Bluff looked, and then winked his eyes several times, as though he feared they might be deceiving him. Still that great reddish brown bulk was there. He could now even see the massive horns that reared upward above the animal’s head.
No wonder Will had admitted he was staggered by the size of the bull moose! There never could have been such a big animal, Bluff was ready to believe, in all the history of game shot in Maine.
He did not say a single word, though Jerry could hear a sharp hiss escape from Bluff’s lips.
That strong wind blowing directly in their faces, and from the moose, was greatly in their favor. So far as Bluff could understand, the animal either had not detected their presence, or was disdainful of the fact. He seemed to be doing something, for they could see his head uplifted, as though some low-hanging branch may have been the object of his attention, and he was engaged in stripping it of its still clinging leaves.
Now it happened that in the earlier stages of the woods chase Bluff and Jerry deliberately laid their plans looking to some such happy ending as had now come to pass.
Bluff was to take aim first, but not to fire until he knew his side partner was prepared to shoot also. In order that equal shares of the great honor that would attach to the killing of the giant moose should fall upon their heads, it was agreed to fire at the same second.
Jerry saw his chum slowly lifting his gun. He knew that Bluff wished to avoid making any quick movement, as that was likely to catch the attention of the beast, and cause him to start a speedy flight.
So Jerry copied the example. He, too, intended getting the stock of his rifle firmly planted against his shoulder, so that he could take a quick but accurate aim. Then when Bluff gave the signal—which was to be a low whistle—it was up to both boys to press their triggers.
They would never forget the sensations they experienced during that few seconds while bringing their guns to a level. It seemed ages to Jerry. He even began to believe he must be seized with some species of nightmare, and that a stupor prevented him from moving.
He was sure that the moose had glimpsed them. Indeed, it seemed to Jerry that the massive muzzle of the animal was pointed directly toward them, as though he might be waiting to observe another slight move before springing away.
Why did not Bluff give that little whistle? Everything was set, and ready for the finishing stroke. Jerry began to wonder whether it might not be that Bluff was trembling so much with excitement that he had actually lost the power to pucker up his lips.
Then it came.
The crash that followed sounded like the discharge of one gun, both reports blending into a single roar.
Enthusiasm seized both young sportsmen when they saw their victim floundering on the snow-covered ground.
“Hurrah!” fairly shrieked Jerry, throwing all his enthusiasm into that single word.
Bluff was meanwhile making his gun ready for further business. If this moose was as tough as people said, and rivaled the silver-tip bear of the Rockies in clinging to life after receiving a multitude of wounds, he meant to be ready to give him another shot.
“Throw out the old shell—quick, he’s getting up again!” Bluff hissed.
This time he sank on one knee, and secured a rest for his left elbow on the leg that was extended. He believed that he could give a better account of himself when in that position. Now if the old bull moose insisted on struggling to his feet again, he must be reached in a vital part.
There was no need of wasting any more ammunition, although the boys, not being experienced in this line of hunting, did not know it positively.
“Oh, Bluff, he’s gone crashing down again!” gasped Jerry.
“Yes, and this time, I guess, it’s for keeps,” added the other, though hardly able to realize that, after all, they had accomplished the great feat, visions of which had tempted them to follow the snow trail all these weary miles.
Together they started on a mad run toward the spot, eager to feast their eyes on the sight of that magnificent specimen lying there.
“Careful, Jerry; he may be playing ’possum with us!” warned Bluff, who had been fed of late on so many remarkable stories concerning a moose’s tenacity in holding on to life that he was ready to believe almost anything of this king of the Big Woods.
“Aw, he’s as dead as a doornail!” Jerry told him; and in proof of his assertion he strode up to the bulky carcass to push it with the toe of his shoe.
There was no movement, and after that no one could believe that an atom of life remained in the body of the bull moose.
“Shake on that, Jerry,” said Bluff, as they stood over the body of their victim; “I want to congratulate you on the nervy way you did your part. Both bullets found their mark, you can see. I reckon either one would have wound him up; so it’s a fair divide.”
“Yes,” the other ventured, “either one of us can say we killed him. Isn’t he a monster, though! Look at the horns, Bluff; would you ever dream a moose could grow such busters in a single season?”
“I hope they haven’t been injured by the fall,” remarked Bluff, bending down the better to examine the dead animal’s head adornments.
The horns of a full-grown moose differ radically from the antlers of a buck deer, being thick and massive rather than delicate and pronged. The cow moose does not sport any adornments on her head, and looks very much like a mule. But there is no species of deer in the American forests that can come anywhere near the moose in size and power, the elk possibly approaching closer than any other animal.
Neither of the boys gave the slightest heed to the fact that it was commencing to snow again and for about the sixth time since they started out.
“This is what they always say is the proudest moment in our lives, Bluff!” Jerry was remarking, seemingly content to stand there leaning on his gun and staring down at the biggest wild animal either of them had ever taken a hand in bringing down, if the grizzly bear, of which they were recently talking, might be excepted.
“I wish Will and his camera were here to get a picture of our first moose, the biggest one that will be brought down in the whole State of Maine this season, like as not.” And Bluff looked sad to think they might not have something to show as evidence when they wanted to back up the story they would tell about their moose hunt.
“What are we going to do with him, now we’ve got him?” asked Jerry, scratching his head.
“All anybody cares for in an old moose like this,” Bluff told him, “is the horns. You couldn’t get your teeth into his flesh, no matter if you filed ’em to a point. Of course, the Indians keep the skin to make moccasins and shoes out of.”
“Yes, I knew that, because I’ve had a pair of moccasins made of elkskin. When it’s tanned right, it makes a tough article for footwear. But suppose we did take the hide and horns, how in the dickens would we ever get them to camp?”
“If we could make some sort of sledge now,” Bluff went on to say reflectively, “with our hatchet, no matter how clumsy it was, we could manage to draw home what we wanted.”
“If we left anything behind that was worthwhile, we’d have to hang it up high, I should think, Bluff. You remember that we heard a wolf howling one night, even if we haven’t come across any of them since.”
