CHAPTER XIII
IN PERIL
Having had a meal of the fish and having spent a jolly time around the big log fire in the living room of the palatial camping house of the Parsons’s and the camp clock showing the time to be nine o’clock at night, the boys determined to go to bed.
All plans were set for an early morning expedition on skates out over Old Moose Lake, ending in the catching of some more fish.
It was not yet break of day when the boys got out of their bunks, all eager, fresh from the night of solid rest. Their breakfasting was done in a hurry, since it was their intention to be far out on the lake at sunrise or a few minutes thereafter.
Paul Bird grabbed up the camera as they started away from the camp, remarking that he might need some pictures of himself catching the longest string of the biggest fish.
“I surely hope the lake is well frozen over,” said Lanky, as he stooped with the others at the shore line and adjusted his skates.
“It is.” Frank got to his feet and glided around easily. “The lake has been chilled a long time and it hasn’t required very much of this freezing temperature to put a thick surface on it.”
The boys had found four inches of ice at a point an eighth of a mile from shore, and they had little reason to expect that thinner ice would occur anywhere else.
Before they left, they built a good fire in the living room, there being two reasons in the mind of Frank for doing this. First, it would be comfortable when they came in, probably considerably chilled, and second, the smoke would guide them when they were ready to return to the camp.
Out over the lake they started, all four of them swinging along rhythmically, all four having guns strapped on their backs, their fishing lines carried in small packs in one hand, while Paul carried his camera in the free hand, and Lanky carried an axe.
They were fully a mile from shore, going across what appeared to be the narrow end of the lake, when the first of the sun’s rays came up to light a waiting world.
“Fellows,” muttered Frank, as he looked and saw the colors change and merge one into the other and then become bolder in shade as the sun’s rays shot over the horizon, “if a painter were to put that on a canvas, if it were possible for him to do it, people would criticise him and say it wasn’t true to nature.”
“I believe you’re right,” Lanky agreed. “I would never have believed it myself—yet there it is. It isn’t well to criticise a person too quickly about a thing of this kind. You never know what he saw. Paul,” he added as he turned toward his chum, “you can’t get that, can you?” nodding his head toward the sunrise.
“Not a chance with this machine,” Paul replied dolefully. “I only wish I could. It would be a wonderful picture.”
The boys looked forward again, skating around a part of the lake before attempting to fish.
“What’s that?” Lanky pointed quickly off to their left, bringing himself to an immediate stop.
The boys looked after the excited Lanky’s pointing finger.
Just at the shore of the lake, perhaps a quarter of a mile distant, stood three moose cows, huddled together, and to one side from them stood, pawing the ground, a bull moose.
Further along, across a little clearing between two clumps of hemlocks and pines which fringed the lake, the boys saw a monster animal, with a spread of horns which seemed several times larger than the body itself. It was a giant moose bull, its head held back, and they heard a roar of battle issue from it!
“P-s-st!” Frank hissed through his teeth. “The wind’s blowing our way. Let’s keep close together and move that way very, very slowly. Don’t talk, don’t move fast, don’t even breathe. Let’s see if we can get one!”
Like Indians of an older day, sneaking upon their prey, they formed in single file, presenting only one body to the animals, and started forward very quietly. But four pairs of eyes were watching the shore like hawks making ready to swoop down.
Suddenly they saw the larger bull put his head toward the ground and charge directly at the smaller one. Not lifting the head, he came forward at an increasing pace, evidently intent on running the other animal down by the sheer weight of his great body.
The smaller bull moose stood at bay, his forepaws scraping at the ground, waiting the oncoming antagonist.
The boys stopped to watch the result of the charge.
Just as the giant reached the smaller one, the latter leaped aside agilely, his right paw lifted up and came down, outstretched with tremendous force, tearing a piece off the shoulder of the large fellow!
“Fine!” breathed Frank, enjoying the stroke which the smaller animal had made.
Quick as a flash of light, however, the giant wheeled on his hind legs, hurling himself into the air, and darted against the other. A roar of defiance was heard by the boys from the smaller animal that now leaped again to one side, his forepaw striking sharply at the giant.
But the big fellow was not to be easily beaten. He could use pawing tactics, too! So he raised himself on his hind legs and fairly sprang at the smaller moose, his great forepaws striking downward in sharp cutting movements, though neither struck its target.
The boys moved forward again, trying to get as close as possible to the fray before it was ended.
