"Do you think the paper was wrapped around the rock?" asked George.
"Of course it was!" replied Tommy. "You can see the folds now, and there"s the place where a a corner of the rock cut a hole!"
Will turned a searchlight on the paper, now held outstretched in Tommy"s hands, and burst into a laugh as he read the words written there:
"Nix on the help signal."
"The little rascal!" exclaimed Tommy, reading the sentence.
"He"s wise, that boy!" declared Sandy.
"He thinks we"re setting a trap for him," Will explained, "and I can"t say that I blame him much for sending just that kind of a message."
"Anyway," Tommy went on, "it shows that he isn"t far away. If he"ll only hover around within reaching distance, we"ll soon convince him that we don"t mean him or his father any harm."
"I wonder if he took any provisions with him when he ran away this time!" laughed George. "I really hope he did. That is, if they haven"t got any in their own camp."
The boys looked at the provisions which had been taken out for supper, and discovered that two loaves of bread and several tins of preserved meats had been taken.
"Good for him!" shouted Tommy.
After supper it was arranged that two of the boys should watch the camp until one o"clock, and then awake the others, who were to stand guard until morning. Tommy and Sandy were to take the first watch.
"I don"t think there"s much use of anyone standing guard!" exclaimed Will. "Our lovely burros over there will probably lift up their voices if any stranger comes nosing around in the dark."
"Anyhow," Tommy suggested, "we may be able to get sight of young Wagner if we keep watch all night."
Will and George were in bed by nine o"clock, and then Sandy and Tommy began planning the excursion into the hills which each one, independent of the other, had determined to make.
"Now it"s just this way," Tommy began, "wherever those fellows are, they have a fire. It"s September, but the nights are cold here, just the same. Now, you remain here and watch the camp and I"ll make my way to one of the summits to the north and take a peep over the country. If I see a campfire, and it isn"t too far away, I"ll sneak down and see whether it belongs to Wagner, to the cheap detectives, to the train robbers, or to the cowboy vigilantes."
"That"s quite a collection of interests to be a.s.sembled in one spot on the Great Divide!" laughed Sandy.
"Oh, we always get into some kind of a mess like this," grumbled Tommy.
"We could have a nice peaceful time catching Wagner if the detectives, and the train robbers, and the cowboys had remained away. I hope the cowboys will catch the robbers and lug them out, anyway!"
"I have an idea that the detectives will soon get tired of wandering around in the hills and meeting grizzly bears, and rattlesnakes, and wolverines every half hour."
"Grizzly bears!" exclaimed Tommy. "What are you talking about grizzly bears for?"
"There are more grizzly bears in Wyoming," declared Sandy, "than in all the other western states put together. The Bad Lands are full of them, and up in the Yellowstone National Park, they have them trained to eat with a knife and fork!"
"All right!" exclaimed Tommy. "I"ll take your word for it, but I don"t believe it! I know there are rattlesnakes, all right, but I don"t believe there"s a grizzly bear within a hundred miles of this spot!"
The words were hardly out of the boy"s mouth before a rumbling growl came to the ears of the watchers.
"There!" cried Tommy. "You"ve called the roll and that"s the first response. But I"ll bet he"s the only one around here!" the boy added.
Sandy laid a hand on his friend"s shoulder to invoke silence.
"Listen," he said, "that"s no bear!"
"Perhaps it"s a rattlesnake, then!" scorned Tommy.
"It"s a boy!" declared Sandy. "That"s what it is!"
Both lads darted into the darkness, waving electric searchlights as they advanced, and calling out in such words as a Boy Scout would be apt to understand. They ran for some distance, until they fell over a bit of rocky ground, and then stood looking toward a point in the darkness from which a sound of footsteps came.
"You go on back to camp," whispered Tommy to Sandy, "and make all the noise you can going, and talk to yourself, so he"ll think we"re talking together. I"ll put out my light and follow that chump by the noise he makes. I guess I can do it all right!"
"Aw, let"s both go," pleaded Sandy.
"One"s got to go back to camp to put him off his guard!" insisted Tommy, "Run along, like a good little boy, now," he added with a grin.
Sandy departed, talking to himself, and trying his best to make noise enough for two boys, while Tommy turned off his light and crept forward in the darkness in the direction of the sounds he had heard.
For a time he seemed to gain on the person who was making his way some hundred yards or more ahead of him, but at last, try as he might, the sound of footsteps gradually died away, and there were only the sounds of the night in the boy"s ears.
He paused, after a time, and threw himself down on the rocky slope. The campfire seemed to be a long distance away, now, and the boy had just decided to give over his search at that time and return to the camp.
When he started to rise, however, he found a heavy hand pressed down on either shoulder. His amazement was so great that for a moment he sat perfectly still.
But there were cowboy vigilantes, train robbers, and detectives somewhere in the hills, so the boy was not quite so sure of the personality of the other as he had been at the first instant of contact.
"Well?" he said in a moment.
"Who are you?" came the question, not in the voice of a boy, but in the gruff tones of a man who was taking no pains to make a good impression.
"A boy from the camp down yonder," Tommy answered.
The boy was thinking fast. This might be one of the detectives, or it might be one of the train robbers, or it might be one of the cowboys, or it might be the escaped convict himself.
"What are you boys camping there for?" was asked.
"Vacation!" was the reply.
"Which way did the cowboys go?" was the next question.
Tommy needed no further introduction to the man who was clinging to his shoulders with a grip that was positively painful. No one but the train robbers would be apt to be interested in the direction taken by the cowboys. Tommy declares to this day that he felt the hair rising straight up on his head when he realized that he was talking with one of the hold-up men. He also says that his teeth chattered with fright.
"The last we heard of the cowboys," he answered, "they were going straight north. I thought you went that way, too," he added.
"We couldn"t get too far away from our base of supplies," replied the other with a cynical laugh. "We were just thinking of going back to your camp for a square meal when we heard you blundering up the slope. You"ll have to feed us for a few days, young fellow!"
CHAPTER V