Bluff was trying to figure out what their program should be. While they had made all possible arrangements as to how to track the beast and the method of firing by volley so as to better encompass his fall, the boys had not dared go beyond that point.
Jerry was afraid it would be too much like counting their chickens before they were hatched, and on his part Bluff felt perfectly willing to let that part of the future take care of itself.
“I think that would be a good plan to follow, Jerry, and you deserve great credit for thinking of it,” he remarked presently, which of course caused the other chum to feel more or less satisfaction.
“Who’ll do the cutting up; and who wants to make the sledge?” asked Bluff, after a little time had elapsed and they felt that something should be gotten under way looking to a move; for faster now was the snow falling, and it might be that the storm was about to break over their heads.
“I think you’re more experienced about carving and taking pelts off than I am,” Jerry expostulated. “To tell you the honest truth, I never removed a hide in all my life, though I’ve had sections of my own knocked off by a rattan at school many a time.”
Possibly Bluff had more than half expected that the decision would result that way. To tell the truth, he was not much bothered, for he rather liked the task of taking the moose’s tough hide off and severing his head so that it might be transported the easier to their far-distant lodge.
“Then that means, Jerry, you’ll start in making a sledge; not a fancy one, but just serviceable enough to carry what we want over the snow, no matter how deep it gets.”
The last part of what Bluff said was no doubt inspired by the fact that the snow was now falling heavily. There could hardly be any question but that the long-anticipated storm had now arrived, and seemed anxious to make up for lost time.
“I think I can manage, if only there happens to be some decent wood handy to make the runners out of,” Jerry told his comrade, with conviction in his manner.
“How would these young second-growth ash slips do?” asked the other. “You can split one down, and then bend it better. But I’m going to leave all that to you, Jerry. Do your best with your little hatchet. Remember, George Washington came by a lot of fame through his.”
Jerry turned to hurry over to the thicket of ash sprouts that had started up a year or so before, where a large tree had been cut down. He did not make three steps in that direction before he came to a sudden halt.
Bluff, who had drawn his hunting knife and with grim resolution was stooping over the moose, heard him give a low cry.
“Bluff! Look what’s bearing down on us!” Jerry said weakly, as though some fresh disaster were looming above the horizon.
It did not take Bluff long to discover what kind of trouble it was by which they were about to be faced. Moving figures could be seen. They were heading directly toward where the dead moose lay, as though the sound of their double shot had carried through the woods and drawn these others to the spot.
Although indistinctly seen, on account of the gathering gloom and the curtain of falling snow-flakes that swept past on the fierce wind, there was no mistaking the tall figure of Bill Nackerson and the more sturdy ones of his two companion sportsmen.
A sense of coming trouble immediately weighed on the minds of Bluff and Jerry, as they awaited the coming of the men.
“Had we better move along out of here?” asked Jerry, as he looked doubtfully toward the quarter whence the three sportsmen were hastily advancing.
“What for?” demanded Bluff truculently.
“You know what Bill Nackerson threatened to do if ever the chance came his way,” Jerry replied. “We’re outnumbered three to two.”
His words implied that had there been an even showing he might not have thought of leaving.
Bluff knew that their best policy under the circumstances would be to walk away and avoid any trouble with the men. He also remembered promising Frank not to take any unnecessary chances, no matter what came up.
At the same time, Bluff was a poor loser. By that it must not be understood that when fairly beaten he would try to find fault and call his defeat an accident, for Bluff was always the first to congratulate a victor, even though he might be one of the victims. But he hated to give anything up.
So he looked first at the three men, who were now drawing very near; then he allowed his gaze to rest upon the form of the dead moose. It was, as Bluff himself afterward expressed it, “like drawing his eyeteeth to let that bully moose slip out of his possession.”
“Don’t let’s hurry too much,” he told Jerry, as a sort of compromise decision. “Perhaps, after all, they’ll just give us a hauling over the coals, and move on, leaving the game to us.”
“I hope so,” muttered Jerry rather disconsolately.
Then his face suddenly lighted up, as with the coming of an idea. Jerry was always a great hand for conceiving plans on the spur of the moment. Sometimes they had a germ of good in them, and again they only aroused the laughter of his comrades.
“Oh, Bluff, I’ve just thought of something!” he exclaimed, lowering his voice a little, because he was afraid that one of the advancing sportsmen might overhear.
“Shucks! Is that so, Jerry,” remarked the other, who as a rule did not have a great deal of faith in anything Jerry conceived. “Then hurry up and let’s hear what it is.”
“They’re three, and we only count two, all told,” Jerry began.
“Tell me something new!” muttered the other impatiently.
“And maybe if Frank and Will were along they wouldn’t feel so bossy, because the tables would be turned then, four against three.”
“But our chums are a good many miles from here,” interposed Bluff, with fine scorn.
“Yes; but you see the men don’t know that!” said Jerry.
“Hey! Do you mean we might pull the wool over their eyes and make out we had backing near by? Is that what you’re aiming at?”
“No harm done in trying it, is there? It might work. Even if that fire-eating Bill didn’t show cold feet, his two friends would advise him not to go too far. How about it, Bluff; don’t you think it’s a good scheme?”
Bluff grinned.
“Well,” he hastened to say, “I don’t think it will cut much of a figure. Chances are we’re going to be cheated out of our prize; and that’ll make me sore, I tell you.”
“But, Bluff, please remember what we promised Frank,” urged Jerry, who had a streak of caution in his make-up, though no one had ever thought to term him timid.
“Oh, I don’t mean to stir him up so he’ll tackle us,” returned Bluff; “but there’s one thing I never will stand for.”
“Tell me what that is, won’t you, Bluff?”
“We mustn’t let him lay a hand on us,” said the other grimly; “and under no consideration, Jerry, allow them to take our guns away. Why, what would become of us if we found ourselves adrift in the Big Woods after a storm and without any way of defending ourselves or getting game?”
“You’re right, Bluff; but what if they make a move to do it?”
