Tad's Rope Wriggled Out.Tad's Rope Wriggled Out.
Tad's Rope Wriggled Out.Tad's Rope Wriggled Out.
The bear was now ambling about the camp, nosing into everything in sight, helping himself to such food as he was able to find, overturning packs and dishes in the search for more. Observing Tad, Mr. Bruin lurched toward the boy. Tad was struggling with his rope to get it in shape to cast.
"Run, Tad!" shouted Rector.
Tad did run, dodging here and there to gain time. In a few moments he had his rope ready, then began a hide-and-seek game between bear and boy, the Pony Rider Boy watching for an opportunity to use the rope. All at once his rope wriggled out. The big loop slipped neatly over the head of the bear and was quickly jerked taut.
Such a yell as went up from the boys in the trees! Even the Professor shouted his approval. But the bear became suddenly electrified. Rearing on his hind legs he began pawing at the leash, snarling and growling furiously. Tad meanwhile was dancing here and there, jerking on the rope, tugging and trying his best to pull his captive down to all fours. Tad might as well have sought to pull over one of the tall spruce, for the bear's strength, of course, was far superior to that of the boy who had roped him.
Ned Rector, by this time, was scrambling from the tree. Tad was too busy to observe what his companion was doing. Ned ran for his tent, appearing a moment later with his rifle.
"Look out!" warned the Professor. "You will hit one of us."
"No, I won't. I guess I can't miss the mark so close as this."
Ned, at the first favorable opportunity, raised his rifle and, taking quick aim, fired. The bear staggered backward, and Tad fell over flat on his back. Ned Rector had shot the rope in two close up to Mr. Bruin's head.
"Shoot again! Quick!" yelled Tad.
Instead of doing so, Rector, seeing what he had done, hurled his rifle away and made a dash for a tree, for the bear was ambling toward him, showing his teeth and growling angrily. Tad had sprung to his feet and was looking about for the rifle when a yell from the boys up the trees caused him to glance back apprehensively. What he saw decided the lad on the instant. Three other bears, large ones, were ambling into camp, nosing about and sniffing the ground. At this juncture, in his excitement, Stacy fell out of the tree. Tad ran to assist the fat boy up again, but Chunky needed no help. He was in more of a hurry than he ever had been in his life. This time he shinned up a sapling, the nearest tree to him.
The sapling bent under his weight; it bent perilously close to one of the bears—so close, in fact, that the fat boy's feet struck the head of the bear. The animal raised on its haunches and swung a mighty paw. The paw caught Stacy Brown, sending him rolling, tumbling and yelling over the ground.
The boys who were perched in the trees groaned. Ned began scrambling down again.
"Stay where you are!" shouted Tad.
Young Butler, regardless of the presence of the bears, ran to the assistance of the unfortunate fat boy.
Tad jerked Stacy to his feet, then with a firm grip on the latter's collar ran him toward one of the larger trees, up which he assisted Chunky. The panting of a bear seemed close to Tad's ears when he had finished this task. He had just time to jump aside to avoid the sweep of a paw.
Tad jumped as far up as possible, throwing arms and legs about the trunk of the same tree. At that moment he lost a section of his trousers, which was left in the claws of Bruin. Tad quickly hitched up a few inches higher, panting from his exertions, and there he clung for a moment to get his breath. In the meantime the bear was exerting itself to reach him.
"Climb, climb! He'll get you!" shouted Ned.
"He can't reach me."
"Look out. There comes another one. He is bigger!" warned Walter.
"Grab the rope!" yelled Rector, letting the loop of his lasso drop over Tad Butler's head.
Tad hunched the rope under his arms.
"Can you hold me?"
"Yes, I've got a hitch around a limb," answered Ned.
The boy half way up the tree rested more of his weight on the rope. A moment of this and he began to climb, Ned assisting by hauling up on the rope with all his strength. Butler was soon resting beside him.
"Thank you," said Tad. "You aren't much of a shot, but you helped me up."
"Yes. I could shoot better than that with a pop-gun," jeered Stacy from an adjoining tree.
"You keep still. I don't see that you have been doing much, for a brave man, except to get us into more trouble," retorted Ned.
