Those of Bumpus in particular were plainly marked, and presently Giraffe began to notice this patent fact.
“There seems to be a big difference in these footprints,” he said.
“There certainly is,” Allan replied.
“Now, I don’t mean it that way, because of course Bumpus hasn’t got feet anywhere near as big as those of Hank and Pierre. But always it’s the same, and his footprints look deeper than theirs. But for all he’s so fat, sure Bumpus can’t be heavier than either of those big broad shouldered husky men?”
Giraffe seemed to realize that there must be an explanation which would clear up this little mystery, and he wanted it.
“That isn’t what makes the difference, Giraffe,” the tracker went on. “You know, we decided that Bumpus went along here right soon after the storm yesterday afternoon, and while the ground was still soft?”
“Yes, I remember, Allan.”
“Well,” said Allan, “Hank and Pierre didn’t happen on the scene until this morning, and by then the ground was somewhat firm again. Is that plain enough?”
“I should say it was, and thank you for the explanation,” Giraffe answered. “It beats all what you fellers can get out of this thing. Why, that alone is about as interesting a fact as anybody could think up.”
“Then Bumpus had, say twelve hours the start?” suggested Step Hen.
“Right here, yes,” replied Allan. “But you must remember that he was meaning to settle down for the night about this time. And when he went on this morning, perhaps they’d be only a couple of hours behind.”
“Whew! things seem to be getting mighty interesting,” remarked Giraffe.
“I should say they were,” Step Hen asserted.
“Don’t I wish Davy and Smithy and Bob White were here.” the long scout went on.
“Huh! there’s four of us as it is, and all carryin’ good guns too. We ought to be enough of a crowd to hold up that pair of cowards,” declared Step Hen, who did not seem to have a very high opinion of Hank and his mate.
“We did it once, all right,” remarked Giraffe, with a grin, “and we c’n do it again, or my name is Dennis.”
“But Bumpus hadn’t camped yet, had he?” Step Hen asked.
“I think we’re coming to where he spent last night,” said Allan. “I had a glimpse just then of something that looked like a dead camp-fire. Yes, here it is, boys, you see.”
“Well, he did do it, all right,” muttered Giraffe, as he stood there, and looked down upon the ashes of a fire.
“Yes,” Thad remarked, “and here we can see where he obtained dry timber by hacking into the heart of this stump.”
“Oh! Bumpus is the surprise of this trip, all right!” exclaimed Step Hen. “I’m just goin’ to take off my hat to him, after what he’s done.”
“He seems to keep us guessing, don’t he?” Thad remarked, looking around with a feeling akin to pride, to realize that the one who all along had been termed the real tenderfoot of the patrol, should so suddenly develop such astonishing skill in taking care of himself.
“No babes in the wood about this business, let me tell you.” asserted Giraffe, after he had examined the way Bumpus had made his fire. “Done things pretty near as well as an old seasoned fire builder could have made out.”
That was a high compliment indeed, coming from Giraffe. Bumpus must have felt greatly pleased, could he have heard it. Perhaps his right ear burned him just about that time, for all boys know that such a thing happens only when some one is making complimentary remarks about you.
“But Bumpus left here this morning, of course?” said Step Hen; and Allan went on:
“He did, after passing a pretty comfortable night on that bed of hemlock boughs which he made, and which you can see there. Kept his feet toward the fire, too, just like an old experienced camper, who was without a tent and blanket would do. And his going off without this last is what convinces me Bumpus didn’t really mean to lose himself when he started out to get his bear. He just took a lot of grub along, his hatchet, and plenty of ammunition, so as to be pretty well fixed in case he couldn’t make use of his compass in finding the way back to camp.”
Giraffe placed his hand on the dead ashes.
“Wet ’em down again, sure he did,” he remarked.
“Ain’t our chum justitthough,” chuckled Step Hen.
“He kept his fire burning all night,” Thad remarked, casually.
“How d’ye know that?” asked Step Hen.
“Oh! the amount of ashes tells that he used a heap of wood,” was the reply. “You can see he made his camp close to this fallen tree, and used his little axe in cutting up the dead branches.”
“Bumpus deserves to be made a first-class scout,” said Giraffe, in genuine enthusiasm.
