CHAPTER XIII.--OFF ON A DESPERATE MISSION.
What business calling for the use of a typewriter was being transactedunder the main divide of the Rocky Mountains?
Ned stood perfectly still in the darkness and listened. He could hearthe click of the keys and nothing else. At length he moved stealthilyforward over an even surface, feeling his way in order that he might nottrip over some unseen obstruction and raise a racket in a tumble.
Presently he came to a rug hanging at the end of the chamber in which hewas. From the other side of the rug came a faint light. The noise of thekeys was more distinct here, and the boy knew that he had at leastlocated the operator.
While he stood listening and undecided as to what course to pursue, thenoise of the machine ceased and the operator--a young, well-dressedAmerican--came toward him carrying a lighted candle in his hand. Nedcrouched down in an angle of the wall and waited for him to pass.
The boy was not quite so anxious now to leave the strange rendezvous inwhich he found himself. Some mischief greater than smuggling opium andChinamen over the border might be carried on there. His work seemed tobe growing on his hands!
He had been sent to that district to investigate the cause of thefrequent forest fires, and given an aeroplane in order that he might flyover the forests in making his observations. It seemed to him now, as helay on his side against a wall of rock, waiting for the typist to passwith his light, that he was spending more time under the ground than inthe air!
The main range of the Rocky Mountains in the northern part of Montana isnoted for its rugged and irregular formation. It is declared by somethat the home of the original cave dwellers was here. Many of the greatcanyons are known to be honeycombed with openings almost large enough tohide a small city in.
The typist moved straight ahead and his light disappeared from view.Then Ned advanced beyond the rug, which appeared to be of fine material,and flashed on his light. There was a table in the room, a couple ofchairs, a row of pigeon-holes attached to the wall.
On the table was a typewriter, in the pigeon-holes were folded papers,neatly ticketed and enclosed in rubber bands. Aside from the undergroundsmell the place was tolerably comfortable. The air was damp and chilly,but Ned was well clothed and did not mind that.
As has been said, the boy was now in no haste to leave the place. Hebelieved that the mystery he had been sent out to solve would be solvedthere. For an hour or more he searched over the place, opening thefolded papers and making a close examination of the typewriter and thestock of unused paper in the drawer of the table.
At length, his examination completed, he passed back into the chamberbehind the rug and listened at the opening through which he had entered.A sound of the steady beat of blows reached his ears at first, then alow whistle. That was Jimmie, he knew. The lad had a habit of whistlingsoftly to himself, usually without time or tune.
Waiting for a lull in the blows, he rapped softly on the box whichbacked up against the opening. Instantly the whistling ceased, andJimmie's voice was heard.
"Come on out," the boy said. "I've been kicking my heels against thisbox for an hour, waitin' for you to signal back."
"Be sure there is no one watching," Ned cautioned.
He heard Jimmie walking away, then heard him coming back. In a momentthe box was drawn away from the opening.
"You've been in there long enough to dig through to China," Jimmie said,as Ned stood by his side. "What did you find in there?"
"A double keyboard typewriter," grinned Ned.
"Quit your kiddin'," answered Jimmie. "You'll be claimin' next that youfound a brass band in there."
Ned did not stop to explain to the boy all that he had discovered in theinner chamber. His work there seemed to be finished now, and he wasanxious to get back to camp. There was no knowing what had been going onthere during his absence.
"Where is Liu?" he asked.
"Watchin' outside," was the reply. "He's my guard. Goin' to shoot me ifI try to get away."
"And the others?" asked Ned.
"Don't know," replied Jimmie. "They herded a lot of Chinks an' went offdown the valley."
Liu now appeared in the entrance, bowed gravely to the boys, and steppedout on the ledge, with a Boy Scout challenge in the wave of his hand.
"He's all right!" Jimmie said. "You ought to see the breakfast he got upfor me. That feller can cook--an' then some!"
"Call him," Ned suggested, "and we'll see if it is safe for me to goout."
"For you to go out!" repeated Jimmie. "For us to go out."