The Professor had become very much excited, and nearly fell out of the tree while suddenly shifting his position.
"Charlie, why don't you do something?" shouted the Professor.
Charlie hunched his shoulders.
"Get down there and shoot them, why don't you?" demanded Professor Zepplin.
"No gun, no shoot," answered Charlie John.
"Some of us can't shoot when we do have a gun," piped Chunky.
"It takes a pretty good shot to shoot a rope in two," answered Butler mischievously, stealing a look at the flushed face of Ned Rector.
"But what are we going to do?" demanded the Professor.
"From the present outlook I think we shall be tree dwellers, for a time at least," answered Tad. "Has any of you a suggestion to make?"
"I move that Ned Rector climb down and make faces at the bears. They will run away sure then."
"Oh, keep still. If they didn't run at sight of you, nothing under the skies will frighten them," retorted Ned disgustedly.
"No, they didn't run away. They wanted to kiss me," answered the fat boy triumphantly.
Despite their perilous situation the boys laughed, but Professor Zepplin did not. He sat astride a limb tugging savagely at his whiskers. Tad suggested to Ned that he was afraid the Professor would pull the whiskers out.
The report of a rifle some distance to the westward of the camp called the attention of the party sharply in that direction.
"That's Mr. Vaughn," cried Tad.
"What is he shooting at?" asked Walter.
"I don't know, but maybe he has found the bear he went out after," suggested Tad.
There was no second shot, so they concluded that the guide had missed his shot and lost whatever he had shot at. Tad began uttering long-drawn calls, the call of the woodsman which he had learned from Cale Vaughn. After a time a faint call was heard in answer.
"He heard us," yelled Stacy.
In the meantime the three bears were having a merry time down in the camp. They even searched the tents for plunder, foraging everywhere, doing damage to everything that they did not eat, clawing the outfit over ruthlessly. The guide's voice was heard calling again. It sounded much nearer this time, and the Pony Rider Boys raised their voices in an appealing yell.
Cale heard it. He knew instinctively that something was wrong at the camp, and started for home at a brisk run. As he neared the camp he proceeded with more caution. Every few moments the boys would set up their long drawn calls, but as there were no more answers to them, they feared that Cale had gone away on another trail.
Suddenly a loud report that seemed to be right in the camp, so startled them that some of them nearly fell out of the trees. Chunky uttered a yell. Following the report, the most amazing thing happened to one of the bears that was standing on its hind feet pawing at the table. The bear toppled over backwards, clawed the air as it lay flat on its back, then rolled over on its side where it lay still.
Bang!
A second bear followed the first, except that he plunged forward, rolled over, and did not move again.
The third bear, with a growl, ambled into the bushes and disappeared.
"It's the guide!" cried Tad.
"Hurrah!" yelled Ned. "Wasn't that some shooting? Oh, Mr. Vaughn!"
"Ye-o-w!" yelled Stacy in a shrill, penetrating voice.
"Whoo—ee!" cried Tad.
"You've got them," roared Walter. "One ran away. Hurry and you'll get him."
Cale, at this juncture, made a sudden appearance from a thicket of bushes, rifle thrust ahead of him ready for instant service.
"Where did he go?"
"That way," shouted Tad, slipping down the tree and bounding off in the direction taken by the third bear.
The others followed him down to the ground, while Cale ran off in pursuit of the escaping bear. Stacy Brown, constituting himself the leader of the party, was shouting directions to them.
"Oh, go way back somewhere and sit down," begged Ned.
"Go climb a tree. That's the best place for you," retorted Stacy.
"Boys, stop your quarreling," commanded the Professor.
"We aren't quarreling," answered Rector.
"No, that's just our way of having fun," agreed Stacy.
"We love each other too well to quarrel, don't we, Fatty?" questioned Rector, grinning broadly.
"Of course we do. Didn't I save your life today?"
"I'd like to know how," bristled Ned.
"He got away," announced Vaughn, returning to camp. "This place looks as if it had been struck by a tornado," added the guide. "What has been going on here?"