“Cover ’em right away, and threaten to let fly; when they see we mean business, I reckon they’ll hold Bill back. Now stop talking, because here they come!”
Jerry drew a long breath, and waited for further developments. They would not be long in coming, for the three sportsmen had by this time almost reached the spot where the boys stood, close to the fallen moose.
Already the men could be heard expressing in loud tones their astonishment at seeing what noble game had fallen to the guns of the outdoor chums. This in itself was positive proof that they had not up to then been aware that the big moose was anywhere in the vicinity. It proved to the boys the absurdity of the high-handed claim which later on Bill Nackerson chose to make.
“Hey, look there, Bill, what they’ve downed!” the man who went by the name of Whalen was heard to exclaim. “I’ll be hanged if it ain’t that giant moose you cut loose at both years we were up here before!”
Nackerson’s face was a study. He stared as though hardly able to believe his eyes. Besides the look of wonder, there crept across his evil face one of growing chagrin and anger. Bluff could understand how this might be, after hearing how Bill had on several occasions tried to down the wonderful moose, only to meet with dismal failure.
And no doubt while he continued to advance, staring, and breathing fast, the bold scheme was hatched in Bill Nackerson’s brain which he proceeded to put into execution.
It was not a new idea. The same claim has often led to conflicts over fallen game, where rival hunters disputed its possession.
“So, it’s just as we thought, fellows, and the old bull moose didn’t run many miles after I gave him that last shot! I told you if we kept on following his trail we’d run onto him sooner or later. But what do you kids want here, hanging over my game? Tell me that!”
Jerry had to put out a hand to steady himself against a neighboring pine, he was so staggered by the audacity of this remark. Why, the man was actually claiming that he had shot the big moose, after their following the animal so many miles through the snow forest! No wonder it took Jerry’s breath away. He could not have uttered a single word had his life depended on it.
Bluff, however, was not quite so taken aback. Possibly he may even have suspected that something like this would be attempted; because on no other grounds could the rival hunters claim the spoils of the hunt as their property. So Bluff allowed himself a little sneering laugh.
“Oh, it was you who shot this moose, was it, Mr. Nackerson?” he remarked.
The man did not like the way these words were spoken, but he was playing a bold game, of which any honest hunter would have been ashamed, and felt that he must carry it through to the end.
“That’s what it was, boy,” he declared, with a black scowl. “If you look, you can see where my bullet struck him in the body, just back of where I aimed. A deer or moose will always run a long distance after being hit between the ribs that way; ain’t that so, Whalen?”
Whalen made no reply. Perhaps he was so astonished by the audacity of Bill’s claim that he could not catch his breath.
“Well, now, that’s queer,” Bluff went on, determined to have some say in the matter, even if finally cheated out of his just rights; “here my chum and I have been thinking we were following that moose’s trail all the way from our camp, a matter of as much as eight miles, more or less. And, say, we even believed we fired a double shot just now at him, while he was standing here browsing on that branch. Jerry, we sure must have been dreaming all that!”
“I guess you were, kid,” the man continued, without allowing a flicker of a smile to cross his face, although both of his companions wore wide grins. “You may have got up just in time to set eyes on my moose before he keeled over; but don’t let me catch you trying to claim a hand in landing him; hear that?”
“If, as you say, Mr. Nackerson,” Bluff went on doggedly, “you shot him a long ways back and he’s just dropped here through exhaustion, why, of course you can show us marks of blood all along his trail.”
“What’s that you say, you young cub?” demanded the other angrily.
“When a deer’s badly wounded, he leaves a trail of red on the snow that even a half-blind man could see,” Bluff told him boldly. “If you can show us even one mark twenty feet away from here we’ll never put in any claim for the killing.”
It was a fair challenge; but of course, as Bill Nackerson’s claim was founded on sand, he would never dream of accepting it. Bluff knew as much when he said what he did, for he had sized the other up long ago for just what he was—a bully and an unfair sportsman, who did not care how he secured his game so long as he got it.
“What do you take me for, to be forced to prove my word against a couple of impudent kids?” he roared; for when men realize that they are in the wrong they often like to whip themselves into a passion.
“But if you look, you’ll find there are two bullets in that moose; and they’ll turn out to be of the same pattern we use in our guns,” Bluff continued, meaning to rub it in as hard as he could before being compelled to retreat, as he fully expected would be the ultimate outcome of the encounter.
“That’ll do for you, youngster,” said the man, with a snarl. “I tell you this moose belongs to me. I shot it, and we’ve been on the trail of the wounded animal for a long time. That goes, mind you! Not another word, now, or I may take a notion to kick you out of here, minus your precious guns!”
He even advanced a step in a threatening manner. Instantly Bluff half-raised his gun, and the way he looked at Nackerson caused the other to hesitate. At the same instant the two men who were with him laid hands on his arms.
“Hold on, Bill, leave the kids alone!” Whalen said soothingly, as though startled at the possibility of a tragedy following this piratical act on the part of their companion.
“Let ’em clear out, then, and in a big hurry!” growled Nackerson, making what seemed a violent effort to wrest his arms free, but which did not deceive Bluff, who knew that the other was not so anxious to shake off the grip of his companions as he pretended.
For one moment Bluff was even tempted to carry things to the point of demanding the departure of the three sportsmen, and thus leaving the moose to its lawful owners.
Before his mental vision came a glimpse of Frank’s face, and he remembered the promise he had made not to be rash. The chances were the three men would positively refuse to relinquish the moose, and it might even come to a free-for-all fight, in which the boys were apt to get the worst of it.
So Bluff, though much against his will, made up his mind he would have to bow to conditions, however unwelcome they might seem. It was a shame to have to yield those splendid horns to their rivals when the latter had no right, other than that of might, to carry them off.
“Don’t go to any bother about us, Mr. Nackerson,” Bluff went on to say, with as much sarcasm in his tones as he could summon. “We might feel like disputing your silly claim, only that would mean all sorts of trouble. But please change your mind about thinking of taking our guns away, because no matter what we had to do we never would stand for that, you know.”
