The Call of the Beaver Patrol

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"There's some kind of a camp there, all right!" exclaimed Sandy.

Tommy and George now came out of the cabin and the four boys stood for
some moments watching the column of smoke which seemed to grow more
dense every moment. While they looked, a second column appeared beside
the first.

"If we were in a Boy Scout country," Tommy exclaimed, "I should say that
was an Indian signal for help."

"In a Boy Scout country!" repeated Sandy. "If this isn't a Boy Scout
country, what is it? Every inhabitant, so far as we know, belongs to the
order!"

"Well, there's a Boy Scout call for assistance," urged Tommy, excitedly,
"and I think we'd better get a move on and see what it means!"

CHAPTER III

A MESSAGE IN CODE

"We mustn't all go," Will said, as his companions started on a run in
the direction of the smoke signals.

"I should say not!" exclaimed Sandy. "If we should all go away at one
time we might find another wounded boy in the cabin on our return!"

"Suppose you keep watch, then," Tommy suggested.

"All right," Sandy agreed. "I'll stay if you'll stay with me."

Tommy grumbled a little at the idea of missing a little possible
excitement, but the two lads entered the cabin and closed the door while
Will and George started away toward the signals.

The moraine over which they passed was something like a floor of loose
rocks of different sizes, with mats of mosses, lichens, sedges, and
dwarf shrubs scattered here and there, so the traveling was by no means
easy. Now and then the boys came to a place where the rocks were
entirely bare, and here their progress was more rapid.

The columns of smoke grew more distinct as they advanced, and, after
traveling a mile or more, they came to a position from which a figure
could be seen moving back and forth between the two fires.

"That's a kid all right!" Will decided, watching the figure closely
through a field glass. "And he's wearing a Boy Scout uniform, too!"

"I have an idea," George declared, with a sly wink at his chum, "that if
we should ascend to the Mountains of the Moon and drop into a gorge a
thousand feet deep, we'd find a Boy Scout in a khaki uniform at the
bottom."

"I'm not kicking at the discovery of a Boy Scout," laughed Will. "The
more Boy Scouts we come across in this desolate land the happier we
shall be."

"I'm not kicking, either," replied George. "I was only commenting on the
queer fact that we find Boy Scouts in every region we chance to visit."

"You'll find the little fellows scattered all over the world!" declared
Will. "And they're always doing something wherever they are."

Will now handed the field glass to George and he, in turn, made a short
study of the figure passing back and forth between the two fires, piling
wood now on one and now on another.

"It's dollars to doughnuts," Will observed, "that the boy by the fires
came in with the one who lies in the cabin with a busted head."

"I've been considering that proposition," George said.

"Then, perhaps, we may be able to solve a portion of the mystery as soon
as we get into conversation with the lad," Will continued.

"I wonder why he didn't come to the cabin during the night?" asked
George. "He surely must have seen the lights shining from the windows."

Will turned and looked back over the route they had followed.

"We can't see the cabin from here," he said.

"That's a fact," George agreed, "and if the smoke hadn't been going up
good and plenty we would never have seen that!"

The next moment the lad at the fires saw Will and George approaching and
ran forward to meet them, uttering as he ran the sharp, quick bark of
the fox. The boys responded with the challenge of the Beaver Patrol.

The lad met the two with anything but a serious or anxious expression on
his face. He grasped them heartily by the hand and pointed toward the
columns of smoke, still rising into the sky.

"No matter where you start a signal fire," he said with a smile, "you're
sure to find some Boy Scout who will understand and answer."

"Even in Alaska!" George grinned. "A thousand miles from nowhere you can
dig up a nest of Boy Scouts by sending up an Indian sign for help."

"Are you Will Smith?" the boy asked after a few more words of greeting
had been exchanged. "If you are, I've come along way to find you!"

"Yes, I am Will Smith," the boy answered.

"How'd you guess it?" asked George. "Why didn't you ask me if I was the
boss of the bunch? Don't I look dignified enough?"

"I have a description of Will Smith lying nicely tucked in at the back
of my brain!" replied the boy. "Mr. Horton told me where I'd be apt to
find him. It seems that I've found him all right, but in doing so, I've
lost my chum! Haven't seen anything of a stray Boy Scout, have you?"

Will did not reply to the question immediately, yet he did not care to
convey to the boy the news of what had occurred until after a clear
understanding of the situation had been reached.

