“I don’t think Nestor will attempt anything of the kind,” replied Jack, “and I think that you are a great big bluff!”
When, at last, Ned and Jimmie, still watching about for hostile forces, came to the barricaded camp, the fire had burned down and no one was in sight. Ned regarded the wall of rock with a smile.
“I’m afraid it wouldn’t do much good in case of an attack,” Ned suggested. “We’d soon get hungry and thirsty and have to surrender.”
“Anyway, it’s an all right thing to shoot from!” Jimmie announced. “If you’d seen the way we sweat rolling those rocks, you’d think it was all right, anyway. I wonder where the boys are.”
“I was thinking more about the boys than about the barricade,” Ned admitted. “Were they all here when you left?”
“All sitting in front of the entrance,” Jimmie replied, “except Gilroy, and he was asleep on a pile of blankets in the cave.”
“He may be there yet,” suggested Ned. “Suppose we go and see.”
Jimmie made his way through the narrow entrance, found a searchlight, and turned a round circle of flame on a great heap of blankets in a back corner. There was no one in the cave at all save only himself.
Before returning to report to Ned, the hungry boy seized a plate of corn pones and a can of tinned beans from the provision chest.
“Look here, Ned,” he said in a moment, appearing before his chum with his mouth full of beans, “the appetite of our midnight visitor seems to be for confidential clerks as well as for bread. Someone has stolen Gilroy! Anyway, he’s not in the cave!”
“He may have gone away with the boys,” suggested Ned.
“He wasn’t thinking of going away with the boys when I left,” Jimmie answered. “He was telling how much he liked New York, and how he’d like to pound his ear for about three days and nights.”
“Anyway,” Ned decided, “we’ll wait here a little while and see if they don’t return. In the meantime, you can get yourself something to eat.”
“Don’t you call this something to eat?” asked Jimmie.
“One poor little can of beans and one poor little plate of corn pones won’t make much of an impression on your appetite,” Ned laughed. “What you need is one of those neat little bear steaks, about as large as a warming pan. You’ll have plenty of time in which to cook it.”