CHAPTER IV
A CAMP IN THE MOUNTAINS
It was early June, and the members of the Boy Scout Camera Club werecamped on a mountain top in West Virginia. They had spent about twoweeks in making the trip to the point where they had establishedcamp.
Three mules, divested of their burdens now, were "staked out" in alittle corral fragrant with grass down near the timber line. The tentthey had carried was a short distance below the summit, on theeastern slope, with packages and bags and boxes of provisions piledaround it.
To the south lay Virginia, to the north, east and west stretched themountainous district of West Virginia. Far below them ran the NorthFork of the Potomac river.
What they saw was a wild and lonely country, with more deer, wildturkeys, and raccoons than human beings. On their hard and frequentlydelayed journey in they had passed cabins, surrounded here and thereby rail fences, but there were none in sight from where they nowstood.
The sun, a round ball of fire in the west, would be out of sight inhalf an hour, and then the desolate darkness of the mountains wouldsurround them. A wild turkey called to its mate in the distance, andsmall creatures of the air fluttered about, as if determined to knowwhat human beings were doing there, in their ordinarily safe retreat.
The boys had visited Washington the day following the incidents atthe clubroom of the Black Bear Patrol, but had learned nothing ofimportance there. The launch in which the young prince had been seenhad been traced up the river to the vicinity of Cumberland, but therethe trail had ended.
"It is a case of needle-in-the-haystack," the Secret Service chiefhad said to Ned, on the morning of his departure for the mountains."We have men looking over every inch of the large cities. We want youto rake those mountains with a fine-tooth comb! Personally, I believethat the prince is there."
"But," Ned had replied, "how are we to communicate with you in casewe require more definite instructions?"
"You know what Sherman did when he left Atlanta?" laughed the chief.
"Why, he cut the wires," returned Ned, "so as not to have hismovements hampered by orders from men who, not being on theground, could not possibly know as much as he did of what oughtto be done."
"That is what I want you to do!" the chief continued. "Cut thewires."
"But that is assuming a great responsibility," urged the boy.
"Very true, but I have an idea that you want to work in your own way,so go to it. A mess of lively boys running up and down the mountainsides looking for game and snap-shots ought not to arouse thesuspicion of the thieves if they are there. Make friends with themountain people if you can. They are naturally suspicious, but goodas gold at heart."
That was his last talk with the chief. After that supplies had beenbought and transported by rail to the nearest point, and there themules had been bought and the difficult journey begun. They had justmade their first permanent camp.
"I wouldn't mind living here a few years!" Teddy said. "It beats thehot old city! If I had plenty of reading matter and a full larder, Idon't think I would ever go back. I wish Dad could step out of thatHarvard thing and eat supper with us!"
The shrill scream of a mule now came up from the feeding groundbelow, and a commotion at the tent showed that one of the animals waskicking up a row there.
"That's that long-eared Uncle Ike," Jimmie McGraw exclaimed. "I feelin my bones that I'm going to love that mule! He's so worthless! Ifhe had two legs less he'd beat Jesse James to the tall timber inpiracy! He won't work if you don't watch him, and he'll stealeverything he gets his eyes on! Yes, sir, I feel that there's acommon sympathy between that mule and me, yet I know that we'll havea falling out some day! He's so open and above-board in hismischief."
"Can you see what he's doing now?" asked Teddy.
"Why, I saw him knocking at the door of the tent, and I presume thatby this time he is sitting in my chair picking his teeth, afterdevouring the bread! That sure is some highwayman, that mule, yet Ifeel that I'm going to love and admonish him!"
The boys dashed down the slope to the tent and found Uncle Ike, asJimmie insisted on calling a tall, ungainly, raw-boned mule, chewingat a slice of ham which he had pilfered from a box by the side of thefire.
"There's one thing about Uncle Ike," Jimmie grinned, as Ned drove theanimal away with a club. "He always looks like he had been sent forto lead an experience meeting! He'll put on a face as long as a cableto a freight train, and then he'll turn to me and wink one eye, as ifexplaining that it was all for a joke."
"That's your ham he's chewing, Jimmie!" Ned declared.
"I suppose so," the boy replied. "That's what you get by beingbrother to a long-eared mule that for cussedness has Becker's gunmenbacked up a creek with the oars lost!"
While the mule was being restored to his companions, Jimmie and Teddybegan getting supper. They had plenty of tinned goods, plenty offlour, potatoes, meal and ham and bacon. Still, they thought theyought to have something in the way of game.
"I saw a wild turkey back there," Teddy volunteered.
"And I saw a coon," Jimmie added.
"Is there any law on turkeys and coons?" asked Jack, who was tryingto make the fire burn bright with lengths of green wood.
"There ain't no law of any kind up here," Frank insisted.
"Then we'll go and get a coon," Jimmie declared. "You boys get ared-hot fire and I'll have the bird here before Ned gets that mule tiedup!"
