CHAPTER II

A VOICE IN THE THICKET

“That’s just what it is—a mystery!” Jimmie McGraw exclaimed.

“How could anyone get in here and lug away a load of provisions like that without our waking up? They just couldn’t do it!”

This from Jack, who had now returned with his half-eaten steak.

“I heard some one moving around in the night,” Frank declared.

“Then, why didn’t you get up and see about it?” asked Ned.

“Oh, I thought I dreamed it!” grinned Frank.

“I’d give a good deal to know who it was that had the nerve to pay us a visit in the night-time,” Ned said, presently. “I don’t like the idea of keeping open house during the dark hours. The person who came here last night may come again, and may make more trouble the next time.”

“And that means,” Jimmie complained, “that we’ve got to set a guard every night, and watch our property, just like we were on Third Avenue in New York. It makes me sick to think of it!”

“And just think of all the fun we’ve been having here, playing that we were scores of miles away from anybody! Look here, boys,” he went on, “we’ve been under the sea and over the sea. We’ve had adventures in Panama and in China, and I don’t think we ever had anyone walk over our sleeping forms and steal provisions before.”

“That’s right!” Frank answered. “We must be getting careless in our old age. Now the next thing is to find out who did this.”

“Some poor tramp, probably,” suggested Ned. “We’ll make a business of watching for him during the next few hours, and probably we’ll catch him. I’m sure I hope it was a tramp, for I don’t want to get mixed up with any hostile element up here.”

As Ned ceased speaking he went to the rough cupboard again and began a second inspection of the shelves. Newspapers had been neatly arranged on the boards, and these did not appear to have been disturbed. After going over everything in sight thoroughly, the boy took the sack of salt out to the open sunlight and examined it critically.

“Now, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, what do you find there?” demanded Frank. “I’ll tell you what,” he went on, “we have seemed to forget that Dad owns one of the leading newspapers in New York City! I will sit down right now and write a long article and call it ‘The Magic Breakfast; or, Who Stole the Beans!’ I think that title would make a hit on the Bowery, eh?”

“It’s about time you began sending in correspondence,” Jimmie grinned. “You know you promised to send in a full account of our ruction with the train robbers, but you never did. The first thing you know, your father will be cutting off your supply of ready cash.”

“Oh, well, then,” Frank laughed, “I’ll retain Jack’s father, who is a rich corporation lawyer, and sue Dad for a breach of promise, or something like that. But look at Ned,” the boy went on, “he’s surely found something on that salt sack!”

“Is that right, Sherlocko, you Sleuth?” asked Jimmie.

Ned turned to his chums with amusement showing in his eyes.

“Let me read you the story told by the salt sack,” he said whimsically. “And remember,” he went on, as the boys laughed and nudged each other, “this story will not be reprinted in book form, so you’ll have to catch it as I tell it. It will not even be told again!”

“Go on with your blessed old dope,” laughed Frank.

“Well,” Ned began, holding the sack up for inspection, “the person who stole our provisions took salt from this sack in order to season his meal. He took quite a lot, too, judging from the way the salt lowered during the night. Probably thought he’d take enough while the taking was good, for which we can’t blame him.”

“We knew all that before!” Jimmie declared.

“Now listen,” Ned went on, “here comes the magic part of the case! The person who took the salt from this sack was fifteen years of age. He was tall and slender, and had gone without food for three days. He did not come down from the divide, but crept up from the valley. He was lightly clad, and wore a ragged coat and broken shoes. He stood outside the cave for a long time before gaining courage to enter.”

The boys gathered around Ned with laughing faces and pretended to inspect the salt bag with reverential interest.

“Go on, now,” Jimmie demanded. “Go on and give us the answer to all this! Tell us how you know so much about a person you have never seen.”

“Look here,” Ned explained, “I know the person was a boy because the finger marks on the sack show a small, slender hand. Slender fingers represent a slender body, you know, and that’s why I say the person was young and slim.”

“That’s good deduction!” Frank declared. “Now tell us how you know that he hadn’t had anything to eat for three days.”

“Look at the shelves and you’ll discover how I know for yourselves,” Ned said, marching the boys into the back end of the cave.

“You will notice,” he went on, “that the shelf where the bread lay is covered with crumbs. That shows that he began to eat the minute his hands touched the loaf. He must have been perfectly ravenous to begin his meal while in such imminent danger of discovery. Of course, he might have dined in less than three days, but I think he’d have to be pretty hungry in order to eat with five boys likely to wake up at any moment lying around him. You see that, don’t you?”

“That’s good, too!” Jack exclaimed. “Now, how do you know whether he came down the slope to the timber line or up the slope from the valley?”

“If you notice the floor directly in front of the shelves,” Ned explained pointing, “you will see numerous pine leaves scattered about. Now, there are no pines above the cavern, so the boy crawled through the thickets below. Is that clear?”

“Clear as mud!” shouted Frank, “and suppose you have got a photograph of him so that you know that he was ragged and wore broken shoes!”

“Look at the nail sticking out of the shelf,” Ned went on, “and you’ll see several shreds of cloth hanging to it. Jack thought he was making a pretty good job on that cupboard but he left a nail sticking up, just the same. The nail tells the story of a ragged sleeve.”

