A WOBBLING AEROPLANE.
The boys stepped back from the bear as the men came up. It was growing
dusk now, and as the men drew nearer their faces were seen only by the
dancing flames of the fire. They were not prepossessing faces, and the
boys wondered if it was the illumination which produced the shifty and
suspicious glances they caught.
The two bent over the bear for an instant, and then one aimed his rifle
slowly and fired a bullet into the animal’s head. No report followed the
shot, and then it was observed that the weapon carried a Maxim silencer.
This doubtless accounted for the fact that the shot which had brought
the bear down had not been heard at the camp.
After talking together in whispers for a moment, as the acrid smell of
powder drifted out into the sweet air of the valley, the men turned
questioning looks toward the boys. From the youthful faces their eyes
soon roved to the two aeroplanes not far away.
There was more whispered talk, and then the two stepped over to the
_Louise_ and began a careful and rather impertinent inspection of the
motors. The boys looked on angrily but said nothing.
“Rather fine machines you have there,” one of the fellows said, after
the deliberate examination had been completed.
“We think so!” Ben answered shortly.
“Where are you from?” asked the other intruder.
Ben gave Jimmie and Carl a sly nudge to remain silent and answered the
question in a manner which, while the exact truth, did not reveal the
starting place.
“Denver,” he said.
The fellow bent down and read the names of the machines from little
silver plates screwed to the frames.
“The _Louise_ and the _Bertha_,” he said. “It appears to me that I have
heard something of these aeroplanes before.”
“The names are common enough,” Ben answered.
“The machines I refer to,” the visitor went on, “belong in New York. Are
you sure you didn’t bring these machines from a hangar on Long Island?”
Jimmie could restrain himself no longer. From the first he had felt a
feeling of aversion for the men, and he had inwardly resented not only
the question asked but the impudent and uncalled-for examination of the
aeroplanes. In spite of a warning hand from Ben he blurted out:
“What do you care where we came from?”
The two intruders eyed the boy sharply for a moment, as if trying to
look him out of countenance, and then one of them said:
“None of your lip, now, youngster!”
“Well!” exclaimed Jimmie. “You’ve got your nerve with you!”
The man who had spoken before seemed about to make an angry reply, but
his companion drew him away, and again they talked together in whispers.
“What are you fellows doing here, anyhow?” Jimmie demanded. “If you
think you’re going to work the third degree on us, you’ve got another
think coming! You’re too fresh, anyway!”
Presently the men turned back to the boys again, and the light of the
fire on their bearded faces showed that they were about to adopt a new
course of conduct. The fellow who spoke smiled as he did so.
“I can’t blame you for resenting our supposedly unwarranted
interference,” he said. “We should have informed you at first that we
are in the employ of the Canadian government as mounted policemen.”
“Where’s your horses?” demanded Jimmie.
“At the other end of the valley.”
“Where’s your uniforms?”
“We rarely wear uniforms in rough mountain work.”
The fellow answered the two questions with apparent frankness, but there
was a set expression on his face which showed that he was restraining a
naturally vicious temper by great effort.
Ben now stepped forward and extended a hand in greeting.
“We’re glad to see you, I’m sure!” he said. “Still, I hardly think you
will blame us for resenting apparently impertinent questions.”
“That’s all right, boy!” replied the other, trying his best to bring a
conciliatory expression to his sullen face. “It’s part of our duty, you
understand, to visit camps in the mountains and make inquiries as to the
intentions of strangers.”
“We understand that, of course,” Ben answered. “We are willing to answer
any questions you care to ask, now that we know who you are.”
“I hope you’ll answer my first question in a manner entirely
satisfactory to myself!” laughed the other.
“I shall try,” answered Ben, “what is it?”
“Have you any coffee left?”
“You bet we have!” replied the boy. “And if you’ll sit down here by the
fire, we’ll make you a quart inside of ten minutes.”
Jimmie turned away to the provision box of the _Louise_ to bring out
fresh coffee with apparent willingness, but both his companions saw an
angry expression on his face.
Carl followed him back to the aeroplane and whispered as they bent over
the coffee sack together:
“You don’t like ’em, eh?”
“They’re snakes!” was the reply.
“But they belong to the mounted police!”
“I don’t believe it!”
“Anyway,” warned Carl, “you’ve got to keep a civil tongue in your head
and not let them know that you think they’re lying.”
“You don’t believe that mounted police story yourself!” declared Jimmie.
“They don’t look like mounted policemen, either!”
“I hardly know what to believe,” Carl replied, “but I’ve got sense
enough not to let them know that I’m still guessing.”
Jimmie returned to the fire with the coffee and sat down on the grass
not far from the visitors. While Ben prepared supper one of the men
walked out to the carcass of the grizzly and began removing the hide.
Carl rushed up to his side and stood looking down at the clumsy manner
in which the fellow was operating.
“Say,” the boy proposed in a moment, “why can’t we all have bear steak
for supper? We boys had supper not long ago, but I think I could eat a
bear steak right now!”
