“Well, you don’t see anything that looks like a return signal, do you?” asked Ben. “They’ll take good care that we don’t see both ends of the conversation.”
“Look here,” proposed Jimmie, “why don’t we send Ben up in a machine to look over the landscape. The return signals may come from some point not to be seen from this end of the valley.”
“That’s the idea!” exclaimed Carl, understanding in a minute why his chum had suggested that Ben make the midnight flight.
“Not for me!” answered Ben. “I don’t care about going up into the sky refrigerator this time of night!”
“Then you go, Carl,” Jimmie said turning to the other.
“Not so you could notice it!” Carl declared.
“All right!” Jimmie said with an injured air. “I made one exhausting flight to-night and I suppose I could make another. We certainly ought to know whether those people are signaling to others in the mountains. Don’t you think so, Mr. Havens?” he added turning to the millionaire.
“It would enable us to understand the situation better,” was the reply.
“Then I’ll go,” Jimmie said, putting on an unwilling manner. “I’ll go up far enough to see what’s doing and come right back. While I’m gone you fellows get up a supper. It’s most daylight and we haven’t had anything to eat since last night.”
“You had only two suppers last night!” Ben laughed.
“I don’t care if I had nine,” Jimmie answered, “I’m hungry just the same, and when I come back from my little trip, I’ll be about famished!”
“I guess I’ll go with you,” suggested Carl.
“No, you don’t,” declared Jimmie, with a sly wink. “You wouldn’t go when I wanted you to, and now you can’t go with me!”
“Do you think they ought to go, Mr. Havens?” asked Ben.
“If they can go without getting into any scrape, yes!”
“But they’ll be sure to get into trouble,” Ben complained.
“Trouble yourself!” cried Jimmie. “I guess we can swing around this little old valley without it being necessary for you to send out a relief expedition! You act like I never saw a flying machine before!”
“Perhaps they’ll be good to-night,” Mr. Havens laughed.
The millionaire saw how set the boys were on taking the trip in the aeroplane. He rather suspected that Jimmie had mapped out the exact course to be pursued in getting permission, and laughed at the tact displayed by the little fellow. He remembered, however, the great risk the boy had taken in order to be of service to him that very night, and so decided in his favor.
“Do I go?” demanded Carl.
“Well, come along if you want to,” Jimmie answered, with apparent reluctance. “If you break your neck, don’t blame me!”
The boys passed out of the circle of light about the fire and drew the Louise out to level ground. Jimmie could hear his chum chuckling softly as they pushed and pulled together.
“Didn’t I tell you I could fix it up all right?” the boy asked.
“You’re the foxy little kid!” exclaimed Carl. “What are we going to do when we get up in the air?” he continued.
“We’re going to circle the valley,” Jimmie answered, “and see if we can catch sight of another camp-fire. Then we’re going to climb up until we can look over the ridges in this vicinity. If there is a collection of mail-order pirates anywhere in this country we want to know it to-night.”
“Then we want to put on lots of warm clothing,” Carl suggested, “and take automatics and searchlights with us.”
“Of course!” answered Jimmie. “We want to go prepared for zero weather. It’s always cold up on the top of the Continental Divide!”
“And that’s all you’re going to do?” asked Carl. “Just fly around the camp and locate the other camp-fires and then go to bed?”
“Well, of course,” Jimmie said hesitatingly, “if we find a camp that looks in any way suspicious, we ought to investigate it a little. We can’t get very close with the motors, you know, without attracting a whole lot of attention, so we may have to land and sneak up to find out what’s going on. We can’t learn much by sailing a thousand feet over a camp!”
“That’s just what I thought!” laughed Carl. “Just as quick as you get away in a machine you want to take a lot of risks that no one else would think of taking.”
Jimmie’s only reply was a confident chuckle, and the boys were soon in the air. As the pneumatic tires left the ground Ben waved them “Good-bye” and shouted for them to be careful if they couldn’t be good.
In ten minutes the Louise was over the camp-fire, which had been observed all night. Nothing was to be seen but the springing flames. There was no human being in sight.
“Well,” Jimmie said, as they circled the spot for the second time and darted away to the east, “we’ll have to light and creep up!”
CHAPTER VI.
THE LOSS OF THE LOUISE
“I’d like to see you find a place where you can land,” Carl shouted in his chum’s ear. “There’s nothing here but ridges and canyons, and rocks and rivers at the bottom!”
“Oh, we can find a place all right,” Jimmie answered.
It was some time before the boy found a spot which appeared to be in any way suitable for a landing. This was some distance to the east of the ridge which shut in the valley. The shelf he selected was rather high up, and that suited his purpose well, for, as he explained to Carl, they would have less mountain to climb in order to get a look into the camp.
The aeroplane landed with a bump which nearly threw the boys out of their seats, and when Jimmie sprang off and looked about he saw that one of the wheels was actually whirling round and round in the air, having passed off the rock. Below, five hundred feet down, the murmur of running water could be heard.
“Gee-whiz!” exclaimed Carl, when the position of the wheel was pointed out to him. “That was a close call! If the other wheel had run two feet farther, we’d have been dumped into the canyon.”
“But it didn’t run two feet farther!” Jimmie insisted. “I never saw any advantage in raising a mess of ifs,” he went on. “If the sun should drop down some night, the world would drop, too. But it doesn’t, so what’s the use?”
“What next?” asked Carl.
“You stay here and watch the machine and I’ll sneak over the ridge and crawl down to the camp. I’m curious to know why those fellows are showing those colored lights.”
“If you get too close to them, you may find out things that won’t do you any good.”
“Don’t croak!” advised Jimmie. “I’ll just go down there and see how many there are in the camp, and what they’re doing, and what they’re saying, and come right back!”
“I’ve got a picture of your doing that! Now look here,” Carl went on, “you want to remember that I’m staying here by this machine in zero weather, or worse, so you don’t want to go poking about until daylight. My fingers are frozen stiff now!”
“Run up and down and keep warm, little one!” laughed Jimmie.
Before Carl could reply the boy was off, scrambling up the rocky face of the slope which led to the summit. It was stinging cold, and the boy needed all the exercise he was getting in order to keep his blood in circulation. Although not on the main ridge of the Great Divide, the boy was pretty high up.
Before he came to a position from which the valley to the west