DOWN THE GLACIER.
Sandy's wild shout of alarm caused the gentlemen on the deck of theYukon Roverto start up in affright.
They looked above them and what they saw was sufficiently alarming. Two boys, rolling and tumbling down the smooth rock slope, bound straight for the river! So swiftly did it all happen that they had hardly time to realize the catastrophe that had overtaken the boys, before the two victims of this double disaster struck the water with a splash and vanished from view.
"Quick, Chillingworth! The life preservers!" cried Mr. Dacre running to where they were kept. He flung all he could lay his hands on far out toward the spot where the glacier dipped into the water. In another instant, to the unspeakablerelief of both men, they saw two heads come to the surface.
But on Sandy's head was a broad cut, and though he struck out toward the nearest life preserver, his efforts were feeble. It was evident that he had been injured in his fall, but how badly, of course, they could not tell. Tom was striking out with strong, swift movements. He had seized one of the life preservers, when he perceived Sandy's plight. Instantly dropping the ring, he struck out for the Scotch lad.
Just as he reached his chum's side, the rushing current caught both boys in its grip and hurtled them out toward the middle of the stream. So swiftly did it run that, despite Tom's strong strokes, he could not gain an inch on the body of his chum, which was being borne like something inanimate down the stream.
The gentlemen on the deck of theYukon Roverwatched this scene with fascinated horror. Powerlessto aid, all they could do was to watch the outcome of this drama.
In the meantime, Jack, pale with fright, was coming down the steep cliffside in leaps and bounds. He had not seen his brother and his comrade rise and did not know but that they had not reappeared at all.
Tom felt the current grip him like a giant's embrace. He had been partially stunned by the swiftness of his flight down the steep, precipitous glacier, but the plunge into the cold waters of the river had revived him. When he had risen to the surface after his plunge, he was in full possession of all his faculties. To his delight he was not injured, and almost the first thing he saw near him was Sandy's head.
As we know, he struck out for it, only to have his chum snatched almost out of his very arms by the mighty sweep of the current.
Like those on the steamboat, he had seen the cut over Sandy's eye and knew that he was injured.This made Tom all the more feverishly anxious to catch up with him, for although Sandy was a strong and good swimmer and had plenty of presence of mind in the water, if he was seriously hurt it was not probable he could stay long above the surface.
But Tom speedily found that, try as he would, he could make no gain on his chum. He heard Sandy cry out despairingly as the current swept him round a bend. The next instant Tom realized that not far below them lay some cruel rapids which theYukon Roverhad bucked that afternoon with the greatest difficulty. He knew that if something didn't happen before they got into the grip of that boiling, seething mass of water, their doom was sealed.
He almost fancied as he drifted along, allowing the current to carry him and saving his strength for the struggle he knew must come, that he could already hear the roaring voice of the rapids and see the white water whippingamong the jagged black rocks, contact with which would mean death.
It was at this instant that he spied something that gave him a gleam of hope. Right ahead of them there loomed up a possible chance that he had forgotten. It was one of those willowy islets that have been mentioned as dotting the Yukon for almost its entire length. If he could but gain that, if some lucky sweep of the current would but carry Sandy in among the trees, both their lives might be saved.
And now the river played one of those freaks that rapidly running streams containing a great volume of water frequently do. Sandy's body was swept off into a sort of side eddy, while Tom felt himself seized by an irresistible force and rushed forward in the grip of the tide as it roared down to the rapids.
Horror at his utter incapacity to stem it or to do aught but yield to the rush of the stream, rendered him almost senseless for an instant. Inhis imagination his body was already being battered in the rapids and flung hither and thither in the boiling whirlpools.
But suddenly an abrupt collision that almost knocked the breath out of his body gave him something else to think of. Twigs brushed and scratched his face and he was held fast by branches. With a swift throb of thankfulness he realized the next instant that the impossible had happened.
A vagary of the current had swung him into the midst of the willow island and he was anchored safely in the branches of one of the trees. But he gave himself little time to think over this. His thoughts were of Sandy. Where was the Scotch boy?
Had he been swept on down the river to the rapids or had he sunk? Hardly had these questions time to flash through his mind, when he gave a gasp and felt his heart leap.
Coming toward him, and not more than a fewfeet away, was a dark object that he knew to be Sandy's head. The next instant he saw the boy's appealing eyes.
Sandy had seen him, too, as the same current that had caught Tom in its embrace hurtled his chum down the river.
"Tom!" he cried. "Tom!"
Tom made no reply.
It was no time for words. He quickly judged with his eye the spot where Sandy must be borne by him, and clambered out upon a branch overhanging the water. His object was to save his chum, but it must be confessed that his chances of doing so looked precarious.
The limb upon which he had climbed was, in the first place, not a branch in which much confidence could be consistently placed. It was to all appearances rotten, although it bore his weight. But it was no time to weigh chances. The stream was bearing Sandy down upon the willow island, and Tom realized that, unless theboy was carried into the midst of the clump as he had been, he would hardly have strength enough left to grab a projecting branch and thus save himself from the grip of the river.
He had hardly made up his mind to the plan he would pursue when Sandy was right upon him. But he was further out than Tom had calculated. However, Tom had anticipated this possibility and throwing himself flat on the limb, he twisted his legs around it and reached out, with an inward prayer that he might be successful in the struggle that was to ensue between himself and the mighty Yukon.
As Sandy shot by, Tom's arms enveloped him. The pull of the current was stronger than he thought, but he held on for dear life, his face almost touching the rushing waters. He was drawing Sandy in toward him and in another instant both would have been safe, when there was an ominous "crack!"
Throwing himself flat on the limb … he reached out. (Page200)
The branch had parted under the double strain!
