CHAPTER XXVIII IMPORTANT INFORMATION
For a moment, following Dick's challenge, there was no answer, and then, off in the darkness, beyond the circle of light from the campfire, made of pieces of a broken wagon the boys had found, came a voice, saying:
"I am a stranger in a strange land. Who are you that you make the night melodious with your music and song?"
The boys felt the tension leave them as they heard the note of culture in the voice, for plainly they had to deal with a gentleman of birth and breeding.
"Come on up, and make yourself at home," invited Dick. "Are you lost? Hungry or thirsty, perhaps?"
"Neither one nor the other, may it please you," was the somewhat whimsical retort. "Yet I will join you if only for a little while. Then I must get back, or my guards will be thinking that I have escaped."
"Guards," murmured Paul, in a low voice. "He must be a prisoner—but in this lonely place——"
"I thought we were the only ones here," added Innis.
"Hush! Here he comes!" cautioned our hero.
A man advanced into the glare of the firelight. He was seen to be a young fellow, of about twenty-five perhaps, of rather frail build, dressed in a negligee costume, well suited to that hot climate, and yet his clothing, as Innis instinctively noticed, was well tailored and fitted him perfectly. Innis was more fastidious about his dress than either of his chums, and naturally noticed the garments of others more closely.
"Greeting, fair sirs!" exclaimed the newcomer. "It is very kind of you to extend your hospitality to a stranger, and I thank you. Permit me to make myself known to you. I am Harry Cameron, sometime of San Francisco, at present of the desert waste; an engineer by profession, a dilly-dallier of verse by avocation, and actually in durance vile for the time being. Such is my brief but not unhappy history."
The three chums looked at one another, hardly knowing what to make of their visitor, who took a seat on part of the old broken wagon—a "prairie schooner" of a bygone age—and stretched out his legs in a comfortable attitude, gazing at Dick's party.
"An escaped lunatic," thought Innis, rather thankful that the stranger seemed to be of the mild type.
"Somebody who has been crazed by the heat perhaps," was Paul's mental comment. Yet he could not account for the freshness of the man's appearance and attire.
"He's stringing us," was Dick's thought. "Well, if he is, I'll give him as good as he sends." Then he spoke:
"We are college professors, searching in the desert for traces of a lost glacier, last reported to be headed for the salt lake. We want to get some specimens of the tail."
The young man started, looked keenly at Dick, and then, with a quizzical smile, remarked:
"You are pleased to joke, I see. I wish I had the chance to accompany you on your search. But it is denied me. Still, lest perchance you think that I, too, am a jester, there is my card," and, with a quick and skillful motion, he scaled a bit of pasteboard over so that it fell exactly on Dick's outstretched leg. "He who sits may read," went on Mr. Cameron.
Dick picked up the card, feeling a little ashamed of his bantering retort. By the light of the fire he read the name as given by their visitor. There was also an address in San Francisco, and, the letters C. E.—denoting his profession.
"I beg your pardon!" exclaimed Dick, quickly. "I—er—I thought——"
"You thought I was stringing you, I guess," interrupted Mr. Cameron, with a smile. "I was not. I'll tell you——"
"I beg your pardon," interrupted Dick. "Let me introduce myself and my friends," and he presented Paul and Innis in turn, and mentioned his own name.
"And the glacier?" asked Mr. Cameron.
"Was a joke, too," said Dick. "We are merely traveling for pleasure. That is our car," and he waved toward where the Last Word was fast in the sand. "We ran into a sort of bog hole and decided to wait until morning to extricate ourselves. But where are you staying?" Dick asked, looking around on the sandy waste, now shrouded in darkness.
"Over there," replied Mr. Cameron, with an indefinite wave of his hand in the direction whence he had come. "We are camping out."
"Camping out!" exclaimed Paul. "In this desert?"
"It does seem rather foolish; doesn't it?" asked their visitor. "And the reasons are peculiar. I was thinking so myself as I strolled out after supper, and saw the gleam of your campfire. I wanted to see who else was as foolish as my friends."
"Then you have friends with you?" asked Innis.
"They call themselves such," was the answer, "but I prefer to think of them as my guards."
"Guards!" cried Dick.
"I surprise you, I see. Let me explain why I am out in this sandy waste. I am a lost man!" and he waved his hand with a gentle air, as though being lost was the most delightful of occupations.
"Lost!" murmured Paul, again wondering whether they did not have an insane man to deal with.
"Legally lost, perhaps I should have said," went on Mr. Cameron. "As you are not likely to interfere with the plans of my—er—friends, and as you will probably never think of the matter again, I shall tell you the circumstances. Particularly as those who call themselves my friends don't want me to.
"I like being different, and doing the unexpected," he continued. "Also because it will give those fellows back there something to worry about, I am going to tell you a secret. I won't even ask you not to repeat it, because I don't see what object you could have in doing so.
"Know, then, that I am sequestered here in this desert in order that I may not jeopardize certain interests in giving testimony in a big lawsuit. I am to be kept out of the way for a certain time, and I am well paid for being lost. I have promised, for a certain stipulated sum, and because of certain representations made to me, not to go back to beloved 'Frisco until after September third.
"Should I go, certain persons who are antagonistic to those who have hired me, might get hold of me, compel me to give certain testimony in court, and then—as the poet would say—all the fat would be in the fire. So I have to stay here where the other fellows can't find me, and—well, I am as happy as I can be, in such a dog's hole! It is the most out-of-the-way place they could find to conceal me, and yet be within touch of civilization. There you have the story in a nutshell. And when September third comes, I shall hie me back to civilization."