"I think you'd better remain here," Ned replied.
Jimmie looked at his chum in amazement. The light back there was notgood, but Ned saw several questions in the boy's eyes.
"Liu can protect you, can't he?" Ned asked.
"That's what I don't know," was the reply. "He will do his best, ofcourse, but his best might not be good enough."
Ned was thinking fast. If he permitted the boy to leave, the fact of hisescape would be likely to scatter the outlaws--and he very much wishedto keep them together for a short time.
"I think," he said, "that we have found the men we want--with the goods.If you leave now they will make a quick getaway. You see that, don'tyou?"
"Of course," was the reply. "An' I see, too, that if I remain I'm theone that's likely to make a quick getaway--to a country no one comesback from."
"There may be some other way," Ned said, thoughtfully. "Give me a chanceto think it over."
"Oh, I'll stay, all right," Jimmie went on, "if it will do any good. Iguess they won't eat me alive."
As he spoke the boy put his hand to his eyes and gave them a long rub.
"There's smoke in here," he said. "Don't you smell it?"
"I was thinking of that," Ned replied, anxiously. "There may be a firein the canyon."
Regardless of consequences, Jimmie rushed to the ledge and looked out.The sun was no longer in sight, for a mist of smoke hung over the canyonand over the slope to the east.
"There's goin' to be the biggest blaze ever!" Jimmie cried.
Liu came to the side of the boys and pointed to the south.
"The fire came through a gully over there," he said. "I was watching itfrom here. It was not put out yesterday, and worked its way over thedivide. When it gets to going strong here no one can live in thiscavern. I'm going to get out."
"That's the idea!" Jimmie cried.
The canyon was a veritable fire trap. For years the boughs and the turpof the trees had been dropping down. Ned knew that the blaze would mountto the cavern and be drawn into it. The atmosphere of the placeindicated openings at the rear which would serve as chimneys.
"Oh, the devils!" Jimmie cried. "To set a fire like that!"
"They didn't set it, I tell you," insisted Liu, speaking as if in thedefense of his employers.
"Who did, then?" demanded Jimmie, half angrily.
"It came through from the other side, just as I told you," replied Liu,with the utmost good nature. "There'll be a pass through the range someday where the fire found its way through."
"But they set the fire on the other side," Jimmie urged. "They set itfor the purpose of burning our aeroplane an' driving us out of thedistrict. When we go out of the district they'll go with us, wearin'steel bracelets!" he added.
"I rather think," Liu said, "that they set the fires over there to drawthe foresters, away from this section, and so protect their business.That is what they have been doing right along."
"Yes," Ned said, "there has been a forest fire for every cargo of opium,for every gang of Chinamen, that has been brought in over the border."
"So that is the real trouble?" asked Jimmie. "How do you know so muchabout it?"
Ned smiled and pointed to the slope to the east, where columns of firewere cutting their way through the timber.
"It strikes me," he said, "that now is a pretty good time for us to getout of this. The outlaws won't come back so long as this danger exists,and we shall not
be missed for a long time--or rather, Liu and Jimmiewill not be missed."
"They'll think we ran out to escape the heat and lost our lives in thefire," Liu said.
Ned stood hesitatingly at the mouth of the cavern while Liu gathered afew articles he wanted to take with him.
"If I thought the fire would reach the cave when the big trees in thecanyon get to going," he mused, "I'd go back and get the papers--or moreof them."
"It surely will get into the cave," Liu said. "You see, the summitscoops down here quite a lot, and the timber line is almost to the top.The gulch below is quite high up on this elevation, still it is not sovery high as compared with some of the summits to the north and south.So, you see, the timber line here is capable of getting up a good dealof a blaze, especially where the canyons are full of trees. The fire willcome up here, all right."
Ned darted away, was gone a minute or so, and returned with hands fullof folded papers.
"What you got?" demanded Jimmie.
Ned laughed but made no satisfactory reply. After stowing the papersaway in the numerous pockets of his borrowed suit, he led the way downthe ledge, away from the cave he had first seen in his fall down thecanyon, and which had proved so profitable to his search.
