CHAPTER VII
THE SIGNAL FIRE
“I’ll tell you what it is,” Jimmie said, as the boys sat in a little restaurant on Fourth street, discussing the situation, “if we turn back to New York now, we’ll be off the beat. Havens told us to go out to Monterey, didn’t he?”
“He certainly did!” answered Carl.
“Well then,” continued Jimmie, “we ought to go on to Monterey. Look here, kids,” he went on, “we don’t know what took place in New York after we left. We don’t know that Havens didn’t disappear from that stateroom for the sole purpose of getting out of the way of the fellows who tried to burn his hangar. What do you think of that idea?”
“It appears to me to be a sound one,” Ben responded. “Mr. Havens may have met with members of the gang we are fighting. In that case it would be nothing strange if he managed a mysterious disappearance for his own protection. Would it, now?”
And so, after canvassing the subject thoroughly, the boys decided to go on to the Pacific coast. It was decided, too, that they should leave that very night and travel at an altitude which would render collisions with uplifting summits impossible. They were on their way in an hour from the time the decision was reached.
The boys speak to-day with reverence when referring to that all-night ride. At first the clouds hung low, and they seemed sailing through great fields of mist with neither top nor bottom. Then a brisk wind scattered the moisture in the air, and they sailed for a time under the stars. Later, there was a moon, and under its light they sailed lower, watching with excited interest the lights in the towns they passed, the shimmer on the water they crossed, and the incomparable light reflecting on the smooth green leaves of the forests they shot by.
At daylight they came down on an eminence from which the landscape for miles around could be seen. Below the slope of the hill lay a verdant valley in which nestled a small settlement. At the summit where the machines lay there were great wide stretches indicating the action of waves at some far-distant, prehistoric time.
The boys were well-nigh exhausted with their long ride. As is well known, the endurance record is not much longer than the time the boys had spent in the air. Besides being cramped in limb and heavy from lack of sleep, the boys shivered because of the altitude at which they had traveled.
When the sun rose it shone with generous warmth upon the ridge where the boys lay, and they basked in its light with many expressions of joy.
“Here’s the place where we sleep!” exclaimed Carl. “We can watch the sky and the surface of the earth for miles around,” he added, “and can finish any ordinary sized nap in peace.”
“I’ll watch,” promised Ben.
“You’ll not!” exclaimed Jimmie. “You watched night before last.”
“And came near getting the machines blown up, too,” Ben commented.
It was finally arranged that Jimmie and Carl should remain awake for a couple of hours each, after which a hasty breakfast was prepared and the boys settled down for a long rest. Ben and Jimmie were soon asleep, and Carl, sitting on the ground near the Louise was feeling like going to bed himself when a small red head was poked over the edge of the summit and a shrill voice cried out:
“Hello, Mister!”
“Hello, yourself!” answered Carl.
The boy, a mite of a fellow not more than ten years of age, fully as freckled-faced and as red-headed as Jimmie, now approached the aeroplanes cautiously, his wide mouth breaking into a grin as he advanced.
“Them your machines?” he asked, pointing with a dirty finger.
“Sure they are!” answered Carl. “Ever see one before?”
The boy shook his head while his eyes sparkled with excitement.
“Give me a ride!” he demanded.
“Not yet,” replied Carl with a laugh. “We’re going to remain here for some little time.”
“If I stay, can I go with you?” the boy asked.
“I should say not!” replied Carl. “What would your folks say if we should take you away in a flying machine?”
“I ain’t got no folks!” was the reply.
“Where do you live?”
The boy pointed down toward the little settlement in the valley.
“Do your parents live there, too?” asked Carl.
“I done told you I ain’t got no folks!” insisted the youngster.
“Well, where do you sleep and get your eatings, then?” demanded Carl.
“Sleep in barns!” was the reply. “And don’t get many eatings. That’s what makes me so little and thin!”
“Do they sell gasoline down there?” asked Carl.
“Yessir!” was the short reply.
“Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” Carl proposed. “If you’ll go back to the store where they sell it, and get the boss to bring us a sixty gallon barrel, I’ll give you a dollar.”
“Quit your kiddin’!” exclaimed the boy.
“Sure, I’ll give you a dollar,” promised Carl, “and I’ll give it to you in advance. Can they get up on this hog’s-back with a wagon?” he added.