In a moment both boys were caught in the clutch of the current of the swiftly flowing "Golden River."
THE GRIP OF THE YUKON.
The moments that followed were destined to be burned for his lifetime into Tom's brain. Half choked, sputtering, blinded by spray and spume, he found himself in the water with Sandy, completely exhausted by this time, to care for as well as himself. The Scotch boy lay like a dead burden on Tom's arm, and it was all that he could do to keep him afloat and still keep his own head above water.
Suddenly something struck him on the back of the head. It was the branch that had snapped off and cast them into the wild waters. But Tom at that moment hailed it as an aid and caught hold of it with his free arm. It was a large limb and to his delight he found that it kept them afloat, aided by his skillful treading of water.
But barely had he time to rejoice in this discovery, when the roar of the rapids ahead of them caused his brain to swim dizzily with fear. He knew that in the center of the rapids was a comparatively wide, smooth channel through which they had ascended that afternoon in theYukon Rover.
If the current shot them through this, there was still a chance that they might live, slender though that hope appeared to be. But on either side of this channel, if such it could be called, there uprose rocks like black, jagged fangs in and amongst which the water boiled and swirled and undersucked with the voice of a legion of witches. It was into one of these maelstroms that poor Tom was confident they were being borne.
Now the sound of the rapids grew louder. They roared and rumbled like the noise of a giant spinning factory in full operation. The noise was deafening and to Tom's excited ears itsounded like the shrill laughter of malign fates. Suddenly something dragged at his legs. It felt as if some monster of the river had risen from its depths and had seized him.
But Tom knew it was no living creature. It was something far more terrible,—the undertow.
He caught himself wondering if this were the end, as he was sucked under and the water closed over his head with a roar like that of a thousand cataracts.
His lungs seemed bursting, his ear drums felt as if an intolerable weight was pressing in upon them. Tom was sure he could not have lasted another second, when he was suddenly shot to the surface with the same abruptness with which he had been drawn under.
Ahead of him were two rocks between which the pent up river rushed like an express train. Tom had just time to observe this and figure in a dull way that he and Sandy would be dragged through that narrow passage to a miserabledeath, when something occurred that gave him renewed hope.
In that terrible plunge under the water when the undertow had its way with him, the boy, more by instinct than anything else, had retained his grip upon the willow branch. As has been said, it was a thick stick of timber and had parted under the leverage of the boys' double weight near to the trunk.
What happened was this,—and Tom did not realize what had occurred till some seconds later, so suddenly did his deliverance from what appeared certain death come upon him. As the boys were being drawn in between the two rocks the branch became twisted around, broadside to the stream.
Before Tom knew what was taking place, and quite without effort on his part, the stick of timber was caught across the two rocks, barring Tom's progress further. The force of the current kept it there like a barrier, while the watertugged and tore in vain at Tom and Sandy. For some time after his deliverance, Tom was not capable of moving a limb. But now he began to edge his way toward the rock which was closest in to the shore.
It sloped down to the river, and on the side nearest to him had a broad base which he thought would prove easy to climb. So it might have been had he not been burdened with Sandy, but as it was, things took on a different aspect and he was confronted with a task of more difficulty than he had anticipated.
By slow and laborious steps he managed to secure a foothold on the rock and to reach a position where he could draw Sandy up beside him. When he had done this, Tom, almost exhausted, sank back on the smooth stone surface, and while the river raced by almost at his feet gave thanks to Providence for their wonderful delivery from the jaws of the rapids.
For some time he reclined, thus getting backhis strength and examining Sandy's injury, which appeared to be only a flesh wound. The immersion in the cold water and the amount of it he had swallowed was probably more to blame for his collapse than the wound. Tom bathed the cut and was presently rewarded by seeing Sandy open his eyes.
The Scotch boy pluckily declared that he felt all right except for a slight dizziness.
"Well, rest up a while," said Tom. "We've done a whole lot, but there's a heap more to be accomplished."
While Sandy got together his exhausted faculties, Tom made a survey of their situation. What he saw did not encourage him much. Toward the stream were swirling pools and jagged rocks. Shoreward, the rocks extended in a line which, although broken here and there by water ways through which eddies bubbled tempestuously, he yet thought might be capable of being bridged. He was pretty sure, in fact, thathe could manage the passage, but of Sandy he was by no means so certain. It required a cool head and a steady nerve to negotiate the course to safety that Tom had mapped out as being the only one available.
Manifestly the longer they stayed where they were, the more time they were wasting. It would be impossible for a boat to reach them where they were marooned, and the only course was to attempt to reach the shore. Tom explained the case to Sandy and the Scotch boy declared that he felt strong enough to attempt the feat.
With Tom in the lead they set out. It was fully a hundred yards to the shore, and a slippery, dangerous causeway that they had to traverse. But although once or twice Sandy was within an inch of losing his nerve and the passage was marked by many slips and halts, yet in time they gained the margin of the stream and drew long breaths as they attained safety under the big pines that fringed it almost to its edge.
There followed a short rest and then they set off up the bank, eying the stream for the small boat from theYukon Roverwhich they felt certain would be sent out. Sure enough, before long, a glad shout from Tom announced that he had sighted the little craft. At the same instant, Jack and Mr. Dacre, who manned it, caught sight of the two lads on the shore. They lost no time in pulling toward them, and in a very short time the reunited adventurers were warmly shaking hands and listening to Tom's recital of their thrilling escape from a terrible death in the rapids.
The adventurous lives the Bungalow Boys had led, made them disinclined to dwell upon the details of the occurrence, but in their hearts there was a feeling of deep gratitude to the Providence that had intervened and saved them from one of the most perilous positions in which they had ever been placed.
