CHAPTER V
LOST!
Next day Dr. Byrd related an aeroplane story to the boys in the assemblyroom. It was the story of Mr. Johnson Miles, the aviator who lay on abed in the "Hospital" striving to help mend his broken bones by thinkinghopeful thoughts. It was a story of absorbing interest to the youngScouts and afforded material for much excited conversation for severaldays thereafter.
Mr. Miles had related his experiences in detail. He said that his homewas in Indianapolis and that he had flown all the way from that city inhis aeroplane. He had already spent several weeks among and over themountains, his purpose being to visit the Rockies as a bird would visitthem, and to collect specimens.
"I was on my way to Flathead Mountain when I fell almost at its base,"he told the doctor. "It was moonlight and I thought I would fly awhile,as it is really mighty pleasant to sail through the air with the moonand stars overhead. It's like racing along a lonely road in anautomobile and seeing a ghost behind every post."
"You have an odd idea of enjoyment," remarked the doctor.
"Oh, it's thrilling," declared the aviator. "The ghosts can't catch youin an automobile, and you just cut right through them in the air.
"But I was forced to stay up longer than I wanted to. The country was sorough that I could find no place to land. Then I found my gasolinealmost gone and I knew I must glide and take my chances. The enginebegan to jerk and sputter and gasp, warning me of immediate danger.
"That was a bad miscalculation I made regarding my gasoline. I thought Ihad enough to last me several hours. I had intended to fly only an houror two by moonlight. I was right over the mountains when I discoveredthe condition of my gasoline, and you can imagine the state of mind itthrew me into. All the ghosts I had cut through in the air hadn't begunto chill me the way this did. Fifty thousand icicles stuck down my backwouldn't have been a circumstance to this.
"It was so dark down on the earth, in spite of the moon, that I couldhardly distinguish mountains from valleys. I was flying five hundredfeet over the highest peaks, and began to glide as soon as I discoveredmy predicament.
"Presently I saw a large gulch that you call Mummy Canyon right below me.So I banked and circled around without realizing that I was so near themountain I was searching for. But when about fifty feet from the grounda couple of my stay wires broke and warped the left wing. I worked myailerons in an endeavor to balance the machine, but it was no use. Downshe flopped, and I leaped. I don't know how I managed to get clear ofthe struts and the planes, but I did, and--well, it was mighty lucky youfolks were near, or I'd have died a lonely death. Probably nobodywould've come that way until I was food for the crows."
"What became of your specimens?" inquired the doctor. "Didn't you haveany with you, or hadn't you gathered any yet?"
"Oh, my, yes!" replied Miles. "I'd been in the mountains several weeks.Didn't you find them?"
"No. Where did you drop them?"
"They were in a leather bag tied to one of the struts near my seat. It'smighty funny you didn't find them."
"Maybe the bag was broken loose when the machine struck the ground, andwas thrown some distance away," suggested the doctor.
"That might be, but I should think one of all those boys would havefound it when they went after the aeroplane."
"Yes, I should think so, too, unless it fell into a hole or behind a bigrock. Were the contents of the bag valuable?"
"I wouldn't have taken one thousand dollars for them," said the aviatorsadly. "In fact, I regret their loss more than the wreck of thebiplane."
"We'll make a thorough search for them," assured the doctor as he lefthis patient.
This conversation took place shortly before noon. After dinner the boyswere instructed to meet in the assembly room. There the doctor retoldMr. Miles' story in detail and then said:
"I'm going to give you another half holiday, boys--"
"Hooray!" exclaimed Ferdinand Sharer in a loud whisper.
"Hold on, Ferdinand. Shut off your enthusiasm, for this isn't going tobe an occasion of play. You have a very serious duty to perform, and Iwant you to go about it seriously."
"We will," assured several of the boys.
"Yes, I know you intend to be serious," said the owner of Lakefarm, witha wise shake of his iron-gray locks. "But I want you to be more thanserious. I want you to use your wits, too, a little. A treasure has beenlost and I want you to go in search of it; and if you don't find it, Iwant you to furnish a clew as to what has become of it."
Dr. Byrd's Boy Scouts could no longer contain themselves. Most of themjust had to give vent to their feelings with loud-whispered "hoorays!"or other characteristic expressions of glee.
"Remember, now," insisted the master of the school just before heinstructed the troop of Scouts to file out; "I want you to use yourheads and do some good work. That bag of relics is valuable and must befound. If it isn't lying on the ground near the place where theaeroplane struck, I want to know why. Mr. Porter will go with you."
This was rather a large task to impose on any number of boys. To besure, if the bag were lying near the spot in question, they ought tofind it, or rather they should have discovered it already; but if it hadmysteriously disappeared, how were thirty boys to conjure an explanationof the mystery?
Naturally this question, variously phrased, occurred to a number of theScouts as they listened to the doctor's latest words, but they were tooyoung to ponder very deeply over the difficulty of any problem and soondismissed this one from their minds.
"You may stay until dark if it takes that long to find it," concludedDr. Byrd. "Now, everybody go to the kitchen and get some sandwiches thatyou'll find all ready. You'll all be hungry before you get back."
There was no need of further urging. The boys filed eagerly out of theroom, hastened to their lockers and got their drab coats, drill hats,haversacks, and hike-sticks, and then went to the kitchen for theirsandwiches. In twenty minutes they were on their way.
The course from the school to Mummy Canyon is pretty and interesting. Itfollows the bed of the river most of the way. This stream, named LakeRiver by Dr. Byrd, varies from thirty to forty feet wide and carriesconsiderable volume of water. It runs southward a mile and a half alongthe foothills, then turns westward after receiving the water of FlatheadRiver from Mummy Canyon. The rest of the way is up-hill, along the bankof the latter river or near it.
