CHAPTER IV
A CHASE IN THE NIGHT
Shortly after dinner Johnson decided to make a start on his return tripat once. It would take him, he said, two days in addition to the halfday to reach Green River, and he was due in San Francisco on the eveningof the third day. One of the burros was relieved of his burden ofprovisions and the young man started away, leaving the boys feelingrather lonely and also rather overloaded with responsibility!
"Do you really think Wagner and the boy are out of provisions?" askedTommy as twilight settled down over the camp.
"I don't see how they can procure provisions," Will suggested.
"We've just got to find out!" exclaimed Sandy. "You must remember," hecontinued, "that this Chester Wagner is a Tenderfoot in the BeaverPatrol, Chicago. He's afraid of us, but we've just got to help him out!We wouldn't be good Boy Scouts if we didn't! Suppose we put up a smokesignal for help and see if he'll come."
"Oh, yes, he'll come--not!" exclaimed Tommy.
"We can try it, anyway," insisted Sandy.
The lad carried embers from the campfire a short distance to the westand built another roaring fire. Then he set about gathering green grassin order to make a greater volume of smoke.
"You'll have to hurry with your telegraph apparatus," laughed George,"if you want the boy to read your signal by daylight. It'll be so darkin half an hour that he couldn't see a column of smoke fifty feet away!Perhaps he isn't near enough to see them, anyway!"
"If I do all I can," Sandy declared, "I won't be to blame if he doesn'tsee them. I believe we ought to find some way to help that kid!"
The fires were now burning at a great rate, and Sandy heaped hugearmfuls of green grass on top of the blazing sticks, with the resultthat two great columns of white smoke lifted to the evening sky.
When the grass burned out and the smoke became thinner the boy put onmore and sat listening patiently for some sound, watching intently foran answering signal from the hills.
"I guess it's no good!" Sandy declared, mournfully, as the third supplyof grass burned down. "The chances are that the train robbers and theimitation detectives have frightened Wagner and the kid out of thehills."
"I don't believe he'll come if he does see it," Will declared.
After a time the boys permitted one of the fires to die out and beganpreparations for supper. Tommy went back to one of the tents for theknives and forks directly, and in a moment came rushing back without anyknives or forks but with a folded paper in his hand.
"Look here," he exclaimed excitedly, "while I was entering the tentsomething hit me a clip on the back. When I turned around to see whatfoolishness you fellows were up to, I found a piece of rock lying on theground at my feet and close beside it, this piece of paper."
"Do you think the paper was wrapped around the rock?" asked George.
"Of course it was!" replied Tommy. "You can see the folds now, andthere's the place where a a corner of the rock cut a hole!"
Will turned a searchlight on the paper, now held outstretched in Tommy'shands, and burst into a laugh as he read the words written there:
"Nix on the help signal."
"The little rascal!" exclaimed Tommy, reading the sentence.
"He's wise, that boy!" declared Sandy.
"He thinks we're setting a trap for him," Will explained, "and I can'tsay that I blame him much for sending just that kind of a message."
"Anyway," Tommy went on, "it shows that he isn't far away. If he'll onlyhover around within reaching distance, we'll soon convince him that wedon't mean him or his father any harm."
"I wonder if he took any provisions with him when he ran away thistime!" laughed George. "I really hope he did. That is, if they haven'tgot any in their own camp."
The boys looked at the provisions which had been taken out for supper,and discovered that two loaves of bread and several tins of preservedmeats had been taken.
"Good for him!" shouted Tommy.
After supper it was arranged that two of the boys should watch the campuntil one o'clock, and then awake the others, who were to stand guarduntil morning. Tommy and Sandy were to take the first watch.
"I don't think there's much use of anyone standing guard!" exclaimedWill. "Our lovely burros over there will probably lift up their voicesif any stranger comes nosing around in the dark."
"Anyhow," Tommy suggested, "we may be able to get sight of young Wagnerif we keep watch all night."
Will and George were in bed by nine o'clock, and then Sandy and Tommybegan planning the excursion into the hills which each one, independentof the other, had determined to make.
"Now it's just this way," Tommy began, "wherever those fellows are, theyhave a fire. It's September, but the nights are cold here, just thesame. Now, you remain here and watch the camp and I'll make my way toone of the summits to the north and take a peep over the country. If Isee a campfire, and it isn't too far away, I'll sneak down and seewhether it belongs to Wagner, to the cheap detectives, to the trainrobbers, or to the cowboy vigilantes."
