The Outdoor Chums in the Big Woods: or, Rival Hunters of Lumber Run
“How did it come that you thought best not to leave him there?” asked Will.
“Nobody home,” Jerry chirped; “house shut up, and old man skipped to town. Teddy said he hinted about going down to have some sort of an operation performed. Don’t blame him for seizing the first chance he got to clear out. You would too, if you ever visited there.”
“And does Frank mean to keep Teddy here with us?” asked Bluff, in a low tone, so the wounded boy might not catch what he was saying.
“Don’t just know what we’ll have to do about it,” Jerry replied, looking as though he felt of considerable importance, since he had shared in the adventure. “A whole lot depends on how he feels to-morrow. You see, he’s lit out from Nackerson’s camp, and don’t want to go back; but he may have to yet, and stand the racket the best way possible.”
All of them felt sorry for Teddy. At the same time that did not mean to take him in with them, and have what Bluff said would be a “fifth wheel to the wagon, when just four were needed to make it complete.”
If it came down to a necessity doubtless every one of the outdoor chums would have voted to make room for the boy. That mark under his eye told what a brute Nackerson must be. If once Teddy could get safely back home, he would never be tempted to start out into the woods to serve as a cook for a party of sportsmen.
There was plenty of time to get the partridges ready and a fire made in the hole dug in the ground, as on that former occasion. The memory of that delightful treat seemed to haunt all the boys, so that they yearned for a second.
Of course during the afternoon the boys were in and out a great deal. Teddy always seized the chance to have a few friendly words with whoever came near him. He evinced the liveliest interest in all they were doing, and pleased Will by asking many questions concerning his method of taking night pictures with his flashlight.
“If I only get better soon, and you don’t chase me back to that camp again,” Teddy said, with a sigh, “I’d like nothing better than to do your cooking right along. And then maybe some night you’d let me go with you into the woods where you set your picture trap. I’d be only too glad to help you any way I might.”
That set Will to thinking. He tried to picture the discomforts which the poor fellow must have been up against, forced to obey the slightest whim of such a bad-tempered man as Bill Nackerson. If the latter would sink so low as to strike the boy he might do even worse.
“I guess it’s up to us to house Teddy the rest of the time we’re here,” Will said to Bluff, as they worked at getting more firewood close to the cabin so as to always have a fair supply handy, in case a snowstorm settled in.
Bluff frowned, and shook his head dubiously. Evidently he too had been thinking about that same subject; and somehow it failed to appeal as strongly to him as to the more tender-hearted Will.
It was past the middle of the afternoon when this talk occurred. Frank and Jerry were busy elsewhere.
“I don’t know about that,” Bluff remarked. “In the first place we’ve got just four bunks, which is one apiece. While I was willing to give mine up to Mr. Darrel, I’d seriously object to being turned out by a boy, and Nackerson’s boy at that.”
“No need of that,” Will rejoined; “if he stayed he’d be only too glad to sleep on that floor cot you had. Besides, he says he’s a good cook, and would take that job on his shoulders. You know some of us sometimes hate to have to work at getting the grub ready.”
“Y-yes, I guess we do, Will,” admitted Bluff, who could remember lots of occasions when he served only through a sense of duty, and not because he was fond of getting meals.
“Then besides,” continued Will, seeing that his argument was beginning to tell, as Bluff showed signs of cooling down, “what if we made him go back to Nackerson, and anything happened to him, we wouldn’t ever be able to forgive ourselves.”
“He certainly is in a bad box,” muttered Bluff.
“Put yourself in his place, if you can, Bluff; and see how you’d feel about it, that’s all,” continued Will. “But then, I ought to know you too well to think you’d send a chap adrift, when we could give him a shelter and three square meals a day just as easy as say so.”
“Let Frank decide it,” Bluff said at last in desperation. “Whatever he settles on the rest of us’ll agree to stand for. Frank knows best what to do and there will be no kick coming, whatever he says.”
Will went away satisfied that Teddy would stay. Bluff was generally the obstreperous one, and if he could be induced to shift all responsibility on to Frank’s shoulders, there was little more to say.
It may have been half an hour after this talk that the boys heard a shout off in the woods in the direction of Lumber Run Camp.