Mummy Canyon is more than two miles long, its greatest width, near thecenter, being nearly half a mile. It is almost entirely hemmed in bymountains, there being a narrow pass at either end, north and south.Flathead River has its source, or sources, high up in the mountains, anddashes down in a series of noisy cascades and cataracts, making agraceful curve for a quarter of a mile along the base of FlatheadMountain, from there leaping down a very rocky course to and through thenorthern pass.
The young Scouts and Mr. Porter walked halfway through the canyon beforethey reached the place where the aeroplane struck the earth. To the westarose Flathead Mountain, considerably lower than the other mountainsbordering the canyon. From the "forehead" of Flathead the mummy stoodforth conspicuously. The bottom of the canyon was strewn with bowlders ofevery size and description. On the east, exactly opposite Flathead, wasa steep ascent so rocky as to permit of little vegetation save a pine orfir here and there growing from a crevice that seemed not to contain atrace of soil. High up on the ascent were poised several huge bowlders,and hence its name of Bowlder Mountain.
On a level and treeless spot several acres in extent between Flatheadand Bowlder Mountain, the Boy Scouts and Mr. Porter began their searchfor the missing bag of specimens. Almost in the middle of the grassyplot, the sod had been torn and rooted up by the plunging machine, andit did not take the searchers long to decide that the object they soughtwas not there in the open.
"Well, what do you think of it, boys?" inquired Mr. Porter. "Remember,you're to do all the work and furnish all the ideas. Wh
o has an ideanow?"
"I have," announced Fes Sharer.
"All right. We'll listen to Ferdinand first."
"I think this is all a pipe dream of the airship man's," declared Fes,who was an extremely practical youth and always demanded evidence beforehe would believe anything. "I think he struck his head on a rock andhasn't come to his senses yet."
"Don't you believe he had a bag of souvenirs?" inquired the instructor.
"Naw," was the skeptical answer. "If he did, what became of it? It'd hadto fall with the airship."
"Yes, if it was tied to it," conditioned Juan Del Mar.
"He says it was tied to the aeroplane," reminded Mr. Porter.
"I think he's dreaming," insisted Fes. "If he had a bag of specimenswith him, it wasn't tied to the airship; or if it was, it broke loose orcame untied while it was falling."
"I think it came untied," declared Pickles.
"What do the rest of you think?" inquired Mr. Porter.
As any thought on the subject must be largely a matter of guess, none ofthe boys besides Fes and Pickles were inclined to be very positive. All,however, were willing to accept Ferdinand's explanation.
"Then it's up to us to search the whole canyon, or a good piece of it,around here," declared Hal Kenyon.
Several others agreed with him, although a few of the more doubtful saidthey were just as ready to believe that the bag had been dropped outsideof the canyon.
"I bet it dropped right on the peak of Bowlder Mountain, or maybe on thetop of Flathead," one boy even declared.
It was now half past three o'clock, and as it would be dark early in thecanyon, the boys set to work diligently to cover as much ground aspossible before daylight failed them. They divided up the territory, andeach boy tried to confine his search to his assignment.
Hal had a stretch of several acres along the creek at the base ofFlathead Mountain. In the course of an hour he went over it thoroughly,without finding the treasured bag and hearing no joyful cry of discoveryfrom any of the other boys. Meanwhile it occurred to him that the bagmight just as well have fallen into the river as any other place, and hedetermined to search in the water also.
This required a good deal of time. In some of the wider places thestream was shallow and he could see the stony or pebbly bottom. But inother places he found it necessary to exercise greater care. He took offhis shoes and stockings and rolled up his trousers as high as he could;then he waded in and began a thorough search. Where the water was toodeep for wading, he used his hike-stick to feel the bottom.
In the meantime other boys, to whom had been assigned other sectionsalong the creek, observed what Hal was doing and followed his example.The search went along quietly, for all of the Scouts were too widelyseparated to engage in much conversation. When they became hungry, theyate their sandwiches and drank spring water and then returned to theirwork.
But at last it grew too dark for further hunting among the rocks, treesand bushes, or even in the open, and Mr. Porter called them together.The search seemed to have been in vain. The leather bag of the aviatorwas still lost, and nobody believed that it would ever be found, unlessby accident.
"Well, we did our best anyway," said Byron Bowler.
"You bet we did, Bun," agreed Pickles, following the general boy habitof shortening Byron to "Bun." "I'm tired."
"So'm I," declared several others.
"We'll start home now," announced Mr. Porter. "Everybody here?"
"All here," replied one of the boys, assuming that everybody hadanswered Mr. Porter's whistle.
The walk back to Lakefarm was quiet. The boys were all tired and foundlittle of interest to discuss in their fruitless search. On the campusthey were met by Dr. Byrd and Mr. Frankland, who inquired as to theirsuccess.
"Nothing doing," replied Roy Hendricks. "We searched pretty near thewhole canyon and come back with empty hands."
"Yes, and we searched the river, too," repeated Bun. "Hal Kenyon startedthat. We waded through the shallow places."
"Where is Hal?" inquired Pickles. "I ain't seen him all the way back."
There was no answer.
"What's that?" inquired the doctor. "Kenyon missing? Hal, step forward."
There was no answer and no stepping forward. All was excitement soon.Hal's name was called, then shouted by a dozen throats, and still noreply.
Young Kenyon had disappeared as mysteriously as had the bag of specimensof the injured aviator.