They were fortunate, all because of the agility of the animal being attacked, and they had cut down half the distance, being within easy ear-shot of the grunts and angry roarings of the two animals, the one defending his position as head of his little herd, the other determined to maintain his right to absolute kingdom over the domain.
Three times the little fellow had struck and inflicted wounds on the giant moose, when the big fellow got in a telling piece of work. Making a rush as if to attack the smaller one with his hoofs, with his head held high and his forepaws reaching out to strike, he suddenly threw his head forward and down, put tremendous energy behind the great body, and, just as the smaller moose threw out both his paws to strike and tear the aggressor, the big fellow’s antlers went under the body of the smaller one, the great body stopped, his head came tossing backward, and the smaller fellow was thrown into the air. The large one shook his head with a snap, and the boys saw the defender go down to the snow-covered ground for the count.
“I got it!” almost screamed Paul when he realized that he had leveled and snapped his camera just at the critical moment of the fight.
Instantly the great moose bull turned, sniffed the air, saw the group of boys, and bellowed to the huddled cows that were fifty yards away.
All three of the cows wheeled and ran toward the trees, while the big fellow darted that way, joining them as they reached the grove.
Crack! Crack! Frank had unlimbered his rifle as soon as he realized what the enthusiasm of Paul had done, and fired twice at the big bull—without avail. The other boys, also brought their firearms around. But they were too late. The moose had gotten to safety and were rushing off through the woods as hard as they could go. At the same time, the smaller moose bull pulled himself to his legs, and injured though he was by the tearing of the great antlers of the giant, he limped rapidly away along an opposite path.
“Too bad,” said Paul. “It was my fault. But, gee, fellows, you don’t realize what a picture I got! I snapped it just as the big one threw the little fellow over!”
“You’re forgiven if you got that picture.” Frank tried to be forgiving and pleasant, a difficult task. “But, oh, Paul, if you didn’t get it, you’re going to hang by your thumbs for sixteen long hours.”
The excitement held the boys for a little while. They discussed the practicability of following the trail of the moose through the woods, hoping they might come on them and have a better shot.
“Do you know,” Frank said during the discussion, “I believe that must be the old king moose that we’ve heard so much about.”
The boys heartily agreed, for it would seem that none other but the monarch of these woods, so much talked of by huntsmen, would have charged down on the herd and tried to take the cows away from their protector.
“Well, fellows,” remarked Buster Billings, when the discussion had seemed to go as far as it could, “the sun is getting up. Let’s do some fishing. I want to see Lanky be a champion again, just as he was yesterday.”
“You go to thunder,” laughingly cried Lanky.
The boys turned back to the lake, skating, under the leadership of Frank, toward one of the islands which reared its head half a mile away.
“Here’s a good place, boys,” called the leader. “Lanky, unhook the axe and do some champion ice-cutting.”
“This axe doesn’t fit my hand,” muttered Lanky.
After the laugh was over he started cutting, laying out a two-foot square, and in a very few minutes the boys had the block of ice out on the surface, the waters of the lake exposed to view. Then one of their lines baited quickly went in.
The sun was well up in the east by this time, and it was the observant Frank who noticed that a shadow was cast across the opening by the boys who were standing on the eastward side of the hole. Their attention was called to this, whereupon they moved around to the opposite side.
Their experience the day previous had been that an immediate bite came, but this morning it did not happen. No fish seemed in a mood to try for its breakfast just yet.
“Maybe they’re not out of bed, yet,” said Lanky.
After a few minutes the boys decided to move farther back from the hole. This they did, dropping back a full twenty-five feet.
In doing so, Buster’s line became tangled with one of the others, and he ran forward to take out the tangle. The other boys were laughing and joking at the time, and did not notice what was happening.
Without any warning, and, so far as they could afterward see, without any reason, the ice at the hole suddenly cracked, parted from the main body, and Buster went feet first into the lake, the four lines tangling about his body and feet as he fell.
A cry went up from Buster as he struck the freezing cold water, and all three of his companions darted forward in a flash, but stopped quickly again as they saw how large was the piece which had severed from the main body of ice.
Buster’s head did not come to the surface. Instead, he came bobbing up against the ice at a point several feet from the hole. His comrades saw that something must be done without waiting.
“Quick, fellows!” cried Frank. “Get down flat on the ice! We’ve got to crawl there and get him out!”