CHAPTER XVITHE LAST CAMP FIRE—CONCLUSION
"Ain't he a squealer, though?" cried Steve, as they came close to the place, and saw that the thin mattress had indeed been broken down.
The sounds welled up from the hole they had dug, and there was some sort of movement down there.
"Oh! let's h-h-hurry and g-g-get him fastened to this chain!" Toby was crying. "He might j-j-jump out any minute unless we're c-c-careful. Max, have you thought about the l-l-lantern like you said you would?"
"It's here, all right," replied the other; "now, surround the pit, while I light up, so we can see how to get the old sinner out."
Accordingly they formed what Steve called "a hollow square" around the hole in the ground, out of which was coming that series of discordant squeals; but in Toby's ears no music could ever sound sweeter, for did they not mean a clever victory over the shrewdest of wild animals, an educated monkey?
Max had matches along, for a box had been fastened to the lantern, so that no unnecessary delay might be encountered should they want to do things in haste, and light was needed.
When he had applied one of these to the wick, and turned down the globe, Max swung the lantern around, and then held it over the edge of the pit very cautiously, for fear lest he further excite the occupant.
Then they all stared down, expecting to see a shrinking monkey looking helplessly up at them, cowed by his capture. The squealing had suddenly ceased as the lantern light began to fall into the hole; they could already distinguish a form in the pit; and just then a plain, unmistakablegruntsmote their ears.
"Oh! my s-s-stars!" gasped Toby, plainly astounded and disgusted.
Steve gave a shout, and then laughed with all his might.
"Why, what's this?" exclaimed Bandy-legs, looking again, "only a plain oldhoginstead of a chattering monk? Say, this is a good one on us, fellers. Has it been this rooter and grunter that's been bothering us right along? Somebody kick me, won't you, please?"
Thereupon Steve accommodated him without the slightest hesitation.
"Oh! this is only one of those accidents that will happen sometimes," Max went on to explain. "We know it wasn't a pig that did all the other mischief, for we saw the tracks as plain as day. To-night it just came about that this porker, escaped from some farmer's pen, wandered into camp, and found those nice nuts and other stuffthat we piled up on the cover of the pit. So he started to have a midnight lunch all by himself, but the ice was too thin, and down he went."
Even Toby had to laugh by that time, having partly recovered from his grievous disappointment.
"Ain't this the greatest little puzzle we ever tackled?" Bandy-legs was heard to say; "and now that we've got something in our trap, why don't you use that chain and padlock, Toby? Here's a prize pet for you. Think of fastenin' the same up in your back yard, and tellin' folks you had a wild boar in captivity. Regular sideshow freak business you might go into."
The imprisoned hog had started in to squeal once more. Perhaps it imagined the critical time in its life had arrived, when hams and loins were in demand, and that it must maintain the reputation of its species for making a row.
"But great Cæsar's ghost! what ought we do about it?" exclaimed Steve, clapping both hands over his ears; "we can't stand for this all night long."
"We must manage to get him out of that, some way or other," Max declared, positively.
"Toby, you're so fond of everything that walks on four legs, s'pose you climb down into the pit and lift Mr. Hog out?" suggested Bandy-legs.
"What, me, and with only my p-p-pajamas on?" cried Toby; "I'd like to s-s-see myself adoin' that. Seems to me the b-b-best way would be to diga trench, and then shoo the old p-p-porker out."
"That's what we'll do," Max announced. "It would seem that the monkey is too smart to step into a trap built like this, so we wouldn't have any further need of the pit. Let's get some clothes on first, so we won't take cold, and then everybody dig."
It was a duty they could not shirk, and before long they had managed to knock away part of the wall of the pit, so that an ordinary hog might manage to scramble up the incline from the depths.
Then they all gathered on the other side, and "shooed," and waved their arms as well as the lantern. The prisoner of the pit, alarmed no doubt for his safety, and seeing an opening for escape, started to climb, with such success that presently he reached level ground, gave a satisfied grunt, and then trotted off into the neighboring woods.
The four boys were laughing among themselves as they once more went back to the warmth of their blankets.
"Another dream shattered," said Steve, "and count me out after this when it comes to hatching up dark schemes against that poor ape. Some of the rest of you can try your hands if you want; but ten to one we'll have to get down to hard gravel in the end, and use that wild-animal-catcher stunt with the doped stuff. To tell you the truth I'm sort of hoping we will, because I'd like to see how it works."
