The Boy Scout Camera Club

G >> G. Harvey Ralphson >> The Boy Scout Camera Club

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[Illustration: "Say" Cried Frank, "That's a child's face up there!"]

The Boy Scout Camera Club

or

The Confession of a Photograph

By

Scout Master G. Harvey Ralphson

CHAPTER

I LOST: A FOREIGN PRINCE!

II THE HOLE IN THE ATTIC FLOOR

III WHAT THE BOX CONTAINED

IV A CAMP IN THE MOUNTAIN

V JIMMIE AND TEDDY MISS A MEAL

VI SIGNALS IN THE CANYON

VII A MINT IN THE MOUNTAINS

VIII UNCLE IKE PRESENTS HIMSELF

IX A LANK MULE AS A DECOY

X "PACKED AWAY LIKE SARDINES"

XI JACK'S ELEGANT CHICKEN PIE

XII THE BLACK HAND GAME

XIII THREE DAYS TO MOVE IN

XIV POINTING OUT THE TRAIL

XV A NIGHT ON THE SUMMIT

XVI THE CALL OF THE PACK

XVII JUST A LITTLE DARK WASH

XVIII BRADLEY BECOMES INDIGNANT

XIX NED PLAYS THE MIND-READER

XX SHOOTING ON THE MOUNTAINSIDE

XXI TOLD BY THE PICTURES

XXII A RECRUIT FROM THE ENEMY

XXIII RACING MOTORS ON THE WAY

XXIV THE MAN-TRAP IS SET

XXV THE CONFESSION OF A PHOTOGRAPH

The Boy Scout Camera Club

or

The Confession of a Photograph

CHAPTER I

LOST: A FOREIGN PRINCE!

"Two Black Bears!"

"Two Wolves!"

"Three Eagles!"

"Five Moose!"

"Quite a mixture of wild creatures to be found in a splendid clubroom
in the city of New York!" exclaimed Ned Nestor, a handsome, muscular
boy of seventeen. "How many of these denizens of the forests are
ready to join the Boy Scout Camera Club?"

"You may put my name down twice--in red ink!" shouted Jimmie McGraw,
of the Wolf Patrol. "I wouldn't miss it to be president of the United
States!"

"One Wolf," Ned said, writing the name down.

"Two Wolves!" cried Jimmie, red-headed, freckled of face and as
active as a red squirrel, "two wolves! You're a Wolf yourself, Ned
Nestor!"

"Two Wolves, then!" laughed Ned. "Of course Jimmie and I can form a
club all by ourselves, and he can be the officers and I can be the
members, but we'd rather have a menagerie of large size, as we are
going into the mountains of Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina,
Kentucky and Tennessee."

The boys who had not yet spoken were on their feet in an instant, all
clamoring for membership in the Boy Scout Camera Club. Ned lifted a
hand for silence.

"Why this present rush?" he asked. "I've been thinking that Jimmie
and I would have to go to the mountains alone! Why this impetuosity?"

"The mountains!" shouted Frank Shaw, of the Black Bear Patrol. "It is
the mountains that get us! We've been thinking that the club you were
organizing wouldn't get outside of little old New York, but would
loaf around taking snap-shots of the slums and the trees in the
parks. But when you mention mountains, why--"

"I'm going right down stairs and pack my camera!" Jack Bosworth, of
the Black Bear Patrol, declared. "When it comes to mountains!"

The clubroom of the Black Bear Patrol was on the top floor of the
handsome residence of Jack's father, who was a famous corporation
lawyer, and the boys persuaded Jack to wait until they had completed
the organization of the Camera Club before he started in packing for
the journey to the mountains!

"You'll want an Eagle, if you're going to the mountains!" shouted
Teddy Green, of the Eagle Patrol. "I'll fly home and get my wardrobe
right now!"

Teddy Green was the son of a Harvard professor, and was inclined to
follow in the footsteps of his father in the matter of learning--
after he had first climbed to all the high spots of the world and
descended into all the low ones! He insisted on exploring the earth
before he learned by rote what others had written about it!

