The Boy Scout Camera Club | Page 9

more deer, wild
turkeys, and raccoons than human beings. On their hard and frequently
delayed journey in they had passed cabins, surrounded here and there
by rail fences, but there were none in sight from where they now stood.
The sun, a round ball of fire in the west, would be out of sight in half
an hour, and then the desolate darkness of the mountains would
surround them. A wild turkey called to its mate in the distance, and
small creatures of the air fluttered about, as if determined to know what
human beings were doing there, in their ordinarily safe retreat.
The boys had visited Washington the day following the incidents at the
clubroom of the Black Bear Patrol, but had learned nothing of
importance there. The launch in which the young prince had been seen

had been traced up the river to the vicinity of Cumberland, but there the
trail had ended.
"It is a case of needle-in-the-haystack," the Secret Service chief had
said to Ned, on the morning of his departure for the mountains. "We
have men looking over every inch of the large cities. We want you to
rake those mountains with a fine-tooth comb! Personally, I believe that
the prince is there."
"But," Ned had replied, "how are we to communicate with you in case
we require more definite instructions?"
"You know what Sherman did when he left Atlanta?" laughed the chief.
"Why, he cut the wires," returned Ned, "so as not to have his
movements hampered by orders from men who, not being on the
ground, could not possibly know as much as he did of what ought to be
done."
"That is what I want you to do!" the chief continued. "Cut the wires."
"But that is assuming a great responsibility," urged the boy.
"Very true, but I have an idea that you want to work in your own way,
so go to it. A mess of lively boys running up and down the mountain
sides looking for game and snap-shots ought not to arouse the suspicion
of the thieves if they are there. Make friends with the mountain people
if you can. They are naturally suspicious, but good as gold at heart."
That was his last talk with the chief. After that supplies had been
bought and transported by rail to the nearest point, and there the mules
had been bought and the difficult journey begun. They had just made
their first permanent camp.
"I wouldn't mind living here a few years!" Teddy said. "It beats the hot
old city! If I had plenty of reading matter and a full larder, I don't think
I would ever go back. I wish Dad could step out of that Harvard thing
and eat supper with us!"

The shrill scream of a mule now came up from the feeding ground
below, and a commotion at the tent showed that one of the animals was
kicking up a row there.
"That's that long-eared Uncle Ike," Jimmie McGraw exclaimed. "I feel
in my bones that I'm going to love that mule! He's so worthless! If he
had two legs less he'd beat Jesse James to the tall timber in piracy! He
won't work if you don't watch him, and he'll steal everything he gets his
eyes on! Yes, sir, I feel that there's a common sympathy between that
mule and me, yet I know that we'll have a falling out some day! He's so
open and above-board in his mischief."
"Can you see what he's doing now?" asked Teddy.
"Why, I saw him knocking at the door of the tent, and I presume that by
this time he is sitting in my chair picking his teeth, after devouring the
bread! That sure is some highwayman, that mule, yet I feel that I'm
going to love and admonish him!"
The boys dashed down the slope to the tent and found Uncle Ike, as
Jimmie insisted on calling a tall, ungainly, raw-boned mule, chewing at
a slice of ham which he had pilfered from a box by the side of the fire.
"There's one thing about Uncle Ike," Jimmie grinned, as Ned drove the
animal away with a club. "He always looks like he had been sent for to
lead an experience meeting! He'll put on a face as long as a cable to a
freight train, and then he'll turn to me and wink one eye, as if
explaining that it was all for a joke."
"That's your ham he's chewing, Jimmie!" Ned declared.
"I suppose so," the boy replied. "That's what you get by being brother
to a long-eared mule that for cussedness has Becker's gunmen backed
up a creek with the oars lost!"
While the mule was being restored to his companions, Jimmie and
Teddy began getting