"We're going to give Uncle Ike a medal, also a barrel of sugar, for heroic conduct in the face of the enemy!" Jimmie declared, and the mule, for once in his life, found a full pocket when he nosed about for sweet lumps!

While the lads were eating a delayed supper, Jack turned to Oliver with a mock frown on his face.

"The next time you go away in the night and leave me alone in camp,"

he said, "I'm going to break your dial in! I might have been shot while asleep. According to the conversation between the outlaws, just related by Jimmie, one of the toughs came up here! Don't you ever do that again, if you want to keep a whole hide."

"I guess Uncle Ike has a larger kick coming than you have!" Jimmie remarked.

When the boys compared notes and thoughts concerning the child, the old lady, and the blonde stranger, they could not agree at all. Some of them insisted that the boy was Mike III., while the others declared that he was the prince!

"If he isn't the grandson," one asked, "why this American slang?"

"And if he is," questioned another, "why this talk about French and other foreign languages? Mike III. wouldn't know a foreign tongue, would he?"

CHAPTER XI

JACK'S ELEGANT CHICKEN PIE

The sun was high over the mountains when Ned awoke on the morning following the adventure with the counterfeiters. Leaving Jimmie, Frank, Teddy and Oliver in their bunks and Dode, the new acquisition to the party, curled up in a nest of blankets, he issued forth from the tent and looked about for Jack, who had been left on guard.

The boy was nowhere in sight at first, then he saw him at a spring which bubbled out of the mountain not far from the corral. It was the water from this spring which brought forth the tender gra.s.s upon which the mules were feeding.

Jack looked up with a shout when he saw Ned, and came running up to the camp, carrying in one hand a pail in which three large-sized chickens lay, nicely boiled, carved and washed.

"What do you think of that?" he demanded, pushing the pail up under Ned's nose. "I guess we're some hustlers for sustenance!"

"Where did you get the hens?" asked Ned. "They sure look good to me."

"You couldn't guess in a thousand years!" Jack replied. "So I'm going to tell you, right off the handle! Judd Bradley, the blonde fellow who brought the boy in, came up with them, with the compliments of Mrs. Brady, about an hour ago. He brought the boy up with him, too.

What do you know about that?"

"Is it the prince, or is it Mike III.?" asked Ned, with a smile.

"If you leave it to me," Jack answered quite positively, "it is the prince!"

"How does he look and act this morning?"

"Like a kid raised under restraint, now free and full of the de--Old Nick!"

"And Bradley?" asked Ned.

"That's another point! He watches the kid every second of the time, and when the boy speaks a word of French he looks daggers at him! I reckon the son of Mike II. wouldn't be talking French! Nor he wouldn't be here with a chaperon from Washington. We have found the prince, all right, and I'm sorry for it! It makes our work too easy!"

"Don't crow until you're out of the woods!" laughed Ned. "There may be a few adventures in store for us yet! So this seven-year-old boy talks French, does he?"

"You bet he does! Like a native!"

"Where are they now--Bradley and the boy, I mean?"

"Down by the mules! The boy, who is constantly called Mike--ostentatiously called by that name--wants to ride Uncle Ike! Fat time he'll have if he gets aboard of that argumentative brute!"

"Are they going to help eat the chicken?" asked Ned.

"Sure! I told them to stick around until I got the most beautiful chicken pie built they ever touched tongue to. They're going to stay.

You go and talk with them while I make the pie. It is going to be a corker--melt in your mouth, make you dream of the old red barn down on the farm!"

"Ever make a chicken pie?" asked Ned.

"Of course not! There's got to be a first time to everything! But I know how. I've got a recipe here which is used by the chef at Sherry's."

"Go to it!" laughed Ned. "I'll take my chances on having canned meat for dinner."

"You just wait!" roared Jack, as Ned dashed down to the spring.

Jack stood a moment, pail in hand, watching Ned washing at the spring, and then went on to the fire, leaving Ned to proceed to the corral and entertain the guests.

Jimmie was just tumbling out of the tent when Jack came up with the chicken. That young man immediately set up a shout which awakened the others and brought them out rubbing their eyes.

"Chicken for breakfast!" he shouted.

"Chicken pie for dinner!" Jack corrected.

"All right!" sighed the boy. "Then I'll cook a couple of pounds of ham and a couple of dozen eggs for breakfast! That ought to keep us alive until you get the pie ready!"

"How do you make chicken pie?" demanded Frank. "I've always wanted to know how to make a pie out of a hen."

"You just watch me," Jack answered, not without a touch of pride, "and I'll show how it is done. Here, young man, don't set down on my dough! That's for the crust."

Jimmie bounded off a camp stool where the cook had deposited his crust-dough on a clean white paper and watched Jack line a six-quart tin pail with the mixture of flour, water and baking powder.

"That ain't thick enough!" he commented. "The crust ought to be an inch thick."

"You go out and feed the mules!" ordered Jack. "When I want any help in making a chicken pie I won't call on you!"

"Anyway," Jimmie insisted, "it ought to be an inch thick."

Jack laid the pieces of chicken in the bed of dough--the chickens having been cooked tender long before Ned was out of his blankets--and put in salt, pepper, a small piece of b.u.t.ter--out of a gla.s.s can!--and then poured in some of the liquid the chickens had been stewed in.

"If there should happen to be a drumstick you can't get in," Jimmie volunteered, "I can eat it for breakfast!"

"So that's why you wanted the crust so thick!" cried Jack. "You wanted to crowd the chicken out so you could stuff yourself with a hen for breakfast! Run along and play you'r a baker's wagon delivering goods on the Bowery!"

"You're the wise little man--not!" Jimmie grunted and set about cooking ham and eggs for breakfast.