"M-m-me too, Steve!" exclaimed Toby; "and I only h-h-hope Max say's the word after we've tried a few more games, and find they don't w-w-work any."
"I'll fix the limit for another night," said Max, "and then if we haven't been successful in trapping the monkey I'll agree to try Mr. Jenks' plan."
With that all of the others declared they would rest content, though it seemed as though Bandy-legs, as well as Steve and Toby, was willing to proceed to extremes as soon as possible, only Max objecting to the plan as hardly fair to the monkey.
Another day passed, and they amused themselves in various ways, taking pictures, fishing for pickerel in the big pond with fair success, and making arrangements for trying out another idea that night, in hopes of capturing the smart monkey.
This consisted of a trap fashioned somewhat on the order of the turkey cage mentioned by Toby. It was built of stout canes, carried all the way from the pond, and with the corner joints spliced with cord. Then a descending roadway was carefully dug out, and brought up inside the cage. A trigger was arranged, to be sprung should the monkey, in following the roadway, enter the cage, and which would release a little door that, falling into place, would shut the opening, and at the same time ring a bell Toby had fixed close to where his head would be as he slept.
Altogether it was quite an ingenious contraption;but all the same there was no bell ringing duringthatnight: And yet when Toby went out next morning to examine his disappointing contrivance he reported that the monkey had actually been there, and eaten up all the nut meat, even going inside the trap, and never setting the trigger off.
Sure enough they did find his tracks in the roadway as far as the trap, but no further, which told them the animal was too smart to be caught by such a flimsy device.
Toby insisted on it that he had gone inside, because the bait had all vanished; but Max, having lifted the cage aside, showed that there was not a sign of the monkey's footprints there. On the other hand he told them the inside bait had plainly been devoured by little mice, for he showed them innumerable tracks made by their dainty feet.
So Toby declared that he was done.
"He's too cute for m-m-me, fellers, I admit," he said; "though if it wasn't for that fetching bait left by Mr. Jenks I'd k-k-keep on tryin' till I didn't know my own name. But now, Max, l-l-let 's g-g-get busy in earnest."
As he had promised them, Max would not draw back. The balance of the nut meat and some of the dried bread he put in a pannikin, and poured a portion of the contents of the bottle over the mess, until the liquid was soaked up.
This was done at a certain spot where they believed the monkey was most apt to show himself.Then the boys went away, one of them remaining on sentry duty at some little distance off, so as to give the signal should Link make his appearance.
The whole morning passed without the monkey showing up. Lunch had been served, and the one on duty relieved, so that he could take his turn at the rude table they had constructed near the tent.
Bandy-legs was the sentinel now, and would remain on post until about the middle of the afternoon, unless something happened to break the dreadful monotony.
It did.
About two o'clock Bandy-legs came running in, all out of breath, with the exciting news that the monkey had appeared, just as they hoped, and was even then busily engaged in disposing of the doped food as greedily as anything.
So they all trooped out to witness the strange sight. Toby carried along the chain and collar and padlock left in his charge by the showman; for he kept hoping that the time had now come when he might find a good use for the same.
True enough, they discovered the big monkey busily at work. His liking for strong drink was apt to prove his undoing, even as it has that of countless millions of the human race. Watching him eating like a starving thing, the boys exchanged many humorous remarks.
By the time Link had appeased his appetite he could hardly stand up straight, and Max declaredthere was now no longer any reason why they should not surround and capture him.
It was almost too easy after all. The stupid beast made no attempt to flee, for he staggered whenever he tried to move. He also seemed to understand his condition, for at their approach he held out one hand toward them pitifully, as though seeking their assistance to guide his faltering footsteps.
And so the exulting Toby quickly fixed that collar around his neck, snapped the little-padlock shut, and gripping the chain led the way to camp, followed by the others, with Steve holding one of the poor monkey's hands, and Max the other.
That was the story of Link's downfall and capture. The evening following he sat there, secured to a tree, and holding his head between his hands as though it ached terribly, and blinked at the boys whenever they approached; but with not even a whimper of complaint, just a little moan at times.
In the morning the monkey seemed to be all right again, and full of comical antics. And after that Toby spent about all his time hovering around the place where Link was chained, talking to him, coaxing him to show off by tempting pieces of food, and enjoying himself more than words could tell.
