Jack shook his head. Turning his back, he started to climb the rocks to rejoin Ken on a ledge above.
“Your friends dropped a message!” Rhodes accused. “You’re working with them to make it hard for me here! What’s your game?”
Jack still made no answer. He climbed steadily, handing the cylinder up to Ken who passed it on to Mr. Livingston.
Impeded by his injured arm, Rhodes had to climb very slowly. While Ken and Mr. Livingston went to their camp with the retrieved cylinder, he waited to give the engineer a helping hand up the steepest part of the slope. Rhodes did not thank him.
Instead, the engineer gazed at the youth with undisguised hatred.
“You and your friends have ruined me here!” he asserted wrathfully. “Except for you, everything would have gone off well. What was the reason for that plane circling this camp?”
Jack’s answer was a smile and a shrug.
“All right, don’t answer!” Rhodes snapped. “But if you think you’ve won this little game, you have another guess coming! I might have helped you find Corning. Now I’ll never do it!”
With that, the engineer strode off to the cottage.
Jack quickly joined Mr. Livingston and Ken at the tent camp. The other two had opened the cylinder and already were scanning the somewhat lengthy message from Ken and Willie.