"That"s a pious notion, too?" laughed the outlaw. "Have you got a star, too?" he asked, stepping up to Cullen. "If you have, hand it over. I don"t think you"re fit to wear a police badge!"
Cullen handed his star over with a scowl, and the outlaw pa.s.sed it to Tommy. The boy put it in his pocket with a grin at the detective.
"Did you fellows have the nerve to come in here after us?" asked the robber.
"We came in after an escaped convict," was the reply.
"Did you get him?"
"Not yet, but we will get him."
"Well, I"d advise you both to go back home before the escaped convict comes up and steals your necktie. You"re not large enough to be out alone after dark."
"We"re going to take that escaped convict back with us," Katz boasted.
"We"ll get him if we stay here a year."
"We"ll give you two days to get him," grinned one of the outlaws. "We"ll turn you loose for two days. If you catch him in that time and get out, very well. If you don"t catch him in that time, you"ll get out anyhow.
You stiffs are attracting altogether too much attention to this part of the country. It"s getting so an honest train robber can"t get a good night"s sleep."
The outlaw pointed to the gulch below and motioned for the fellows to move along. They started but looked back pleadingly.
"Can"t we have our guns?" Katz asked.
"And our badges?" pleaded Cullen.
"No," replied the outlaw. "You might injure yourself with the guns, and the badges are no good anywhere outside of Chicago. If you don"t get out right now, we"ll handcuff you to a tree and let the bears feed on you.
You don"t look good to us anyway."
"Look-a-here," Tommy said to the two outlaws as the detectives disappeared down the gulch. "Do you know that every person in the state of Wyoming will be believing that we really belong to your crowd if this thing keeps up? We"re much obliged to you for bluffing the cowboys last night, and getting us out of the handcuffs just now, but you"re getting us into trouble just the same."
"Any time we get a chance to bluff an officer out of a captive, we"re going to do it!" laughed one of the outlaws. "We"re not asking you whether you like it or not. We"re pleasing ourselves in what we"re doing."
"And here"s another thing," the other outlaw said, with something like a scowl. "We"ve got the idea that you wouldn"t be doing as much for us as we"ve been doing for you. The men who came in here to hunt us down make their headquarters at your camp. If you go back to your friends now, you"ll tell them where you saw us, and describe everything that"s taken place. Therefore, we"re not going to let you go back to your camp right away. You"re going to be our guests for a time."
"What"s the good of that?" demanded Tommy.
"That"s our business," replied the outlaw.
"We"ll never mention you to our crowd," George added.
"Anyway," the outlaw insisted, "it"s safer for us to keep track of you two kids. I"d rather have a dozen Chicago sleuths after me than three or four husky little Boy Scouts."
"Say," Tommy asked with a grin, "do you remember those plays where a shrinking maiden would be in the center of the stage one minute and be grabbed by the villain the next, and be grabbed back by the hero in the next, and be grabbed back by the villain in the next, and be grabbed back by the hero for the final curtain?"
"I remember something like that," said the outlaw with a laugh.
"That"s us!" grinned Tommy. "That"s George and me! We"re here to be captured by cowboys, and b.u.m detectives, and bearded train robbers, and I don"t know what form our imprisonment will take next."
"When we get back to Chicago," George went on, whimsically, "we"re going to write up a story of our capture by two bold, bad men who gave their names as Red Mike of the Gulch and Daring Dan of the Devil"s Dip or something like that."
"Say," Tommy cut in, "when you called those names out of the darkness you certainly did have those detectives buffaloed!"
"You"re a pair of nervy kids, anyway," laughed the outlaw.
"Oh, this is all right," laughed Tommy. "This will be one more experience. We"ve been chased by smugglers over the Pictured Rocks of Lake Superior, and we"ve been chased by alligators in the Everglades of Florida, and now we"ve been geezled by the bold, bad men who held up the Union Pacific pay car."
"How do you know we did?" demanded one of the outlaws.
"That"s the dope that"s been coming to us right along."
"Well, come on," the other outlaw said rather impatiently. "We"ve got to get out of sight! We can"t expect to remain in the open in broad daylight without being seen by some one."
"Move along, boys," ordered the other.
"Where?" asked Tommy.
"Straight ahead."
"But where are you going to take us?"
"Oh, you"ll know all about that soon enough," was the reply. "We"ve got a place over here where we can keep our friends in seclusion."
"It seems the place keeps you in seclusion," grinned George. "You"ve been in here about as long as we have, and we"ve been captured numerous times and you"ve never been taken at all. But you"ll get it up your neck one of these days," he added.
"When we"re captured," one of the men said grimly, "it won"t be by a lot of tin-horn detectives from Chicago."
They all walked along for some distance, and then Tommy turned back and faced the two outlaws.
"If we"ve got far to go," he said, "I wish you"d stop in at some lunch counter and order something to eat. I haven"t had anything this morning only wind sandwiches. I came out to get a piece of that bear meat for breakfast, and I"m here yet."
"And I came out to hurry you up," George cut in, "and I"m here yet!"
"All right," laughed one of the outlaws, accepting the humor of the request. "If we run across a free lunch sign anywhere, well take the two of you in. We"re hungry ourselves."
"Have you got anything to eat in this secluded retreat of yours?" asked Tommy. "If you have, we"ll hurry up."
"Not a thing!" was the reply.
"Then we"ll walk slow!" declared George.
"Look here!" Tommy advised. "Why don"t you go back and get some of that bear steak. It"s only a little way back to the Cave of the Three Bears, and there"s enough meat there to last the four of us a week if we can only keep it from spoiling."
"That"s a bright idea," said one of the outlaws, stopping suddenly.
"Suppose we do go back and load up with fresh steak."
"I"m for it!" answered Tommy, rubbing his stomach.
They all walked back to the Cave of the Three Bears, and when they left each carried quite a load of fresh meat.