TWO STRANGE VISITORS.
Late one evening, when the savory odor of frying bacon, pancakes and coffee mingled with the balsam-like aroma of the pines, and the river was singing loudly its eternal murmuring song, Jack, who had wandered a short distance from the others, came dashing back along a sort of shaly trail made some time in the past by the feet of wandering prospectors or trappers. They were camped up the river some distance above the scene of Tom and Sandy's adventure.
"Well, what's up now?" demanded Tom, looking up with flushed face and rumpled hair from the cooking fire.
The others regarded Jack questioningly.
"What is it, my boy?" asked Mr. Dacre, seeingthat some unusual occurrence was responsible for Jack's excitement.
"Visitors!" cried the lad.
"Visitors? I suppose Lady Wolf or Baroness Muskrat are coming to pay us a call the noo," scoffed Sandy.
"Quit your joking, Sandy, these are real visitors. Regular company."
"Best bib-and-tucker folk?" demanded Tom.
"That's what. Better fry up some more bacon and get ready an extra supply of other grub."
"Say, kindly have the goodness to explain what you are driving at, won't you?" pleaded Tom.
"Just this. Two regular wild west customers are coming down the trail. I kind of guess they'll be glad to accept any invitation we might be inclined to give them."
Jack knew that in the wild places the hospitality of any camp is gladly extended to the stranger, and that the news that visitors were approaching would be a pleasant surprise tothese sojourners in the far north. It was long since they had seen strange faces.
"Of course they are welcome to the best the camp affords," said Mr. Chillingworth heartily.
"You say that they are rather tough-looking customers, Jack?" asked Tom rather anxiously.
Mr. Dacre set the lad's question aside with a laugh.
"Pshaw! You would hardly expect to find visitors in correct regalia for calling in this section of the country," he said.
"Come down to that," agreed Tom, chiming in with his uncle's laughter, "I guess that we are pretty hard-looking cases ourselves."
Before they had time to comment on this remark, which was unmistakably a true one, the sound of footsteps coming down the loose, stony trail could be plainly heard. A few minutes later two men came in sight. Both were typical products of the region.
One was tall, strapping and sun-browned, sixfoot two in his stockings. His round, good-natured face was topped with a thatch of corn-yellow hair, which, with his light blue eyes and fresh complexion, showed his Norse origin.
The other wayfarer was smaller and more compact, but as he bent under his heavy pack they could see the tense muscles bulge and play under his coarse blue shirt. He was tanned almost to a mahogany hue and, no less than his companion, bore the stamp of a battler in the lonely places. A certain quiet air of watchfulness, of self-reliance and ruggedness sufficiently displayed this quality.
The two men introduced themselves. The fair-haired one was Olaf Gundersen, for many years a dweller in the Yukon region. He had packed, trapped, hunted and prospected for many seasons in the wildest parts of Alaska. With his companion, Lafe Cummings, a wiry Iowan, he was making a trail down the Yukon to be used later on when the two established a pack train.From the proceeds of this venture they hoped to reap a golden harvest, which their rough, adventurous lives had so far failed to yield them.
They were bid a hearty welcome and before long the entire party, re-enforced by the two newcomers, were seated about the fire devouring their supper in a way that bade fair to call for a replenishment of the larder in the near future.
"Ah-h-h-h! dase bane good grub," sighed Olaf, as he finished up a hunk of cheese after disposing of two heaping saucerfuls of canned peaches, the latter opened as an especial compliment to the company.
"You're dead right there, Olaf," agreed Lafe in a high, nasal tone. "You folks done us white and no mistake."
They sat around the fire late that evening, and the boys' elders explained the object of their presence in the region as freely as they thought advisable. Lafe and his partner were equally open in discussing their affairs, and the boyslistened with rapt attention to the budget of tales the two hardy pioneers had to tell of the Yukon and its pleasures and perils. As they talked, the rushing voice of the river and the deep sighing of the wind in the pines made a fitting accompaniment to their Odyssey of the far north.
Lafe had just finished a picturesque tale of life in Dawson City in the early days, when eggs were a dollar each and flour worth literally its weight in gold, when, from the forest behind them, came a shrill, unearthly cry. It was like the shriek of a human creature in mortal agony and it cut the silence like a knife.
They all looked around, startled for an instant, and then Mr. Dacre exclaimed:
"A wild-cat!"
"That's what it is. One of them pesky varmints, sure enough," declared Lafe. "I mind me of a time in Nevady, when——"
But they were none of them listening to Lafe just then. Their eyes were centered on Olaf.
An extraordinary change had come over the big, blonde Norwegian. He glanced about him nervously, almost timorously. It was odd to see the effect that the ululation of the wild cat crying out in the woods had had upon the strapping frontiersman. His light eyes held, for an instant, all the fear of a frightened child. Then the cry died out and with its passing, the fear faded from his face.
By common consent they looked at Lafe, as if seeking an explanation for the phenomenon. Olaf glanced uneasily about as if he was half afraid of being ridiculed for his momentary exhibition of alarm.
"One fears one thing, one is dead mortal scared of another," volunteered Lafe at length. "I knowed an old lady at home that wouldn't go nigh a cat. 'Nuther feller I hev in mind was as bold as a lion in everything but one, an' that was spiders. Yes'ir, let a spider come anigh Spence Higgins and he'd come purty near holleringout like a school gal that spied one of the critters on her best pink muslin."
"Yes, I suppose that we all have our pet dislikes," said Mr. Dacre.
"Wa'al, Olaf, he's got a heap more reason an' title to his dislike than most of us, I reckon," said Lafe. "I'll bet a cookie right now that you thought that thar critter was a mounting lion fer a minute, na'ow, didn't yer, Olaf?"