“Wonder what’s going to strike us now?” remarked Jerry, who had been cleaning his gun and had just reloaded its magazine. At the time he was sitting by the fire, but so warm did it feel inside the cabin that they had left the door part way open.
Bluff was already reaching for his gun. There was a look on his face that could hardly be called one of alarm; at the same time it seemed to speak of excitement.
“Perhaps that crowd is coming over again to bulldoze us,” he suggested.
“Oh! I hope not,” said Will, at the same time thinking it his duty to look for his gun, which he had not fired since arriving in the Big Woods.
“Come outdoors, fellows!” they heard Frank say; for at the time it happened he was busying himself at something in the open, and had his gun handy.
All of them came together not far from the door. This time there was no lack of firearms in evidence. They had taken warning from that other occasion when caught in an almost helpless condition by the Nackerson crowd.
“Two men coming this way,” announced Frank presently.
“That must mean Bill, and one of his pals,” muttered Bluff, as he began to fumble with his pump-gun, so as to make sure it was in working order. “How had we better string out to receive ’em, Frank? It won’t do to keep in a bunch here. Hadn’t I better slip along, and be ready to come up on their right flank?”
“Better hold your horses a while, Bluff,” advised Frank, with a laugh, “because after all it isn’t the Nackerson crowd.”
“But who else can they be?” the other demanded.
“Of course I don’t know for sure,” Frank informed him; “but it strikes me one of the men looks like the cook they had at Lumber Run Camp.”
“Gee, whiz! but there seems to be an awful lot of cooks broken loose lately,” Bluff complained, having in mind what Will had suggested with reference to Teddy. “It must be catching, like the measles, this running away from the stew-pans and flapjack fixings. But let ’em come on; we can stand for nearly anything.”
The two men came up and Frank saw there was nothing to be feared from that source. The idea had already flashed through his mind that possibly Mr. Darrel may have sent a message by them; he hoped the lumberman was not ill, or anything like that.
“I’m on my way out with the cook,” one of the men explained. “You see his wife has sent word to him to come home right away. I expect to fetch another mess cook along back with me, to stay the winter out. And seein’ as we expected to come by not far from your place here, the boss he says, says he: ‘Just drop in, and hand the boys this communication from me.’ Reckon it ’splains itself, boys. So we’ll be goin’, because the cook is fair wild to get home. Twins is an event in his fambly that ain’t never happened before.”
The two men hurried away even while Frank was opening the paper that had been placed in his hand.
“Read it out loud, please, Frank, so the whole of us can get a grip on what he’s written to you,” suggested Jerry.
“Listen, then,” said Frank, who had shown signs of some little excitement. “‘This is to inform you, dear boys, that last night a sneaking incendiary tried to burn us out at Lumber Run Camp. The damage didn’t amount to much; but I’m offering a hundred dollars reward for information that will convict the miserable wretch who started that fire. A word to the wise is sufficient. Samuel Darrel.’”
CHAPTER XVI – DID TEDDY KNOW?
“Well, wouldn’t that jar you?” remarked Bluff, as he heard what was contained in the brief communication from the lumberman.
“Tried to burn down the camp at Lumber Run, did they?” burst out Jerry. “Well, if you asked me my opinion, I’d have to admit that I didn’t like the looks of a few of those lumberjacks.”
“But nobody has accused any of the loggers of the crime,” remarked Frank, and at that the head projecting from the opening at the door came a little further into view; which was pretty good evidence, Frank thought, that the wounded boy must take considerable interest in the discussion.
“Why, who else would try to turn on Mr. Darrel that way, and burn his shanties down just when winter is setting in?” asked Bluff.
“We can only give a guess at that,” Frank told him.
“Whew!” exclaimed Bluff, as he grasped the meaning back of those few words. “After all, I wouldn’t put it past him, Frank.”
“Who – what – where – how?” demanded Will, apparently confused, and not able to understand what all these strange hints portended.
“We had a specimen of his nasty temper, you know,” continued Bluff. “Yes, twice now we’ve heard him tear around like a bull in a china shop.”
“Oh! now I tumble to what you mean,” cried Will, who did not often use any sort of slang, and must therefore have been unusually excited to fall into the habit. “It’s Bill – Bill Nackerson!”
Frank nodded his head.