Their vacation was drawing to a close, and while they had not met with any really thrilling adventures, still the four chums were a unit in declaring that they had never had a better time.
A deep mystery had been solved, and they had caught the monkey which was to net them such a dazzling reward. Max had become reconciled to the means employed, as it was all for the beast's own good; and Link himself, apparently had forgotten that there was such a thing as freedom.
When the time came for them to break camp, they took down the khaki-colored tent with the customary sad rites, chanting in unison the chorus of "Tenting on the Old Camp Ground."
They were a merry lot as they started the old horse homeward, and with the captive monkey in their midst to keep them company. They had to maintain a watch on Link, for he was apt to pinch them, snatch anything he could see, from a watch to a lead pencil, and was as full of his pranks "as an egg is of meat," as Steve said.
When they arrived home Max hastened to wire Mr. Jenks of their success, and on the very next train the delighted circus man appeared in Carson, to claim the valuable runaway, and gladly turned over the two hundred dollars to the chums.
What that represented to Max and his three mates in paying the expenses of the next great outing they planned will be told in the next story of this series, to be called "Afloat on the Flood."
Until we meet again in the pages of that volume we will have to bid the boys of Carson good-bye for a short time, shake hands with the reader, and turn down the light.
[Transcriber's Note: For short books such asChums of the Campfire,it was common for the publisher to add additional material.Mortimer Halleck's Adventurewas chosen to accompany the main text in this edition.]
V.MORTIMER HALLECK'S ADVENTURE.
Among the many adventurous incidents of our frontier life in northwest Iowa, fifteen years ago, I recall one that befell a boy neighbor, Mortimer Halleck, in which his recklessness came very near causing his death.
There were five of us boys, who formed a little company of tried friends and pledged comrades. We hunted, trapped, boated, went skating and swimming together, and, when the first frame school-house was built, we occupied the two back seats, on the boys' side.
In our hunts after deer, wolves, badgers, and feathered game, we found an exhilaration such as I never again expect to experience in the tamer pursuits of life. We even felt an exultant joy in the fierce buffeting of the winter blizzards which annually descended upon us from the plateaus of Dakota.
During the regular season of bird migration, the resoundinggolunk,golunk, of the wild goose, the shrillklil-la-laof the swift and wary brant, the affectionatequ-a-a-rr-k,quackof the Mallard drake and his mate, with the strange, inimitable cry of the whooping crane, combined to form a sylvan orchestra, the music of which thrilled us with more pleasurable sensations than were ever awakened by the household organ or the town brass band of later years.
In the early spring, during the alternate slush, mud and freeze of the first thaws, there always occurred ashort vacation from school and work, in which we gathered a harvest of fun, fur and feathers.
At this season, the low, flat valleys of the Little Sioux and the Ocheyedan rivers were covered six or eight feet deep by the annual overflow; and torrents of yellow snow-water, the melting of tremendous drifts, rushed down creeks and ravines.
As soon as these impetuous currents had gathered force enough to upheave the thick layers of ice in the river-beds and break over the banks out came beaver, musk-rat and mink, driven from house and hole to take refuge upon the masses of ice and drift stuff which lodged in the thickets of tall willows that grew along the beds of these streams. Here they were obliged to stay until the water subsided, and here they often fell a prey to the rifle or shotgun of the hunter.
We owned three boats in common; and as the men of the settlement were not particularly busy during the freshet season, we could easily persuade or hire them to load our skiffs on their wagons, and haul us eight or ten miles up the Sioux or Ocheyedan, for half a day's run down home, in which scarcely the stroke of an oar was necessary, after getting out into the main channel. Floating leisurely down, we were able to hunt musk-rat, geese and ducks, which were plentiful on the water or on the banks.
Beaver were scarce, but we occasionally got one. A mink or two, a couple of dozen muskrats, and a goodly bag of feathered game were often the result of a half-day's run with a single boat.
Mortimer Halleck, who at this time lived in the fork of the rivers, and at a considerable distance from the rest of as, owned a staunch skiff, which he hadhimself made, and in it went often alone upon the rivers. It was upon one of these solitary trips that he met with the adventure mentioned.
On a raw afternoon in March, his father had taken Mortimer and his boat on his double horse wagon six miles up stream. At this point there was a great bend in the river, and, by crossing the neck, the water distance to the fork was lengthened to fifteen miles. Mortimer was thus set afloat with his boat, with a long afternoon's run on the river before him.
