The boys heard the description of the wrecked aviator with undisguised pleasure. At least one of their pursuers had been put out of the running, for the time being. This, they thought, increased their chances of reaching the Pacific coast in advance of any friends of the outlaws. “Where did the man go after Doctor Sloan set his arm?” asked Ben. “He said he was going to the nearest railway station and return to Denver,” was the reply. “Machine quite busted up?” asked Jimmie. “That’s what he told the doctor,” replied Kit. “He swore awfully while he was talking about it. And look here,” the boy went on, “after he left I picked up a letter which fell from a pocket of his coat when he took it off to have his arm set.” The boy presented a yellow envelope, sealed but not stamped, as he spoke. Ben took the letter and, without any compunctions of conscience whatever, opened it. It contained a sheet of paper, blank with the exception of four words. Ben studied the writing for a moment and passed the sheet to Jimmie. The boy in turn handed it to Carl. “At Two Sisters canyon!” Carl read. “Now what does that mean?” asked Jimmie. “Why, you boy,” Carl explained, “it means that this busted aviator was headed for a canyon in the mountains known as the Two Sisters. Do you get that? What else would he have this letter for?” “That’s the first bit of luck we’ve struck since we started out on this journey!” declared Ben. “I guess, Kit,” he went on, “that you must be a mascot. What do you know about that?” “Oh, I’m a mascot all right!” grinned the youngster. When the boys started away to the west again Kit occupied a seat on the _Bertha_. Satisfied that they had distanced at least one of their pursuers, and encouraged by the thought that their way might now be clear, the boys made few stops of any length on their way to the Pacific. Three days later Sierra de Santa Lucia loomed up before them. It was then twilight, and against the darkness rose the flames of a signal fire! CHAPTER VIII. THE LOSS OF A BOY! “They seem to be celebrating our arrival,” Ben said, looking down on the signal fire with a grin, “only I don’t hear any bands,” he continued, as the flames streamed up and cast a red light over the waters of the Pacific ocean. “That’s about the strangest proposition I ever came across,” Carl said, looking down on the dark canyons, laying like black lines in a drawing, on the landscape below. “I’d like to know what it means.” “Don’t you ever think,” Jimmie went on, “that Phillips and Mendoza have anything to do with that fire! That beacon light was put there for some purpose by an entirely different set of outlaws.” “But why ‘outlaws’?” asked Carl. “The people we see about the fire may be fishermen, and there are lime quarries and kilns somewhere in this section, and these men may be signaling to schooners.”