“He’s the only party around that we know of who would be mean enough to try to set buildings on fire, just to get even with a man he disliked,” he observed.
“Yes, and didn’t we hear him threaten to do something before long, so as to hit back at Mr. Darrel?” Jerry wanted to know, as if he had all along been suspicious of the big sportsman.
“That’s what we did,” asserted Will. “To think of him trying to burn Lumber Run Camp; and as like as not it was when all the men were sound asleep! Why, he might have been the death of some of them!”
“Whoever started the fire didn’t care a hoot whether it hurt or not, I think,” Bluff gave as his opinion.
Frank noticed that the head had disappeared from alongside the open door. Evidently Teddy had heard enough. He must have limped from his chair to the doorway upon hearing strange voices outside. Perhaps he had suspected that the others brought news of some startling character.
Frank did not tell all of his chums about what he had seen. At the same time it gave him food for much serious thought.
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Teddy knew something about that fire business,” he mentioned to Bluff, a short time later, when they walked together down to the spot where the mink tracks had been seen, as the latter had shown more or less interest in the habits of these little animals.
“Do you really think so?” said the other, with a frown.
“He heard strangers talking outside when those two loggers came up,” Frank continued, “and even dragged himself to the door to listen. I saw his head, though after a bit, when we had talked matters over, he went back to the fire again.”
“See here, Frank, you don’t think Teddy could have set that fire, I hope?” demanded Bluff, uneasily.
“Oh! no, it isn’t so bad as that,” he was assured. “Teddy is telling us the truth when he says he ran away from the camp last night, after Nackerson had knocked him down.”
“The big coward!” muttered Bluff, clenching his fists and shaking his head, as though he would like nothing better than to get in a blow at the bully.
“My opinion, as far as I have any, is about like this,” Frank continued. “After Nackerson struck Teddy the boy happened to overhear him boasting about what he meant to do to the camp at Lumber Run.”
“Oh! I see now what you mean, Frank; when he found that Bill was getting in deeper and deeper, Teddy just made up his mind that was no place for a decent fellow to stay, and so he skipped out.”
“You’ve got it about straight, Bluff,” Frank admitted. “Of course, I’m only guessing all this, remember. Don’t say one word of it to Teddy. Let him worry over it, and perhaps after a bit he’ll understand that there’s no reason why he should keep a still tongue in his head, to shield a rascal who didn’t hesitate to strike him a cowardly blow.”
Bluff was not slow of comprehension. He saw what Frank’s plan was, and while he may not have entirely agreed with such a course, there was no disposition to interfere.
“You know best how to work it, Frank,” he said simply. “I’ll keep as mum as an oyster till you give me the tip that it’s time to speak. Just as you say, Teddy couldn’t have been the one to put the match to the camp over at Lumber Run. When Nackerson had gone away, perhaps with one of his pals who agreed to stand back of him, that’s the time Teddy lit out.”
“He struck it pretty hard at first, getting caught in that trap,” Frank mused; “but when you come right down to facts I guess it was just as well that it happened to him.”
“Huh! that’s a queer thing to say,” remonstrated Bluff. “Getting hung up in an old bear trap a blessing in disguise, was it? I’d like to know how you figure that out, Frank.”
“This way,” explained the other. “If he had missed connections with that trap Teddy would have reached the skunk farm only to meet with disappointment.”
“Sure he would, because Old Joe, as he called the fur farmer, had pulled up stakes and gone to town for some weeks,” Bluff admitted.
“As Teddy didn’t know where we hung out, and couldn’t find his way to Lumber Run Camp, you can see that he would have had to choose between going back to Nackerson, or losing himself in the Big Woods.”
“Whew! it does take you to see through things,” Bluff declared, with a laugh. “I can understand now that it was a big streak of luck for Ted when he met with that bear trap. We never know when we’re well off, do we? But show me what you were telling about this mink, Frank; and how the old chap visits around in and out of these holes in the bank during the winter and early spring.”
Frank was always accommodating, especially when anything connected with his knowledge of nature was concerned. He loved to watch the small woods folk when they did not suspect his presence, and learn more and more of their interesting habits.