The man twisted in the grip of his friends again. He acted as though wild to break away and fling himself on the boys, no matter if both guns were half raised and covering him. But somehow he did not succeed in freeing himself; Bluff considered that it was simply wonderful how those two wise friends managed to hold on to him.
“You’d better go, youngsters,” said Whalen; “we mightn’t be able to hold him back much longer, you see, he’s getting that crazy. And the sight of you aggravates him considerable.”
“Oh, is that so?” said Bluff jeeringly, though at the same time he took one backward step. “Well, I hope for his sake you can hold on a little while longer. I’d sure dislike to cripple any man, away up here so far away from a doctor; but if he jumps at us he’ll get his medicine right fast. And that’s straight goods, I’m telling you.”
“Come on, Bluff,” Jerry was saying, anxious to avoid trouble, yet not afraid; “perhaps we’d better be going, though I’ll always say that was our moose, and tell everybody what a thief did to us in the Big Woods.”
“Get away with you,” shouted Nackerson, “before I do you harm! I’d hate to lay a hand on a boy in anger; but you don’t want to rile me too much!”
“You didn’t hold back when you struck that poor relation of yours, Teddy, in the face, did you, Mr. Nackerson?” said Bluff boldly. “But we’re not afraid that you’ll bother trying the same on us. It makes considerable difference when a boy’s got a gun. If you ever laid a hand on me like you did Teddy, you’d live to be sorry for it.”
“Go—go!” snapped the man, now furiously angry, so that the others had to cling to him more tenaciously than ever for fear that he might break away, regardless of consequences.
“And as a last word,” added Bluff, “I want to tell you I’ve a hunch we’ll get that pair of moose horns yet, in spite of you,” with which he backed away from the scene of their triumph and defeat.
“I never hated to do anything so much in my life as break away from there and give up our moose!” Bluff told his comrade.
They had gone far enough back to lose sight of the three men in the swiftly driven snow that was now falling heavily.
“Me, too,” returned Jerry; “but that’s the way it happens sometimes. I only hope they find out they haven’t got a single match among ’em. Perhaps, then, if it keeps on getting colder, and the storm blows heavier and heavier, they’ll wish they hadn’t made us clear out.”
“Why, what are you talking about, Jerry?”
“Didn’t you hear what they started to say while we were backing away?” demanded the other. “Whalen asked the other man for a match, so they could start up a fire and get warm. Then I heard the second fellow say he didn’t know where he’d dropped the box, but it didn’t seem to be in his pockets. They turned to Nackerson, and I reckon asked him for a light, because I heard him growl that he’d used his last match when he smoked a cigar.”
“Oh, well, they’ll find some stray ones stowed away in a pocket, like as not!” Bluff remarked, and in that fashion allowed the incident to pass from his mind.
“But tell me what you’re aiming to do next, Bluff?” asked Jerry. “I’d also like to know which way you mean to play the game so’s to get back the horns of our big moose?”
Bluff chuckled on hearing that.
“Oh, I only said that to impress Bill, that’s all!” he observed carelessly. “I had to be true to my name, you know. I only wish I could see some way to beat that crowd out in the end. I’d sure go to a heap of trouble to get there.”
“Are we heading right to get back home?” asked Jerry, a few minutes later.
“My stars! I hope you don’t think I’m silly enough to want to try and cover all the miles between here and the cabin, and with this storm starting in, too.”
“Well, I’ll do whatever you say, Bluff, because I always did own up you knew more about the woods in a day than I could in a week; but all the same I’d be right glad to hear you mean to make a camp, and spend the night resting up.”
“I’m afraid it isn’t going to be much of a camp, though; you don’t want to expect too much.”
“Some sort of brush shelter ought to help out, I should think,” the other returned, as he bent his head lower in order to fight against the driving wind.
Night was coming on unusually early, on account of the clouds above and the falling snow. Any one who knew what these signs foretold could understand that there was a wild time ahead for those caught away from shelter and exposed to the fury of a growing blizzard.
“We might be able to do some better than that,” Bluff went on to say, as he kept turning his head from side to side, as though constantly on the lookout for something he had in mind.
Five, ten minutes passed, until they must have gone nearly half a mile away from the scene of their meeting with Nackerson and his cronies.
“Whew! Let me tell you this is going to be a screecher!” Jerry declared, while he rubbed his ears to make them burn, for the cold wind nipped them.
“You’re wondering why I don’t call a halt, Jerry, so I’ll explain,” Bluff told him. “I remembered seeing a place when we were moving along the trail of the moose where some trees had been uprooted in a storm years ago.”
“Yes, I noticed it, Bluff!” cried the other eagerly. “Is it on account of the firewood you want to get to those fallen trees?”
“Partly that,” admitted the other; “but p’raps you didn’t notice that one of the trees had been a regular whopper, for when it went down in the cyclone it yanked up a heap of earth nearly as big as a cabin.”
“Oh, now I see what you mean, Bluff: the hole in the ground where the roots came out of might make us a first-rate camp!”
“For a good many reasons,” pursued Bluff, who managed to speak after a fashion in spite of the wind whistling into his teeth and at times almost taking his breath away. “First of all, the roots stand up in the right way to protect us from the worst of this northwest storm.”
“Couldn’t be better, for a fact,” said Jerry, feeling his courage returning as the plan unfolded.
“Then, as you say, we’d have plenty of firewood handy for that little camp hatchet to get busy on. And unless I miss my guess we ought to be able to cover the gap more or less with stuff, so as to form a rough roof.”
“Then all I hope is,” Jerry told him rather plaintively, “that we don’t get off our base, and miss connections with that windrow of fallen trees.”
“I’ve kept my bearings right along,” Bluff returned, “and if you look sharp over there on the left I reckon you’ll see the open place where the trees are down.”
“Bluff, you did take us straight there, for a fact. I don’t think Frank or anybody else could have done better!” was Jerry’s exultant outbreak, after he discovered that they had arrived at their goal.