"All right!" Ned grinned. "We'll need an Eagle!"

"And a Bull Moose!" yelled Oliver Yentsch, of the Moose Patrol.
"You've got to have a Moose along with you!"

Oliver was the son of a ship builder, and had a launch and a yacht of
his own. He was liked by all his associates in spite of his tendency
to grumble at trifles. However, if he complained at small things, he
met large troubles with a smile on his bright face. He now seized
Teddy about the waist and waltzed around the room with him.

"And that's all!" Ned decided, closing the book. "We can't take more
than six."

A wail went up from the others, but they were promised a chance at
the next "hike" into the hills, and soon departed, leaving the six
members of the Camera Club to perfect arrangements for their
departure. It was a warm May night, still Ned closed the door leading
out into the wide corridor which ran through the house on that floor.

"We can't afford to take others into our plans," he said, "for this
is to be another Secret Service expedition."

"For the Government?" demanded Frank Shaw. "Then," he added, without
waiting for a reply, "I'll call up dad's editorial rooms and have a
reporter sent up here. Top of column, first page, illustrated! That's
our Camera Club in the morning newspaper!"

Frank's father was owner and editor of one of the big New York
dailies, and the boy always took along, on his trips, plenty of blank
paper for "copy," but never sent in a line! His letters to his
father's newspaper were usually addressed to the financial
department, upon which he had permission to draw at will!

"Huh!" Jimmie commented, wrinkling his freckled nose, "if you should
ever furnish an item for your daddy's newspaper he'd never live it
down! You've been on all our trips with Ned, and never wired in a
word!"

The Boy Scouts of the Black Bear and Wolf Patrols had been through
many exciting experiences with Ned Nestor, who, young as he was, was
often in the employ of the Secret Service department of the United
States government. Frank, as Jimmie said, had been with Ned from the
start, and had never sent in a line of "copy" for the paper.

"I'm going to furnish a column a day this trip!" Frank declared,
making a motion to seize Jimmie. "We're going to take pictures,
aren't we? We'll take 'em by the acre, and dad's newspaper is going
to catch every one of them."

"Huh!" Jimmie declared, with a freckled nose in the air. "I'm a
newspaper man, too. You needn't think you're the only cherry in the
pie! I used to sell newspapers before I got into the Secret Service
with Ned!"

From his earliest years Jimmie had indeed been a newsboy on the
Bowery. He had never had a home except that provided by himself, and
this, in the early days of his life, had as often been a box or
barrel in an alley as anything else.

"Why the mountains?" asked Frank Shaw, presently. "Do you have to go
to the hills on this trip? I'm glad if you do, of course, but I'd
like to know something about it before we start. Dad will have to be
shown this time, I reckon! He thinks we rather _overdid_ the stunt
when we went to Lady Franklin bay!"

"Never had so much fun in my life!" laughed Jimmie. "When you get
where it is forty below, there's some delight in living!"

"What are we going to take pictures of?" demanded Teddy Green.

"Moonshiners!" laughed Frank. "Isn't that right, Ned?"

"Not exactly," was the answer. "This is not a whisky case at all."

"Counterfeiters, then?" queried Oliver. "They live in the hills!"

"No, not counterfeiters, either," Ned replied. "The government has
plenty of men to look after counterfeiters and moonshiners. All we've
got to do is to go into the mountains and take pictures, and keep our
eyes open."

"Open for what?" insisted Jimmie. "My peepers will be open for a
venison steak about the first thing! You remember how fine the
venison steaks were up in British Columbia? That Columbia river trip
was some exciting! What?"

"Well," Ned began, "you all know that I'm in the Secret Service, for
you've been with me, some of you, at Panama, in China, and under the
ocean, so we'll let the details go without explanation. I'm going to
the mountains to look after a precious package stolen from
Washington--from almost under the eyes of the president--three days
ago!"

