"Charley says he engaged himself to a gentleman long ago; perhaps it was as much as three years back, the time that the professor disappeared from the haunts of men. And, Frank, his part of the contract was to come to a certain point away up here in the Grand Canyon, once every two months, at a time agreed on, bringing a load of food, as per the list given him by this mysterious party."

"It must be Professor Oswald!" exclaimed Frank. "I've been wondering all the time how under the sun he could have supplied himself with food these long months if he'd cut loose from the world, as he said in that note he had. Now the puzzle begins to show an answer. Charley Moi is the missing link. He has kept the professor in grub all the time. Did you ever hear of such luck? First we run across that old Moqui, who has been in touch with the man we want to find; and now here's the one who comes up here every little while to deliver his goods, and get a new list, as well as money to pay for the same. It's just the limit, that's what!"

He turned to the Chinaman, and continued:

"Did you happen to notice, Charley, whether this party you are working for is a bald-headed man? Has he a shining top when he takes his hat off; and does he bend over, as if he might be hunting for diamonds all the time?"

The Chinese guide smirked, and bobbed his head in the affirmative.

"That him, velly much, just same say. Shiny head, and blob this away alle time," with which he walked slowly forward, bending over as though trying to discover a rich vein of gold in the seamed rock under his feet.

"Shake hands, Bob," said Frank. "We're getting hot on the trail. Now we needn't have any doubt at all about the choice of the eastern route.

It's the right one; and somewhere further on we're just bound to find Echo Cave."

"Then all we've got to fear, Frank, is the work of Eugene and his crowd.

Let us keep clear of that bad lot, and we're going to succeed. Any time, now, we may glimpse our old Moqui, returning with a message from the professor, if he sees fit to reply to your appeal. He may, though, be so set and stubborn that nothing will move him from his game of hiding.

Then we'll have to get that paper, with his signature, and save the mine for his family."

"That's what I mean to do," replied the other, with grim determination.

"If he's so wrapped up in his scheme that he just won't come out, we're going to do the best we can to save his fortune in spite of him. There's his daughter Janice to think of. Above all, we mustn't let that schemer, Eugene Warringford, get his fingers on the doc.u.ment."

That night they made camp in a little cave that offered an asylum. The boys rather fancied the idea for a change. And they pa.s.sed a very comfortable night without any alarm.

Once, Bob being on duty near the mouth of the opening, heard a shuffling sound without. He could not make out whether it was caused by the pa.s.sage of a human being, or a bear. Half believing that they were about to be attacked by some animal that fancied the cave as a den, he had drawn back the hammer of his rifle, and watched the round opening that was plainly seen at the time, as it was near morning, and the small remnant of a moon was shining without.

But he waited in vain, and, as the minutes pa.s.sed without any further alarm, Bob heaved a sigh of relief. It was all very well to think of shooting big game; but under such conditions he did not much fancy a close battle.

When morning came, and he had told Frank about it, the other immediately went out to look for traces of the animal. As he came back Bob saw by the expression on his chum's face that Frank had made some sort of discovery.

"How about it?" he asked.

"It was no bear," replied the other, decidedly.

"But sure I heard something moving, Frank, and I was wide-awake at the time, too," Bob protested.

"I guess you were, all right," Frank admitted. "A man pa.s.sed by, not far from the mouth of the cave. He even stooped down, and looked in, though careful not to let his head show against the bright background. Then he went off again up the canyon."

"Since you know so much, Frank, perhaps you could give a guess as to who he was," said Bob, eagerly.

"No guess about it," came the reply. "I've examined his track before, and ought to know it like a book. It was Abajo, Bob!"

"Then ten to one, Spanish Joe and Eugene were close by!" declared Bob.

"Say, do you really believe he knew we were in here?"

"Of course he did," Frank a.s.serted. "Perhaps they saw us enter. But Abajo also knows that both of us are fair shots. He did not dare take the chance of trying to creep in. It would be more dangerous than our going into that wolf den."

"The plot seems to be thickening, Frank. It won't be long now before something is bound to happen. If we could only run across the old Moqui now, and hear that he carried a message in answer to your note, that would clear the air a heap, wouldn't it?"

