Part 14 (2/2)

Then they stopped and looked back.

The outlaws came into sight, in a minute, making for their cave. They fired an occasional shot as they retreated, and this fact convinced the boys that Frank had not been wounded by any of the shots which had been fired at him.

”We'll quicken their steps a trifle!” Ned said. ”You boys go on up to the next shelf and I'll fire from here. They may charge us, and if they do I can cover your retreat. Besides, you will have a longer start.”

”I'm going to stay right here and shoot, too!” Jimmie declared.

”Those men have several b.u.mps coming from me!”

”Ain't he the great little gunman?” snickered Teddy.

”But I need you up there with the others to protect my retreat,”

urged Ned, so Jimmie unwillingly toiled up the acclivity. They came to a shelf perhaps three hundred feet beyond Ned's stand and crouched down.

Ned's fire, when it came, had the effect of sending the outlaws on a run toward their cave, so the boy joined the others without facing a return fire.

”They'll be out again when they see what's been going on at the cave!” Jimmie predicted, but the prophecy was not a good one, for no figures were seen in the canyon after that, and no more shots were fired from that direction.

”I know what the bogus money-makers will do now,” Jimmie snickered.

”They'll pack up their tools and vanis.h.!.+ They'll be thinking the whole Secret Service bunch is after them!”

”That's just the trouble,” Ned said. ”I'm afraid the mountaineers will also think we are Secret Service operatives and spies and make trouble for us.”

”We'll have to get busy with our cameras, then,” Jimmie went on, ”and take pictures of everything in sight. We may be believed if we tell the truth, that we blundered on their cave and they attacked us. I wonder why Frank doesn't show up? He may have been killed or wounded!”

”If he has been hurt,” Teddy observed, as the sound of hoofs came From the south, ”Uncle Ike hasn't, for here he comes, ugly as ever.”

Believing that Frank was indeed approaching, the boys fired a number of shots to direct his course and waited. The hoofbeats, the labored breathing of the mule, became more distinct directly, and then Frank came into sight.

The greeting he received was a warm one, and Uncle Ike was petted and permitted to search every pocket for sugar!

”I don't see how you escaped being hit,” Ned observed. ”The outlaws fired enough shots to cripple an army.”

”They never saw me,” declared Frank. ”I kept behind ridges and outcropping rocks, and in the shadows. They were afraid to come too close, for they must have thought a dozen men were attacking them.

Whenever I fired I changed my position, and when Uncle Ike yelled I hustled him along! I reckon a good many of the shots you heard came from my gun! When you began shooting that settled it! They will be fifty miles from here by tomorrow noon!”

”That's likely, for they won't dare remain here after they have been caught at their work,” Ned admitted. ”Moons.h.i.+ners might remain and fight, but counterfeiters will get away right soon. I take it they don't belong to this section anyway.”

On the way to the camp, during the brief rests, Jimmie explained how they had been surprised while in the outer cave and had been taken inside and tied up. The boy Dode was overjoyed at his escape from the gang, and explained that they had captured him not far from Was.h.i.+ngton and forced him to accompany them, the idea being to use him in the future in getting rid of the spurious coins.

”They are making a lot of it,” he declared, ”and the country will be flooded with their work if the government doesn't catch them.”

It may be well to state here that the reasoning of the boys with regard to the future actions of the outlaws was correct, as they disappeared from that section that night. When the lads visited the cave later on some of the counterfeit coin which had been made was still scattered about the subterranean room.

When they first reached the camp Jack was not in sight, but he soon appeared, coming from a hiding place near the summit.

”I thought I'd better not expose myself by remaining in the tent,” he explained, ”so ducked away and hid where I could watch the mules and the provisions without being seen. I had about made up my mind that the state militia had been called out, you made such a racket!”

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