During this recital Dick's wonder had been growing. He could scarcely believe what he heard, and the odd part of it was that it fitted so in with the scheme he had undertaken to help Mr. Wardell.
Paul and Innis also felt a growing wonder, for they knew some of the details of Dick's plan to save the Wardell fortune.
"Now you understand why I am here," went on Mr. Cameron. "There is a water hole about a mile from here, and one of those rare occurrences in the desert, a little oasis of trees, and a hill. There we have made a camp, which not one in a thousand would ever find. We are comfortable enough, in a way, but I lack for society.
"That is why, wandering away, I saw the gleam of your fire, and hearing the music, I could not help but join in. I trust you will pardon me. But when you have with you two men who do nothing all day but smoke cigarettes, and play some mysterious card game known as 'Seven-up' and whose only conversation seems to be along the line of said game—why, life gets rather monotonous, you see."
"I should say so," agreed Dick. And then he resolved on a bold plan. Mr. Cameron had revealed something without being asked. Dick was under no promise of silence. And he saw a chance to defeat the enemies of Mr. Wardell.
"Can it be, by any chance, Mr. Cameron," the young millionaire asked, "that your case has any connection with the Citrous Junction Railway?"
"It has!" cried the engineer, springing to his feet. "But how did you guess it? I never mentioned it—I was careful about that."
"No, you did not," agreed Dick, "but your mention of the date—September third—gave me the clue."
"You are looking for clues, then?"
"In a way, yes. I am seeking some means of getting back to Mr. Wardell the control of the railroad that is about to be taken from him. I was on my way to San Francisco to file a certain paper before September third—the date you mentioned. By the merest accident, happening to pick up a newspaper, probably tossed from a train, I learned that my efforts would be of no avail, because of testimony given by a new witness. And you——"
"I am that witness!" cried Mr. Cameron. "Great Scott! but this is queer. To think of me telling the secret to some one—in all the world—who knew the other half of it. It's astounding! May I ask how you figure in it?"
"Because my uncle, Mr. Ezra Larabee, is the man who is trying to get Mr. Wardell's fortune, and, for the honor of the family, I am trying to prevent him."
"You Ezra Larabee's nephew! Well, of all things in the world that I should meet you here! Why, young man, Ezra Larabee—or, rather, his agent—is paying me to remain away so that the other side can't get hold of me. For, you must know that Mr. Wardell does not own all the stock in the railroad. There are some minor shareholders, and it is they who are trying to get me to go to court on their behalf. But I have accepted money from Mr. Larabee, and, as far as I know, he is in the right. I cannot go back on him, merely because you happen to be for the other side.
"And so you are Larabee's nephew. You don't look much like him, which is a consolation."
"Have you seen him?" asked Dick.
"He came to 'Frisco to see me," explained Mr. Cameron. "He made a flying trip, and hurried back so as to save the other half of his excursion ticket, which was limited."
"That's like him," laughed Dick.
"It seems so. Well, he made certain representations, and it seemed that he was in the right. He hired me to disappear, and so you behold—a lost man."
Dick thought for a moment.
"Would you mind telling me," he said, "just what your testimony consists of?"
"Well, since you know so much, perhaps it can do no harm to tell you more. I am, as I said, a civil engineer. When this contest over the railroad came up, I was engaged to make certain maps and copies of records. It seems that the Citrous Junction is a short line, connecting two important trunk lines in a well-known orange region. That is what gives it its importance.
"Accidentally, while going over some old records, I came across some papers that changed the whole situation. I am not enough of a lawyer to know just how, except that if the papers were produced in court this Mr. Wardell and the other stockholders, no matter what was done by the other side, would get their rights. Mr. Larabee and his crowd could not keep them from so doing.
"I showed to those who had hired me the papers I had found, and at once there was a great how-de-do. It was plainly seen that if they were allowed to get into court your uncle's case would be knocked higher than Gilderoy's kite, even if Wardell did not file certain papers which, I understand, could, at one time, have been filed.
"Your uncle and his lawyers determined on a bold move. They had me give certain testimony that would knock out the other side if they should file certain papers, and then they had me disappear, so I could not be brought into court to give the rest of my evidence and tell of the old document I had accidentally discovered. So I agreed to come to this lonely place, to live until after September third. After that date nothing Wardell can do will save the railroad for himself and the others associated with him."
"And you agreed to do this?" asked Dick, bitterly. "You consented to see a man cheated out of his fortune?"
"Not at all," said Mr. Cameron, calmly. "As it was represented to me this Mr. Wardell tried to do others out of their holdings, and he got caught at his own game. That is why I agreed to do something that, while perfectly legal, might be considered a trick. I did it to help out your Uncle Ezra."
"If I were to show you," went on our hero, "that matters had been misrepresented to you, and that you were doing Mr. Wardell a grave injustice, what would you do?"
"Misrepresented!" cried Mr. Cameron. "If you can prove to me that they've been fooling me—telling me things that aren't so—for the purpose of keeping me out of court, why, Dick Hamilton, I'll go back to San Francisco to-morrow and rip their case apart in the highest court in the land! That's what I'll do!" and he leaped to his feet at the words.
"Then," said Dick, quietly, "that is just what I am going to prove to you!"