“There you are!” cried Carl, hopping about in his enthusiasm. “That paper makes a date, not for the meeting with the outlaws but for the meeting of the men who traveled from New York to warn them of their danger, and get them out of the country.”
“That’s just the idea!” the sheriff said with a laugh. “Are all your New York boys like these?” he added with a smile turning to Havens.
“I’m afraid not,” was the laughing reply. “The wits of these boys were sharpened in the streets of the East Side.”
Shortly after midnight Ben and Carl, accompanied by Stroup, departed in the Bertha for the valley where the Louise had been left. The clouds were thinning a little, and the darkness was not so intense as it had been earlier in the evening. Stroup knew every inch of the way, and so the machine made good progress until it came over the little green bowl which had been the scene of so many adventures.
“There’s no light there!” Ben said, with a sigh, as they passed the lip of the pit. “I don’t believe there’s any one here.”
“There’s just a little flicker of light,” Stroup declared. “And it looks to me like the embers of a camp-fire.”
“We didn’t have any fire!” Ben explained.
“Then Jimmie and Kit must have returned,” Carl put in. “They may be there yet. Of course we’re going down to see?”
“That’s what we came here for,” Stroup answered. “Only be careful, boy, how you bring her down!”
Ben smiled at the big deputy’s timidity, and brought the machine to within a few feet of the embers which had been left by the fire built to cook the outlaws’ steak.