“He’s on the road there, anyhow,” declared Allan.
“But we must be off,” Thad remarked. “We’ve had a few minutes’ rest while figuring out all these things our chum has been up to. Now let’s put our best leg forward.”
“That means the right one,” said Giraffe.
“No, you’re away off there; it’s the left one,” remonstrated Step Hen, limping more decidedly with his right leg to prove that it was not “in the running.”
“Both of you are correct,” declared Thad. “It all depends on the point of view you choose to take.”
“And of course Hank and Company started out on the new trail, because I can see the marks of their brogans?” ventured Giraffe.
“Yes,” Allan replied, “they looked around the camp a bit, perhaps surprised to find that even a tenderfoot scout knows how to take care of himself. Then they pushed on.”
“How far behind Bumpus?”
“I should say about three hours,” replied the trail master, without hesitation.
“He’s got that much lead, then?” Giraffe asked.
“Close on it,” Allan answered. “But something may cause him to stop, and then they’d overtake him. On the whole, I’d rather guess those men would make faster time than our chum.”
“And be slowly but surely gaining, all the while?” suggested Thad.
“Yes.”
“Then we’ve got to get a hustle on us, that’s all,” Giraffe asserted. “Already we’re away behind in the race, and just as like as not another night’s going to catch us before we overhaul these parties. That’ll make it bad.”
“We can’t help it any,” remarked Thad, “we’re doing our level best, and there’s a limit, you know. We’ve just got to leave the rest to Providence.”
“And Bumpus’ luck—don’t forget that,” said Step Hen.
“He’s sure got it along with him this trip,” Giraffe avowed, “and it’s been working over time for our fat chum too. Seems to me these here gents are kind of rash tryin’ to meddle with a feller that has everything comin’ to him like Bumpus has. P’raps they’ll think they have made a mistake when they tackle that walkin’ wonder.”
Both Giraffe and Step Hen chuckled a little, as though the idea rather appealed to their boyish sense of humor. And Thad could not help thinking things had come to a strange pass indeed, when these two scouts, who had lorded it over Bumpus so long, on account of their superior knowledge, were ready to admit that they might yet sit at the feet of the fat chum, and take lessons in woodcraft.
Would wonders ever cease, Thad thought? But then, he knew only too well that once a scout becomes fully enthused with zeal in the pursuit of knowledge along these lines he will not only open up new pleasures daily for himself, but surprises for his friends as well.
They had been gone from the camp-fire about half an hour now. There was no trouble at all about following the trail; indeed, Allan more than once declared that even if a bandage were tied over his eyes he would have been able to keep right along, using his fingers to guide him, so plainly marked were the footprints of men and boy.
“Hello!” said Allan, suddenly, “I wonder now what started him to running?”
“Bumpus, you mean, don’t you?” asked Giraffe.
“Yes, he began right here. You can see how his toes press down,” Allan remarked.
“Perhaps he discovered the men behind him,” suggested Step Hen.
“No, they were still more than two hours’ back,” Allan contrived, as he walked on hastily. “And besides, Bumpus never once turned to look behind; I could tell from his track if he did. Something in front must have attracted him.”
Giraffe and Step Hen looked at each other.
“I wonder,” said the former.
“’Twould be just Bumpus’ luck if he did,” the other boy exclaimed.
Neither of them spoke their thoughts aloud further than that. For a short time they kept moving rapidly along. And then Allan held up his hand as a signal for the others to stop.
“Well,” he said, “it happened, after all these days of tramping. Bumpus came across the trail of a bear, and a big fellow too. See here, you can see his tracks, where none of the others have marred them.”
“He was a buster, just as you said, Allan,” Giraffe remarked, uneasily, after they had examined the imprint of those feet, showing the marks of the long cruel claws.
“A grizzly, I reckon?” Step Hen ventured.
“Yes. And I think he must have been hurt some, because he seemed to drag his left hind leg a little.”
“P’raps Bumpus plugged him,” Giraffe suggested, just as though he were speaking of some celebrated forest ranger, accustomed to meeting up with these terrors of the Rockies, rather than a fat scout who, up to recently, had been looked upon by most of his comrades as something of a joke.
