“My father is connected with the Secret Service at Washington,” was the reply, “and he posted me as to what was going on here. Said I might come out and join the party, if Mr. Nestor would permit it. What do you say?”
Of course the son of a man connected with the Secret Service at Washington—a man who undoubtedly knew all the plans of the men who had sent Ned into the Northwest—was not to be ignored, but at the same time Ernest would have been received into the party on the strength of his own engaging personality, his own frank manner. From the very first moment he was a favorite with all the boys.
“You’re as welcome as the flowers of May!” Frank cried. “Been to supper?”
“Last night!” grinned Ernest. “My haversack is empty—also my stomach. I had to take to the mountain in order to keep out of the fire, and couldn’t connect with a grub stake.”
“Then there are fires east of the divide?” asked Ned.
“Sure,” was the reply, “although they are nothing like the ones over here. The foresters are watching them, and there is little danger of their getting a big start.”
“Where did you find foresters?” asked Ned, wondering if the men who had sneaked away from the cavern were not posing as foresters waiting to do further mischief.
“They are in camp beyond the summit,” was the reply. “They told me they had patrols all through the lower levels.”
Jack gave a description of the man who had visited the camp on the plateau, and was not at all surprised when Ernest identified the fellow as the apparent leader of the band of foresters he had passed on his way west.
“I see that you don’t believe the men are foresters,” Ernest said, looking into Ned’s anxious face. “Well, to tell the truth, I doubt it myself. I heard some talk there that set me thinking, after I got away. There was a man there who had just arrived from San Francisco, they said, and he was doing a good deal of kicking about something that had been done, or hadn’t been done. I don’t know which.”