CHAPTER V

THE CALL OF THE PACK

From his high perch in the tree Jimmie could see far above the timber line and clearly distinguish slopes, ledges and precipitous canyons invisible as a whole to one walking on the surface, or even one looking down from a high cliff on the mountains themselves. To the north a snow-covered summit glistened in the sun, the great white cloak unbroken at the top but showing bare spaces farther down.

Looking in wonder and awe at this magnificent manifestation of nature, Jimmie began to realize, dimly, that the lines of snow on the lower stretches of the mountain seemed to lie at one point parallel with each other. It was as if trenches had been dug in the form of a parallelogram and the excavations filled in with snow.

The outline was so distinct that the boy regarded it curiously for a long time. It seemed to him that the hand of the Snow King had sketched on the mountainside a plan for a structure which had never been built.

Just above the spot where this remarkable pattern lay was a precipice fifty or more feet in height. This wall seemed to the boy to be absolutely vertical. There was a shelf of rock below the strange snow-line, and beneath that the heavy slope of the range.

Turning his eyes at last from the snow-covered summits, the boy gazed eagerly over the forest to left and right, studying the landscape for some indication of a signal. Directly he saw the column of smoke arising from the campfire strengthening into a black mass, and knew that the boys were answering his call not knowing by whom it had been sent forth. He smiled whimsically as he turned his eyes away.

“That tells me where the camp is, anyway!” he laughed.

Five minutes later, just as the boy was about to descend from his tree, he caught sight of the signal for which he had been waiting. Two columns of smoke arose from a point on the timber line near strange snow formation which he had been considering.

“There’s our Boy Scout!” he declared, scrambling quickly to the ground.

Once out of the tree, the boy made no haste in approaching the spot from which the signal had come. Instead of proceeding in a direct line he turned down the slope and walked swiftly to the north.

Half an hour’s steady traveling brought him to a point almost directly east of the columns of smoke. He could not see the smoke at all now, but knew of its location by the snow-capped cliff almost in front of which it had lifted. After reaching this point he walked directly west.

It was no easy matter, climbing the rugged side of the mountain, but the boy persisted in his work until at last he came to a shelf of rock which seemed to be not far away from where the signals had been shown. Stopping to rest, he looked toward the camp for some indication of further activity in the way of signals there but none came.

The campfire itself, and the face of rock into which the cave had long ago been cut, were not in sight from the point where he stood, the timber line creeping up in the form of an inverted “V” and shutting out all that portion of the lower level to the south.

Just as the boy was about to proceed, the long, snarling, vicious call of a wolf came from a thicket not far away. The boy involuntarily drew his automatic revolver and stepped behind the bole of a giant pine.

In a moment the call came again and again.

There was a note in it which seemed to the boy to speak of human lips. While he listened another call—louder, longer, more insistent—came—the call of the pack! Jimmie almost danced in his excitement.

“The Wolf Patrol!” he shouted. “The good old Wolf Patrol!”

Throwing back his head he produced an excellent imitation of the challenge he had heard. It echoed through the forest singly for a moment and was then joined by the call which had attracted his attention.

“Mother of Moses!” the boy cried. “The people will think there’s a whole pack of timber wolves in the country.”

Advancing now through the thicket, the boy soon saw a motion in the underbrush not far away. He stood still and waited.

“Hello, Wolf!” he shouted in a moment.

“Hello, Wolf!” came the answer.

“Show your colors!” Jimmie called.

In a moment a slender, dusky boy advanced out of the thicket and approached Jimmie, his right hand extended palm out, thumb and little finger crossed—the full sign of the Boy Scout.

Jimmie sat flat down on the ground his back against a tree trunk and regarded the lad quizzically.

“You the kid that brought that note?” he asked.

The other nodded, and Jimmie went on with a mock air of censure.

“What’d you do it for?” he demanded.

“Aw, what’s all this?” said the other scornfully.

“The third degree,” Jimmie grinned. “What’d you bring that note for? Now you’ve gone and got Ned Nestor into trouble. What’s your name?” he continued as the boy bent his face to the ground.

“Norman,” was the reply, “Wolf Patrol, New York.”

“You’re a new one on me!” asserted Jimmie. “I belong to the Wolf Patrol, New York. Never saw you before!”

“You’re Jimmie McGraw?” Norman asked.

“How do you know that?”

“On account of your nerve!” Norman answered.

“What’re you going to do about it?” asked Jimmie belligerently.

“I’ve been ordered,” Norman went on with a smile, “to break you in two if I came across you in the mountains.”

“Do it, then!” shouted Jimmie. “You’ve gone and got Ned into a mess, and I’d just like to have you try something on me now!”

Instead of showing temper, Norman sat down on the ground and laughed until he felt obliged to hold his sides.

“How’d you ever get away out here in the mountains?” Jimmie asked. “Ain’t you afraid you’ll get lost?”

“I haven’t got lost yet!” was the scornful reply.

“Come now,” Jimmie said, in a more conciliating tone of voice, “put me wise to the game you’re playing with Nestor.”

“All I know about it is that I delivered the note.”

“Where is Nestor?”