"What's your name?" asked George.

"Frank Disbrow, Fox Patrol, Chicago," was the reply.

"And your chum?" asked Will.

"Bert Calkins, Fox Patrol, Chicago."

"Do you mean to tell me that you have followed us boys from Chicago?"
asked George. "You've had a long chase if you have done so!"

"No," answered Frank, "we were very much surprised, one day, to receive
a wireless telegram from my father, who is connected in various business
operations with Lawyer Horton. The wireless stated that father had work
for us to do in Alaska, and the result of it all was that we received a
long message in code from Mr. Horton."

"In code?" asked Will, excitedly.

"Exactly! In code."

"In whose code?" asked Will.

"Father's," was the reply.

"I see," said Will. "And you, of course, understand your father's code?"

"Certainly!" was the answer.

"What did the message in code say?" asked George.

"It was addressed to Will Smith," was the answer, "and I, following
instructions, did not translate it."

"The message to you simply requested the delivery of the code message?"
asked Will.

"Yes, that's all it told us to do."

"Do you know what the code message contained?" asked Will.

"I do not!" was the reply. "You see," the boy went on, "Bert Calkins and
I were at Cordova on a vacation. If the wireless message had been two
hours later it would have found us on the way to Cook Inlet."

"Just traveling about for the fun of the thing, eh?" asked George.

"That's the idea," replied Frank.

"Perhaps we'd better return to the cabin before we get the history of
this boy's life," suggested George, with a grin. "I don't like the way
these mosquitos howl about my ears. I'm afraid they'll devour the net
and begin on me."

"The cabin?" repeated Frank. "Did you find the cabin?"

"Sure we did," answered George. "And we left the cabin for an hour or so
last night, and when we came back we found a member of the Fox Patrol
asleep on the floor."

"So that's where Bert went, is it?" asked Frank. "You see," the boy went
on, "I got separated from Bert just this side of Katalla. He loitered
behind to view the scenery, or something of that sort, and I came on
ahead."

"And he never caught up with you?" asked George.

"He never did," was the reply, "although I saw him at different times
during yesterday. I thought he headed off in this direction, and so came
here. I've had rather a bad night looking for him."

"He had the code message addressed to Will?" asked George.

"Yes," was the reply.

"The untranslated code message?" Will asked.

"Yes, the untranslated code message."

"Glory be!" shouted George.

Frank looked at the boy in wonder for a moment, and then turned to Will
with a question in his eyes.

"It's a long story," Will said in answer to the look, "and we'd better
wait until we get to the cabin before entering upon it."

"Is Bert all right?" asked Frank.

"He got a little bump on the head somewhere," answered George, "but
he'll come out of that all right, in time. I wasn't rejoicing because
your chum got a poke on the belfry," George went on, whimsically, "I was
shouting because the man who stole the code message didn't accomplish
anything."

Frank, who was now standing by the fire collecting such bits of wardrobe
as had been removed from his handbag, and also collecting the remains of
the solitary lunch of which he had partaken that morning, again turned
to Will with an interrogation point in each eye.

"Was the code message stolen?" he asked.

"It certainly was!" Will answered. "At least a large envelope with my
name written across the front was found, with the end torn open, by your
friend's side as he lay on the floor."

"That's the work of the man who followed us in!" declared Frank.

"We'll get this story all out of you pretty soon," laughed George.

"Suppose we go to the cabin before we uncork the entire yarn," suggested
Frank. "To tell you the truth, boys, I didn't have half enough
breakfast, and I'm about starved to death!"

"All right," Will replied. "There's nothing to keep us here that I know
of. Did you see any one around your camp in the night?" he continued.
"What kind of a night did you pass?"

"A rotten, bad night!" was the answer. "I traveled a long way before I
came to any wood suitable for building a campfire, and after I got one
built it seemed to send out a bugle call to every wild animal within
forty miles of the place. I guess I heard bears, and wolves, and wild
dogs, and bull moose, and every other form, of wild life known to
Alaska, at some time during the night!"

"And all the time," grinned George, "you were not more than a mile or so
from our cabin. It's a wonder you didn't see our light."

"Well, I didn't," Frank replied. "But that's past and gone," he went on,
in a moment, "and what I'm thinking about at the present time is this:
Did the man who stole the code message from Bert force the boy to
translate it for him? Tell me something more about the attack on the
boy."