So that day passed. Another, and yet a third found the boys enjoying themselves to the limit. Teddy was showing decided signs of improvement. He could get around fairly well by now, Jerry having cut him a walking-stick, with a crook at the end. He was beginning to get over the nervousness that had shown itself for a whole day following his advent in the new camp.
Perhaps the boy had feared that Nackerson might come storming along, and insist on his returning to his duties as cook. He feared the brutal sportsman more than ever, now that he had found such a fine harbor of refuge with the outdoor chums. To go back to that other drudgery would have been torture.
As soon as he was able to get around he insisted on taking charge of the cooking. And the boys soon learned that Teddy could manage splendidly. He had to be shown very little so as to suit their tastes; and none of them regretted in the least that they had extended a helping hand toward one in distress.
A new life was opening up to Teddy. He had never before come in contact with such an agreeable lot of companions and every hour of the day he tried to prove himself grateful.
Still, he did not mention a word about what he might possibly know of the dastardly deed, when some one attempted to fire the logging camp. Frank often saw a worried expression come over the boy’s face, and at such times he suspected that Teddy was puzzling his brain as to just what his duty might be. He did not like to betray his kinsman, and yet felt that it was not right to refrain from taking someone into his confidence.
“He may speak sooner or later,” Frank told himself; “and if he does, it will not be the reward of a hundred dollars for information that will make him tell.”
On the second day, about noon, some of the boys were busy near the cabin, laying in an extra supply of firewood. Frank had an idea they would be visited by a big snowfall before twenty-four hours had passed.
“Of course that’s only a hazard, fellows,” he told Bluff and Jerry, who were helping him add to the handy heap close to the door of the cabin, “but there does seem to be a feeling of dampness in the air, for all it’s so cold; and the sun, you notice, shines through a sort of hazy curtain.”
“I think just the same way you do, Frank,” Jerry remarked; “and if you asked me to say when, I’d guess it was going to strike us before night.”
“We’ve got off pretty fortunately so far about storms,” Bluff went on, as he threw another armful of fuel on the already huge pile.
“If it does come down on us,” Frank continued, “we’ll not lack for fresh meat, anyway. That was a lucky shot you made yesterday, Bluff. The buckshot shell did the business, too, for after you fired both barrels the buck went down with a crash.”
“And to think it happened so near our camp that we managed to tote the whole carcass to the cabin,” and Bluff looked with pride in his eyes toward a deer that was hanging, in real sportsman style, from a limb, head downward.
“If we don’t get another while we’re up here in the Big Woods,” said Jerry, suppressing the natural twinge of jealousy he felt, “we ought to be satisfied with our bag. And Will is just wild over the bully pictures he’s accumulating every day and night.”
“It does seem as though he had met with nothing but success, so far,” Frank admitted. “I hope he gets that prize the railroads are offering. So far as I can tell he has a dandy collection already, and we’ve got some time ahead of us still.”
“By the way, where is Will now?” asked Bluff,
“About half an hour ago he told me he was going off to the place where we discovered that comical colony of squirrels that amused us yesterday,” Frank explained. “He hoped by keeping as still as a mouse to get a snap at them when they were carrying on that way. I think myself it would be a fine woods picture, and add to his collection.”
“Speaking of angels, and you’re most sure to hear their wings,” chuckled Jerry; “for there’s Will coming this way now.”
“And on the run, too!” added Frank. “He looks excited, fellows. I wonder what he’s run across now?”
Will was almost out of breath. They could see that his face was red from his exertions, but filled with excitement as well; while his eyes were, as Bluff expressed it, “sticking out of his head!”
“Oh! what a whopper!” he gasped, as he drew near the spot where they stood.
“What’s that?” demanded Frank, wondering what was coming now.
“And such tre-mendous horns, too!” continued Will, involuntarily stretching out both hands until he had them wide apart.
“Horns, Will?” Bluff fired at him; “cows have horns, deer carry antlers!”
“I said horns, didn’t I?” asserted the other with determination. “That’s what they were, sticking away up over his head that was like a mule’s. But I snapped him before he turned and trotted off!”
“What trotted off?” shrilled Bluff.
“The biggest old bull moose that ever lived in the State of Maine,” Will replied.
CHAPTER XVII – THE BIG MOOSE
“A bull moose, you say, Will?” echoed Bluff, his face lighting up with sudden energy.
