XIXPERK GETS A SHOCK
An hour later and both of them were sound asleep, having comfortable let-down cots in the sheltering cabin that were a wonderful improvement over the way they used to double-up in the cramped cockpit of the ship they handled before this fine amphibian was placed in their charge by Uncle Sam.
The night moved on and for some hours nothing occurred to annoy them. Perk had become addicted to waking about once so often and as a rule he used to sit up and yawn as he took a look around.
It may have been an hour or so after midnight when, on thus arousing, he caught a sound that caused him to omit the customary yawn, though he certainly sat up with a jerk and appeared to be listening.
Almost mechanically too, his right hand groped for something alongside his cot and it was his gun he presently pulled up. The sounds he had heard once more broke out—savage, ominous sounds they were too, undoubtedly proceeding from one or more wild beasts aroused to a fighting spirit.
“Huh! bobcats, I’d say, if you asked me, neighbor, an’ hoppin’ mad in the bargain. Must be a pair o’ ’em an’ they ain’t mates either. Guess now two ol’ rivals must a met head-on along some trail an’ each is a sassin’ t’ other, darin’ him to knock a chip off’n his shoulder an’ see what he gets. Gosh amighty! but wouldn’t I jest like to lamp that ’ere duel the wust kind, but I knows aheap better’n to set out an’ spy on ’em. Just as like as not they’d forget all their mad agin’ each other an’ set on me for keeps. Thar they go agin, licketty-split, snarlin’, screechin’ and scrappin’ for all that’s out. I’m tellin’ the wide world the hair’s sure flyin’ in big patches whilethatcaterwaulin’ keeps grindin’ out.”
It kept Perk sitting there fully ten minutes before finally dying out nor did he ever know whether one or both quarreling creatures had been extinguished, like the famous cats of Kilkenny, each of which thought “there was one cat too many.”
“Some circus, b’lieve me,” Perk told himself, with many a chuckle, for he had been vastly amused and entertained by that aggregation of furious sounds, “but it’s okay with me so long’s they scrap ’mong themselves an’ leave us alone. I ain’t lost no kitty as I know of, an’ there’s some more sleep I c’n make use of if they put the brakes on their whoopin’ things up.”
With that he snuggled down once more and forgot all his troubles for the balance of the night. If there were any further ancient feuds still to be settled among the old-time inhabitants of that section, Perk was unaware of the slaughter for he did not open his eyes until the first peep of dawn announced the coming of another day.
Jack still slept, it would seem, for he lay there like a mummy while Perk proceeded to crawl out and get into his clothes with the full intention of slipping ashore, reviving the fire and starting to prepare breakfast. Apparently his enormous supper of the previous evening must have digested and that awful vacuum he detested so much was already calling for help.
He chanced to have a sore toe that gave him a painful twitch every little while and not feeling disposed to tramp around collecting fuel until he had remedied this physical distress, he sat down to pull off his footgear and fasten a little wad of cotton between the offending member and its neighbor.
Once while thus busily engaged Perk imagined he caught a slight thud, as of something striking a root or fallen branch. He raised his head to listen, with those ravenous timber wolves flashing into his mind but then everything seemed nice and quiet again so that believing he had only imagined he heard suspicious sounds he once more bent down to complete his little task.
Then, without hardly any warning, there suddenly burst forth the most diabolical sound Perk had ever heard in all his life. Something similar to the braying of army mules over in France, he thought.
Perk probably felt his blood run cold, for that frightful racket was not more than twenty feet distant. Wildly he stared, expecting to see some savage beast, perhaps with the stripes of a real jungle tiger, come leaping from behind the adjacent rock heaps and make directly for him, unarmed as he was.
Regaining the use of his limbs Perk turned tail and made for the friendly left wing of the ship, taking huge jumps and anticipating that some supple body was apt to land on his back despite his haste.
Jack was there in full sight and worse luck, he did not even seem to have thought to snatch up the handy gun when that frightful roar echoed and re-echoed up and down hill in the valley of the silver lake.
“G—et th’ gun, quick—tigers, lions, an’ nobody knows what not—on the rampage to beat the band, too!”
Jack stared and then seemed to fairly double-up as though to him there might be something worth laughing at in the hurried retreat of his pal.
“He’s more scared than you can be, Perk!” he managed to cry out. “See him making off, will you, taking steps that are nearly as long as your own. Watch him shake those new horns of his, as if to tell you he’d be willing to fight it out only his head pieces are so new like, and soft!”
“W-hy—what in tarnation thunder is that big monster, Jack?” gasped the astonished Perk, staring with all his might after the towering beast that was passing out of sight around a vast mound of tumbledown rocks.
“Only a bull moose, partner—he must have heard you make some sound and reckoned it was an old rival of his, which was what made him give that roar. I never ran across a moose up to now, but I know what they can do. If it had been in the Fall of the year, when his horns, just rutting lately, were firm and hard, you’d have had him jumping you mighty quick.”
“Wow! hehadme jumpin’ even as it was,” confessed honest Perk, deigning now to break into a silly grin since the supposed danger was past and the coast clear. “He’s some jim dandy I’d say an’ mebbe I wouldn’t like to knock a bull moose over. Used to hear about ’em when I was a kid up in Maine and over the line in Canada too (but never met one o’ the breed before). Bet you that ol’ boy c’n run a blue streak too, once he lets go. Well, since there ain’t any tigers at large nor yet a catamount lyin’ in ambush, guess I orter go ashore again an’ hurry up my fire. Breakfast ready in ten minutes, ’member, Jack ol’ hoss.”
While working over his fire and starting breakfast Perk must have been sketching in his mind the nerve racking encounter so lately in the spot-light, for once he stopped doing what he was engaged in, to look seriously up at the blue sky where a few floating white clouds had taken on a faint pink blush, showing that the rising sun was not far below the horizon though not scheduled to appear to any one in that deep valley for several hours yet—then he might have been heard holding communion with himself and saying:
“I kinder guess moose steak wouldn’t taste so bad but then what’s the use o’ cryin’ over spilt milk? Mister Moose has skipped out an’ then Jack wouldn’t let me shoot, even if the ol’ critter hung around lookin’ for trouble. Didn’t he say the close season was on with all game that you c’n eat and that the Mounties might get me if I took chances and nailed that big boy? Oh well! I’m all to the good and no tellin’ what he might have done to me if we got mixed up in a sure enough scrap.”
Breakfast was almost as enjoyable as supper had been—not just wholly so for no one is ever quite so hard pressed by hunger in the early morning as seems to be the case toward close of day when all cares are tossed aside.
Jack did not appear to be in any hurry to leave the scene of their night’s bivouac for he puttered around, doing numerous small chores that, according to Perk’s mind, could have just as well been postponed to another time without the sky falling.
“Ain’t she ready to take the air, Boss?” he finally demanded when he could stand it no longer, whereupon Jack looked up smilingly and nodded.
“Everything’s as fine as silk, brother, and since it’s getting along, perhaps we’d better be on our way.”
“Huh! that’s the line o’ patter I’m longin’ to hear from you, partner,” Perk broke out in positive relief. “I’m a bit leery ’bout puttin’ in a second night alongside this lake. Might have a twenty-foot anaconda drop down on us while we sat outside an’ smoked. Now don’t tell me they ain’t no sech animal hereabouts, ’cause I know that as well as you do but just the same I’m glad we’re goin’ to climb outen here pronto.”