ARRESTS ARE MADE.
There was a tremendous din in the cavern as the bear shot out of the
opening. The wailing of the cubs at the rear, the volley of rifle shots
at the front, and the smell of powder smoke confused Carl for a moment.
Then he crept forward to the entrance, almost entirely concealed by the
smoke, and looked out into the brilliant sunlight.
The bear lay dead on the slope, but the men gathered about her were not
congratulating themselves on their victory, or, in fact, paying any
attention to the vanquished enemy. Their eyes were fixed on an aeroplane
which was speeding in from the west, evidently heading for the summit
just above the camp.
“That’s not one of the machines belonging to the boys,” Carl heard some
one say.
“I thought,” another man complained, “that we were getting out of the
zone of civilization when we struck British Columbia.”
“I thought so, too,” another voice said, “but we’re running up against
impertinent Britishers, and flying machines, and many other nuisances
which belong entirely on the paved streets and in the air above the
town.”
The machine was now so close to the group, and also to the entrance to
the cavern, that the rattle of the motors well-nigh drowned the sound of
conversation. Still, directly, Carl heard some one shout that there were
three men on the machine, and that one of them was Dick Sherman, the
chief of the mounted police of that district.
The boy uttered a sigh of relief and moved out of the cavern to be
greeted with shouts of laughter and many alleged jokes.
“How do you like living with the bears?” one of the hunters demanded.
“Bears are all right!” replied Carl. “There’re about a dozen baby bears
in there! They seem to be cute little fellows, with good voices.”
“What do you say, boys; say we all take a baby bear home with us!” asked
one of the hunters.
The question was greeted with applause, and half a dozen men immediately
made a dash for the cavern. Before long two came out carrying cubs,
probably from four to eight weeks of age.
“Where are the others?” asked Carl. “Why didn’t you all get one?”
“There were only two!” was the answer.
“Only two!” repeated Carl. “They made noise enough for two hundred! I
thought all the forty bears who came out of the wilderness and devoured
the two children were on deck!”
“I guess you’re mixed in your Sunday school lesson!” one of the men
remarked.
“Perhaps,” Carl admitted. “It might have been two bears and forty
children. I don’t know. What I intended to convey was the idea that
there was noise enough in there to represent a thousand bear cubs.”
The aeroplane, sailing very low, now passed almost through the group of
men, and Dick Sherman waved a hand in greeting at the boy.
“Do you know him?” asked one of the hunters turning to Carl.
“Sure I know him!” answered Carl. “I got him a supper down at our camp
which put two inches of fat on his ribs.”
“Then if you know him well,” the hunter went on, “tell him, for the love
of Mike, to quit nosing around our camp looking for some criminal who is
probably in Washington, D. C.”
“Has he been watching your camp?” asked Carl in wonder.
“He certainly has!” was the reply. “He’s been nosing about here, at
times, ever since we came in! What do you think he wants now?”
“I think he came after me!” replied Carl.
The aeroplane was now seen to land on the level space between the tents
on the plateau, and Sherman and his two companions left their seats and
approached a group of men standing by the fire.
One of the men, Carl saw, was Neil Howell, and the other was the burly
fellow who had ordered him into his tent that morning. At that time the
boy did not know Howell by sight, although he had often heard his name
spoken there. It was only after a time that he learned who the second
man was. Before the boy and those with him reached the tents, they saw a
gleam of steel and the suddenness with which handcuffs were clasped on
the wrists of Howell and his burly companion almost took their breath
away. The men gazed at each other inquiringly.
“Do you know what it means?” one of them asked Carl.
“I haven’t the least idea!” was the answer.
“Why, that’s Neil Howell, the noted Wall street operator! I don’t
understand what he’s placed under arrest for!” one of the men declared.
“I presume Dick Sherman knows what he’s doing!” Carl suggested.
“I don’t doubt that!” the man replied.
The three officers were now walking swiftly about the camp in opposite
directions, evidently searching for some one not in view. A hunter
standing by the boy’s side glanced his eye over the group.
“It must be Frank Harris they want,” he said. “He’s the only one that
isn’t here.”
“Frank Harris went down the slope to the west not long ago!” another
said. “I guess he’s looking for another bear cub.”
But if Frank Harris was indeed looking for the third bear cub his search
must have been a long one, for neither then nor at any other time did
any member of the hunting party set eyes upon him again. Secret service
men are looking for him to this day. How he got out of the wilderness no
one knows, but get out he did, and out of the country, too, for that
matter.
