CHAPTER VI
SIGNALS IN THE CANYON
Jimmie and Teddy passed over the summit to the west of the camp andtook their way down a difficult incline toward the headwaters of theGreenbrier river. They traveled some distance, walking, sliding,creeping, before they came in sight of a copse which appeared to beworth looking over for wild game.
"I don't know about this wild turkey business," Teddy said, as theboys stood on an elevation lifting above the patch of timber. "IfI've got it right, wild turkeys are precious birds in West Virginia."
"I never once thought of that!" Jimmie exclaimed. "Why, we won't haveany fun hunting at all! I wonder if there is a closed season forcoons?"
Teddy took out a memorandum book and turned to an insert pasted onthe inside of the cover. Dropping to the ground, so as not to attractthe attention of any natives who might be near by, he read the slipby the aid of his electric searchlight.
"Open season for wild turkeys in West Virginia from October fifteento December one," he read. "Now, what do you know about that? Rotten,eh?"
"I guess we can get one to eat, all right," grumbled Jimmie. "Who'sgoing to know anything about it if we do, I'd like to know? Away offhere in the mountains!"
"I presume there are constables and justices up here who would beglad to soak us for fifty or a hundred apiece!" Teddy grinned. "Ireckon we'd better eat hens, and coon, and fresh fish--if we can getthem! And deer! We get no venison steaks!"
"Not this season!" Jimmie grunted. "They'd take great joy, as yousay, in getting us into jail and extracting all our vacation money!I'm going to take photographs of the West Virginia game laws. A manis about the only creature one can shoot down here during the summerand get away with it! I'll have Frank put that idea in his dad'snewspaper!"
"We've got enough to eat, anyway," laughed Teddy. "The questionbefore the house right now is how are we going to get down into thatpatch of trees?"
"The laws of gravity will take us down!" answered Jimmie. "Just stepoff this ledge and see if I'm not right. What do we want to go downthere for, anyway, if we can't shoot a wild turkey after we getthere? I'm going back to camp."
The night was falling fast, and stars were showing between masses ofclouds. The boys had traveled farther from the camp than they hadintended, and the return journey was all up hill. They surveyed theprospect gloomily.
"I could eat the top off one of the mountains!" Jimmie declared, asthey turned to make the climb. "I never was so hungry in my life.Wish we were back in camp!"
Teddy, who had turned to look down into the valley, now caught Jimmieby the arm and pointed downward, where a low-lying ridge jutted outof the general slope and made a small canyon between itself and thebody of the mountains, a canyon in which a trinkle of water showed.
"Do you see that column of smoke?" he asked, as Jimmie turned.
"There must be a camp there," Jimmie exclaimed. "I thought we wouldbe all alone up here for a time--until we got a line on the men whostole the prince."
"Wait a minute!" Teddy answered. "There! Now do you see two columnsof smoke?"
The two columns lifted skyward for only a second, then died down.
"That's the Boy Scout signal for help!" Jimmie commented. "I wonderwhat shut it off so quickly? It would be strange if we found BoyScouts here in the mountains--eh?"
"According to all reports," Teddy answered, "you boys found Scouts inall parts of the world, even in China and the Philippines! If it is aScout making that Indian sign for help, he'll get the smoke goingagain before long. There they are!"
The two columns of smoke were in the air again, ascending from thecanyon between the mountainside and the outcropping ridge. Directly agleam of fire was seen.
"That's the call for help, all right!" Jimmie cried. "What shall wedo about it?"
"We ought to go right there. The boy may have been injured in a fall,and may be starving! We ought to get there as soon as possible."
"Without going back to camp to tell the boys?" asked Jimmie. "We havebeen gone a long time now, remember. They will be worrying about uspretty soon."
"But we ought to go right now!" insisted Teddy. "The boy may be introuble."
"Something else coming!" cried Jimmie, then. "See that blazing stickworking overtime? He's going to talk in the Myer code! Now countright and left."
"There's one to the right!" Teddy said. "I've lost track of the codealready."
"No. 1 motion is to the right," Jimmie quoted from the wig-wag lessonhe had learned on first becoming a Boy Scout. "It should embrace anarc of ninety degrees, starting at the vertical and returning to itwithout pause, and should be made in a plane exactly at right anglesto the line connecting the two stations.
"And No. 2 motion is the same, only on the left side. And three isthe same, only the signal goes to the ground and comes back to thevertical! Now I've got it! Then he wig-wags again I'll tell you whathe says. You read, too, and see if we agree."
"One to the right!" cried Jimmie, "and two to the left!"
"That means H," Teddy translated. "What comes next?"
"No. 1 and then No. 2," replied Jimmie. "That's plain enough!"
"It stands for E," Teddy went on, "and I know what the next letterwill be, too."
"No. 2, No. 2, No, 1! I knew it! That is L. The other will be P!"
"No. 1, No. 2, No. 1, No. 2!" read Teddy, following the flight of theblazing stick as it moved through the darkness. "That's L, and theword is HELP!"
"And here we go to see about it!" Jimmie decided, moving down theslope. "The boy can't be very far off. I'd like to know how a BoyScout got lost out here."
