The Boy Ranchers of Puget Sound Part 35

"I want to send a message south," said Mr. Oliver, writing something on a form. "It's a code address. I suppose I could get an answer in an hour or so?"

"Oh, yes," said the agent. "They'll be beginning to move about in Seattle now, and if the man's in his office there'll be no delay. In the meanwhile they would give you a good breakfast at the hotel."

Mr. Oliver thanked him, and as they left the depot two men whom they had not noticed hitherto met them. Mr. Oliver glanced at them sharply, but he did not speak, and a few minutes later they sat down to an excellent meal in the primitive wooden hotel. When they had finished the proprietor strolled in and sat down for a chat with them.

"Is there much going on about the place?" Mr. Oliver asked, offering him a cigar.

"Yes," said the hotelkeeper, accepting the proffered cigar with alacrity, "we've struck quite a boom. There's a man clearing a lot of ground for a fruit ranch and putting up a smart frame house. Then they're cutting a couple of new trails. The boys are making good wages and they're all of them busy."

"I saw two men just now who didn't seem to have much to do," said Mr.

Oliver carelessly, and Harry gave his companion a nudge with his elbow.

"They don't belong here," was the answer. "One of them lives down the beach and does some fishing with his boat. The other man came in from the South yesterday on the cars, and I don't know what he's after. I told him I could put him on to a job and he said he didn't want it."

"As they're together, he's probably going in for fishing with the first one," Mr. Oliver suggested.

The hotelkeeper pursed his lips and looked as if he were solving a hard problem.

"It's a puzzle to me how Larry makes a living. It's only now and then he sends a little fish away, and I can't see what he'd do with a partner."

Then he changed the subject. "You're thinking of buying land?"

"No," said Mr. Oliver, "I sailed over in my boat to dispatch a wire. It was much easier than riding a long way to the nearest office now that the trails are soft."

"They're bad, sure," a.s.sented his companion, and they continued to discuss ranching until Mr. Oliver finally rose and said he would walk across to the depot. The boys followed him a few paces behind. Harry addressed his companion with a look of admiration for his father.

"I guess you noticed how dad found out about those fellows without letting the man think he was curious?" he said.

Frank said that he had noticed it and added:

"I wonder what the fellow came up from the South for?"

"That," said Harry significantly, "is a point I expect dad's doing some hard thinking on just now."

They walked into the agent's office and sat down to wait as he told them that he had as yet received no answer to the telegram. The door near which Frank sat stood partly open, and he noticed that the two men were lounging close outside it. He quietly touched Mr. Oliver's arm, indicating them with a glance. The rancher knitted his brows and presently spoke to the agent.

"There are two men who seem to be waiting for you outside," he said.

The agent walked across to the door.

"Back again, Larry!" he said impatiently. "What's the matter now?"

"When's that fish box of mine coming along?" the man inquired.

"I don't know," said the agent. "Next freight, most likely, if it's been delivered to us at the other end."

"Won't you wire up the line about it?"

"No," said the agent. "If you'll put up the stamps I'll wire to the fish store you billed it to."

The man looked indignant. "I tell you it's in the railroad's hands. Do you think I've nothing better to do than hang about this depot every time a freight comes through?" He paused a moment with his eyes on the ground, then went on: "Anyway, now I'm on the spot I may as well wait for the next one. She should be along in about an hour. Won't you let me in?"

The telegraph instrument began to click just then and the agent turned toward him sharply.

"There's no room. You can wait at the hotel."

"Perhaps the message is about his box," broke in the other man.

Frank glanced around at them. They were dressed like most of the bush choppers in rough working clothes and there was nothing particularly noticeable in their appearance, but he fancied that they had some reason for wishing to get into the office.

"No, sir," said the agent. "They don't wire about the delivery of an empty box on this road. Get out! I want to shut the door."

Frank noticed that one of the loungers had thrust his foot against the post, but the agent, seeming to lose his temper, slammed the door on it.

The man withdrew it with an exclamation, and the agent turned toward the instrument which was now clicking rapidly. He tapped an answering signal, and then wrote upon a strip of paper which he handed Mr. Oliver.

The latter read the message and handed it to the boys.

"_First route unsatisfactory second preferred_," it ran. "_Meet me nine to-night Everett if possible._"

Frank was puzzled, but he fancied that Harry understood the message better than he did.

"Thanks," said Mr. Oliver, addressing the agent. "Your two friends outside seemed uncommonly anxious about that box."

"That's a fact," said the agent. "Larry was worrying me about it before it was light. I don't know the fellow who came along with him, but it struck me that he was listening to the instrument as if he understood it, though he couldn't have heard more than the depot call. Of course,"

he added thoughtfully, "'most any one who had worked on a railroad would know the code, but I can't figure why they should make so much fuss about a box that's scarcely worth a dollar."

"It's curious," Mr. Oliver answered indifferently. "You might lend me your train schedule."

The agent gave him the company's time bill, which also included the coast steamboat sailings, and Mr. Oliver walked back with the boys to the hotel. There was n.o.body in the general room when they reached it, and they sat down near the stove.

"Now," he began, "as we have taken you into our confidence and it's probable that you can help, you may as well understand the situation thoroughly. The message was, of course, from Barclay, though it bears a clerk's name, and it means that Porteous has opened the letter you left him. I fancy he'll regret it, but that is by the way. Barclay received the second letter untampered with, and the rest is plain enough. The only question is how I'm to keep the appointment without putting the fellows at the depot on my track."

"You believe they're in league with the smugglers?" Frank inquired.

Mr. Oliver smiled. "It seems very likely. Here's a man who keeps a boat, and, as you have heard, folks wonder how he makes a living by his fishing. If the boat's moderately fast you can imagine how useful he would be to the smugglers by taking messages from place to place and communicating with the schooner. Then we have another man who seems able to read the telegraph turning up and trying to hear Barclay's message."

"But how could they have learned that you expected it?" Frank asked.

"I'm not sure. Porteous may have suspected something and sent a mounted man off to wire one of the gang. Besides, the fellow who has the boat may have been across with her. It wouldn't be hard to surmise that I would wire from here, though they may have had a man watching the nearest office I could have reached by land on horseback." He paused a moment and looked at the boys gravely. "All this points to the fact that we're up against a big and remarkably well-organized gang."

Frank had no doubt that Mr. Oliver was right, but he asked a question:

"Why did Barclay choose Everett when it's so far from the field of their operations?"

"That's exactly why he fixed on it. There would be less probability of somebody connected with the gang recognizing us, and I've met him there already. The fact that he doesn't mention any particular hotel should have told you that; but what we have to consider is how I'm to get there without these fellows following me. It's important that I should be back at the ranch as soon as possible, and you and Harry must manage to arrive there the first thing to-morrow."

Frank understood the necessity for this. The nights were long, the bush was lonely, and Mr. Oliver's wooden house and barns, which had cost him a good deal of money, would readily burn, while now, when there was only Jake to take care of them, they would be more or less at the smugglers'

mercy. Then Harry, who in the meanwhile, had been examining the schedule, looked up.

"I've an idea," he said. "There's a train goes south in the afternoon, and a steamboat which calls at Everett goes up the Sound this evening.