For several hours the young hunter allowed his boat to drift down with the current, then swollen to an unusual height. His eyes, roving on either hand, were now and then rewarded with the sight of a small brown bunch of fur, resting on a bit of lodged drift. Then followed a quick puff of smoke, and the echoing report from the shotgun. The troubles of the furry little chap were at an end. The kinks would straighten out of its small humped back, and, as a deft turn of the oars brought the boat alongside, the hunter's hand would reach over the edge, grasp the long, slim tail, and fling the body of the sleek littlemusquashinto the boat.
Twice during the afternoon a flock of geese had ventured low down over the drifting boatman, and each time one of the flock had fallen a victim. The others had hurried away in noisy confusion. He had hardly expected to find beaver, yet as the night drew on without a sight of one, he felt a little disappointed. True, he had secured a profitable lot of game: two geese, a mink, and more than a dozen muskrats.
But he wanted to show a beaver with the rest of his bag, and he had about given up his hopes of it when,just as the sun was setting and while he was passing down the mid channel between two long lines of clustering willow thickets, he espied the very object of his desires directly ahead and within easy range.
The animal was rolled up in a rusty brown ball, lying in a snug nest amid the bushy sprouts from an elm stub which projected three or four feet above the water. The tree had been broken off, and leaned out from the summer banks of the river. It had grown, as elm stumps often do, a dense fringe of short, tangled brush about the end of the trunk. Among these sprouts the beaver had fashioned a nest, and was lying curled up, asleep, when Mortimer, drifting silently down within short range, raised his gun and shot at it.
But the beaver is a "hard-lived" animal, and, even when shot at such close quarters, will quite frequently flop off its perch into the water, and, clutching with teeth and claws into roots or grass at the bottom, remain there. In that case, the hunter's ammunition is simply wasted.
This had happened more than once in Mortimer's experience, and, fearing that it might happen again, for he saw the beaver floundering heavily in its nest, he brought the boat about in great haste, circled around the stump, and jammed the bow into the sprouts. He then dropped the oars, and sprang forward to secure the game.
His haste was unfortunate; for, though he grasped at the small limbs quickly enough to have held the boat in place if it had not been in motion, his impetus was so great that the unsteady skiff recoiled backward with a force that pitched him over the prow, upon the very top of the stub. He lurched off to one side, andhis feet and legs splashed into the water; but he escaped a complete ducking by clenching the top of the trunk with his left arm, while with his right hand he graspedone foot of the beaver! And then he glanced around for his boat.
Mortimer looked after it in utter dismay.--Page 58.Mortimer looked after it in utter dismay.—Page 58.
It was gone, and had left him in a most perilous situation. The light skiff, impelled by the force of his fall out of it, had floated back into the current, and was already more than a dozen yards out, moving down stream.
Mortimer looked after it in utter dismay.
It was now too late to make a swim for it; he could never live in that strong, icy current long enough to reach it.
With a few cautious hitches he succeeded in gaining a ticklish seat upon the broken top of the stump, wherehe maintained himself by resting his feet upon two of the stoutest sprouts. Seated thus, he could feel an unsteady quivering of the trunk, a trembling, wrenching motion, that told, but too plainly, of the powerful force of the flood, and of the uncertain tenure which he possessed on even this comfortless refuge.
The lad was now thoroughly alarmed, and surveyed his surroundings with a growing fear that gained not a ray of hope from the prospect. The situation was truly a grave one.
On all sides was the hurrying flow of the grim, dark waters, which rushed swirling and eddying onward. The current swashed dismally among the slender, swaying willows, on either side; and beyond these, he knew that there was at least three hundred yards of swimming depth before either shore could be reached.
If any one should happen to pass, he could not, from the land, see Mortimer, on account of the willows. The nearest house was three or four miles distant; and a voice could be heard but a little distance, above the swash of the flood and the rush of the cold wind.
Mortimer's parents did not expect him to return until late in the evening, and they would probably make no effort to learn of his whereabouts until after midnight. The night, too, was already growing very cold, with a raw, gusty wind that soughed drearily among the willows; his bare hands and wet feet were fast becoming chilled and numb.
All the desolation, helplessness and misery of the situation were forced upon him by that keen and merciless power of reflection which so often attacks the mind in moments of extreme peril or of sudden disaster.