"Well, you see the big bear and the middle-sized bear and the weeny-teeny bear came home for their bowl of soup. Not finding the soup they tried to eat up Pony Rider Boys," began Stacy.
"I don't understand it," reflected Cale. "Bears don't ordinarily act that way."
"These weren't ordinary bears. Neither was the one that kissed me this afternoon," declared Stacy.
Vaughn fixed his gaze on the fat boy.
"What are you getting at?"
"Oh, nothing much. A big, big bear called on me in my tent this afternoon. We drove him out of the camp, we did. You ought to have been here. Why, when he left the camp after I had rebuked him, his tail was dragging on the ground, and—"
"He must have been a new species of bear to have a tail as long as that," laughed Cale.
"Well, anyhow, we drove him off, put him to rout, packed him off bag and baggage. I guess he is running yet. You never saw such a scared beast in your life."
"I guess he isn't running very fast," returned Cale dryly.
"Why isn't he running?" retorted Stacy, offended at the guide's tone.
"Because I shot him about a mile the other side of the creek," answered Vaughn. "He was a small bear and he didn't appear to be very much frightened."
The boys had a good laugh at the fat boy's expense.
"That was another bear, probably the child of the one we chased," declared Stacy, not to be downed thus easily.
"Perhaps," agreed Cale. "But that doesn't explain the peculiar actions of these fellows, nor of the first one. Charlie, how did the bears act when you first saw them?" he demanded, turning to the Indian.
"Him smell for something—so." The half-breed went through the motions of sniffing over the ground, against the trees, and toward the tents.
"Just so," nodded Vaughn. "The question is, what caused them to do that? Something here must have attracted them. Do you know what it was?"
"Not know," muttered the Indian.
"Do you know, Master Stacy?" fixing a keen gaze on the fat boy.
"How should I know?" replied Stacy indifferently.
"I didn't know but perhaps you might," returned Cale. The guide stood his rifle against a tree and walked about the camp with apparent carelessness, looking into the tents, examining the provisions through which the bears had foraged. Finally he returned to Chunky.
"How much of that oil of anise did you use to attract those bears?" he demanded sharply.
Chunky flushed to the roots of his hair.
"Why—I—I—"
"Where is the bottle?"
"I—I threw it away."
"You used all the oil?"
Stacy nodded, with eyes averted.
The boys were beginning to understand. All were grinning.
"So that was one of your tricks, eh?" asked Tad. "Well, it certainly succeeded."
"What were you trying to do?" insisted the guide. He too was now smiling.
"I—I wanted to call the bees."
"Why?"
"I—I thought maybe they'd sting the Indian."
"Did they?" asked Tad.
"They did! They pinked him right in the back of the neck, and you ought to have heard that Indian yell." Stacy was looking them in the face now, as he warmed to his subject. "John Charles jumped about fourteen and a half feet in the air and let out a war whoop. I'm surprised you folks didn't hear him."
"Where were you all this time?" interjected Rector.
"I was hiding in the tent, 'cause the bees were pretty thick, and the boss bee was scouting for me. I—I guess he must have smelled the oil on my fingers."
The Professor's fingers closed over the arm of the fat boy.
"Stacy!" he said sternly. "What do you think we ought to do with you?"
"Well," reflected the fat boy, "I reckon you ought to cook me a bear steak and give me a spread. I'm half starved."
Professor Zepplin released his hold on Chunky's arm, heaving a deep sigh of resignation.
"Perhaps that would be the most sensible thing to do," agreed the guide. "We are all pretty hungry, I reckon, after our long tramp."
Without further delay Vaughn cut the throat of one of the dead bears, that the animal might bleed freely.
"You always should do this as soon as possible, boys," he informed them. "However, do not make the mistake of going to the animal until you have put another bullet in his head after you think you have shot him dead. Claws are dangerous weapons. I will now show you how one man may hang the bear and do his own work of dressing the beast. Any one of you could do it, and you may have occasion to do so."
Cale dragged the bear head-foremost to a sapling. He then out three poles of about ten feet in length, with crotches near the ends. Next he amazed his pupils by climbing the sapling until it bent down with him.
"Think I have gone crazy?" smiled the guide.
The boys were too interested to answer.
