“Then they didn’t notice the other fellow very particularly, did they?”
“No, in fact, except for his dazed and dejected manner and his odd dress they probably wouldn’t have noticed the young man particularly. But why are you asking these questions,” Mr. Havens answered with a laugh. “Are you boys going to solve, off-hand, a mystery over which Washington detectives have been puzzling for many weeks?”
“No,” Ben answered, “but I know when Colleton left his room.”
CHAPTER V.
A MIDNIGHT FLIGHT
“Then you know more about the case than the detectives at Washington!” smiled Mr. Havens. “When do you think he left his room?”
“I don’t think, I know!”
“Well, get it out of your system!” exclaimed Jimmie.
“He left his room,” Ben chuckled, “about one second before those two men appeared in the corridor outside his door!”
“I suppose you happened to be coming out of another office, just across the corridor, and happened to see him coming out, didn’t you?” jeered Carl. “You always were the wise little boy!”
“Now, look here,” Ben said, more seriously, “me for the Brainy Bowers act in this little play. In time the truth of the matter will be known, and when that time comes you just remember your Uncle Dudley’s forecast.”
“You haven’t made any forecast yet!”
“I’ll make a guess then,” Ben answered. “I’ll just call it a guess. I’ll guess that Colleton came out of his room with the big man, and that he was doped stiff, and that he had the proofs in his inside pocket, and that the big man got him away under the eyes of a dozen clerks, and probably passed a score of detectives before he got out of the building.”
“But look here,” Mr. Havens began.
“Please, Mr. Havens,” Jimmie broke in, “don’t wake him up. Let him go on dreaming! He’ll feel all the better for it in the morning!”
“I don’t care what you say!” Ben argued. “The big man took Colleton out of his room. If you want to know whom to look for in this case, just you look for the big man. And if you want to get a sure case against him, find some one of the clerks who can identify him as the man who stood at Colleton’s door that afternoon.”
“I half believe you are right!” Havens declared.
“It listens good to me,” Jimmie agreed.
“I want to withdraw everything I said against the theory,” Carl cut in.
“Look here!” Ben said rather excitedly. “Those fellows who claimed to be mounted policemen are both big men, and they both wear full beards. Now it seems to me that the man who took Colleton out of his office would be the man to keep him under duress until the excitement of the case dies down.”
“For the love of Mike!” Jimmie exclaimed. “Don’t go to materializing the man with the alfalfa on his face right here in the mountains.”
“That’s the man we’re looking for,” suggested Ben.
“Well, let’s don’t find him until we’ve had a little more fun flying over British Columbia!”
“Say, Mr. Havens,” Ben proposed. “You ought to send word to Washington to have one or two of the most intelligent of those clerks sent out here. When we get the man with the full beard we’ll want some one to tell us whether we’re right or not.”
“I’ll do that the first time I reach a telegraph office,” the aviator replied. “That ought to have been thought of long ago.”
“It strikes me that you won’t get to a telegraph office very soon!” laughed Jimmie. “You’ll have a mess of feet that look like bread dough by morning! Those porcupine quills often poison as well as wound.”
“Well, you boys can send the message then,” returned Mr. Havens.
“And you can watch camp!” laughed Carl.
“I’m afraid that’s what I’ll have to do.”
“What has been done with the case against the Kuro company?” Ben asked after a short silence.
“Still pending in the courts. Of course, the government can’t proceed to trial in the absence of inspector Colleton.”
“Then if Colleton should be murdered, the case might never be tried?”
“It certainly never would be tried!”
“Then we’ve got to get a move on!” cried Jimmie. “If these fellows know that special effort is being made to locate him, they won’t take any chances. The nearer we get to Colleton, the nearer he will be to his death. At least that’s the way I look at it.”
“That’s the way it looks to me, too,” Ben agreed.
Carl now caught Jimmie by the arm and pointed to the fire burning on the mountain to the north.
“It burns green now,” he said.
While they looked the flame turned red again.
“I wouldn’t mind going over there to-night!” Jimmie declared.
“Then let’s go,” advised Carl.
“Huh! I didn’t say anything about your going!”
“You know very well you always have to have me with you,” Carl chuckled. “You get into trouble when you go alone.”
“Here,” Ben called from the tent where Mr. Havens lay, “what are you boys planning now? No one leaves the camp to-night, understand!”
“Of course not,” grinned Jimmie.
“I should say not!” echoed Carl.
“Now, this is on the level,” Ben argued. “If you boys are planning anything for to-night, you want to quit it, right now! If those fellows around that other fire are watching us, you couldn’t do a thing that would please them more than to wander off in the darkness.”
“Who said anything about wandering off in the darkness?” demanded Jimmie. “You’re always seeing things that are not present.”
“Anyway,” Carl said with a yawn, “it’s time we were all in bed!”
“I’ll watch to-night,” Ben proposed, with a significant glance in the direction of the aviator.
“And look here,” Jimmie suggested, “suppose you keep a record of the changes of color over on the mountain. I believe those people are saying something with those green and red lights!”
“All right,” Ben replied, “I’ll do that.”
“I don’t suppose I’ll sleep very much to-night, anyway,” Mr. Havens said, after a pause, “so you may as well go to bed, every one of you, and I’ll wake you if anything unusual occurs.”
“I think I’d better keep awake,” Ben insisted.
Jimmie and Carl stepped to one side, ostensibly in search of dry pine for use during the night, but really to discuss this unexpected opposition to the excursion they had planned.
“We can’t go if they make such a noise about it!” Carl complained.
“Sure we can!” returned Jimmie.
“I don’t know how!” Carl grumbled.
“I can fix up a scheme to get away in the machine with the advice and consent of the multitude,” laughed the other.
“In your mind!” returned Carl.
“Watch me!” advised Jimmie.
The boys went back to the camp-fire and stood for some moments watching the changing lights on the mountain.
“I’d like to know if some