“They sure can,” was the reply. “There’s a road that climbs the hill out of the valley, and I guess they can gee-haw their old delivery wagon along the ridge, all right.”
“Well, go on, now,” Carl exclaimed. “Go on and order the gasoline.”
“Where’s the dollar?” demanded the youngster.
Carl tossed him a silver dollar with a laugh, and saw the boy’s bare feet twinkle as he disappeared down the slope. As a matter of fact, he had little hope of ever seeing the boy again, or of having the message delivered. Still, the little fellow looked so ragged, and forlorn, and hungry, that he would have given him the dollar if he had known that the boy would neither deliver the message nor return.
In an hour or so, however, the boy poked his red head over the summit again and came bounding up to where Carl sat.
“It’s coming!” he cried. “The wagon left the store at the same time I did, and I beat ’em to it! Say,” he added with a chuckle, “the driver made an awful row about coming along this ridge, and I told him you’d be apt to give him a dollar extra. Goin’ to do it?”
“Of course!” laughed Carl. “Anything you say goes. For the time being, you are the purchasing agent for this outfit.”
When at last the delivery wagon with the barrel of gasoline came bumping along the surface of the hill, the driver leading the horse, the boy began a knowing inspection of the flying machines, as if determined to give the delivery boy the impression that he had already become a member in good standing of the party. This was very amusing to Carl.
The driver unloaded the barrel of gasoline, received his pay and his tip and then stood with his hands on his hips surveying the two aeroplanes critically.
“There’s one of them things lying busted on the other side of town,” he said directly.
“Some one have an accident?” asked Carl.
“I dunno,” was the reply. “Sol Stevens drove in to sell his hogs, a little while ago, and he said he saw one o’ them busted airships lyin’ busted by the road out near the Run.”
“How far is that from here?” asked Carl.
The delivery boy looked over the landscape, as if estimating distances, and at the same time establishing his own importance, and answered that it was not far from ten miles.
Ben and Jimmie, awakened by the rattle of the rickety wagon wheels, now came out of the shelter tent and joined in the conversation. They looked curiously at the boy for a moment, and then turned their attention to the driver, listening intently to his repetition of the brief story of the wrecked aeroplane.
“Well,” the driver said presently, beckoning to the boy, “we may as well be going, Kit.”
“I’m going with the machines!” answered the boy.
Ben and Jimmie looked from Kit to Carl but said nothing.
“Ain’t I going with the machines?” demanded the youngster of Carl.
“What would your folks say?” demanded Ben.
“Huh!” said the delivery boy. “He hain’t got no folks. He just sleeps around and gets his meals wherever he can.”
“I sent him after the gasoline,” Carl explained, “and paid him in advance. He came back all right.”
“Did you think I wouldn’t come back?” asked Kit, indignantly.
Before the question was answered, Jimmie pulled Ben lustily by the sleeve. Carl saw what was in the boy’s mind and remained silent.
“Come on, let’s take him!” Jimmie urged. “He’s all right.”
“I’m willing,” replied Ben. “In fact, I’m getting tired of riding alone in the Bertha. The little fellow will be good company.”
The delivery boy departed quickly, and Kit at once began making himself useful, assisting Jimmie in the preparation of dinner.
“Don’t you ever think I can’t cook!” Kit exclaimed, as he sat by the fire watching the skillet of ham and eggs. “Don’t you think I don’t know how to get up a square meal. I’ve helped cook lunches many a time.”
“Perhaps we’d better make you chef of the expedition!” laughed Ben.
There seemed to be something on the boy’s mind as he gave his attention to potatoes roasting in the hot ashes, and after a time he turned to Carl with a puzzled face. His brows were puckered as he asked:
“Why didn’t you ask the delivery boy about that smashed machine?”
“I did ask him about it,” replied Carl. “You heard me.”
“Well you didn’t ask him about the man that got smashed up in it,” continued Kit. “The man who got smashed up in it,” the boy went on, “hid in Robinson’s barn, where I slept last night, and lay groaning and whining with a broken arm so that he kept me awake. This morning, when he saw me, he gave me a dollar to get a doctor there without telling anybody, and I went and got Doctor Sloan. I promised not to say a word about it, but you boys have been mighty good to me, and I think you ought to know.”