"Guess I'll go along," Teddy suggested. "I never did like to haveanyone else go to the trouble of getting my wild meat for me! I'll goalong, and Frank and Ned and Oliver can get supper."
Without waiting for any affirmative replies from their companions,the two lads darted away, and were soon lost in a canyon which ran atright angles with the ridge much farther down. Frank and Oliver beganpiling dry wood on the fire.
"Those boys will be back here in time for breakfast--just about!"Frank commented, as the coffee water boiled and the bacon begansizzling in the pan. "If they get any supper here they'll have tocook it!"
Presently Ned came back from the little valley where the mules werefeeding and took a field glass from the tent.
"What's up now?" Teddy asked, as Ned walked back to the ridge andlooked down into the valley of the North Fork. "Ned must be seeing,things!"
Ned remained oh the summit a long time, until the sun sank behind therange to the west and the valleys became ribbons of black between thelighter crests of the mountains.
Presently Frank scrambled up the yards of rugged, rock-strewn slopewhich led to the summit where Ned was standing, still with his fieldglass in his hand.
"Anything in sight over that way?" the boy asked, as he came to Ned'sside.
"There is a column of smoke in the valley," Ned answered. "I thoughtat first that there were two, but I may have been mistaken. Do youremember what two columns of smoke would have indicated?"
"Of course!" laughed Frank. "If I should become lost in woods ormountains, or anywhere, I'd build two fires and get wet wood to makesmudge, good and plenty. That would mean that I was lost and neededassistance. That's the Boy Scout Indian signal for help. I rememberwhen we saw it north of the Arctic Circle, don't you?"
"I won't be apt to forget it right away," was the reply.
The boys remained standing on the summit for some moments, althoughit was now too dark for them to distinguish objects in the valleybelow. All around the June night called to them with its silences andits sharp and sudden rasp of sounds. There were the mountains,brooding, heavy, mysterious, and there were the fleets of flyingclouds reaching down to wrap their summits!
"It is simply great up here!" Ned exclaimed presently. "That is theonly word that seems to express it--great!"
"Yes, it is fine for a change," Frank admitted, "though I don'tbelieve in the wilds as a permanent thing! Everything in themountains and forests seems to me to be crude and half done. This, Ipresume, is because the world isn't finished yet. Those who come toplaces like this catch the Creator with his s
leeves rolled up, ifthat isn't a coarse way of saying it."
"I like it, just the same!" Ned declared. "It is glorious! It islife!"
"It is healthful so far as animal life goes," laughed Frank, "butwhat about mental life? There would never have been anythingwonderful in the way of inventions--like the wireless, and thetelephone, and the uses of electricity--if mankind had been contentto live and die in the wilds! It is crude, as I said before,unfinished, out of line with all the decrees of art. I'll take thecity for mine, with its marble buildings, its wonderful artgalleries, its beautiful parks!"
"Say, you mooners!" came a voice from the camp below, "if you've gotdone surveying the beautiful black landscape, suppose you come downto supper?"
The boys went down to the tent to find Jimmie and Teddy still absent.
"There are two things we'll have to set aside time for," Neddeclared, as he took a seat on the ground before the blaze, with agreat plate of food in his lap. "We'll have to arrange for keepingUncle Ike, the mule, out of mischief, and for keeping track of Jimmieand Teddy. Those boys will get lost in the mountains yet, and gohungry for a few days. That would be punishment enough for Jimmie--hunger!"
The boys sat by the campfire a long time, heaping dry wood on theblaze until they were obliged to widen the circle about it. There wasonly the light of the stars, looking down from a cloud-flecked sky,but there would be a moon shortly after ten o'clock.
"If the boys don't return before long," Frank broke out, after amoment of silence, "I'm going to take a searchlight and go outlooking for them."
The boy expressed the thought which was brooding in the minds of themall. They were more than anxious for the safety of the two truants.Oliver arose and walked away from the fire up the slope, until hisfigure was out of sight, but shortly came back and sat down again,his face expressing impatience as well as anxiety.
"There's no reason why they shouldn't see this fire," he said. "Iwalked over the summit a bit to see if the light was reflected overthere. It is. If anywhere within two miles, they ought to see thisblaze or the glow from it. They're just doing this to make us worry.I'd like to get them by the neck, this minute," he added.
Uncle Ike, the mule, gave vent to a vicious scream at that moment,and Ned arose and started in the direction of the feeding ground.When he reached the spot he saw that the mules were agitated, weavingabout on the tying lines in either fear or anger.
"Uncle Ike," Ned said, patting the ugly beast on the neck, "what isit about your sleeping chamber that you don't like? Or it is yoursupper you object to?"
Uncle Ike thrust his long ears forward and elevated his heels, as ifkicking at some imaginary object back of him. Then Ned saw a figuremoving in the darkness.
"Come out of that!" he called. "Why are you sneaking around here?"
The figure advanced toward the boy then--the figure of an old woman!