"I guess some one"s moved in!" the boy mused.
He went into the alcove and examined the embers of the fire. It had been built of dry pine and spruce boughs and had evidently burned brightly an hour before.
"Now I wonder," the boy puzzled, "whether Wagner isn"t hiding some where in the cave. It doesn"t seem to me that any one else would take possession of the blooming old flat."
Resolved to return to the cavern later, the lad hastened outside and moved toward the south. He was not exactly certain of the location of the cavern where the fight with the bears had taken place, but he had no doubt that he could find it by peering into every opening he came to.
He had proceeded but a short distance when the face of Katz peered out at him from one of the minor caves. Cullen, the fellow"s a.s.sociate stood not far away with his cruel mouth stretched into a sardonic grin.
"Where are you going, boy?" Katz asked.
Tommy hesitated a moment and a twinkle of humor came into his eyes as he answered the gruff question of the detective.
"I"m looking after the train robbers you chased up last night."
The two men scowled angrily and drew nearer to the lad.
"I don"t believe you told the truth about that train robber!" Katz said.
"I was right on the ground and I saw no one."
"You beat him to it!" laughed Tommy. "You went one way and he went the other! You"re both good runners, I guess, for you never came within a mile of each other," he added.
"None of your impudence, now!" snarled Katz.
"I think we ought to take this boy in out of the wet," suggested Cullen.
"He"s too fresh, anyway."
"You"d better confine your attentions to the train robbers, or the man you came in here to find," suggested Tommy.
"I don"t believe there are any train robbers here!" declared Katz.
"Perhaps not," answered Tommy, "but about half the officers of Fremont and Sweet.w.a.ter counties are loafing around these hills! Besides," he added, "I got a look at the train robbers last night."
The two detectives glanced at each other apprehensively.
"Was there a train robber at your camp last night?" asked Katz.
"Sure there was!"
"Is your camp headquarters for outlaws?"
"Not that I know of," replied Tommy, angrily.
"Don"t you know that the boy who stole my property at your camp is connected with an escaped convict?"
"I don"t know anything about the boy," declared Tommy, not telling the truth exactly. "He looks all right to me!"
"Do you know what I think?" Cullen demanded. "I think you boys came in here to set up a base of supplies for outlaws!"
"Aw, you don"t know what you"re talking about!" exclaimed Tommy.
"If you"re not mixed up with this escaped convict," Katz demanded, "what are you doing here?"
"Early this morning," Cullen went on, "we found the cave where Wagner and his son had been living. That"s it back there. The one you entered and looked over so carefully. Did you expect to find Wagner there?"
"Did you build a fire in there?" asked Tommy.
The detectives shook their heads.
"Did you take a big piece of bear meat in there?"
"We certainly did not!"
Here was another puzzler for Tommy. Who had built the fire in the cavern? Who had taken the bear meat there? The cowboys were not in that vicinity at the time the fire must have been built. The detectives declared that they had not built the fire, or carried in the meat.
"Did you find a fire burning in the cavern?" asked Katz.
Tommy nodded.
"And fresh meat there, too?"
Another nod from the boy.
"What do you make of it, Cullen?" asked Katz, turning to his companion.
Cullen shook his head, and a thought which brought a smile to his freckled face crept into Tommy"s mischievous cranium.
"I"ll tell you what I think," he said. "We were in this gulch last night, and saw the train robbers. They were on the summit, not far from the Wagner flat, as we ought to call it. If anybody has been living in that cave this morning, it"s the train robbers. Say," he went on, with the idea of giving the detectives a good scare, "those train robbers are the fiercest fellows I ever saw. We saw "em hold up six armed cowboys last night!"
The two detectives looked at each other apprehensively.
"If they should see you standing here," Tommy went on, "and were wise to the fact that you are Chicago detectives, they"d pump in the lead until your heads looked like a pound of Swiss cheese."
"You seem to know quite a lot about those train robbers, lad!"
"He knows too much," Cullen declared. "We"ll just take him along with us and hold him for a few hours!"
"If you do, you"ll get in trouble!" declared Tommy.
"No threats, now!" cried Katz.
"I"m not making any threats," declared Tommy who really was rather anxious to have the detectives take him away to their camp. "I think you"re a couple of cheap skates, anyway, and I don"t believe you"re Chicago detectives. I live in Chicago myself, and I never saw b.u.ms like you on the force of plain clothes men."
The taunting words did exactly what Tommy had expected them to do. Katz seized him viciously by the arm and started away down the valley. The boy was perfectly willing to accompany the detective, for he believed that by doing so he might find out what steps they were taking for the capture of the escaped convict, but he pretended to feel great indignation as he was hurried along over the rough ground.
As the three moved away George swung up the slope on the other side and came into view on the summit. The boy had cut a white pine climbing staff from which the small boughs had not been trimmed away, and Tommy saw that he was using this as a wig-wag flag. It was plain to the boy that George thoroughly understood the situation below.
The detectives growled out several vicious oaths as they saw the boy swinging his staff from the summit. They whispered together for a moment, and then Katz, leaving Tommy threatened by Cullen"s revolver, moved toward the summit and the signaling boy.