“What kind of a looking fellow is he?” asked Carl.
“A monkey-looking fellow, with hunched shoulders and ears like cabbage leaves,” replied the boy. “He don’t look good to me.”
The boys heard the description of the wrecked aviator with undisguised pleasure. At least one of their pursuers had been put out of the running, for the time being. This, they thought, increased their chances of reaching the Pacific coast in advance of any friends of the outlaws.
“Where did the man go after Doctor Sloan set his arm?” asked Ben.
“He said he was going to the nearest railway station and return to Denver,” was the reply.
“Machine quite busted up?” asked Jimmie.
“That’s what he told the doctor,” replied Kit. “He swore awfully while he was talking about it. And look here,” the boy went on, “after he left I picked up a letter which fell from a pocket of his coat when he took it off to have his arm set.”
The boy presented a yellow envelope, sealed but not stamped, as he spoke. Ben took the letter and, without any compunctions of conscience whatever, opened it. It contained a sheet of paper, blank with the exception of four words. Ben studied the writing for a moment and passed the sheet to Jimmie. The boy in turn handed it to Carl.
“At Two Sisters canyon!” Carl read.
“Now what does that mean?” asked Jimmie.
“Why, you boy,” Carl explained, “it means that this busted aviator was headed for a canyon in the mountains known as the Two Sisters. Do you get that? What else would he have this letter for?”
“That’s the first bit of luck we’ve struck since we started out on this journey!” declared Ben. “I guess, Kit,” he went on, “that you must be a mascot. What do you know about that?”
“Oh, I’m a mascot all right!” grinned the youngster.
When the boys started away to the west again Kit occupied a seat on the Bertha. Satisfied that they had distanced at least one of their pursuers, and encouraged by the thought that their way might now be clear, the boys made few stops of any length on their way to the Pacific.
Three days later Sierra de Santa Lucia loomed up before them. It was then twilight, and against the darkness rose the flames of a signal fire!
CHAPTER VIII
THE LOSS OF A BOY!
“They seem to be celebrating our arrival,” Ben said, looking down on the signal fire with a grin, “only I don’t hear any bands,” he continued, as the flames streamed up and cast a red light over the waters of the Pacific ocean.
“That’s about the strangest proposition I ever came across,” Carl said, looking down on the dark canyons, laying like black lines in a drawing, on the landscape below. “I’d like to know what it means.”
“Don’t you ever think,” Jimmie went on, “that Phillips and Mendoza have anything to do with that fire! That beacon light was put there for some purpose by an entirely different set of outlaws.”
“But why ‘outlaws’?” asked Carl. “The people we see about the fire may be fishermen, and there are lime quarries and kilns somewhere in this section, and these men may be signaling to schooners.”
Below the aeroplanes lay a great peak extending four thousand feet above the level of the sea. To the west the Pacific beat fiercely against its side. To the south the Sierra raised its lofty crags, apparently, straight out of the ocean. To the north a succession of summits lifted above the range. Off to the east lay a faint trail connecting, by devious turns and twists through the mountain wilderness, with the Southern Pacific railroad.
The beacon fire rose straight from a headland which jutted for some distance out into the ocean. The beat of the waves against the breakers at the foot of the headland came dimly up to the boys like the stir and rustle of a crowded street.
There had been a fog, but it was lifting now, and here and there traces of green might be seen wherever the flames revealed the surface of the ground. After a time Ben turned back with the Bertha and signaled to the others to help in the search for a safe landing-place.
This was by no means an easy task, as it was deep twilight now on the lower stretches of the mountain, and most of the canyons seemed mere yawning pits whose open mouths gaped eagerly for the prey in the air.
The boys turned to north and south in their machines and, sailing low, scrutinized the dim country in the hope of discovering some level spot where the flying machines could be brought to the ground with safety.
At last, perhaps two miles to the south of the headland, where the beacon light still sent its red flames into the air, Ben came upon a canyon or gully which had evidently once been the bed of a rushing mountain torrent. The wash of water from the steep surfaces, however, had, in distant years, filled the narrow slit between the summits with fine white sand.
It was by no means a large place, but was quite sufficient for the purpose. Ben felt his way carefully down, dropping into what seemed to him to be a fathomless pit between peaks until the white, hard floor below came faintly into view. After examining the place as thoroughly as possible with an electric searchlight, he volplaned down, much to Kit’s amazement, and soon had the satisfaction of feeling the rubber-tired wheels beneath the machine running evenly over a smooth surface.