The top of the sapling was well trimmed off with a hatchet, leaving the stub of one stout branch near the top. Removing his belt, Vaughn fastened it around the bear's neck, then slipped the loop over the end of the sapling which he was holding down with one hand and the weight of his body. He let go the sapling, which, acting as a sort of spring pole, raised the carcass slightly.
The crotches of the poles were then placed under the fork of the sapling, the butts of the poles outward, thus forming a tripod. Cale next pushed first on one pole, then on the other. With each push the dead bear was raised a little higher until its body finally was clear of the ground, and only the hind claws trailing the earth.
"Easy when you know how, isn't it?" he smiled.
The Pony Rider Boys decided that it was.
"Now, in case I were not ready to butcher, I would build a smudge fire of rotten wood under the carcass, banking the fire well with stones to keep it from spreading. That would serve to keep away the blowflies and birds."
Beginning at the head the guide skinned the animal in quick time. He then removed the entrails, and in a quarter of an hour announced that his task was completed.
After the carcass got cold, he explained, he would split it in halves along the backbone and quarter it, leaving one rib on each hind quarter.
"Aren't we going to have any of it for supper?" wailed Stacy.
"No, indeed. You don't want to eat warm meat, do you?"
"I don't care whether it is warm or cold so long as I get the meat," the fat boy made reply.
"That proves it," declared Rector with emphasis.
"Proves what?" demanded Stacy.
"That your early ancestors were cannibals." Chunky snorted disgustedly.
"Now, do you think you boys could skin and dress a bear?" asked Cale, surveying his work with critical eyes.
"I think so," replied Tad. "Of course we could not do it as skilfully as you have done, but we are learning fast. May we save the hide?"
"I am afraid it would be too much of a burden to carry. I'll tell you what I will do. You see I have cut off the head with the pelt. I will salt the hide well and cache it, then if I am able to get in here some day soon, I will take the hide out and have it tanned for you."
"Thank you. May I try my hand on the other one?" asked Tad.
"You surely may."
Butler was rather clumsy in making his preparations. Twice did the sapling that he had climbed get away from him and spring up into the air, but Tad simply climbed the slender young tree again each time and bent it down. He finally succeeded in slipping his belt over the crotch after having passed it about the bear's neck. The rest was easy, so far as raising the bear was concerned.
"There! How is that?" he demanded triumphantly.
"Just as well as I could have done it myself," said Vaughn, nodding approvingly.
"I thought you always hung them up by the heels," ventured Ned.
"Yes, it is common practice to hang up by the gambrels, with the head down, but when hung head up the animal is much easier to skin and butcher, and drains better. Besides, it doesn't drip blood over the neck and head, which you may want to have mounted at some future date. Perhaps we had better bury this waste stuff, or we'll have all the bears in the section down on us first thing we know. By the way, we shall be having more bear here right along on account of that oil of anise, so we shall have to move our camp."
"Then make Chunky strike camp," suggested Ned. "He is to blame for all this trouble."
"I am inclined to agree with your last statement. However, we will see to that. Charlie will do all the necessary work. I am sorry, for I wanted to go over and see my friend," said the guide.
"Didn't you go there today?" asked Stacy.
"No, we took another course. You missed it not being along."
"No, I didn't. I had all the fun and excitement I wanted right here in the camp. You are the ones who missed something," declared Stacy.
"We didn't miss all of the fun, anyway," replied Tad. "How about the bear meat, Mr. Vaughn?"
"Yes, don't we get any of that meat?" urged Stacy.
"You shall all have all you want for breakfast, but we shan't be able to carry much of it with us. Were we going to be here long enough I would smoke some of it. If it were only winter we should have enough meat to last us for weeks," answered the guide. "In many respects winter traveling in the woods is very desirable. Ever rough it in the winter?"
Tad said that they had not, but that they hoped to do so at some time in the near future.
Supper was a welcome meal that night, for everyone was hungry because they had had a hard fifteen-mile journey on foot over rugged ground. Bear steak was served for breakfast. Yes, it was tough, but most of the party enjoyed it. Stacy ate and ate until they feared he would pop open, and Ned declared that Chunky would be growling like a bear before the forenoon came to an end.