"Papers?" asked Jimmie. "You know we went to Lady Franklin bay after
papers."

"And they think the mountaineers stole this package?" asked Oliver.

"Tell us what it was that was taken first!" insisted Frank. "I'm
beginning to see a front-page story in this, right now!"

"The package stolen," Ned went on, with a smile, "was more precious
than any bundle of papers could be! It wasn't of gold, silver,
diamonds, or anything possessing that kind of value. It was of flesh
and blood!"

"A child stolen!" cried Frank. "This goes to dad's sheet right now!"

"Boy or girl?" asked Oliver. "Age, please!"

"Boy," answered Ned. "A boy belonging to one of the ambassadors! Age
seven!"

"But why should the mountaineers steal such a child?" asked Jimmie.

"I said the boy belonged to one of the ambassadors," Ned corrected
himself. "I should have said he belonged at one of the foreign
embassies."

"The son of one of the attaches?" asked Teddy. "That's strange! Why?"

"Teddy," reproved Jimmie, "you can ask more questions in a minute
than a motion picture machine can take in a hundred years."

"The stolen boy is in no ways related to any one in this country,"
Ned answered, "yet his safety is of the utmost importance. It is up
to us to find him."

"But why should the mountain men make a grab at a kid?" insisted
Jimmie. "I've asked that question numerous times now," he added, with
a wrinkled nose.

"It is not believed that the mountain men know anything about the
matter," Ned replied. "No one suspects them of taking the child.
Mountain men are not up to that sort of thing, as a rule. They will
make moonshine--some of them will--and may hide a counterfeiter, but
they don't steal children!"

"Then who did steal him?" asked Frank. "Don't be so mysterious."

"I want the matter to sink deep into your alleged minds!" was Ned's
smiling rejoinder, "and that is the reason I'm drawing the
explanation out. It is thought the boy was stolen by some one who
came over the sea to do the job--some one never before in this
country."

"I twig!" Jimmie declared, skipping about the room. "The stolen boy
is next of succession to some measly old throne! What? And he was
sent out here to get him out of the zone of danger, and now he's been
nipped?"

The boys looked at Ned with redoubled interest. It had been
interesting, the very idea of going into the mountains in quest of an
abducted child, but the thought of going after a boy who would one
day be a king! That was exciting indeed!

"I can't tell you who the boy is." Ned went on, "but I can tell you
that he must be found! The Secret Service men at Washington have a
pretty good idea as to who got him, and they believe the criminals
are not above committing the crime of murder. In a certain sense,
this boy is in the way in the old country!"

"Oh, they wouldn't kill a kid like that!" Jimmie asserted.

"Wouldn't they?" demanded Teddy Green. "If you read up on history,
you'll soon find out whether ambitious men will murder children who
stand in their way! I half believe the boy was murdered at the very
moment he was taken!"

"He has been seen alive since that time," Ned responded. "This is
Thursday. He was taken on Monday, and was seen yesterday. Or a boy
believed to be the prince was seen yesterday, on a launch on the
Potomac river."

"Prince, eh?" cried Frank. "It is a prince, is it? Say, but won't dad
be glad to hear about this? I'd like to write the headlines!"

"We may as well call him the prince," Ned laughed.

Before more could be said, a servant knocked at the door and Jack
opened it so as to look out. In a moment he turned back inside with a
flushed face.

"Say, boys," he said, "there's something strange going on here
to-night!"

CHAPTER II

THE HOLE IN THE ATTIC FLOOR

Ned sprang to his feet in an instant and beckoned Jack to one side.
The others gathered around, but Ned motioned them back.

"Let us find out exactly what Jack means before any remarks are
made," he said.

"Well," Jack began, almost in a whisper, "the servant who came to the
door said--"

"Wait a moment!" Ned requested. "Let us get this at first hand. Is
the servant you refer to still out in the corridor? Look and see."

Jack opened the door an inch and looked out.