“No, Bumpus was some distance away right here,” Allan continued. “There is no sign of blood, so we know from that the injury was not a fresh one. And besides, whoever heard of a full-grown grizzly running away from a dozen human enemies, after being shot and wounded, much less from a single foe, and he a boy?”
“You’re right, Allan,” commented the scoutmaster.
“Reckon it does look that way,” Giraffe admitted.
There was one good trait about the tall scout—no matter how strong an opinion he might have on any subject, once convinced of the error of his thinking, and Giraffe would own up to his mistake most cheerfully.
“So right here,” Step Hen broke in, “Bumpus was on the run, achasin’ fast after the limpin’ grizzly? Say, Giraffe, he was in your class of cripples, because Allan says it was hislefthind leg that was hurt.”
“Well, I ain’t got but one left leg so that makes all the difference,” the tall scout hastened to announce.
“I wonder—” began Step Hen, and then paused, as though hardly daring to frame his thoughts in words.
“We’re all doing that,” remarked Allan.
“How did it end?” Thad remarked, straining his eyes to look ahead.
“Say, wouldn’t it be just great now,” Giraffe broke out with, “if we’d just come up with Bumpus asquattin’ in the crotch of a tree, all his ammunition fired away, and that old bear sittin’ on his haunches below, awaitin’ for him to come down?”
“I’d just like to see it,” said Step Hen, making a suggestive gesture with his gun. “I’d try to drive a few dum-dum bullets into his hulking old carcase.”
“But perhaps Bumpus mightn’t be so smart about getting up in a tree, when a wounded bear was charging him,” Giraffe ventured to remark.
All of them had a painful recollection of that other episode, when Bumpus, rashly discharged his ten-bore Marlin at the monster, and would have been caught trying to climb a tree, only for the help he received from one of his comrades.
“But Bumpus doesn’t make the same mistake twice, I notice,” said Thad, firmly; “and if he fired atthisbear, I’m pretty sure he first of all had a tree picked out that he could climb, all right.”
“I warrant you he did, Thad,” Giraffe added.
They were all of them only too eager to believe the best. The very thought of Bumpus, after all the good work he had been doing, meeting such a dreadful fate as being torn to pieces by a bear, was something they tried to banish from their minds as incredible.
Nevertheless, in spite of all this outward display of confidence, they continued to cast eager glances ahead as they pushed on.
Giraffe about this time remembered that there were others also interested in the fate of the lone scout.
“I see Hank and Pierre are keepin’ right along?” he remarked.
“Yes,” replied Allan, thinking this was really a question.
“Mebbe they think a nice bear skin wouldn’t be a bad article to have, even if it is the off season for furs,” Giraffe added.
“More’n likely,” Step Hen broke in with, “they reckon as how they’d better keep along, so as to bury what’s left of our poor chum, and claim his rifle and other belongings as salvage.”
“Let’s hope then they’ll meet up with the greatest disappointment of their lives,” Thad hastened to remark, shivering at the cruel picture the words of Step Hen presented to his mind.
“Listen!”
They all came to a standstill when Giraffe called out. Every ear was strained in the attempt to catch a sound that might be a cry for help, or the distant report of a gun.
“Guess it must a been that old crow cawing himself hoarse over yonder on that tree,” Giraffe finally admitted. “Thought it was somebody callin’ us to halt, sure I did, Thad.”
“Seems like you were mistaken,” was all the scoutmaster remarked, as once again the march was resumed.
“P’raps he didn’t overtake the old bear after all,” Step Hen broke out with, a couple of minutes later.
“Well, he was following the trail, all right, when he got here,” Allan asserted, with a positive way that seemed convincing.
“But you said at first he saw the bear, when he took to running.”
“I thought he did,” replied the trail hunter, “but since then I’ve come to the conclusion I was wrong. Still, you can see that he kept on, for bear, Bumpus and the two men are written in the tracks as plain as print.”
“Yes, that’s so, Allan. But there don’t seem to be any sign of life ahead. Here, what’s the matter with you, Old Eagle Eye? Just look beyond, and see if you c’n discover our brave chum up a tree somewhere?”
Thus appealed to, and complimented rather than otherwise by the title which Step Hen had thrust upon him, Giraffe did stretch his long neck, and scan the region ahead.