It had been a great risk, however, this dropping down into the darkness between two mountain peaks, and Ben was not certain, even after landing, that he had done the correct thing. His light showed a level surface for only a short distance. The opening of the canyon faced the Pacific. To left and right were almost perpendicular walls. To the east a great crag was worn far under a shelving side by the action of the waves which at some distant time must have forced their way through the split in the mountains.
One thing which troubled the boy not a little was the question as to whether the space into which he had brought his flying machine was sufficient in size for both the Bertha and the Louise. They might be packed into the canyon, without doubt, but there was always the matter of room for the flight outward. Still, the place was ideal in that it appeared to be secure from observation from any position except the open sea.
The mountain summits to the north and south seemed entirely inaccessible, while the crag to the east, under which the cave-like excavation showed, looked more like the sharp blade of an upturned knife at the top than a surface capable of being ascended.
Ben waved his light back and forth, indicating to Jimmie and Carl that they should approach the canyon cautiously and from the east. He held an eye of flame to the summit of the crag to show that the drop must not come too suddenly in that direction.
His idea, of course, was to bring the Louise in so that her outward flight would be toward the sea. His own machine had come in from the west, and he knew that it would have to be lifted and wheeled about before she could be sent into the air.
Besides offering a comparatively safe hiding-place for the machines, the canyon also seemed to offer protection from the weather for the boys. Ben did not fully investigate the excavations under the crag at that time, but he knew that the soft lime-rock had been washed away to a considerable extent, and that the face of the cliff was honeycombed with small caves.
Jimmie circled about the canyon for a moment, caught sight of the crag under the flashlight, and passed its sharp edge with only a foot to spare. In a moment more, directed by the light in Ben’s hand, he drove the Louise along the hard floor until she stood at rest by the side of the Bertha.
Jimmie and Carl hastened to make themselves acquainted with the situation in the canyon by means of their electric searchlights. They ran here and there glancing up at the almost vertical walls to the north and south and throwing long fingers of light into the depressions in the crag. By this time Kit was asleep on the sand!
“Looks like one of the East-Side apartment houses,” grinned Jimmie, flashing his light upward. “See, there’s a row of windows, and there’s something that looks like a fire-escape!”
“Your row of windows,” laughed Ben, “consists of holes where lime-rocks have been worn away by the action of the water, and your fire-escape is only a long seam in the granite, with frequent cross sections.”
“Aw, what’s the use of busting up illusions,” asked Jimmie. “I was having a pleasant dream of the East Side. And the East Side made me think of the little old restaurant on Fourteenth street, near Tammany Hall. And the thought of the restaurant reminded me that I hadn’t had anything to eat since noon. Why didn’t you let me dream?”
“Any old time, it takes Tammany Hall, and Fourteenth street, and a fire-escape on a rock, to make Jimmie remember that he’s hungry!” laughed Carl.
“Well, if you’re hungry,” Ben suggested, “why don’t you go on and get supper? You’re the cook to-day, anyway.”
“Is it safe to build a fire?” asked Carl.
Ben shook his head and pointed to the walls on either side.
“The flame might not be seen,” he said, “but the reflection might, so I presume we’d better do our cooking on the alcohol stove.”
“Jerusalem!” exclaimed Jimmie. “I don’t want any cafeteria, Y. M. C. A., luncheon to-night. I want to get out about a dozen cans of beans, and tinned roast beef, and four or five pounds of ham, and a couple dozen eggs, and have a square meal. We’ve been sailing over the country for five or six days now eating wind sandwiches and drinking brook water.”
“Perhaps,” Carl observed pointing to the openings to the east, “we can find a place in there where a fire may safely be built.”
“Where’s your wood?” asked Ben.
“There’s always driftwood in a place like this,” Jimmie asserted. “There’s always trees falling down from the timber line and rotting in the canyons. I’ll find wood, all right, if we can find a place where it’s safe to build a fire,” he added with a chuckle of delight at the thought of a large meal. “What I need right now is plenty of sustenance!”
