Part 17 (2/2)

”You boys stand over on the other side,” he requested, as he moved back to his tripod, ”and when I give the word you, Jimmie, touch off this flash.”

”What do you want a view of that corner for?” asked Jimmie. ”You are too close, anyway, to get a good picture.”

”I'm going to have a picture of every corner, and the middle, and the roof, and the chimney, and everything about the blooming place!”

Frank declared.

”Wait a minute!” Jimmie shouted. ”I'll hide in the pa.s.sage we went out of last night, and when you are ready to spring the print I'll look out, with a fierce expression on my pretty face. That will make the picture look like the real brigandish thing. What?”

”All right,” laughed Frank, ”get in there! It is only an excuse for getting your mug into dad's newspaper, but we'll let it go.”

Frank and Ned busied themselves for half an hour or more, taking pictures and looking over the implements used in the manufacture of spurious coin. At length, when they returned to the outer cave, they remembered that Jimmie had not returned from the west pa.s.sage to the workroom, and Ned went there to look for him. He was not there, nor was he in any of the niches or shallow openings in the rocky walls.

Ned called to him, but he did not reply. Then Frank came running into the pa.s.sage and joined in the hunt. In vain! Jimmie was nowhere to be found.

”Wherever he is,” Frank said, after a long search, ”he has his camera with him.”

”I didn't see him have one,” Ned replied. ”You must be mistaken.”

”It was the baby camera he had,” Frank explained. ”He carried it under his coat. The little monkey has doubtless gone off on a picture-making tour of his own.”

”That is just like him,” Ned agreed, ”so we'll go on about our business and let him present himself when he gets ready.”

”He seemed to take quite an interest in that child,” Frank suggested, ”and he may have gone on to the cabin.”

”We may as well go that way and thank the old lady for the hens Jack didn't make into a pie,” Ned observed. ”I'd like another look at that child myself.”

”Is it the prince, or is it Mike III.?” laughed Frank.

Ned smiled, but made no reply, They walked on down the slope and connected with the valley at the south end of the ridge. When they came to the cabin they found Mrs. Mary Brady sitting in the doorway, the child playing on the ground--beaten hard by years of wear--in front of her. She arose as they appeared, and the boy darted off into the fenced garden farther to the south, looking back with a grin from behind the stake-and-rider fence.

”Good day to you, young gentlemen,” the old lady said. ”I hope you pa.s.sed a pleasant night! The mountain air is good for those who seek sleep.”

Then it occurred to Ned that neither Bradley nor the child had referred in any way to the shooting of the night before, though, if at the cabin, they must have heard it. He regarded the old lady keenly as he said:

”Has any one seen anything of the outlaws to-day?”

”The outlaws?” repeated the other.

”You heard nothing in the night?” Ned asked.

”I thought I heard a gunshot now and then,” was the indifferent reply, ”but they are too common here to attract attention. Did the shooting disturb you?”

Ned did not believe the old lady had slept through the furious fusilades of shots of the night before. What her motive was in ignoring the matter he could not understand, but he decided to set himself right with her and also with her mountain friends by telling of the events of the night.

If they were to remain long in that section, it was quite necessary, he thought, that the natives should understand that the boys of the Camera Club were not there to spy on counterfeiters or the moons.h.i.+ners, if any there were in that region.

So he told her that the boys had blundered on the workroom of the counterfeiters, had been suspected of being spies sent by the government and seized, and finally had been released by strategy. He added that they were not there to molest the people of the district, whatever their occupation might be, but to take pictures and have a long vacation in the health-giving mountain air.

”And I hope you'll pa.s.s the word along,” he closed, ”so that your friends will not regard us as enemies. We are anxious to meet as many of them as possible, and to be on good terms with them.”

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