"We don't know anything about the attack," replied Will. "We found him
lying on the floor of the cabin unconscious, and he has been unconscious
ever since."

"Well," Frank went on, "Bert understands the code, for I taught it to
him while we were translating the telegrams which came to me. Now, if
this outlaw took the code before he struck the blow, the chances are
that he ordered Bert to translate it for him. In that case, something
which those opposed to you ought not to know is in the hands of your
foes."

CHAPTER IV

THE LOST PLANS

"Well, there's a chance that the boy didn't translate the code message,"
George argued. "Anyway, we ought not to worry about that part of the
case. Time enough to fret when real trouble comes."

By this time the boys had reached the cabin, after an exhausting journey
over the moraine. They found Tommy and Sandy standing just inside the
screened doorway, waiting impatiently for their arrival.

"Where did you find this one?" asked Tommy with a grin.

"Did he drop down out of the sky?" Sandy questioned.

Frank stood back for a moment, eyeing the two critically.

"I know you two kids," he said. "You're Tommy and Sandy. I've read about
you in the Chicago newspapers, but I never expected to meet you out in
Alaska. You seem to be getting plenty to eat, judging from your
condition. And that brings back to my mind the condition of my own
stomach."

"Boys," Will exclaimed, "this is Frank Disbrow. He started for our cabin
in company with Bert Calking, the boy we found on the floor last night.
The two were bringing a code despatch to me, and they became separated
early yesterday morning."

"A code message, was it?" Tommy asked.

"Yes, a code message," Will answered, "but the bearer of the despatch
may, for all we know, have been forced to translate the message for the
benefit of the man who robbed him of it."

In a moment Frank was by the side of his chum, gazing down into a white
and haggard face. He turned away in a moment with a little shiver of
anxiety. His face, too, was pale.

"I'm afraid that's a serious wound!" he said.

"If we only had a surgeon," Sandy suggested.

"I'll go get one," offered Tommy. "I can cut across to Katalla in no
time and bring back the best doctor there is in the country."

"I'll go with you," offered Sandy.

"Now, wait a minute, boys!" Will said in a moment. "Let's think this
matter over. If you go to Cordova instead of Katalla, you can
communicate with Frank's father at Chicago, and so get in touch with Mr.
Horton. In this way, we can learn the contents of the code despatch.
There surely was some strong reason for sending it, and it seems as if
we ought to know its contents."

"That's a good idea, too," exclaimed Tommy. "We'll go to Katalla, and
perhaps we can find a boat about ready to sail for Cordova. In that case
we ought to get up to the wireless station and back in a couple of days.
The distance isn't great, but it's rough traveling."

"I wish we could take Bert with us," suggested Frank.

"Are you thinking of going?" asked Will.

"Yes," was the reply, "if I could take Bert out."

"Bert is in no condition to be taken out," Will answered, "and even if
he were it would take so long to make the journey that we could get a
surgeon out here before we could land him in a hospital."

"I think," Frank said, "that I ought to go with the boy who is sent out
after a surgeon. It is not certain that father will communicate by
wireless save to his son. Anyway, I can find out a great deal more by
talking with him than could any one else."

"I guess that's right!" Will replied.

"Then I'll go with him!" Tommy shouted. "I want to see what's going on
in the world of fashion, anyway!"

"All right," Will said. "Pack up your provisions and get ready to move.
Of course you'll need provisions."

"I usually do!" grinned Tommy.

The lads packed up the good supply of sandwiches and started off towards
Katalla. It was somewhere near noon when they left the cabin, and they
expected to reach the town on the coast before twilight fell, the
distance being not more than fourteen miles.

"If you don't get to town when night falls," Will warned, "don't try to
camp out in the open, but keep going until you find some human
habitation. You remember what happened to Bert!"

"Any one who comes within a half a mile of me in a lonely place," Tommy
put in, "will scrape the acquaintance of a bullet."

"And here's another thing," Will advised, "don't travel without a wet
cloth or a bunch of green leaves inside your hat. It'll be ninety in the
shade before the afternoon is over!"

"Yes, and a hundred in the sun!" declared Sandy.

"That's a nice weather for the Arctic regions, isn't it?" asked Frank.

"We have to take it just as we find it!" replied Will.