"Yes," he reported, facing Ned, with the door still ajar, "he is
still there."

"Then ask him to come in here," Ned suggested, "and you, boys," he
added, turning to the wondering faces at the other side of the
apartment, "you get as close as you wish while this man is talking,
but don't interrupt. It may be that we shall have to do something
right soon. I reckon our hunt for the prince starts right here, in
the Black Bear Patrol clubroom, in the heart of little old New York."

The servant Jack had beckoned to now entered the room and stood with
his back to the door, looking from one boyish face to another. He was
a heavily built, muscular fellow, evidently an Irishman, judging from
his face and manner.

"Will you kindly come over here and sit down?" Ned asked.

The servant complied and the others gathered around him.

"Now," Jack began, "tell Ned what you just told me--about the man in
the attic, and about the hole in the ceiling."

Every eye in the room was instantly turned toward the lofty ceiling,
but nothing out of the ordinary was to be seen there.

"The hole he refers to," Jack, smiling, explained, "is not in sight.
It is under the ornamental brass piece that circles the rod from
which the chandelier hangs. It was made to listen at, and not to see
through, I take it!"

"That makes a good starter," Ned smiled, "so go on."

"Half an hour ago," the servant began, "I was called to this floor by
one of the maids, Mary Murphy it was, and she was that scared she
looked like a bag of flour! She pointed to the staircase leading to
the attic and asked me to go up there.

"So I says to her: 'Why do you want me to go up there? If there's a
haunt there, or a burglar, or a man after one of the girls, why
should I risk the precious neck of me, when it's the only one I've
got, with no prospect of ever getting another in case this one was
damaged beyond repair?' So she says to me, she says--"

"Never mind what she said," Ned interrupted, fearful of a long,
involved dialogue between the two servants. "Tell me what you did."

"I went up the staircase, three steps at a jump, an' bumped the head
of me on the edge of the door at the top of it. You can see the dent
in my coco now!"

"And what did you find there?" asked Ned.

"There was a rug on the floor and a hole in the floor, and a twinkle
of light shining into the attic from this room. Some one had been
listening there!"

"You saw no one?"

"Never a soul! I'm that sorry I can't express it!"

"When were you in that attic before--the last time before to-night?"

"Late yesterday afternoon it was."

"Was there a rug in the middle of the floor at that time?" Ned went
on.

"No more than there is a bold lion in the middle of this floor, sir."

"Well, what did you do after you got up there to-night?"

"I hunted around for the man who had been lying there listening to
the talk in this room, but I didn't find him, sir."

"Did you ascertain where all the servants were at the time the
listening must have been going on?" asked Jack, after a short pause.

"All but one," was the reply.

"And that one? Where is he now? That is, tell, if you know where he
is?"

"I don't know, sir. He has left the house, I reckon--bag and
baggage."

"Who was it?" demanded Jack, moving toward the door.

"Chang Chu, the Chink, may the Evil One get into his bed!"

"And then you came here and notified Jack?" asked Ned. "As soon as
you learned that Chang Chu was not in the house?"

"Indeed I did--within a minute and a half."

"Where is this girl, Mary Murphy?" asked Ned, turning to Jack. "We
must get hold of her right away. I want to hear her story of what she
saw in the attic."

Jack went out of the room, but was back in a minute with the girl, a
pretty, modest maid of about eighteen. She looked frightened at
finding herself the center of interest, but was soon in the midst of
her story.

"I went up to the attic to get a piece of cloth for a bandage, Sally
having cut her hand with the bread knife. When I got to the door of
that room I heard some one inside of it. I listened at the crack
there is between the panel and the stile and heard footsteps, slow
and soft like. I thought it was one of the maids, and opened the door
quick, so as to give her a scare."

The girl paused and wiped her face with a white apron bordered with
pink.

"Go on," Ned requested. "Tell us what you saw in the attic."

"It wasn't much, sir," was the agitated answer. "I saw just a flash
of dark blue, coming at me like the lightning express, and then I was
keeled over--just as if I had been a bag of meal, sir!"