Enough meat for two more meals was packed away to carry with them, after which camp was broken, and before eight o'clock the Pony Rider Boys were on their way. Their trail led them farther and farther into the dense forests. Vaughn had it in mind to make their next camp on the shores of a lake, where he thought that they might find something to interest them. The boys were willing. They were not particular where they went. It was all alike to some of them, ever new to others. Stacy cared only for what he found to eat, while Tad and Ned were for learning all they could about the woods and woodcraft, in all of which Cale Vaughn was an expert.
Charlie John was proving himself a most useful man in the camp, though Charlie was not to be depended upon when it came to fighting bear. He had proved another thing, too. He was an excellent tree climber and could make the first limbs of a tree quicker than any other member of the party, especially when there was a bear below anxious to get a nip at the Indian's calves. They made their new camping place some hours before dark. Charlie already had picked out a pleasant camp site, a short distance from the shore of the little lake, screened by trees and foliage, but in plain view of the water. The natural instinct of the Indian had taught him to so place his camp that it could not be readily seen from either the lake itself or from the surrounding country. This trait will be found in the white woodsman as well, copying perhaps an instinct inherent in his animal ancestor of a few million years back.
"Now," said the guide, after the boys had pitched their tents, "we haven't had a real lesson in preparing a cooking fire. I observe that you boys go at it in a sort of hit and miss way. You may have observed something of the woodsman's way of cooking by the manner in which Charlie fixed the fire in our camp yesterday."
"Yes, we did," answered Tad.
"I will go more into detail this time. The fire is more than half of good cookery in the woods, just as it is in your home kitchens. You need a small fire, free from smoke and flame, with coals or dry twigs in reserve. There must be a way of regulating the heat just as in stoves, and there must be a rampart around the fire on which pots and pans will stand level and at the right elevation. Master Stacy, will you please fell a small, straight tree and cut from it two logs about six feet long, eight or ten inches thick?"
"What?"
The guide repeated his request.
Chunky hemmed and hawed.
"The fact is, Mr. Vaughn, I've got a weak heart. I'm afraid it would excite me too much to do that. You see I have to be very careful."
"I will cut down the tree," said Ned, stepping forward.
"Yes, perhaps it would overtax Master Stacy. There is a good tree for the purpose just beyond where the Professor is standing, Master Ned," nodded Cale.
Ned took up the axe and attacked the tree with vigorous blows. He had taken but a few of these when the axe flew from the helve, narrowly missing the Professor's head.
"Here, here!" cried the Professor. "What are you trying to do?"
"That was an axe-i-dent," chuckled the fat boy.
"Stop it!" yelled Ned.
"I agree with you," grinned the guide. "That was almost more than I could stand myself."
"I shall forget myself and hit you with this axe helve if you get off anything like that again, Stacy Brown," threatened Ned Rector.
"Bad, very bad," agreed the Professor.
"Shocking," nodded Tad.
In the meantime Cale was wedging the axe on the helve. Having completed his task he handed the axe back to Rector, who, a few moments later, sent the tree crashing down.
"I guess you have handled an axe before," said Vaughn.
"Yes. He is the champion wood-splitter of our town," Stacy informed him.
Cale flattened the top and one side of each log with the axe after Tad had finished Ned's job. These, the bed logs, the guide placed side by side, flat sides toward each other, about three inches apart at one end and some eight or ten at the other. By this time Charlie had gathered a supply of bark and hard wood which he placed from end to end between the bed pieces and lighted the fire.
While Charlie John was doing this, Cale planted at each end of the fire a forked stake about four feet high. Over these he laid a lug-pole or cross-stick of green wood. Two or three green crotches from branches were cut, a nail driven in the small end of each, and the contrivance hung on the lug-pole from which to suspend the kettles. These pot-hooks were of different lengths for hard boiling or for simmering.
"These are 'lug-sticks,'" explained Vaughn. "A hook for lifting the kettles is a 'hook-stick.' I'll make some of those as soon as I finish with what I am doing now. In quick camp-making we sharpen a stick and drive it into the ground at an angle, and from this we suspend our kettle. That kind of arrangement up here in the Maine Woods is called a 'wambeck' or 'spygelia.'"