The big Norseman smiled his slow smile.
"He bane sound powerful lake it, Lafe," he said at length, "an' das a soun' you know I don't bane lake. No, sir, he skoll make me bane planty scared all right, I tale you."
"You had some adventure with a mountain lion one time?" asked Mr. Chillingworth, scenting a story.
"Aye. I skoll bet you may lafe, I bane have bad time with mountain lion one tame long ago," said Olaf slowly. "I never forgate him, I bate you, no not so long as I skoll live."
"Tell 'em about it," urged Lafe, "go on. Then they'll see why you've no reason to like the critters, though there's none round hereabouts that ever I heard tell of."
Olaf regarded the group about him with unblinking eyes and his slow, good-natured smile.
"You lake I bane tale you why I no lake mountain lion?" he asked.
"Yes, please, by all means," urged Mr. Dacre, who knew that it could have been no common adventure that had branded this big-limbed giant with a dread of a creature which ordinarily is glad enough to give human beings a wide berth.
"Then I bane tale you why Oaf Gundersen give mountain lion the inside of the trail whenever as be I skoll meet him again," said the Norwegian.
"It all happened a long time ago," he began, and in telling his story we shall not try to reproduce his odd, broken idioms, nor his inimitable style, "a long time ago when the boys here musthave been little fellows. It was back in Californy where the creatures were as thick as blackberries and gave lots of trouble to the settlers and the miners. I was working a small mine and trying to run a small mountain ranch at the same time. My living I eked out by hunting and trapping when I got a chance.
"One day while I was out hunting, a big mountain lion and his mate came down on the ranch and killed the only horse I had. I hunted the male for a week and then I found him and shot him down. But the account was not yet even. I determined to kill his mate, too.
"I tracked her for days but could never get close enough to her for a shot. The creature appeared to have an uncanny sense of my purpose of revenge. She always evaded me with what appeared to be almost supernatural skill. Time after time I thought that I had her at my mercy, only to have her escape my rifle-fire unharmed.
"After some time devoted to this fruitlessquest of vengeance, I began to see the killing of this puma as a fixed purpose. Nothing else seemed to matter much so long as I could kill the beast that had so often evaded me.
"I used to start out early every day and return home only late at night from the hunt, and always I was baffled. The she-puma still lived in spite of my efforts. If she had been human I would have said that she laughed at me, for sometimes at night I could hear her screaming in the forest like a big wild-cat, as if in defiance of me.
"At such times I would grit my teeth as I lay in my bunk and say to myself. 'All right, my lady. It's a long lane that has no turning, and I'll never give up till I have killed you.'
"But the next day she would avoid me again, sometimes by not more than a hair's breadth; but it was enough. She carried her hide whole and I was still unrevenged for the death of my horse.
"One day I followed her trail to a part of themountains where fallen trees, underbrush and jagged stones made the traveling hard. All at once, after some half hour of scrambling forward, I found myself facing a cave, a black, narrow opening in a cliff of grayish stone that towered high above the forest.
"I knew as if by instinct that I had found the mountain lion's lair. But was she inside? That was the question. If she was, I determined to lie there till she came forth, even if it took days, and then despatch her without mercy.
"With this object in view I cast myself on my stomach in the midst of a tangle of underbrush, and with my rifle all ready for instant use I began my vigil.
"I lay there for quite some time," said Olaf, "and then, all at once, I began to hear sounds that made me prick my ears up. From inside the cave came whining little growls and mews almost like the crying of kittens. Of course I knew almost instantly what caused the noise.The puma had young ones. They were what I heard.
"'Aha!' thought I, 'so much the better. Now I know I have you, my lady. When you come back to your cubs, I shall kill you and my revenge will be complete.'
"The thought gave me much satisfaction and I lay there listening feverishly for the slightest sound of the returning mother. But after a while something happened that gave my thoughts a different trend. Out of the cave mouth there came tumbling two fuzzy, fussy little mountain lion cubs. They looked like yellow balls of down. They sat there blinking in the sun for a while and then began playing just as kittens do. It was a pretty sight, but I had other thoughts to occupy me just then. An idea had suddenly come to me.
"Why not take the cubs and raise them? I would be able to sell them to some menagerie or zoo for a good sum when they grew older, andI would thus be repaid for the loss of my horse. The more I thought it over, the better my plan appeared to me. I resolved to put it into instant execution."
OLAF'S GREAT LESSON.
"Another thing that urged me to take the cubs," continued Olaf, "was the fact that I was certain that if I kept them captive in my hut the mother would sooner or later put in an appearance seeking them, and then I could kill her with ease. So, as the two cubs rolled about kitten-like, I wriggled through the brush toward them, and then with a sudden leap I pounced on them and seized them both by the scruff of the neck. They spat and growled vindictively, but I had hold of them in such a way that they could not hurt me. It didn't take me long to tie them together with a bit of twine, and then shouldering my rifle and carrying the mewing, spitting cubs, I set out for home.
"The trail was a rough one to follow and I hada lot of difficulty. I had not gone more than a hundred yards before, quite close behind me, I heard a horrible yell. In an instant I dropped the cubs and jerked my rifle up to my shoulder. I knew what that yell meant. It was the mother lion after the man who had robbed her of her cubs.
"I dropped to my knee to steady my aim, and as her tawny, lithe body came into view, I fired. It was a shot that I wouldn't have missed once in a hundred times under ordinary circumstances. But this was the hundredth time.
"As my weapon was discharged, the lioness emitted a great roar, gave a whisk of her tail and dashed off into the forest. I knew that I had not harmed her. It was then that I began to think that the creature bore a charmed life. It certainly appeared so.