“I left him talking with a very fine gentleman who seemed to be offering to do the square thing with him,” was the reply.

“Bribing him, was he?”

“I don’t know about that. He was offering him money.”

“When will Nestor return to camp?” asked Jimmie.

Norman shook his head gravely.

“Do you mean that they won’t let him go?” demanded the boy.

“I don’t know anything about it,” Norman answered.

“Who told you to rope Ned into such a mess?”

“The man I work for.”

“What’s his name?” asked Jimmie then.

“His name is Toombs,” was the reply. “He hired me to come out on a hunting trip with him and help around the camp.”

“How many are there in the party?” was Jimmie’s next question.

“Only two, Toombs and a black looking heathen named Huga. I guess he’s an Indian. Anyway, he’s a mighty evil-looking fellow.”

“Well,” Jimmie announced accusingly, “those fellows are not out here on a hunting trip at all! They’re out here to make trouble for Ned Nestor and his friends. I think you’ve done a mighty cute trick in helping them along with their work!”

“Say,” Norman answered, with a touch of irony in his voice, “you go away in some quiet spot and count yourself. When you get done you’ll find you aren’t so many. You needn’t think you’re the only boy that can get a job in the mountains.”

“Has Toombs captured any game yet?” asked Jimmie.

“I haven’t seen him do any hunting,” was the answer. “He and Huga just sit around in camp all day and send half-breed messengers scurrying around from place to place.”

“So there are half-breed messengers, are there?” demanded Jimmie. “You said there were only two—Toombs and Huga.”

“I left New York with Toombs and Huga,” answered Norman, “and they’re the only ones I have anything to do with. The half-breeds we found here.”

“All right,” Jimmie said with a smile, “we’ve got Toombs’ number right now. If he butts in on us again, we’ll roll him down to the foothills. What does he want of Ned, anyway?”

“How should I know?” demanded Norman. “I’m not his confidential secretary! Say, I’d like to go and live with you boys.”

“Well,” Jimmie promised, “you go to Toombs and stay with him until you get Ned out of the mess you got him into, and you can come and live with us, all right.”

The boys sat together under a scraggly pine for a long time, talking about New York and the Wolf Patrol. Norman had joined the Wolves during Jimmie’s absence, and so they had not chanced to meet.

“Well,” Norman said directly, “I’ll have to be getting back to camp. They expect me to build the fire and get the meals.”

“Where is the camp?” asked Jimmie.

“It’s on a shelf not far off,” was the reply. “I’m not to tell anybody where it is, but you can find it for yourself if you care to.”

“If I care to?” repeated Jimmie. “Don’t you suppose I’m going there and help Ned out of the trouble you got him into?”

“Go as far as you like,” Norman replied, “only I advise you to keep away from there. Those men are dangerous.”

“Then will you help Ned away?”

“I’ll do what I can,” answered Norman gravely. “I can’t tell you, just now, all about the situation I’m in, but you’ll probably know sometime that I didn’t play crooked.”

“I’m going to tag along when you go back to camp!” warned Jimmie.

“Then keep a long ways behind,” Norman replied. “When I get to the top of that little elevation over there,” he went on, “I’ll make the Wolf call again and you come along. Only,” he continued, “don’t try to get into the camp alone. There’s a whole regiment of half-breeds sneaking around. Perhaps some of them have followed me here.”

Norman disappeared in the undergrowth, and Jimmie sat waiting for the signal agreed upon. He waited a long time but no signal came.

“Now I wonder,” he thought, “if that Boy Scout was acting on the level. I wonder if he won’t give me away to that man Toombs and his bunch of half-breeds. I believe he’s crooked after all! Think I’ll sneak.”

He arose from his position by the tree and turned toward the camp. He had proceeded but a short distance, however, when he tripped and fell over a running vine. Before he could regain his feet he was seized by two pair of muscular hands and laid flat on his back. A knife large enough to cut a hole in the side of a house was held to his throat.

“Oh, you, Norman,” he said under his breath, “if I just had that scrawny neck of yours in my hands now!”

The boy’s rage against the one who had apparently betrayed him was so overpowering that for a moment he paid little attention to the two half-breeds bent over him. Then he saw that the vine over which he had fallen had been purposely held in front of his feet.

His captors were dusky fellows, with straight black, greasy hair and narrow, treacherous black eyes. They seemed to the boy to be crosses between Mexican and California Indians. Directly Jimmie was hustled to his feet by a muscular hand at his collar and his automatic revolver, searchlight and even his pocket knife taken from him.

“Say,” Jimmie said, “if I had one of you fellows on the Bowery, somewhere down near Stanton street, I wouldn’t do a thing to him.”

“You bright boy!” grunted one of the half-breeds as the two started away with their prisoner. “You ver’ bright boy!”

They did not take the precaution to bind the boy in any way, but they gave no chance of escape, for every step of the way muscular hands clung to him. The way was rough, for it led directly up the slope, and this mode of surveillance was rather helpful than otherwise in the steep climb.

“Say,” Jimmie demanded after a long walk, “did that kid who talked with me tell you to follow him and get me?”

“You one fool boy!” declared one of his captors. “You have your eyes in the wool!”