CHAPTER XXIII

THE LAIR OF THE BAD MEN

"Hulloa, folks!" greeted Stacy thickly.

"Stacy!" cried Nora, running to him and throwing impulsive arms about the neck of her nephew.

Lieutenant Wingate drew Nora away and stood gazing down sternly at the munching Chunky. No one said a word, except Woo Smith, who hummed his "Hi-lee, hi-lo!"

"Where have you been?" finally demanded Hippy sternly.

"I--I've been up there," pointing to the side of the mountain, at the same time getting to his feet.

"Sit down! Now out with it. The whole story, sir!"

"I was mad with you. I--I--I thought it would be fun to fool you all. There wasn't anybody in sight, so I tipped over and--"

"Accidentally?" interrupted Hippy.

"No. On purpose. Then I shoved the canoe out and threw my hat into the water, climbed up the side of the mountain and watched you all hunting for me," chuckled Stacy. "You all had been so hard on me that I didn't care if I never came back."

"I don't understand how you could stand it to stay away at meal time," wondered Emma.

"Oh, that was all right. I had some biscuit, then I found some dried venison in a cache in a cave up there. Somebody had been there. It was fine food, I tell you, but all the time I kept my eyes on the camp. I didn't think you would go away and leave me, but I wasn't taking chances. It was lots of fun watching you folks searching for Stacy Brown's body, and I laughed when I saw Uncle Hip swimming out to look under the canoe. Say, you can swim some, can't you?"

Hippy bristled. Stacy's last words were the crowning ones. Lieutenant Wingate nodded to Tom.

"Come, Stacy. We wish you to go down by the lake with us. Fetch your paddle," directed Hippy.

"Wha--at are you going to do?" stammered the boy.

"We three are going paddling, my beloved nephew," answered Lieutenant Wingate.

"Don't be too hard on him," whispered Grace as the three were about to depart, Stacy going reluctantly, but not daring to offer further objections.

"Give me that paddle," ordered Hippy when they had reached a point well out of sight of the camp. "Stacy Brown, you have done about the most unforgivable thing that a boy could do. You led us to believe that you had been drowned; you have caused us much mental anguish, and it is no more than right that we 'transmigrate' a little of it to you. Lie down on your stomach!"

"I don't want to. Wha--at are you going to do?"

"I am going to paddle you, young man. Tom, how many do you think would be about right?"

"I should say that a paddle, one paddle, for each member of the Overland party would be about right," suggested Tom Gray. "There are six of us."

A moment more and Hippy Wingate was delivering the punishment, not too hard, but just enough so as to make his plump nephew writhe.

"Six! There!" announced Hippy.

"You forgot to give him one for Woo Smith," suggested Tom.

"You're right." Hippy remedied the oversight at once. "Get up! You made me swim in the cold lake, so I think I will give you a dose of the same medicine. I'm going to throw you in the lake."

"Oh, wow!" howled Chunky.

"No, no," protested Tom Gray. "Don't do that, Hippy. He might catch cold and be sick on our hands," grinned Tom.

"I'll be even with you for this, Uncle Hip," threatened Stacy.

"He hasn't had enough yet, Tom. Help me throw him in."

"Yes, I have. I've had enough. I'll never play such a trick on you again. It was a low-down trick to play. Next time I'll do it in some other way, but if you let me alone I'll let you alone."

"Don't make threats," warned Lieutenant Wingate.

"I can tell you something you want to know, too. I know something that you don't know," answered Stacy.

"First you had better come back to camp and apologize to the girls," suggested Tom.

Stacy went along, rather timidly at first; then, as the thought of what he had discovered occurred to him, he swelled out his chest and began to boast.

"Suppose you tell us what it is that you have discovered," suggested Grace after Tom had repeated to the girls what Stacy said.

"Yes. I'll tell you. When I was trying to get where you folks wouldn't see me, I dodged behind some bushes and discovered that I was right in front of an opening in the rocks. At first I thought it was a bear den. Then I stumbled against a big bear trap that closed with a crash, but it didn't frighten me at all. You see I am not a bear."