"Sounds like the name of a patent medicine," observed Chunky.
"I agree with you," smiled the guide.
"How did it get such an outlandish name?" questioned the Professor.
"I am sure I don't know. Oh, you will find lots of funny names up here in the wilds. For instance, the frame built over a cooking fire is called by the Penobscots, 'kitchi-plak-wagn.' Some others call the 'lug-stick' a'chiplok-waugan.'"
"Taken from 'chipmunk wagon,'" nodded the fat boy wisely.
"No doubt," replied the guide dryly. "Some of the guides have changed it to 'waugan-stick.'"
"You make me dizzy," declared Stacy Brown, passing a hand over his eyes.
"Then here is another for you that will render you wholly unconscious," went on Cale. "The gypsies call a pot-hook a 'kekauviscoe saster.' How is that?"
"Oh, help!" moaned the fat boy.
"I should say that was about the end of the limit," declared Tad Butler.
"In windy weather, or where fuel is scarce," continued Cale, "it is best to dig a trench eighteen inches wide, twelve inches deep and say four feet long, instead of cutting down a tree for your bed logs. Make a chimney of flat stones or sod at the leeward end. This will give you a good draft."
"We did something like that in the Rockies," Tad informed him.
"Build a fire in this trench with fire-irons or green sticks laid across it for the fryingpan and a frame above for the kettles, and there you are. I'd like to see any kitchen do any better."
"I guess we never knew very much about camping," said Tad.
"We know how to eat," asserted Stacy.
"At least one of us does," agreed Rector.
"Know how to make a bake-oven?" questioned Cale.
"Hot stones are as near as I have come to making anything of that sort," replied Tad.
"I won't show you now because we are in a hurry for our supper, but some day, when we have nothing in particular to do, I will make one and we will bake some bread that you will say is the equal of anything you ever had at home. How is that steak coming on, Charlie?"
"Him smell like him done," answered the Indian.
"Serve it up. We are ready for it. Master Stacy is so hungry that he has shrunk to half his natural size."
"I'll be a skeleton if I keep on," agreed the fat boy.
A steaming, savory meal was served there in the great forest with the odor of the pines mingling with those of bear steak and boiling coffee. To these hungry boys it seemed that nothing ever had tasted so good to them in all their lives. And they did full justice to the meal, too.
"Every time you turn around the scenery has shifted," complained Tad Butler, as the four boys stood on a rise of ground gazing this way and that for familiar signs, while waiting for the guide, with whom they had been out hunting and studying woodcraft.
"I thought I knew my way about in the woods, but I find I don't know as much as a yearling," answered Rector. "Where is that guide?"
"Maybe he has gone home," suggested Stacy.
"I guess he has not gone far," said Ned.
"He said he wanted to get a look at an old burn some little way to the northward."
"I'll go look for him," offered Walter.
Tad Butler was already too good a woodsman to permit his friend to do anything of the sort. Tad said they must keep together.
"For the sake of making conversation, which way would you go if you were about to follow Mr. Vaughn?" he asked.
"That way," answered Walter, pointing.
"And you, Ned?"
"Just the opposite direction."
"Chunky, which way would you go?"
"I? I wouldn't go at all. I would just sit right down here, plump."
"You would show your good sense in doing that very thing. Boys, you are all wrong, except Chunky. Mr. Vaughn went that way, to the eastward."
"How do you know?" asked Ned.
"Because I watched him and saw him blaze a tree with his hatchet."
"But we don't see any blazes," objected Walter.
"That is because we are on the wrong side of it, Walt," replied Ned.
"Right you are," approved Butler.
"But why doesn't he put the blaze on this side of the trees so we can see them?" questioned Walter.
"For the very good reason that he marked the trees on the side that would be facing him when he returned," Tad informed them. "However, had he desired to mark his trees so that one approaching from the way he will return would not see the blazes, he would have blazed the trees on this side. That is what is called back-blazing."
"Tad is the woodsman," nodded Rector.
"He thinks he is," Chunky chimed in.
