"Confession!" repeated the others. "Who has confessed?"
"The photograph!" smiled Ned, taking out the two pictures in which the man and the prince were shown. "The pictures show this man in the company of the prince, and the prince will tell the rest. This closes the case."
"When are you going out?" asked the chief of the secret service men.
"Why," replied Ned, "I promised the outlaws that I would get away to-morrow morning. I'm going to keep my word!"
"You'd better go out with us and travel in the machines, then," said the other.
"And leave Uncle Ike?" demanded Jimmie. "Not for me! I'm going to ride that blessed mule to Cumberland, and ship him to New York."
And he actually did! While the others were riding at their ease in the racers, Jimmie was urging his mule along the country road, alighting now and then to let him thrust a soft muzzle into a pocket in quest of sugar.
At Cumberland Ned met Mike II., who was going in to spend a long time with his mother and the boy. He had sent the son in by a Washington friend, he said! That was all! Dode, he said, would be asked to remain there permanently. No one even knew how much the father knew of the trick to be played with his son.
And so, save for a few raveled ends, the story of the Boy Scout
Camera Club is told.
Bradley was given a position by Oliver's father, and became very friendly with the boys. He insists to this day that he did not know about the abduction of the prince.