Emma said there might be a difference of opinion on that subject.

"I lighted a match and found a lantern, just like the train conductors use. I looked about and found myself in a cave. I found a lot of stuff there, including some boxes of crackers and venison, that was cached to keep it away from the bears if they got past the trap."

The Overlanders were keenly interested. Elfreda asked what else he had found in the cave.

"Mostly things to eat and to eat with. I didn't bother about much of anything else. I reckon maybe it was the bad men's cave that I discovered. When it comes to making discoveries I don't suppose there is a human being who can equal myself. The only thing that I can't lay claim to having discovered is Emma Dean."

"That is because your ideals and your instincts lack elevation," retorted Emma.

Tom and Hippy glanced at each other and nodded. Both were of the same mind with reference to Stacy's discovery. Perhaps there lay the real secret of the Aerial Lake.

"Let us go over and investigate," suggested Tom.

"I'm with you," agreed Hippy. "Stacy, you will please lead the way to this bandit retreat, or whatever it may be, but if you fool us again, it's the lake for yours."

All hands started for the cave, with Stacy Brown in the lead, full of importance. It was quite a rough climb to the scene of Stacy's discovery, and the boy took the worst course he could find to reach it, which the others of the party suspected ere they had gone far on their way.

"Look out for bear traps!" warned Chunky. "You know I haven't looked about much on the inside. There! Look at that, will you?" he demanded, parting the bushes and revealing a small dark opening in the rocks.

"You aren't going into that hole, are you?" cried Emma.

"I went in, didn't I?" returned Stacy. "I didn't have a crowd of women with me, though."

Hippy entered first, using his pocket lamp to light the way, followed by Stacy and Tom, then the others filed in, leaving Woo Smith on the outside to see that they were not surprised by the former occupants of the place.

Once inside, the Overlanders found that the roof of the cave was high enough to permit them to stand erect, but beyond them the darkness was so deep that they could not see the end of the hole in the mountain.

"Br-r-r! I'm afraid," cried Emma.

"That's because you aren't a man," answered Stacy. "Hulloa! There's some stuff that I didn't see."

"Pullman car blankets!" exclaimed Tom Gray. "This looks as if we had made a real discovery."

"You mean I have," corrected Stacy.

"Yes. It is plunder. No mistake about that," agreed Lieutenant Wingate. "Stacy, did you look around farther back in the cave?"

"No. I didn't have time."

"I think you were afraid of the dark," teased Elfreda.

"Stacy is afraid of nothing at all, you know, Elfreda," reminded Grace laughingly, whereupon Stacy's chest swelled perceptibly.

"I am not," he made reply.

A systematic search of all parts of the cave failed to reveal anything of great value, but they decided that it might be wise to remove some of the blankets as proof of what they had found.

"I know something else, too," spoke up Stacy Brown.

"Well?" demanded Hippy, eyeing Stacy suspiciously.

"The log is chained down."

"What log?" questioned Grace quickly.

"That log out in the lake," Stacy informed them. "It's funny that you folks haven't noticed that it has been in the same position ever since we got here. There's something queer about that log, too. I observed it the first time I walked along the shore, but it didn't make much of an impression on me at the moment, and--"

"I doubt if it would have done so if it had fallen on you," interposed Emma.

"Thank you. One would hardly notice the log at all unless the lake were quite rough, which would enable you to see the full length of the log when it was in a trough. I examined the log when I was out in the canoe, and there's something else about it that is queer."

The Overlanders with one accord started for the shore to look at the log.

"It's chained down," shouted Stacy.

"I believe the boy is right," exclaimed Elfreda Briggs.

"Where's that dugout?" called Hippy.

"I reckon it has gone around the bend," answered Emma.

"No. The wind is in the wrong direction," answered Tom. "I see it! There it is, at the upper end. It has drifted sideways to the beach."

"I am going to have a look at that log," cried Hippy, starting at a run for the dugout. Tom and his companions followed.

