lady. "You always come to Aunty Jane when
you are hungry, or when you've got some one you are hiding. Well, come
in. I'm getting used to your manners, Ned."
The boys needed no second invitation to step inside out of the cold
wind. After Fremont had been presented to Aunty Jane, they were shown
to the sitting-room--an apartment warmed by a grate fire and looking as
neat as wax--where they waited for the promised breakfast.
"She is a treasure, Aunty Jane White," explained Nestor, as the boys
watched the cold March dawn creep up the sky. "She really is my aunt,
you know, mother's sister. She knows all about my love for secret
service work, and lets me bring my friends here when they want to keep
out of sight."
"You said something about leaving me here to-day," Fremont observed.
"Why are you thinking of doing that? Why not keep together, and both
get out of the city?"
"I can't tell you now," Nestor replied, a serious look on his face.
"I've got something to do to-day that is so important, so vital, that I
dare not mention it even to you. It does not concern your case, except
that it, too, points to Mexico, but is an outgrowth from it."
"Strange you can't confide in me," said Fremont, almost petulantly.
Nestor noted the impatience in his friend's tone, but made no reply to
it. He had taken a packet of letters from his pocket, and was running
them thoughtfully through his hands, stopping now and then to read the
postmark on an envelope.
"Do you remember," he asked, in a moment, "of seeing a tall shadow in
front of the door to the Cameron suite just before we left there?"
"I did not see any shadow there," was the astonished reply. "How could
a shadow come on the glass door?"
"Because some tall man, with one shoulder a trifle lower than the
other, stood between the light in the corridor and the glass panel,"
was the reply, "and his shadow was plainly to be seen. I thought you
noticed it."
"Was that when you opened the door and looked out?"
"Yes; I opened the door and look out into the corridor and listened. I
could hear footsteps on the staircase, but they died out while I stood
there. The man was hiding in the building, for the street door was not
opened, and we did not see him on the way down. I suspect that the
watchman knew he was there."
"The watchman, Jim Scoby, is a rascal," replied Fremont. "I don't like
him. What am I to do if you leave me alone here all day?" he added,
with a sigh.
"Read, eat, sleep, and keep out of sight," was the reply. "I'll return
early in the evening and we'll leave for the South at midnight."
"I wish I could communicate with the Black Bears," said Fremont.
Nestor smiled but said nothing. In a short time breakfast was served
and Nestor went away. That was a long day for Fremont, although Aunty
Jane endeavored to help him pass the time pleasantly. He dropped off
into sleep late in the afternoon, and did not wake until after dark.
Instead of its being a long day for Nestor, it seemed a very short one.
From the Brooklyn cottage he went directly to a telegraph office in the
lower section of the city and asked for the manager, who had not yet
arrived, the hour being early. The clerk was inquisitive and tried to
find out what the boy wanted of the manager, but Nestor kept his own
counsel and the manager was finally reluctantly sent for.
When the manager arrived Nestor asked that an expert code operator be
procured, and this was reluctantly done, but only after the boy had
written and sent off a message to a man the manager knew to be high in
the secret service department of the government. In an hour, much to
the surprise of the manager, this important gentleman walked into the
office and asked for the boy.
After a short talk there, the two went to a hotel and secured a private
room, and two clerks familiar with code work were sent for. When a
waiter, in answer to a call, looked into the room he was astonished at
seeing the four very busy over a packet of letters.
Then, in a short time, code messages began to rain in on the manager.
They were from Washington, from the Pacific coast, and from various
forts scattered about the country. The manager confided to his wife
when he went home to luncheon that it seemed to him as if another war
was beginning. All the military offices in the country seemed talking
in code, he said.
"What has this boy you speak of got to do with military operations?"
asked the wife, wondering at a lad of Nestor's age being mixed up in a
state affair.
"That is what I don't know," was the reply. "He came to the office
this morning and sent for me, as you know. When I met him he asked for
a code expert and wired to the biggest man in this military division.
Then the code work began."
It was late in the evening when Nestor returned to the cottage and
announced himself ready for the southern trip. Fremont, who had been
impatiently awaiting his arrival, was eager to know the status of the
Cameron case.
"Mr. Cameron is alive, but unconscious," was the unsatisfactory reply.
"The police ordered him taken to a hospital and his people summoned. It
is said that Mrs. Cameron is very bitter against you."
"That's because I ran away," Fremont said, gravely. "What about Jim
Scoby?"
"The watchman has disappeared," was the reply. "He left with a Mexican
called Felix who occupied a room in the building. The police are after
them."
"And of course they are looking for me--egged on by Mrs. Cameron?"
"There is a reward of $10,000 offered for the arrest of the guilty
party," was the unsatisfactory reply, "and the police officers are
raking the city to find any one who was in the building last night."
"Did they arrest Jimmie McGraw?" asked Fremont, hoping that the bright
little fellow had not been placed in prison.
"Jimmie ran away, just as he said he would, called a surgeon and left
the building before he arrived. The police followed him to a room
where members of the Wolf Patrol meet occasionally, but he was not
there. The boys who were there, night messengers and the like, who had
dropped in before going home, said that he had gone South. I met a boy
named Frank Shaw, and he said the Black Bears were getting ready to do
something for you, though he would not say what it was."
"Good old Frank!" exclaimed Fremont.
"The Black Bears are loyal," Nestor went on, "and so are the Wolves. We
may hear from both patrols after we cross the Rio Grande."
"I wish some of them were going with us," said Fremont, with a sigh.
"If I am not mistaken," Nestor said, with a frown, "we'll have plenty
of company on the way down. We may not see our traveling companions,
but they will be close at hand."
"Do you mean that the police will trail us to Mexico?" asked Fremont.
"I don't know," was the reply. "I give it up. There are others beside
the police to reckon with. Well, we'll see what Boy Scouts can do to
protect a friend who is in trouble."