A minute afterward the two chums were looking down into the hole that had once contained the roots of the big tree, now lying where the violence of the hurricane had thrown it.
“Just the thing for us!” Jerry exclaimed, as he jumped into the cavity and mentally pictured it roofed over so that the snow might be almost wholly kept out.
“Then the first thing we want to do is to get a fire started,” Bluff advised him. “Before we know where we’re at, we’ll be in the dark; so let’s drag a bunch of this wood where we’ll need it before we do anything else.”
They laid their guns aside, leaning them against a tree that had weathered the gale so fatal to the giant of the woods. For some little time both boys labored steadily, until a heaping pile of fairly good wood had been brought close to the hole.
“Where’d we better start the fire?” asked Jerry, for he knew that a number of things must be considered when settling this question.
There was the direction of the wind to be remembered, for it would be very disagreeable to have the pungent wood smoke blown constantly in their faces, making their eyes smart. As the upturned roots stood between them and the storm, this compelled them to start the blaze on the opposite side of the excavation.
Once Jerry had the site pointed out to him, he busied himself in getting a blaze going. Things began to take on a more cheerful air as soon as the fire started crackling and throwing out both light and heat.
This was only a beginning. The boys knew that in order to shelter themselves from the blizzard they must get some sort of roof above their heads. This would keep off the falling snow that might otherwise almost fill the hole before morning came.
The hatchet proved to be worth its weight in silver, as Jerry declared.
“What would we have done without it?” he remarked several times, as he continued to hack away, handing the brush over to Bluff, who was engaged in trying to weave it after a certain fashion, securing it to the poles they had laid across the top of the hole.
“Don’t ask me,” Bluff told him; “thank Frank for telling us to bring it along, when like as not neither of us would have thought it worth while.”
“No,” continued Jerry, “because a fellow as a rule doesn’t expect to use a hatchet when he’s tracking a moose or a deer. All the same, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s best to have such a tool along whenever you even take a walk up here in these Maine woods. You never know when you may need it.”
“The roof’s half done,” announced Bluff. “Take a look, and tell me how you like it.”
“Seems like a good job, so far as I know,” the other commented. “I should say you’ve made a brush shelter that way more’n a few times before now.”
“Maybe I have,” was the reply, as Bluff once more set to work to finish the roof, leaving untouched the end through which they could pass in and out and receive the benefit of their fire.
“And when we’ve got all through building our house,” remarked Jerry, “it’ll be time to think of having a bite.”
“Huh! That’s another thing we’ve got to thank Frank for,” was the rejoinder. “It looks as though he might have seen what trouble we had in store for us, and fixed things to meet the need.”
“That’s Frank’s way,” commented Jerry, feeling very grateful to know that even though compelled to spend the night in such a crude camp he and Bluff need not lie and shiver for want of warmth or go hungry because of lack of food.
“It strikes me the storm keeps getting worse right along,” Bluff announced, as he was forced to push up to the fire in order to warm his stiff fingers.
“It’s a corker, all right,” admitted the other, whose exertions with the hatchet helped to keep his blood circulating, so that he did not feel the freezing temperature quite so much as Bluff seemed to.
In due time the roof was finished, as far as the builder intended it should be laid. No matter what depth of snow fell, very little of it was likely to find its way inside the shelter back of the upturned tree.
“Now, don’t we deserve a little refreshment?” asked Jerry.
“We might as well, for a change,” Bluff told him. “After that, we must fetch more wood. The wind makes the fire burn savagely, you notice, and it’s sure a caution how it eats up the stuff. Besides, remember it’s going to be something like twelve hours before morning comes.”
“Wow! Will we manage to get any sleep, do you think?”
“Give it up; but let’s hope so.”
“And when we intended to start out light, I can remember Frank saying we might wish we had lugged our blankets along with us. ’Course we, couldn’t do that, and chase after the moose; but I’d like to feel that same blanket up around my shoulders.”
“Oh, we’re doing pretty well, as it is,” Bluff returned, determined to make the best of a bad bargain, which was a pretty wise thing for him to do under the circumstances.
Sitting there, with the fire crackling close by, and its heat feeling very comfortable, the two chums opened the packages of food which Frank had rammed into the pockets of their coats before they started.
Their supper consisted of only crackers and cheese, with some strips of left-over venison to munch on. Still, since their appetites were good and there was an abundance of the fare, it tasted as fine as anything they could remember.
“Had enough?” asked Bluff, when he saw that his comrade had cleaned up every scrap of his portion.
“Plenty,” replied Jerry, with a sigh of satisfaction; “couldn’t eat another bite if I tried. And don’t let’s bother thinking where our breakfast’s going’ to come from. We’ll run across some game, or else be able to find the cabin again before we’ve quite starved to death.”
“That’s right. I was just thinking if those men should turn out to be without a single match among them, wouldn’t they have a rough time of it all night out in this storm?”
“Yes; and I’m sorry now I didn’t offer to hand them over some of our supply of matches,” Jerry said softly, which remark spoke well for his forgiving nature. “They treated us mean, of course, but then it doesn’t pay to hold a grudge when you’re in the woods.”
“Oh, I reckon they found the match, all right,” Bluff remarked carelessly, “and as they’re old sportsmen they must know all the tricks woodsmen make use of to keep warm and cozy in a blow like this.”
“I hope so, Bluff.”
Later on they decided to get busy with the wood supply, for the snow continued to come down as furiously as ever. It was a fine kind of powdery snow, which, blown on the gale, caused their cheeks to smart when it struck.
Every little while they would get close to the fire to warm themselves. Jerry shuddered as he contemplated the long vigil of that never-to-be-forgotten night following their moose hunt. He did not anticipate that sleep would visit either of them, so uncomfortable would be their position. The wind managed to find cracks and crannies through which to whistle, and with the storm raging through the forest all sorts of strange noises came to their ears.
At times it even seemed to Jerry as though people in distress were calling for help. Twice he went outside the shelter to listen, though Bluff told him it was all imagination.