"Stacy, get the paddle," directed Tom.

The fat boy obeyed without protest, which was rather unusual for him.

"Me savvy plenty piecee fun," chattered Woo as they ran.

"If I am a prophet, you will be savvying something besides fun before we have done with this affair," observed Elfreda Briggs soberly. "This is only the beginning."

Stacy arrived with the paddle about the time that Hippy and Tom reached the dugout. The two men turned the boat over and shoved it out.

"You girls remain on shore," ordered Hippy. "The boat will not hold more and give us room to work. Stacy, you sit still. Don't you dare rock the boat."

The lake was still rough and Hippy found it hard work to handle the dugout, but after throwing off his coat and shifting his passengers to better balance the dugout, he made better headway, finally reaching the bobbing log.

"Stacy is right. The log is anchored," exclaimed Tom. "What can that mean?"

"We are going to find out right smart, Captain," answered Hippy. "Do you see? The thing is anchored with a chain about its middle, and from rings, bolted to the ends, ropes lead down into the lake. That must mean that something is at the other end of the ropes. Tom, you ballast the other end of the dugout while Stacy and I pull on the rope at this end. We will try not to upset you. For myself, I have had one ducking to-day and that is quite sufficient. Stacy has one coming to him. All right, Chunky, heave away."

They hauled on the rope with all the strength they dared exert, for to pull with too strong a hand meant a ducking in the cold waters of the lake.

Something came slowly to the surface.

"Oh, fudge! It's an anchor--it is a piece of iron," grumbled Stacy.

"Yes, but it isn't an anchor," answered Hippy excitedly.

"Boys, you have pulled up an iron box. Can you get it aboard?" cried Tom.

On the box, in yellow letters, was the name of a well-known express company. The box was securely locked, and apparently the lock had not been tampered with.

"We've made a find!" cried Stacy.

"Loot of some sort," agreed Tom. "That is a money chest, probably of the same sort that the Red Limited was carrying when the bandits attacked our train between Summit and Gardner. There is undoubtedly another one like it at my end of the log, but the question is what are we going to do with our find."

"What are we going to do with it? Why, we're going to open it, of course," declared Stacy. "If there is loot in it, findin's is keepin's so far as Stacy Brown is concerned."

Tom was of the opinion that they had no right to open the chest, but suggested that they take it and whatever else they might find, to a safe place and bury it, and then get word to the authorities.

"I believe you have the right thought," nodded Hippy, after a moment's reflection. "There can be no doubt that this is stolen property, not the least doubt in the world. Therefore we are not taking another man's property--we are trying to save stolen property. Come, Stacy, let's give it another haul, then try to lift it aboard."

"If I don't get any of the plunder, I don't haul," objected Chunky stubbornly.

"Pull! If you don't I'll throw you overboard," threatened Hippy savagely.

"I'll drop it if you do. I'll--"

A bullet snipped the water not a dozen yards from the dugout, followed by the report of a rifle.

"You're under fire! Look out!" shouted the voice of Grace Harlowe, shrill and piercing.

"Let 'em shoot!" retorted Hippy. "Tom, are you game to go through with it?"

"Yes."

"_Bang, bang, bang!_" Three bullets hit the water close at hand, sending up little spurts of white spray. Another bullet went through the top of Stacy Brown's hat.

"Wow!" howled Chunky. "You can get shot if you want to, but I don't."

"Buck up!" urged Lieutenant Wingate. "We'll have the thing aboard in a moment."

Another bullet sang past them, clipping a sliver from the side of the dugout. The sliver hit Stacy on his bare arm and drew blood.

"I'm hit! Good-night!" yelled Stacy, suddenly letting go of the rope and diving head first into the lake.

As Stacy let go of the rope and took his dive, the iron chest splashed and went to the bottom, causing the canoe to turn turtle. Lieutenant Wingate and Captain Gray were hurled into the icy waters of the Aerial Lake head first, with bullets spattering in the water all about them.