“Look here, Ned,” he said in a moment, appearing before his chum with his mouth full of beans, “the appetite of our midnight visitor seems to be for confidential clerks as well as for bread. Someone has stolen Gilroy! Anyway, he’s not in the cave!”
“He may have gone away with the boys,” suggested Ned.
“He wasn’t thinking of going away with the boys when I left,” Jimmie answered. “He was telling how much he liked New York, and how he’d like to pound his ear for about three days and nights.”
“Anyway,” Ned decided, “we’ll wait here a little while and see if they don’t return. In the meantime, you can get yourself something to eat.”
“Don’t you call this something to eat?” asked Jimmie.
“One poor little can of beans and one poor little plate of corn pones won’t make much of an impression on your appetite,” Ned laughed. “What you need is one of those neat little bear steaks, about as large as a warming pan. You’ll have plenty of time in which to cook it.”
“And that means that I can cook one for you, too?” asked Jimmie.
“Why, of course you can!” returned Ned.
“I’d like to cook one for the Boy Scout who got us both into such trouble,” Jimmie declared. “I’d put poison on it!”
“Now, don’t you be too severe on that Boy Scout,” Ned advised. “According to your own story, he warned you and Frank in the thicket, and I know very well that he wanted to tell me something, but didn’t dare do it.”