The Boy Ranchers of Puget Sound. Bindloss Harold
darkness, beyond the rather less shadowy clearing, across part of which the fruit trees stretched. Then ran back, in regular rows, little clumps of deeper obscurity which presently grew blurred and faded into one another. The wind had apparently dropped again, for it was impressively still.
"I can't hear anything," whispered Frank.
"I'm not sure that I did," rejoined Harry. "It may be that seeing that schooner put the thing into my head, but we'll wait a little now that we're up."
For a couple of minutes they waited in silence. Then Harry suddenly gripped his companion's arm.
"Look!" he whispered. "Across the clearing – yonder!"
Frank fancied that he could make out a shadowy object in the open space between the fruit trees and the forest. It was very dim and indistinct, and he realized that he would not have noticed it only that it moved. Shortly afterward it disappeared and a faint rattle like that made by two pieces of wood jarring together came out of the deep gloom beneath the firs.
"The fence," suggested Harry. "It sounded like the top rails going down."
The fence was made of split rails interlocked together in the usual manner without the use of nails, and it seemed to Frank very probable that anybody climbing over it in the darkness would be apt to knock one or two of them down. The question was who would be likely to climb over it, since there was no one living within some miles of the ranch. Then he caught another sound which seemed farther off. It suggested the crackle of rotten branches or torn-down undergrowth, but it ceased almost immediately.
"Slip on your things," whispered Harry. "I'm going down."
In a few moments they crept softly down the stairway barefooted, and Harry opened the outer door very cautiously. He picked up an ax outside, and they moved silently around the house, stopping now and then to listen. There was only a deep stillness. Nothing seemed to move; though Frank wished that he had at least a good thick stick in his hand. He had an uncomfortable feeling that they might come upon a man hiding in some strip of deeper gloom as they slowly crept along the wall. When at length they had satisfied themselves that there was nobody about, Harry sat down.
"I can't figure out this thing," he mused. "It seems to me that whoever those strangers were they haven't been near the house, and it's a quiet country, anyway." He glanced down at his bare feet. "I'd go along and look around the barn and stables only that I'd certainly stub my toes, and it wouldn't be any use. Nobody steals horses around here. They couldn't get rid of them if they did."
The outbuildings stood at some little distance from the house, and Frank, who remembered that they had strewn the trail to them with broken twigs in dragging some branches from the slashing, agreed with his companion that it would not be wise to traverse it in the darkness with unprotected feet.
"Couldn't you slip into the kitchen and get our boots?" he suggested.
"Not without waking dad," answered Harry. "He's in the next room, and he sleeps lightly. I'm not anxious to bring him out if no harm's been done."
"He'd get angry?"
"No, he'd only smile; and somehow that makes you feel quite cheap and small. Besides" – and he hesitated – "there was another time, when I roused them for nothing; and I don't want to do it again. You wouldn't either, if you had stood as much about it from Jake as I've had to ever since."
They decided to say nothing about the matter unless some reason for doing so appeared in the morning, and creeping back through the house as silently as possible they went to bed. They awoke a little later than usual, and going down found Mr. Oliver standing at one side of the kitchen table rather grave of face, with Jake, who also looked thoughtful, opposite him. A strip of paper with some writing on it lay between them. Mr. Oliver looked around as the boys came in.
"Did either of you hear anything suspicious last night?" he asked.
"Yes," said Harry hesitatingly. "In fact, we came down."
He briefly related why they had done so, and Jake broke in:
"Then why in the name of wonder didn't you call somebody?"
"It's a reasonable question," said Mr. Oliver.
Harry explained with some diffidence that they were afraid of being laughed at, and Frank felt a little uncomfortable under the rancher's steady gaze.
"Well," said the latter dryly, "I suppose your idea was natural, and we'll let it go at that. It's perhaps scarcely worth while to point out that most people get laughed at now and then, and there's no reason for believing that it hurts them. I wonder if you will be surprised to hear that my team has gone?"
They were certainly somewhat startled.
"I found this stuck up on the stable door," said Jake, pushing the strip of paper across toward them.
The boys read the straggling writing: "If you want your team back keep your mouth shut."
For a moment they looked at each other in silence, and then Mr. Oliver turned to them.
"It's all we know in the meanwhile. Have you anything more to tell us?"
Harry diffidently mentioned the schooner, and his father drew down his brows.
"Whether her appearance has any connection with the matter is more than I can say, but I'll sail up to the settlement this morning. You and Frank can go on with the drain cutting while I am away."
Just then Miss Oliver came in to get breakfast ready, and when the meal was finished the two boys made for the clearing where they were cutting a trench. When they reached their destination Harry sat down and pushed back his hat.
"This thing isn't very clear to me, but I'm beginning to get the drift of it," he announced. "It's quite likely that dad knows a good deal more about it than I do, but until he has it all worked out he won't tell. First of all, we'll allow that they're smugglers on that schooner. They borrowed two of our horses and that fixes it."
"You couldn't smuggle a great deal on two horses," Frank pointed out.
"Sure," admitted Harry. "Still, they might have picked up another team somewhere else, and you want to remember that it only pays to smuggle things that are valuable and can be easily moved. Now one packhorse load of dope would be worth a good many dollars, and you can't move anything much easier than a man. He's got feet."
This was incontestable, but Frank considered the matter.
"If you turned a number of Chinamen loose in the bush wouldn't they be recognized as strangers at any settlement they reached and have to give an account of themselves to somebody?"
"The trouble is that, although I believe they have to carry papers of some kind, it's mighty hard to tell one Chinaman from another and they all work into each other's hands."
"Your idea is that the smugglers have confederates?"
"They have them, sure," said Harry. "There's some diking being done on a salt marsh not far away, and the last time I was there it struck me there were some hard-looking white toughs on the workings. Then there's a small Chinese colony behind the settlement, and it's thick bush with only a few ranches for some leagues beyond. Just the kind of country for running dope through."
"Are the ranchers likely to stand in?"
"No, not in a general way, but it's possible that a man here and there living by himself in the bush would say nothing if they borrowed a horse or two. It's not nice to have a gang of toughs up against you."
"Your father doesn't seem inclined to look at it that way."
Harry laughed. "I'll allow that there's a good deal of sense in dad. It would be clear to him that he couldn't well give them away afterward if he did nothing this time. They'd certainly have got him; and dad's not the man to let a gang of dope runners order him round." He paused a moment, and added significantly: "If they try any bluffing in this case there'll be trouble."
Frank asked no further questions and they set about the trenching.
CHAPTER VI
AT THE HELM
Mr. Oliver did not