"If Jimmie isn't tied up hand and foot," Frank suggested, "if he is allowed to move about, under guard, and help in the cooking, he could easily build two fires, and the outlaws wouldn't know what he was up to. That is how Dode came to signal to us, you remember. The counterfeiters never suspected that he was making Indian talk!"
"I think it was Jimmie," Ned declared. "He would find some way to make the signal, if he wasn't tied hard and fast! Anyway," the boy added, "I'm going down the slope right now to see if he is there!"
CHAPTER XVI
THE CALL OF THE PACK
Ned and Frank stood in the shadow behind a protecting rock and peered down into the moonlit canyon for a long time. At first there was no one in sight below, but presently a man came out by the fire, which was burning low now.
It appeared to the boys that he must have crawled out from under the chimney rock itself! He appeared so suddenly that they knew that, at least, there must be an underground hiding place in which he had been concealed when they had first come in view of the canyon and the rock.
The man mended the fire, gathering up the ends of the logs and limbs which had burned through in the middle and placing them back on the coals. Then he opened a box which he had brought from some out-of-sight place and took out canned food and cooking utensils. He was evidently going to get an early breakfast.
Presently a second man joined the first arrival, and they sat down by the fire to wait for water in a great pot to boil. At least, the boys supposed that they were waiting for it to boil.
"I'd like to know what they are talking about," Frank said. "I'm going to see if I can get close enough to them to find out."
"I was just thinking of that myself," Ned responded, "so we may as well be on our way. Keep your gun handy, but don't shoot unless one of them seizes you."