CHAPTER XXII
HUNTING TIMBER WOLVES
As the door was thrown wide open, Snadder and Blinky staggered in and fell to the floor, almost completely exhausted, breathing hard, excited, afraid!
Frank slammed the door shut immediately, dropping the latch into place while the other boys gathered in a circle about the two tramps.
“What is the matter?” he asked, looking down at Snadder.
“Wolves!” gasped the tall fellow, trembling in every part of his body. “Wolves! Almost got us!”
“Wolves!” The word passed around the circle of boys, bringing with it the fear and, too, the longing to get these beasts whose reputations had long been known from books.
But how did timber wolves happen to be in these Eastern woods? This question at once passed through Frank’s mind. He had been led to understand that the great, gray wild animals which prey on anything alive belonged to the northwestern woods. He knew of their wild habits and of the havoc these animals wrought on the sheep ranches of the West, but he had never heard of any of them in the eastern part of the country.
“Are you sure they were wolves?” asked Frank. “Where are they now?”
Snadder was sitting up, as was Blinky, and Snadder now staggered to his feet, making his way shiveringly to the fire.
“Up in the hills. We stopped up there in one of the valleys where the wind wouldn’t strike us, behind some trees, when we heard them all of a sudden. They came at us with a rush and we got into the trees out of their way. Then along came Jeek and the other two guys, and the beasts went after them. They ran for all they were worth along the trail, but they had to climb some trees, too.”
“How did you get here?” asked Frank, keeping up the questioning.
“When the beasts went after Jeek and the other fellows we got down and ran this way, because we thought we could get here ahead of them,” answered the tramp. “And we kept coming, too!”
By further questions the boys learned that Jeek and his two cronies were probably out there in the mountains, held in the trees by these snarling brutes which would keep them up until daylight, or maybe longer. The boys did not know enough of the habits of these animals to know what they would do.
“With this freezing wind blowing, Jeek and his friends will get rather cold, won’t they?” asked Frank.
“They’ll freeze to death right where they are,” moaned Blinky in the same whining voice. “They had climbed part way up a hill and I’ll bet the wind is getting them.” He shivered at thought of the blizzard-like wind blowing outside, the wailing and moaning of which, and the whistling, all could hear as they stood around the cozy fire.
“Fellows,” decided Frank, “four of us will take our rifles and shotguns and go after them. Snadder and Blinky must come along to show us where they are. We mustn’t let men freeze to death!”
They decided on the four, and Frank, knowing that the newcomers wanted to be in on any excitement, choose Jack Eastwick and Tom Budd, the third being Lanky Wallace, Lanky, whom he knew he could always trust to act quickly and to think largely as he thought.
It was fully an hour before they came to the hill where Snadder said the wolves had the three men treed.
“Right over in this valley, on the other side.” He pointed along the trail.
A new moon was just rising over the hills, and a faint, pale, trembling light filtered through the few clouds. A high wind blew, but the sky was extraordinarily clear for this season.
Dropping down the trail into the valley, picking their steps as they went, listening against the whistling and humming of the wind through the trees, the four boys followed the lead of the two tramps, both of whom peered ahead fearfully.
“There they are!” Snadder suddenly stopped in his tracks, pointing to a place several hundred yards ahead of them. “I can hear them now!”
Sure enough, the snarling sounds of the wolves came to all of them, for they had dropped so far below the top of the hills that the wind was merely a moan above them.
Slowly the boys made their way along the trail, their eyes trained hard on the spot which Snadder had indicated. Blinky was shivering and shaking with fear, while Snadder kept close to the boys, not permitting himself to get too far in front.
A hundred yards away the wolves must have sensed the coming of some one else. There were at least eight in the pack.
Through the faint light, aided by the whiteness of the snow, the boys saw three animals wheel from beneath a tree, sniff the air, snarl several times, and then the three wolves charged straight toward the boys!
“Scatter! Quick!” commanded Frank. “Get behind trees! Shoot to kill!”
Suiting his own action to his words, Frank Allen leaped behind a tree just as Blinky shinned up as far as he could from the ground. Snadder dashed for another tree near-by.
Crack! Frank’s rifle spoke as he hastily drew bead on the leader of the small pack. The shot missed!
Snarling and barking, the three gray wolves came on, all in a bunch, straight toward the spot where Frank stood.
Again he drew bead on the leader, this time trying for its breast instead of the head.
Crack! Crack! Two shots reverberated through the little valley as Frank pulled the trigger of his rifle and Lanky also fired.
In a heap went the leader, and instantly the other two animals stopped, reared high in air, and turned on the body of their mate.
Crack! Crack! Bang! Bang! Four shots rang out, as all the boys had positions and had their rifles and shotguns in line. The other two wolves dropped where they had turned. At this the rest of the wolf pack turned and went howling away through the timber.
Just then three human forms came from out of the shadow of the tree, Jeek, Fallon and Carey.