“It wouldn’t surprise me, though,” the other remarked, when Jerry came back the second time, “if we heard that wolf pack whooping things up through the timber before morning comes. A wild night like this is what starts them on the rampage, I reckon.”
“Do you think they would attack us here?” asked Jerry, drawing his gun a little closer to his hand.
“Well, hardly, with this jolly blaze going,” Bluff continued reflectively. “You know, they are afraid of fire. But they may make a meal from that big moose we shot, if the men don’t stay there to keep them away.”
“So long as they left us the horns I wouldn’t care, Bluff. But if the men didn’t find a single match among them, and the wolves came along, like as not they’d have to pass the night perched in a tree, and freezing. Oh, I’m glad we’ve got our fire!”
“Well,” observed Bluff contentedly, “believe me, a fire is a bully thing to hug up to on a night like this. I always did have a sneaking fancy for a crackling blaze, and now I’m more in love with this one of ours than I could tell you.”
“Hark to that, would you!” exclaimed Jerry, suddenly sitting up straight and turning his head to one side, as though straining his hearing to catch a repetition of the sound.
“Now, what do you think you heard?” asked Bluff, more or less interested, but still showing no signs of alarm.
“That’s what I’d like to know. Seemed like a howl of some kind.”
“I thought that wolf business would get on your nerves before long,” chuckled the other boy.
“But you said yourself that on a stormy night like this beasts of prey are apt to be unusually fierce,” protested Jerry.
“That’s right,” he was told; “but even then it doesn’t mean every whoop of the wind through the trees is a wolf giving tongue. Of course, I don’t say you didn’t hear one, but chances are ten to one against it.”
“Well, it hasn’t come again, so far, and I hope it won’t, that’s all,” said the still unconvinced Jerry.
Every once in a while he would go to the opening in front and look out. Of course, the fire needed more or less attention, as Bluff well knew; nevertheless, he felt pretty certain that Jerry was influenced by his fears of an invasion rather than any desire to throw on the additional fuel.
The time dragged along. So far as they could tell, there did not appear to be any let-up to the fury of the storm. There were many open chinks in their barricade, as might be expected, since it was composed of branches and such stuff as lay around at the time they made their roof and the sides to the cover.
Driven by the fierce wind, the fine powdery snow managed to penetrate more or less, so that they could feel it against their faces. Unpleasant as this might appear, it was not to be complained of when they realized the discomfort and danger that would have been their lot if compelled to remain out in the open.
After a long time they found their eyes getting heavy. While it was next to impossible to get any sound sleep, they might take what Bluff called “cat-naps,” rousing themselves every little while so as to change their cramped position and perhaps cast more wood on the fire.
Jerry remembered that it was immediately after he had taken the longest doze of any that he heard something that thrilled him.
He raised his head to listen, and then kicked his companion in the calf of the leg. Bluff only grunted, possibly believing, if he thought anything at all, it might be only an accident.
“Bluff—oh, Bluff!”
Now he caught the sound of Jerry’s voice close to his ear, and it was accompanied by yet another prod with his toe, this time of a more vigorous nature than before.
“Hey! What ails you, Jerry? If you can’t sleep, what’s the need of punching me that way?” grumbled Bluff.
“But I tell you there is something trying to get in here!!” argued the other.
At that, Bluff condescended to slightly raise his head. He was more awake by now, for he realized that Jerry was in earnest.
“I don’t see anything but that our fire is going down some. Now I’m roused up, I guess I’d better put on more stuff,” he remarked sleepily, as he started to sit up.
“Watch back there and you’ll see, I tell you!” And Jerry pointed toward the side of their weak barricade, where it joined the upturned roots and frozen soil.
Having his attention pivoted upon the one particular spot, Bluff was not long in making a surprising discovery.
“By Jinks, it does seem to be moving!” he admitted. “Wonder now if that could be only the wind?”
“But, don’t you see, the wind has died out. And, say, that noise sounds for all the world like a dog trying to dig his way through. I tell you, Bluff, they’re coming in after us—the wolves, I mean!”
This time Bluff did not laugh. Instead, he put out a hand and commenced to fumble around him. Jerry knew he was searching for his rifle, and he hastened to take a firmer grip on his own weapon, which he was holding at the time.
The scratching noise continued, with but slight intermissions. They could also see even in that uncertain light that the animal was by degrees demolishing the flimsy shelter at the place where he had attacked it.
Then something that glowed like two coals of yellow fire appeared. Jerry caught his breath, and stared as though fascinated. He knew that those strange objects were the flaming eyes of the bold wolf that thought to steal this march upon them.
The animal had been afraid to enter the shelter on the side where the fire smoldered. Urged on by hunger, he had thought to tear a hole in the wall and attack those within.
Had either of the boys been better versed in the nature and habits of wolves, they must have known that only when half famished would these skulkers of the Canadian forests make bold enough to attack human beings.
Neither of the boys bothered about anything just then save the fact that they were threatened by a savage enemy and had better take immediate measures looking to self-protection.
Jerry felt rather than saw his companion start to raise his gun.
“Oh, Bluff, please don’t!” he cried hurriedly.
“Why, what’s the matter?” replied the other. “The sooner we let Mr. Wolf know we’re at home and ready to give him and his kind a warm reception, the better for us. Let go my arm, can’t you? I want to send a bullet between those two eyes.”
“But, Bluff, it isn’t fair!” protested the other boy, while the wolf, if it was one, had fallen to scratching again, apparently not intimidated by the muttering of voices within.
“Hey, tell me what you mean, can’t you?” Bluff demanded indignantly, wondering at the same time whether his chum could have gone out of his mind because of the sudden awakening and the threatening peril.
“It’s my wolf, Bluff; didn’t I discover him first?” Jerry continued, still holding tenaciously on to the arm of the other, as though to add force to his argument.
At that Bluff laughed softly.
“Oh, that’s what’s ailing you, is it?” he ventured to say. “Like as not you feel as if you ought to be the one to knock him over, eh? Well, get your gun!”