“Don’t see him a waiving to us, up in one of those trees?” the other asked.
“Nixy,” returned the one with the keen vision, a shade of disappointment perceptible in his voice. “I c’n see heaps of trees, and p’raps there might be a boy sittin’ up in one of the same; but if he’s waving to us, I don’t get on to his wave. But hold on!”
“Oh! then youdosee something?” cried Step Hen, pulling back the hammer of his repeating rifle eagerly.
“Not in a tree,” replied Giraffe, cautiously.
Something in his manner, perhaps in his paling face as well, gave Thad a nervous chill. As for himself, he had not discovered anything amiss; but perhaps his range of vision was more limited than that of the tall scout; or possibly he did not chance to be looking in the same direction.
“Where then?” asked Step Hen.
“Er—on the ground,” replied the other, slowly and soberly.
“Is—do you think it’s Bumpus?” demanded Step Hen, also losing his color.
“I don’t know. There’s a little bush in the way, and I can’t see very well,” Giraffe added.
“But—does it move any, Giraffe?” the horrified Step Hen asked.
“Don’t seem to, one bit, all the time I’ve been keepin’ my eye on the same.”
“Oh! my stars.”
Step Hen could not command his voice to say more. He kept staring in a general direction ahead, as though he could see what attracted the notice of the chum who had the telescopic eyes.
But Thad was not so easily satisfied.
“Show me where you mean, Giraffe,” he said, grimly.
If there was any unpleasant duty to be performed Thad Brewster could be depended on to go about it without flinching. He would have made a fine soldier, because discipline was so much a part of his nature.
“There, follow those three trees that run as straight a line as if some surveyor had a planted the same for range finders. D’ye see that light bunch of scrub just beyond? All right, look just to the left, and——”
“I see it!” said Thad, quietly.
A dozen seconds of dreadful suspense followed. Then Step Hen, who had managed to recover his lost breath, broke forth with:
“Is it Bumpus, Thad?”
“I don’t believe so,” replied the scoutmaster, steadily, and it could easily be seen that he must have just been under a terrible strain.
“What makes you say that; I’m asking for information, but all the same I’m awful glad to hear you make that remark,” Giraffe observed.
“In the first place it doesn’t seem to be the color of our chum’s clothes,” Thad began, “and then, on the other hand, it’s certainly too big to be him.”
“Guess you hit the nail on the head there, Thad,” Giraffe hastened to declare; “now that I look closer, I reckon it is just too big.”
“Mebbe it’s only a rock after all, or an old stump,” suggested Step Hen.
“Mebbe it is,” replied the tall scout, meekly, for his feelings had been so recently torn by conflicting hopes and fears, that he was in no mood for argument.
“Let’s push forward and see,” suggested Allan.
“Trail seems to lead that way, don’t it?” Thad mentioned, when they had been moving along swiftly for a few minutes.
“Yes, and we’ll soon know the worst, because, unless I’m much mistaken thethingis lying just at the other side of them bushes. They’re thicker here, you see, and we won’t be able to tell what it’s doing till after we get around the same.”
Giraffe had a habit of talking at a lively pace when wishing to keep his heart from betraying his nervousness. It was somewhat on the principle that a boy whistles as loud as he can when passing a country graveyard.
Half a minute later, and in a bunch the four scouts turned a flank movement around the bushes. Step Hen and Giraffe almost dropped with sheer astonishment, and had to actually sustain each other. No wonder, when before them they saw the motionless form of a huge bear, that had evidently been shot in a dozen places.
“Well, what d’ye think of that?” Giraffe demanded, as, with his comrades, he presently hurried forward to examine the dead bear.
“I said Bumpus could do it, didn’t I?” questioned Step Hen. “Why, with the great run of luck he’s camping alongside now, that pard of ours could go into the lion and elephant country of Africa, and knock over more old tuskers and yellow manes than you could shake a stick at.”
“But how d’ye know he did this?” asked Giraffe, as a new doubt assailed him.
“Tell me who else could?” demanded the other.
“Oh! I’m not sayin’ they did; don’t think that,” Giraffe went on; “but we happen to know there are a couple of men hanging around this section of the country.”