The boys started away on a brisk walk, and were accompanied by their
chums some distance down the faint trail which led to the coast. At one
time in the history of the country one large glacier had completely
covered that section. But now, thousands of subordinate canyons and
hollows on the mountains were filled with independent masses of ice.

All that section of Alaska, from smoking Wrangell to the Pacific coast,
shows volcanic peaks. There are many dead craters, and some which are
not so dead! There are still peaks of fire as well as rivers of ice.

After the departure of the two boys, Will and the others devoted
considerable attention to the wounded lad. They did their best with the
simple means at hand, but never, for an instant, did the boy regain
consciousness.

"I don't think we can do anything for him until the surgeon comes," Will
said as he threw himself disconsolately into a chair.

"If we only knew whether he was forced to translate the code message for
the benefit of the man who robbed him," Sandy suggested, "there wouldn't
be so much doubt as to what course we ought to take."

"The code message," Will argued, "may change the whole scheme."

"Yes," Sandy complained, "and we won't know what to do until Frank comes
back with the duplicate."

"We won't know what to do then unless Will loosens up!" laughed George.

"Referring, of course," Sandy laughed, "to the prospective story of the
mark of the human thumb. Will was about to tell us all about it when we
saw the signals sent up by Frank."

"That's a fact," Will replied. "I didn't get any further than the
mention of the human thumb, did I?"

"We're waiting to hear the rest of it now!" declared Sandy.

"Well," Will began, "there was a safe robbed in Chicago one night, and
two men were accused of the crime. The accused men were in the employ of
the manufacturing concern whose safe was entered. They admit that they
were in the private office of the firm during the night, but they deny
that they opened the safe."

"Of course!" laughed George.

"Now don't form any hasty conclusions," Will went on. "There was a third
person in the office that night, according to the stories told by the
two men who are accused, but this third person says he wasn't there!"

"Then this third person may be the one who opened the safe."

"That is the theory of the defense," Will explained.

"But what's all this got to do with the mark of a man's right thumb?"
asked George.

"I'm coming to that," Will went on. "The three men who were in the
office that night--we are supposing for the sake of the argument that
there were three men there, and that the man who says he wasn't there is
lying about it--were looking over a set of plans for a new machine which
the company was arranging to manufacture."

"I've got you now!" laughed Sandy. "The thumb print of the third man was
left on the drawings!"

"That's the idea," admitted Will. "The two men say that they were not a
little annoyed during the course of the evening because this man,
Babcock, persisted in pawing over the plans with dirty hands. They
declare that the marks of both thumbs are to be seen on drawings, not in
plain dust and grime, but in ink."

"He must have spilled the ink," suggested George.

"That's what they say," Will replied.

"Well, go on!" urged George.

"The statement is made by the two accused men that they worked over the
plans until after midnight, and that they left this man Babcock at the
office when they went to their homes. Babcock denied that he was in the
office at all that night."

"Where are the plans?" asked George.

"In Alaska," answered Will.

"But whereabouts in Alaska?"

Will looked at the boy quizzically for a moment before he answered.

"That's just what we're here to find out!" he finally said.

"But why, when, where, how?" began the boy.

"One at a time!" laughed Will. "On the morning following the robbery,
the plans having been rejected by the two men who were accused of
robbing the safe, were sent to a mining company having an office at
Cordova. So far as the defense is concerned, they have never been seen
since that time."

"Were they actually sent?" demanded George.

"Yes, they were sent. The manager of the mining company admits having
received them. He says they were turned over to a clerk for examination.
From the time they passed into the hands of this clerk, no one had seen
them. The clerk says he never had them."

"Do the manager and the clerk know what the defense in the robbery case
expects to prove by the papers if they can be secured?" asked George.

"They are not supposed to know," Will answered.

"But you think that they may know, for all that?"

"At the time of leaving Chicago, I had no idea that there would be any
trouble at all in securing the plans. In fact, until Bert was found
lying on our floor last night, I believed that we should discover the
papers as soon as we came upon one Len Garman, a miner who has, against
the advice of his friends, been prospecting in this district, and who is
known to have at one time occupied this cabin."

CHAPTER V

FISHING IN ALASKA

"Are you sure this is the same cabin?" asked George.

"Yes, I am sure this is the same cabin. At any rate, the description is
perfect, both as regards the structure and the surroundings."