"I was the crack shot of that part of the country and yet I had gone wide of a target that a ten-year-old boy could not well have missed.But as I picked up the cubs and resumed my journey, I thought to myself, with grim satisfaction, that it would not be long before I had another chance at the beast, and that next time I promised myself that my bullet would find its mark.
"Well, it wasn't long before what I expected and hoped for came true. I was out in the back of my shack splitting wood two days later, when through the light green of the trees that grew close up, I thought I saw the flash of a swiftly-moving, tawny body.
"I chuckled to myself. 'So you have come at last, eh? That is good. Now you and I will try conclusions together.'
"Such was the thought that ran through my mind as I made all haste into the hut for my rifle. As the light-colored mass moved again among the trees, I leveled my weapon and fired. But again I missed!
"There was a swift dash, more like the passageof a streak of light than the moving of a living thing, and then I knew that the puma had fooled me once more. But I also knew that she would come back. The mother-love that lives in all animals would bring her. I was to pay dearly for playing upon this noble instinct. I have never tampered with it since. A creature with young is sacred to me. But I had not learned my lesson then, and I planned to use the puma's motherly instinct to trap her to her destruction.
"That evening she was back. I heard her crying her soft, mother cry among the trees. From inside the cabin, in a sort of rough cage I had contrived for them, the cubs answered her with little sharp barking cries.
"But strong as were the ties that bound her to the cubs, the mother mountain lion came no closer. She was not visible to me. I crouched, rifle in hand, waiting for one chance at her; but it didn't come. She kept far up the mountain side, from time to time giving her cry. It waslike the cry of that wild-cat we heard to-night. It was a sound that I have come to dread. Sometimes in dreams I hear it and then I waken and cry out. Lafe can tell you.
"I brought the cub's cage outside the hut. I thought that maybe that would bring her within range of my rifle. But the animal seemed to know I was laying a pitfall for her, for she did not approach any closer; but all that night her cries shook the forest.
"I shouted at her. My desire for revenge had got the upper hand completely of me now. When the puma shrieked and howled, I shrieked and howled, too.
"'I shall kill you yet,' I promised her, 'your hour is close at hand. Olaf will have his revenge for his horse. You will see.'
"Toward morning the cries came closer.
"'Now is my time,' I thought.
"I took my rifle and sallied out of the hut. It was bright moonlight. Once more the criescame from a clump of woods up to my left. I swung round. My heart gave a bound of delight. Out of the deep shadow of the woods I saw two burning points of light gleaming. I knew what they were. The puma's eyes!
"All I had to do was to fire between them. For me, that ought to have been an easy task. But quick as I was in raising my rifle, the puma was quicker of movement than I. In a flash the points of light had vanished, and when next I heard her cries they came from some distance off.
"Utterly disgusted, baffled and angry, I went back to my bunk. I lay long awake revolving all sorts of schemes to catch the puma napping, and I was still planning when I fell asleep. That night my dreams were all of the working out of my revenge. I guess I wasn't far from going crazy. Dwelling all the time on one thought and living alone, had worked powerfully on my mind. I felt that if I didn't kill that mountain lion she'dkill me, and how near she came to doing it, I'm going to tell you in a minute.
"For one mortal week I tried every way I could think of to get a shot at that lion. But it was all of no use. If the animal could have read my mind, she couldn't have kept out of the way more cleverly than she did.
"But all the time she was near at hand. The cubs, whom I fed regularly with venison and small game, used to answer her night and day. I lost sleep and flesh, but still I was no closer to attaining my object.
"I tried dozens of ways of getting my chance to shoot the animal down. Failing in all of them, I set poisoned bait around the house. But it was never touched. With the same uncanny instinct that had taught her how to keep out of my reach, the puma avoided the poisoned meat. Steel traps were a joke to her, I guess, for conceal them cleverly as I might, she never went near them.
"And all the time I grew madder and madder.I had hunted and trapped for a good many years and this was the first animal that had ever escaped me once I set out to get it. I began to get nervous. When I was out hunting, for I had to go pretty frequently to get food for the young pumas, the slightest unexpected sound would make me jump out of my skin.
"'Olaf, you've got to end this thing,' I told myself.
"And then later on I said to myself again:
"'Olaf, you must end the puma or the puma will end you, my friend.' And so the days went by. A dozen times a day and as many at night I would think I was at last to put an end to the almost unbearable situation, and every time that puma fooled me. But all the time she was about the hut. Always within earshot of the cubs.
"One day, for security, I shut them in an inner room. I was afraid that during one of my absences the mother mountain lion might break in and effect a rescue. It was about two days afterI had made this arrangement, that the thing happened that has ever since made me pale when I hear the shrill cry of a mountain lion or any sound resembling it.
"It was in the early morning. I was sitting outside my shack cleaning my rifle. I was happy and whistling quite gaily. Suddenly I looked round for some rags to finish up my job. There were none there and leaning my rifle against a stump, I went into the hut to get some.
"I had just about got inside when I heard a roar, and then a great body came hurtling past me into the hut. The puma had been watching me. By this time, so often had I fired at her, she knew that my strength lay in my rifle. The instant that she saw me lay it down, she knew her chance had come. Like a flash she was into the hut after her cubs.
"And there was I, weaponless, powerless, and face to face with a mother puma mad to regain possession of her little ones.
"I had one second in which to think and act simultaneously. My bunk was built high up, luckily, and with one bound, so active did my terror make me, I was in it and secure for an instant. The puma crouched, lashed her tail and with bared claws glared at me with terrible hatred in her green eyes.