“Go to it!” laughed Ben. “Mr. Havens advised us to camp out in some spot about like this, and make excursions over the mountains in search of Phillips and Mendosa, so I don’t see why we’ll have to move our camp at all. Therefore, a neat little kitchen won’t come amiss.”
Jimmie started for the cliff with a chuckle. For some minutes his flashlight was seen dodging in and out of the water-worn caverns, and then it disappeared entirely. Carl, who was gathering driftwood, paused at Ben’s side and pointed toward the spot where Jimmie’s light had last been seen. His face was a trifle anxious as he said:
“You don’t suppose he’s gone and got into trouble, do you?”
“My guess is that he has found a deep cavern,” said Ben.
“I hope so,” Carl answered. “Say!” the boy went on, in a moment, “your speaking of Mr. Havens just now reminded me of the fact that he hasn’t communicated with us in any way since we started. I’m getting worried about that man! He might have overtaken us by fast train if he had seen fit to do so, but he didn’t.”
“I don’t see how he could have communicated with us in any way,” replied Ben. “We have never left an address, and always his people at the hangar declared in answer to our messages that he had not been heard from since the night he had so mysteriously left the stateroom of the Pullman car. They’re getting anxious about him in New York.”
“There’s one thing,” Carl went on, “and that is that the only clue which connects Mendosa and Phillips with the burglary of the Buyers’ Bank, and with the murder of the night-watchman, is in the possession of Mr. Havens. We can’t do very much until Havens comes.”
“We can locate the men, can’t we?” asked Ben. “So far as the clue is concerned, that will be needed only at the trial. What the New York chief of police wants is for us to locate the murderers and turn our information over to the California officers.”
“Anyway,” Carl insisted, “Mr. Havens was carrying a stone and a gold claw broken from a ring believed to have been worn by Mendosa on the night of the murder. The outlaws would go a long ways in order to secure possession of those articles. I’m getting frightened over Havens’ absence.”
“Suppose Mendosa should destroy the ring?” asked Ben. “That would render the clue valueless, wouldn’t it?”
“Indeed it wouldn’t!” answered Carl. “Mendosa is well-known to the police, and that ring was as well known to New York detectives as was the man’s face. I understand, too, that there are witnesses who saw Mendosa on the day following the burglary who noticed that one stone had disappeared from the ring, and that a claw had been broken off. Besides,” continued Carl, “Mendosa wouldn’t destroy that ring, or sell it, or give it away. He would lay it aside in some secure place until he could have the damage repaired. Mendosa is said to be foolish in the head like a fox!”
“You’re some detective, I reckon!” laughed Ben. “What you ought to do is to connect with some newspaper reporter and write stories for the magazines. Perhaps you could get one printed!”
“All right,” grinned Carl, “you can’t figure it out any other way. If the right steps are taken, and the stone and the claw are not stolen from Havens by agents of the outlaws, that ring will eventually convict the murderers of the night-watchman!”
The boys talked for some moments, sitting on the hard, white sand at the side of the machines. They had collected quite a quantity of dry driftwood, and were now waiting for Jimmie to return from his excursion in search of a safe and convenient cook-room.
“Look here, Ben,” Carl said in a moment, “we don’t want to go away and leave the machines, not even for a minute, not even if we are in a lonely spot, but some one ought to go and look for Jimmie. You know there’s a lot of places a boy might fall into in these mountain caverns!”
“All right,” Ben said, rising from the ground, “I’ll go and wake Kit. He was so sleepy when I brought the Bertha down that I lifted him out of the seat and laid him away against a wall! I don’t think he ever knew when I took him off the machine. I’ll give him a searchlight and send him to look after Jimmie.”
“Where did you put him?” asked Carl, “I’ll go and wake him up.”
“On a bed of nice hard, white sand close to the south wall,” replied Ben. “There’s an old coat which I had to wrap around my shoulders in the higher altitudes under his head. Bring that along, too; we’ll need it later.”
Carl went away whistling with his hands in his pockets, taking great breaths of fresh mountain air into his lungs, and believing that he was about the happiest boy on the face of the earth. It was all so different from the crowded streets of New York! In a moment Ben heard him calling.
“You must have mislaid him!” the boy said. “Here’s the coat, but the kid isn’t here! It looks like there’d been a scrap here on the sand. Perhaps a mountain lion carried him off.”
Ben sprang to his feet and rushed out to Carl.