CHAPTER XXII.

THE DOG IN THE CAVERN.

When Ben returned with DuBois, Mr. Havens regarded the Englishman quizzically for a moment before speaking.

“I didn’t expect you to return at this time,” he said.

“I couldn’t have kept him away with a cannon,” Ben cut in. “You see,” the boy continued, “when we got to Field, I had to get a whole lot of folks out of bed. The clatter of the motors had already awakened about half the town, and I had to wake up the rest.”

“I don’t see why!” said Mr. Havens.

“Well,” Ben explained, “I had to wake up the express agent to get the hand-bag nailed up in a peach of a hard wood box, and locked up in his safe. Then I had to wake up a couple of men to induce the telegraph operator to come to his office. He said he wanted to sleep.”

“Why didn’t you let him sleep?” asked Mr. Havens.

“I did let him sleep, after I kicked his window in, until I got the two husky men from a miners’ camp to pull him out of bed.”

“You must have made quite a sensation in that little burg.”

“Don’t you know,” cut in the Englishman, “I never felt so conspicuous in all me life.”

“We were conspicuous, all right!” laughed Ben. “Well,” he continued, “the operator bucked on working the wire after we got into the office, but after DuBois held a private conversation with him in the corner he set to work like he enjoyed being waked up nights.”

“How much did you give him, Mr. DuBois?” asked Jimmie.

The Englishman made no reply, and Mr. Havens went on with his questions.

“Why did you want to get him to the telegraph office?”

“Well,” began Ben, “you remember when we were talking about the disguise, the dickey, the sporty coat and false beard and all that? This little Jimmie had the nerve to say that the abductor buffaloed Colleton into opening the safe and taking out the papers.”

“And I’ll stick to that, too!” declared Jimmie.

“And the rascal said, too,” Ben went on, “that when Colleton opened the safe, the brigand shut the discarded clothing into it!”

“And I’ll stand by that, too!” declared Jimmie. “They searched the room, didn’t they? They didn’t find the articles of clothing, did they? Well, then, they must have been put in the safe!”

“That’s a poor deduction!” declared Ben.

“Well, you go on and tell what you telegraphed to Washington about,” Jimmie insisted. “Tell the truth, now!”

“I didn’t say I telegraphed to Washington,” Ben insisted.

“But you did, though, didn’t you?”

“Look here,” Ben exclaimed. “If you’re going to tell this story, you just go right ahead and tell it. You’re always butting in!”

“All right!” grinned Jimmie with a wink at Mr. Havens. “I can go ahead and tell it. I know what you telegraphed to Washington for, and I know what you found out!”

“Go on and tell it, then!”

“You telegraphed to Washington in Mr. Havens’ name, and asked if there were any new developments in the Colleton case.”

“That’s right,” admitted Ben.

“The people at Washington had to get some one out of bed, and the person they got out of bed had to find out whether you were alive or dead, and whether they had a right to tell you what you wanted to know, and unwind a lot of red tape, and then you got the information you sought!”

“What’s the use of sparring for wind?” demanded Ben. “Why don’t you go on and tell about it?”

“You just wait until I turn over another leaf of my dream-book and I’ll tell you all about it. That is, I could tell you all about it if I wanted to, but I ain’t going to.”

Ben was shaking with laughter and the sober-faced Englishman was actually smiling.

“If I wanted to,” continued Jimmie, “I could tell you that the man at Washington wired that the safe in Colleton’s office had at last been opened by an expert. I could also tell you that he admitted that the coat and hat of the post-office inspector were found in the safe. I could also tell you that there began to be a faint suspicion in Washington that Colleton had walked out of his office with the man in brown and had been carried out of the city in the private stateroom of a Pullman-car. But look here,” the boy continued with a very annoying grin, “you’ve been making so much fun of my dream-book lately that I’m not going to tell you a thing about it!”

“Is that the correct story, Mr. DuBois?” asked Havens.

“That comes very near to being the correct story, don’t you know!” the Englishman replied.

“Is it?” demanded Jimmie, fairly dancing up and down.

“That’s the story they told,” Ben admitted.

“Say,” Jimmie shouted, “when I get back to New York, I’m going to open an office for the purpose of disclosing the future, and I’m going to write a new dream-book, and guarantee all the dreams on an extra payment of five dollars per!”

“Look here, kid,” demanded Ben, “how the dickens did you ever dream this all out?”

“No dream about it!” argued Jimmie. “Colleton had to get out of his room, and he couldn’t go up through the ceiling or down through the floor. He had to pass out of the door. Anybody with the sense of geese ought to know that the two men seen in the corridor had just passed out of Colleton’s room. It’s the only solution there is to the mystery!”

“Oh, it all looks easy now as soon as we get as far as the hindsight!” said Ben.

“Well,” Jimmie laughed, “I’ve done a lot of guessing in this case, and I’m glad I guessed one proposition correctly. I was just certain that Colleton’s clothing would be found in the safe, but still I was a little leary when Ben came back with his story that he had been using the wire. You see, I understood without his saying so that he’d been talking with Washington.”

