“Not a thing, and I wish I knew less. I’d never be here if it wasn’t for the fire. And I must take a look now, and see how our steam bath is affecting it. I guess—”
“Look there!” suddenly cried Fenn, pointing to the cliff, at the base of which the lake waves were breaking.
They all looked. There, on the face of the wall of rock, apparently supported by nothing, stood four men, two of whom were Chinese, dressed in the characteristic costume of that nation. The others were white men. They were close together, near a little clump of bushes, that sprang slantingly out from the surface of the cliff.
“More of ’em, eh?” murmured the captain. “I wonder if they’ll answer a hail?”
He put his hands, trumpet fashion, to his mouth, and was about to call out, when a surprising thing happened.
As the boys watched the men seemed to grow suddenly smaller. They fairly went down out of sight, vanishing as completely as though they had sank into the cliff.
“Well, I never saw such a queer thing!” exclaimed Ned. “They acted just like a Jack in the Box, when some one shuts the lid.”
“That expresses it exactly,” admitted the captain. “It is a queer thing. I think it will bear looking into. I wonder if they haven’t something to do with the Chinese smugglers.”
“That’s what we thought.”
“I believe I’ll go ashore and have a look,” decided the commander of the Modoc. “The government detectives ought to be told of what’s going on out here in this lonely place.”