“Meaning Hank and Pierre, of course?”
“Yes, they’re the dodgers. Now, you see, they just might have come up here, found the bear holdin’ Bumpus up in a tree, and took a notion to knock the old mountain bear silly, just so they could look our chum over, and take all he had.”
Step Hen was unable to hazard a reply to this, and so he appealed to those who ought to be able to decide.
“How about that, Thad, Allan?”
Both shook their heads in the negative.
“Give Bumpus all the credit of downing this bear,” Thad remarked.
“There are lots of things that go to prove it,” said Allan. “Look here, and I’ll show you. See, here’s where he knelt to fire, first of all, and I want you to notice what a dandy tree for climbing Bumpus picked out, just alongside.”
“And when he’d rammed in both charges, only to see the bear coming full tilt after him, like a house afire, Bumpus swung up in the tree—is that it, Allan?” and Giraffe looked wise as he said this.
“Just what he did,” Allan went on to say. “I reckon he had a stout cord fixed on his gun, and could slip one arm through this, so that the Marlin went up when he did, all right.”
“Ain’t he the cute one, though?” Step Hen murmured, in admiration.
“Well, you can see how the bear clawed the tree,” continued Allan, “but he wasn’t able to get up. Grizzlies are poor climbers anyway, and this fellow must have been handicapped by that injured hind leg.”
“And then Bumpus, he opened on him, didn’t he?” Giraffe cried.
“Well, I guess that’s what he did,” laughed Thad. “I can counttwelveempty shells here under the tree. Two Bumpus used at long range, but all the rest he must have fired point-blank, with the bear not more than five or ten feet away from the muzzle of his gun.”
“How d’ye tell that?” asked Giraffe.
“Why, here, and here you can see the hair on the bear looks singed around a wound. That proves the gun was only a few feet away. And notice too, boys, nearly every shot took effect either in the breast or back of the bear. The one that finished him was this in the ear. It penetrated his brain.”
Giraffe gave one of his whistles, and then remarked:
“Glory! but there must have been a hot time around here, all right. I can just imagine I see Bumpus perched up in that crotch, and blazing away as fast as he could load. What a circus it was, and such great luck. Why, that feller could grab the first prize in the Havana lottery if he ever wanted to go down to Cuba and take a chance. He can sure do anything!”
“He got his bear, bless his dear old heart,” laughed Step Hen.
“Yes, and just like he did with the bob-cat; only this time, he hacked off the claws from all four feet. Must mean to have ’em made into a war necklace, Indian fashion,” observed Allan.
“Looks some like a slaughter-house around here,” Giraffe said. “The bear bled from every wound. They told us a grizzly could stand any amount of lead, and now I believe it. Why, at that close range, them buckshot in his gun just tore in like a great big fifty-eight slug. Oh! what a sight, if Davy had only been here with his snapshot box.”
“But I can see that Hank and Pierre came right along in,” observed Step Hen.
“Yes, and looked around, just like we’re doing now,” Allan remarked.
“I’m some surprised that they didn’t capture the skin of the bear,” the other went on. “Bumpus couldn’t take it off, because that’s one thing he hasn’t learned—yet. But surely Hank or Pierre must be old trappers enough for that.”
But Allan shook his head.
“They looked at it, and quickly decided it wasn’t worth taking,” he said. “First place, Bumpus had hacked all the fierce claws off, and they’re the best part of a grizzly pelt, I’m told. Then our chum had, as you can see, just about riddled the hide; shot holes through every which way. That’s probably why they didn’t bother trying to take the skin off the bear.”
“But—did they keep on after Bumpus?” asked Giraffe.
“I’m sorry to say they did,” admitted Allan, who with his customary alertness had been looking around, and taking note of things.
“That means, we will be on the move again,” Giraffe declared.
“Can’t be getting away any too soon to suit me,” Step Hen said.
“The things I’m sorry about are these,” remarked Thad. “First, it’s getting along in the afternoon now, and our chances of overtaking either the men or Bumpus before darkness comes on are mighty small, I’m afraid. You see they’ve got quite a few hours’ advantage over us.”
“Well, why not make a torch or so, and keep moving along, even after night does set in,” suggested Giraffe, quickly, for his mind was always inclining toward fire in some shape or style.