"No, I don't. I have realized, since coming up here, that I don't know enough about the woods to tell when a tree is going to fall. Did you notice another trick of Mr. Vaughn's when we were coming out here?"
The boys shook their heads.
"He broke the tops of bushes at intervals. I noticed, too, that he bent them all in the same direction. I don't know the meaning of it, but I guess it had something to do with direction."
"There he comes now. Ask him," cried Rector.
"Hello! I thought you boys would be lost before this," called Cale, with a twinkle in his eyes.
"We might have been, at that," declared Ned. "At least Walt would have been. Chunky wouldn't move and Tad, though he pointed the way you had gone, wouldn't let us move away. We were talking about your having bent over some bushes on the trail here. Tad said it was to indicate the direction we had taken as you bent them all in the same direction."
"Master Tad has keen eyes. He is right. In venturing into strange forests, far from human habitation, one should do this occasionally in addition to blazing or marking trees with the hatchet. The way to do is to bend a green bush over in the way you are going, snapping the stem or clipping it with the hatchet, but letting it adhere by the bark, so that the under or lighter side of the foliage will be looking you in the face when you return."
"Why, a man couldn't lose his way with that kind of a trail, could he?" asked Rector.
"Well, he might," admitted Cale. "But, if he is being pursued by enemies, or for any other reason does not wish to leave a conspicuous trail, he had better not bend bushes. In blazing, remember that a single blaze should always be made on the side away from the camp. If the side toward the camp be marked it should be with two blazes instead of one. Remember that. It may come in handy one of these days. Master Tad, what is the gun signal when one is lost?"
"A shot, a pause, then two shots," answered Butler promptly.
"Right. What time of day? Wait! Let's see if any of the others know," said Cale quickly, seeing that Tad was about to reply.
"I don't understand what you mean," said Rector.
"What time of the day would you pay attention to that sort of a signal?"
"Any time I heard it," answered the fat boy.
"Provided, of course, that there wasn't anybody else to go."
"I give it up," said Ned.
"After four o'clock in the afternoon is the rule, I believe," answered Tad in response to a nod from the guide.
"Yes, that's right. That is the hour the camp-keeper is supposed to blow his horn to call home the wanderers. We are too far away, of course, to hear the horn. We must be all of twenty miles from camp. We are now five miles from our ponies."
"It strikes me that it is pretty near time for us to be getting to the animals, then," suggested Tad.
"Why?"
"Because it is going to rain and the afternoon is getting late."
Vaughn nodded. He was losing no opportunity to teach the boys the art of woodcraft, and woodcraft, with all its tricks, was what the Pony Rider Boys wanted to learn. They were learning fast, too, though Tad Butler was the most apt pupil of the four. He never forgot a thing that had been told him. His memory, too, was of great service to him in the woods, as had been demonstrated on other occasions in previous trips. Once he had set his eyes on a peculiar tree or a rock or a formation, he never forgot it. A man with a short memory or lack of observation has a hard time in the woods, and usually a searching party has to go out after him in such a country as this where, were a novice to stray ten rods from camp, he might never find his way back without help.
Great drops of rain began to patter down a few minutes after the subject had been mentioned. The party had left their ponies when the way became impassable for horses, and had gone on on foot. Stacy went with them because he did not relish the idea of being left alone in the woods. Otherwise nothing would have induced him to foot it over the hills, through the tangled growth of blackberry and raspberry briars in old burns, stumbling over charred snags, fallen trunks and limbs, until there was scarcely a spot on any of their bodies that was not mauled to tenderness. A mile an hour is fair time through this sort of country.
Cale decided that it was high time to be going. He took a keen look about him, eyed his charges, then turning to Tad said:
"You lead the way."
Tad started off confidently—in the wrong direction. Cale did not set him right. But the boy had gone but a few yards when he discovered his mistake. With flushed face, he retraced his steps to the starting point, then took a new course. The first course he had followed was the one Vaughn had taken earlier in the day. The present one led to the temporary camp where their ponies had been tethered.
"You did perfectly right," approved the guide.
