“Did Mr. Bosworth ever say anything to you about a set of documents he wished us to bring to light?”
“His purpose in sending you, then, was to secure, by means of our help, proof connecting a corporation he is fighting with unlawful acts which have been or may be committed in this section?”
“That is exactly the idea!” answered Gilroy.
“Come on,” Jimmie shouted, “let’s get back to camp. I begin to feel hungry already. Perhaps the boys have returned.”
Before Gilroy would move out of the forest he insisted on pinning up certain rents in his clothing and combing out his mussed up hair with his fingers. There were also numerous scratches on his face, caused by contact with the rough branches of the tree, and these he thought necessary to nurse carefully with his handkerchief.
“Oh my!” laughed Jimmie, as the fat confidential clerk struggled under difficulties to make himself more presentable. “If you think you’re in a muss, just look at this beautiful new khaki uniform I put on only a day or two ago! It’s a peach, ain’t it?”
“It certainly is in a mess,” admitted Gilroy.
“Of course,” grinned Jimmie. “I fell down a chute, and rolled into the basement of a mountain, and climbed up a smutty chimney, and fell into a secret passage and had all kinds of sport! Ned and I have had a glorious morning. You should have been with us.”
The confidential clerk frowned slightly, but made no reply.
When the boys reached the camp, after giving a great deal of mental and physical assistance to the clerk, they found it just as they had left it. The boys had not returned.
“Now, what kind of blockheads do you think they are to go away and leave the camp like this?” Jimmie asked.
The boy did not know, of course, that his own signal, shown from the granite rock, had led to their departure, and also to their subsequent encounter with the half-breeds.
“We don’t know why they left,” Ned answered, “but we must suppose that they had some good reason for doing so.”
“Do I understand,” Gilroy asked, “that something has happened to your companions?”
“All we know about it is that they’re not here,” replied Jimmie.
“There are altogether too many bears in this forest,” suggested Gilroy. “The lads may have encountered some of them.”