The man looked up with a puzzled expression.
“Bear steak for supper?” he repeated. “You don’t eat bear meat, do you?”
“Would a duck take to the water?” asked Carl. “Of course we eat bear
meat! Sometimes it’s a little tough, unless you know exactly how to cook
it, but I can broil a bear steak so it’ll melt in your mouth!”
“Then do so by all means!” the visitor answered.
Carl removed several tender steaks, took them back to the fire and then
called Jimmie to one side.
“You’re all right, kiddo,” he said, as the two seated themselves in the
shadows some distance from the blaze.
“Have you just found that out?” demanded Jimmie.
“I mean about those imitation mounted policemen,” Carl went on. “They’re
no more mounted policemen than I am!”
“Then they’re a long ways from it!” Jimmie laughed. “But why this sudden
conversion to my view of the case?”
“They don’t know about eating bear meat!” was the scornful reply. “One
of them just told me that he didn’t know that they ever ate bear steak!”
“That does settle it!” cried Jimmie.
“Of course, it settles it!” agreed Carl. “And now the question,” he
continued, “is this: What are they doing here, and why are they posing
as mounted policemen? You don’t suppose they’ve got word from New York,
do you?”
“Word from New York about what?”
“About our being out looking for the post-office inspector the
mail-order brigands abducted not long ago.”
“Of course not!” was the reply. “These fellows are just plain mountain
bums! They came here principally to get supper!”
“Or to steal the machines!” suggested Carl.
“We’ll see that they don’t steal the machines!” Jimmie declared.
“Well, I wish Mr. Havens would come,” Carl put in, with rather a longing
expression in his voice. “We don’t know anything about the case we’re
handling, and we don’t know whether we’re going to remain in this camp
an hour or a month. For all we know the men we are trying to find may be
in Mexico before this!”
“If they’re in Mexico,” Jimmie suggested, “the United States government
can go chase itself for all of me. If you don’t remember what a
beautiful time we had in Mexico, I do, and I don’t want any more of it!”
Those who have read the previous volumes of this series will doubtless
remember the adventures of the Flying Machine Boys at the burning
mountain. During that trip, it will be understood, they suffered the
loss of some of their machines, and Jimmie came near meeting his death
in a mountain lake known as the Devil’s Pool.
“I’m going wherever Mr. Havens sends me,” Carl answered, “and I’m going
to get all the fun out of it there is to get. What’s puzzling me now is
to know exactly what we ought to do with these bums.”
“Aw, we can’t do anything with them,” Jimmie grunted. “We’ve just got to
feed them and see them hanging around here, trying to steal our
machines, and sit peaceful, like a wooden Indian in front of a Bowery
cigar store. It makes me sick!”
However, the boys were not called upon to take action of any kind at
that time. Ben broiled bear steak enough for the whole party, made some
excellent coffee, and brought out a couple of loaves of bread. At the
conclusion of this second meal, at least on the part of the boys, the
two intruders arose, threw their rifles over their shoulders, and turned
away. However, one of them stepped back in a moment.
“We haven’t seen you do any shooting yet,” he said with a smile on his
face which Ben regarded as most insincere, “but we don’t know when you
will be hunting big game, so you may as well show us your licenses.”
“There!” Jimmie whispered to Carl as Ben produced the three licenses
from an inside pocket. “They’ve saved their important question for the
last moment!”
“What do you mean by that?” asked Carl.
“Why, those fellows are not mounted policemen!” the boy answered.
“We had made up our minds to that before!”
“Then why should they want to see our licenses?”
“I know!” exclaimed Carl. “I know just why they want to see our
licenses! They want to get our names!”
“That’s it!” Jimmie answered. “They never asked to see the licenses in
order to make good their bluff about being officers!”
After examining the papers the two visitors left the camp and proceeded
down the valley to the west. Upon their departure the boys gathered
closer about the fire and seriously discussed the situation.
At first Ben was inclined to argue that the men were actually Canadian
officials, but Jimmie and Carl soon reasoned him out of this.
“Why,” Jimmie said, “a mounted policeman would know how to skin a bear
without cutting the hide full of holes, and he’d also know that bear
steak is considered quite a luxury in British Columbia. They’re frauds
all right,” and this view of the case was finally accepted by all.
Throughout the evening the boys kept their eyes open for the return of
the unwelcome guests, but nothing was seen of them. At ten o’clock, when
the lads were thinking of drawing lots to see who should remain on guard
through the night, Jimmie caught sight of a strong light far up in the
sky. Ben had his field-glass out in a moment.
“That’s the _Ann_, all right,” he decided after a long inspection.
“There’s no other aeroplane in the world carries a light like that!”
“I’m glad Mr. Havens is coming,” Jimmie said with a sigh of relief.
“I said it was the _Ann_!” Ben returned after another long look. “I
didn’t say Mr. Havens was flying her! It seems to me that the man on
board doesn’t know as much about the aviation game as Mr. Havens does.
She’s wobbling about something frightful!”