“That’s what I mean,” replied the other. “I know what you’re thinking, Bluff, and that I wouldn’t know a bull moose if I saw one. But you’re away off in your guess. I’ve so longed to meet up with one when I had my camera with me that I’ve been picturing how he’d look. And, Frank, believe me, it was a beaut – a regular monster!”
“How did it happen, Will?” asked Frank.
“I was sitting as still as anything,” the other related, “after I’d got two dandy snaps at that funny squirrel family playing around the tree where they have their home, and was hoping for another whack at them to complete the set, when all at once I heard a whiffing sound.”
“Gee! what wouldn’t I give to have been alongside, with my gun!” sighed Bluff; “but go on, Will; what happened next?”
“Oh, I looked up to see what had made that queer sound, and there he was, just standing and looking straight at me! I was nearly scared to death at first, for he looked nearly as big as a barn. Then I knew it must be a bull moose; and the next thing I found myself taking his picture.”
“Did he run away then?” asked Frank.
“Turned and trotted off, as if he didn’t care whether school kept or not,” Will continued. “I even had the nerve to shoot him again as he was going. And don’t I hope that first picture turns out good! It was a remarkable pose, if only the focus was right.”
He started toward the cabin door as though anxious to develop his roll of film and discover what success his labor had resulted in. Bluff caught him by the arm.
“Wait just a minute or two, Will,” he pleaded. “Tell us some more. Where did all this happen?”
“Frank knows where that squirrel colony have their nest in the tree that’s got a hole in the trunk about thirty feet up,” the other replied.
“But you’re dead sure, are you, it wasn’t just a big buck deer you saw?” continued Bluff, who apparently could not bring himself to believe a mighty moose had wandered that near the camp.
“If only you’ll hold your horses until I can develop this film, you shall see for yourself whether I know a stag from a bull moose,” he was told by the indignant photographer, as the latter broke away and vanished inside the cabin.
Bluff turned to Frank.
“Let’s all take a look,” he suggested.
“I was just going to say the same myself,” Jerry added, being evidently quite as much interested as Bluff.
Frank was more than willing. He did not feel that they could entirely depend on the evidence of Will, who may have been so startled by the sudden coming of some animal that his imagination worked overtime.
“I hope it wasn’t just a mule that strayed away from some lumber camp,” he told the others, as they hurried off; but not before Bluff and Jerry had darted inside the cabin and reappeared, carrying their guns.
“They do say a moose has the same sort of a head as a mule,” Bluff admitted; “but then Will vows it had horns – terribly big horns – which no mule I ever saw could boast of owning.”
“Well, chances are it was a bull moose,” Frank admitted; “but we’ll soon know.”
“That light snow falling last night was in our favor, for the tracks will show up well,” suggested Jerry.
“Here’s the place,” Frank told them, a short time afterward. “You can see the tree with the hole in it over there, and I think I even saw a squirrel frisk out of sight as we came up.”
“Yes, and here’s where Will made himself a seat,” added Bluff. “He fixed it so he could sit comfortably, and not have to frighten the family of bushy-tails by moving. Now, he didn’t say he turned his head; just looked up when first he heard that queer noise.”
“Yes,” said Jerry, “which would make it over there that the thing showed up. Let’s take a look at the ground, and see if Will was dreaming or not.”
Before half a minute had passed, Frank was pointing to certain marks plainly seen in the inch and more of snow that had fallen on the previous night, perhaps as a sort of forerunner of the coming storm.
“There you are, fellows!” he announced.
All stared hard at the monstrous tracks. Bluff even got down on hands and knees in order to see better.
“It was a moose, all right, Frank!” said Jerry.
“From the prints made by its big split hoofs, I’m pretty sure of that,” Frank asserted; “I’m beginning to believe Will was not so far out of the way, after all, when he said it might be the giant of all Maine moose!”
Bluff got up again, shaking his head.
“Oh, the meanest luck that ever was!” he lamented. “Why couldn’t I have taken a notion to step out here with Will, to watch the way he took the pictures of that squirrel family? I’d have had my gun across my knees, with buckshot in every shell, of course. Think how easy I could have dropped him, with such a short distance between. It’s cruel, that’s what it is!”
Jerry clapped him on the shoulder.