"I may be somewhat dense," George went on, "but I can't understand why a
miner who is fool enough to prospect for gold on a dead glacier should
take pains to conceal plans concerning the manufacture of a machine.
What did he want of the plans?"

"I didn't say that he was concealing the plans," laughed Will.

"Well, you inferred as much!"

"As a matter of fact, I think he is hiding the plans."

"Does he expect to go into the manufacturing business?" grinned Sandy.

"I don't know about that," Will replied, "but there is talk that the
clerk and the miner conspired to lose the plans."

"Because of the thumb prints?" asked Sandy.

"No; because the machine outlined in the plans is a mining machine, and
because this clerk, Vin Chase, his name is, and this miner, Garman, have
a notion in their head that they can steal the idea and bring forth a
machine of their own. At least that is the supposition in Chicago."

"The plot deepens!" laughed George, "We'll be doing business with the
Patent Office the first thing we know!"

"Are the plans which are claimed to hold the thumb prints of any value?"
asked Sandy. "What I mean is, is the alleged invention of any account?
You know there are plenty of inventions which are not worth the paper
they are drawn on."

"Spaulding and Hurley, the two men accused of stealing the money," Will
answered, "declare that the plans are absolutely without value."

"Why didn't you tell us all this before we left Chicago?" asked George.
"I don't see any necessity for your keeping the story of the plans such
a profound secret!"

"Well," answered Will, "the principal reason why I didn't tell you the
whole story in Chicago is that I didn't care to clutter your minds up
with a puzzling proposition which might be solved in a moment at the end
of the journey. I expected to find Garman and the plans in this cottage.
In that case, I should have shipped the plans back to Chicago and we
should have gone with our playful little vacation under the North Star."

"Then you wouldn't have told us anything about the plans or the
robbers?" questioned Sandy.

"Certainly not," was the reply. "You see, boys," Will went on, observing
the injured look on the faces of his chums, "we've always been mixed up
in some mystery, ever since the day we started out to visit the Pictured
Rocks of Old Superior. So I thought you might like one trip free of
puzzles and excitements."

"Don't you never permit us to lose sight of a mystery!" exclaimed
George. "I eat mysteries three times a day, and then dream of mysteries
at night! And Sandy," he went on, "just gets fat on mysteries!"

"All right," Will agreed. "If you want to tie your intellect all up into
knots studying out such Sherlock Holmes puzzles as come to me, I have no
objections."

"Well, we've found the cottage," George observed presently, "but we
haven't found the man."

"Perhaps Bert Calkins found him," contended Will.

"Do you really think the miner is still hanging around this cabin?"
asked Sandy. "Do you think he is the man who gave Bert the clout on the
head? If you do think so, we'd better keep a sharp lookout."

"Garman wouldn't know anything about our coming here after the plans!"
suggested George.

"Any man who steals another man's invention, or tries to steal it, will
go to almost any length to protect the thing he has stolen. Even if
Garman had no previous knowledge of our visit to this place our arrival
here would at once excite his suspicions."

"I see that now," agreed George, "and the first thing the fellow would
do would be to try to discover what we were doing here."

"Yes," continued Will, "and that would be sufficient motive for him to
attack the bearer of the code despatch."

"I guess we've got it all doped out now," laughed George. "All we've got
to do is to find this man Garman, take the original plans away from him,
mail them back to Chicago, and go on about our business."

"And the lawyers in Chicago will do the rest!" grinned Sandy.

"It looks easy, doesn't it?" suggested Will.

"Why, if this miner doesn't know anything about what we're here for, we
can tell him any story we're a mind to. We can tell him we're here on a
vacation and have money to invest in a mine, if he can find the right
kind of a mine for us," laughed George. "In twenty-four hours after we
get hold of him, we can have him eating corn out of our hands, like a
billy goat."

"You say it well!" laughed Sandy.

"That's all very well," Will agreed, "provided Garman isn't the man who
took the code despatch from Bert Calkins."

"And provided, too," George declared, "that Garman didn't force the boy
to translate the despatch for his benefit."

"And provided, also," Sandy cut in, "that the code despatch doesn't give
away the whole snap to the miner. If he sees the machine plans referred
to in any way, he'll think we want to get them away from him, because
they are the stolen plans, and then it will be all off for us!"

"And so, when you come to round up on the proposition," Will argued, "we
are not much further along than we were when we left Chicago, except
that we have found the cabin."

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