said, with a frown, "we'll have plenty
of company on the way down. We may not see our traveling companions,
but they will be close at hand."

"Do you mean that the police will trail us to Mexico?" asked Fremont.

"I don't know," was the reply. "I give it up. There are others beside
the police to reckon with. Well, we'll see what Boy Scouts can do to
protect a friend who is in trouble."

CHAPTER V.

THE WOLF IN THE BEAR'S BED.

The two boys traveled for three days and nights, the general direction
being south. There were, however, numerous halts and turns in the
journey to the Rio Grande. Three times Fremont was left alone at
junction towns while Nestor took short trips on cross lines. Once the
patrol leader was absent hours after the time set for his return, and
the boy was anxious as well as mystified.

Fremont knew that his traveling companion was receiving telegrams in
code all the way down, and knew, also, that his movements were in a
measure directed by them. Still, one delay seemed to lead to another,
as if new conditions were developing. The movements of the boys, too,
were carefully guarded, so carefully, indeed, that it seemed to Fremont
that Nestor was continually spying upon some one, as well as hiding
from those who were spying upon him.

Time and again Fremont asked his friend to explain the mystifying
situation, but never succeeded in gaining satisfactory information on
the subject of the frequent halts and seemingly useless journeys back
and forth. At various times during the journey he secured newspapers
containing wild and improbable theories of the crime which had been
committed in the Cameron building. Mr. Cameron's death, the dispatches
said, was hourly expected, so the unfortunate boy received little
encouragement from his reading of the New York news.

Early in the evening of the third day out the boys reached El Paso, on
the Texas side of the Rio Grande. They found the city looking like a
military encampment. Soldiers wearing the khaki uniforms of Uncle Sam
were everywhere, martial music filled the air with its shrill fifings
and deep drum-beats, and there was a gleam of polished steel wherever
the boys walked.

It was a scene well calculated to stir the imagination and excite the
patriotism of the Boy Scouts, and for a time the excitement of it all
forced Fremont's troubles from his mind. The boys dined at a
restaurant and then Fremont went to a comfortable room whic