"Well, we must live in hopes," replied Frank, cheerfully. "And now, after a bite which Charley Moi is getting ready for us, we'll be off again, and tackle the roughest traveling in the whole canyon, so he says. But he knows the way, because he was led up here by the old professor, and told to come back every two months."

CHAPTER XVII

THE WINDOWS IN THE ROCKY WALLS

"Well, here it's the fourth day we've been out, and nothing doing yet, Frank!"

Bob spoke gloomily, as though the unsuccessful search was beginning to pall upon him a little. Boys' natures differ so much; and while the young Kentuckian had many fine qualities that his chum admired, still he was not so persistent as Frank.

Nothing could ever daunt the boy from Circle Ranch. Difficulties, he believed, were only thrown in his way to bring out the better parts of his nature. The more a fellow found himself "up against it," as Frank called meeting trouble half-way, the stronger became his character.

"Oh! well, now, Bob, I wouldn't say that," he answered the complaint of his chum. "Just think what tremendous progress we've been making right along. And if the very worst comes, didn't Charley Moi say that it was only a week now before he must get another stock of things to eat, and won't he have to wait at the place of meeting, for the 'learned sahib'

to appear, and take them from him, as he has done so often? Why, we can be in hiding nearby, and meet the professor, even against his will."

"That's so," Bob admitted, the argument proving a clincher; "and I reckon I'm a silly clown to think anything else."

"No, you're only tired, after a pretty tough day, that's all," Frank declared. "When you've had a rest you'll feel better. I'm more used to this sort of thing than you are, old fellow; but all the same we must admit that we're getting the greatest view ever of this old canyon."

"That's so, Frank, and it's worth all the climbing and sliding, too. But every time we've discovered signs of any of those old deserted homes of the cliff dwellers, why, we find they've been visited time and again by curious folks hoping to discover some treasure, or keepsakes of the extinct people. No chance for the old professor to hide away there."

"But pretty soon we're going to discover a new batch of those caves in the face of the rock, something unknown to all other searchers. We'll find it by the aid of this same gla.s.s; and because we're looking for it, high up. In all these other cases you see, Bob, there were shelves of rock above shelves; and new ladders have been made by the guides, so that anybody with nerve could climb up and up. Now these ladders give the thing away. And I've somehow got the notion in my head that in the case of the rock dwellings where the professor is hiding himself, there is no outward sign in the shape of ladders."

"But in that case, Frank, how under the sun could the old fellows ever get up to their dens, which you said must be near the top of a high cliff?"

"Well, that's something we're going to find out later on, you see,"

replied the other, serenely. "Perhaps they had some way of lowering themselves from the top by means of a rope, or a stout, wide grape vine.

Then, again, there may be some cleft in the rock farther away, that no one would notice; but which was used as a trail, running up into the cliff, and to the rock houses."

"It does take you to figure out these things," declared Bob, in admiration, as they trudged along, with Charley Moi in advance.

"Then we haven't yet got to the place where the Chinese buyer meets his employer with the eatables?" Bob remarked after a little silence.

"The last time I asked him he kept saying it was only a little farther along," replied Frank.

"There, look at him stopping right now; and Frank, he's grinning at us in a way that can only mean one thing. That must be where he always waits for the queer old gentleman to show up."

"How about that, Charley; is this the place where you hang out?" asked Frank, as they hastened to join the guide.

"Allee samee place," replied Charley Moi, waving his yellow hand around him. "Not know where shaib come fromee, always turn roundee rock," and he pointed to a large outlying ma.s.s that had, ages ago, become detached from the towering cliff overhead, and fallen in such a fashion as to partly obstruct the canyon trail.

Frank looked around him eagerly.

"We must be getting warmer all the time," he remarked; "and if you just take a look at that river right now, you'll see that up yonder the rock rises up almost from its very flood. When the water is high it must sweep along against the face of that big cliff. And Bob, something seems to tell me that somewhere inside of a mile or so, we're going to find what we're looking for."

"Oh! I hope so!" echoed Bob, with a look of expectancy on his face; for he always put great reliance on the common sense of his chum; and when Frank said a thing in that steady tone, the Kentucky boy believed it must be so.