After concluding the search, Dick Sherman came to where Carl was
standing by the machine.
“Where’s that Englishman of yours?” he asked.
“Do you want the Englishman, too?” demanded the boy.
“Of course I want the Englishman!” replied the officer. “Do you think
I’d be apt to find him over at your camp?”
“I haven’t a doubt of it!” answered Carl. “Although I haven’t been to
the camp since yesterday. This man Howell and his chums were so stuck on
my sweet society that they kept me here all night!”
“I’d keep you here about fifteen minutes if I had my way now!” Howell
muttered.
“He thinks you sent out information which led to his arrest!” commented
one of the hunters. “He’ll get even with you yet!”
“I didn’t have any information to send out!” declared Carl.
“Then who did send it out?” shouted Howell.
“You can search me!” Carl replied.
Dick Sherman looked over to one of his deputies with a smile but said
nothing. He merely ordered the two prisoners on to the machine and
prepared to take to the air.
“I’ll take these fellows over to your camp,” he said to Carl, “and send
one of the boys back after you and my deputies. They can come with one
of your machines, and this one of mine, and bring the whole crowd at one
trip.”
“All right,” laughed Carl, “I’ll be mighty glad to get back to that good
old camp again! You see,” he explained, “when we get out on a trip of
this kind, we usually pitch our tents and then go off and leave them. I
haven’t slept there one night since we built the first camp-fire!”
“How long will it take?” asked one of the hunters.
“Probably an hour each way,” was the reply.
“Well, we’ll see that the boy is taken good care of while you’re gone!”
the hunter said with a smile.
“And when you get settled down to conversation with this kid,” suggested
another hunter, “you just ask him to tell the story about the two bear
cubs in the cavern. He’s a nervy little fellow!”
In something less than two hours, two machines came sailing over the
valley, making for the plateau. When at last they landed, Carl was
greatly surprised at seeing Mr. Havens seated on the _Ann_. Dick Sherman
was riding his own machine.
“I thought you couldn’t get out of bed!” shouted Carl to the
millionaire.
“I’m fit to ride a thousand miles to-day,” smiled the millionaire, “but
I don’t think I could walk ten feet to save my life!”
“When I got over to your camp,” Dick Sherman explained, “I found Mr.
Havens alone. He says you boys have left him alone every minute of the
time since the camp was built.”
“Not quite so bad as that,” laughed the aviator.
“It’s pretty near as bad as that,” Carl admitted.
“When I got over to the camp,” the official went on, “Mr. Havens told me
that the others had gone to the smugglers’ cavern. There’s something
queer going on over there,” the official continued, “but Mr. Havens
wouldn’t tell me what it is. He said for me to tie my prisoners up good
and safe and come along with him, if I wanted to find out what was
doing.”
“I hope you tied ’em up good and safe!” Carl suggested.
“They’re safe enough!” replied Mr. Havens.
Carl now stepped into the _Ann_ with Mr. Havens and the two, after
bidding good-bye to the friendly hunters, shot away down the valley
toward the smugglers’ cavern, closely followed by the official machine
and the three officers.
As soon as the machines departed the hunters set about breaking camp, as
they had decided to leave that night.
“Ever since we’ve been here,” one of them declared, “we’ve been heels
over head in trouble. Who introduced us to this Neil Howell and Frank
Harris, anyway?”
“I’ll be blessed if I remember,” another answered. “The first time I saw
Harris he came to us in company with the Englishman and asked me to join
in a hunting trip.”
“By the way, where is the Englishman?” asked the other.
“That’s one of the mysteries of the camp,” the first speaker replied.
“He disappeared most unexpectedly one morning and Howell and Harris both
began calling him a thief and telling what he’d stolen.”
“I heard that story about his stealing a burro and a lot of money,” said
the other, “but I never believed it.”
“No one believes it!” was the reply and the hunters standing about
quickly assented.
“And here’s another thing I never understood about this camp,” another
declared, “and that’s the red and green signals we’ve seen in the fire
nights. What did they mean?”
“Harris and Howell said they were sending beacons to a friendly camp
across the valley,” one of them answered, “but I never believed that.
Who knows what Howell and Chubby were arrested for?”
No one knew at that time, and no one suspected, until they read the
sensational stories of the Colleton case in the San Francisco
newspapers.
At sundown the men had their mules brought in from pasture and given a
feed of oats preparatory to the work of the next day.
They went to sleep with their belongings all made up into neat bundles,
and by sunrise they were away, headed for the nearest town on the
Canadian Pacific line.