“Say, young fellow,” stammered Jeek as he joined the group standing around the three slain animals, “I’m much obliged to you boys for coming. I was freezing to death up in that tree and I didn’t know whether them animals was going to climb up and get us or not!”
He held out his hand to Frank, who took it in the most friendly way, realizing that Jeek was really thankful and grateful to the boys for what they had done.
“You owe your thanks to Snadder and Blinky,” he said to Jeek. “They came to the camp and got us out. My, but it is cold down in this valley!”
They moved each of the animals with their feet, to be certain they were dead. One of them was not quite gone, but it was gasping, and Lanky stood off to fire a fatal shot into its head to put it out of its suffering.
“What are timber wolves doing in these woods?” Frank could not refrain from asking the question, even though he felt the others knew no more about the answer than himself.
“I’ll tell you where they’re from!” Jeek exclaimed as they stood looking down at the animals, thinking over Frank’s question. “They’re from a circus! Remember that circus that had a fire about a year ago down at Bellport? Frey’s circus? Remember some of its animals got away and they never did get all of them back?”
Frank then recalled, as did the other boys, the furor which was caused at the time when announcement was made that wild animals had broken loose from their cages when a fire had destroyed one of the tents of the circus.
“As I recall it,” Frank said, “one of the keepers said he opened some of the cages rather than see the animals burn to death.”
“That’s it! That’s it!” Jeek replied enthusiastically. “These must be the animals that were in that fire.”
This appeared to be the only possible explanation, in view of the fact that no wolves of the kind were known to be in this particular section of the country.
“Well, which way are you fellows going? You can come back to our cabin and get warm, if you wish,” said Frank.
“Naw, we’re going right on to Todds. Might as well keep on. It ain’t much further than to go back to your cabin. Much obliged to you,” Jeek turned and started up the hill, leading his two cronies. The two tramps followed slowly behind them.
The four boys, again looking to see the animals, turned up the opposite hill, following the trail back to their own camp.
“Peculiar,” remarked Lanky. “Mighty peculiar. Here, we went through all sorts of trouble to capture those fellows. Then we sent them back toward civilization hating us, and we didn’t like them any too well, and then we rushed out here and saved them.”
“That’s the way things go, I guess,” replied Frank. “But we couldn’t do anything else, could we?”
The boys heartily agreed they could not. Not to have succored these men when the call came for help would have been a most inhuman thing, despite what they had done to the boys in the several days past.
More than an hour later, with the alarm clock pointing to an hour well past midnight, these four boys trudged up to the Parsons’ house, all lighted, with smoke pouring from the chimney, to find the other four sitting around the fire in various attitudes, all waiting for their return.
It took another hour to tell the story, to recite all the details, and to hear the questions which, quite naturally, were asked by those who had stayed on guard and had missed the adventure.
To their bunks finally went all of them, a weary crowd but a decidedly happy one, and when the alarm rang out its summons in the morning, before the break of day, eight partly refreshed boys sat up to rub their eyes and wish that all alarm clocks were buried deep in Davy Jones’ locker.
“Why this unseemly hour, when graveyards yawn, and so forth?” sleepily said Lanky, as he stretched himself and drawled out a very poor quotation of Shakespeare.
“That’s not a careless alarm clock,” laughed Frank. “That fellow is on the job.”
“Buy one, says I, that isn’t so honest about its work,” muttered Jack Eastwick. “Alarm clocks aren’t any good, anyhow.”
But the boys tumbled out of their bunks, dressed, made up the dying fire in the living room, and then prepared their breakfast, eating heartily.
Their skates were strapped on when they reached the edge of the lake, their rifles thrown across their backs, Paul’s camera hung from the other shoulder, as eight young fellows left the camp for a roam around the lake to see what might be seen.
Straight across to the opposite side Frank led them, having decided they would try going through the woods on the north side of the lake, hoping thus to run into something that might satisfy the longing of all of them for more adventure.
The sun was well up when they touched the opposite side, removed their skates, threw them across their shoulders by straps, and started through the woods, led by Frank. For a while nothing was heard, there was no sign of life. Then in the far distance they heard the sound of an axe, steady, persistent, and a moment later came to them the booming sound of a great tree falling to the ground.
Somewhere in that direction was a logging camp. Frank led that way. A mile passed under their feet as they trudged ahead, the snow a little less than knee-deep, making the going hard.
Straight ahead of them they saw several men at work in the woods, using axes on the pines and hemlocks. The boys headed for the place where the nearest men were chopping. Two were wielding a saw, after one had used the axe on the opposite side.
The boys stood watching the work, unnoticed by the men. Yet they were within fifty feet.
Suddenly the two sawyers stopped, drove a wedge in the place where the saw had been, and the tree started over.
“Look out!” yelled Frank, seeing it was falling their way. He ran as quickly to one side as possible, stumbling over a log as he went, falling flat on his face, and the great pine was toppling down on him before he could rise to his feet!