“That’s what I want to talk with you about,” replied Case. “We want your advice, don’t you see. It is about the strange boy.”
“You’ve come to the right shop for sound advice!” laughed Alex. “What is it about the boy that you want to know? I guess you have seen as much of him as I have. I rather like the fellow, but he seems to have something on his mind—something worrying him.”
“There is,” Case went on. “He insists on leaving us here, and won’t give any reason for doing so. He says he has a good reason, and that is all he will say about it.”
“But how is he ever going to get out of this desolate land?” asked the other. “He can’t very well ride on the rods clear to the ocean, and he’ll just about wear his feet out up to his knees if he tries to walk out of the wilderness. I don’t suppose he’s got a cent of money. Say, but do you believe the story he tells about coming to the pass on the train that came near bunting into the boulder?”
“If he did,” Case replied, “he found some reason, pretty quickly, to get on a scare about the men in the camp, or the men back of the camp.”
“He did seem to be scared of his life whenever the fellows were mentioned,” admitted Alex. “Do you mind what he asked me? Wanted to know if it was one of the men from the campfire who chased me when I took the snapshots, or whether it was someone else?”
“I remember that,” Case answered. “Queer, eh?”
“Now, how did he know about there being someone else around there?” continued Alex. “He must have made a pretty thorough inspection of the place, for we saw no one except the men by the fire. But, say—”
The lad ceased speaking and sat looking at Case in a puzzled way, as if trying to solve a knotty problem which had just come into his head. Case noted the change of attitude and waited for him to go on.
“S-a-a-y,” the boy continued, in a minute, “I saw every man at the fire quite distinctly, and there wasn’t one there as tall as the man who came after me when I had the camera, or the man who went off the car last night with a bullet in his back, or his side, or somewhere.”