"I could feel the cold sweat break out upon me. I could almost sense the last struggle when she should have sprung upon me in the bunk. But at that instant the cubs beyond the door set up their cries anew. That saved me for the time being. With a mighty bound the puma flung herself against the door. Again and again she flung herself at it like a battering ram.
"But it was a stout door and it resisted all her attacks till at last, panting and breathless, she lay down on the floor of the hut to rest. I dared not move for fear of attracting her attention. I was in a horrible trap. Noon came and passed and still she lay there. I was almost mad withthirst, but stronger than my thirst was my fear of that great cat crouching there with her eyes fixed on the door beyond which lay her cubs.
"The door fastened with a steel catch. If only I could reach that catch, release it and open the door there was a possibility that my ordeal would be at an end. Having regained her cubs, there was a chance, a mighty slim one, but still a chance, that the lioness would take them and go.
"The time dragged along on leaden feet. The sun grew lower. A ray of the declining day struck in through the one window the hut boasted and struck the steel catch that confined the cubs.
"How long it was after this that my nerve went all to bits, I don't know. But go it did. I gave a loud yell and then, careless of what might happen, but determined to end the tension at all hazards, I reached out with one foot and kicked up the steel catch.
"I was quick but not quick enough. As the door swung open, the lioness leaped for my leg,but the next instant she saw in the room beyond her two cubs. In her joy at beholding them again everything else was forgotten by her. With her sharp, strong claws she tore the box that confined them to bits, and then, after licking them all over, she picked them up as a cat does her kittens and—strode out of the door.
"I never saw her again; but I shall always remember her by this."
The woodsman drew up one leg of his loose trousers and showed a long, livid scar.
"That bane why I skoll never hear the cry of the puma or a cry that bane lake him without feeling the big fear," he concluded.
Olaf's story had taken some time in its narration, but it had held them spell bound. They all agreed that he had passed through an ordeal well calculated to make him dread the creatures, one of which had held him a prisoner for so many terrible hours.
They turned in late and when they awakened,Olaf and Lafe had taken their leave without disturbing them. They had left a scribbled note of thanks, however, with their best wishes for good luck.
"I shall never forget Olaf Gundersen," declared Tom, a sentiment which the rest echoed.
ON THE PORCUPINE RIVER.
We must now pass over an interval of several weeks. During this period our readers are to imagine the numerous rapids and perils of the Upper Yukon conquered and the permanent camp of the silver fox hunters established upon the swift Porcupine River, not far above its junction with the Yukon and amidst a country wilder than any into which the Bungalow Boys had yet penetrated.
The work of setting out the peculiarly constructed traps in which the silver and black foxes were to be trapped had occupied much time, and some exciting adventures with bears and wolves had accompanied the work. When completed, the "trap-line" extended for more than twenty-five miles from the camp, which was pitched onthe bank of the river to which theYukon Roverwas tied.
Did space permit we should like to tell in detail, and may at some future time, the numerous exciting episodes that marked those weeks of our young friends' lives. But we must now hasten on to an event which was to try their resources as they had rarely been tested before, and which was peculiarly characteristic of the life in that wild region "north of fifty-three" which they were exploring.
It is first necessary to explain that the work of overseeing the trap-line was attended to every week, the work being divided into "shifts," one of the party, or more, being left to guard the camp during the absence of the others. At the particular time we are now dealing with Mr. Dacre was disabled with a slight fever, and Sandy, also, was a "little under the weather" from the same cause. So that it devolved upon Tom and Jack to assume the task of going over the trap-line, aduty which had to be performed, while Mr. Chillingworth remained behind with the invalids.
And right here it is proper to explain that although the traps had been set and baited, the trappers did not expect any results till later in the season when the "big cold" set in. Nevertheless, in order to guard against the possibility of vicious or unprincipled trappers or "dog Indians" interfering with them, a rigid patrol was necessary to insure the well being of the trap-line. The actual trapping was destined to come later when the wastes of forest to the north were frozen and the creatures of the wild came toward the river in search of food.
Well used to roughing it as the boys were, they carried little more with them on these expeditions than flour, "erbwurst,"—a sort of concentrated soup, not very palatable, but nourishing,—teas, salt and sugar. Their rifles, blankets and canteens completed their loads, with ammunition, ofcourse, sufficient to enable them to "live on the country."
The trap-line led back into a wild range of mountains known as the Frying Pan Range, though just why that name had been given to the section is beyond the present chronicler to explain.
On the particular morning with which we are dealing, we find Tom and Jack almost at the end of the trap-line. Not much to their surprise, their investigation of the fifty or more traps scattered through this territory had not resulted in their discovering any silver foxes ensnared. Other wild creatures, though, had been entrapped, but they were not bothering with these. In every instance, if they were not maimed, the creatures were set loose, with one exception. That was the ugly "glutton" or wolverine, a notorious robber of trappers' and miners' camps, and a savage, truculent animal. When such creatures were found, they were despatched without mercy.
Tom, the first to open his eyes that morning, gave a glance of astonishment as he gazed about him from his blankets. On every side of them was a fleecy blanket of fog as thick and blinding as that which had encompassed them at Kadiak. He awakened Jack and the two looked about them rather anxiously. In pursuit of a deer, the carcass of which hung in a neighboring tree, high up so as to be beyond the reach of wild animals, the boys had, the evening before, wandered rather far from their beaten track.
They had, in fact, been overtaken by night in a part of the mountains which was entirely strange to them. But they felt no apprehensions on that score. They, of course, carried, like all wilderness travelers, a good compass and had the accurate bearings of their camp. The trap-line itself was marked by a blazed trail, so that once upon it their course was as plainly recognized as if they had been on a public highway.
