Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay; Or, The Disappearing Fleet

by G. Harvey Ralphson

"Why, they're gone!" burst out Jimmy, just as though he had an idea the miners, after hearing the horrible crash of the explosion, would be kind enough to linger there, so as to show the intruders the back door of the mine.

"Keep right on going," said Ned, "we've got to overtake them, if we can do it."

"Guess, that'll save more or less trouble in the end," admitted Jack; while Teddy and Frank were heard to mutter their approval of the scheme.

Indeed, it was a rare occurrence for any of the scouts to radically differ from their leader. Somehow, Ned Nestor seemed capable of judging things just right, and these comrades tried and true had come to rely on his way of looking at the solving of knotty problems as well nigh perfect.

They passed the place where the men had been working. Perhaps some of the lads might have been glad of a chance to stop and see how this clever trick of making a mine appear ten times more valuable than it really was, could be carried out; but there was no time for delay now.

On they rushed.

The channel seemed to be so fashioned up to now that they were not compelled to make any choice between rival passages. There had been no such thing as going astray. But shortly afterwards they came to a fork, where a second fissure gaped before them.

Now came the question, which way had the three men gone in order to reach the friendly exit they were acquainted with? Jimmy would have perhaps thrown up a copper cent and trusted to "heads or tails" to settle the matter for him; but this was not the happy-go-lucky way Ned had of deciding.

Of course, it would have been an easy thing for him to have settled in his mind which way the workings of the mine lay. All that was necessary was to look and see which passage showed many marks of loads of ore having been carried along it, portions of which had fallen from the wheel-barrows.

But this would not tell them whether the men had fled by that passage or along the other one. Just then they were bent on chasing after the three miners, and not hunting for the spot from which ore had been taken.