“I have, already. Tell me when it’s time for me to let go!” And, having received the commission to act, Jerry no longer kept an eager grip on the sleeve of his comrade’s coat.
“I might give a whoop, which is apt to make the beast look in on us again,” was Bluff’s reply. “Keep your gun leveled, so as to let drive as soon as you glimpse his eyes. Right between them, remember.”
“I will, and thank you for giving me first chance. But hark to what’s going on out there now. Whew! Sounds as if there might be more’n one wolf waiting to jump in here on us.”
“It’s snarling and scrapping, as sure as you’re born,” admitted the second boy, as he managed to hold his gun in readiness. “Tell you what I’ll do, Jerry.”
“Yes, go on then,” said the other eagerly.
“Just as soon as you blaze away, I’ll be ready to jump outside, gun in hand.”
“What for?”
“So as to try to get another crack at some of the other critters. They’ll turn tail, and run a little way off after the crash of the gun inside here and seeing their mate keel over. But it may be light enough for me to see to bowl over one on my own account.”
“I understand now. Do whatever you think best. And just as soon as I’ve pulled the trigger I think I’ll climb out after you.”
“Not a bad idea,” admitted the other; “but now get ready, for I’m going to let out a yell to see what happens.”
Bluff had managed to scramble into a position that gave him a better opportunity to gain his feet in a hurry. He knew there would be considerable need of haste in making his exit, if he hoped to glimpse any of the vanishing wolves after they had been alarmed by the gunshot within the pit.
“Go on!” urged the nervous Jerry, with raised gun, and his eyes fixed on the particular spot where the intruder was again busily at work.
The shout Bluff gave was indeed enough to attract attention. They could hear a movement outside the shelter, as though the invaders had started to retreat, only to come back again, as determined as ever.
Jerry was waiting. All he wanted was just a glimpse of the twin balls of fire not six feet away, when he stood ready to do the duty he had begged Bluff to give into his hands.
It speedily came to him. First he saw a movement about the small gap that had already been made in the wall of branches. Then a nose was rudely thrust into the aperture, as the daring wolf feasted his eyes on the figures of the two lads.
Bang! went Jerry’s rifle, fired point-blank. Instantly the other boy was in motion, and scrambling to get up out of the hole on the side of the opening and the dwindling fire.
As he passed this bed of red embers, he gave a kick that sent some small bits of fuel into the mass. The object of this, of course, was to try and coax a slight uplift in the way of a blaze that might be of assistance to him in sighting the fleeing wolves.
Jerry, almost stunned by the violence of the report in such confined quarters, did his best to follow at the heels of his chum. His heart was beating three times as fast as ordinary. Perhaps he anticipated finding his bold comrade battling for his life with a horde of hungry gray-coated animals and in need of such help as he might render.
Jerry heard a gun sound even as he was climbing up the little incline that marked the border of their depressed camp. Bluff gave a series of shouts at the same time; somehow these did not impress Jerry as cries for aid, but rather given in derision, and to add to the speed of the wolves’ retreat.
Yes, there was Bluff standing staring into the white bank of falling snow, while holding his gun in readiness to repeat his shot, if necessary.
“Did you get one?” cried Jerry eagerly.
“I hardly think so,” the other replied dejectedly. “You see, they were a little too fast for me. When I got on my feet out here I could just see something darker than the snow on the point of disappearing. I pulled on it as quick as I could; but the chances are I didn’t more than wound him, even if I managed that.”
“But they’re gone away, Bluff!”
“Seems like it,” returned Bluff.
“I only hope they’ve had enough of it, and will fight shy of our camp the rest of the night,” ventured Jerry.
“Guess you got your fellow, all right,” observed the other boy.
That caused Jerry to turn toward the snow-covered shelter. The fire was now burning briskly for the time being, and it was possible to see without much difficulty.
“Oh, do you think I did?” exclaimed the marksman. “Let’s find out. And, say, if I turned him over, I’d like first rate to save his hide for a mat. A wolfskin makes the finest kind of a footmat, you know; and it’d be great to know every time you stood on it that you had won it fair and square.”
They were by this time standing over the fallen animal. It lay stretched out on the snow, and was apparently dead.
“Looks like a pretty big wolf to me,” ventured Jerry, feeling the thrill of satisfaction that comes to every hunter when he has by good luck or superior marksmanship managed to bring down his quarry.
“He is a buster, sure enough,” said Bluff; “in fact, I never saw a bigger one, either in captivity or running wild. I’d hate to tackle such a beast hand to hand. See his white teeth, will you! Don’t they look ferocious, though? Here, give me your gun, if so be you mean to lug him into the shelter with us.”
“I only want to do that to save the skin, you see,” explained Jerry, as he started to comply.
“Well, I reckon you’re wise,” Bluff remarked, “because if his mates are as hungry as he seemed to be, chances are they’ll sneak back and carry the body away, so’s to make a meal off it.”
While it was not as pleasant as it might be, having that four-footed wood pirate inside with them, Bluff made no remonstrance. He saw that it pleased Jerry to anticipate getting the skin of the wolf to keep as a memento of the strange adventure; and Bluff could be one of the most accommodating fellows ever known when he felt so disposed.
So once more the boys made themselves fairly comfortable, after the fire had been renewed, and between listening and dozing the long hours passed away.
Neither of the boys would be likely to forget that night of the storm, when they passed so many wretched hours in their rude shelter. It was pretty cold, being without a blanket and unable to move around so as to keep their blood in circulation, though, after all, they realized that it hardly deserved the name of a blizzard.
“Oh, thank goodness, it’s really getting daylight, Bluff!” Jerry called out, at last, arousing the other from a nap.
“And the snow seems to have stopped pretty much, likewise that awful wind,” remarked his companion, as he, too, took an observation.
“Let’s get outside and stretch a bit,” proposed Jerry. “I feel as though I were seventy years old, and every bone and muscle in my body creaks or pains like everything.”
“A good idea, Jerry, and I’m with you,” Bluff conceded. “After we’ve jumped around a while, we’ll get limbered up. Here you go, now!”