After breakfast, consisting of deer-meatsteaks, which when freshly killed are by no means as good as asserted, flap-jacks and tea, well sugared, the two young trappers took earnest counsel as to the best course to pursue.
The fog enwrapped them closely in billowy folds of white. On the mountain top on which they had halted, the mist was peculiarly dense and heavy.
"Well, Jack," said Tom, "we're in cloudland, all right. Are you in favor of waiting till the clouds roll by or striking out for camp?"
Jack at once declared for the latter course. Mr. Dacre's illness and Sandy's indisposition had not a little to do with Tom's falling in with this plan. He was anxious not to remain away longer than necessary for, as he knew, the river fevers sometimes resulted quite seriously.
Accordingly, the blankets were rolled up, some meat cut from the deer, canteens filled at a nearby spring, and the march back to the river begun. The fog still hung heavy and dense, and the boysstrode along through the steamy vapor talking little, but saving their wind and their strength for the rough stony ground they were traveling over.
About noon the mist lifted and rolled away like a drop-curtain in a theater. And it was then that the boys made a disquieting discovery. The general scenery adjacent to the trapping line was familiar to them. But the spot which they now had reached held nothing that struck a reminiscent note.
Instead of being surrounded by noble forests of huge, somber trees, they were in a place that resembled more the scenery found in the "Bad Lands" than anything else the boys could call to mind. Grotesque piles of rocky hills, pinnacled like cathedrals and minsters, with here and there the semblance of some strangely formed animal, surrounded them on every side.
Towering columns and immense, fantastically-shaped masses of clay, suggesting pre-historicmonsters of the pre-glacial period, rocky cliffs resembling enchanted castles,—these were only a few of the remarkable features of the section of the country into which they had strayed.
They looked about them with awe. The strata of the various weird formations were brilliantly tinted with blue, red, white, yellow and other colors mingled and mixed like the hues of a kaleidoscope. The utter barrenness of the place suggested a city of the dead, untrodden by man or beast for centuries.
"Where under the sun have we wandered?" asked Jack in an awed tone, gazing about with wonderment not untinged with alarm.
"I've not the slightest idea. We've never even seen a suggestion of such country on our hunting excursions off the trapping line. We must have strayed far off our course."
"But the compass?"
"I followed what should have been our direction,"declared Tom. "I cannot understand this at all."
"Nor can I. Let's have a look at that compass."
Tom fished it out of his pocket and extended it. He glanced at the dial and then uttered a cry of astonishment. The needle was dipping and plunging and behaving in a very odd manner.
"Gracious, what's the matter with the thing? Is it bewitched?" gasped Jack.
"It is certainly behaving in a very mysterious fashion. Something must have deflected it and led us out of our way."
"What could have done this?"
"I don't know, unless—hullo!"
Tom stooped and picked up a bit of stone which glittered with bright, shining particles.
"Iron pyrites!" he exclaimed. "I remember the professor back at school showing some to the geology class. No wonder the needle was deflected!Look, Jack, those cliffs yonder are almost solid masses of pyrites!"
"And those deposits of iron switched the needle of the compass?"
"Beyond a doubt."
"Then we are lost."
"I don't like to say that."
"But we are far out of our way?"
"No question of it."
"How far?"
"I have no idea. It's a nasty predicament, Jack, but we'll get out of it, don't worry."
"But you haven't any idea in which direction to go?"
"No; we must scout around and try to get our bearings. I would suggest that we strike out for that high hill yonder that will place a ridge between us and the pyrites cliffs, and perhaps the compass will behave normally."
They struck off in the direction that Tom indicated. But it was hard traveling in thatbroken, uncanny country into which they had wandered in such a strange manner. The hill, too, was further than they thought, the clear air being deceptive. But dripping with perspiration and not a little anxious at heart, they gained it at last.
As Tom placed his hand in his pocket to draw out the compass, he almost let the instrument drop to the ground.
A sudden sound had broken the stillness of the place. It was a sound that ordinarily would have caused confidence in the hearers. But heard under the circumstances in which it was, it was so unexpected, so out of keeping with the wild surroundings, that it startled and shocked them both.
It was the sound of laughter.
THE MYSTERIOUS MEN.
There could be no mistake about it. It was human laughter that they had heard. It has been said that his ability to laugh is what chiefly distinguishes man from other animals and it is an undeniable fact that the sound resembles no other in nature.
The laughter they had heard was not loud, but it was none the less genuine and hearty on that account. Jack gripped Tom's arm and asked in an affrighted whisper:
"What does it mean, Tom?"
"It means that somebody is pleased over something," replied Tom, who, despite the light tone of his reply, was no less agitated than his companion, "but who can he be?"
"One thing is certain, it isn't a native, for theyonly grin without making any racket over it."
The boys stood side by side, and grasping their rifles firmly, peered toward a thick clump of fir woods from whence the sound had proceeded. But no more laughter came. Instead, the branches parted and coming toward them they distinguished the forms of three men.
Suddenly the hearty mirth broke out once more, and the shoulders of one of the three were seen to bob up and down as if his mirth was unrestrainable. But this time the outburst was roughly checked.
"Shut up, Rufus!" exclaimed one of the men angrily. "A joke lasts you longer than anybody I ever saw."
"Wha's dat? Oh, lawdy! Look-ee, boss! Dere's two white boys!"
It was a short, stocky negro who gasped out these words, his lower jaw dropping in a comical manner as he stared at them as though they had been beings from another world. For theirpart, the boys were no less astonished at this encounter.