The air was now filled with smoke. The canyon below was not yet in fullflame, but a column of destruction was creeping upon it from the south.It seemed to Ned that there were numerous small fires, though how thiscould be true he could not understand.
The boys made their way along the ledge without coming upon any of themen who had occupied the cavern. It was evident that the few left afterthe departure of the men with the Chinamen had fled before the clouds ofsmoke. The ledge wound up on the plateau from which Ned had dropped thenight before, and here they paused to decide on some course of action.
The light breeze was from the west, so the fires below were in a measureprotected from it by the bulk of the summit, but Ned knew that the heatwould in time bring the air into the burning spaces with a rush, mergingthe little blazes into one gigantic one which might repeat the disastersof August, 1910.
Now and then, from far to the east, there came a signal in the shape ofa gunshot. The faithful foresters were at work there, trying to head offthe advancing flames before they passed beyond control. The place tocombat a forest fire, of course, is ahead of it, and not where the redline is running through the sputtering timber.
"If I could get the aeroplane," Ned said, as he looked over the countryfrom the plateau, "I might get to the fighting line and do some good."
"Where is it?" asked Liu.
"At the camp."
"The others won't dare bring it out, of course?" asked Liu.
"Doubtful," Ned replied. "Frank has always taken a great interest in themachine, and was studying its mechanism when I left, but I don't thinkhe will attempt to operate it. He ought not to, anyway."
"If the men who left here to pinch the boys," Jimmie said, "showed up atthe camp, an' Frank got a chance to mount the aeroplane, you bet yourlife he's shootin' through the air with it this minute, or hidin' insome valley."
"But there were three of them," Ned urged, "and all couldn't ride."
"They'd try!" gritted Jimmie, "unless Pat got cold feet an' run away."
Ned glanced up at the sky, now very thick with smoke, as the boy spoke.He looked with indifference at first, then with interest, then withanxiety. There was a shape moving up there, coming slowly toward theplateau.
"There they are!" shouted Jimmie, whose attention had been attracted tothe sky by Ned's fixed gaze. "Frank's runnin' the machine. I'll betdollars to apples that he'll dump her into the canyon when he tries toland here."
The aeroplane, indeed, looked as if there were an uncertain hand at thehelm. She wavered, tipped in the air currents, dipped wickedly, circledstaggeringly, but finally swooped down on the plateau and, more by goodluck than good handling, settled down within a dozen feet of the lip ofthe canyon. Frank and Jack were aboard. Pat, they said, had taken to hisheels at the first suggestion of his joining the others in the ride.
Ned examined the machine carefully and found it in excellent shape,although the gasoline was getting low.
"Better go an' get some," Jimmie suggested.
Ned looked toward the line of smoke off to the east.
"We can reach the firing line with what we have," he said, in a moment,"and that may be sufficient for the present."
"What you goin' to do?" demanded the boy.
"Going to see if I can't help fight this fire," was the reply.
"From here?" laughed Jack.
Ned indicated a distant line of hills where the forest still stood greenon the slopes.
"We'll fight the fire from there," he said. "We can see the locationwell enough now, but the smoke will soon shut it out from here."
"What can we do when we get there?" asked Jack. "We are safe enoughhere. The smoke and heat may scorch us a little, but we'll live throughit, and that is more than we can say about the safety of the place youpoint out."
"Pat will be making his way here," Ned said, "and you may as well remainhere and meet him. I'll take Frank and go over to the place where theforesters are fighting the blaze."
Jimmie was on his feet in an instant.
"Me for the ride with you!" he shouted.
"Some one may have to run the machine back," Ned said. "You can't dothat, my little man, and Frank can, so Frank goes."
"I don't see what you can do over there that the foresters can't do,"Liu said.
"There is no knowing how useful the aeroplane may be," Ned said.
Then the machine was rolled back as far up the plateau as possible, theboys took their seats, and then they were lost in the dense clouds ofsmoke in the sky.
ILLUSTRATION No. 4]