the Pacific coast, and from various
forts scattered about the country. The manager confided to his wife
when he went home to luncheon that it seemed to him as if another war
was beginning. All the military offices in the country seemed talking
in code, he said.

"What has this boy you speak of got to do with military operations?"
asked the wife, wondering at a lad of Nestor's age being mixed up in a
state affair.

"That is what I don't know," was the reply. "He came to the office
this morning and sent for me, as you know. When I met him he asked for
a code expert and wired to the biggest man in this military division.
Then the code work began."

It was late in the evening when Nestor returned to the cottage and
announced himself ready for the southern trip. Fremont, who had been
impatiently awaiting his arrival, was eager to know the status of the
Cameron case.

"Mr. Cameron is alive, but unconscious," was the unsatisfactory reply.
"The police ordered him taken to a hospital and his people summoned. It
is said that Mrs. Cameron is very bitter against you."

"That's because I ran away," Fremont said, gravely. "What about Jim
Scoby?"

"The watchman has disappeared," was the reply. "He left with a Mexican
called Felix who occupied a room in the building. The police are after
them."

"And of course they are looking for me--egged on by Mrs. Cameron?"

"There is a reward of $10,000 offered for the arrest of the guilty
party," was the unsatisfactory reply, "and the police officers are
raking the city to find any one who was in the building last night."

"Did they arrest Jimmie McGraw?" asked Fremont, hoping that the bright
little fellow had not been placed in prison.

"Jimmie ran away, just as he said he would, called a surgeon and left
the building before he arrived. The police followed him to a room
where members of the Wolf Patrol meet occasionally, but he was not
there. The boys who were there, night messengers and the like, who had
dropped in before going home, said that he had gone South. I met a boy
named Frank Shaw, and he said the Black Bears were getting ready to do
something for you, though he would not say what it was."

"Good old Frank!" exclaimed Fremont.

"The Black Bears are loyal," Nestor went on, "and so are the Wolves. We
may hear from both patrols after we cross the Rio Grande."

"I wish some of them were going with us," said Fremont, with a sigh.

"If I am not mistaken," Nestor