The negro's exclamation was the first apprisal that his two white companions had of the boys' presence on the scene, and their surprise appeared no less than his. They were both rough, wild-looking fellows, with shaggy, unkempt beards and rough clothes with knee boots. Both carried shovels and tin pans, while the negro bore a pick and other mining tools. The boys guessed at once that the men were prospectors.
"Howdy, pards," exclaimed one of the men, coming toward the boys with extended hand, "what in the name of time air you doin' roun' these diggin's?"
"Glad to meet you," said Tom, taking the proffered hand and introducing his brother and himself. He then explained his plight. Both men raised their eyebrows as they listened, and the negro rolled his eyes in an odd fashion.
"Well, I'll be hanged," exclaimed the companionof the man who had first addressed the boys. "That's a tarnation bad fix and no mistake, ain't it, Jim?"
"It sure is, Seth," replied the other, "an' I ain't got no idea of the track they ought to take, seem' as we come inter this country from the other way."
Jim Stapleton, for that was his name, pulled out a pipe and lit it. His companion, Seth Ingalls, shook his head as if in meditation. Then the two men whispered together for a time while the negro surveyed the boys with a blank expression. There was something about that look that puzzled them. It was not till afterward that they were to learn what it meant. The black man appeared to be about to speak, when the two men, who had withdrawn a little for their confab, came back.
"How come you so far from the river?" asked Jim, and Tom for a passing moment thought he detected suspicion in his tones.
"As I told you, to look after our trap line," said Tom.
"Humph! This is a funny time of the year to go trapping."
Tom, omitting all the details that he could, explained the reason for the line being set out before the early winter closed in. If the man had been suspicious, as Tom had for an instant fancied, the answer appeared to lull such thoughts.
"We were foolish to start off in that fog," went on Tom, "but of course I'd no idea that the compass would betray us like it did."
The men made no rejoinder to this. Then Jim spoke up and in his rough voice told the boys that they were camped not far from there and would be glad to make them welcome if they cared to come along.
The boys, after some hesitation, accepted this proposition. For one thing they were full of youthful curiosity concerning these men, and in the second place, after their experiences of themorning they did not feel inclined to resume their journey, which now bade fair to be a long and arduous one, till they had had some rest.
The men explained that they had been out that morning with the negro Rufus, who acted as cook and did the rough work about the camp, on a prospecting expedition to a distant ridge. But, explained Jim Stapleton, at their home camp lay the real object of their quest in these wild and solitary hills.
"We're the luckiest fellows in the whole world," exclaimed Jim, swinging his arms in wild gesticulation. "We'll be the richest people in America, in Europe, in the whole world! The gold is not far off now. We'll be greater than Solomon in all his glory. We'll be——"
"Here, here, choke off, will you, Jim Stapleton," growled his companion in a taciturn tone.
The boys gazed at the two men in astonishment. The outburst of Jim Stapleton seemed more like the ravings of an unbalanced mindthan the speech of a well disciplined one. His eyes had flashed as he spoke, with a wild sort of light and his gesticulations were extravagant. Tom was about to speak, but in the very act his eye caught that of Rufus, the negro cook. To his astonishment the black man's left eye closed in a swift but unmistakable wink that said as plainly as words, "Say nothing."
Jack, who was not so alert as his brother, had noticed none of this by-play, but he, too, had been astonished at the miner's outburst. As for Tom, a suspicion shot into his mind that was to bear fruit in the near future.
The gruff rebuke of Seth Ingalls seemed to have had its effect upon his companion, for Jim Stapleton said no more as they trudged on, and ere long they came in sight of what was the gold-seekers' headquarters.
Among piled up masses of huge rocks and boulders, the two men had found a retreat which could not have been better suited to their purposesif it had been built to order. It consisted in a general way of a cavern about a dozen yards in depth and one-fourth as broad and high, with an entrance that an ordinary sized man could pass through by slightly stooping.
The floor, walls and ceiling were of solid rock, but an opening must have existed in the rear, for a fire was smouldering in that portion of the cavern, with some sort of food cooking above it in a huge iron pot, and the smoke was curling up and vanishing through some unseen aperture.
Into this curious home, the men whom the boys had encountered had moved their belongings. These consisted of the most primitive and barely necessary sort, a cooking-kit, extra clothing and provisions such as a gun cannot procure. In one corner was a pile of blankets, and a sort of burlap curtain had been fitted over the opening which could presumably be drawn in severe weather, making the place snug and weather proof.
"Do you know anything about the gold mining business?" was almost the first thing Jim Stapleton said as he ushered the boys into this cave home.
"Well, we've never looked for it except in the shape of coined money," said Tom with a smile.
"I never knew that there was much to be found in this part of the country," added Jack.
"Then that's just where you're wrong," said Jim, who, despite his taciturn comrade's frowns and winks, seemed bound to talk. "There's gold in plenty here. It's no guesswork on our part.We know it!"
Again into his eyes came the odd gleam that Tom had noticed. It never appeared there but when he talked of gold. Then his optics danced and glittered like living coals.
Seth Ingalls had gone outside on some errand connected with the business of the men's retreat. Rufus was chopping wood. The boys were alone in the cave with Jim Stapleton. He leaned forward suddenly and whispered in Tom's ear.
"We have the secret. We'll have gold enough for all. You shall share it. The treasures of Ophir never for an instant compared with what lies in Dead Man's Mine."
"Dead Man's Mine!" echoed Tom. The name carried a sinister suggestion.
"That's its name. See here."
Jim Stapleton arose and tip-toed to the wall. From behind a recess he drew out a rolled up bit of paper, stained and dirty. He unfolded it and showed it to the youths. All the markings were in lead pencil, blurred and indistinct. But one thing about the plan, which was entitled in bold letters "Plan of Dead Man's Mine," attracted Tom's keen attention.