"I made a mess of it at the start, sir," replied Butler. A new problem was confronting Tad. He saw that darkness would overtake them within a short half hour, and the boy did not know how he was going to find his way then. He knew it would be impossible to find the blazes or axe-marks on the trees. Had he been alone he probably would have made camp while it was still light enough to enable him to see the trail. Such a night would have been far from pleasant, but then when daylight came he would have the satisfaction of knowing where he was.
The rain was increasing in volume every moment, and not having rubber coats with them the boys were soon soaked. This not being a new experience they uttered no complaints until Chunky finally wailed his disappointment that he had forgotten to bring an umbrella.
Just before dark Tad called a halt, and, borrowing the guide's hatchet, peeled off a liberal quantity of birch bark, dividing up the load between his companions. Stacy complained loudly at being obliged to carry the stuff. He didn't see any reason why they should lug firewood to camp. They would find plenty when they got there.
"Master Tad knows what he is doing, I reckon," nodded the guide, who understood Butler's motive. "Ordinarily I don't believe in the sixth sense business, but some persons are more adept than others in woodcraft. To me that means that some persons are more alert and observant than others. Master Tad has just proved this. He has used his powers of observation in several different directions since we started on the return. He was alert enough to discover that we were going to be caught out after dark."
"There is one thing he doesn't know," piped Chunky.
"What is that?" questioned Cale tolerantly.
"He doesn't know enough to keep in out of the wet."
"Do you?" asked Tad.
"No, I don't, and I'm kicking myself because of it. You had better believe I shall know better next time. You don't catch me again this way, not if I am awake at the time. Are we nearly there?"
"About five miles from the ponies," answered Mr. Vaughn.
Chunky groaned dismally.
"You had better light up now," suggested the guide. "Be careful not to drop any fire, even if the ground is wet."
"No, not the rest of you," objected Tad, as the others began reaching for their matches.
"One torch will be enough. Our torches won't hold out if we all light up at the same time."
"Right," approved Cale.
Tad lighted his torch while the guide held his hat over the match. Then the party moved on again. As darkness fell their progress naturally grew more slow. They had to use extreme care not to miss any of the little blaze marks on the trees, and at the same time to note every bush that had been bent toward them.
Water was running from hat brims, clothing was soaked as was everything in their pockets, and water spurted from their boots with every step.
"How would you like a pound or so of that bear steak, Chunky?" asked Ned, shouting in the fat boy's ear.
"Hot off the frying pan," added Tad.
"With a cup of steaming hot coffee added to it, while you were listening to the rain pattering on the roof of your tent," suggested Walter.
"All sitting tight and snug as a bug in a rug?" asked the fat boy. "No, I couldn't stand it. My heart is too weak. I should die of heart failure. And, incidentally, if you fellows keep on nagging me, something's going to happen. Mind you, I am not making any threats."
"You had better not if you know what is best for you," warned Rector.
"But I am just saying what will take place, that's all. I—" Stacy did not complete the sentence. He stumbled over a dead limb and plunged head first into a bed of mold that streaked his face with black, filling his mouth and eyes, to the great delight of the rest of the party and the discomfiture of the fat boy. Stacy kept quiet for a long time after that.
After four hours of this sort of traveling—it was now near ten o'clock at night—Tad halted, and, raising his torch above his head, gazed about him, trying to light up the shadows up in the trees. The Pony Rider Boy was trying to get his bearings. Cale was observing him with twinkling eyes.
A twig snapped off to the right of them and a horse whinnied.
"Here we are," cried Butler. "That was Silver Face calling to me."
"I was expecting to see you go on past the place," chuckled Vaughn. "Well done, my lad! Had you lived all your life in the woods you could not have made a better campfall."
"What, are we home?" cried Walter.
"We are at our temporary camp. Luckily for us, too," said the guide, "for our torches have all burned out. Stamp that out, Master Tad. We will have a fire going in a short time."
The boys turned toward their ponies, stumbling over obstructions, guided by the snorts of welcome from the little animals that they could hear but were unable to see. They were to learn some new tricks in woodcraft right then and there, something that they probably never would have learned of themselves. Even Cale Vaughn's resources were to be taxed somewhat in overcoming the difficulties that now confronted them.