“We’re going to circle the valley,” Jimmie answered, “and see if we can catch sight of another camp-fire. Then we’re going to climb up until we can look over the ridges in this vicinity. If there is a collection of mail-order pirates anywhere in this country we want to know it to-night.”
“Then we want to put on lots of warm clothing,” Carl suggested, “and take automatics and searchlights with us.”
“Of course!” answered Jimmie. “We want to go prepared for zero weather. It’s always cold up on the top of the Continental Divide!”
“And that’s all you’re going to do?” asked Carl. “Just fly around the camp and locate the other camp-fires and then go to bed?”
“Well, of course,” Jimmie said hesitatingly, “if we find a camp that looks in any way suspicious, we ought to investigate it a little. We can’t get very close with the motors, you know, without attracting a whole lot of attention, so we may have to land and sneak up to find out what’s going on. We can’t learn much by sailing a thousand feet over a camp!”
“That’s just what I thought!” laughed Carl. “Just as quick as you get away in a machine you want to take a lot of risks that no one else would think of taking.”
Jimmie’s only reply was a confident chuckle, and the boys were soon in the air. As the pneumatic tires left the ground Ben waved them “Good-bye” and shouted for them to be careful if they couldn’t be good.
In ten minutes the Louise was over the camp-fire, which had been observed all night. Nothing was to be seen but the springing flames. There was no human being in sight.
“Well,” Jimmie said, as they circled the spot for the second time and darted away to the east, “we’ll have to light and creep up!”