“Now, that may not be such a bad idea at all, Giraffe,” Thad promptly declared. “And I’m glad you mentioned it. If we’re not too leg-weary after we’ve eaten, and rested an hour or two, we might try that scheme.”
“If it didn’t do anything else,” put in Allan, “it would surely cut down the big lead they’ve got on us, and we might be close enough when we started at dawn again, to get Bumpus with the call of the Silver Fox Patrol.”
“Better than that, even,” said Thad, “if we kept moving right along to-night who knows but what we might have the luck to glimpse a camp-fire. Remember how we did that before, and thought to surprise our chum; when it turned out the other way, and we got all the surprise from Hank and Pierre?”
“Whose fire would this be, d’ye think—Bumpus’, or Hank’s?” asked Giraffe.
“Perhaps both,” was the significant reply Thad made. “For unless they’ve changed their minds, and concluded not to meddle with a tenderfoot scout who was able to kill a full grown grizzly all by himself, I take it that before now Bumpus and the timber cruisers have joined forces.”
“Like the lion and the lamb lying down together without the least bit of trouble, because the lamb wasinsidethe lion,” remarked Giraffe, drily.
“Yes, the chances are that they’ve bulldozed our chum, and made him wait upon them like a slave, cook their meals for them; and perhaps they will tie him up in camp to-night, so he won’t have a chance to run away.”
Step Hen fairly gnashed his teeth while drawing this agonizing mental picture of the further troubles of Bumpus. And even those who had the most faith in the fat scout’s newly aroused ability to think, and take care of himself, could hardly see how the awkward lad might come out of such an encounter as this with any degree of credit.
Being up against two husky and unprincipled men, who had brains with which to plot and scheme, was an entirely different proposition from meeting animals that acted only from instinct, and often very unwisely.
“But see here, Thad,” exclaimed Step Hen, “you said a while ago there were two reasons for you feeling sorry, and the first was that it was getting late, and we might have to camp soon. What was the other?”
“Why,” the patrol leader continued; “knowing that these hard characters are abroad, between us and Bumpus, even if they haven’t made a prisoner of our chum, you see, we’re kept from doing any more shouting out loud.”
“Just why?” asked the other, dubiously.
“It would only advertise our presence to the pair, and they could lay a trap to snare us. Perhaps they’d make Bumpus lure us on, or even imitate his voice and catch us napping. As it is now,” Thad went on, “so far as we know, they don’t even suspect that we’re around. If we can keep them from knowing right along, our job’s going to be all the easier.”
“You’re right, Thad,” said Allan, emphatically.
And even the other two could see the force of his reasoning.
There was nothing to do, therefore, but keep steadily along, trusting to their perseverance to bring them a reward in the end. None of them dared to even dream that the astonishing good luck that had followed Bumpus ever since he found himself lost in the big timber, would not continue with him to the end.
The best they could figure on was that if their chum had fallen into the hands of the two husky timber spies, they would be tired enough to go into camp soon after, and make the boy do all the work of getting supper.
And while they thus dallied, dreaming of no danger, the four scouts might be advancing steadily, rod after rod, making use of a rude torch in order to see the trail, and all the while drawing nearer the crisis.
“You don’t think they’d be apt to hurt Bumpus, do you, Thad?” the war-like Step Hen asked, for the third time, as they continued to press on.
“Not seriously,” replied the scoutmaster. “We know they are bullies on the face of it, but really cowards at heart. If they hadn’t been that, d’ye suppose for one minute they would ever have bombarded us while we slept, as they thought, with great rocks, any one of which might have broken our arms or legs? And if they’ve got hold of Bumpus, just because he’s a scout, and our friend, they’d likely kick him around a lot, and make him knuckle down to them; but I hardly believe they’d hurt him badly. But no matter what they do, they’ve got to settle with Bumpus’ chums, sooner or later.”
“I’m glad, right glad to hear you say that, Thad,” declared Step Hen.
“Yes, I know how you feel,” the scoutmaster went on, “and it does you a lot of credit too, for scouts should stand by each other through thick and thin. But go slow, Step Hen, go slow. We don’t want to do any shooting, if it can be avoided; and then, remember, only pepper their legs. We belong to an organization that stands forpeaceevery time, and no scout can be permitted to do any violence, unless it is to actually save his own life, or that of a chum.”