"We may become lost ourselves," laughed Teddy, "if we don't look outwhere we are going. I wouldn't know where to head for if I wanted togo back to camp right now."
"All we would have to do would be to climb the mountain," Jimmiedeclared.
"There's more than one summit," persisted Teddy. "We'd better get aline on something to guide ourselves by when we go back."
"We came straight west," the other said, "and if we get lost the moonwill tell us which way to go--if it doesn't rise in the west downhere!"
The wig-wag code below was still in evidence, always repeating thesame word, "Help." The boys hesitated no longer, but went rattlingdown the slope at a speed which spoke well for their balancingpowers! As they entered the little canyon from the north, Jimmiehalted and settled back on a rock, his hand on Teddy's shoulder.
"Do you suppose he heard us coming down the slope?" he asked.
"He must have been deaf if he didn't," was the reply. "We broughtabout half the mountain down with us, it seemed to me. Of course heheard us."
"Well, we ought to have been more cautious," Jimmie declared.
"I guess we aren't likely to frighten him away," suggested Teddy.
"But this may be a frame-up," warned the other. "Look here! The peoplewho sent that spy to Jack's house knew the Boy Scouts were going outto look for the prince, didn't they? We have never seen or heardanything of them since that night, but there is good reasons forbelieving that they have had us under surveillance."
"And you think this may be a trap for us?" asked Teddy.
"It may be," was the reply. "If they wanted to trap us, they would goabout it in just about this way, if they were wise, wouldn't they?Sure they would."
"Then we'd better sneak up to that campfire and find out what isgoing on before we show ourselves," suggested Teddy. "We ought tohave come down here as softly as two flakes of snow? What? We'll knowbetter then to make so much noise next time!"
"There may be no next time," Jimmie advised, as they moved down thecanyon, in the middle of which ran a small stream of water, a rivuletconnecting with the Greenbrier river farther to the south and west.It was now quite dark, and they were obliged to feel every step oftheir way, for there were numerous crevices in the floor of thecanyon.
Pressing on, slowly, cautiously, their weapons within easy reach, theboys finally turned a little angle of rock and came within sight
of acamp-fire not far away.
"There!" Jimmie whispered. "I had a notion that we should find morethan one here. Why did the Scout wig-wag for help when there werethree husky men with him?"
Teddy opened his eyes wider, but attempted no solution of the puzzle.
"There's a little chap sitting alone by the fire," Jimmie went on,peering through his field-glass, "and there are three men gathered ina huddle on the other side of the fire. They all look like they werelistening for something."
"I don't wonder--the way we came down the slope!" The other grinned.
While the boys watched one of the men strode over to where the boywas sitting and, evidently, began questioning him. The watchers weretoo far away to hear any conversation between the two. Presently theboy sprang up and started to run.
In a moment the heavy hand of the man was on his shoulder and he wasdragged back to the fire and dumped down like a sack of grain. He layquite still for a moment.
"I'd like to know what that means!" Teddy whispered. "That's brutal!"
"That gives me faith in the boy!" exclaimed Jimmie.
"What's the answer to that?" demanded Teddy.
"They probably saw him doing the wig-wag!" was Jimmie's reply."They're threatening him."
"And they may have been beating him up for doing it? That may be."
"And, again," the other continued, "that may be a little rehearsalall for our benefit! There are men in the world sharp enough to putup just that kind of a bluff."
"That's very true," was the reply. "We've got to lie here until weknow what it all means. We can't go away and leave the little fellowwithout knowing more about the signals. Those men may be moonshiners.We might get a reward!"
"We'll be lucky if we don't get into jail!" Jimmie grunted. "If wedon't, we'll get into an infirmary for the hungry! If I have to lieon this rock much longer with nothing to eat I'll have to be carriedback on a stretcher!"
"You always were the brave little man with the knife and fork!"grinned Teddy.
The four figures by the fire remained in the old order for a longtime, the men grouped together, the boy alone on the side of theblaze next to the watchers.
"I wish I could get up to him?" Teddy said, as if requesting adviceon the question of a nearer approach to the boy. "I'd like to see ifit is the prince!"
"The prince isn't a Boy Scout!" declared Jimmie. "Besides, this boyis too old to be the prince! The prince is only seven years old--justa little baby."
"Anyway, I'm going to make a sneak up there," insisted Teddy.
Before Jimmie could stop him he was away, crawling on hands and kneesthrough the heavy shadows of the cliffs which lay about the camp-fire.Jimmie watched him anxiously for a moment and then started tofollow him. The two were not far away from the lad, and werethinking of doing something to attract his attention when a stonerolled into a crevice with a great bumping sound. The boys droppeddown on their faces and waited, their hearts beating like trip-hammersas the men around the fire sprang to their feet.
"What was that?" demanded a hoarse voice. "Who is out there?" headded, turning to the darkness beyond. "I'm going to shoot out thatway in a minute!"
"I like this!" whispered Jimmie. "This is some adventure! What?"
The Boy Scout Camera Club; Or, the Confession of a Photograph Page 6