"He bunted into you, did he?" asked Jack. "Who was it?"

"Indeed I don't know, sir," was the reply. "It was dim in the room,
there being only the light from the hall as I opened the door. Then
he came at me with such a bunt that it took the breath out of me
body!"

"And what followed?" asked Ned.

"She wint down f'r the count!" chuckled the servant who had been
first questioned.

"I did not!" was the indignant retort. "When I got up the man was
still on the stairs leading to this floor, and I picked up the great
shears which had tumbled out of me hand and heaved thim at him. I had
brought the shears up to cut a bandage, sir."

"Did you hit him?" asked Jack with a smile. "Where are the shears?"

"I never went back after them!" answered the girl. "I'll go this
minute."

"Wait," Ned said, "and I'll get them. Now, you say you saw a blue
streak coming at you, head-on! Who wears blue clothes around the
house?"

"Chang Chu, the Chink, sir."

"You saw him dressed in blue to-day?" asked Ned.

"All in blue he was!" the male servant interrupted, "with his shirt
on the outside of his trousers, like the bloody heathen he is."

"And so you looked for him and failed to find him on the premises?"
asked Jack.

"He's gone, bag and baggage," answered Terance, the coachman. "Bad
luck to him!"

"Still, you don't really know that it was the Chinaman?" asked Ned.

"He was dressed like the Chink," was the reply. "He smelled like a
saloon!"

"Does the Chinaman drink?" asked Ned, facing Terance. "Does he get
drunk?"

"He does not," was the reply. "He doesn't know the taste of good
liquor!"

"That's all," Ned concluded. "Now you two keep on looking for the
Chinaman. He may be hiding in the house, or he may be at some of the
dens such people frequent. You, Mary, look for him in the house, and
you, Terance, see if you can learn where he usually went when he left
the house."

"Pell street!" cried Jimmie. "Look in Pell street!"

"Or Doyers!" Jack exclaimed. "Look in the dumps in Doyers street."

The two went away, forgetting all about the shears which Mary had
hurled at the mysterious man she had caught in the attic. Asking the
boys to remain where they were, Ned went out to the staircase and
secured the article. Taking it carefully by the handle, he returned
to the room and held up one blade.

Jack looked at the blade casually at first, then cried out that there
was blood on it, and that Mary had speared the sneak.

"Yes," Ned explained, "there is blood on it. Mary hit the fellow on
the head with this blade. What else do you see on the steel?" he
asked with a smile.

Jimmie looked and backed away in disgust. His freckled face was
thrust out of the door for an instant, and they heard him calling to
Mary, who, being in the kitchen, beyond sound of his voice, did not
respond.

"What do you want of Mary?" demanded Jack. "Shall I call her?"

"She said it was the Chink, didn't she?" the boy asked. "Or, she said
it was a man dressed like the Chink? Well, it wasn't the Chink."

Ned laughed and looked at the boy admiringly.

"How do you know that?" he asked. "Why are you so sure it was not the
Chink?"

Jimmie looked up into Ned's face with a provoking grin.

"You know just as well as I do that it wasn't the Chink," he said.
"Just you look on that blade again! Ever see a Chink with light brown
hair?"

"Now, what do you think of that?" roared Jack. "Sometimes this boy,
Jimmie, seems to me to be possessed of almost human intelligence!"
The lads gathered closer around the shears, one blade of which Ned
was still holding out for inspection. There was the blood, and there
was the long, blonde hair!

"Hit him on the belfry!" Jimmie grinned. "Knocked off a shingle and
brought away a piece of it! Now, why did the Chink run away? That's
what I'd like to know!"

"Where did the man get the Chink's dress?" asked Oliver. "That's what
you'd better be asking? Why did the Chink let him in and then loan
him the dress?"

"I rather think that's why the Chinaman ran away!" laughed Ned. "You
boys seem to have reasoned it all out. He might have let the sneak in
and then let him have some of his own clothes to wear! And that will
make trouble for us!"

