As the four watched, there was an answering series of flashes from below. The light signals seemed to come from a level of perhaps a third of the distance to the valley.
“What does it mean?” Jack demanded. “Who is signaling?”
“Rhodes at this end,” War informed him. “Willie and I learned that much before we came to the office.”
“There are no houses down there—nothing but trail,” Mr. Livingston said. “Can it be—”
“That he’s signaling Carlos, the bandit?” War supplied eagerly. “That’s the way Willie and I doped it out.”
“I was thinking of that possibility,” Mr. Livingston admitted. “Rhodes isn’t bothered by Corning’s disappearance. I’m sure of that. He may have plotted it, though I hate to think so.”
“He’d do anything to stay at the mine as engineer,” Willie said grimly. “He isn’t making the slightest effort to trace Mr. Corning.”
“It seems that way to me,” Mr. Livingston nodded. “Of course, unless the authorities will undertake a search, there’s not much that can be done.”
“Rhodes must know the hide-out of those bandits,” Jack asserted. “Shall we breeze him now?”
“No, let’s not let him know that we saw him signaling,” the Scout leader decided after a slight hesitation. “He’d tell us nothing. We’ll learn far more by appearing dumb, and keeping an alert watch.”