“Oh! I understand all that, Thad; make your mind easy,” declared Step Hen, jauntily. “What I’d like to do in case those curs have kicked and pounded poor old Bumpus, would be to just give ’em each forty whacks on the bare back with that bull whip we use on Mike and Molly, our pack mules, when they get too stubborn for anything.”
“Now, that ain’t a bad idea, Step Hen,” asserted Giraffe, nodding his head until, perched on such a long neck, it reminded Thad of a wooden manikin he had seen working as an advertisement in a shop window where razors were sold. “No, it’s a pretty good scheme—for you, Step Hen; but I can go you one better. We ought to just tar and feather such rascals, take their guns away, and ride ’em out of camp on a rail.”
“The last part could be done easy enough,” Step Hen declared; “but that other about the tar and feathers is too silly for anything.”
“Why is it, I’d just like to know?” demanded Giraffe. “It’s been done hundreds of times, down South, out West, and even up North.”
“Sure, and I’ve no doubt it’s a heap of satisfaction to them that apply the feathers. Something like the old fable ‘fun for the boys, but death to the frogs.’ But tell me, Giraffe, please where would you get the tar, up in this big timber wilderness? And how about the feathers—got a pillow handy you can rip open?” and Step Hen laughed in the face of the long scout, feeling that he had by far the best of the bargain.
“Oh, shucks! guess that did kinder slip my mind,” grumbled Giraffe; and he felt so humiliated over his defeat in the wordy war that for five full minutes he actually remained as mute as the sphinx; and it generally took a good deal to keep Giraffe silent that long.
Of course they were constantly on the lookout for any signs ahead of those whose trail they followed. But they had very little hope of stumbling upon such a piece of good luck as overtaking them before night set in.
According to the latest report from Allan, in whom they all felt the utmost confidence, some hours had passed, perhaps four or more, since Hank and his French-Canadian partner had made those footprints.
“But they have been catching up on Bumpus right along,” he had also announced in the same breath. “If they were two hours behind at the spot where the bear was killed, they’ve cut that down to one at the time they passed here. And going at the same rate of speed I should say they’d overtake our chum about a couple of miles away from this spot.”
“Hope they made up their minds to camp right away then,” said Giraffe. “I’m not saying anything, and I can keep on as long as the next one; but this right—left, which old leg is it, anyway—feels sore sometimes, and then numb-like.”
“And I’m afraid mine’s swelling just a little, Thad,” ventured Step Hen. “P’raps there was some poison in that snake bite after all, and you didn’t suck it all out.”
“Don’t worry,” remarked the scoutmaster, cheerily. “Both of you are using your lame limb more than you should, that’s all. But that can’t be helped, because we’re bound to find our chum.”
“Yes,” said Giraffe, sturdily, “even if it takes a leg, as they say. But suppose, now, those men do come up with Bumpus, I reckon they’ll make out to be friendly hunters, sent out by some of us to find him; because they know a lot about the scouts. Step Hen here jabbered like an old woman, when we believed Hank was the forest ranger, Toby Smathers, we’d been told to find.”
“Not near so much as you did yourself, Giraffe,” remonstrated Step Hen. “That’s one thing I will admit you stand in a class by yourself—talking; yes, and in the making of fires at any old time and place. But of course they’ll fool Bumpus that easy, he’s so confiding, so free from suspicion himself.”
“And then, before he knows what’s happening, they’ll switch his gun out of his hands, give him a few hard kicks, and just treat him like a dog. Oh! it fairly makes my blood boil just to think of it,” Giraffe went on to say, while he frowned, and gnashed his teeth in a way that must have seriously alarmed the objects of his detestation, could they have been near enough to see and hear.
But unfortunately it was all wasted, for both Hank and Pierre were miles away at the time.
“What’s that yonder?” exclaimed Thad, startling the others.
“Would you believe it, looks like an old stake and rider country fence, left alone to go to the waste years ago?” Allan announced, after taking a look.
“Well, that’s a sign we’re getting near some village, I take it,” declared Step Hen.
