“That’s a good idea!” Carl agreed. “We ought to find the camp and sail over it, and around it, and then duck away as if we belong out on the Pacific coast somewhere. Then we can go back on foot, if it isn’t too far away, and see what sort of a crowd the Englishman traveled with.”
“That’s my idea of the situation,” Mr. Havens said.
“And we ought not to say anything to the Englishman about where we’re going!” Jimmie suggested. “Because he’ll be eager to know what we find out, and may decide not to remain with us at all after we discover why he left his companions.”
“We don’t know that he hasn’t told the absolute truth about his departure from camp,” Mr. Havens suggested, “but it will do no harm to work on the theory that a man merely in quest of mountain adventure would not leave his camp carrying a hand-bag. As Carl says, he’d be more likely to carry a gun!”
Ben came into the tent and stood listening to the conversation. He agreed with the others that there was something queer about the Englishman’s sudden appearance with the hand-bag, but said that the fellow had really possessed a gun when he reached the fire where he had been found.
“He told me,” Ben went on, “that Crooked Terry had taken his gun and other articles, including his money, from his person.”
“Why didn’t you snatch Crooked Terry bald-headed and make him give ’em up?” asked Jimmie.
“Because DuBois didn’t tell me about his being robbed until after we had left the crook asleep in the cavern. I think, by the way,” Ben continued, “that I’d better go up to the smugglers’ den to-day and see what I can learn regarding those two men.”
“Is this a conspiracy to leave me all alone in the camp again?” asked Mr. Havens. “I’m getting about enough of solitude.”
“Why, there’s the Englishman,” suggested Jimmie.