"How long will it take that chicken pie to cook?" asked Teddy.

"Couple of hours," replied Jack. "Sometimes it takes longer."

Jack prepared a great bed of coals, drew up dry wood to make more, and set the pail of chicken pie in the heavy double oven to cook.

"I'm making this 'specially light and sweet," he said, poking the coals up to the oven, "because we're going to have a prince of the royal blood to breakfast."

"Where is he?" asked Jimmie, with a grin, "Down by the mules! He brought these chickens to us--or his chaperon did! Rather thoughtful of him! Say, Frank," Jack added, "will you go down to the corral and take a lot of snapshots of the kid? I want to send some home to Chicago, just to convince the boys I've been dining with royalty."

"Dining with Mike III.," Frank laughed. "It is dollars to dills that the boy trying to get on Uncle Ike's back is fresh from the Washington slums!"

"Look you here, little man," Jack began, but just at that moment Ned, Bradley, and the boy appeared on the slope, headed for the camp. The boy was seated on the back of Uncle Ike, who, for a wonder, was marching along sedately, as if accustomed to being made the plaything of children.

"I wouldn't have believed it of him!" Jimmie muttered. "I wouldn't have trusted a kid on that wild animal's back any sooner than I would have trusted eggs to a hay-baler. Uncle Ike's sure going into a decline!"

The boy came riding up ahead of the others and shouted to Jimmie:

"Gardez! A cheval!" he shouted, urging the mule into a trot.

"That's your kid from the Washington slums!" Jack laughed, scornfully. "Talking French!"

"What does he say?" demanded Jimmie.

"He says for you to be on your guard--to look out for yourself--as he is coming on horseback. I don't know much French, but that is easy!"

Bradley hastened to the boy's side and said something to him in a tone which the others could not hear, the lad coloring slightly as he listened.

"He's jawing him for speaking French!" Jimmie commented.

"It looks like it," Jack observed. "Oh, I reckon we've got the prince all right. I wonder when we are going to start back to Washington with him, and if Ned will pinch that blonde beauty who brought him in?"

Uncle Ike stopped at the campfire and stuck his nose into Jimmie's pocket, looking for sugar. Mike III., as some of the boys insisted on thinking of the little fellow, dropped off and seized the animal by the tail and began to pull. Frank ran to get the child out of his dangerous position, but Uncle Ike merely looked around to see what it was that was pulling his tail winked one eye at Frank, and went on searching pockets.

"That mule sure gets my goat!" grinned Jimmie. "What do you think of his standing still while his tail is being pulled?"

By this time Jimmie had prepared breakfast, and the boys gathered about the fire with tin plates on their knees, and devoured ham and eggs, baked beans, and bread and b.u.t.ter and coffee with a mountain relish. Mike III. ate what was given to him at the first helping and then clamored for more. Bradley whispered something in his ear, but the boy pushed him off with a scowl:

"Alles-vous en!" he cried, angrily.

Jack snickered and Frank looked as if he had made a mistake in his estimate of the boy and knew it! Bradley drew the boy away, but Jimmie hastened to replenish his plate.

"Let the kid have all he wants!" he said. "We can cook more. We're going to have a chicken pie for dinner, and he'll like that."

"Seems to me it is about time Jack was looking after that pie," Frank suggested.

"Pretty near forgot it!" Jack admitted, going to the oven and opening the door so as to look inside at the dainty.

Something took place when he did that! The square piece of metal flew back on its hinges with a thump, and cut of the oven flew the cover of the tin pail in which the chicken pie had been tucked. It shot across the fire and struck Jimmie under the ear and then rolled back into the blaze!

"Jerusalem!" cried the boy. "What you shootin' at me for?"

No attention was paid to what the boy said, for at that moment a wave of dough, spotted here and there with pieces of chicken, puffed out of the pail and tumbled over Jack's stooping shoulders and on into the fire, where it continued to grow until the fire half consumed it.

"Catch the chicken!" yelled Frank. "He's running away."

Jack tried to keep the dough in the oven, but it rolled out and covered his hands and arms with a sticky mess. The little fellow screamed with delight.

"Oh, oh, _de mal en pis!_" he shouted.

"Grab the chicken!" shouted Teddy. "We can finish breakfast on that!"

While the mess was being cleared up, Frank asked Jack:

"How much baking powder did you put into that dough?"

"Only one can!" was the reply, and Frank went away and rolled on the ground!

"Say," Jimmie whispered to Jack, who was sc.r.a.ping the chicken pie off his clothes, "what did the kid say when he pushed Bradley away, and when the pie busted?"

"First he said 'be off with you' or 'let me alone' next he said 'from bad to worse' Or something like that. Look at Bradley. He's calling him down for it, right now. I'm going, to talk French to that kid when Bradley goes away. I'm going to know about this three Mike and this prince business!"

CHAPTER XII

THE BLACK HAND GAME

Shortly after breakfast, and after what remained of the chickens had been eaten, Bradley and his charge left the camp, after inviting the boys to visit them in the cabin in the valley. Bradley appeared anxious to be friendly, and seemed absolutely frank in his talks. The only suspicious thing they noticed in him was his jealous care of the boy--his reproaches when the lad had indulged in a word or two of French!

"You bet I'll visit you at the cabin!" Jack said, as the two disappeared over the summit. "I'll be there with the lingo, too! I can soon find out from the boy what he knows of the French language!

Of course I'll be down to the cottage!"

"Bradley will see that you don't talk with the boy alone!" Jimmie declared.

"I'll catch him doing it!" was Jack's reply.

"What do you think about it, Ned?" asked Frank. "Is that the prince, or is it Mike III.? You may have all the guesses you need.

"First," Ned said, turning to Jack and Frank, "tell me what the boy said when he spoke in French."

Jack repeated the interpretations as previously given, and Ned remained in a thoughtful mood for a long time. Then he went into the tent, without answering any questions, and began overhauling the stock of reading matter brought along.

When he found what he wanted to he threw himself on the bunk where he had slept and read steadily for an hour or more. At least he held to the book for that length of time, turning the leaves rapidly at times, and then not at all for several minutes.

"What's he up to?" asked Teddy. "Something on his alleged mind!"