While the steak was broiling, an idea came to Jimmie which he was not slow to carry out. Glancing at the ranger uniform of Phillips, he asked quite innocently: “Are you after the fake ranger, too?” Phillips remained perfectly calm, but Mendosa gave a quick start. “What do you mean by that?” the former asked, easily. “Why,” Jimmie answered, drawing extensively on his imagination, “we met a flying machine man when we went out this morning and he chased us.” “I saw something of the race,” Phillips smiled. “I was just going to ask you about that. Why did he chase you?” “I guess he thought we were trespassing on government land,” the boy replied. “After he overtook us he asked all sorts of questions about the people we had met in the mountains. After a while, he said that he was the chief ranger from San Francisco, and that he was here in search of men who are making trouble for the government by pretending to be rangers. He said he had other machines coming, and that the district would be patrolled until the frauds were arrested.” Phillips and Mendoza exchanged significant glances. “Yes,” the former said, “I had advices three days ago that the man was coming. That’s why I asked the little fellow this morning if he had seen a third machine. I hoped to see the chief ranger before night.” Jimmie was so full of amusement at the ease with which Phillips had fallen for the manufactured story that it was with difficulty that he restrained a chuckle. The success of the story surprised him not a little. He believed now that the outlaws would shun any man who might approach them in an aeroplane, and that the chance for a meeting between the outlaws and their allies was now nothing at all. “Yes,” Jimmie said shortly, keeping his face straight by a great effort, “the chief said he expected to meet every ranger in the forest within a day or two. If you go a few miles farther south you may run across him to-night. He said he had failed to find any one in this region, and would not return here for a couple of days.” “Oh, my, oh, my!” thought Kit, walking away from the fire in order to conceal his amusement, “if Jimmie isn’t fixing it so the outlaws will hang right around here until we can get help.” Phillips and Mendosa conversed together for a long time in low tones and then the former said: “We are pretty tired, so we won’t tramp after the chief to-night. To-morrow, if you have no objections, we’d like to have you take to the air and locate him for us. We’ll camp here to-night.” “That’ll be all right,” Jimmie answered, with apparent frankness, but his thought at the moment was that between that time and morning the outlaws would attempt to steal the _Louise_ and get away. Perhaps, also he might be forced to serve them as aviator! CHAPTER XIX. A SHORT TERM IN JAIL.