"Do you think the fellow heard about the Camera Club trip, and the
object of it?" asked Oliver. "If he was scared away half an hour ago
he didn't learn much, for we hadn't begun to talk much about it at
that time!"

"He may not have heard anything important," Ned replied, "but the
fact that he was sent here to listen is significant! Some one in
Washington knows that we have been chosen to search the mountains for
the prince! Some one knows that we are going out as an innocent-
looking Boy Scout Camera Club, but really to find the boy. Now, what
will that person do to the Camera Club, after we get out into the
mountains?"

"The question in my mind," Jimmie broke in, "is what we shall do to
him!"

"I'm sorry the information about our going leaked out," Ned said,
gravely. "As boy snapshot friends we might have been able to do
things which the Secret Service men could not do. No one would pay
much attention to a group of boys roaming over the mountains. But now
I'm afraid our investigations will be all in the limelight!"

"Tell you what," Jimmie cut in, "suppose we find the Chink and make
him point out the man who was in the house--listening?"

CHAPTER III

WHAT THE BOX CONTAINED

"All right," Oliver encouraged. "Let's go out and make a throw at
finding him, anyway! He may be in the garage, or the carriage house
right this minute."

Jimmie and Oliver rushed away to find Terance, the coachman, and
undertake the search suggested, while Ned, Jack, Frank and Teddy sat
at the open windows looking out on the street.

"Chang Chu was at liberty to go into the attic at any time?" asked
Ned, tentatively.

"Oh, yes," Jack answered, "the other servants sent him about on
errands. He is a handy man about the premises--or was, rather."

"Is he a man to do such a thing as we are accusing him of?" Ned then
asked.

"I never thought so," was the puzzled reply. "I hope you don't think
that he was beaten up by the man who secured his blue clothes! That
would be tough on the fellow."

"I have been thinking of that," Ned responded, "and while the boys
are looking for the Chinaman in the outbuildings suppose we look for
him in the upper part of the house."

"But if the sneak could get into the upper part of the house without
the use of the disguise," reasoned Jack, "he wouldn't need it at all,
would he?"

"He might have been surprised while at work by the Chinaman," Ned
suggested. "In that case he might have taken the clothes as an
afterthought. Suppose we look and see?"

Leaving Frank and Teddy sitting by the window, looking out on a
perfect May night, Ned and Jack climbed the staircase to the attic
and entered the room directly over the Black Bear Patrol clubroom. It
was a large room, more of a storeroom than an attic, with a hardwood
floor and papered walls and ceiling.

A great sack upon which clothing and odds and ends of all
descriptions were hanging stood at the south end of the apartment,
while a long row of boxes and packing trunks occupied the floor at
the north end. The rug, which had been thrown down on the floor near
the hole bored through a plank, was still there where the servants
had seen it. The listener had, at least, a good notion of personal
comfort!

"Where was this rug taken from?" asked Ned.

"It was on the rack the last time I saw it," Jack answered.

"Was it clean at that time?" Ned continued, examining the rug with a
glass.

"What do you mean by clean? It was dusty, of course, like everything
else here."

"Were there any stains on it--stains like blood?" Ned went on,
dragging the rug under the electric lights which had been switched
on.

"Why, of course not. It was originally in the little den off the
library, but father became tired of it and told Terance to bring it
here."

"How long ago was that?"

"Oh, a month or two. I can't be exact as to the date, you know."

Ned handed his chum the glass and indicated a certain portion of the
rug.

"What do you call that?" he asked. "What does it look like?"

"It looks like a spot of blood," Jack declared. "And it is wet, too!
What do you make of this, Ned? Was Chang Chu attacked and killed by
that sneak thief?"

"That is for us to find out," Ned answered. "At the present moment,
it looks as if Chang Chu wouldn't be found on Pell or Doyers street.
What is there is those boxes--the large ones sitting against the
wall?"

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