Giraffe laughed aloud when he heard this.
“Why, what a goose you are, Step Hen,” he remarked, bluntly.
“Oh! am I? See any down coming along?” demanded the other, warmly.
“Sure I do—on your upper lip,” Giraffe went on. “Noticed it only the other day; and thought then that if you keep on for a dozen years or so, we’ll expect you to be sportin’ as fine a moustache as the one old Jerry William has been coaxing along this half century. You know, the Cranford boys liken it to a baseball game, because there are nine on one side and nine on the other.”
“But why was I silly when I said we might run across a village up here?” Step Hen persisted, being just bound to know.
“Because we were told that there wasn’t such a thing within fifty miles of this same place, except the little settlement where we got our pack mules,” the tall scout went on to say, convincingly.
“But that was a fence, all right,” Step Hen avowed. “I heard Allan say so; and I guess I know a fence when I see one.”
“Oh! well, don’t talk of a fence now, Step Hen. I think if you ask Thad, he’ll tell you some feller must a tried to hold out up here, and gave it up from sheer loneliness. Either that, or else the Injuns got him.”
“Injuns!” repeated Step Hen, apparently startled.
“Sure,” Giraffe went on, for he was a great tease.
“How about that, Thad?” and the other scout turned to the patrol leader; because it had long ago become second nature with the members of the Silver Fox Patrol to put all arguments up to him for settlement; and it was really remarkable how satisfied both sides usually seemed with his decisions, since they had absolute faith in Thad as a just judge.
“Well, I rather expect Giraffe is yarning a little when he says the man may have been wiped out by the Indians,” the scoutmaster replied, laughingly. “Fact is, the chances would be, some trappers come up here each season, and likely spent the whole winter reaping a harvest, returning in the Spring with their take. If we had time to look around, which we haven’t, I reckon we’d stumble on a concealed cabin somewhere in the thickest of the timber.”
“Wow! must be cold, all right, in winter. Talk about your zero, I guess the bottom drops out of the thermometer up here,” Giraffe ventured to say.
“No doubt it is cold, because we’re not a great distance from the border line of the British Northwest provinces. But then, these fur takers expect that. The further north you go the better the fur,” Thad remarked.
“That’s a well-known fact,” added Allan. “One trapper told me that the skin of a muskrat or a raccoon, taken away up in Canada, was worth three of the same captured down in Florida.”
“Yes, I reckon that’s so,” said Giraffe, “I can understand why the fur is heavier and richer. Old Nature provides it according to the weather. If it’s a country with hardly any winter, why the fur is thin; and just the other way where it’s bitter cold for many months.”
“But that fence?” Step Hen went on.
“Listen to him still harping on that fence business!” jeered Giraffe.
“Oh!” Thad went on to say, pleasantly, “perhaps one year these trappers tried to stay through the summer too, and put up a fence to keep their horses from straying, and falling prey to the wild beasts.”
Step Hen seemed satisfied, because the explanation appeared natural. So for a while they kept plodding on in almost complete silence.
Both lame boys limped more or less. Thad noticed this, and concluded that they deserved a rest, especially since the afternoon was creeping along, and already the timber began to look a little shadowy.
So he mentioned the fact to Allan, who immediately resolved to keep a bright lookout for a nice spring of cool water, alongside of which they might stop, build a little fire, and take things comfortable for a while.
Luckily this chanced to appear very shortly. Although they would not say as much, being too proud to complain, Step Hen and Giraffe were secretly glad of the chance to rest. They talked valorously, however, of what great stunts they would be ready to perform after they devoured some supper, and had taken things a little easy.
Thad knew, however, that it would really require something of an effort to get the boys started afresh. The two hours’ rest would refresh their energies, but stiffen their sore legs, more or less.
Giraffe attended to the fire part of the business, as usual, and Step Hen hovered near by, ready to assist with what little cooking they might have to do. Thad sat there, examining some rough charts he had made of the country, as he knew it; and figuring on just where the camp by the rapids, occupied by Bob White, Davy Jones and Smithy, must be.
Allan had started to take a look around the vicinity, and it was hardly more than ten minutes when he was heard calling:
“Hello! Thad, come here, and give me a hand, will you? I’m caught fast in a trap!”