“I know that,” answered Ned. “He is trying to rob corporations represented by Jack’s father of their property.”
“I don’t know why,” the boy went on, “but he has been paying a great deal of attention to this section for a long time. He has had detectives here rounding up half-breeds, and has been hunting high and low in all the abstract offices of the west for papers which he claims are wrongfully withheld from him. There seems to be a great deal at stake.”
“You bet there is,” laughed Jack, nudging Frank. “There is more at stake than that old slob knows anything about.”
“When Toombs saw that Lawyer Bosworth’s son was headed for this part of the country, accompanied by Ned Nestor, well known over the world as a very successful juvenile detective, he just ran around in circles, he was so excited about it. It was then that he proposed to me to come on here with him, ostensibly as a cook in his camp, but really as a spy, and learn what you boys were up to. I had to come. What else could I do?
“There was my sister in New York, waiting for me to wipe out the unlawful indebtedness, and I couldn’t disappoint her. He could have thrown her into the Tombs prison with ten words sent by wire.”
“That’s a pretty rotten proposition, isn’t it?” demanded Jimmie.
“Rotten is no name for it!” agreed Jack.
“Toombs and his gang of mercenaries arrived in the vicinity of the old Franciscan mission long before you boys came into the mountains. I was with him, of course, acting as cook, and for a few days I enjoyed myself hugely. Then you boys came in, and I was ordered to deliver that note to Ned. But before the morning I saw you boys in camp and delivered the note, I had seen you all in your beds.
“Because of some trivial disobedience of orders, Toombs had decreed that I should go supperless to bed. What I did, I think, was to scorch his steak. Anyway, he said, that I shouldn’t have anything to eat until the next day at noon.”
“No wonder you grabbed for our grub closet!” laughed Jimmie.