“Well,” Mr. Havens said after a moment’s thought, “we’ve got the papers, and we’ve got the disguise, but we haven’t got Colleton. In fact, we’re no nearer getting hold of him than we were the first day we took the case!”

“Don’t you ever think that!” declared Jimmie. “We’ve connected Colleton with a number of people who might have had a hand in his abduction. If this work hasn’t brought us to the man himself, it has put us in position to find out where he is.”

“But the man who actually took the inspector from his office is dead!” Mr. Havens argued. “We can’t bring the dead to life, and it may be that no other person on earth knew of the personality of the men back of the whole plot.”

“What’s the matter with this Neil Howell?” asked Jimmie.

“That is only a faint clue!” declared Mr. Havens.

“Anyway,” insisted Jimmie, “we’re on the right track, and I’m tickled to think that we struck British Columbia!”

“I wonder if Carl is?” asked Ben with a sudden drawing down of his face. “I hope the boy will soon show up!”

“They won’t permit him to leave their camp, don’t you know,” the Englishman interposed, “until they find out more about the exact situation of affairs. The decent fellows in the camp won’t stand for his being abused, but he won’t be permitted to depart.”

“Aw, what right have they got to go and tie a chum of ours up?” demanded Jimmie. “They’re a lot of fresh guys anyway, and they called me a lot of names just because they couldn’t get their hands on the machine. I wish I’d ’a’ had a hot water hose. I’d ’a’ cooked their skins good and plenty! They’re too fresh!”

“Second the motion!” cried Ben. “Why ain’t we on our way to Carl instead of loafing before this fire?”

“We’ll be on our way there quick enough if Carl doesn’t show up pretty soon!” declared Jimmie.

Crooked Terry, who had been sleeping behind one of the tents, now came staggering up to the fire and stood weaving back and forth as if he had some unpleasant communication.

“Look here, you fellows,” he said in a moment, speaking in the husky tone common to tipplers, “I forgot something! I’ve got to go back to the cavern!”

“You might have brought another bottle with you, then,” laughed Jimmie.

Terry meandered deliberately to the rear of the tent and returned in a moment with two full bottles of liquor, which he held out to the boys with a sly wink.

“I don’t want to go back after whiskey!” he said. “I’m stinting myself to a bottle a day for two days. I’m going to swear off! I never got into trouble when I was sober. The minute I get drunk I go and do the very thing I ought not to do. Therefore, I’m going to swear off!”

“Going to keep sober, are you?” asked Jimmie.

“You know it!”

“I’ve got a picture of your keeping sober!” Ben laughed.

“You don’t know what you’ve talking about, kid!” Terry continued. “It’s easy enough to keep sober if you can get sober to start with. It won’t be any trouble for me to keep on the water wagon after I get the booze out of my system!”

“You haven’t told us what you’ve got to go back to the cavern for,” Mr. Havens reminded him.

“Well,” Terry began, dropping his glance to the ground, “the fact of the matter is that I left a—a—a—dog fastened up in a hole in the wall back there, and he’ll starve to death if I don’t go back.”

“What’d you go and do that for?” demanded Jimmie. “Why didn’t you let him out before you came away?”

“When we came away,” Terry replied with a ferocious wink, “we wasn’t thinking about dogs packed away in holes in the walls! I was fuller than a goat, anyway, and I wouldn’t have thought of—of—this dog if I’d been walking away under a peaceful summer sky with no danger in sight.”

“Perhaps the fellows we left on the shelf will find the dog and feed him,” suggested Mr. Havens.

“No, they won’t find him!” declared Terry. “When I hide a dog, they don’t everybody come along and find him!”

“If you fellows’ll fix up a nice breakfast for the dog and take me up in the machine, I’ll go and feed him!”

“What should you say this imprisoned animal would like for breakfast?” asked Jimmie.

“Well,” Terry went on with another elaborate wink, “I have an idea this dog would like some broiled ham, and some fried eggs, and some German potatoes, and some bread and butter, and a quart or two of coffee. You see,” he went on, “this dog didn’t have any supper last night, on account of my getting a skate on, and he hasn’t had any breakfast this morning because I eloped from the whiskey den last night, and he’ll be pretty hungry.”

Jimmie caught the crook by the arm and led him away to the other side of the fire, winking in the direction of the others as he did so.

“Tell it to me!” the boy said.

“All right!” Terry remarked. “Tell me what to tell to you!”

“Tell me who’s hidden in the cavern!”

“There’s a dog hidden in the cavern.”

“Only a dog?” demanded the boy.

“A dog,” repeated Terry. “I said a dog!”

“If we go with you with the breakfast in the machine,” Jimmie asked, “will you tell us all about how the dog came to be hidden in the cavern and who helped hide him there?”

“It ain’t no secret about hiding the dog!” replied Terry.

“Just the same,” Jimmie replied, “I’ve got a hunch that no dog is due for such a breakfast as you’ve ordered.”