They were not long kept in doubt. Jimmie shot out of a hole under the rock like an arrow in full flight and squatted down by the fire.

Frank snickered when he saw the boy, and turned hastily away toward a ledge which showed back to the north.

While Ned was wondering what the boy was up to, the long, vicious whine of a wolf reached his ears. The call died away slowly, and was followed by silence, then by the snarling call of the pack!

The men by the fire started to their feet and seized their revolvers.

Jimmie jumped away from the blaze and held up his hands, bound tightly together.

"Cut me loose!" he cried. "Are you going to let the wolf come and eat me?"

"There are no wolves in these mountains," declared one of the men.

"That was a signal of some kind!"

"I've seen wolves since we came in here," Jimmie declared, telling the exact truth, at that, only the wolves he referred to belonged to the Wolf Patrol, Boy Scouts of America! "They're fierce wolves, too!"

he added.

Frank crawled back to Ned's side and lay laughing at the commotion the signal had caused in the little camp. The men hastened their packing, and one of them who had been about to give Jimmie his breakfast s.n.a.t.c.hed the bread and bacon away and put them in a pack he was making up.

"Here!" the boy shouted. "You give me the eats! Think I'm going to travel over these mountains with me tummy abusing me for not doing the right thing by it?"

"You're lucky to have any tummy!" snarled one of the men.

"Aw, give the kid his breakfast!" commanded the other.

The men quarreled and growled at each other while the packing was going on, and Jimmie sat looking around for some sign of the Boy Scout who had given the signal. In half an hour they were ready, and then Jimmie was ordered to move on.

"If you try to run away," he was informed, "you'll be chased by a bullet. We have no time to fool with you! Just keep a pace or two in advance, and march straight ahead and you'll have no trouble. Get along, now!"

"But where's the prince?" asked Frank. "I thought we were going to find the royal prince here!"

"The prince of what?" asked Ned. "The prince of the slums or the prince of a little patch of ground over the sea?"

"Blessed if I know," Frank commented. "See me throw a scare into those b.u.ms!"

The men stopped still in their tracks when the ugly snarl of a bear came to them out of the darkness. Frank did himself proud in the manner in which he put out the bear talk. The men were surely frightened.

"Now there's a bear!" wailed Jimmie, although Ned thought he caught a note of fun in his voice. "Don't you know these hills are full of bears? We saw some at our camp last night," he added, "eating bread and honey!"

"Bear nothing!" shouted one of the men. "There ain't a bear within a hundred miles of this place! This is some trick!"

Again the fierce, angry snarl of the bear! Ned caught Frank by the arm to keep him quiet, but the boy finished the bear talk he had begun.

Then Jimmie hastened matters by breaking away and running toward the rock from which the sound had proceeded. Both men took after him, but a shot from Frank's gun caused them to halt. They stood still for an instant, their figures tense and tall, and then turned and ran, almost tumbling over each other in their fright!

They did not stop at slight declivities. They leaped gulleys and almost fell into canyons which split the summits. In vain Ned called to them to halt, that they would not be injured. They ran like race horses, and were soon out of sight. Frank and Jimmie were rolling on the ground in their delight.

Ned looked grave and annoyed. Without speaking he looked over the camp where the men had cooked the breakfast and then returned to the boys.

"I am sorry for that," he said, mildly. "I wanted to put those men through the third degree! We should have held them up and put on the handcuffs."

"You didn't say so!" observed Frank sheepishly.

"No use to talk about it now," Ned declared. "Perhaps Jimmie knows what we expected to learn from them."

"All I know is that the b.u.ms got me at the cave and tied me up,"

Jimmie said.

"How many men have you seen in the party?" asked Ned.

"Just those two. They were always talking about some one else coming in, but I never saw any one else."

"What did they talk about?" asked Ned.

"They were trying, most of the time, to make me admit that the Camera Club was a secret service organization," laughed the lad. "Of course I denied it!"

"What did they say about a child?"

"Not one word! I kept my ears open for that kind of talk!"

"Did they have a boy with them at any one time?" asked Ned.

"This afternoon, or yesterday afternoon, rather, I saw a kid moving about on the slope. I was cooking, and built two fires so as to make a signal. Did you see it?"

"Yes, we saw it," answered Ned, "but did not reply to it for the reason that we feared discovery. We wanted to come here in the night and release you and capture the two outlaws! But what sort of a child was it that you saw?"

"Why, it was the kid from the cabin. Say, Ned," he added, with a wink at Frank, "is that the prince, or is it Mike III.?"

"Cut it out!" roared Frank. "We've heard enough of that."

Ned laid a hand on the shoulder of each boy.

"That shot attracted attention," he whispered, "or the runaways are coming back. I hear some one tramping over rock, and a moment ago I caught the gleam of a gun barrel."

"Then it's me for a hole to crawl into!" whispered Jimmie. "I've had troubles of my own for the past few hours! Say, but I'm hungry, boys."

The boys left their place of retreat just as a couple of bullets spattered on rock.

CHAPTER XVII

JUST A LITTLE DARK WASH

More shots were fired, but the boys were soon out of range. A flush of pink was showing in the sky now, and the sun would be up in half an hour. Jimmie looked longingly toward the camp, and Ned turned his footsteps that way.

"Speaking of quitters," Jimmie said, as they moved along, "the two men who geezled me take the bun! They quarreled all the time because some one else didn't come and do something they wanted done! No wonder they ducked when one shot was fired!"

"About the boy you saw yesterday afternoon," Ned asked. "Are you sure it was the lad who was brought to our camp?"