He saw but too plainly that it was useless to look for rescue before morning, and, clinging there to his bleak and uncertain perch, he felt that he would assuredly chill to death in a few hours.
Looking out into the gloom of the coming dusk, with the long, black, freezing night staring him in the face, tears gathered in the poor fellow's eyes, and a lump of choking misery rose up in his throat. Yet he was a brave fellow, who had never been known to yield an inch before any danger which must be met, when the balance of probabilities was adjusted with any degree of fairness. In this case, the probabilities were all on one side, and that side was against him.
"There just aint any chance for me at all," he groaned, at length. "I'm in a much worse predicament than the beaver and muskrats; for if they do get killed, it's so sudden they don't know it, but I've got to die by inches. I've just got to sit here and freeze a little at a time, till I fall off and finish life by drowning."
A wretched enough prospect! Yet that was the fate which seemed certainly awaiting him. Wet as he was, and already shivering, with no chance for exercise, there seemed little chance of surviving the cold, dismal night.
Sitting in hopeless suffering, he peered about him again and again in the gathering darkness, in the vain hope of discovering something that could give him an atom of comfort. Then, whipping his numbed hands about his shoulders until they tingled, he attemped to remove his soaked and stiffening boots; but, owing to his shaky and uncertain seat, he was baffled in this effort also.
Then, with feet and legs growing every moment more numb, he sat, clinging with one hand to the stump, whipping the other, shouting at intervals, and waiting for—he dared not think what.
An hour passed; then another; dumb, dreary despair had settled upon his mind. Insensibly he fell into a half-frozen stupor. He was beginning to think, in a numb way, that it did not make any particular difference to him what happened now.
An hour or more dragged by thus sluggishly, then a sudden shock, accompanied by a grinding noise, threw him partly off the stump. Instinctively he clutched the sprouts with his chilled fingers, but slid down, expecting to sink in the cold waters.
But he struck something solid and white. It was a large ice-cake, which had come floating down the river and touched the elm stump. The jar of his fall roused the boy; he staggered to his feet, feelingstrangein his head, and with queer and painful sensations about the arms and shoulders.
He tried to step, but at first it seemed as if his feet must be frozen; yet, after stamping about for a few minutes, they began to lose their feeling of lumpishness and to prickle.
He then sat down upon the ice, and, after a struggle, worked off his boots, squeezed the water from his socks, and chafed and pounded his feet until they felt alive. This done, he got up and looked around; and hope revived within him.
The ice-cake was a large and solid one, twenty feet across at least; and, owing to the falling of the river, it was floating down the centre of the channel. Hewas, at least, floating toward home; and there was room to stamp about and keep from freezing.
Mortimer's spirits rose with the renewed circulation of the blood. He shouted, beat his arms about his chest, he even danced, the better to warm himself up again.
It seemed to him now that he was being guided by fate. He then became confused in mind—dazed, as it were. In odd vagary, as his ice-raft floated on down the river, he peopled the darkness about him with imaginary foes, and "squared off" at them pugnaciously. His blood warming with this exercise, he began delivering in grandiloquent tones the address which he had declaimed at school, when a voice from the darkness near at hand brought him back to his situation.
"Mortimer!"
"Halloo!" he answered.
"Mortimer, is ityou?"
"Is that you, father?" cried the young castaway, "have you got a boat?"
"Yes," replied Mr. Halleck; "but we have been alarmed. What has kept—"
"Paddle your skiff this way, father. Here, this way; I'm on a cake of ice."
"On a cake of ice!" cried Mr. Halleck. "I knew you were in some trouble. What has happened? I borrowed Neighbor Wescott's boat, and was going to cross over to see if you were at Morley's with Pete, when I heard your voice."
Mortimer was astonished to find he had already drifted so far.
"How much longer could you have stood it!" Mr. Halleck asked, in tones that trembled a little.
"Not another half-hour," Mortimer declared, and probably he was right.
Next day he succeeded in finding his boat, safely lodged among some willows; but the beaver was missing, having probably been jarred off the nest on the stub by the ice-cake striking against it.
The river had lowered considerably, and Mortimer, while searching for his boat, saw numerous ice-rafts moving down the channel; yet he could not repress a conviction that something more than mere good fortune had directed the ice-cake to touch at his bleak and comfortless perch in the nick of time to save his life.
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