“Correct!” laughed Jimmie. “Now, how are you going to make good on the broken shoes?” he continued.

“That’s the easiest part of it all,” Ned answered. “When he stood in the cool ashes close to the embers, he left imprints of wornout soles.”

The boys broke into shouts of laughter and Frank declared that he would immortalize Ned as a detective in his father’s newspaper.

“Yes, but hold on!” Jack interposed. “Did you hold a stop watch on him while he stood outside the cave, Ned?”

“He held a stop watch on himself,” the boy answered. “You can see where he walked about, taking many steps and stirring up the wash from the rocks at the mouth of the cave. Now do you understand?”

“Now, then,” Jimmie questioned, “perhaps you can tell us where this boy is, and why he didn’t make himself known to us if he was as hungry as you say he was. Go on, now, and tell!”

“And while you’re about it,” Jack suggested, “you might as well tell us whether the boy who stole our grub is white or black or mixed.”

“There are limits to the ability of even a Sherlock Holmes,” laughed Ned, “but,” he continued, more seriously, “there is little doubt that the person who stole our provisions is just about as I have described him.”

The boys now gathered about the fire again, and Ned and Harry proceeded to broil steaks for their breakfast. After a time Jimmie and Frank wandered down into the pines in the hope of securing the material for a squirrel stew for a dinner.

It was still and dim in the thicket except for the ceaseless murmur of the trees. The sun’s rays could not penetrate the heavy foliage. Here and there great rocks, evidently shunted down from the summits in some convulsion of nature, lay scattered about.

“Talk about your weird places,” Jimmie exclaimed, “this beats any graveyard I ever saw!”

“That’s no dream!” Frank answered. “I’ve been hearing ghostly voices for the last ten minutes. Listen, and you will hear them, too!”

Before the words were well out of the boy’s mouth, Jimmie caught him by the arm and drew him to the shelter of a great tree.

“What did you say about ghostly voices?” he asked.

“Aw, that was just a joke!” Frank replied.

“But I did actually hear some one speak!” Jimmie insisted.

“If you heard anything at all it was a bear, or a deer, or a squirrel or something like that!” Frank declared. “Just you wait a minute and see if you don’t hear some bear ordering us off his premises.”

While the boys stood close to the bole of a pine, listening, a shrill, excited voice came to them from some undiscoverable quarter.

At first they could not distinguish the words which were spoken. Jimmie turned to his chum with a half frightened grin on his face.

“Does that sound like bear-talk?” he asked.

“Not a bit of it!” Frank admitted, “but it may be one of the boys playing a joke on us. They are full of such tricks.”

Then the voice came to their ears again, lifted just above the sighing of the pines—sharp, imperative.

“Beat it! Beat it!”

The two boys gazed into each other’s faces with wonder in their eyes.

“Can you beat that?” Jimmie asked. “Was that a bear?”

Again the words of warning came to the ears of the amazed boys:

“Beat it while the going is good!”

“That sounds like Second avenue!” Jimmie ventured.

Frank turned in the direction from whence the sound had seemed to proceed and called out:

“What’s your motto?”

“Be prepared!” was the answer that came back.

“Be prepared for what?” demanded Jimmie.

“To help a friend!” was the answer.

“Look here!” Jimmie shouted. “If you’re a Boy Scout, why don’t you come out and show yourself? I never knew a Boy Scout who was ashamed to show his face.”

“What patrol?” came the voice from the thicket.

“Black Bear and Wolf, New York,” Frank answered.

There was a short silence, and then just a whisper came from a point near to where the boys were standing.

“Didn’t I tell you Boy Scouts to beat it?” were the words spoken.

“What’s the difficulty?” asked Jimmie. “Are you trying to make monkeys of us? Why don’t you come out and tell us all about it?”

“It wouldn’t do any good if I did,” answered the mysterious voice. “I tell you to beat it, and that’s the last word you’ll get from me.”

They heard a rustle in the thicket, and, though they listened for a long time, they heard no more words spoken. The boys darted away into the undergrowth in search of the person who had given them so mysterious a warning, but no trace of him could be discovered.

“Now, what did he mean by ‘beat it’?” demanded Jimmie in a moment as the boys met at the tree again.

“He meant for us to make ourselves scarce in this vicinity, I’m afraid,” Frank answered. “Of course we don’t know whether he warned us to keep away from this spot, or whether he advised us to break camp.”

“If he thinks we’re going to break camp on any bum old steer like that,” Jimmie grumbled, “he’s got several more thinks coming.”

“Anyway,” laughed Frank, “we wouldn’t feel just right unless we got into some kind of a mysterious situation. We’ve never been out on a trip that we didn’t butt into something desperate and uncanny.”

After another investigation of the locality, the boys hastened back to camp. They were met by Harry and Jack, who regarded them with inquiring eyes, seeming to be astonished by their return.

“Where’s Ned?” Jack finally asked.

“Why, we left him here,” both boys replied in a breath.

“Of course,” Harry returned, “but you sent a line asking him to come to where you were. What did you go and do that for if you were coming right back to camp? Was that a joke?”

“Joke nothing!” Jimmie answered. “We never sent any such word!”

“Then who sent that strange note?” Jack asked. “I’ll bet we’re up against something mighty serious right now!”