"That's quite a collection of interests to be assembled in one spot onthe Great Divide!" laughed Sandy.
"Oh, we always get into some kind of a mess like this," grumbled Tommy."We could have a nice peaceful time catching Wagner if the detectives,and the train robbers, and the cowboys had remained away. I hope thecowboys will catch the robbers and lug them out, anyway!"
"I have an idea that the detectives will soon get tired of wanderingaround in the hills and meeting grizzly bears, and rattlesnakes, andwolverines every half hour."
"Grizzly bears!" exclaimed Tommy. "What are you talking about grizzlybears for?"
"There are more grizzly bears in Wyoming," declared Sandy, "than in allthe other western states put together. The Bad Lands are full of them,and up in the Yellowstone National Park, they have them trained to eatwith a knife and fork!"
"All right!" exclaimed Tommy. "I'll take your word for it, but I don'tbelieve it! I know there are rattlesnakes, all right, but I don'tbelieve there's a grizzly bear within a hundred miles of this spot!"
The words were hardly out of the boy's mouth before a rumbling growlcame to the ears of the watchers.
"There!" cried Tommy. "You've called the roll and that's the firstresponse. But I'll bet he's the only one around here!" the boy added.
Sandy laid a hand on his friend's shoulder to invoke silence.
"Listen," he said, "that's no bear!"
"Perhaps it's a rattlesnake, then!" scorned Tommy.
"It's a boy!" declared Sandy. "That's what it is!"
Both lads darted into the darkness, waving electric searchlights as theyadvanced, and calling out in such words as a Boy Scout would be apt tounderstand. They ran for some distance, until they fell over a bit ofrocky ground, and then stood looking toward a point in the darkness fromwhich a sound of footsteps came.
"You go on back to camp," whispered Tommy to Sandy, "and make all thenoise you can going, and talk to yourself, so he'll think we're talkingtogether. I'll put out my light and follow that chump by the noise hemakes. I guess I can do it all right!"
"Aw, let's both go," pleaded Sandy.
"One's got to go back to camp to put him off his guard!" insisted Tommy,"Run along, like a good little boy, now," he added with a grin.
Sandy departed, talking to himself, and trying his best to make noiseenough for two boys, while Tommy turned off his light and crept forwardin the darkness in the direction of the sounds he had heard.
For a time he seemed to gain on the person who was making his way somehundred yards or more ahead of him, but at last, try as he might, thesound of footsteps gradually died away, and there were only the soundsof the night in the boy's ears.
He paused, after a time, and threw himself down on the rocky slope. Thecampfire seemed to be a long distance away, now, and the boy had justdecided to give over his search at that time and return to the camp.
When he started to rise, however, he found a heavy hand pressed down oneither s
houlder. His amazement was so great that for a moment he satperfectly still.
But there were cowboy vigilantes, train robbers, and detectivessomewhere in the hills, so the boy was not quite so sure of thepersonality of the other as he had been at the first instant of contact.
"Well?" he said in a moment.
"Who are you?" came the question, not in the voice of a boy, but in thegruff tones of a man who was taking no pains to make a good impression.
"A boy from the camp down yonder," Tommy answered.
The boy was thinking fast. This might be one of the detectives, or itmight be one of the train robbers, or it might be one of the cowboys, orit might be the escaped convict himself.
"What are you boys camping there for?" was asked.
"Vacation!" was the reply.
"Which way did the cowboys go?" was the next question.
Tommy needed no further introduction to the man who was clinging to hisshoulders with a grip that was positively painful. No one but the trainrobbers would be apt to be interested in the direction taken by thecowboys. Tommy declares to this day that he felt the hair risingstraight up on his head when he realized that he was talking with one ofthe hold-up men. He also says that his teeth chattered with fright.
"The last we heard of the cowboys," he answered, "they were goingstraight north. I thought you went that way, too," he added.
"We couldn't get too far away from our base of supplies," replied theother with a cynical laugh. "We were just thinking of going back to yourcamp for a square meal when we heard you blundering up the slope. You'llhave to feed us for a few days, young fellow!"