Advancing now through the thicket, the boy soon saw a motion in the underbrush not far away. He stood still and waited.
In a moment a slender, dusky boy advanced out of the thicket and approached Jimmie, his right hand extended palm out, thumb and little finger crossed—the full sign of the Boy Scout.
Jimmie sat flat down on the ground his back against a tree trunk and regarded the lad quizzically.
“You the kid that brought that note?” he asked.
The other nodded, and Jimmie went on with a mock air of censure.
“Aw, what’s all this?” said the other scornfully.
“The third degree,” Jimmie grinned. “What’d you bring that note for? Now you’ve gone and got Ned Nestor into trouble. What’s your name?” he continued as the boy bent his face to the ground.
“Norman,” was the reply, “Wolf Patrol, New York.”
“You’re a new one on me!” asserted Jimmie. “I belong to the Wolf Patrol, New York. Never saw you before!”
“On account of your nerve!” Norman answered.
“What’re you going to do about it?” asked Jimmie belligerently.
“I’ve been ordered,” Norman went on with a smile, “to break you in two if I came across you in the mountains.”
“Do it, then!” shouted Jimmie. “You’ve gone and got Ned into a mess, and I’d just like to have you try something on me now!”
Instead of showing temper, Norman sat down on the ground and laughed until he felt obliged to hold his sides.
“How’d you ever get away out here in the mountains?” Jimmie asked. “Ain’t you afraid you’ll get lost?”
“I haven’t got lost yet!” was the scornful reply.
“Come now,” Jimmie said, in a more conciliating tone of voice, “put me wise to the game you’re playing with Nestor.”
“All I know about it is that I delivered the note.”
“I left him talking with a very fine gentleman who seemed to be offering to do the square thing with him,” was the reply.
“I don’t know about that. He was offering him money.”
“When will Nestor return to camp?” asked Jimmie.
“Do you mean that they won’t let him go?” demanded the boy.
“I don’t know anything about it,” Norman answered.
“Who told you to rope Ned into such a mess?”
“His name is Toombs,” was the reply. “He hired me to come out on a hunting trip with him and help around the camp.”
“How many are there in the party?” was Jimmie’s next question.