They proceeded to carry on as if they had just escaped from an asylum, waltzing this way and that, clasped in each other’s arms, or attempting some sort of darky hoedown—anything to get their muscles in shape.
“There, that makes me feel young again!” declared Jerry, panting as he threw himself down beside the fire.
“The next burning question of the day is: What will you have for breakfast?” demanded Bluff; and with that he commenced to rattle off a great variety of dishes, beginning with ham and eggs, coffee, wheat cakes with maple syrup, and so on down the list.
Jerry presently threw up his hands, and as the other continued to tantalize him by keeping up a running fire of breakfast hints, he even went so far as to thrust his fingertips in his ears.
“That’s adding insult to injury, Bluff,” he told his chum, when he found a chance to speak. “Because I don’t believe we could scare up a scrap of grub this morning, no matter how hard we searched our pockets. We cleaned it all out at suppertime, you remember.”
“Well, there’s one last resort, if we have to come to it!” remarked Bluff, with an assumed dejected air, as he rubbed his chin between his thumb and forefinger.
Something about his manner caused Jerry to look at him in horror.
“Now, I can guess what you’re hinting at, and I tell you right straight from the shoulder I never could be hired to eat wolf, not if I was actually starving.”
“Oh, well, I can’t say I’m really hankering after the dish myself,” Bluff admitted; “but you never can tell what you may have to come to. Some people don’t like to eat crow, but it’s been found they’re not so very bad, after all. It might turn out the same way with wolf.”
“Are you going to help me get that jacket off the rascal?” demanded Jerry.
“Sure I will!” he was told. “You’d make a sorry mess of the job, I reckon; and if the thing’s worth saving at all it ought to be taken the right way. I don’t say I could do it as well as Frank, who’s had a heap more experience; but you’ll get the pelt, Jerry, never fear.”
“Then the sooner we finish the job the better,” said the other boy; “because it strikes me we had better be leaving here and heading for home as soon as we can make it. I only hope we don’t get lost, and that we strike camp in time for the middle-of-the-day feed.”
Both were speedily engaged in the task of taking off the skin of the slain wolf. Bluff did the main part of the work, but the other was handy at times in various ways.
“I don’t remember hearing another howl the whole night through; did you, Bluff?” Jerry presently asked, when the skin had been rolled up in as compact a bundle as possible.
“Can’t say that I did,” was the reply.
“And now, do we make a start for home?” demanded Jerry anxiously. “I hope you’ve got your bearings all correct.”
“Leave that for me,” the other boy replied; “but before we quit this region for good I’d like to take a turn over yonder.” And he pointed in a quarter which his chum knew took in the region where they had had the meeting with Bill Nackerson and his two friends, after bringing down the big moose.
“Yes, we ought to see what became of our moose, hadn’t we?” Jerry admitted.
“That’s right, for I’d like to get hold of those splendid horns. But there’s another thing I want to find out.”
“Yes, I can give a pretty good guess what it is,” the other told him. “I’ve been worried some, myself, about it. Lots of times in the night, when I was lying listening to the wind moan and howl, I found myself wondering how those three men were making out, if, as we had an idea, they couldn’t scare up a match among ’em.”
“Come along, let’s hike out that way,” said Bluff, frowning, as though he did not feel any too happy at the thought. “After all, it isn’t going to be so very much out of our way.”
They took one last look at the rude shelter that had served them so well in warding off considerable of the storm’s violence. Often in memory they would again see that bough barricade; and even take note of the hole which the bold wolf had torn in it.
Bluff walked along with a confident tread. Jerry was pleased to note this, for it assured him his chum really knew where he was heading and the chances of their becoming lost in the Big Woods were not serious.
“I tell you I’m glad I’ve got as fine a woodsman along as you are,” he remarked, after a little while; “because, if I had been alone, while I might be able to locate north by means of the compass, I declare I could not tell whether home lay to the north, east, west, or south. So what good would a compass be to such a greenhorn, I’d like to know?”
Bluff liked to hear such talk; any boy would when he set up to be an authority on woodcraft.
“We’re going to hit the place right soon now,” he assured his companion soberly and with a manner that showed that Bluff did not think he was doing anything so very wonderful in leading the way back to the scene of the previous afternoon’s double adventure.
Three minutes later he spoke again.
“There, you can see the leaning pine right now. That was only twenty feet or so away from where we dropped our moose.”
“I don’t see anything that looks like a camp,” hinted Jerry.
“No; seems as though they must have cleared out,” he was told; “but they couldn’t take the moose along with ’em, of course.”
“What became of it, then?”
“We’ll find that out soon enough. Just follow me, will you? Looks as though there had been a banquet around here, seems to me. Hi! see the bones, would you? And the snow’s all trampled down, with patches of red showing through it here and there.”
“Bluff, the wolves struck this place after we chased ’em away; or else this may have been another lot of them. They cleaned up our moose, hide and all. But, tell me, isn’t that the skull and the horns over there?”
“Just what it is!” Bluff exclaimed, as he started on a run for the spot, to bend anxiously over the object that was half concealed in a drift, and then joyfully burst out: “Jerry, they haven’t been hurt a single bit. Why, we ought to thank those wolves for gnawing all the flesh off! It’ll be easy enough now to hack the horns out with our hatchet. And as we’ve got so little to tote back home with us, mebbe we’d better try and get our prize there.”
“I wouldn’t like to risk leaving such wonderful horns here,” Jerry replied seriously. “Any sportsman happening on them would be tempted to make out that he had killed the big moose himself. What do you really think could have become of those men, Bluff?” he presently asked, uneasily; which question proved how the thought was worrying him.
“Oh, like as not they made up their minds to start back home right away,” the other boy asserted, as though he wished to think so himself.
“But I thought I heard something like a faint shout just then, Bluff; let’s listen a bit; for with that hatchet banging away it’s hard to catch anything.”
Hardly had Bluff ceased hacking at the moose skull when they caught a wailing cry, plainly a human voice, calling:
“Help, oh, help!”